New York, NY, May 8, 2008—Thanks to its historical, 94 years of operation as a non-political entity and relief organization, JDC staff has been granted entry visas to carry out humanitarian aid efforts for victims of cyclone Nargis which hit Myanmar last week. A senior JDC professional is on the ground in Myanmar, where he will assess the situation and carry out plans to aid the estimated several hundred thousand cyclone victims without shelter and safe drinking water. JDC is partnering with MASHAV, Magen David Adom (MDA), and F.I.R.S.T (Fast Israeli Rescue & Search Team) to provide emergency relief, including medical supplies and personnel and rescue workers.
JDC has opened a mailbox and is now accepting donations to provide immediate assistance and relief:
Donate to Myanmar Cyclone Relief:
Online: https://www.jdc.org/donation/jdc_form.cfm
By Phone: 212.687.6200
By Mail: Check payable to: JDC-Myanmar Cyclone Relief, P.O. Box 530, 132 East 43rd St., New York, NY, 10017
Look at these faces. While the rest of the world wrings its hands and waits helplessly on the sidelines, Burma’s government says it will accept aid, but that it doesn’t want the help of foreigners in getting it to the people. (BBC News) The UN is pretty sure the government’s own unaided efforts won’t be enough.
The UN says that up to 1.5 million people may have been affected by Cyclone Nargis, which devastated the Irrawaddy Delta region on Saturday. Burmese state media say 22,980 people were killed, but there are fears the figure could rise to 100,000.
Hundreds of thousands of people have no food, water or shelter. Officials say people could die because no help is getting to them.
In a statement, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon urged the junta to prioritise the aid effort over tomorrow’s nation-wide referendum on a widely-criticised new constitution.
It would be "prudent to focus instead on mobilising all available resources and capacity for the emergency response efforts", he said. (BBC News)
As we all know, this is the country with the largest reserves of drinking water in the world. And where is the water? In the Amazon! Read the rest of this entry »
April 17th, 2008 by SWARAAJ CHAUHAN, International Columnist
Why is the media, and the blogs, overlooking the “real” issues? The recent Clinton/Obama debate once again brought under spotlight a serious lack of professionalism among journalists and their growing penchant to trivialize serious issues. To give another example, few seem interested at the looming food crisis that is likely to have worldwide political and economic ramifications.
Would the media wake up only when the wolf reaches their doors or the dinner table (when it is too late)? Even if the media is looking for “sensational” news there is plenty to be found in the “real” issues. How about this….?
“Food riots have erupted in countries all along the equator. In Haiti, protesters chanting ‘We’re hungry’ forced the prime minister to resign; 24 people were killed in riots in Cameroon; Egypt’s president ordered the army to start baking bread; the Philippines made hoarding rice punishable by life imprisonment. ‘It’s an explosive situation and threatens political stability,’ worries Jean-Louis Billon, president of Côte d’Ivoire’s chamber of commerce,” reports The Economist. Read the rest of this entry »
Not all the global commentary about the Olympic torch relay is serious. Le Monde’s Robert Sole writes in this tongue-in-cheek op-ed, “Yes, clouds are threatening the Olympics in Beijing. But Chinese authorities have just given us some reassuring news: an arsenal is being prepared to make sure that it doesn’t rain during the opening ceremonies on August 8. Twenty-one teams are spread around the capital to watch the heavens and if necessary, launch rockets containing silver iodide into the upper atmosphere to trigger rainfall before it can reach the stadium … After all, you never know what kind of storm the anti-China “clique” might cause. Has it not already tried - by spitting - to extinguish the flame in London, Paris or San Francisco?”
What if there’s no way to cut greenhouse emissions enough to make a real difference?
That’s the question raised by a commentary in Nature arguing that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has been too optimistic in its projections for the technological possibilities of reducing greenhouse emissions. Their calculations are called “a bombshell” in a separate news article in Nature about the paper. My colleague Andy Revkin analyzes it at DotEarth. The commentary was written by the political scientist Roger Pielke Jr., the climatologist Tom Wigley, and the economist Christopher Green.
