"Probably the most damaging indictment that can be made of the capitalistic system is the way in which its emphasis on unfettered individualism results in exploitation of natural resources in a manner to destroy the physical foundation of national longevity." 1936 Henry Wallace FDR's Secretary of Agriculture http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2013/10/14/131014crat_atlarge_ross
This Is How The World Works
The Antigone Poems – Book Review
A book review of: The Antigone Poems by Marie Slaight Drawings by Terrence Tasker 2013, Altaire Production and Publishing Potts Point, Australia December 4, 2013 Poets do not know this terrain. Yet they may meditate on its being, one that is multiplied by galaxies yet named. And here she claims a sun, it is hers. …
Anthropocene – “this civilization is already dead”.
Photo Credit:Jeff DelViscio A startling soldier's story of war and our future. Compact in its unfolding, but strong in its philosophical architecture. Listen up. Driving into Iraq just after the 2003 invasion felt like driving into the future. We convoyed all day, all night, past Army checkpoints and burned-out tanks, till in the blue dawn …
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TOKYO-GA Charity Photo Book
What is TOKYO-GA? "東京画" means "Tokyo picture" and derives from Wim Wenders' great movie. It is also the name of an international collective of photographers that shoot in Tokyo. We can be found at: http://www.flickr.com/groups/tokyo-ga/ ”東京画”は東京をベースに活動する国際的な写真家たちの集団です。”東京画”という名前は、ヴィム・ヴェンダースの素晴らしい映画から引用しました。私たちの活動はこちらでも見れます。 http://www.flickr.com/groups/tokyo-ga/ http://www.tokyogaga.com
New Yorker Article – MARCEL REICH-RANICKI (1920-2013) – German Literary Critic – by Sally McGrane
On the cover of this weekend’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung’s feuilleton, Marcel Reich-Ranicki, Germany’s “Literary Pope,” gazes out from the center of the page. The table at which he sits, alone, is set for a formal dinner; his silk tie is rakishly askew. His expression is sovereign but kind, thoughtful, knowing. Below the photo—taken three years ago, …
Howard Zinn – Be Hopeful
"To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys …
A Path To An Ocean Passage
Yellowstone to Yukon – Species Bridge
Shunryū Suzuki-rōshi THE WAY-SEEKING MIND
Seymour Hersh on Fixing Journalism With a Hatchet – 2 Articles
Yes. 1. Seymour Hersh on Fixing Journalism With a Hatchet Posted on Sep 27, 2013 Eckehard Schulz/dapdSeymour Hersh. Seymour Hersh, the reporter who exposed the My Lai massacre in 1969 and the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib in 2004, wants to shutter the major news bureaus, fire 90 percent of editors and generally make journalists outsiders …
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America Reborn – Martin Walker
An excellent essay on America considering the last 100 years. It is an overview that focuses on highlights and results. It establishes quickly the author's deep experience in the complexity of the society and its inherent conflicts and natures. While the conclusions feel right, the devil is always in the details. Our details are often …
Towards a More Altruistic Society – Matthieu Ricard
Towards a more altruistic society At the end of last week, Plaidoyer pour l’altruisme (The Case for Altruism), a 920 page-book on which I have been intensely working for 5 years, came out in French (the English publication is scheduled for January 2015). Cooperation, wrote Martin Nowak, is “the architect of creativity throughout evolution, from cells …
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Greeks and Japanese
Looking at the Greeks at sunrise and the Japanese at sunset. The birds are.
Special Human Powers – The Lotus Sutra – Fragments
This is a talk about special powers that people have without knowing it nor using them. This discussion is a transcript of a talk given by Shunryu Suzuki and the transcript lacks fluidity but reflects the actual presentation style of Suzuki. The sutra story shows that through paying attention to what is in front of …
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Salish Archipelago
I hold still for the light as it plays on the horizon before the earth turns and shows its treasures to the sun and then the moon. Sea animals roam at my feet and I see what they do. It is change that we see.
Zen Master – Gary Snyder and the Art of Life.
