One More Shot At Climate Change/More On The Rapture/Hamlet On War/Catherine Sevenau Poem/

Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.

- Martin Luther King

(P1) Political

Uh Oh!

Y0u know what? Perhaps what I've been saying is true, that folks don't like to read about changes in the weather, rising of the seas, melting of the ice caps, and all such macabre stuff. So maybe I should stop writing about it and calling for responses about the inevitable. After all, no one really likes "Chicken Little." But how about one more shot at it by way of the United Nations' top climate official Christiana Figueres ?



Tom Zeller Jr.
Tom Zeller Jr. tzeller@huffingtonpost.com

Prospects For Reaching CO2 Benchmark And Curbing Global Warming Grow Dimmer

First Posted: 06/ 3/11 08:52 AM ET Updated: 06/ 3/11 10:01 AM ET
React

United Nations climate chief Christiana Figueres is calling for world leaders to aim for an even lower threshold for rising global average temperatures, even as new figures suggest that the prospects for preventing temperatures from rising beyond a key benchmark grew dimmer in 2010.

According to estimates released this week by the International Energy Agency, global emissions of energy-related carbon dioxide in 2010 were the highest ever measured at 30.6 gigatonnes -- a 5 percent jump over the previous record year of 2008.

The increase follows a decline in global emissions in 2009 that accompanied the economic downturn.

The sizable leap in emissions suggests that limiting rising average temperatures to less than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) -- a threshold that many scientists believe is crucial for preventing runaway and irreversible impacts of climate change -- will be an increasingly elusive goal.

As the IEA explained:

For this goal to be achieved, the long-term concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere must be limited to around 450 parts per million of CO2-equivalent, only a 5 percent increase compared to an estimated 430 parts per million in 2000.

The IEA’s 2010 World Energy Outlook set out the 450 Scenario, an energy pathway consistent with achieving this goal, based on the emissions targets countries have agreed to reach by 2020. For this pathway to be achieved, global energy-related emissions in 2020 must not be greater than 32 [gigatonnes].

For all this math to work out, and for temperatures to keep below the 2-degree Celsius threshold, global energy-related emissions would have to rise less over the next decade than they did over just the last year, according to the IEA.

"Our latest estimates are another wake-up call," said Dr. Fatih Birol, a chief economist at the IEA, in a published statement. "The world has edged incredibly close to the level of emissions that should not be reached until 2020 if the 2-degree Celsius target is to be attained. Given the shrinking room for maneuver in 2020, unless bold and decisive decisions are made very soon, it will be extremely challenging to succeed in achieving this global goal."

The Copenhagen Accord reached in 2009 was the first time that countries involved in global climate talks informally agreed to a goal of limiting rising temperatures to no more than 2 degrees Celsius.

That benchmark was reiterated and placed on a timeline for review at talks in Cancun, Mexico, in December. Some nations, particularly those vulnerable to rising seas, believe even that amount of warming could result in catastrophic climatic changes, with attendant floods, food shortages and other impacts, over the next century.

Speaking at a carbon conference in Barcelona on Wednesday, Figueres, the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, suggested that the 2-degree benchmark might be too high.

"Two degrees is not enough – we should be thinking of 1.5C," she was quoted as saying by the Guardian. "If we are not headed to 1.5 we are in big, big trouble."

The notion that the opportunity to contain an average temperature increase below a 2-degree Celsius threshold may have already passed is not a new one. Several studies suggest that without some sort of collective action, global temperatures are likely to rise well beyond 2 degrees.

On a per capita basis, most emissions continue to come from the developed world. But the fastest growth in new emissions is coming -- and will continue to come -- from furious economic expansion in the developing world, chiefly in China and India. Without some sort of global incentive structure that would encourage developing nations to forego fossil fuels as they expand their economies, there is increasing pessimism that targets like the 2-degrees Celsius benchmark will prove anything beyond symbolic.

The majority of the energy-related CO2 emissions last year -- 44 percent -- came from from coal, while 36 percent arose from from oil and 20 percent from natural gas, according to the IEA.

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(P2) Philosophical

After and Before and After The Apocalypse Again

So Harold Camping, "bewildered" at blowing another of his end-of-the-world-rapture predictions has set his newest date which is October 21st. That gives me reason here to publish David Madgalene's dad's right-on-the-money piece titled

Christ Comes To California

by David J. Randolph ©2011
More at newwaymediafest@blogspot.com

Christ is coming tomorrow, according to a neighbor in Oakland.
So I went over to check it out.
He was already there.
He stretched out his hungry hand to me on San Pablo Avenue.
She said she was thirsty and asked me to buy her a drink.
He spoke to me in a strange language I couldn’t understand at the airport.
She was rummaging through the clothes bin at Goodwill.
He was in the back seat of the police car going to jail.

