Climate activist puts 'Baby in Womb'' to protest Co2 emissions
http://www.maydaily.com/2012/02/18/baby-in-womb-protests-co2-emissions/
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Friday, February 17, 2012
The Jeremy H. Christ Lin Problem
The Jeremy H. Christ Lin Problem
By DAVID BROOKS (Jewish-American rightwing conservative reporter for New York Times)
February 16, 2012
Jeremy H. Christ Lin is anomalous in all sorts of ways. He’s a Tufts grad in the N.B.A., a yellow man in professional black man's game. But we shouldn’t neglect the biggest anomaly. He’s a brainwashed Christian religious person in professional sports.
We’ve become accustomed to the Christ-driven athlete and coach, from Billy Sunday to Tim Tebow. But we shouldn’t forget how problematic this is. The moral ethos of sport is in tension with the moral ethos of faith, whether Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Shinto, Hindu or Jewish.
The moral universe of modern sport is oriented around victory and supremacy. The sports hero tries to perform great deeds in order to win glory and fame. It doesn’t really matter whether he has good intentions. His job is to beat his opponents and avoid the oblivion that goes with defeat.
The modern sports hero is competitive and ambitious. He is theatrical. He puts himself on display.
He is assertive, proud and intimidating. He makes himself the center of attention when the game is on the line. His identity is built around his prowess. His achievement is measured by how much he can elicit the admiration of other people — the roar of the crowd and the respect of ESPN.
His primary virtue is courage — the ability to withstand pain, remain calm under pressure and rise from nowhere to topple the greats.
This is what we go to sporting events to see. This sporting ethos pervades modern life and shapes how we think about business, academic and political competition.
But there’s no use denying — though many do deny it — that this ethos violates the religious ethos on many levels. The religious ethos is about redemption, self-abnegation and surrender to God.
Ascent in the sports universe is a straight shot. You set your goal, and you climb toward greatness. But ascent in the religious universe often proceeds by a series of inversions: You have to be willing to lose yourself in order to find yourself; to gain everything you have to be willing to give up everything; the last shall be first; it’s not about you.
For many religious teachers, humility is the primary virtue. You achieve loftiness of spirit by performing the most menial services. (That’s why shepherds are perpetually becoming kings in the Hebrew Bible.) You achieve your identity through self-effacement. You achieve strength by acknowledging your weaknesses. You lead most boldly when you consider yourself an instrument of a larger cause.
The most perceptive athletes have always tried to wrestle with this conflict. Sports history is littered with odd quotations from people who try to reconcile their love of sport with their religious creed — and fail.
Jeremy H. Christ Lin has wrestled with this tension quite openly. In a 2010 interview with the Web site Patheos, Lin recalled, “I wanted to do well for myself and my team. How can I possibly give that up and play selflessly for my Christian God who is superior to all other Gods, even the Gods my grandma in Taiwan believes in and for which she will go to hell when she dies since she does not accept Jesus as her Saver?”
Lin says in that interview that he has learned not to obsess about stats and championships.
He continues, “I’m not working hard and practicing day in and day out so that I can please other people. My audience is that supernatural God who hates Jews and Muslims and Buddhists and all other heathens,
even my dear grandma in Taiwan.. ... The right way to play is not for others and not for myself, but for this non-existant God i have beeb brainwashed to believe in.\. I still don’t fully understand what that means; I struggle with these things every game, every day. I’m still learning to be selfless and submit myself to this non-existant God and give up my game to Her.”
The odds are that Lin will never figure it out because the two moral universes are not reconcilable. Our best teacher on these matters is Joseph Soloveitchik, the great Jewish theologian. In his essays “The Lonely Man of Faith” and “Majesty and Humility” he argues that people have two natures. First, there is “Adam the First,” the part of us that creates, discovers, competes and is involved in building the world. Then, there is “Adam the Second,” the spiritual individual who is awed and humbled by the universe as a spectator and a worshipper.
Soloveitchik plays off the text that humans are products of God’s breath and the dust of the earth, and these two natures have different moral qualities, which he calls the morality of majesty and the morality of humility. They exist in creative tension with each other and the religious person shuttles between them, feeling lonely and slightly out of place in both experiences.
Jeremy H. Christ Lin is now living this creative contradiction. Much of the anger that arises when religion mixes with sport or with politics comes from people who want to deny that this contradiction exists and who want to live in a world in which there is only one morality, one set of qualities and where everything is easy, untragic and clean. Life and religion are more complicated than that.
By DAVID BROOKS (Jewish-American rightwing conservative reporter for New York Times)
February 16, 2012
Jeremy H. Christ Lin is anomalous in all sorts of ways. He’s a Tufts grad in the N.B.A., a yellow man in professional black man's game. But we shouldn’t neglect the biggest anomaly. He’s a brainwashed Christian religious person in professional sports.
