Fires burning north of everglades city

We had just gotten done going out to a place called Legends Food and Spirits, and had a few drinks with the parents and some friends of theirs who also snowbird. Though my dad is a teetotaler, my stepmother, my sweetie, and myself each had a few drinks. The musical entertainment was a group called "Ebony & Ivory", perhaps named after the Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney song. The group pretty much sings along to pre-recorded music with the vocals stripped out. Lots of old hits. Anyway, it was a bit odd to hear more than one person in this bar say "two ebony, one ivory" and not know exactly how to deconstruct or respond, since it was a name chosen by the band, and the color of their skin did indeed seem to relate to the band name, and the original song was all about Paul and Stevie getting along like keys on the keyboard and how we need both. Still, the "two ebony, one ivory" comment stuck with me incongruously.

During the course of the evening, I also had the idea that wouldn't major league sports be a tad cooler if each player had a charity component written into their contract? E.g.- for a 7 million dollar contract, 3 million could go toward habitat for humanity, or something.

And of course, everything I write in my blog is meant to go out as notes to my nieces and nephews, both the literal and figurative kind.

lyrics: That Steve/Paul song.

chant/prayer/mantra: The weather's just great here.


pax hominibus,
agape to all,
joel

NFl contracts to include charity components. 2 ebony 1 ivory karaoke, anthro. Drunk dialin th blog. Naples, FL. Note to th nieces 'n nephews.

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This one I've always called Grievous Diffidence, for lack of a better title. One friend asked me in email after one of my art postings to add a little of my thoughts regarding the pieces. I guess I'll start with this one.

This was one of the first pieces of art that I ever did outside of art class. I only took drawing 1 and 2 -- don't try and tell me how much it shows because I won't listen. :)

When I did it, I was just compelled to do it. To me, it represented the already weary traveler who sees a tunnel that needs to be passed through, knowing (or believing) full well what will be on the other side. The diffidence is the 'not wanting to go through with it' part of the piece. Our little subject in the painting isn't exactly grinning. Now that I know a bit more of the world, and have seen the other side of the tunnel (to be shown in the Point of Entry series), I'm not sure if there are words to describe the ambivalence I feel related to the juxtaposition of the beautiful visions emblazoned in my mind, and the ugly in the world that can't be ignored. Anyway.... there's the art.


lyrics:
I live like this 'cause I like it
And seen too much to pretend
You can't ignore the beauty in the things that you love
Like you can't stand the hatred and the lies
Have you always hunted with your hands?
Can you show me what you've done?
Have you always hunted with your hands?
If you catch it, can you kill it?
from Steelworker, by Big Black

colors: transparent.

mood: diffident? but much more knowledgeable about why.

chant/prayer/mantra: uh oh, i'm in trouble. i'm up too late and need to get up really early tomorrow morning.


pax hominibus,
agape to all,
joel

Labels: art, Christianity

.
We were visiting relatives. We saw this along the side of the two-lane highway. We had to pull over to the side of the road and take a picture.

lyrics: "I'm calling on citizens from all over the world. This is Captain America calling. I helped you out when you were down on your knees. Won't you catch me now I'm falling?"

chant/prayer/mantra: That all things could have a beauty like this bicycle.







pax hominibus,
agape to all,
joel

Labels: art, music, USA

here's one that i generated quite some time ago that i really like.


lyrics: what's going on? - marvin gaye

mood: exasperated. had a bad day waiting in line at best buy store #499, then picking up our "fixed" laptop, only to have to drive back and wait in line to give it to them, after they put it back together with a missing switch, so that we can't access the internet with it. in other words, they fixed the problem and created a new one. and we will have to go without our laptop for two more weeks. :(

when i asked the geeksquad guy behind the counter if we could get an extension on the warranty or credit of some type for this total mess up on their part, i could tell he was doing his best to NOT offer anything of value to replace our lost use of the laptop and my lost saturday. what he did offer was that they would ship the laptop back out for re-repairing using overnight delivery, so that the people who made the mistake would get the laptop on monday. needless to say, we will still not ever be buying anything from best buy again, and i will heartily recommend to any readers or friends that they do likewise.


pax hominibus,
agape to all,
joel

Labels: art, computers, fractal art, indifferent corporations

Apparently, the Green Bay Packers are still in it?

lyrics: "Are you ready for some football?" - Some football television theme attention grabber.

colors: green and yellow.

mood: sleepy.

chant/prayer/mantra: conflict makes the world go around, at least for a little while longer.


pax hominibus,
agape to all,
joel

I got an email from a friend, asking me to verify him as a friend at a new social networking site, tagged.com. I replied positively, trusted them since they seem to have a genuine website with a real DNS (I even checked snopes.com), and then within a minute, they'd sent out invitations to their site to EVERYONE in my email contacts list. If I'd gotten it from somebody I barely knew, it'd have been a tip off.