I said, this can’t be you. Like this is gold, Jesus .
Where’s the televison crew?

He said, “Do you think that any of these people are going to appear
On the news or talk shows? Let alone American Idol?

But whenever you feed someone who’s hungry and provide water for the
thirsty,
Or welcome a stranger, or help clothe the naked or visit a prisoner,
And support others who do,
I am there.”

So maybe my neighbor is right about the day and wrong about the end.
Like every day Christ comes
and the end is not about blowing up but growing up
and caring for one another.

I reached out my hand
And felt the rapture.

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(P3) Poetical

Ed Coletti's latest collection of poems When Hearts Outlive Minds now available at Amazon.




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Hamlet On War

The imminent death of twenty thousand men,

That, for a fantasy and trick of fame,

Go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot

Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause,

Which is not tomb enough and continent

To hide the slain? (Act 4 Scene 4)




Great-Grandfather Isaac Willard Chatfield 1836-1921 /
Civil War Photo 1861: 2nd Lt., Illinois Infantry

LINEAGES

by Catherine (Clemens) Sevenau

I am.

I am from

Leinen and Nigon,

from Chamberlin and Hoy.

I am from Clemens and Chatfield,

from Surdam, Sumner, Smith, Shade, Mastick and Tomlinson too.

From Matthew, Isaac, Finley and Charles. From Barbara, Eliza, Emily and Nellie.

I am from soldiers who fought for the Union and from a nurse who tended them.

From singers, shopkeepers and teachers, from miners, writers and preachers.


From wagon trains and railroads. From hard work and harder lives.

I am from cattle ranches and farmlands, from sowing and plowing and reaping.

I am from whiskey and ale, from betting and bad odds—and from the fall-out of it all.

I am from Noreen and Carl who were like sin and prayer.

What ever in the world made those two think they could stay together?

I am from bad kidneys, bad backs and bad eyes. And bad blood.


I am from dime stores and small towns.

I am from one-pot meals. From white beans, white bread and white rice.

I am from sweet peas, green peas and green tea.

I am from holy water and rosaries, from Hail Mary and Our Father, from mea culpa.

I am from Little Women and Nancy Drew, from I’m a Little Teapot and the Hokey Pokey.


From pop-beads, pee-wees, paper dolls, pick-up-stix, skate keys, comic books and jacks.

From coin collections and stamp collections and collections of cobalt blue glass bottles.

I am from a long line of sharp-tongued women.

From list makers, rule makers and rule breakers—from umbrage and resentment.

From complaining, carping, and keeping score. From they don’t speak… we don’t speak…

Sometimes it seems impossible for me to do it differently, to break this invidious pattern of ours.

And sometimes it is easier to not even try.

I am from good intentions and unattended sorrows. From courage and hope. And grace.

I am from extended arms, extended kindness and extended family. I am grateful.


I am from a company of strangers—this family—of it, but not in it,

watching from the sidelines, taking notes, sifting through

our story and writing down our history, wondering

what directs us, what pokes us and prods us

and has us be who we are, questioning

how I fit into the whole catastrophe,

and, at the end of the day—

knowing I belong.

I am they.


I am me.

I am.

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The Climate is Serious "Business"/ The Art of Negotiation/New Ed Coletti Book/Dangerous Phrase Contest/Timpano

(P1)Philosophical

New "Dangerous Phrase" Contest

American ExceptionalismRichard Cohen (May 10, 2010)

Our first entry in the Dangerous Phrase Contest is from Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen (hit link above for full article)

"...the culture of smugness. The emblem of this culture is the term 'American exceptionalism.' It has been adopted by the right to meant that America, alone among the nations, is beloved of God.

"...Therein lies the danger of American exceptionalism. It discourages compromise, for what God has made exeptional, man must not alter. And yet clearly America must change fundamentally or continue to decline. It could begin by junking a phrase that reeks of arrogance and discourages compromise. American exceptionalism ought to be called American narcissism. We look perfect only to ourselves."

I encourage you to read the full Cohen column (see link above) for examples both of American greatness and decline. ALSO, IT'S NOW YOUR TURN TO CONTRIBUTE THE NEXT "DANGEROUS PHRASE."

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(P2)Political

(art by Jim Spitzer)

I grow increasingly concerned that many of us are refusing to read articles like this one. My reason is that I've published numerous such over the years, even ones demonstrating that, while the past administration openly denied climate change, they actively warned business (particularly insurance companies) to prepare for impending losses as the result of climate change - just go back in the P3 archives. BUT, I've never received a single response on this subject from any of you P3 readers. What do you think? Even I am tempted to burrow deeply into the sand and try not to believe that we are in such danger. When I do this, I am very very wrong. Let's get dialog going. Say something on the subject. Please. Thanks, Ed Coletti

A Cost of Denying Climate Change:
Accelerating Climate Disruptions, Death, and Destruction
by Peter Glieck, Water and climate scientist and President, Pacific Institute - April 28, 2011

Violent tornadoes throughout the southeastern U.S. must be a front-page reminder that no matter how successful climate deniers are in confusing the public or delaying action on climate change in Congress or globally, the science is clear: Our climate is worsening.

