Where’s The Outcry

March 24, 2010

When was the last time any of us picked up the good book of Amos, Isaiah or Jeremiah for a little challenging reading?

Book reading, a dying art in many sectors, if still a part of our regular routine, is more likely romance novels, spy stories, maybe a few historical biographies thrown in, but most often entertaining books that capture our time and energy, and not ancient Old Testament tomes by a bunch of old guy prophets.

I like looking at picture books; I did as a kid, still do today. I am particularly attracted to the work of photographers working outdoors like Art Wolfe, and especially the work of a Brazilian photojournalist by the name of Salgado. I believe he is the finest and most important photographer living today. His work reveals the human story like no other artist. I first came across his haunting imagery of the gold mine workers carrying sacks of mud up make-shift ladders in a gallery in Los Angeles fifteen years ago. No other photographic essay was as powerful for me, with the exception of Eugene Smith’s poignant study of the mercury poisoning of the people of Minimata Japan. The camera has a way of isolating a segment of the unfolding drama of the human family and firmly etching into our psyche. Whether the images are of the starving families in the Sahel of Ethiopia, or of the displaced millions in earthquake Ravaged Haiti or Chili, no one can sit back and say they do not care. Or…of the floating icebergs and melting glaciers, or disappearing islands and habitat destruction – all well documented with Nikons, Canons, Leica cameras. Salgado’s one image of Amazonian fisherman, to me the most significant photograph taken this century, speaks of the ultimate disappearance of the human family as we know it; unless we focus our energies on re-working how we live on this planet home of ours the Yanomomi of the Amazon and other indigenous tribes will be gone – they are but the human canary on our fragile island home.

By now you are probably wondering where I am going with all this. I started off with a question about 3 prophets from the Old Testament. They were outspoken critics of the status quo – actually they expressed outrage at the lack of justice and the eventual erosion of community life because of greed, avarice, and being blind to the needs of the people by the ruling elite. Prophets of old were not ‘mere gazers’ and they did not use crystal balls, tea leaves, tarot cards or some other device to predict the future – no, the future warnings given to humanity were as a result of keen observance described by myself as an insight into the obvious. Metaphorically you might say they were essentially mirror bearers – yes they held a mirror to the faces of the people and asked: What the heck are you doing? In the vernacular, something like Jay Leno inquiring of the actor Hugh Grant whose dalliances on Hollywood Blvd could not be explained away by being at the wrong place at the wrong time – and then – Leno asks “What the heck were you thinking.”

This is the question we must put to ourselves as the collapse of creation accelerates – in part because of natural disasters (though that term is less and less real for me), and human made tragedies (the latter able to account for the majority of the suffering today and in the future.) What in the heck are we thinking today?

To often the church wants us to either pray our troubles down the drain or lift up heaven as the answer to the pain of the earth – neither particularly helpful. The business community thinks the same old paradigm has worked so why change. Politicians serving themselves well and maybe a few paying constituents, but serving the greater good seems to be a forgotten reason for getting into politics in the first place. So let’s borrow Amos’s mirror for awhile and the mirror of the camera of documentary photojournalists around the world and really look at what they show!

Put the mirror of Amos to our own face in the morning and let the skilled photographers give us the pictures of the earth at night, and what is happening will be revealed to us very quickly. We can stick our heads in the sand and deny our own complicity in the collapsing of creation, and many of us do – and we can say, as many have, the pictures are ‘photo-shopped’ and the scientific data has been distorted To deny either process is to continue living like two creatures – the ostrich and the lemming running off the cliff en masse. Neither behavior is befitting a human being who says they care about tomorrow and the children and creatures of the world.

Look in the mirror and look at a few pictures of earth and the lessons are there to be learned!

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Freedom Fight

March 19, 2010

My grandmother was quick to point out the older you get the faster time seems to pass. It seems like just yesterday, but it was Friday a week ago when I commented on the human beings propensity to favor entertainment over education. I went so far as to say we are entertaining ourselves towards extinction. An antidote can be reason and knowledge.

I try and read a paltry 60 minutes, or 1/24 of a day about something other than my usual reading about matters environmental. I focus there because the collapse of creation is the single most important issue I will face in my lifetime. That being said I also appreciate the magazine Economist which I find I am beginning to read almost cover to cover. Its portrait of news contemporaneous to the day is helpful and informative. I am also prone to grabbing one of the 3000 magazines from my collection. I like reading and reflecting upon the writings of the past.

Recently, while thumbing through the 1942 issue of THINK (I love the title) I came across this admonition written for the employees of the IBM Corporation. Tucked amidst a few pictures of patriotic sites in America was this:

“The reason freedom has suddenly become the constant pre-occupation of intelligent people throughout the world is that for the first time in history there is the danger that it may successfully be terminated.”

