Bottom Drawer (3)

David Rothgery
August 2, 2016

BOTTOM DRAWER (3) ( . . . “World Two” glimpses . . . a larger vision )

“POETS, PROPHETS, AND REFORMERS ARE ALL PICTURE MAKERS — and this ability is the secret of their power and of their achievements,” [Frederick] Douglass wrote. This is where artists make their mark, by implanting pictures in the underwater processing that is upstream from conscious cognition. Those pictures assign weights and values to what the eyes take in.
“I never understand why artists want to get involved in partisanship and legislation. The real power lies in the ability to recode the mental maps people project into the world.” [David Brooks, “How Artists Change the World”, NY Times 8/2/16]
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“’WHEN BREATH BECOMES AIR’ IS GRIPPING FROM THE START. But it becomes even more so as Dr. Kalanithi tries to reinvent himself in various ways with no idea what will happen. He can’t gauge how much strength his body still has until he tests it, and sometimes the consequences are horrific. He no longer knows who he is or what he wants. His whole sense of identity is shaken. With the seeker’s restlessness that seems not to have left him until his last breath . . . ”
[Janet Maslin, NY Times review of When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi ,NY Times, 1/6/16]
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COURT RETURNS POLAR BEAR PROTECTIONS: “A huge win for polar bears: This week the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s 2010 decision to protect more than 120 million acres as critical habitat for polar bears. In its ruling the court reversed a 2013 lower-court decision that shot down that designation after it was challenged by the state of Alaska and the oil and gas industry.” [“Court Returns Polar Bear Protections across 120 Million Acres,” Endangered Earth online, 3/3/16]
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“THE FUTURE OF ENERGY” [HBO’S “VICE”] Several countries are working on creating a little “sun” on earth using fusion—thereby, possibly, solving all of our energy needs. Clean, no CO2, limitless. Shane Smith started out by talking to a 14-year-old prodigy who built a fusion reactor in his own garage and has helped point the way for others. [“The Future of Energy,” VICE,” 4/16/16]
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WILLIE B. WAZIR PEACOCK died April 17. He was an organizer for the Voter Education Project and a Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee field secretary in Mississippi and Alabama from 1960 to 1966. He later moved to California where he worked with Stepping Stones Growth Center, an organization that serves developmentally disabled children and adults.
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“SYRIAN-BORN MARIA ALABDEH WAS STUDYING MICROBIOLOGY in France in 2011 when the Syrian revolution ignited.

“’I was amazed by the youth going to demonstrate against the government in Damascus,’ she said recently during a visit to the U.S.
‘I was so scared watching them chanting,’ she said, potentially exposing themselves to retribution by the regime. ‘Anyone could be arrested or killed.’

“She also was deeply concerned about the women living in the battle-torn country. Men were leaving their homes to fight or to try to make a living elsewhere, and women and children were finding they needed to fend for themselves.

“To help — at least from afar, Alabdeh joined forces with an organization based in Paris, called ‘Women Now for Development’ started in 2012 by Syrian writer Samar Yazbek.

“The nonprofit helps teach Syrian women to read and write, and offers them vocational training, such as sewing, knitting, secretarial work, first aid and hair-cutting to enable them to earn a living. It also provides education on computers and how to get involved in politics.

“’We are trying to have a safe place for women to discuss change and make change in their country,’ said Alabdeh, who is executive director of the group. Many of the women are eager to learn English, so that they can read articles and write them, she said.

“The classes are taught by local instructors in northern Syria and refugee camps in Lebanon. Since its inception, the organization has grown into eight women’s centers — six in Syria and two in the Lebanese refugee camps — staffed by more than 100 women teachers and activists.

“The group adjusts its courses based on the requests of the women, such as adding a self-defense class, and provides counseling for their shattered nerves.