More extreme and violent climate is a direct consequence of human-caused climate change (whether or not we can determine if these particular tornado outbreaks were caused or worsened by climate change). There is a reason it isn't called global warming anymore. Higher temperatures are only one -- and not the most worrisome -- of the consequences of a changing climate.

Climate science tells us unambiguously that we are changing the climate and trapping more energy on the planet. Trapping more energy will cause more extreme events and worsen extreme events that would otherwise happen.

In the climate community, we call this "loading the dice." Rolling loaded dice weighted toward more extreme and energetic weather means more death and destruction. And it is only going to get worse and worse, faster and faster, the longer our politicians dither and delay and deny. Climate deniers who have stymied action in Congress and confused the public -- like the tobacco industry did before them -- need to be held accountable for their systematic misrepresentation of the science, their misuse and falsification of data, and their trickery.

The conservative (and economically driven) insurance industry understands the reality of data and observations: Munich Re (one of the world's leading reinsurers) has said:

"The only plausible explanation for the rise in weather-related catastrophes is climate change. The view that weather extremes are more frequent and intense due to global warming coincides with the current state of scientific knowledge."

The extreme nature of the ongoing severe weather is well described by Jeff Masters on his Weather Blog. The 3-day total of preliminary tornado reports from this week's outbreak is nearing 300, close to the 323 preliminary tornado reports logged during the massive April 14 - 16 tornado outbreak. That outbreak has 155 confirmed tornadoes so far, making it the largest April tornado outbreak on record.

Of course, tornado outbreaks have occurred before. In 1974 and 1965, collections of tornados killed hundreds of people. But according to NOAA's Storm Prediction Center, it is unprecedented to have two such massive tornado outbreaks occur so close together. Loading the dice. At least 11 of these tornadoes were killer tornadoes; deaths occurred in six states. (Wikipedia maintains an excellent and growing compilation of historical tornado outbreaks for those interested, and raw data can be obtained from NOAA.) Only two other tornado outbreaks have had as many as 150 twisters -- the May 2004 outbreak (385), and the May 2003 outbreak (401).

And it is not just the devastating tornadoes: parts of the Mississippi River are about to experience record flooding. As spring rain joins with winter snowmelt, a massive pulse of floodwater is moving south. As it joins with the record water levels coming out of the Ohio River it is expected to create the highest flood heights ever recorded on the Mississippi, according to the latest forecasts from the National Weather Service.

Yet while we call this a "1-in-a-100 year" flood event, that term is losing its meaning. The August 1993 flood event was a "1-in-a-500 year" event. Yet in June 2008 there was another such event. Now, three years later, we see another massive flood on the Mississippi, and record floods elsewhere. Loading the dice. As FEMA's director, Craig Fugate, noted in December, "The term '100-year event' really lost its meaning this year." And that was last year.

The science community knows that we're affecting the climate; in turn, that will affect the weather; and that, in turn, will affect humans: with death, injury, and destruction. There is a cost to tackling climate change, but there is a real, growing, and far larger cost of continuing to deny it.

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(P3) Poetical

by ed coletti


Don Hagelberg
(an appreciation)

just want
you
to know
who may
not know
that poet
Donald
Hagel-
berg is
(Don
ald Hag-
el Berg)
the real deal
is this
Donald
Hagel-
berg who
may not know
he
(Donald Hagelberg)
is
the real
deal.



Veggie Timpano

From my friend Ernie Holden (a la the movie "Big Night"












What the Demos Might Want to Learn About Negotiating



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Halo and Pups/Coletti Poem/Can't Afford a Doctor?/The Best Years of Life/

NB. Readers, if you're looking for the new May 11th post, please note that
Blogger has crashed and lost it hopefully temporarily. Please, Please check out this site later today! Thanks and Cheers, Ed Coletti

PS, If the new post has been restored, it will be above this note.

(P1) Poetical

Halo Honig-Guyon and Pups April 20, 2011














Drawing This
by Ed Coletti 2008

No one can afford
THIS
Being made here and now
-Philip Whalen

1.

fading lines
imperfect circles
unfinished people
multicolored water
too few tinted trees
not-blue-enough skies
above exemplary poets
happily painting
permeable poems

2.

frames or stanzas
circles or sounds
colors or metaphors
exhibits or readings
lines or lines
each confirming
nothing

3.

no sense from nonsense
no money nor much fame
silly old spirits
dancing wild motion
bloody butcher paper
morbid lonely nights
myriad crawly visions
unique or fractal flights
steal another moment
question nothing so produced
just give me more of all of
THIS

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(P2) Political











(P3) Philosophical


Study: The "Best Years of Our Lives" Could Be in Our '80's by Michele Travierso Time Magazine

It turns out that, rather than reminisce about the ‘golden age' of youth, we should look forward to turn our grandparents' age to be happy.