I don’t know how you help so many people in this kind of chaos, but watching the video on CNN is frightening. If you’ve ever been frustrated by travel plan delays, you may be able to empathize with what the Chinese are going through. But given the size of the country, the scale seems so much bigger.
More than 67 million people have been affected by the weather and economic losses are expected to reach as much as $3 billion, Chinese officials say.
Blizzards have snapped power lines and destroyed houses and farmland, prompting fears of food and energy shortages. Twenty-four people have died and some 827,000 people have been evacuated in 14 different provinces, the Ministry of Civil Affairs said Monday.
In the past week, the snowstorms have hit the provinces in central, eastern and southern China — places that are used to mild winters, not extreme wintry blasts.
“We’ve never seen such a cold weather lasting for such long a time,” said Tang Shan, a man in his 70s in Changsha, the capital of Hunan province. “The last time we had one here was over 50 years ago, and not this bad.”
Does the future of humanity and a third of all living things rest in the hands of American voters in the 2008 presidential elections? According to this editorial from Brazil’s Estadao newspaper, George W. Bush’s failure to follow through with Bill Clinton’s commitments at Kyoto creates skepticism over whether U.S. commitments made at Bali can be believed.
“At Bali, a step forward was taken in the battle against global warming … Many are commenting about how much the guidelines depend on the upcoming North American presidential elections.”
EDITORIAL
Translated By Brandi Miller
December 18, 2007
Brazil - Estadao - Original Article (Portuguese)
Everything led one to believe that the 13th Climate Conference that wrapped up in Bali this weekend - an international meeting to seek some kind of consensus on the need by 2013 for stricter rules to control greenhouse gasses - would end as a resounding failure. At the last minute, however, something useful came out of the meeting, particularly because a way was found - with some compromise - to gain some commitment from the country that emits the most CO2 on the planet, the United States, and which from the early days of the Kyoto Protocols has resisted any type of control over its emissions.
Led by the European Union, a group of countries wanted a commitment for a cut of from 25 to 40 percent off 1990 greenhouse gas emission levels, to be fulfilled by 2020. To win the agreement of the United States, they possibility of a much deeper cut of 50 percent was discussed, but over a much longer time frame - until 2050. But what please the North Americans most was not fixing any target date. Considering the fact that emissions grow every year, looking to have future rates lower than those of 1990 would mean reducing carbon emissions far more than if the reference period was later - for example, 2007. To be approved, the final text had to be full of loopholes, but at least it offers a roadmap to get to 2009, when it is hoped that targets for 2013 will be established and the Kyoto Protocols are due to expire.
Thus, with many concessions, on Saturday [Dec. 15] representatives from 190 countries signed the so-called “Bali Plan,” a document that could be a milestone for establishing guidelines for a new political agreement to combat global warming. This is what is unanimously sought by the most respected scientific institutions that produce documents like the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change - and is an issue that poses a grave risk not only to the survival of a third of the earth’s living things, but in the long term, to the survival of humanity itself.
But as was expected, not even the common interests of all humanity succeeded in eliminating the differences between nations – many of them with strong historical foundations. If on the one hand, the major polluters in the developed world resist controls, on the other, representatives from developing countries like Munir Akram, Pakistan’s ambassador to Washington and President of the G-77, a group of developing nations, gave speeches like this: “The industrialized countries had 200 years to follow a path to economic development based on the intensive use of carbon, and now that it’s our turn, they say we can’t do that.”
Was Al Gore taking a cheap shot when he criticized his own nation as the primary obstruction to progress on climate change? According to this op-ed article from the Nederlands Dagblad, ‘The proceedings at Bali were taken hostage by Europe’s antagonism toward the U.S., enabling Al Gore to score in an open goal.’
By Jan van Benthem
Translated By Meta Mertens
December 17, 2007
The Netherlands - Nederlands Dagblad - Original Article (Dutch)
At the Climate Conference in Bali, the two Nobel Peace Prize winners stood on opposite sides. Al Gore opted to discuss the obvious truth: The U.S. is blocking every solution, so go ahead without America until a little over a year goes by and there is a more judicious U.S. president WATCH .