This blogger's story and this blogger's story tell my story almost to a T.

If you got an email from me, I am SO sorry. I didn't authorize them to send out invitation emails to ANYONE, and they mined my address book. I've done this with linked-in and google-associated sites, and not had a problem.

Sigh. Another social exploit, and a different version of phishing. I feel like such a sucker.


pax hominibus,
agape to all (even the people at tagged.com, but not until after that bullsh1t scam they pull goes away),
joel

Hi Friends-

This is what I almost sent out to the entire listserv at my seminary, but I decided not to send it out as-is, because I realize that I can organize it better, and if it takes 80 people 5 minutes to read through it, that's over 6 hours I've wasted because I wasn't concise enough.

You, however, are here of your own volition, and do not have this staring at you in your inbox. To read my raw thoughts, read on:

I've been watching this thread now for almost a month, and ruminating on how I can answer. And I've wondered how many other folks are in a similar boat, figuring out what to say.

I've thought how being a white ally means re-prioritizing and setting aside (what I perceive to be) my own baggage, and helping people of color with (what is perceived to be) their baggage. And it means recognizing that the latter baggage (putting your voice, hands, heart and mind on the line to work for equity and understanding) is only carried by people of color because it has to be picked up by somebody, and not enough people born into this society's white privilege are picking up enough of the load.

Being a white ally to me means repeating/affirming the questions: What does being a white ally in the work of racial justice mean to you? What have you done to prepare yourself and sustain yourself in this work? How is your praxis coming along?

To me, being a white ally also means acknowledging that the original question wasn't likely asked only for academic reasons, but because it REALLY matters in real life. Being a white ally means saying and meaning, "I'm here for you," and will listen and share with people of color and white allies the best I know how. And that I'm going to keep learning, acknowledging that while I/we may know more than 95% of white folks about what it means to be a person of color in a society that offers privileges to whites -- even though that may be the case, I/we know less than 100% of people of color, never having lived even one day as a person of color, other than trying to imagine.

Being a white ally means doing well in school and learning how to use my voice, hands, and heart effectively. Sometimes it just means showing up with support for a community's issues, sending a message to the people in a community that they have white allies, and also a message to white people who don't know that this is an issue that matters to all of us and some of us are willing to stand up and/or march for it.

Being a white ally means recognizing that we're all living in a state of disgrace as long as a system remains that supports inequality, it means feeling the shame of that, pulling my chin back up and joining in to make justice happen. It means recognizing that racial injustice is tied to other injustices. It means never being able to watch a movie without wondering about the racial make-up across the cast.

Being a white ally means being ready to affirm one another when the opportunity arises. It means being ready to arrest one another when the opportunity arises. It means that "being ready" is not a binary, its a skill to be practiced. It means recognizing that I'm still just pretty ready, and not as strong an ally as I'd like to be.

Being a white ally means that my answer isn't going to be the most brilliant in this thread, and that's OK. It means checking my ego at the door and not having to be perfect before I throw my voice in. Checking the ego really means that this answer isn't about me or any of us, trying to make oneself look good with the right answers. It also means finding a balance between working diligently and being gentle on myself and resting when I need it. And it means not sending this out to an entire listserv, because its a long unorganized bunch of text.

lyrics: "We're the Wickerson Brothers! Boil that dust speck, boil that dust speck! Boil, boil, boil!" -From Horton Hears a Who (the original animated version was one of my favorites growing up, and I thought about it while thinking about what I'd add as my barbaric yop to this thread).

colors: oh shoot, i forgot. i had a really good color combination picked out earlier today. oh well, you fill this in yrself i guess...

mood: okay. a little harried, gotta prepare for class tomorrow morning.

chant/prayer/mantra: all in all is all we are.


pax hominibus,
agape to all,
joel

Some friends were dog-sitting for us while we were out over the Xmas holiday.