There's much more to old age other than fading sight, weaker muscles and a poor short term memory. A number of recent studies indicate that happiness is more easily attained after middle age.

(More on TIME.com: See pictures of living centenarians)

A book by Lewis Wolpert, professor emeritus of biology at University College London, sheds some light on the topic. Called You Are Looking Very Well, the book argues that people are just "averagely happy" in the first third of their lives. That level of contentment declines at mid-life.

"But then, from the mid-forties, people tend to become ever more cheerful and optimistic, perhaps reaching a maximum in their late seventies or eighties", he told the Telegraph.

(More on TIME.com: See the secret to living 100 years)

Several factors are at play, including maturity, diminished responsibilities and the ability to focus on the things that matter rather than chase elusive external goals.

A study by the American National Academy of Sciences has found that the mental state of well-being that we would be prone to associate with youth gradually abandons us as we enter and live through adulthood. It hits rock bottom in the mid-40s. Then, as we've seen, things getter better and our mood would probably peak at the ripe age of 85.

(More on TIME.com: Do we need $75,000 a year to be happy?)

Other research quoted by the article also seems to suggest that some mental faculties do keep on improving with age. Our vocabulary and decision-making skills increase, though we lose math skills.

"Aging is a lot less scary that people are afraid it is," says George Vaillant, 74, curator of the largest longitudinal study on happiness. The study tracked the life of 268 promising young men from their Cambridge years in 1937, and still chugs on today. We sure hope he's right. (via the Telegraph)

Read more: http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/04/05/study-the-best-years-of-our-lives-could-be-in-our-eighties/#ixzz1IfJtWYC7


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Feeling For the Cyclops/On History & Truth/Gravity's Rainbow/Larry Robinson/

(P1) Philosophical

Cyclops Redux

Come on now. How many of us, other than artists like Henry Fuseli, have actually considered the life and feelings of the Cyclops after his encounter with Odysseus? I know that I hadn't. Like the Native American whose experience is changed forever by the white invader, the incredulous Polyphemus not only finds his defenses proved insignificant, he has also lost his hope in vision. All that's left to him is his basic rudimentary "humanity" portrayed so well by Fuseli as the solace provided by an animal friend.

For the first time, I feel deeply most deeply, for Cyclops and even deeper than previously for all people disturbed, uprooted and deprived of sight by myopic invaders, conquerors, occupiers and oppressors.


On History

Those who cannot remember the past, are condemned to repeat it.
-Santayana

What experience and history teaches us is that people and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it. -Hegel

On Truth

The true value of a man is not determined by his possession, supposed or real, of Truth, but rather by his sincere exertion to get to the Truth. It is not possession of the Truth, but rather the pursuit of Truth by which he extends his powers and in which his ever-growing perfectibility is to be found. Possession makes one passive, indolent, and proud. If God were to hold all Truth concealed in his right hand, and in his left only the steady and diligent drive for Truth, albeit with the proviso that I would always and forever err in the process, and to offer me the choice, I would with all humility take the left hand.

-Gotthold Lessing (1778)

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(P2) Political

Thomas Pynchon On War

It means this War was never political at all, the politics was all theatre, all just to keep the people distracted...secretly, it was being dictated instead by the needs of technology...by a conspiracy between human beings and techniques, by something that needed the energy-burst of war, crying, "Money be damned, the very life of [insert name of Nation] is at stake," but meaning, most likely, "dawn is nearly here, I need my night's blood, my funding, funding, ahh more, more..." The real crises were crises of allocation and priority, not among firms -- it was only staged to look that way -- but among the different Technologies, Plastics, Electronics, Aircraft, and their needs which are understood only by the ruling elite...

- Thomas Pynchon (ostensibly on WWII) in Gravity's Rainbow

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(P3) Poetical

Like a child, I cannot wait for Christmas to put Larry's important message-poem on the P3

A Christmas Carol

Away in a manger

or a crack house

or under a bridge

or in a bombed-out village

or a refugee camp

or in the mesquite shade close to the border wall

some Mary is giving birth.

Even as you read this

a child is being born.

What if one of these were the promised one,

the beacon of hope,

the seed of a new light

in a dark time?

What if they all were?

What gifts would you bring

if you were wise?