In my meanderings I have learned to accept the fact that I am a lightening rod for many, yet a universal comment from all sides of the political spectrum is that 2010 may be a turning point in our lives in America when it comes to our long held freedoms. I paraphrase:

“9/11 changed everything – we are no longer free to travel anywhere and when we do it is a complete hassle”

“Free discourse is increasingly scrutinized and free expression is constantly being reined in any venue”

“Censorship and the re-writing of established scientific principles is becoming accepted in many sectors’

“Branded as un-patriotic, the freedom to dissent is being taken from us, as is the right to free assembly”

What makes me proud to be an American is that diversity that makes our country great is a diversity that helps me grow as a human being. No culture, religion, ethnicity, or race has the answer for the blessings of this country come from the totality of experience. Our freedom to be who we are, yell if we might, challenge when appropriate, and salute when necessary is what makes me like this great nation.

Entertaining Ourselves to Extinction

March 12, 2010

I like to be entertained and a good laugh can melt the most hardened feelings or attitudes. Humor is an essential ingredient in a balanced life, and when I find myself taking myself or the issues too seriously there is always a member of the family to encourage me to ‘lighten up.’ Point well taken, and I recognize humor’s prominent role in a healthy life; that being said, we, the human family especially in developed nations, are on a dangerous path towards entertaining ourselves to extinction.

Perhaps providentially, though I am certain the creators of the two popular reality shows named ‘Survivor’ and ‘Lost’ had no idea that their shows were pointing the way towards the challenging years ahead. Already, we think of people surviving, or barely surviving in many parts of Africa, and now our awareness has grown of the plight of the Haitians. Islands in the Pacific watching water levels creep across their sand bar homes are starting to talk about survival. For many of us, our hearts are softened by the images we see on television, but the long term response to the trajectory we are on has been to increase access to that which entertains and amuses us; rather than to educate ourselves to enlightenment and understanding of the issues compromising the integrity of millions across the globe.

Technologic innovation, television programming, movies story lines and production, best selling authors, countless magazines, and even the presentation of the religious message have all been packaged to entertain. Watch the TV programming guide cycle through its offering and you are privileged to hours and hours of often mindless entertainment. Occasionally educational programming suspends my channel surfing and I watch a National Geographic Special on polar bears, or listen to Jeff Corwin lament about vanishing species, or admire cogent commentary on the health care plan; but more often than not I am forced to listen to sound bites and the entertainers posing as journalists. And our gadgets, my goodness, a phone has now become a directional GPS, a link to everyone we have ever known, and a window into the world of websites far and wide. We can attach our Game boy to the TV, play countless games on Wii and amuse ourselves forever with DVD’s CDs, Ipods, and countless other marvels of modern minds. I too like my music but a record player still works, and a phone is not different than 100 years ago in terms of end result; except for the fact that our telephone # on Cape Cod used to be 431 and now it is so long that I can not remember it. Yes, I can entertain myself all day long on my daughter’s I phone!

In addition, and this phenomenom is growing; I don’t know about you, but the internet and the game machines are addicting. I know addiction. I am addicted to searching for old magazines. Not a bad thing in itself, but the addiction side is very interesting to note. I can not seem to go more than a day or two without checking EBay to see what is new. Have I become a part of my own self fulfilling prophecy – am I entertaining myself to extinction?

A wise mentor once reminded me that certain behaviors can be addicting, rarely our relationships – the exact quote was: “Peter, work is addicting, marriage is not.” I now add, entertainment is addicting and often the couple seeing me for some advanced marital training or a marriage check up complain of the hours dedicated to entertainment, rather than partner participation in shared activities. Breakdown of family is high on the list of people reflecting on modern life, and when examined TV, or our entertainment gadgets are often a baby sitter. Cars now have TV’s in the back seats so our children can watch videos or movies, play games, and not have to interact with anyone for hours on end. Has the internet become a necessity, and is face book replacing face to face interaction with family and friends? I think we all know the answer and the acceleration of the extinction of playing outside and getting in touch with nature is already underway.

Are we entertaining ourselves too much? Is that even possible?

The facts: Who get the big salaries in our culture? Celebrity corporate executives, professional athletes, movie, TV, and radio personalities – NOTE: when a culture pays Howard Stern 500 million dollars to entertain us with inappropriate behavior, language, innuendo and salacious offerings on a 24/7 basis you know we have slid into the extinction track. Our young watch hours and hours of television, much of which is designed to sell more stuff to them via advertising that seems to increase in frequency and intensity every year; and why? - so the young can be entertained some more, rather than educated to the reality they will face.

Is entertaining ourselves to extinction simply another way of saying we are fiddling while Rome burns, or arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic? When I ask myself this question I am quick to discover I need to be very conscious of the allocation of my time. Wasting time is now bred into us. Once I, we, own this behavior it will lose its power over us. If not, we, you and I both, are contributing to the extinction of our own species. Amen!

Environmental Olympics

March 5, 2010

There is no such thing as an environmental Olympics, yet what is it going to take to get all the nations of the world to gather in one place to celebrate how unity out of diversity is possible when discussing our common interest in a healthy home?

