Category Archives: Commentary on the news

Art and Culture, Asia, Commentary on the news, Humanities, Politics

Ai Weiwei In Jail

April 5, 2011 Charles Leave a comment

Spring Waxing Bee Hiving Moon

In all the tsunami/earthquake, nuclear crisis, air strikes in Libya, brother coming, dog biting haze I missed this story about Ai Weiwei, a Chinese dissident artist whose marble chair is in our Wu Family Reception Hall. I’ve attached a summary from the Financial Times and a video interview with Dan Rather (see above). Especially in the Rather interview I can see the problem he poses for an autocratic regime. He gets the notion of freedom, of individuality, of free expression. That’s frightening stuff to autocrats.

As a man who admires Chinese civilization, its arts, its literature, its inventiveness, its long, long history, I know China and Chinese civilization has room for Ai Weiwei and his kind. Wandering Taoist sages, eccentrics all, the mountain poets, literati painters are just the ones who come to mind right now.

The more I read Chinese literature and history I do know that they inflect the dialectic rebel/government in a way not easily understood by Americans. That is, the rebel is bad and the government good. Or mostly, anyhow. This has to do in part with the notion of the mandate of heaven. As long as the government achieves order, the people are fed and happy, then the government reflects the will of heaven. But, if the people are starving, crime and violence becomes rampant–see the Warring States period and the end of the Han Dynasty as examples–the government has lost the mandate of heaven and must be replaced.

I have also added a TED video (above) about China, one that defines it as a civilization-state rather than nation-state and speculates on the impact of China’s rise. I think the idea is germane to this topic.

Enough. I’m thinking about how to impact this man’s detention in a positive way. If you have any ideas, let me know.

Fears grow for Ai Weiwei’s safety

By Jamil Anderlini in Beijing

Published: April 5 2011 15:22 | Last updated: April 5 2011 15:22

Fears for the safety of China’s most famous artist are growing amid international condemnation of his extralegal disappearance at the hands of the country’s increasingly repressive state security apparatus.

Family members of Ai Weiwei, whose “Sunflower Seeds” installation is currently on display in London’s Tate Modern gallery, said on Tuesday evening they still had no idea of his whereabouts after he was detained at Beijing airport on Sunday and led away by airport security.

Friends, family and associates have been warned not to speak to journalists and Mr Ai’s wife and eight employees were temporarily detained on Sunday after police raided his Beijing home and studio. Beijing police have refused to provide any information concerning his whereabouts.

A member of Mr Ai’s family said at least one of his associates remained in custody after being detained on Sunday but the others had been released.

Human rights groups and associates of Mr Ai say he is in grave danger of being tortured and is probably being deprived of medicines he needs to take regularly.

Aging, Commentary on the news, Family, Weather +Climate

A Jinn Out of the Bottle

April 1, 2011 Charles Leave a comment

Spring Waning Bloodroot Moon

Round Lake still has ice, April 1st. Ice out is way late this year.

Put Kate on the Northstar this morning, headed for MSP, terminal 2, for her Southwest flight to Denver and granddaughter Ruth’s 5th birthday. Kate gets a real kick out of visiting the grandkids, a sort of grandma thing. It’s great to see. Being retired makes all this much easier for her.

Fukushima nuclear disaster appears to grow worse though sorting out the news reports is difficult. The utility company appears less than forthcoming with data and the Japanese government has been unusually slow, too. As Bill Schmidt said at Sheepshead, the tsunami and the earthquake have created much greater human tragedy so far. Over 10,000 dead found and probably and equal number sucked out to sea never to be found.

Those folks need our attention and our care, as do humans experiencing disasters natural or manmade anywhere.

And yet, the media focuses on the nuclear story. This is a genie that we know, one loosed from its billions of years old bottle, a source of energy confined to the bright heart of stars until the last century. We say we control it, but like fire, if it gets away from us, its elemental nature can overwhelm our defenses, poison our world. The record is mostly good, consider all those reactors functioning all these years without an accident, but three, three acknowledged accidents, roils the psyche. What have we done? Could such an unusual confluence of events happen here or over there, or over there?

This is a story whose end is not yet written, one whose significance will become clear later, perhaps years, maybe even centuries from now.

Commentary on Religion, Commentary on the news, Faith and Spirituality, Great Work, Humanities, Politics

Walking Toward the Bomb

March 31, 2011 Charles 1 Comment

Spring Waning Bloodroot Moon

Last night, in conversation with Bill Schmidt, cybermage and nuclear engineer, the Sheepshead group turned to Fukushima. Bill built an identical plant on the west side of Honshu, across the sea of Japan from Korea. That lead the conversation to Hiroshima and Dick Rice’s story of a Jesuit who picked up a medical bag and walked into ground zero after the blast to help the injured. Since then, Dick said, all Jesuits have “walked toward the bomb.” May all of us do the same.

p.s. Bill sent me a note about Father Arrupe, S.J.– He was the man referred to above and a former Superior General of the Jesuit order.