“’Women come from miles around just to learn,’ said Alabdeh.” [Larisa Epatko, “Across Borders, Syrian Women Gain Strength from Each Other,” PBS NewsHour online, 8/1/16]
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LAWRENCE WRIGHT’S “THE LOOMING TOWER: AL-QAEDA AND THE ROAD TO 9/11″ is a very worthwhile read—especially the story of Sayyid Qutb, an Egyptian religious scholar.
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SCOTT ANDERSON’S “LAWRENCE IN ARABIA: WAR, DECEIT, IMPERIAL FOLLY AND THE MAKING OF THE MODERN MIDDLE EAST” is another worthwhile read—especially as to the petty greed and idiocy that led to millions being killed and maimed in WW I.
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“CALDAS, COLOMBIA—MELIDA WAS ONLY 9 WHEN GUERRILLA FIGHTERS lured her away with the promise of food as she played on the floor. For the next seven years she was held hostage by the rebels, forced to become a child soldier.

“Her family thought she had died in battle. Then Mélida suddenly returned to her village at 16, carrying a pistol and a grenade. Only her grandfather recognized her — from a birthmark on her cheek.

“The very next day, the military surrounded her house, called by an informant seeking the bounty on her head.

“’I found out my own father had turned me in,’ she recalled.”
[Nicholas Casey, “A Former Girl Soldier in Colombia Finds ‘Life Is Hard’ as a Civilian” NY Times, 4/27/16]

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“KENYAN PRESIDENT UHURU KENYATTA SET FIRE SATURDAY TO THE WORLD’S BIGGEST IVORY BONFIRE, after demanding a total ban on trade in tusks and horns to end ‘murderous’ trafficking and prevent the extinction of elephants in the wild.

“’The height of the pile of ivory before us marks the strength of our resolve,’” Kenyatta said, before setting fire to the pyres.

“’No-one, and I repeat no-one, has any business in trading in ivory, for this trade means death of our elephants and death of our natural heritage.’”

“Eleven giant pyres of tusks, and another of rhino horns, are arranged in a semi-circle now expected to burn for days in Nairobi’s national park.” [“Kenya Lights World’s Biggest Ivory Bonfire, Demands Tusk Trade Ban. The Pile Was of about 6,700 Elephants,” Mail & Guardian Africa, 4/30/16]
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DANIEL BERRIGAN, PEACE ACTIVIST, POET, PRIEST, DIED.

“Some” by Daniel Berrigan

Some stood up once, and sat down.
Some walked a mile, and walked away.
Some stood up twice, then sat down.
“It’s too much,” they cried.
Some walked two miles, then walked away.
“I’ve had it,” they cried,
Some stood and stood and stood.
They were taken for fools,
they were taken for being taken in.
Some walked and walked and walked –
they walked the earth,
they walked the waters,
they walked the air.
“Why do you stand?” they were asked, and
“Why do you walk?”
“Because of the children,” they said, and
“Because of the heart, and
“Because of the bread,”
“Because the cause is
the heart’s beat, and
the children born, and
the risen bread.”
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A TANZANIAN MAN AND AN AMERICAN WOMAN TEAMED UP TO START their own “family” of some 94 orphaned kids—in rural Tanzania. The Rift Valley Children’s Village. Doctors, social workers, educators all work there. [60 Minutes, Bill Whitaker report, 5/1/16]
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“THIS SITUATION—A PATINA OF GENTEEL PROGRESSIVEISM ATOP A CHURNING ENGINE OF AMORAL MERITOCRACY“— is inherently unstable and was bound to produce a counter-reaction. In his essay “The Big Uneasy,” in the current issue of The New Yorker, Nathan Heller describes life at Oberlin College in Ohio. In his penetrating interviews with the activist students you can see how the current passion for identity politics grows, in part, as a reaction against both sides of campus life.

“The students Heller interviewed express a comprehensive dissatisfaction with their lives. ‘I’m actually still trying to reconcile how unhappy I’ve been here with how happy people were insisting I must be,’ one student says. ‘Whatever you do at Oberlin as a person of color or a low-income person, it just doesn’t work,’ says another.