They took this picture. Does our dog know how to be cute or what?



pax hominibus,
agape to all,
joel

Labels: pet pictures

A piece which only recently discovered the titled At One with Akhenaten:


lyrics: see previous

colors: gray with rainbows

mood: still amazed. (i'm happy to be learning to sing amazing grace (my grandfather's favorite) and accompany on guitar)


pax hominibus,
agape to all,
joel

Labels: art

Tuning: D#G#C#F#A#D# (mnemonic: David Geffen Company, Free and Demonstrative), or D#A#F#D#A#D#, or Standard Tuning.

Played: With the spirit of Revolve, by The Melvins (off Stoner Witch, not Electro-Retard.

Intro: [Growing Chant: "Emergency!...." x24, with pulsing single note melody of first string at the ninth fret]

Chorus: [guitar chords (string 6 to string 1, in any of the above tunings):
line 1: 999899, 777677, 444344; "world wake up today!"
line 2: 999899, 777677, 444344; "if you don't we'll be falling in a liminal place)." (bkgd vocals: "that's hell.")
line 3: 777677, 555455, 222122; "world wake up today!"
line 3: 777677, slide into 999899, 777677, 444344; "world wake up today!"

Verse One: [reminder of ever-present threat of nuclear annihilation, and 40-odd other ways we could do ourselves into extinction]

Chorus::
line 1: 999899, 777677, 444344; "world wake up today!"
line 2: 999899, 777677, 444344; "if you don't we'll be blowing into outer space!"
line 3: 777677, 555455, 222122; "world wake up today!"
line 3: 777677, slide into 999899, 777677, 444344; "world wake up today!"

Verse Two: [religious ideologues at each other's throats and media lies, adamant beliefs in the accuracy of the bible, qur'an, book of urantia, texe marrs, blah, blah, blah]

Chorus::
line 1: 999899, 777677, 444344; "world wake up today!"
line 2: 999899, 777677, 444344; "if you don't we may never see divinity's grace!"
line 3: 777677, 555455, 222122; "world wake up today!"
line 3: 777677, slide into 999899, 777677, 444344; "world wake up today!"

Verse Three: [spirit of christ returned after holy spirit got over the whole being xified thing and awoke enstrengthened]

Chorus::
line 1: 779997, 668886, 446664, 224442; "world wake up today!"
line 2: 779997, 668886, 446664, 668886, 446664, 224442, 0022200, 224442; "when you do, blah, blah, nice and cheery, sunshiney face!
line 3: 779997, 668886, 779997; "world wake up today!"
line 3: 779997, 668886, 779997; "world wake up today!"

Fade out:
"A voice cries out through the din."
"And all the peoples awake, all the people will know one another..."
"And all the peoples awake, all the people will love one another..."
"And all the peoples awake, all the people will trust one another..."
"And all the peoples awake, all the people will be with each other..."

"And all the peoples will know one another..."
"And all the peoples will know one another..."

lyrics: See above.

colors: Red, Creamy Off-white, Brown, Yellow, Light-Brown, Blue.

mood: excited, bewildered.

chant/prayer/mantra: l0ve and wAke up!

link: Ron Paul straight talking about the issues.


pax hominibus,
agape to all,
joel

Labels: guitar, melvins, music, politics, war and peace

I realize quite some time ago, I said I would periodically post some of the art that I've drawn. And I've been slack about that.

I just came across some pieces, so here's another, called Angel with Rose and GSW.





mood: Nervous. I interviewed for a chaplaincy position yesterday and the interview was kinda so-so. My chest was bothering me and the chairs were made for people shorter than I, so I sat at the front of the chair and felt like that alone threw me, plus the interviewers used the "silent treatment" on me, and I was a little rusty on giving/getting interviews, so kinda filled the awkward silence by blathering a bit. Oh well, I hope I get it anyway. Nice folks, but I ssure could've given them a better interview.


chant/prayer/mantra: for the angels.


pax hominibus,
agape to all,
joel

Labels: art

It didn't get all that much news coverage, but there was a police riot in New Orleans because the city council is looking to demolish housing out from under people who have been trying to live there. Here's the story.

