A Teachable Moment From an Esteemed Teacher

Northwood High's Class of 2010 graduates ***

"We are not helpless unless we want to be." (from the speech below)

At a time when our country’s educational system is sliding down our government’s priority list, it takes reminders like this one, by noted California educator Jim Mamer, to set us straight and offer some much-needed inspiration.

By way of introduction, Mamer’s colleague Stan Corey, founding superintendent of Southern California’s Irvine Unified School District, weighed in with this tribute:

John Steinbeck said, “I have come to believe that a great teacher is a great artist and that they are as few as there are any other great artists. It might even be the greatest of the arts, since the medium is the human mind and spirit.”

Jim Mamer is such a teacher. For thirty-five years he has brilliantly taught the Humanities to Irvine students. In appreciation for his outstanding career he was asked to give the Graduation Address at Northwood High School. In it he has outlined the most urgent educational concerns of thinking people. I urge you to read his thoughts and consider how you can help bring change.

Mamer’s June 22 speech at the Northwood High graduation follows.

Parents, Faculty and Graduates:

I have a confession to make. I’m beginning to feel somewhat past middle age. Partly this is because I started teaching before any of you, in this graduating class, were born. Partly it’s because I started teaching in Irvine when some of your parents were my students and, recently, this has happened with enough frequency that I began to fear that if I didn’t leave soon I was bound to have a student tell me that her grandmother had been one of my students. So, we get to leave together.

But I wish I could say that I am leaving at a time when I’m not as worried as I am about where we are headed. I’m not referring to the economy—I don’t have that much time. I’ll stick to the pressures on education. Specifically, pressures that you might not be aware of and pressures that I think you can all help to counteract, even if only by constantly asking questions and, of course, voting. Given who I am and what I teach, I’m most concerned about the future of the arts and humanities. And my concern spreads to the colleges most of you will be attending.

It is, of course, possible that many of you haven’t noticed what has been happening because all of you, all of you who have attended Irvine schools, have attended schools with a variety of opportunities, but it is important to realize that Northwood is an exception. I’ve been lucky to work here, where this community, where you parents, have continually attempted to fill the gaps left by what has been cut, year after year, by the state.

As a result of these substantial community contributions those of you graduating today have had extensive programs in sports, music and theater. Can you imagine how different the last four years would have been without these?

Unfortunately, schools, colleges and universities across the country are still facing constant calls for budget cuts. This is nothing new. Since the beginning of my career the cuts get larger and larger with every crisis and the suggested remedies become more and more frightening. One “remedy,” one that you are all aware of, is the extremely rapid increase in the costs of college; but that is only one example. Many proposed changes are more fundamental. The current pressures are on how American society views education itself and how this is redefining what is important; redefining what needs to be taught.

In the time I have I can only summarize these pressures, but I do so with the hope that all of you will decide to create a discussion where there is none. We are not helpless unless we want to be.

First of all, consider how we Americans have come to measure educational success. There is an increasing reliance on mostly state-approved multiple-choice exams. These may seem harmless enough, but when you consider what is tested, and what is not, they have serious consequences. I don’t have to explain the rush to state-sponsored, multiple-choice, easy-to-score, illusions of accountability to any of you graduates, but if any parents or relatives are not sure what I’m talking about, ask any of the students to explain. They have hours and hours and hours and hours of experience.

In 35 years of teaching, I’ve learned a lot from you and from the students who came before you. Beyond any doubt, you have taught me that real learning is more complex than is the ability to pick out the correct answer from a short list.

Now there is nothing wrong with measuring progress. There is nothing wrong with accountability. The question is, accountability in what? None of these state exams measure progress in love of learning, they do not measure progress in imagination or artistic achievement, not progress in music, not progress in increased scientific curiosity, not progress in an increased commitment to human rights, or in confidence gained, or in stories written. None of that is sufficiently easy to measure.

The increasing tendency to see schools, colleges and universities as businesses has led to a focus on what most clearly results in immediate economic reward. And while economic growth is important, a myopic fixation on the short term has dangerous consequences. Just last week, the L.A. Times ran a front-page story asking if a college degree is still “worth the cost.”