Thundering applause was the response. And the behavior of the U.S. over the following days as Washington torpedoed global limits on greenhouse gasses appeared to prove him right. Disappointed, the first delegates packed their suitcases for home on Saturday.
Fortunately, there were a sufficient number of people present who had listened to Gore’s Nobel Prize co-winners, the U.N. Climate Panel. Chairperson Rajendra Pachauri didn’t pin everything on an agreement concerning percentages. More important, he said, was to come to an agreement about where to begin. The percentages will be part of the two-years of talks leading to the Copenhagen Climate Conference, where a successor to the Kyoto Protocols must be agreed to.
Earlier, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon warned that an agreement on numbers wasn’t realistic at this stage. When some, particularly the E.U., decided to do so anyway, the proceedings at Bali were taken hostage by its antagonism toward the U.S., enabling Al Gore to score in an open goal.
But in spite of the picture drawn by the outside world, it wasn’t just America acting as an obstacle. Japan and Canada share the same point of view as the United States, while at this moment, neither China - which is the largest polluter - nor rapidly-growing India - will accept greenhouse emission limits. And neither has the U.S. rejected all restrictions. Even while the Bali conference was taking place, the U.S. Senate approved a law that was earlier accepted by President Bush, which obligates the American automobile industry to build cars that are forty percent more fuel efficient - the first law of this kind in more than thirty years.
Is it possible that Al Gore has gone too far by equating the threat of global warming to Adolph Hitler? According to this op-ed article from Austria’s Die Presse, ‘What the world does not need are stupid comparisons like the one Al Gore employed equating the earth’s warming with Adolph Hitler, or heroically signed international agreements that aren’t the least respected.’
By Michael Prüller
Translated By Julian Jacob
December 15, 2007
Austria - Die Presse - Original Article (German)
Pathos reigns in Bali. But to make really significant progress at the Copenhagen [climate] conference in 2009, a bit more sobriety is recommended.
Sometimes one wonders why that professional climate saver - who with great emotion was again celebrated in Bali - is the guarantor of meaningful climate policies. What the world does not need are stupid comparisons like the one Al Gore employed equating the earth’s warming with Adolph Hitler, or heroically signed international agreements that aren’t the least respected.
Most urgent now is not some global-rescue euphoria, but a realistic agreement among the six largest carbon dioxide emitters: The USA, China, the E.U., Russia, India and Japan. And a good look at Kyoto could be useful: it was a treaty that major polluters could sign with ease, because they weren’t committed to any reductions (such as China and India), or by some who could take it lightly (such as Russia, which will only reach critical CO2 levels in the years to come). The attitude of the United States was more honest - and one must remember that it wasn’t only George Bush - but a united senate under Clinton and Gore (!) that rejected the agreement - refusing to agree to such a non-binding commitment.
Is the United States missing a chance to redeem its global reputation by obstructing a climate deal at a U.N. conference in Bali? Along with Al Gore, the editorial board of Saudi Arabia’s Saudi Gazette certainly thinks so.
“Of course, Bush was bought and paid for by the time he was elected President in 2000 … when it comes to the Bush Administration, the word ‘moral’ is one that doesn’t exist in its vocabulary.”
EDITORIAL
December 14, 2007
Saudi Arabia - The Saudi Gazzette - Home Page (English)
The United States has the world’s largest economy, the world’s mightiest military and the world’s largest media machine. It is also the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases. And now, it’s the world’s greatest impediment to reaching agreements on stemming the increasingly frightening decline of the world’s environment.
Reports coming out of the U.N. climate conference in Bali are disturbing, to say the least WATCH . Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, fresh from his visit to Sweden to accept the Nobel Prize for his work on the environment, stated categorically in a speech delivered to delegates that, “My own country, the United States, is principally responsible for obstructing progress here in Bali WATCH .”
And the European Union is threatening to pull out of U.S.- sponsored climate change talks unless the Bush Administration agrees to specific emissions targets, something it currently refuses to do. Such targets, the Bush minions say, would necessarily limit the scope of future talks and, incidentally, wreak havoc on the U.S. economy.