- Larry Robinson

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Guns & Peace/Spitzer/Laughter/Mysticism/and Fast Food/

(P1) Poetical

"3 Creatures" (acrylic by Jim Spitzer for sale, of course)

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(P2) Political

This is the final paragraph of Bob Herbert's New York Times column January 19, 2011 -

We need fewer homicides, fewer accidental deaths and fewer suicides. That means fewer guns. That means stricter licensing and registration, more vigorous background checks and a ban on assault weapons. Start with that. Don't tell me it's too hard to achieve. Just get started. (my emphasis)

and how's this for irony and hypocrisy?

I bought a 2011 wall calendar for my office. The title is "Messages of Peace." The first message looked good

Peace demands more, not less, from a people.

Then I looked under the quote for the author's name...

Richard M. Nixon (!)


...and I was stuck with this for the remainder of January.



From Santa Rosa (CA) Press Democrat 1-29-11

"Dr. Jerry Minkoff, chief of endocrinology at Kaiser Permanente in Santa Rosa, said the average super-sized fast-food meal could have fed a village of Paleolithic homo sapiens 100,000 years ago." Minkoff also observed that we possess the same genes but have mastered overcoming starvation. -- That's for sure!

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(P3) Philosophical

Laughter

(according to Jim Holt in Stop Me If You've Heard This: A history and philosophy of jokes - W W Norton2008)

"A passage in a Bach fugue may fleetingly give you gooseflesh. A line from Yeats might make you tingle a bit, or cause the little hairs on the back of your neck to stand up in appreciation. But there is one kind of aesthetic experience whose outward expression is grossly palpable. It involves the contraction of some fifteen facial muscles, along with the simultaneous stimulation of the muscles of inspiration and those of expiration, which gives rise to a series of respiratory spasms accompanied by a burst of vowel-based notes. Healthful side effects of this experience are believed to include oxygenation of the blood, reduction in stress hormones, and a bolstering of the immune system through heightened T-cell activity. But if the experience is too intense, cataplexy can set in, leading to muscular collapse and possible injury. In rare cases the consequences are graver still. Anthony Trollope suffered a stroke undergoing this experience while reading a now-forgotten Victorian novel, Vice Versa. And, according to tradition, the ancient Greek painter Zeuxis, reacting to the portrait of a hag he had just made, actually died of it.

"What I have been describing is, of course laughter. It is our characteristic response to the aesthetic category of the humorous, the comical, or the funny. This raises an interesting question: What is it about the humorous situation that evokes this response? Why should a certain kind of cerebral activity issue in such a peculiar behavioral reflex, one that serves no obvious evolutionary purpose? As Voltaire mockingly observed in the entry under 'Laughter' in his Dictionaire philosophique, 'Those who know why this kind of joy that kindles laughter should draw the zygomatic muscle back toward the ears are knowing indeed.' "

Later, mentioning Max Beerbohm, Holt discusses "...a parallel with sex. The objective in sexual congress, according to the Marquis de Sade, is to elicit involuntary noisemaking from your partner--which is precisely the objective of humor, even if the nature of the noisemaking is a bit different."

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Mysticism

My friend William Edelen has done it again in his wonderful column. Check this out and go to the link for the full piece.

In this column, I want to think and reflect on a word that is misunderstood by so many. That word is “mysticism.”

What is mysticism? Mysticism is not sitting in a cave contemplating your navel. You can be a “mystic” and be working in the busiest office in downtown Chicago or San Francisco. In fact, it might save you from a lot of high blood pressure and migraine headaches if you were. Mysticism goes back as far as we can trace, in all religious traditions, including Judaism and Christianity. Experience and intuition are the two key words in mysticism. Wisdom, truth, insights are best discovered through intuition and experience. There is an inner knowledge that is not the result of an intellectual process. The mystic does not ignore reason and the intellect but knows that there is a limit to both. Where reason and intellect end, intuition takes over. The mystic goes beyond the obvious and the immediate and realizes that there is something more, something not visible, that there is an invisible world of realities, and truth, that can be discerned only through a leap of intuition.

The mystical orientation, or experience, is always the same, whether Taoist, Hindu, Native American, Buddhist, Christian or what have you. The mystic always points toward the oneness, the wholeness of the universe of which we are only a very small part. The word “God” is only a symbol for that Mystery that saturates and permeates everything in the universe. As the giant 13th century Christian mystic, Meister Eckhart, put it: “To watch a child pouring water into a glass is to watch God pouring God into God.” Or again: “Going around looking for God is like sitting on an ox looking for an ox to ride.” Or again: “The dung in the stable and God are One. The flea and God are One. Do you want to see God? Look into a mirror.”

William James, the distinguished psychologist wrote: “The mystic has insights into depths of truth that are unplumbed by the discursive intellect.”

