Musings

OneLove

 :::MME:::

MME's Jam Of The Day

I stumbled upon this song the other night while flipping through the channels looking for the news. The melody and raw honesty of Gary Clark's voice instantly caught my attention & sent me searching for this song. His voice echoes that old classic soul. No overindulgent vocal acrobatics or trite lyrics / cringe-inducing puns on this piece - he just flows with it - “Ooh baby things are changing now/And I can’t tell Where I’ll be from here on out/Ooh its hell/Knowing that for now/We shouldn’t kiss and tell/When it’s so good.” He kinda reminds me of Cody Chesnutt lyrically. Good music is seldom heard in these dark times, so hearing flashes of it every now and then in the mainstream is like balm to overabused ears.

OneLove

:::MME:::

Poet's Nook: "Going Out To The Garden" by Alice Walker

Going out to the garden

this morning

to plant seeds

for my winter greens

-the strong, fiery mustard

& the milder

broadleaf turnip-

I saw a gecko

who

like the rest of us

has been

reeling

from the heat.



Geckos like heat

I know this

but the heat

these last few days

has been excessive

for us

& for them.



A spray of water

from the hose

touched its skin:

I thought it would

run away.

There are crevices

aplenty

to hide in:

the garden wall

is made of stones.



But no

not only

did the gecko

not run away

it appeared

to raise

its eyes

& head

looking for more.



I gave it.



Squirt after

squirt

of cooling

spray

from the green

garden hose.



Is it the end

of the world?

It seemed to ask.

This bliss,

is it Paradise?



I bathed it

until we were both

washed clean

of the troubles

of this world

at least for this moment:

this moment of pleasure

of gecko

joy

as I with so much happiness

played Goddess

to Gecko.



This poem is taken from Alice Walker's latest book, "The World Will Follow Joy: Turning Madness into Flowers." Alice Walker is a living angel to me. Her grace, warmth, intelligence , creativity, love & wisdom is like a warm fire in a cold, desolate terrain (modern society). Her voice is like a whisper calling us to go beyond & within. A film about her life, "Alice Walker: Beauty in Truth," is out and she has another book that's out as well, namely, "The Cushion in the Road: Meditation and Wandering as the Whole World Awakens to Being in Harm’s Way," in which she discusses many of the dominant themes in her life and work, including racism, Palestine, Africa and Obama’s presidency. Check out the trailer of this must-see film:

OneLove

 :::MME:::

Bly's Scalpel

robert bly

I recently watched an old interview on the Bill Moyers show featuring the great American poet, Robert Bly. It was a thoroughly engaging & thought-provoking exchange which you can check out here. What stood out for me was his discussion on the greedy soul. In the interview, he reads a text of his about the pitfalls of the greedy soul,  that vain, defensive kernel of human nature which exists within us all, requiring constant vigilance to keep it at bay:

"More and more I've learned to respect the power of the phrase, the greedy soul. We all understand what is hinted after that phrase. It's the purpose of the United Nations is to check the greedy soul in nations. It's the purpose of police to check the greedy soul in people. We know our soul has enormous abilities in worship, in intuition, coming to us from a very ancient past. But the greedy part of the soul, what the Muslims call the "nafs," also receives its energy from a very ancient past. The "nafs" is the covetous, desirous, shameless energy that steals food from neighboring tribes, wants what it wants and is willing to destroy to [sic] anyone who receives more good things than itself. In the writer, it wants praise."

--and the pitfalls of a society's unchecked greedy soul (with Iraq as a focal point):

If the covetous soul feels that its national sphere of influence is being threatened by another country, it will kill recklessly and brutally, impoverish millions, order thousands of young men in its own country to be killed only to find out 30 years later that the whole thing was a mistake. In politics the fog of war could be called the fog of the greedy soul...You know, the reason that one says things like the greedy soul, psychologically there's no point in this war at all. It's not achieving a thing, never would achieve anything. Only something as mad as the greedy soul could want it to begin and continue.