And recently there has been serious talk of encouraging new college students to choose a major, to focus early, and to graduate in three years. While I realize that there are real reasons for some to finish in three years, most of the articles I’ve read suggest students refrain from taking classes that don’t apply directly to a career.

Don’t do it. If you can afford it, explore whatever interests you. Learn another language and spend a year abroad. Take a few courses in philosophy or in ethics along with the courses in accounting and microbiology. Life right after high school, in college or not, should be a time where it is normal to discuss random topics all night long—stopping only when the sun takes away the dark and reminds everyone that a new day is coming.

What I want you all to realize about this more “efficient” educational future is that whatever remains untested, or whatever is not immediately applicable to a career, becomes unimportant. The humanities and the arts, creativity and music, are being diminished at every level.

Consider how many times you have heard reference to a crisis in math and science. Now consider how many times you have heard it reported that, as a country, we suffer from a crisis in the study of history and literature and music. I keep waiting—but such a news report suggests a comedy skit more than a serious warning.

Without much discussion, without any discussion, we are allowing decision makers to discard programs that develop skills that I believe are needed to make life richer and foster an appreciation for diversity. We are allowing others to discard programs that, I believe, are needed to keep democracy alive. Your significant contributions to maintain many of these programs in Irvine gives me hope that many, maybe most, of you agree with my concerns. But how long can this community hold out against national trends toward more efficient, businesslike schools, and severely limited opportunities?

I ask each of you—graduates, educators and parents—to remain concerned with our collective future by, at least, being wary of reactionary pressures toward educational efficiency. Significant learning is often accidental.

As voters, as college students, as citizens:

… Don’t limit yourselves to what is immediately rewarded.

Reach out and stretch yourselves.

Demand accountability in more than what can be measured...

Demand accountability in increased love of learning.

Demand accountability in increased commitment to human rights.

Demand accountability in imagination and music. And please, if only to make me happy, refuse to engage in discourse and argument by slogan and stereotype.

'Who knows where that might lead?"

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Above intro and speech was posted at Truthdig, A Progressive Journal of News and Opinion. Editor, Robert Scheer. Publisher, Zuade Kaufman.
Copyright © 2010 Truthdig, L.L.C. All rights reserved. URL here

The ending above is from the same speech with slightly different format. I took ending from: One Final Lesson for the Class of 2010 posted June 23, 2010 By Dan Chmielewski here *** PHOTO above is also from this site
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By the way, this event took place in same county from which this oneheart blogger graduated from high school.
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Here's a project from Amnesty USA adding Jim Mamer's name and some good ideas: EMBRACING CONTROVERSY File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - Quick View
here

When 'Real Estate' Trumps Peace

a logo from Birzeit University



US President Barack Obama and Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meet in the Oval Office, 07/06/10. (photo: Getty Images)

Striking quotes from Op Ed below:

"The question (raised)...touches on WAR AND PEACE and thus the lives of millions..."

"Over time, reporting based on a consistently biased storyline can create a population wide "thought collective" on a particular topic. That is, a broadly held popular point of view created by the manipulation of public opinion (i.e. the "existential" threats from Iraq or Iran, or the assertion that all Palestinians are terrorists)...Many simply assume that they are being told the truth. Soon, they are locked into an artificially created "thought collective." This has certainly happened in both the United States and Israel in relation to the Palestinians and the Arab world..."

"...Israel has never declared final borders. It might very well be that most Jewish Israeli voters would trade land for peace if the question was put to them in a straightforward and objective way. But it has not, is not now, and may never be so put. The question of land for peace has been embedded in a "thought collective" that emphasizes the erroneous concept that the Arabs are untrustworthy barbarians, and the archaic notion that all the Palestinians want to destroy Israel..."