Of course, Bush was bought and paid for by the time he was elected President in 2000, and the secret meeting his Vice President, Dick Cheney, held with U.S. energy moguls at the start of the Bush presidency was further proof that profits - not the health of the planet - are the main focus of this administration.
The Bush Administration has been clueless on virtually every issue the country and the wider world have faced over the past seven years. From Iraq to stem cell research to health care to the environment, George Bush has shown the sensitivity and insight that only a person who has lived his life in affluent isolation could. In other words, he has the capacity for neither.
The problem here is that personal wealth will do little to save anyone from what could be a true environmental disaster lurking just around the corner.
Nearly 80 French police officers were injured during clashes with youths in a working- and lower-class suburb north of Paris last night, and six are in serious condition, police officials said, after some of the youths used hunting shotguns as well as more conventional guns, fire bombs and rocks.
Senator Trent Lott of Mississippi, who was forced to step down as majority leader in 2002 after making a remark that seemed to support segregation, announced today that he will resign by the end of the year.
Speaking to a crowd of supporters at a televised news conference in Pascagoula, Miss., Mr. Lott said he and his wife, Trish, had decided that they still had enough “time left to do something else” after his 35 years in the House and Senate.
He said he had “nothing definite at this time,” but suggested he might want to teach. He said he had called President Bush and Vice President Cheney last night to notify them of his decision.
He was re-elected in 2006 to his fourth Senate term and had rebounded to become the No. 2 Republican this year after his party had lost its majority in the Senate. But in recent months, Mr. Lott, 66, has made no secret of his deepening frustration in the Senate, not only because his party is in the minority but also because an increasingly bitter partisan divide this year has left little use for his skills as a deal-maker.
After the news conference, he said the frustration was not the sole motivation for his decision, but admitted it was a factor. “I’ve switched back and forth six times, and the majority is better,” he said. “I like to get things done.”
By resigning before the end of the year, Mr. Lott would beat the effective date for new ethics rules that double to two years the amount of time former Senators must wait before they can join a firm to lobby former colleagues. The new rule applies to those who leave office “on or after” Dec. 31.
Lott’s move shocked Republicans on Capitol Hill, who have seen a wave of veterans announce their decision to retire next year as the GOP looks increasingly certain to remain in the minority.
But Lott is the most senior Republican to announce he is leaving office, and his decision comes barely a year after he won re-election to a six-year term.
Lott’s departure is equally stunning because, after cruising to his re-election last year, he completed a political rehabilitation from allegations of racial insensitivity because of remarks he made at a 100th birthday party for Strom Thurmond in December 2002, which led to his banishment from GOP leadership. Last November, after four years as a back-bench Republican who burnished his image as a deal-maker, Lott won a narrow race to become GOP whip, the No. 2 post in leadership.
Lott said that he was going to move into the private sector after 35 years in Congress, but denied that he was getting out before a new two-year “cooling-off” restriction takes effect on Jan. 1. The restriction bars lawmakers from taking lobbying jobs for two years after they leave public service. Lott also denied that health issues were the cause. “Let me make it clear: There are no problems, I feel fine,” he said.
Sen. Lott’s shameful record of opposing and working against GLBT civil rights during his 35 years in Congress, including being a key sponsor of anti-gay marriage constitutional amendments in 2004 and 2006 and recent vote against hate crimes, has earned him a lineup of zeroes on HRC’s congressional scorecards from 2002 - 2006.
Appearing before supporters in Pascagoula, Miss., the senator said his 35 years in Congress – 16 in the House and 19 in the Senate – were “quite a wild ride, a very enjoyable one.” The Senate minority whip said, “Let me make it clear. There are no problems.” He added, “This is not a negative thing. There is no malice and no anger.”
In explaining the timing of the decision, Lott said that he and his wife, Tricia, recently attended a service at a Baptist Church in Jackson, Miss. The preacher cited the verse from Ecclesiastes about there being “a time to every purpose under heaven.” The senator said, “It seemed to be speaking to me and to us.”
Lott also said that new restrictions on lobbying that take effect Dec. 31 “didn’t have a big role” in his decision. The new regulations extend the “cooling off” period for former members of Congress from one to two years.