As Carl Jung put it: “The creative mystic has always been a thorn in the side of the dogmatic and creedal church. But it is to the mystic that we owe all that is best in religion and humanity.” It usually amazes people, when I am lecturing on this subject, to hear that a vast majority of our Nobel Prize-winning physicists are mystics. As theoretical physicists, they have, by intuition, seen into the nature of reality that goes far beyond the intellect. Mysticism and physics are fraternal twins. Albert Einstein wrote this: “The cosmic order can be directly apprehended by the soul in the mystical union.”

Today’s physicists and quantum mechanics confirm that the archaic classifications of organic and inorganic, animate and inanimate, do not exist and are invalid. Of course, the Eastern spiritual traditions, the Native Americans and mystics of all time and place have known this for thousands of years. What this belief says is: Everything is One. The Mystery within us is the same Mystery that is in every leaf, every atom, every molecule. The Cosmos is everything. The Cosmos is the totality of all things. You cannot experience God, for you are already It. God and a cucumber are One. God and the flea are One. The wolf, the dragonfly and I, we are One. An old Chinese text reads: “There is no Creator. Everything produces itself and is not produced by others. This is the natural way of the Universe.” Modern physicists would say, “Yes, they knew what they were talking about.” There is only creativity and it is constantly going on. It is a continuous process, and every thing is alive and in movement, even though invisible to the naked eye. We are a part of the cosmic dance. Life is a dance and the dance goes on in time and space.

A text of second century Judaism says: “God is not external to anything in the universe. All is One with the One as the flame is one with the candle.” (Bear in mind, that is second century Judaism). Life, so called, is only a short span between two great mysteries which are yet One. Fall begins with Spring, and Winter begins with Summer, and so-called death begins with birth, and it is all One and all interrelated.

What a dreamer am I. My dream: What a blessing it would be if all the religions that are based on dogmas, creeds and doctrines would give them up and become mystical. It is dogmas and doctrines that cause all of the hatred, violence and bloodshed. What a peaceful and harmonious world it would be, with the mystic philosophy. Ah, what a dreamer am I.

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Sonny Rollins' Birthday Energy/$1.69 Credit at the Mysterious Future/Pat Nolan Blockprint/Tea Party Error/Michael Thompson Letter/Gun Cartoon/

(P1) Poetical

(Photo by Tom Brumley - left to right Ornette Coleman, Christian McBride,
Roy Hanes, and Sonny Rollins)




This is a terrific piece by Rick Posner who has become a pen pal and friend

Octogenarian’s Birthday Bash by Rick Posner

Walking into the Beacon Theater, its stately splendor, its classic feel… a big night shine to everything, a feeling that something important is about to happen…everyone buzzing in a mad hive of excitement…the classic statues and tiled ceilings and the gaudy chandeliers…it was like a night at the opera or the ballet…the anticipation was quite maddening actually…but there was nothing phony about it.

The lights dimmed and Stanley Crouch came sauntering out in a merry way…the “black frog” himself in all his intellectual splendor…his caterpillar (sometimes quite ugly!) of real life wrapped in a sweet cocoon of SOUL, then of course, the butterfly analogy (Sonny=jazz?)…the legacy of Louis Armstrong carried on, not by Monk, Coltrane or Charley Parker, but most notably and nobly by Mr. Sonny Rollins…ladies and gentlemen, I give you…

Sonny comes lurching, slouching (“towards Bethlehem to be born”?) Move over Rover ‘cause’ Sonny’s comin’ over…out of the shadows of anticipation, already blowing like a madman…in fact, white shirt down to his knees, black handkerchief in pocket, white, wiry hair all fro-ed out like a mad scientist with a mischievous grin and an I-told-you-so attitude…Wow! The tone is set and so is the bar, way up high where you better get on and swing like a wild ape or you’re gonna be left on the ground with the human beings, the squares.

Sonny is getting into it like a primitive learning how to walk…insistent floods of mixed themes and styles, breaking it down and building it up…and always that island breeze blowing through the charging congas (Sammy Figueroa) and Crenshaw’s bass, the sound is impeccably clean except for Sonny’s dirty bird riffs that chortle, grumble, gruffly like a playful Griot from West Africa…the satire, the sardonic tone of a West Indies social critic like Lord Kitchner mixed with a North American harshness, almost scatological in its in-your-faceness.

All this at 80! …it’s more than anyone expected…a feeling of shock moves through the audience…all we can do is sit there and stare as if it’s some kind of freak of nature…like an 80 year old making full court moves on a basketball court and continuously dunking hard at both ends!...once again there is something primal in the air…this might be where youth and age meet and merge into one perpetual man-child of JAZZ.

Next Roy Hargrove…introduced by Sonny as a man “chosen by the Creator” to lay down his sound on earth…he comes out, unearthly though, with a solo ( I Can’t Get Started) so pure and cool, a heavenly dream of mellowness, a magical, seamless ride with a confidence that is almost other-worldly…(sweet cream on ice?)..it’s really a dream within a dream that makes me think of sadness, loneliness and contentment all wrapped into one, the kind of love that makes you yearn and relish at the same time.