"When South Africa assigned rights according to race they called it apartheid. When Israel assigns rights according to religion they call it the only democracy in the Middle East." (This last quote looks like it's added by Reader Supported News)

The National Interest Has Gone Missing

By Lawrence Davidson

Reader Supported News | Perspective July 13, 2010

In interesting commentary by Gideon Levy, entitled A Peace Crime, appeared in Haaretz on July 11, 2010. It focused on comments made by Bashar Assad, President of Syria, in an interview he gave to the Lebanese newspaper As-Safir about a week earlier. In the interview Assad said, "Our position is clear: When Israel returns the entire Golan Heights, of course we will sign a peace agreement with it." However, Syria wants the prospective peace to be comprehensive and durable. "What's the point of peace if the embassy is surrounded by security, if there is no trade and tourism.... That's not peace. That's a permanent cease-fire agreement."

To Assad's offer can be added that of the Arab League's Saudi Plan. In other words, there can be little doubt that if Israel wants peace with just about the entire Arab world it can have it in short order. Levy is rightfully frustrated that the Israeli press and political establishment let the Assad interview pass without so much as the blink of the eye. Levy protests, "How long must he [Assad] knock in vain on Israel's locked door?"

Levy's conclusion is that, "Israel does not want peace with Syria. Period. It prefers the Golan over peace with one of its biggest and most dangerous enemies. It prefers real estate...." He is quite right, and we can complement this situation with the recent behavior of the American government on the issue of Iran's nuclear program. Last month the Obama administration had a real opportunity to lay that controversy to rest. Turkey and Brazil had, with the acquiescence of Washington, negotiated a deal with Iran to have its nuclear fuel processed by a third-party country. Then, Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton essentially double-crossed the Turks and Brazilians, and chose to push through greater sanctions against Iran in the Security Council.

It does not take a genius to observe that the pursuit of national interests, defined in common sense terms, would have led to very different behavior by the US and Israeli governments. But both failed to pursue such a course. Their doors remained locked. The question why is a seminal one. It touches on war and peace, and thus the lives of millions. So let's look at some of the factors that might go into an answer to this question - why was national interest not pursued?

1. Both the US and Israeli governments are democratically elected. However, normally such governments are brought to power by votes cast on domestic issues. Foreign policy is a secondary factor (or as often as not a non-factor) for most voters. It is to be noted that for a minority of Israeli voters impassioned by religious zealotry, expansion into the West Bank is a domestic issue.

2. On the rare occasions when domestic populations are brought to consider foreign issues they do so through a media- and government-constructed filter. This filter is laden with largely uncontested propaganda and biased reporting despite the "free press" environment that might theoretically exist. Over time, reporting based on a consistently biased storyline can create a population wide "thought collective" on a particular topic. That is, a broadly held popular point of view created by the manipulation of public opinion (i.e. the "existential" threats from Iraq or Iran, or the assertion that all Palestinians are terrorists). In addition, there is the fact that most of the population has little or no independent understanding about the foreign events and issues that the media sources speak of. Their limited interest in foreign matters also means that few will take the initiative to go looking for non-partisan data. Lacking an independent viewpoint, they are not in a position to make a critical judgment on the reporting. Many simply assume that they are being told the truth. Soon, they are locked into an artificially created "thought collective." This has certainly happened in both the United States and Israel in relation to the Palestinians and the Arab world.

3. The domestic priorities of most voters means that, in a default sort of way, foreign policy formulation comes under the influence of small but powerful interest groups that do have serious interests in these issues. When it comes to the Middle East, the relevant interest groups in Israel and in the United States are allied reflections of each other. And in both cases, their influence has not been confined to politics, but also extends to the media so as to shape the thought collective process just laid out. The result is a melding of interest-group politics and managed popular attitudes.

4. What this adds up to is that, in practice, there is no such thing as "national interest" under the conditions described above. Of course, in theory, it is in the interest of the whole nation of Israel to take up the Saudi Plan and open the door to Assad's offer. Of course, in theory, it is in the interest of the US to take advantage of the negotiations carried on by Turkey and Brazil with Iran. But, alas, it is not the nations' interests that are guiding policy here. In both these cases policy formulation is in the hands of special interests organized into powerful lobbies with money and votes to influence the appropriate political elites.