So is Trent Lott insufficiently venal to quit his term early to avoid lobbying restrictions? Or is he venal enough to do just that and then complain when anyone takes note of it? You be the judge.
Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS) plans to resign his seat effective at year end according to sources in Congress and the Bush administration. Those sources aren’t giving any reason for his resignation other than to say it has nothing to do with his health. He’s going to pursue “other opportunities”. Hmmm. Lott was elected to a fourth Senate term in 2006, and he’s leaving now? Curiouser and curiouser. He’s the sixth Republican to resign this year.
Mississippi’s Republican governor will appoint a replacement who will serve until a special election in 2008. Former Rep. Chip Pickering, who recently retired from the House, is considered the top pick. Stay tuned.
Of course, this is still just a rumor. I couldn’t imagine, after all, a Republican Senator paying someone for sex, after all. Surely *cough* Vitter and Craig *cough* were the only Republicans who would do such a thing, weren’t they?
By his own account, Trent Lott was the “first pelt” of the blogosphere. Although Lott’s political career was revived somewhat last year with his elevation to Senate minority whip, the Mississippi Republican has been a bit player on the Washington scene since bloggers helped force him from the Senate majority leader’s post five years ago next month.
With that in mind, you can expect a lot of celebration today if, as expected, Lott announces that he will be resigning from the Senate at the end of the year. The good-riddance blogging already has begun, in fact….
November 19th, 2007 by JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
As the death toll in the Bangladesh cyclone soars to 15,000, an email to us from the informative Bangladesh blog The 3rd World View reminds us that the United States has played a key rescue role over the years.
Let me tell you a story of a disaster that you have probably never heard of and the overwhelming American response that you should know about.
In late spring of 1991 a US Navy Amphibious Task Force (ATF) returning from the Persian Gulf war was diverted, on order of President George H.W. Bush, to the Bay of Bengal.
A Bangladeshi citizen, rumor has it, on seeing the ATF approach from the sea, called them “Angels from the Sea.” Thus began Operation Sea Angel, one of the largest military relief operations ever undertaken.
November 18th, 2007 by JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
The cyclone that slammed into Bangladesh has proven to be a brutal killer — snuffing out some 2,200 lives so far. And experts believe it could wind up claiming 10,000 when all of the bodies are found and counted.
The government deployed military helicopters, naval ships and thousands of troops to join international agencies and local officials in the rescue mission following Tropical Cyclone Sidr. The U.S. and other countries also offered assistance.
At least 2,206 people have died since the storm struck Bangladesh on Thursday, said Selina Shahid of the Ministry of Food and Disaster Management. The toll could rise still higher as more information comes in from battered regions.
Disaster Management Secretary Aiyub Bhuiyan met Sunday with representatives from the United Nations and international aid groups to discuss the massive relief effort.
“The donors wanted to know about our plan and how they can come forward to stand by the victims,” Bhuiyan told reporters. “We have briefed them about what we need immediately.”
Rescuers struggled to clear roads and get their vehicles through, but many found the way impassable. “We will try again … on bicycles, and hire local country boats,” M. Shakil Anwar of CARE said from the city of Khulna.
At least 1.5 million coastal villagers had fled to shelters where they were given emergency rations, said senior government official Ali Imam Majumder in the capital, Dhaka.
Bangladesh has long been cursed by cyclones. The infamous 1970 Bhola cyclone took some 500,000 lives. Part of it is due to the topography of the region: the Bay of Bengal’s northern region is funnel-shaped and, when Mother Nature hits, coast residents are brutally impacted. There’s a long history (and list) of cyclones that have battered the region of Bangladesh, a country that was once part of Pakistan (which was once part of India).
And cyclones have played a key part in the nation’s and region’s political history. Outrage over how the central government in Islamabad in what was then East Pakistan responded to the Bhola cyclone — it was accused of among other things dragging its feet in facilitating international relief efforts — led to a political cyclone that eventually split Pakistan into two parts with the Bengalis governing themselves in Bangladesh.
Local newspapers are showing pictures of rows of bodies lined up on the sand. There are fears the death toll will rise as rescuers reach isolated areas.
