This makes me giggle.  I found it on George Takei's Facebook page.  

If Sauron had the humility to approach someone and ask nicely for a moment of conversation  he wouldn't be Sauron.  Also, I'm old enough to remember the years when going to the airport meant almost certainly being approached by a Hari Krishna.   

some ideas from True Botanica on accessing the virtue of thought in the coming year:

http://tinyurl.com/afnddvq

Happy New Year!!!!

I was thrilled to get into my car yesterday and catch studio 360 broadcasting material on Duchamp, Nude Descending a Staircase and The Armory Show. My fascination with Duchamp seems to be inexhaustible so I'm always happy when he gets air time. I came home and turned on the radio in the kitchen. The show went on to cover quite a range of topics from the split between Jung and Freud to the public's reaction to The Rite of Spring. 
I listened while I washed dishes.  I can't wait for the TV Series. So glad the world didn't end.  This is heaven to me.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/cultureshock/beyond/listings.html 

This is a link to the PBS site listing air times for the TV Series the Studio 360 piece was covering.

http://pussyriot.amnestyusa.org/

It seems clear that the number of people stumbling upon this site has doubled since I first made mention of Pussy Riot.  This site had 600 hits last month.  The link above goes to a page of Amnesty International which shows a map of supporters on record.  Acknowledging that there is menace in the world for supporters of a group of young, smart women talking about integrity in the use of power is like smelling salts to the inertia of our inner battle picking mechanism.  Why is this important?  Why present a target on their behalf? 

I have to say I'm sort of a prude myself when it comes to naming private parts.  My father has been one of the few people who reads whatever I write just to be supportive and I know that the 'vulgarity' of the band's name, if you choose to interpret it as not referring to cats, will make him cringe.  When I was very young he referred to my nether regions, when it was absolutely necessary to refer to them, as my 'under carriage'.  I think I was in my 30's before I heard the term used to refer to the underside of a car, which is it's only dictionary meaning.  If the band called themselves the 'under carriage riot' or the 'defenseless female riot' they would probably not be in jail.  Defenselessness is part of the story.  From the point of view of a mind seeking to justify opportunistic exploitation of _______ (fill in the blank with something useful or tasty that does not have readily apparent protection) defenselessness is in itself guilt and an invitation.  That's what makes their work and their unjust imprisonment relevant to me personally.  

This is from one of my favorite artists.  She's five.  Innocence and defenselessness may not protect one from imprisonment or physical violence but that's not the same as powerlessness.

http://tinyurl.com/cnwee4x  <----- Link to order this t-shirt from Amnesty International.  I'll be giving one to my daughter.

12/26  I did give my daughter one of these t-shirts for Christmas.  She won't be able to wear it to school but she appreciates the campaign.

http://www.npr.org/2012/12/04/166519644/qatari-poet-sentenced-to-life-in-prison-for-writing

This piece was broadcast last night into my kitchen as I washed dishes.  I haven't heard Andrei Codrescu's voice for awhile. It unfailingly makes me grin a little.  I believe a good number of the people happening on this site are searching Pussy Riot.  Andrei mentions them here.  

This is also me in another format trying to open my mouth to speak two years ago:


http://open.salon.com/blog/annonyme/2010/10/05/hi_my_name_is

Heliotrope demonstrating the link between love and intelligence.

eloquent final statements from the artists of Pussy Riot   <------  LINK


I am moved and inspired by these young women's use of their minds and creative spirit to protest the abuse of the law and of the edifice of the church exclusively to carry out the will of Corporate interests.  Sounds very familiar.  

I just checked iTunes.  Their work can be purchased there.  

a sense of success

I've been working on adding this music for ummmm...... over an hour.  Originally I'd used Playlist but they have restricted their format so that music cannot be embedded on a blog any more.  This cool new company, and they really do seem to be pretty darned cool and professional, is PodSnack.  It took forever to find them but one can install a little jukebox with 5 songs for free!  They have other tools for building web content for which fees are charged. I predict they will do very well.  I would be checking into investing in them if investing was something I did.


The music selected here is from the cd my daughter created for our car.  We call it car music spring 2012.  I love her taste in music.  She didn't select the Cat Stevens.  That was me.  

This is sort of everywhere but I can't tell where it came from originally.  I like it.

The Christian Community

http://www.thechristiancommunity.org/features/essays-and-articles/working-with-the-angels/

The image above is from the 'features' tab at The Christian Community site.

This web page wanders on and on with many interesting links and leads for further study.  I found it a couple of weeks ago after thinking (and posting a little) about Whitsun/Pentecost and Rosemary Bergman who was the priest for the Christian Community in Chicago when I went there with my father in about 1972 or 73.  In the search that came up with this page I was hoping there would be a picture of the painting over the alter at the Christian Community in Chicago currently.  It's really three paintings making up one piece.  A modern triptych.  That truly glorious work isn't shown here, alas, but there are some photos of other questing art.

This particular article I will come back to again.  It's a page-turner.

looking for lyrics I found this interesting little site

http://allspirit.co.uk/nondualquotes7.html

http://allspirit.co.uk/love.html  a hummable little tune with an upbeat, consoling message.

some of the writers I'm very familiar with and even fond of, others I don't know or know I don't especially like.

http://allspirit.co.uk/names.html

This last link is to text for a poem by Thich Nhat Hanh which I heard years ago and think of frequently.

Tomorrow is Pentecost which seems to be the same as Whitsun.  Many years ago I visited my Dad in Chicago and wanted to go to church with him at the Christian Community there.  I particularly wanted to see the priest, Rosemary.  It turned out she was traveling to Detroit that weekend and I was disappointed.  My Dad offered to drive to Detroit so that I could see Rosemary and attend  Christian Community Service.  I remember Rosemary's sermon.  She described her bus ride from Chicago.  She'd seen trees being pruned of deadwood and she made a connection between that act of agricultural husbandry and the festival of Whitsun.  The life surges back through the plant and the portion that can't receive the life is brittle and easily falls off. The imagery has stayed with me for something like 35 years.  Rosemary was a remarkable priest.  I tried to tell her at some point how much her dignity and visible attention impressed me as a young girl.  I'm not she understood but I tried.  Thanks Rosemary.  Thanks Dad.

from the Chopra Center, a source of cheer for me