In the case of Israel, foreign policy formulation is in the hands of special interests that are ideologically committed to "real estate." This special interest, which has both secular and religious devotees, has been operating since before the founding of the country. That is why Israel has never declared final borders. It might very well be that most Jewish Israeli voters would trade land for peace if the question was put to them in a straightforward and objective way. But it has not, is not now, and may never be so put. The question of land for peace has been embedded in a "thought collective" that emphasizes the erroneous concept that the Arabs are untrustworthy barbarians, and the archaic notion that all the Palestinians want to destroy Israel. It also emphasizes the patently absurd, but widely believed, notion that Israel is susceptible to such a fate.

In the case of the United States' foreign policy formulation, as regards Israel, Palestine, Iran and often the Middle East as a whole, it is definitively influenced by Zionist lobbies that are either undeclared agents of a foreign power (Israel), or ideologically-driven religious zealots (Christian Zionists). This influence is also of long standing, and has only been openly challenged in the last decade. It might take decades more before those who are contesting that influence have the financial and political wherewithal to succeed. In the meantime, the special interests in charge will proclaim that the threat of a "nuclear Iran" is real. This in turn will allow Israel to assert that Iranian behavior, and not Israel's dispossession of Palestinians, is the most pressing Middle Eastern problem for the US.

The explanation given here helps us to understand why Bashar Assad can knock at Israel's locked door and no one in that country will bother to open it. It also helps us understand why Obama and Clinton turned their backs on the Turkish and Brazilian efforts to negotiate a deal with Iran. Both are reacting to the power and influence of domestic special interests. Compared to these interests, the "national interest" does not stand a chance.

Lawrence Davidson is a professor of Middle East and Science at West Chester University in Pennsylvania, and author of the works listed below.

Contributing Editor: Logos: A Journal of Modern Society & Culture
here

"Foreign Policy Inc.: Privatizing America's National Interest"
here

"America's Palestine: Popular and Offical Perceptions from Balfour to Israeli Statehood" here

"Islamic Fundamentalism" here

Reader Supported News dot org is the Publication of Origin for this work: A news service supported by the Readers. Politics, Health Care, Iraq, Afghanistan, Commentary and much more. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News. For more information GO here and here
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NOTE from oneheart blogger: Of course there are real problems with Syria's questionable human rights interests as well. One example is the known torture and inhumane treatment of prisoners such as Maher Arar, a Syrian-born Canadian citizen, who was kept in a grave-like cell for about a year and tortured on behalf of US-CIA interests. Also, the author, Dr. Davidson, was unfamiliar to me before this Op Ed. His books sound well-researched and current. Too bad, like many such academic-geared they are too costly for "real" people...yet perhaps they could be recommended for libraries?

Student Prisoners
Photo from Birzeit University website here Students are arrested on their way to and from university at military checkpoints, while others are arrested during army raids on student homes and dormitories. These students are taken to a detention center and interrogated, often involving some form of abuse or torture such as beatings, sleep and food deprivation and being tied in painful positions for long periods.


More Info & Map of Israel here The small (densely populated) State of Israel occupies about 75% of an area long known as Canaan. This historic, volatile spot is significant for Christians, Muslims and Jews alike, as Jerusalem is recognized as a holy city by all three religious faiths.

I'm ending on the tragic and undeniable reminder of US Military Interventions from 1890 to 2010: From Wounded Knee to Iraq here this is a partial list.

BAGRAM: US should not implement a policy that damages commitment to rule of law

Bagram Air Base
Afghanistan...

Photo found at RAWA News where new items are also submitted frequently on Afghanistan
News from the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) RAWA News.here

Bagram Renditions Risk Serious Consequences
BY Jonathan Horowitz:

Posted at Huff Post, nomoregitmos and at WarIsA Crime

See interesting BIO for Horowitz: here

See fertile comments/dialogue just beginning at HUFF POST here

The U.S. run prison on Bagram Air Base, and the abuses that took place there, have been a lightning rod for international and domestic criticism of U.S. detention policy. Over the past year, the U.S. military has set out to disarm its critics. While still banning defense lawyers from Bagram and using classified evidence that detainees can't challenge, it has built a new facility that is more humane and put in place better ways to determine who should be detained and who should be released.