(Visitors walk toward the Atomic Bomb Dome, at the Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima, western Japan, Wednesday, Aug. 4, 2010. Hiroshima will mark the 65th anniversary of the world’s first atomic bomb attack on Aug. 6. (AP Photo/Shuji Kajiyama))

Not joining protests of the policies that will soon affect poor Minnesotans disproportionately, gives me a sense of not walking toward the bomb, sitting on the sidelines as our state turns its back on those most vulnerable. Four years ago I chose to throw my political effort behind the Great Work, moving humanity to a benign relationship with the earth. I’ve done this because the Great Work, to me, weighs in on the side of our species as a species, conserving a safe place for us in a cold universe. This is a very long range perspective, the seventh generation view of the Iroquois, and it comes with some pain. I’m glad others are there to carry the fight to the capitol about health care and human services cuts.

Gotta get ready for the Institute.

Commentary on the news, Faith and Spirituality, Great Work, Politics, US History

Stay In It

March 24, 2011 Charles Leave a comment

Spring Waning Bloodroot Moon

As winter loosens its grip on our state, the legislature begins to tighten theirs. In the last half of the first session of the 2011-2012 legislature, budget bills dominate the news. From my perspective as both a liberal and an environmentalist, the news is grim. Environmental permitting, a public process designed to tease out and prevent negative impacts, has been weakened. A bridge over the St. Croix, negotiated to a smaller, less intrusive version, has suddenly come back to life, bigger and more expensive than ever. Up until the Japanese disaster, the nuclear moratorium in the state seemed headed for repeal. Last night, in what must be one of the more peculiar–not to mention outrageous actions–an amendment passed attaching to an omnibus environmental budget bill a provision to fund state parks by cutting down black walnut trees in two of them, White River and Frontenac. Let’s see, cutting down trees to save the state parks. Like selling the children to support the family or auctioning off the planes to save the airlines.

Since the halcyon days of the 60’s, it’s been tough for those of us with liberal to radical political sympathies. Victories have been few and defeats numerous. It is possible to despair, to wonder if a sense of communal responsibility will ever again influence policy; but, it is in precisely these circumstances where those of us with a historical perspective and active engagement must not allow despair to over run our convictions. To shuck off politics now is to insure that the field is left to those whose politics create the need for us.

No, as the conservative hand closes around the gavel in state after state and in Congress as well, those of us in the opposition must be more vigorous, more active, more vocal.

Aging, Art and Culture, Asia, Commentary on the news, Great Work, Weather +Climate

Body Flow

March 17, 2011 Charles Leave a comment

Imbolc Waxing Bloodroot Moon

Some of our front yard is visible! This is the first time in over 125 days, maybe more. A friendly patch of brown lawn and the base of a spruce, an amur maple and a pine tree. The bloodroot cannot be far behind.

Two tours today. A Japan tour that reminded me why I love the Asian art so much. Great kids. I prejudged them as potentially inattentive, non-talkers. Boy was I wrong. We barely got past the teahouse. A second, Titian tour, had about 30 folks. Again an engaged and interested group. The Titian exhibit has been a pleasure to tour, too. I love the Renaissance anyhow and these are great images. Love that Bassano and the Lotto, too.

Kate and I will hit our first Body Flow class tonight. I don’t know what to expect. It’s a combination of T’ai Ch’i, yoga and pilates. To music. When I found out it was set to music, I almost decided not to go. I’ve never done group exercise and doing it to current dance songs doesn’t seem to add much. But, we’ll see.

Japan. Hard to know what to say. As the big history guy I’ve been listening to off and on over the last couple of months keeps saying, our developed civilizations are so complex that they are very fragile. Japan is teaching that lesson in a too vivid, too painful way.

Aging, Commentary on the news, Faith and Spirituality, Great Work, Humanities, Minnesota, Politics

They’re just being Republicans

March 16, 2011 Charles Leave a comment

Imbolc Waxing Bloodroot Moon

Latin. Subjunctives, indirect questions, tense sequences. Done in a bit of a fog, almost like school. The verb conjugations still have not taken full root in my mind, though at this point I have had exposure to all of them, for all four tenses. I’ve had exposure likewise to five noun declensions, comparatives, superlatives, pronouns, interrogatives, adverbs, adjectives, ablative uses, dative uses, participles and participial clauses, and subordinate clauses of several types with more to come. I’m almost three-fourths through Wheelock and have now translated 75 verses of Ovid’s Metamorphosis.