Roy is dressed in a slick suit with a jaunty hat and diamond(?)belt, big old shades and even bigger black tennis shoes…if he’s not gay, he should be…he is an exquisite, delicate, perfectly conceived little elf/sprite…looks like a 21^st Century Little Willie John with his sweet way of tilting his head, so cock-sure of his approach, no questions asked…never even looking at the hulking Neanderthal Rollins on his left who is taunting him into his cave…nothing could get to this guy in his hermetically sealed solo…he’s keeping himself pure and clean…the beauty and the beast?

Next…Sonny says: “Here’s the jazz guitarists’ jazz guitarist Jim Hall…” Hall, with an acute spinal problem, literally crawls onto the stage and slinks into his chair nodding seriously to Sonny…he seems out of sync and a little worried about fitting into the celebratory mood…slowly and surely he picks it up and gets into his dreamy state…a sense of loss and regret comes across as Sonny adjusts to and eases up on him, giving him a break to gather himself and return to the style that he is accustomed to…there’s a generosity of spirit here as Sonny defers to a fellow icon and allows him to get more comfortable with his age and place in the jazz continuum…Hall responds with delicacy and respect as he settles in to his sound…like underwater fantasy land…contemplative, deep water here…I see Hall with a snorkel, mask and guitar in a primordial ocean…the Great Barrier Reef ?

Now Sonny is talking about jazz being the “ music’s music”, the foundation for the building, the origin…I think of Cecil Taylor and hear an echo of my past and the ongoing parade of musicians who pay heed and respect to the timeless nature of the SOUNDS and RHYTHMS of life itself.

Now two unannounced (unexpected?) guests flood onto the stage …a large hulking man in a classy dark suit (the mountainous bass player, Christian McBride) and a fortyish looking Disco Danny who turns out to be 85 year old drummer, Roy Haynes …McBride bows so massively that you could feel the wind of his serious respect for Rollins while Haynes, with his gold chains, gold jump suit and cool shades just glides past Sonny to his home-the drum set…McBride picks up the bass and instrument and man become Siamese Twins, with absolutely no hesitation he becomes one with his instrument, it’s like breathing for him…at times the large bass becomes his toy…I almost forgot how good this guy is…as for Haynes, he simply drops a bomb of a solo on us…crisp, explosive and flawless…his look is Las Vegas (where he lives!) but his grenade kind of sound reminds us of a road side bomb in Iraq…This trio is another treat for us…another layer of icing on Sonny’s cake.

For the coup de grace, Sonny announces that someone with a horn is backstage and wants to join the party…who could it be? A buzzing around the audience ensues as Sonny beckons, welcomes, teases him out…no one appears and the crowd grows restless with suspense…finally, who comes out but Ornette Coleman with a jaunty hat and a shy smile on his face…he curtseys to Rollins and glides over to take his hand in his…and gives it a soft kiss…what a scene!...some of the crowd goes wild…but why do I get the distinct feeling that over half the crowd has no idea who this man is?...As for me, I was privileged to attend Ornette’s Reunion Concert at Town Hall 3 years ago, but he’s the last person I expected to join the party!

So here they are, sort of a Day and Night of sound and structure trying to pay respect to each other without losing their identities…it’s harder for Ornette; he simply lives on another planet with its own air, its distinct landscapes and water…he can’t just come back to earth to meet Rollins…Sonny has to go to his world, and, after some awkward attempts at meeting half way, Sonny gives in, letting Coleman take him on a rocket ship ride to his bizarre world…Sonny is up to this task and plays freer than I’ve ever heard him, with no earthly shackles, Rollins relaxes and starts to breathe the new air…he’s along for the joy ride and he loves it…the audience knows what’s happening as it too concedes to Ornette’s brave new “shape of things to come”…must admit that he will always be more than one step ahead of his time.

As if this wasn’t enough already! Sonny and crew get called back for an encore…it’s Saint Thomas of course, and that Caribbean wind is blowing again with Figueroa going crazy on the congas…calypso sweetness and the soft side of life with its tropical feel of groove and nonchalance… so free and easy that a child could do it just by playing on the beach.

Did I fail to mention Russell Malone’s three sumptuous guitar solos? Sorry.

What a night! I walked out in a trance…almost an unreal feeling…inspiration can come in many forms but when it comes from music it’s sweeter, more sustainable…it’s the air these guys breathe, and, yes, it is that ugly caterpillar’s coming-out party…for me, it’s the past, present and future wrapped in that cocoon but as Sonny so aptly put: it’s all about “being in the moment”…I think about how lucky we all are to be able to help each other to do just that!