In sharp contrast to this progress, it is rumored that the Obama administration wants to resurrect President Bush's practice of rendering terrorists from around the world to its Bagram detention facility, where, conveniently, the Obama administration has claimed the protections of the U.S. Constitution do not reach. As General Petraeus takes over command, he should make clear to Washington that this is bad for the United States and for Afghanistan.

Not only does this proposal turn back the hands of time on U.S. detention policy, but the Afghan government will be seen as a U.S. lackey for allowing the Obama administration to extract people from around the world and dump them at Bagram under U.S., not Afghan, custody. And at a time when the U.S. wants applause from its coalition partners on its detention reforms, rendering non-Afghans to Bagram would surely raise their eyebrows.

The Bagram "solution" supposedly addresses a scenario in which the U.S. government detains a person who is too hard to prosecute yet too dangerous to release. Proponents of the proposal say that in countries such as Yemen or Somalia it is difficult for U.S. officials to collect evidence that can be submitted to U.S. courts. They also say it hampers intelligence gathering when detainees have defense attorneys. Instead, they claim a place like Bagram is needed where the military doesn't have to be concerned about rules of evidence and the eventual prosecution of terrorist suspects.

The scenario is smoke and mirrors. The United States is already effective at collecting evidence and prosecuting terrorists in high-risk and chaotic environments. As we've seen in the 1998 embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, the FBI is able to detain terrorists and collect evidence that allows courts to convict. More recently, the cases of the Times Square and "underwear" bombers demonstrate that the FBI can also gather actionable intelligence without obfuscating the constitution. Military operations can, and often do, collect and submit evidence to U.S. courts, such as computer hard-drives, explosives, and forensic evidence.

Sending detainees to Bagram is more than unnecessary; it's harmful. While in the short term it may be easier to detain someone on flimsy or secret evidence and ship him off to Bagram, this approach makes it impossible to prosecute and convict a terrorist suspect. Instead, a mass murderer held at Bagram would never be tried or proven guilty; the military would review the detainee's status every six months, and the military may have to release him if he is no longer a threat to the United States. Justice would not be served.

Bringing foreign captives to Afghanistan could also jeopardize one of the most advantageous policy reforms that the U.S. military has undertaken in Afghanistan.

The U.S. military is pursuing a multimillion dollar plan to hand Afghans control of the brand new Detention Facility in Parwan (DFIP) that currently has the capacity to hold over 1,000 detainees and is located on Bagram Air Base. The transfer plan was a breakthrough in U.S. war strategy. It aims to get the U.S. out of the detention business, which could significantly curb Afghan criticisms about U.S. military operations. The transfer also requires that the Afghan government gets serious about reforming its justice system.

All of this could be called into question if the Afghan government refuses to operate a facility that holds people who it doesn't want to be there. For years, Kabul has adamantly resisted U.S. requests to bring non-Afghan nationals onto Afghan soil, and for good reason. Holding nationals from other countries on their territory, especially when the U.S. government refuses consular visits, brings with it serious diplomatic complications and international criticism that Afghanistan doesn't want to shoulder.

Media reports suggest that the U.S. government may reserve a U.S.-controlled section of DFIP for detainees it captures abroad, so that their detention is not an Afghan problem. This may not be enough to assuage Afghan concerns, and it's in Afghanistan's self-interest to object. No matter how you spin it, Afghanistan will still be seen as a co-conspirator in this plan.

On May 21, an appellate court denied three non-Afghan detainees held at the DFIP the writ of habeas corpus. The decision, although seen as a win for the Obama administration, flagged a major problem with the new plan for Bagram. The plan calls for capturing individuals outside Afghanistan and transferring them to Bagram as a way to avoid the requirements of the U.S. constitution. Appellate judges noted that this behavior would raise legitimate and sincere legal concerns.

Instead of going through years of litigation, the Obama administration should not implement a policy that damages both Afghanistan and the United States' commitment to rule of law; history shows that the United States can overcome these challenges of terrorism.