The concluding ceremony of the Olympics in Vancouver, after the single greatest hockey game ever played, in the estimation of the experts, and this Connecticut Yankee who grew up skating on the North – South ponds in Short Hills, New Jersey, presented all the athletes marching together with smiles as wide as the Pacific on their faces. Now a blending of amateurs and professional athletes, the spirit of competition over, the final night could be a model for the world.

How about a competition on cleaning up a continent? What about teams working together to build a dam, construct a series of water works for irrigation, fashion school rooms out of locally obtained materials, develop sustainable gardens where easy access eliminates fossil fuel transportation of food? Instead of small pockets of Peace Corps type projects that make a difference, but are not of the scale and scope to shift the paradigm, why not Global Environmental Olympic events?

National resources, financial, educational, and certainly technological are poured into creating success on the bobsled track, or the Nordic combined so that our total medal count becomes a part of our national pride. I cheered when our 5 foot 7 inch ‘skipper’ of the sled won the Gold Medal. I applauded Bodi Miller for being the comeback kid and Shawn White for doing tricks on the snow board that no one even dreamed was possible as both took another Gold. I was proud of them, appreciative of our country devoting energy to their success, and wishful that we could all pour ourselves in to fixing the planet; beginning in the villages and cities where we all live.

Let’s start with a National Olympic Environmental program! Each state could compete for the Gold Silver and Bronze in a multitude of categories. How about solar installations? Victory Gardens? Alternative fueling Stations? Number of Electric Vehicles? Number of Vegetarians – each category could have local winners from the towns, then the over-all winner from the state, and then the national winner would get the Gold!

This is not idle chatter to amuse, but rather the outline of a blueprint that will be required sooner or later. We may not have ice in the same old places a hundred years from now. Our climate change under-way may dictate that certain countries can no longer host the Olympics because the snows at the ski resort did not return. If glaciers retreat, and snow packs shift locations, we may not be able to adjust or adapt fast enough; thus, the creation of a competitive and fun way to make a difference might be worth exploring. In the meantime – Hooray for all the athletes who participated. I wish I had been born a few years later so I could have tried the half-pipe with the double-triple mactwist, or whatever!

Lunch

February 26, 2010

Is there anything better in life than enjoying a meal with family or good friends? I enjoy ‘breaking bread’ with friends at noon, in part because I have a chance to work or walk off the indulgent calories, it is usually less costly than dinners, and we are more on top of our game midday than at night. I have taken to heart the idea that we should eat breakfast like a king, enjoy lunch like a knight, and refrain at dinner like a pauper.

I offer a caveat associated with lunching with me. The urgency of shifting our strategies as a human family has prompted my willingness to confront both my own behavior and that of my friends. A long time ago I recognized that a guiding principle that can transform lives is for one who cares to be able to confront. If I did not give a darn about the future of my grandchildren I would probably be playing gin rummy at the club; or indulging in some self absorbing ritual. I care about tomorrow for them, and thus I am risking confronting those systems that will prevent their having a healthy life today.

As warned by those who have experienced grandchildren before me, “they will change your life.” Yes indeed, for the last 10 years my inner angst has been about the future of 3 young children that call me Popeye; thus a constant evaluation of my attempt to make a difference in this world has become the primary focus of my life.

Here is where lunch comes in to play. I have now begun to ask our grandparent friends of their concern for tomorrow’s generations; and what, if anything we should all be doing? I intone poetically that bridge, endless travel, golf, and the pursuit of hobbies will not get the job done; though I must admit I like all of the above. Furthermore, adults do not need to be informed by another pretty sunset, magical fjord, African animal, mountain stream, or Cape Cod day – we’ve been there, done that and our touch with nature has informed us forever. But what about our grandkids having those same teachers?

I remember catching an 10 lb bluefish off of Monomoy Point, Cape Cod, only to return it to the sea explaining to my children that the fatty tissue of the larger blues contain pcb’s in quantities unsafe if consumed regularly. I caught these very tasty fish as a boy – now we only take the 4-7 ‘pounders’ and are careful to remove all the dark meat before eating. Yet, I want my grandkids to experience the pleasure of fishing for dinner.

Thus, in this context my lunch with good friend, and former children’s movie and television executive Bill Bauman resulted in an examination of his retirement plans; and mine as well. He is a bit younger, and looks it, and when he told me he had joined the Art Council of Cincinnati, I cared enough to confront. He has three grandchildren as well. Wrong answer - I thought to myself – he was joining the age-old paradigm for retiring executives - to serve on art, hospital, music, theater etc. boards is standard retirement practice.

Nothing wrong with this in principle and the arts need support, and Katy and I surround ourselves with art in our home, but the culturally accepted behavior is not enough; and in some cases it is almost like whittling on the front porch as the house burns to the ground.

It is clearer by the year that every able bodied voice must join the chorus, in one’s own unique way, to sustain the future. A good chorus, a well tuned orchestra consists of diversity of talents, voices, and instruments enabling harmony. Every person counts today. No one should be left behind as we build a full participation chorus echoing the cry – ‘this is not about us – we have already experienced the joy of creation; it is now our grandchildren’s turn.’

Call me for lunch – let’s talk.