… “Village after village has been shattered,” said Harisprasad Pal, a local official in hard-hit Jhalokati district.
“I have never seen such a catastrophe in my 20 years as a government administrator,” he said.
Survivors described whole houses being picked up and blown away as the storm rushed through southern Bangladesh.
“I have never seen such a terrible scene. It was like hell,” said Manik Roy, a businessman in Jhalokati.
“I saw dozens of tin roofs flying into the air. Whole houses too.”
Meanwhile, the cyclone has caused another problem to ensure that relief efforts from this natural disaster will be critical: it decimated the food crop, the BBC reports:
Officials say that in many areas 95% of rice which was awaiting harvest has been destroyed, and shrimp farms and other crops simply washed away.
Cyclone Sidr comes just a few months after floods devastated the north of the country.
News reports indicate frantic emergency efforts involving the use of troops, helicopters — even elephants to clear debris away.
And, in this age of the Internet, some key information is coming out via weblogs. In Bangladesh, a lot of info is coming out via the blog The 3rd World View (on our blogroll here under OTHER VOICES).
Some key posts to read:
–A post that notes that local relief officials believe the toll can go MUCH higher …such as to 10,000…by the time it’s over.
–A list of efforts going on now to help cyclone victims (many of them extremely poor) and what YOU can do to help.
Considering the force of the cyclone which is bigger than Katrina in USA (2004) and the 1991 cyclone in Bangladesh I would say that the casualties are much much lower. These days Bangladesh has learnt the lessons. Now it has more sophisticated early warning systems and cyclone shelters to save hundreds of thousands of people.
I still remember the TIME article “cyclone of Death” published just after the 1991 cyclone (left more than 140,000 dead) which quoted from Rabindranath Tagore’s Sea of waves:
In the twinkling of an eye it ended! None could see
When life was, and when life finished!
It also has an excellent roundup of Bangladesh blog reactions. If necessary, they have been translated into English. Here are a few of those with the links to the original posts (which may not be in English):
Electricity just went. Its raining heavily outside. Gusty winds are also present. I am awake for unknown danger. Does anybody know cyclone when the cyclone will be past Chittagong or is it really in Chittagong?
It felt like something out of a movie. I was in a car on the way home - it was fifteen minutes to midnight. There wasn’t a soul on the street and the only sounds you could hear were the rain beating down on the streets, the noise of the wind, and the car’s engine. It was pitch black too - every home, apartment, and building as far as the eye could see had no electricity. Then - all of a sudden - a blinding bright light and a roar erupts right next to the car - just outside of my side of the car. My window then gets showered in glowing sparks.
I wasn’t in any danger - it was just a transformer exploding. But, for the first time in this whole time in Bangladesh - I was scared…
I’m writing this on my battery’s laptop power. The glow of the screen is the only thing that is lighting up this room. Now, this isn’t the first time there’s been a blackout - but this time it’s different. This isn’t the first time its rained - but this it’s different. It’s different because, this time it’s caused by Cyclone Sidr.
Also be sure to read 3rd World View’s post that went up as soon as it hit for an example of how a weblog can provide vital information and links in a time of crisis.
November 3rd, 2007 by JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
The audience cheered. They roared, in fact. You’d think it was for a movie star or something.
The guy they were cheering for was shouting “GO CHARGERS, GO!!†in the heart of San Diego Chargers country. The location was what had been the team’s home before 25,000 shell-shocked people took it over for nearly a week, taking refuge from a massive natural disaster.
The politician who elicited heart-felt cheers had, of course, been an actor before becoming California’s governor. But he had become something even more than both as he stood there that Sunday after hideous fires had decimated many parts of San Diego County and incinerated some 1200 structures. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger was in Qualcomm Stadium during a Chargers football game to honor the firefighters. Just one day earlier, the 41-year-old stadium had been emptied of some 20,000 fire evacuees — some of them leaving to live in hotels, or elsewhere, because they were without homes. The game was a victory celebration of sorts.