==============
First Town Resolution listed at No More Gitmos dot org (See also free daily emails and news items GO here

Related item Interrogation Policy Facing Legal Challenge GO here

Judge Dismisses Gitmo Cases GO here

Bagram Prison in Afghanistan March 22 2010 International Committee Red Cross GO here 30 comments as of July 13th

"Who stands to account for these crimes? " By PATRICK O'NEILL

A recent conference, titled, "Weaving a Net of Accountability: Taking on Extraordinary Rendition at the State and Regional Level," included much discussion about the role Johnston County, NC plays in what can only be termed a national disgrace.

Aero Contractors, based at the publicly-owned Johnston County Airport, has provided jets, flight crews -- and perhaps more -- for the CIA's extraordinary rendition program. Under the program, people have been kidnapped and tortured as part of the US Government's war on terror. Johnston County residents employed at Aero have been accomplices in criminal activities that led to the indictment in Italy of three Aero pilots.

Distinguished human rights lawyers and political activists from throughout the US and Europe were at Duke University's John Hope Franklin Center April 8-10 to strategise on ways to hold the perpetrators of rendition and torture accountable.

Co-sponsored by the Duke Human Rights Center and NC Stop Torture Now, conference leaders chose North Carolina for the gathering specifically because of our state's shameful legacy of complicity in the extraordinary rendition program. Aero employees, who may sit next to you in church or stand behind you in the grocery store line, have been identified and charged with aiding and abetting serious crimes, including torture.

While torture is always a crime, evidence has come to light that many of those rendered and tortured were in fact innocent of any wrongdoing. Some of these victims were held in solitary confinement for months and years, denied due process and abused. Some have died as a result of being tortured.

Conference participants lamented the refusal of federal courts, Congress, the NC General Assembly, other state officials, the Johnston County Commission and the Johnston County Airport Authority to honestly acknowledge and atone for our nation's role in the extraordinary rendition program.

So deeply is Aero and Johnston County implicated in these crimes that Aero's flights from the Johnston County Airport have been dubbed the "Guantanamo Express" by victims and opponents of extraordinary rendition.

Gavin Simpson, the Council of Europe's lead investigator on extraordinary rendition, led a panel discussion titled, "North Carolina's Role in the 'Global Spider Web' of Extraordinary Rendition to Torture."

Simpson said his investigation uncovered "chilling details" of a rendition program that included bilateral agreements between the US and most European states. Aero personnel operated aircraft on "rendition circuits," Simpson said. Aero personnel were part of "systematic cover-up" and Aero pilots disguised flight plans to help the CIA avoid detection.

After leaving the Johnston County Airport, Aero jets would stop in Washington DC to pick up eight-to-12 member "rendition crews" of CIA operatives. Detainees, picked up around the globe, were usually stripped, beaten, placed in a hood and adult diaper, shackled and handcuffed and given a sedative rectally, all in the presence of Aero crews, Simpson said.

Panelist Christina Cowger of NC Stop Torture Now, asked the question many conference participants would like answered: "What else was Aero Contractors doing for the CIA other than flying the aircraft and providing the crew?"

Since the election of Barack Obama little has changed in what is publicly stated about the rendition policy, Simpson said, and most importantly, the Obama administration has failed to implement what he called a "never again" policy on torture.

Under the current non-policy of denial, victims of wrongful kidnapping, imprisonment and torture have received no apologies, no reparations and no acknowledgement of their mistreatment.

"Who stands to account for these crimes," Simpson asked.

This is a question Johnston County citizens should be asking officials, and demanding answers.

The Country of Marraige

A poem by Wendell Barry



Little Note: Since recently coming across another famous Berry poem posted below on this site, I remembered this one as well -- which held me in awe some years back. This Father's Day, I had constant thoughts of the "sacredness of marriage and family" and how connected our deepest relationships are to world peace. No one love or marriage is the same. Yet are there not clues here for a long-lived one? (for both persons in such a partnership?) Be sure to look for other poems, writings and fascinating interviews with this truly independent thinker and role-model, Wendell Berry, who lives, breathes, and teaches universal PEACE in love, family, nature and in society.

I.