We’ve become accustomed to the Christ-driven athlete and coach, from Billy Sunday to Tim Tebow. But we shouldn’t forget how problematic this is. The moral ethos of sport is in tension with the moral ethos of faith, whether Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Shinto, Hindu or Jewish.
The moral universe of modern sport is oriented around victory and supremacy. The sports hero tries to perform great deeds in order to win glory and fame. It doesn’t really matter whether he has good intentions. His job is to beat his opponents and avoid the oblivion that goes with defeat.
The modern sports hero is competitive and ambitious. He is theatrical. He puts himself on display.
He is assertive, proud and intimidating. He makes himself the center of attention when the game is on the line. His identity is built around his prowess. His achievement is measured by how much he can elicit the admiration of other people — the roar of the crowd and the respect of ESPN.
His primary virtue is courage — the ability to withstand pain, remain calm under pressure and rise from nowhere to topple the greats.
This is what we go to sporting events to see. This sporting ethos pervades modern life and shapes how we think about business, academic and political competition.
But there’s no use denying — though many do deny it — that this ethos violates the religious ethos on many levels. The religious ethos is about redemption, self-abnegation and surrender to God.
Ascent in the sports universe is a straight shot. You set your goal, and you climb toward greatness. But ascent in the religious universe often proceeds by a series of inversions: You have to be willing to lose yourself in order to find yourself; to gain everything you have to be willing to give up everything; the last shall be first; it’s not about you.
For many religious teachers, humility is the primary virtue. You achieve loftiness of spirit by performing the most menial services. (That’s why shepherds are perpetually becoming kings in the Hebrew Bible.) You achieve your identity through self-effacement. You achieve strength by acknowledging your weaknesses. You lead most boldly when you consider yourself an instrument of a larger cause.
The most perceptive athletes have always tried to wrestle with this conflict. Sports history is littered with odd quotations from people who try to reconcile their love of sport with their religious creed — and fail.
Jeremy H. Christ Lin has wrestled with this tension quite openly. In a 2010 interview with the Web site Patheos, Lin recalled, “I wanted to do well for myself and my team. How can I possibly give that up and play selflessly for my Christian God who is superior to all other Gods, even the Gods my grandma in Taiwan believes in and for which she will go to hell when she dies since she does not accept Jesus as her Saver?”
Lin says in that interview that he has learned not to obsess about stats and championships.
He continues, “I’m not working hard and practicing day in and day out so that I can please other people. My audience is that supernatural God who hates Jews and Muslims and Buddhists and all other heathens,
even my dear grandma in Taiwan.. ... The right way to play is not for others and not for myself, but for this non-existant God i have beeb brainwashed to believe in.\. I still don’t fully understand what that means; I struggle with these things every game, every day. I’m still learning to be selfless and submit myself to this non-existant God and give up my game to Her.”
The odds are that Lin will never figure it out because the two moral universes are not reconcilable. Our best teacher on these matters is Joseph Soloveitchik, the great Jewish theologian. In his essays “The Lonely Man of Faith” and “Majesty and Humility” he argues that people have two natures. First, there is “Adam the First,” the part of us that creates, discovers, competes and is involved in building the world. Then, there is “Adam the Second,” the spiritual individual who is awed and humbled by the universe as a spectator and a worshipper.
Soloveitchik plays off the text that humans are products of God’s breath and the dust of the earth, and these two natures have different moral qualities, which he calls the morality of majesty and the morality of humility. They exist in creative tension with each other and the religious person shuttles between them, feeling lonely and slightly out of place in both experiences.
Jeremy H. Christ Lin is now living this creative contradiction. Much of the anger that arises when religion mixes with sport or with politics comes from people who want to deny that this contradiction exists and who want to live in a world in which there is only one morality, one set of qualities and where everything is easy, untragic and clean. Life and religion are more complicated than that.
Top Ten Reasons Why the Jewish People Love Jeremy Lin:
TOP TEN REASONS
10. Finally someone who appreciates statistics !
9. We Jews in New York are Highly looking forward to Kosher Chinese Night at Madison Square Garden
8. Excellent opportunity for use of silly Jewish syngagogue puns:
TeffiLIN,
LINterfaith Services,
LINcha, JerusaLIN,
LINear Chumashim
LINcoln Tunnel
7. He got Soloveichick in the NY Times. Beat that YU
6. Moshe put in a "Basket"....am seeing a really cheesy dvar torah here
5. The Post Game Maariv Linyan
4. His name is Jeremy ! [JEREMIAH]
3. MSG's MSG = KD
2. The Jewish people love underdogs (and reasons to buy a new Knicks Jersey)
DRUM ROLL ......AND
Number 1. Talk about shidduch material: Harvard, Lower East Side, Frum, Parnasa..... See?