The worst of the big fires were waning, and it seemed that Schwarzenegger was back in the good graces of the bulk of California voters. From cynical reporters to the man and woman on the street, the man some call “Ahnold†received high marks for his management style during the disaster that caused the largest evacuations in state history.
President George Bush’s high-concept imagery moment came after 9/11 when he picked up the bullhorn in the rubble of the World Trade Center. Much of that image would later dissipate in the partisan polarization wars that followed. But it was an image-making moment.
Schwarzenegger had earlier tried political polarization, got burned and pulled back. Arnold was back to the kind of politics for which a broad coalition of Californians elected him four years ago, when they angrily kicked out the hapless Governor Gray Davis in a recall election. He had come full circle.
Schwarzenegger never really had his bullhorn moment. But it could be argued that he has had his bullhorn phase — his handling of the California wildfires.
He became the role model of a governor on-the-move, a Consoler-in-Chief, a go-between clamoring for help for his state’s residents from federal officials. His poll numbers had been on the rise, but the tragedy of the fires seemed to restore Arnold to the man who came to office seeming to be a different kind of governor.
Schwarzenegger hit just the right note and received praise in newspapers and from the man and woman on the street. For instance, Bill Whalen, writing in the San Francisco Chronicle, said:
November 2nd, 2007 by DR. CLARISSA PINKOLA ESTÉS, TMV Columnist
On mission to post-trauma sites, I drag along a raggedy old journal I’ve handwrit over the decades. Inside the old moleskine, well, it’s overheavy with quotes from Heschel, Berry, Lorca, Mechtilde, and others. Freeze-dried nourishment for the climb.
Tonight, here in the Rockies with snow hanging heavy in the white night sky, the big wood owls land on the roof with such a thud that it sounds like a whole man has been dropped from the sky…
I’ve been thinking somewhat wearily, I must get to bed earlier, last night it was just after 5a.m., the night before 4 a.m…. trying to stay up late to write… trying to read and think and write in the interstices left from all other commitments to twenty-nine elses.
But, I’m see once again, from cruising many blogs and their comments tonight, that there are many souls who have need for rest this night that has nothing to do with lack of sleep… for anyone who registers the world with accuracy, these are times, as Wordsworth put it, “The World is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers: Little we see in Nature that is ours…”
I’d prescribe for that condition, this to start; From the raggedy notebook, here, take this with water. Tonight, I’ll meet you there:
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.
November 1st, 2007 by DR. CLARISSA PINKOLA ESTÉS, TMV Columnist
On the Catholic Sabbath just past, Sunday, a man in San Francisco undressed, painted himself in colored paint, showed up on the steps of Grace Cathedral armed with small explosives, allegedly with the intent to set the church on fire and any people in it.
But, the news story has devolved into the following loudness in some radio and TV talk venues: Is the Catholic church (Grace is an Episcopal Church) a good or bad force in the world? Are people attacking the Catholic Church? Who will or won’t condemn this alleged arsonist? Was this man protesting the Church’s stance on homosexuality? And, How dare anyone criticize the Catholic Church? And on and on.
……..Instead of: What the ‘h.e. double hockey sticks’ was a person, any person, doing running around loose with “an ammunition belt of small explosives strapped around his waist,†who had allegedly been overheard by (or I think, possibly might have arranged for) a neighbor who called police, saying Mr. Paul Addis, a 35-year-old averring he is a performance artist, had planned to set fire to the old French Gothic cathedral and thereby any persons in it.
REGARDLESS of the ‘bomber’s’ political interests or mad-on… what is the real story under the screech-fest already rolling over the airwaves? Is the man insane? Has he hideously bad judgment? Does he confuse ‘acting out’ with performance art? Why would he be willing to threaten human lives? If it is about the Church’s understanding of homosexuality, how is threatening or pretending to threaten to harm the people inside a church better than a KKK line of logic?
How does he fit in with the recent spate of people acting publicly when they a) know cameras are present (don’t tase me bro,) or when a show is being taped live (Bill Maher ran off the stage to help eject a screamer from his audience)? Performance art and threatening to do actual harm in real time context, are two different ideas, yes or no? How can street theater be used in time-honored ways, and where /when? Surely there are Read the rest of this entry »