I dream of you walking at night along the streams
of the country of my birth, warm blooms and the nightsongs
of birds opening around you as you walk.
You are holding in your body the dark seed of my sleep.

II.

This comes after silence. Was it something I said
that bound me to you, some mere promise
or, worse, the fear of loneliness and death?
A man lost in the woods in the dark, I stood
still and said nothing. And then there rose in me,
like the earth's empowering brew rising
in root and branch, the words of a dream of you
I did not know I had dreamed. I was a wanderer
who feels the solace of his native land
under his feet again and moving in his blood.
I went on, blind and faithful. Where I stepped
my track was there to steady me. It was no abyss
that lay before me, but only the level ground.

III.

Sometimes our life reminds me
of a forest in which there is a graceful clearing
and in that opening a house,
an orchard and garden,
comfortable shades, and flowers
red and yellow in the sun, a pattern
made in the light for the light to return to.
The forest is mostly dark, its ways
to be made anew day after day, the dark
richer than the light and more blessed,
provided we stay brave
enough to keep on going in.

IV.

How many times have I come to you out of my head
with joy, if ever a man was,
for to approach you I have given up the light
and all directions. I come to you
lost, wholly trusting as a man who goes
into the forest unarmed. It is as though I descend
slowly earthward out of the air. I rest in peace
in you, when I arrive at last.

V.

Our bond is no little economy based on the exchange
of my love and work for yours, so much for so much
of an expendable fund. We don't know what its limits are--
that puts us in the dark. We are more together
than we know, how else could we keep on discovering
we are more together than we thought?
You are the known way leading always to the unknown,
and you are the known place to which the unknown is always
leading me back. More blessed in you than I know,
I possess nothing worthy to give you, nothing
not belittled by my saying that I possess it.
Even an hour of love is a moral predicament, a blessing
a man may be hard up to be worthy of. He can only
accept it, as a plant accepts from all the bounty of the light
enough to live, and then accepts the dark,
passing unencumbered back to the earth, as I
have fallen tine and again from the great strength
of my desire, helpless, into your arms.

VI.

What I am learning to give you is my death
to set you free of me, and me from myself
into the dark and the new light. Like the water
of a deep stream, love is always too much. We
did not make it. Though we drink till we burst
we cannot have it all, or want it all.
In its abundance it survives our thirst.
In the evening we come down to the shore
to drink our fill, and sleep, while it
flows through the regions of the dark.
It does not hold us, except we keep returning
to its rich waters thirsty. We enter,
willing to die, into the commonwealth of its joy.

VII.

I give you what is unbounded, passing from dark to dark,
containing darkness: a night of rain, an early morning.
I give you the life I have let live for the love of you:
a clump of orange-blooming weeds beside the road,
the young orchard waiting in the snow, our own life
that we have planted in the ground, as I
have planted mine in you. I give you my love for all
beautiful and honest women that you gather to yourself
again and again, and satisfy--and this poem,
no more mine than any man's who has loved a woman.

Photo above discovered at Photo Gallery Wild Wonders here

Journalism: keeping the great tradition alive

'Beyond the Killing Fields': Why Journalism Is in a 'State of Chaos'
By Sydney Schanberg

"So what can we do to repair this mess? It isn't just a case of a profession in decline but a dumbing down of an entire nation -- one that has considerable effect on the rest of the world..."To restore a higher grade of journalism, we will have to convince the public that without serious reporting, they will not have the means to make informed decisions." (excerpt from article below)

Five Politics Daily staffers -- Carl Cannon, Melinda Henneberger, Walter Shapiro, David Wood and James Grady -- are joining in an online discussion with Pulitzer Prize-winning former New York Times reporter Sydney Schanberg about politics and the press as seen through the prism of his new book, "Beyond the Killing Fields."

Here is Schanberg's response to David Wood, who lamented the shrinking of foreign news bureaus and asked Schanberg how the great tradition can be kept alive.


With life on our planet spinning faster and faster on the electronic wings of the digital revolution, I have no simple answers.

There is no way to turn back the clock. The world has embraced the new technology, and as I see it, the craft of credible, serious journalism is in a state of chaos.