Bly shares an anguished 2002 poem he wrote prior to the US invasion of Iraq, along with added commentary:

"Tell me why we don't lift our voices these days and cry over what is happening. Have you noticed the plans are made for Iraq and the ice cap is melting? I say to myself, 'Go on, cry. What's the sense of being an adult and having no voice. Cry out. See who will answer. This is call and answer." I was thinking of Grenada. Remember we invaded Grenada? Why did we do that?
"We will have to call especially loud to reach our angels who are hard of hearing. They are hiding in the jugs of silence filled during our wars."
"We'll have to call especially loud to reach our angels who are hard of hearing. They are hiding in the jugs of silence filled during our wars. Have we agreed to so many wars that we can't escape from silence. If we don't lift our voices, we allow others who are ourselves to rob the house."
"How come we listen to the great criers? Neruda, Akhmatova, Thoreau, Frederick Douglas. And now we're silent as sparrows in the little bushes." It's a very bad pun, but I left it in. "We are silent as sparrows in the little bushes. Some masters say our life only lasts seven days. Where are we in the week? Is it Thursday yet? Hurry. Cry now. Soon Sunday night will come." And Sunday night came when we bombed Baghdad. "Where are we in the week? Is it Thursday yet? Hurry, cry now. Soon Sunday night will come."

The closing moments of Bly's interview reveal his optimism toward the human spirit and hope for the future:

And that wonderful energy that you can see in a human face even when walking down the street. In New York you see this incredible energy that's inside there and is being blocked all the time by family and business and all of that. But it's still there--circling around God, around the ancient tower. And I have been circling for a thousand years. And I still don't know if I am a falcon, which means someone who goes in and grabs things and steals them, or a storm. Storms circle too. Or a great song. Well, we both hope that we're great songs.

Great stuff!

OneLove

:::MME:::

Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson on Animal Intelligence and Human Empathy

(Dr. Tyson never fails to make us dig a little deeper......)

OneLove

 :::MME:::

Perspectives On Money & Life

(My only critique of this otherwise enlightening documentary is that towards the end, it minimizes the political agency of the disempowered & highlights things individuals can do in their personal spheres to alter their relationship with money and consequently, make the world a better place. This bright-sided, Oprah-esque conclusion will not change the world in any significant way without political awareness & action, in my opinion. That's just my 2 cents.....) 

OneLove

 :::MME:::

Musings

I do not care to know your various theories about God. What is the use of discussing all the subtle doctrines about the soul? Do good and be good. And this will take you to freedom and to whatever truth there is…
–Buddha

OneLove

MME's Jam of The Day

This is a stunning remix of the original "This Bitter Earth" (Dinah Washington) by Max Richter. The original was a huge hit when it was released in 1960 & I am glad that the purity & pathos of Dinah's voice was retained on this updated classic. The lyrics, written by the legendary Clyde Otis, is what really pulls you into the sheer agony, intensity, bitterness & undying hope (possible joy) of this masterpiece. Truly, it is a reflection of our fragility....

 This bitter earth
Well, what fruit it bears
What good is love
Mmmm...that no one shares...?
And if my life is like the dust
Oooh that hides the glow of a rose
What good am I ?
Heaven only knows

Lord, this bitter earth
Yes, can be so cold
Today you're young
Too soon, you're old
But while a voice within me cries
I'm sure someone may answer my call
And this bitter earth....
Ooooo...may not .....
Oh be so bitter after all....

OneLove

:::MME::: 

West vs Obama

A lot of folks, especially black folks, have turned against Dr. Cornel West since he called out Pres. Obama a few years back during his first term. His deep disappointment with the president largely stemmed from his observation that Obama's soaring rhetoric & big plans did not match reality - specifically the reality of the average citizen. He once called Obama  “a black mascot of Wall Street oligarchs and a black puppet of corporate plutocrats.” This comment made him a lot of enemies and many who were once close to him (like Al Sharpton, Michael Eric Dyson, and Melissa Harris-Perry) defected. Personally, my admiration for Dr. West grew. He saw the truth & was not afraid to speak it - let the chips fall where they may! Wasn't this the same thing that happened to Socrates whose uncompromising manner and penchant for making the pompous appear foolish made many enemies among the Athenian upper crust?

In an interview with the Guardian published on Sunday, West explained his views on the state of America today and his fall from grace, by design, with President Barack Obama: "He's just too tied to Wall Street. And at this point he is a war criminal."