“Many of these students have rejected the meritocratic achievement culture whole cloth — the idea that life is about moving up the ladder. ‘I don’t want to assimilate into middle-class values,’ one student tells Heller. ‘I’m going home, back to the “hood” of Chicago, to be exactly who I was before I came to Oberlin.’”[David Brooks, “Inside Student Radicalism,” NY Times, 5/27/16]
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“IT MUST HAVE BEEN TEMPTING OVER THE DECADES TO GIVE UP. But over the last week, victims who have been relentless in the pursuit of justice for gross human rights abuses in Chad and South America rejoiced as their former oppressors were convicted in two landmark trials. The cases, which involved Cold War allies of the United States, should serve as a warning to today’s despots and offer hope to the legion of victims of human rights abuses around the world who are still waiting for their day in court.

“In Senegal, a tribunal backed by the African Union on Monday sentenced Hissene Habre, a former president of Chad, to life in prison for war crimes. Victims who attended cheered and thrust their fists in the air to celebrate a 16-year legal fight to hold Mr. Habré accountable for mass killings, torture and rape. Mr. Habré, who ruled Chad for eight years, sought refuge in Senegal after a coup in 1990. Washington had backed him because the nations had a common enemy in Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi of Libya.

“’In a world scarred by a constant stream of atrocities, the ramifications of this verdict are global,’ the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, said in a statement.

“Meanwhile, a court in Buenos Aires on Friday convicted 15 former military officers for their roles in Operation Condor, an international crackdown by allied right-wing dictators that led to the killing and forced disappearance of hundreds of opponents and government critics. Reynaldo Bignone, 88, a former general who ruled Argentina from 1982 to 1983, was among those convicted. His 20-year sentence was largely symbolic because he is already imprisoned for other crimes, including the abduction of babies during the years of military rule. “[“Belated Justice in Chad and Argentina,” NY Times, 6/1/16]
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INTERESTING SUGGESTION FROM BILL MAHER—that President Obama go on an apology tour. Apologize to Vietnam, and Iraq, and Mexico (Mexican War), the Central American and South Americans governments we toppled to put in our “stooge” leaders—Dominican Republic, Chile, Guatemala. We already were willing to apologize to the Native Americans and the African Americans and the Japanese (Internment camps). [Real Time with Bill Maher, 6/24/16]
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“KENYANS’ DEATHS RAISE FEARS OF POLICE TACTICS
“The bodies of three men who disappeared after last being seen at a police station in Kenya were discovered dumped in a river on Friday, bringing a grim end to a mystery that had deeply unsettled human rights activists, lawyers and many others in Kenya.

“The body of one of the men, Willie Kimani, a well-regarded lawyer who had been assigned to the case of a man who was being harassed by police officers, was found with his hands and legs tied at the bottom of the Ol Donyo Sabuk River outside of Nairobi.

“Next to him was the body of Joseph Muiruri, a taxi driver who disappeared with Mr. Kimani last week. Witnesses said Mr. Muiruri’s eyes had been gouged out.

“The third body found was that of Josephat Mwenda, a motorcycle taxi driver who had filed the complaint against the police officer, a dangerous move in Kenya.

“’Our worst fears are confirmed,’ said the Law Society of Kenya in a statement. ‘Advocates and citizens are at risk of elimination by police death squads.’

“Kenya has long been plagued by corruption and violence, with a long history of impunity, but it is highly unusual for three people, including a well-connected professional, to suddenly disappear.

“Mr. Kimani, 32, a father of two young boys, served as an investigator for the International Justice Mission, a global organization that strives to protect poor people from violence. He had been assigned to help Mr. Mwenda, who had accused the police of harassing him for more than a year after he filed a report that an officer had unlawfully shot him in the arm.

“Last Thursday, Mr. Mwenda and Mr. Kimani appeared in a court on the outskirts of Nairobi, Kenya’s capital. After they left the courthouse in Mr. Muiruri’s taxi, family members could not reach them on their cellphones.

“Hours later, colleagues said, at least two of the men were seen at a remote police station, locked in a metal container, shouting for help. One of the men threw a note out a window. It had been hastily scribbled on toilet paper.
“It read: ‘Call my wife. I’m in danger. ‘”[Jeffrey Gettleman, “3 Kenyans Last Seen at Police Station Are Found Dead,” NY Times, 7/1/16]

Eerily reminiscent of 1964 Civil Rights Workers’ Murders in Mississippi.