As unintended outcome, I have found myself metamorphosed, changed. Just how, right now, is not all clear, but it has something to do with facing a challenge, a language, and coming to grips with it, incorporating it into myself. Just why I waited until I was 63, I don’t know; fear, yes, time, yes, but the largest barrier was lack of purpose. When I began to want to know what was behind the translator’s veil, and, in particular, when I wanted to know what was behind the translations of Ovid’s master work, the purpose emerged and a teacher appeared. There is no time when we stop growing, learning.

Later in the day I prepped for and ran the Legislative Committee for the Sierra Club’s weekly meeting. This political season will not be kind to our lakes and rivers, our forests and wildlife, our prairies. The burden will be laid at the foot of the Republicans, but really, they’re just being Republicans, giving political expression to the wills of those who support them. No, the burden lies squarely at the feet of those of us who want to see our forests, rivers, moose, wolf, prairies and lakes healthy and whole now and into the future. We have not fought with the same passion today as the Tea Party folk or the Christian Right or the Libertarians.

Over the retreat at Blue Cloud I read two novels focused on the political life of Cicero. At the end of a brutal period for his political perspective he said, “All regimes come to an end.”

I agree.

Aging, Asia, Cinema and Television, Commentary on the news, Great Work, Memories, US History, World History

Elemental

March 13, 2011 Charles Leave a comment

Imbolc Waxing Bloodroot Moon

August 6th. The atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Rendering the friendly atom a deadly enemy. Since that time, mutations became a favorite meme of scary movie in the 50’s and early 60’s. Since that time movies like On the Beach, Fail Safe, Doctor Strange Love, the China Syndrome have dealt with one scenario or another based on the catastrophe inherent in nuclear fission and nuclear fusion, even in peacetime uses. Since that time Chernobyl and Three Mile Island became synonyms for danger, making even the nuclear generation of electricity scary. The cold war and the DEW line and the Strategic Air Command, missiles in silos and on submarines heightened our awareness by putting a continuing military face on the nuclear threat.

The grim possibility highlighted by the doomsday clock since 1947, the minutes to midnight decided by the board of directors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists at the University of Chicago. (Ironic like the photograph below because the first splitting of the atom occurred below Alonzo Stagg Stadium on the University of Chicago campus. Some jinn just won’t go back.)

Those of us born after the end of WWII have lived ever since with the threat of nuclear annihilation. That threat continues to this day. The most chilling photograph out of 8.9 earthquake and tsunami ravaged Japan was not the dramatic footage of the flood waters carrying burning buildings inland or the ships carried ashore or the fearful Japanese racing away from destruction, no, it was this one. Thick with irony, unintentional in its resonance with over 65 years of military, cinematic and domestic horror, this scene, a scientific response to a scientific disaster–not the natural one–chilled me the first time I saw it. It still does.

Commentary on the news, Health, Minnesota, Politics

The Moral Test of Government

January 25, 2011 Charles Leave a comment

Winter Waning Moon of the Cold Month

“It was once said that the moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped.” It is still said.
Hubert H. Humphrey

Ouch. Latin infinitives and indirect statements. I’m on Chapter 25 (of 42) of Wheelock now and the grammar and vocabulary isn’t getting easier, it’s getting harder. Suppose this should not be a surprise, but I kinda hoped… My mind has pressed out against my skull, then bounced back, a coup contracoup injury occasioned by working too damn hard. Ah, ok. I love it. Still, in spite of the strib this morning, this love does hurt. At least now.

The legislative grist mill has begun to grind and this time the sacks will be filled with coal dust as lives, especially lives of the most vulnerable, suffer hit after hit from the budget cutters. There was an NCIS Los Angeles (see, Latin and pop culture within two sentences of each other.) recently that I thought was corny, about a military number cruncher who wanted to make the numbers names. The plot was corny, but the point was not. Just as military numbers mean real people dead or maimed, so do the medicaid, general assistance, aid to the disabled and the elderly numbers mean real lives damaged, often beyond repair, because most of these folks are on the edge all the time. It takes the smallest thing to set them on the downward spiral.

Commentary on Religion, Commentary on the news, Politics

Free Speech and Fast Saints

January 19, 2011 Charles Leave a comment

Winter Waxing Moon of the Cold Month

Cameras and inks and papers, oh, my! Then, new glasses and seven bags of groceries. We’ve been gone and the larder was bare of important items like milk, turkey slices for the dogs, veggies and fruit, bread and bagels. Now it’s not bare.