 
West actively campaigned for Obama during his first run, but painfully learned  what he was dealing with - Obama became the epitome of Washington corruption in his eyes. This was kinda hard to swallow given Obama's symbolic importance, but sadly, after reviewing the facts,  it is true. I remember earlier this year on Obama's second inauguration, West was beside himself when he saw that Obama was sworn in with the same bible Dr. Martin Luther King used. In his mind the two couldn't be any further apart. Dr. King epitomized peace & justice. Pres. Obama epitomizes drones & injustice. I have to admit, West makes a valid point although I have to give Obama a thumbs up on some things like universal health care (albeit with a conservative concept, the individual mandate, at its core, rather than the liberal single-payer concept);  lowering taxes on the poorest fifth of Americans by 80%;  using the Justice Department to defend affirmative action to the Supreme Court (although he used the DOJ to illegally wiretap AP and other news organizations); signed an executive order blocking deportations of undocumented young immigrants (albeit after deporting well over a million Hispanics, moving them out at a faster rate than Bush.); ending Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and publicly supported marriage equality and nominating two Supreme Court justices who will defend a woman’s right to choose.

Dr. West takes particular umbrage to the total blackout when it comes to poverty and war-mongering.  He states, "King died fighting not just against poverty but against carpet-bombing in Vietnam; the war crimes under Nixon and Kissinger." West goes on:

You can't meet every Tuesday with a killer list and continually have drones drop bombs. You can do that once or twice and say: 'I shouldn't have done that, I've got to stop.' But when you do it month in, month out, year in, year out – that's a pattern of behavior." [...]
I think there is a chance of a snowball in hell that he will ever be tried, but I think he should be tried and I said the same about George Bush. These are war crimes. We suffer in this age from an indifference toward criminality and a callousness to catastrophe when it comes to poor and working people." [...]

"I knew he would have rightwing opposition, but he hasn't tried," West said of Obama's unwillingness to curb Wall Street's hold on Washington. This particularly irks me as well - where was the bailout for millions of folks who lost so much after the 2008 financial meltdown? If you look at the folks Obama brought in in his first term ( and even now in his second term), it is clear whose interests he holds to higher esteem. The vast majority of us had best stand at the back and hope that some trickle-down money falls in our tin cups. Dr. West's comments reminded me of something George Orwell said: " In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act". No wonder he has become somewhat of a pariah in the US.

West hits it out the ball park when he observed in the Guardian interview:

And he hasn't said a mumbling word about the institutions that have destroyed two generations of young black and brown youth, the new Jim Crow, the prison industrial complex. It's not about race. It is about commitment to justice. He should be able to say that in the last few years, with the shift from 300,000 inmates to 2.5 million today, there have been unjust polices and I intend to do all I can. Maybe he couldn't do that much. But at least tell the truth. I would rather have a white president fundamentally dedicated to eradicating poverty and enhancing the plight of working people than a black president tied to Wall Street and drones."

 These are some serious times - time to put our political immaturity to rest already.



OneLove

:::MME:::

This Is Water

In 2005, author David Foster Wallace was asked to give the commencement address to the 2005 graduating class of Kenyon College. However, the resulting speech didn't become widely known until 3 years later, after his tragic death. It is, without a doubt, some of the best life advice we've ever come across, and perhaps the most simple and elegant explanation of the real value of education. We made this video, built around an abridged version of the original audio recording, with the hopes that the core message of the speech could reach a wider audience who might not have otherwise been interested. However, we encourage everyone to seek out the full speech (because, in this case, the book is definitely better than the movie). -The Glossary 

 Read the full speech here

OneLove

:::MME:::




 (http://amzn.to/ZUgRoZ)

A Tale of Two Presidents by Joseph Nevins

         President Barack Obama                               President José Mujica   

As I watched Barack Obama delivering his second inaugural address last month, and listened to his call to “respond to the threat of climate change” lest we “betray our children and future” generations, I could not help but think of another president.

There is something disconcerting about hearing of the need to fight climate change — to reduce the gargantuan greenhouse gas-related footprint of the United States, in other words – at a huge event that was both unnecessary and expensive. Obama was already president, so why another inauguration? Answer: the nation-state relies to a significant degree on performances to reproduce itself.

This is especially so in the United States where the benefits the state delivers to its citizenry are increasingly meaningless in terms of everyday well-being. In a country in which over twenty percent of its children live below the official poverty line, half of discretionary U.S. government spending is dedicated to its enormous, global military apparatus – “homeland security.” Under a Nobel Peace Prize-winning president, U.S. military spending rivals that of all the rest of the world’s countries combined.