Northwesterlies – Doublebluff – Whidbey Island
The Neophyte – Diligence In the Face Of The World
Gustave Dore: Le néophyte. (The Neophyte). c. 1877. Etching.Awareness and vigilance in the midst of despair and death. Having the ability to look clearly at the world as it is and to work with it to achieve a balance and harmony of being, To give and receive in kind. This unique ability that only a …
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Dogfish Woman – A Bay in the Pacific
Preston Singletary – Tlingit Artist
ARTIST'S STATEMENT When I began working with glass in 1982, I had no idea that I'd be so connected to the material in the way that I am. It was only when I began to experiment with using designs from my Tlingit cultural heritage that my work began to take on a new purpose and …
Grammars of Creation – George Steiner
"Beyond good and evil, beyond reason and social-ethical accountability, rages the drive to create, to engender form." Grammars of Creations George Steiner Jackson Pollock - Untitled (Figure Composition), 1938-41. Colored pencils and graphite on paper
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn – Artist & Advocate
A literary man of immense importance in the twentieth century. Many consider his address to Harvard graduates to be his masterpiece. The speech surprised many in the West since it took aim at Western culture's fundamental problems. Reading this speech today, it remains a dramatic probe into the West's psyche, both conscious and unconscious, and …
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Chosing a Place – Rocks Remember
<p><a href="http://vimeo.com/28702290">Rocks Remember</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/user8389075">Yuko Takebe</a> on <a href="https://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p>
Louise Gluck – Poems 1962-2012
photo : Katherine Wolkoff What Gluck learned from Williams, and from George Oppen, is Pound's sense that " the natural object is always the adequate symbol". She marries William's objectivism, that "moral commitment to the actual, which meant the visible, " with an Eliotic sense of the hidden. She has written that Eliot, of the great …
Annie Leibovitz Interview
This video gives a good sense for some of Annie's makeup: we see her naturalness and her ability to express herself verbally is slower than the speed of her thoughts. There is also a unique story she tells about John & Yoko.- rlw
The Underside of Silicon Valley – Rebecca Solnit
Solnit is a San Francisco native and has written about the town from many perspectives including art, photography and geography. This article appears in "Tom Dispatch" and is part of a dark take on the current explosion of revelations on government spying and recently the FBI's admission that it is using drones domestically. From both …
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Organic in Cascadia: A Sequence of Energies – Paul E Nelson
Paul is a poet and a tireless advocate for Cascadia. He has written a description of what he calls "Organic" poetry and shows its refractions and its heritage in a poetic flow of references. Paul's focus is on the west coast and talks about how it is influenced more by the east than the west, …
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The Creative Act – Marcel Duchamp
PHOTO - IRVING PENN THE CREATIVE ACT by Marcel Duchamp Let us consider two important factors, the two poles of the creation of art: the artist on the one hand, and on the other the spectator who later becomes the posterity. To all appearances, the artist acts like a mediumistic being who, from the labyrinth …
A Brit Blows America’s Horn – “America The Marvelous”
LETTER FROM LONDON July 2013 America the Marvelous At any liberal-establishment dinner table in London, say, or Paris, the U.S. will figure as a big, fat, dumb child. Enough, says the author, in an adaptation from his new book: America is Europe’s finest invention—and ultimate aspiration. By A. A. GillIllustration by Barry Blitt KING OF THE WORLD The …
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Using Your Shape At Sea
Defining Green – Pacific West Coast
Saul Bellow: Letters
Excellent writing about a master of fiction and American life. Saul Bellow: Letters In the newly published collected correspondence of Saul Bellow... BY LEO ROBSON PUBLISHED 11 NOVEMBER 2010 Letters Saul Bellow, edited by Benjamin Taylor Penguin, 571pp, £30 "Of course I am not a Freudian," Saul Bellow wrote to Philip Roth in 1974. "For one fierce …
Thinking Out Loud
Only citizens through their responsive government can monitor and guide the behaviour of corporations and their interaction with people and the natural, fragile earth. We need more people who are intelligent, informed, and unbiased and who articulate the truths that media won't.-rlw
The End, This Time
James Rhodes: ‘Find what you love and let it kill you’
My life as a concert pianist can be frustrating, lonely, demoralising and exhausting. But is it worth it? Yes, without a shadow of a doubt. 'Isn't it worth fighting back in some small way?' Pianist James Rhodes. Photograph: Dave Brown 2012 After the inevitable "How many hours a day do you practice?" and "Show me …
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Islands – Ludovico Einaudi
Scattered
Scattered an ability to go with the natural flow of life and interests of the moment. the feeling of moments flowing in time - it is the feeling of time - it is what time is. it is interactive, time engaging and the mind responding and showing and then the reverse takes hold. it is …
The Decisive Moment – Henri Cartier-Bresson
An excellent introduction to the man. This is a slide show presentation with Henri narrating. His poetic personality comes through clearly. He has a very unique sense of what photography is to him.
Island Vinyard
A Sense of Place
Evening In May
…nature’s laws … are the only measures that count…
Capitalism, for all its merits and failings as a 500-year practice, may be better than the alternatives, but may not be able to meet the stringent conditions imposed by nature's laws. These, ultimately, are the only measures that count.From "The Common Sense Canadian" Ray Grigg on anthropologist Ronald Wright. http://thecanadian.org/item/2056-anthropologys-capitalism http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_myth_of_human_progress_20130113/
Wind In Sun
heavy wind in sun in the trees wind moving living trees each against the other in their reach upwards just at the end of their tolerance swaying with the form they had built, not yet crafted by the wind but the sun.
“How Jerry Brown Scared California Straight” – One of Ours
Photograph by Mark Peckmezian for Bloomberg Businessweek How Jerry Brown Scared California Straight By Joel Stein on April 25, 2013 http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-04-25/jerry-brown-californias-grownup-governor Jerry Brown is a happy man who rarely smiles. That’s because underneath all that energy and California optimism, there’s an old, practical Buddhist. This is all that can be done. We can tax the rich a …
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Zarathustra – My Time Has Come
" Have you learned my song? Have you guessed its intent ? Well then, you higher men, sing me now my round. Now you yourselves sing me the song whose name is “Once More” and whose meaning is ” into all eternity” - sing, you higher men, Zarathustra’s round! O man, take care! What does the …
Add Strength In Person & Obsession In Passion
Going To The Sun
The Stranger by Albert Camus - Impressions 1942 Prose that is crisp and spare and precise. Fragments of humanity that are turned this way and that to develop a character in time and place. Meursault is detached and self-sufficient. His social needs are minimal. He is authentic and sure of his senses and is comfortable …
Northwest Oystering – On The Salish Sea
These photographs are of the Taylor Shellfish Oyster operation in Bow, WA and surrounding area just a few miles south of Bellingham on Chuckanut Drive.- rlw
