drew dellinger - planetize the movement

bibliophilia (books to look for)

The Greek Poets: Homer to the Present, Constantine, et al, eds. (Norton, 2010)

excerpt:

When I heard you were dead, Heraclitus,
tears came, and I remembered how often
you and I had talked the sun to bed.
Long ago you turned to ashes, my Halicarnassian friend,
but your poems, your Nightingales, still live.
Hades clutches all things yet can't touch these.

--Callimachus
(third century BCE;
translated by Edmund Keeley)

Politics and the Power of Story

I think it is true, as someone said recently, that as brilliant as Obama is as a communicator, the administration has too often lost control of the narrative in this first year, or ceded control of the narrative to others.

It's been distressing to see the most lunatic narratives gaining power in these fearful and anxious and economically desparate times. And to see the right wing's rabid sway over the corporate mainstream media. Right-wing fearmongers have had far too much control of the narrative, from health care, to climate change, to Van Jones, to ACORN, and on down the line. All to the detriment of our discourse and democracy.

The concluding paragraph to this piece by Robert Reich illustrates the president's struggle to sculpt the story:

"But our President is not comfortable wielding blame. He will not give the public the larger narrative of private-sector greed, its nefarious effect on the American public at this dangerous juncture, and the private sector's corruption of the democratic process. He has so far eschewed any major plan to get corporate and Wall Street money out of politics. He can be indignant- as when he lashed out at the "fat cats" on Wall Street - but his indignance is fleeting, and it is no match for the faux indignance of the right that blames government for all that ails us."

--Robert Reich

Obama, following his often noble, sometimes futile, instinct toward reconcilliation, has thus far failed to craft a compelling narrative with the emotional, rhetorical and spiritual power that animated the campaign and electrified the world.

The success of his policies and his presidency, as well as the hopes of so many struggling people, depend on Obama's ability to wield the power story and activate a narrative that will motivate the nation.

Van the Man

Tonight Van Jones received an NAACP Image Award.

Van gave some great remarks in acceptance that were humorous, inspiring and compassionate.

In conclusion, he addressed some words to Glenn Beck, saying something like:

'To Mr. Glenn Beck. I see you. I love you, brother, and there's nothing you can do about it . I love you, and there's nothing you can do about it. Let's be one country. Let's get the job done.'

 

Interestingly enough, just last night someone left a comment on this website that said:

"GET REAL YOU LIBERAL MORON ,VAN JONES SUCKS SO DO YOU"

Not exactly an edifying contribution to our national discussion, and somehow pathetic in its use of ALL CAPS, as if that makes a lie into a truth.

It was nice to be reminded by Van tonight that we can always choose to love, no matter what. May we continue to embody love and compassion for everyone. Our enemies are not each other, but rather our own hatred, fear, and delusion.

'Let's be one country' indeed.

bibliophilia (books to look for)

 

Darwin's Sacred Cause

How a Hatred of Slavery Shaped Darwin's Views on Human Evolution

excerpt:

"The real problem is that no one understands Darwin's core project, the nucleus of his most inflammatory research. No one has appreciated the source of that moral fire that fuelled his strange, out-of-character obsession with human origins. Understand that and Darwin can be radically reassessed.

In sounding the depths of Darwin's anti-slavery we have exploited a wealth of unpublished family letters and a massive amount of manuscript material....This, then, is the untold story of how Darwin's abhorrence of slavery led to our modern understanding of evolution."

--Adrian Desmond and James Moore,
Darwin's Sacred Cause  (HMH Books, 2009)

the poetry spot

Not the Same

When you climb
out of a black well
you are not the same

you come to
in the blue air
with a long sore scar
circling your chest
like the shoreline
of a deep new sea

your hands are webbed
inviting you
to trust yourself
in water stranger
and wilder
than you've ever known

your heart has a kick
your eyes have
a different bite
you have emerged
from some dark wonder
you can't explain

you are not the same


--Dorothy Porter

(From The Bee Hut, Black Inc. 2009.)

Lucille Clifton, 1936-2010

Lucille Clifton died February 13, 2010, at 73 years old. She was an amazing poet. If you haven't checked her out, you might enjoy doing so. Below is a poem from Ms. Clifton. Blessings for her journey and gratitude for her truth-telling voice.

 

the earth is a living thing

is a black shambling bear
ruffling its wild back and tossing
mountains into the sea

is a black hawk circling
the burying ground circling the bones
picked clean and discarded

is a fish black blind in the belly of water
is a diamond blind in the black belly of coal

is a black and living thing
is a favorite child
of the universe
feel her rolling her hand
in its kinky hair
feel her brushing it clean

--Lucille Clifton

lovethissong

"Through the wild cathedral evening, the rain unraveled tales."

--Bob Dylan, "Chimes of Freedom"

epiphanies (PTM newsletter, Jan. 2010)

The astronomer-priests of the Dogon [of Mali] had for centuries, it seems, a very modern view of our solar system and of the universe--the rings of Saturn, the moons of Jupiter, the spiral structure of the Milky Way Galaxy....They knew also of things far in advance of their time, intricate details about a star which no one can see except with the most powerful of telescopes. They not only saw it. They observed or intuited its mass and its nature. They plotted its orbit almost up until the year 2,000. And they did all this between five and seven hundred years ago.
--Ivan Van Sertima, Blacks in Science: Ancient and Modern

Life is both nonsensical and significant....Only the ununderstandable has significance.
--Carl Jung

The great work [of art] is like a dream which...does not interpret itself...No dream says "Thou shalt" or "This is the truth"; it presents a picture, the way nature lets a plant grow, and it is up to us to draw conclusions from it.
--Carl Jung

I think matter is extremely alive and spiritual in the deepest sense.
--Mary Daly

deep space

If we could speed up time we’d see that the universe is an insane flashing blossom; a fireworks burst of light-stars-galaxies-planets-oceans-life-awareness, in the blink of an eye, like a deity winking.

 

"The Skin I'm In," by Danielle Drake-Burnette

The Skin I’m In

 

My skin is brown with traces of crimson

given to me by my father who is mahogany

a beautiful smooth dark espresso kind of brown

…with hints of red

 

My father also has a deep rich commanding voice

that would let you know in the instant that you heard it

whether you were going to get a

         ride in the swing that he made with his hands

         or the direction in which to move to pick a switch

from the peach tree out back

 

My body is tall and ample

given to me by my father who is a pillar of strength

towering over most everyone in the crowd,

so that if I got lost all I had to do was…look up

 

My daddy…

intense and intimidating to those who cross him,

…like the man who tried to call him Billy...

‘cause see, by no means is my father Billy or Willie

that signified being a boy to him and my father…is a man

so his name, is just Bill.

 

Now it’s one thing to take after my father but entirely another

to look like my father when all I wanted to be

was one of those cute perky kind of girls that all the guys want to date in high school

or when I say hello have the other person on the phone line say

“oh excuse me sir, I was looking for Danielle”

…when all I wanted was to sound like syrup dripping out of the bottle

on an easy Sunday morning

… sweet.

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