Money is at the heart of the issue. Papers have lost much of their advertising to the Internet, which so far has produced sparse original reporting considering the volume of websites, choosing instead to cherry-pick from newspapers without compensating them.

Also, Internet sites have decided that their audiences want shorter, splashier articles, not lengthy, detailed ones that often force governments and corporations to correct errant ways of dealing with the public.

Papers are disappearing into bankruptcy on a regular basis. Those that remain are struggling to find a business model that can still support in-depth reporting. The best journalism costs serious money. I'm referring to investigative journalism, which is especially costly because it can take months for a team of reporters to bring forth a solid, major story. In the past, these came almost entirely from a small number of major newspapers and a few magazines.

As newspapers and their staffs have shrunk, so has that special product, which is crucial for any healthy democracy based on a well-informed public. Those still standing have created their own websites to seek new advertising revenue, but the money gap has not closed. And the decline of credible journalism continues.

Good journalism does not have to be printed on paper. But the Internet has also spawned an endless 24/7 trail of garbage, which I call bits-and-pieces journalism -- "borrowed" or "aggregated" material from other sources, especially original stories from newspapers. Internet companies say that the material they use is in the public domain and therefore free.

So what can we do to repair this mess? It isn't just a case of a profession in decline but a dumbing down of an entire nation -- one that has considerable effect on the rest of the world.

The public does not hold journalists in high esteem largely because news outlets, including newspapers, have chosen over time to increase fluff stories about gossip, celebrities, sex scandals, etc., and mix them with hard news.
We were dumbing down the coverage before the Internet reared its head. If we want to restore a higher grade of journalism, we professionals will have to address the public and convince them that without serious reporting, they will not have the means to make informed decisions.

In the past, we have never explained ourselves well to the public. We resent it when citizens raise questions about our stories. As a profession we have been soft and have not challenged our publishers when they sought more fluff. If we want to rehabilitate professional journalism, restore foreign bureaus, raise newsroom standards, then we're in a fight -- on the Internet and at newspapers.

We would have to stand up and speak out. But I don't know a silent, invisible way to get a task like this done.

Photography: Noah Greenberg, Potomac Books
© 2010 Weblogs, Inc. All rights reserved. Politics Daily is a member of the Weblogs, Inc. Network.

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Posted originally on 07/8/10 NOTE: oneheart blogger found this piece at Reader Supported News dot org

Nature is a Force Which Restores Our Awe

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Obere Firstalm, Spitzingsee (18 May 2007

Chris Hedges, one of our most moving reporters today, expanded for me in a recent reflection piece why we humans can't live without nature and how it's fury can become healing.

(From) Freedom in the Grace of the World:

...Year after year I returned to these forbidding peaks from conflicts in Central America, the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans. I had a house in Maine on an 800-foot hill with no television, cell phone or Internet service. The phone number was unlisted. It rarely rang. I refused to give the number to my employer, The New York Times. I brought with me the stench of death, the cries of the wounded, the bloated bodies on the side of the road, the fear, the paranoia, the alienation, the insomnia, the anger and the despair and threw it at these mountains. I strapped my pack on in the pounding rain at trailheads and drove myself, and later my son, up mountains. I rarely stopped. Once, in a bitter rain, I crested the peak of Mount Madison in August and was immediately thrown backward by howling winds whipping across the ridge and pelting hailstones. It was impossible to reach the summit. On a hike in the remote Pemigewasset Wilderness I made a wrong turn and, fearing hypothermia, walked all night. By the time the sun rose my blisters had turned to open sores. I wrung the blood out of my socks. I go to the mountains to at once spend this fury and seek renewal, to be reminded of my tiny, insignificant place in the universe and to confront mystery.

Berry writes in "The Peace of Wild Things":

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Wendell Berry is one of my favorite poets, writers, farmers and people. I recently was with a cousin who wrote his dissertation on Berry. He, his wife and children live daily a Wendell Berry sort of awe in partnership with nature in the middle of town...

Read the whole of this unusual and strangely refreshing piece by Hedges - I do believe you'll be more than glad you did... GO here

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