How does this affect you and I? Well... These citizens of the United States have been abused by their government (and therefore you and I who allow such governance to continue) in such an ugly way. Many people lost their homes when Hurricane Katrina struck in August 2005, and were offered little to no assistance by any levels of government. In fact, the government has practiced a pattern of working against them, so now there are MANY former residents of New Orleans left homeless in other towns, and many who are trying to get the homes that they rightfully own in New Orleans, but are being fought by the government, who serve the interests of corporate developers and those who wish to gentrify. WHAT IS THEIR METHOD OF RECOURSE? Apparently, nothing short of a riot, because they are not being listened to. Tearing down this low-income housing is only going to increase the number of homeless people. I have talked to some of them in Oakland.

They are being systematically denied access to the basic necessities of life, when housing, food, and clothing CAN be made available without much difficulty (other than proving one could make a PROFIT by doing so). To me, this SCREAMS of class warfare, and is proof-positive evidence that endemic institutionalized racism is thriving in America today. Were it me who was abused like this, without voice in my city hall, without access to my elected representatives, I would be hard-pressed not to want to resort to just about anything, including violence, to be heard. Unfortunately, committing said violence can get one tossed in jail or prison.

Our penitentiaries are already overcrowded with poor people who weren't able to get up to the the bottom rung of the ladder. Our penitentiaries are already overcrowded with young black men who got busted for possessing some amount of marijuana, in our nation's War on Drugs, which is actually a class war, and a war of ideologies. Arresting people in the United States and locking them up is the best method of social control, rather than the more overt military and paramilitary methods our government uses to oppress people in other countries.

How can this be a good thing? It's not. America, when will your people have the freedom you claim they have? Ah, but I digress.

What needs to happen is for people to start talking, and shouting, in public places, demanding to be heard. Start conversations at the bus stop. Make your voices heard in churches. The poor people left to the streets (AND those who care about them) need to get vocal. If your ministers have not been addressing these human-rights issues, interrupt your church service, so people know that it's NOT business-as-usual here in America. God would want you talking.

America (the USA) is not going to get better UNLESS we the people make it better. Don't expect your elite leaders in the white house, the senate, and the supreme court to do it. They've had an opportunity to do so, and at best, they pay it lip service. At worst, they baldly perform acts of injustice and find ways to frame them as if they're just.

You judge a culture by how it treats its poor! The culture is made up of the people, not of the elite in government and in the media. The media may try to portray it a certain way, but that's only because they have the megaphone.

Which brings me to another very important point: What happens when the media all (under)reports something in one way, but the people begin to understand that the truth is something else? Because we in America do not have any method in the mass media* to be critical of the news as (un/under)reported, the raw power of the TV feed creates its own reality that cannot by publicly contested! This is what the Bush Administration folks are talking about when they deride people for being in "the reality-based community." With the power to speak comes the power to shape people's understanding of what is happening, what has been happening, and what can happen. Get your churches talking.

lyrics: "I feel it in my fingers, I feel it in my toes..." - Love Actually

colors: Black and White and Read all over.

mood: Tired of being mad at America. Tired of being part of the problem. Ready to be part of the solution.

chant/prayer/mantra: Let the people hear the people, and may restorative justice rule the day!


pax hominibus,
agape to all,
joel

*The blogosphere and the indymedia.org's on the Internet hardly count, because they don't hold a candle to CNN, MSNBC, etc, and because bandwidth costs money in a way that the UHF/VHF spectrum handed out by the FCC to the major media companies does not.

Labels: homelessness, media, oppression, theology

If u lived here, u'd b home by now! (IOW, earth is yr heavn. EOM)

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addendum from home: i had this revelation today after leaving the library, when my coworker who lives only a few blocks away was almost home already and i had to spend another 30 minutes to get home. i think the quote above does a fairly concise job of explaining the basics of my understanding of what jesus was trying to say about "the kingdom of heaven" being right here. and its why i get so upset with christians (and Muslims and people in other religions i suppose) who focus on and anticipate the afterlife to enough of a degree that they disregard their lives, and the condition of this world.

Labels: Christianity, heaven on earth, Islam, theology