JPII is on a fast-track for sainthood. Just like today. Fast foods and fast saints. Just can’t wait, can we?

JPII’s successor, the German Shepherd, has taken on major moral issues recently, like, the right name for your kid. No weird ones. He’s also cranked up the heat, already at record highs set by JPII, on theologians teaching at Catholic schools, gays at mass and those pesky liberation theologians. Whoever said the divine right of kings is dead? It lives on in its last bastion, Vatican City. (pic. Yikes!)

The whole Gifford/Tucson shooting controversy. We have rule of law and one of those rules is no prior restraint. This means that we cannot stop someone from committing a crime until they’ve actually committed it. This gives us big trouble with at least two categories of persons: pedophiles and psychotics, especially paranoid psychotics. We know the probability of their offending is high, but until they act out there’s nothing we can do. Anyone who has dealt with the seriously mentally ill knows the difficult line walked in their care and treatment, a line between limiting freedoms and giving the individual a realistic chance at living in community.

Does this mean that the gaseous explosions protected as free speech had no affect on Loughner? I doubt it. Some peoples minds are more porous than others, more open to outside influence. It’s not hard to imagine a scenario in which a paranoid psychotic decides that Rush Limbaugh actually knows what he’s talking about, that Sarah Palin is a respectable political figure. O.K. Maybe only a paranoid psychotic would think either of those things, but it only confirms my point. His actions did not exist in a vacuum. Neither did lynchings in the rural south nor do gay hate crimes in many (most?) parts of our country.

Can we or should we stop Limbaugh, George Beck, Sarah Palin, the tea party gas bags from using inflammatory rhetoric? Regrettably, no. Part of the idea of free speech is that discerning citizens will tell the demagogue from the statesman, the propagandist from a public servant. It does appear that discernment may well be at an all time low in the current US, but it’s not the first time. Those of us with other views must speak, too. And act.

Aging, Art and Culture, Commentary on the news, Memories, Politics, Retirement, Travel, US History

MLK

January 17, 2011 Charles Leave a comment

Winter Waxing Moon of the Cold Month

“Never regret. If it’s good, it’s wonderful. If it’s bad, it’s experience.” – Eleanor Hibbert

Ms. Hibbert, whoever she is, has it right; just the way life is. And, by the way, I’ve had my share of experience.

Slept in my own bed last night. Ahh.

Today is the tour of the Target Corporation’s art collection with lunch at Masa before the tour. This one has been a bit problematic, partly because it came in when four other events also got organized. However, the day has come at last.

Today will be the first day at home, a regular work day, when Kate does not go into the Allina Medical Clinic Coon Rapids. She stayed up last night until 2:oo a.m. playing a word game on her Kindle. Freedom. A beautiful thing. This is also the week of her party, Coming of Age: The Art of Retirement. On Thursday, January 20th, from 5-9 p.m. we will celebrate Kate and her medical career, but, with more inflection, Kate and the next years of her life. If you read this, you’re invited to join us at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. No gifts, just you and yours.

It’s also Martin Luther King day today. My age cohort grew up during Dr. King’s rise to national prominence as the civil rights era took hold of the nation’s psyche. The civil rights movement represents the US at its best and its worst. Over the long haul since King’s leadership in 1955 the Montgomery Bus Boycott ignited by Rosa Parks to today cultural attitudes and practices have changed dramatically when it comes to people of color. One way to note this is to consider the relative reputations of Dr. King and two of his chief opponents: Lester Maddox and George Wallace.

Have we come all the way to a nation in which a person is judged “not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character?” No. Are matters demonstrably better? Yes. Can we stop working on the pernicious effects of prejudice and racism? Of course not. Can we celebrate a better day? Yes, that’s what MLK day stands for.

All I’m saying is simply this, that all life is interrelated, that somehow we’re caught in an inescapable network of mutuality tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. For some strange reason, I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. You can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality.

— Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

This perspective of King’s has its roots in the radical theology of Henry Nelson Weiman. It was Weiman’s basic idea that god could only be found in relationship and, further, that god really was the mystical thread of connection between and among us all. A fine idea, though a bit of a category mistake in my opinion. Why call this mystical thread god? Why not the mystical thread or deep relationship or interrelatedness? In either form though it represents a distinct challenge both to American individualism and to the existentialist stance that I consider my own.

King and his intellectual mentor, Weiman, call to those of us who put our bold lettering under Individual to consider that there is an equally bold and distinct word, Related. Martin Buber would approve.