But the event is also a manifestation of U.S. wealth and power. The final price tag of the inauguration is still undisclosed, but it will certainly have cost hundreds of millions of dollars. According to The Economist, security alone for what it called “the three days of revelry” totaled around $100 million. With an estimated 800,000 people in attendance, many of the celebrants traveled long distances by ground or air, adding tens of thousands of tons of greenhouse gases to the Earth’s atmosphere in the process.

Compare such consumption and priorities to another head of state, President José Mujica of Uruguay. Mujica, according to The New York Times, “lives in a run-down house on Montevideo’s outskirts with no servants at all. His security: two plainclothes officers parked on a dirt road.”

José Mujica believes that for a true democracy to function, “elected leaders [must] be taken down a notch.” As part of his effort to make the country’s presidency “less venerated,” he refuses to live in Uruguay’s presidential mansion, one with a staff of 42. Instead, he offers the opulent abode as a shelter for homeless families during the coldest months. He explains his personal philosophy by citing Seneca: “It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, who is poor.”
While his official presidential salary is about $108,000 per year, he donates 90 percent of it, mostly to a program for expanding housing for the poor. This leaves him with a monthly income comparable to a typical Uruguayan. As Mujica is quick to say, “I do fine with that amount; I have to do fine because there are many Uruguayans who live with much less.”

Barack Obama, by contrast, lives in luxury – in the White House – and takes in $400,000 annually as president. That, combined with his royalties from book sales, gave him and his wife an income of $1.7 million in 2010. The Obamas typically donate 14 percent of their income, keeping enough to maintain their position among the “one percent” nationally, that is, the elite of the elite, globally.
Given these differences, it is hardly surprising that Obama embraces the interlocking interests of U.S. capital, empire, and militarism, and the rampant consumption they entail. Obama’s soaring rhetoric about the need for “sustainable energy sources” falls flat for he offers no indication of who is primarily responsible for its use.

With less than five percent of the world’s population, the United States consumes about a quarter of the world’s fossil fuels. The Pentagon, which devours more than 300,000 barrels of oil per day, an amount greater than that consumed by any of the vast majority of the world’s countries, is the planet’s single biggest consumer. By not acknowledging this, Obama implies, by default, that all the planet’s denizens are equally culpable, rather than the small slice of the Earth’s population that consumes the lion’s share.

In contrast, Uruguay’s president laments that many societies consider economic growth a priority, calling it “a problem for our civilization.” Hyper-consumption, he says, “is harming our planet.” He is also highly doubtful that the world has enough resources to allow all its inhabitants to consume and produce waste at the level of Western societies. If such levels are reached, it would probably lead to “the end of the world,” he says.

In a speech to the UN Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro last June, this man who is dubbed “the poorest president in the world,” insisted that “the challenge ahead of us … is not an ecological crisis, but rather a political one.” Looking at a “model of development and consumption shaped after that of affluent societies,” ruled by the dictates of the capitalist market, Mujica insisted it was “time to start fighting for a different culture.” Arguing that the assault on the environment was a symptom of a larger disease, he asserted that “the cause is the model of civilization that we have created. And the thing we have to re-examine is our way of life.”

Given the position he occupies, and the interests he serves, it is almost impossible to even imagine Barack Obama – or any U.S. president of today – uttering these words, advocating living simply or doing with a lot less in the name of equity. And the interests he serves are a big part of the problem. In an era of climate change and ecological crises, it is these interests that humanity must confront.
In this regard, José Mujica’s willingness to live by example and, through his words, offer a larger structural critique – while insisting that the everyday and the systemic are inherently linked — is not only inspiring, but instructive.

Joseph Nevins teaches geography at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York. His books include Dying to Live: A Story of US Immigration in an Age of Global Apartheid and Operations Gatekeeper and Beyond: The War on “Illegals” and the Remaking of the US-Mexico Boundary.

:::MME:::

Cause And Effect: The Consequences of What We Take for Granted

..somehow your hamburger & beloved smart phone won't look the same after seeing this...


OneLove

 :::MME:::

Poet's Nook: "Home" by Dogen

(from the Zen Poetry of Dogen) 

 OneLove

 :::MME:::