(Rick Posner Ph.D. in Education Written a book of poetry (Light –Shadows, 197 Jazz lover (thanks to my late brother, Jeffrey Author of a book about a school that saved his life: Lives of Passion, School of Hope, 2009 (Thanks Connie) Lifelong learner Serious baseball fan (Thanks Sol Teacher (30 years in the public schools, yikes!) Parent (thanks Abby, my multi-talented daughter) Husband (thanks Gail for trying to teach me to stop, look, listen and love)

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I wrote this poem in July of 2008 after David Madgalene sent me a certificate of credit for $1.69 to be used at the now-defunct Mysterious Future (used mystery books) Store in Santa Rosa. The poem may or may not be unrelated to that event. - Ed Coletti

Credit At the Mysterious Future

$1.69 in the mysterious future
 worth
  $.07
or
  half-a-yuan
 barely enough
or
        hardly
for one
  joss stick

fragrantly
  smoking

in spirals
  present

past 
   future

visible
  together
one

  oracle
leisurely

  petering
     out

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(P2) Philosophical

(Pat Nolan Blockprint at Quicksilver Mine Co. Gallery, Forestville, California)

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(P3) Political

Truth, not guns

EDITOR: There are always divisions in politics. Some issues are divisive as it’s meant to be. But what I see is a complete disconnect. I know that when I read the papers or hear politicians speak, I don’t hear Democrats speaking in terms of “cross hairs,” and I believe there haven’t been many “gun shoot” fundraisers for their party. I do hear venom spewed from Republican, tea party and conservative figures.

The divisiveness isn’t a line in the sand any more; it’s become a huge chasm that can’t be bridged. Political rhetoric has become false accusations, malicious reporting and vicious finger-pointing by poorly educated and superstitious demagogues who make politics dangerously reactionary.

I believe that in order for a democratic society to survive, it needs well thought out, logical, even-handed arguments that can be understood by an under-educated America. We don’t need political vitriol and guns to get our ideas across to one another. Instead, we need words of truth and accuracy as a way to salvage a distrustful and dying America.

MICHAEL THOMPSON

Healdsburg

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Tribute to Lady

Lady ( July 4th 1997 - December 19th 2010)

(Lady drawing by Ray Swaney)

A pensive black doggy named Lady

Lay quietly where it was shady.

A bevy of quail

Marched onto her trail

So she rapidly joined their paradey.

Lady As God 2007

My dog Lady otherwise engaged
will not come to me when I pray to her
“Here girl, good girl” busy god she
with no time to deign to descend
to respond to this mere god-made-man,
more likely, certain of my deity,
no mere agnostic she, Lady turns
away from me her personal god
never having conceived
hell among her many
much less virulent creations.

Without a Resurrection

Our black dog Lady
generally collapses to rest.
Trembling haunches
no longer ease her descent.
And likewise it would take muscles
dying within her, with her,
to enable our unabled black dog
to rise mightily once again
even one last time.



















Tale of the Tail

Did our black dog miss her tail?
She arrived without one.

I suppose it can truly be termed a “rescue.”
when you take in a dog without a tail.

What sort of tale lies behind her missing tail?
This poetic autopsy of my dog Lady’s tail:

What we know is that Lady
the offspring of a bizaare coupling

big black boisterous male lab and
coy little curly blonde cocker spaniel bitch

began in Clearlake where she
emerged confused on the Fourth of July.

Her psychic nine month gestation
prior to her finding her way to us

began with the pup picked from a box
before the Safeway store in Clearlake.

With such odd breeding, this puppy
named Cheyenne like something wild,

like some Nevada desert whore
with a prairie personality,

proved to be at battle within herself,
skittish as the worst-bred cocker,

convivial as a back-slapping lab,
this two-in-one toddler tugged-at-war within herself.

Scared love given
She must have been beaten

We see it when she cowers
We know of her former mistress

Mistress Oblivious who told us,
“Cheyenne (Oh how that name grates)

“Cheyenne was so good!
She used to pull my wheelchair.”

(something like the Grinch’s
scrawny little mutt without the antlers)

We know she rode long distances
over the mountain in a truck.

We know for show they later
bought two Maltese pups

that bit my black dog’s drooping ears
whenever she’d attempt to eat.

Then, like Cinderella, she was left
outside always alone

while her wicked little stepsisters
ate and played within –

--those tiny bitches! –
and then the tail was taken

by an overzealous vet
who tried to do a cocker bob

but effected a fully final amputation;
how embarassing when other dogs would

check her out, not to mention the phantom
pain she felt for her missing extremity.

The fortuitous fortune that set her free –
-- selfish folly—“too much trouble”

She found her way to us
through a fateful friend

She was wearing a black bow with
big white polka dots

We loved her instantly
She was fully a “Lady”

home from the camps
laden with baggage.

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