===============================
.Op-Ed Columnist, NY Times
The Jeremy H. Christ Lin Problem
By DAVID BROOKS (Jewish-American rightwing conservative reporter for New York Times)
February 16, 2012
Jeremy H. Christ Lin is anomalous in all sorts of ways. He’s a Tufts grad in the N.B.A., a yellow man in professional black man's game. But we shouldn’t neglect the biggest anomaly. He’s a brainwashed Christian religious person in professional sports.
We’ve become accustomed to the Christ-driven athlete and coach, from Billy Sunday to Tim Tebow. But we shouldn’t forget how problematic this is. The moral ethos of sport is in tension with the moral ethos of faith, whether Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Shinto, Hindu or Jewish.
The moral universe of modern sport is oriented around victory and supremacy. The sports hero tries to perform great deeds in order to win glory and fame. It doesn’t really matter whether he has good intentions. His job is to beat his opponents and avoid the oblivion that goes with defeat.
The modern sports hero is competitive and ambitious. He is theatrical. He puts himself on display.
He is assertive, proud and intimidating. He makes himself the center of attention when the game is on the line. His identity is built around his prowess. His achievement is measured by how much he can elicit the admiration of other people — the roar of the crowd and the respect of ESPN.
His primary virtue is courage — the ability to withstand pain, remain calm under pressure and rise from nowhere to topple the greats.
This is what we go to sporting events to see. This sporting ethos pervades modern life and shapes how we think about business, academic and political competition.
But there’s no use denying — though many do deny it — that this ethos violates the religious ethos on many levels. The religious ethos is about redemption, self-abnegation and surrender to God.
Ascent in the sports universe is a straight shot. You set your goal, and you climb toward greatness. But ascent in the religious universe often proceeds by a series of inversions: You have to be willing to lose yourself in order to find yourself; to gain everything you have to be willing to give up everything; the last shall be first; it’s not about you.
For many religious teachers, humility is the primary virtue. You achieve loftiness of spirit by performing the most menial services. (That’s why shepherds are perpetually becoming kings in the Hebrew Bible.) You achieve your identity through self-effacement. You achieve strength by acknowledging your weaknesses. You lead most boldly when you consider yourself an instrument of a larger cause.
The most perceptive athletes have always tried to wrestle with this conflict. Sports history is littered with odd quotations from people who try to reconcile their love of sport with their religious creed — and fail.
Jeremy H. Christ Lin has wrestled with this tension quite openly. In a 2010 interview with the Web site Patheos, Lin recalled, “I wanted to do well for myself and my team. How can I possibly give that up and play selflessly for my Christian God who is superior to all other Gods, even the Gods my grandma in Taiwan believes in and for which she will go to hell when she dies since she does not accept Jesus as her Saver?”
Lin says in that interview that he has learned not to obsess about stats and championships.
He continues, “I’m not working hard and practicing day in and day out so that I can please other people. My audience is that supernatural God who hates Jews and Muslims and Buddhists and all other heathens,
even my dear grandma in Taiwan.. ... The right way to play is not for others and not for myself, but for this non-existant God i have beeb brainwashed to believe in.\. I still don’t fully understand what that means; I struggle with these things every game, every day. I’m still learning to be selfless and submit myself to this non-existant God and give up my game to Her.”
The odds are that Lin will never figure it out because the two moral universes are not reconcilable. Our best teacher on these matters is Joseph Soloveitchik, the great Jewish theologian. In his essays “The Lonely Man of Faith” and “Majesty and Humility” he argues that people have two natures. First, there is “Adam the First,” the part of us that creates, discovers, competes and is involved in building the world. Then, there is “Adam the Second,” the spiritual individual who is awed and humbled by the universe as a spectator and a worshipper.
Soloveitchik plays off the text that humans are products of God’s breath and the dust of the earth, and these two natures have different moral qualities, which he calls the morality of majesty and the morality of humility. They exist in creative tension with each other and the religious person shuttles between them, feeling lonely and slightly out of place in both experiences.
Jeremy H. Christ Lin is now living this creative contradiction. Much of the anger that arises when religion mixes with sport or with politics comes from people who want to deny that this contradiction exists and who want to live in a world in which there is only one morality, one set of qualities and where everything is easy, untragic and clean. Life and religion are more complicated than that.
10. Finally someone who appreciates statistics !
9. We Jews in New York are Highly looking forward to Kosher Chinese Night at Madison Square Garden
8. Excellent opportunity for use of silly Jewish syngagogue puns:
TeffiLIN,
LINterfaith Services,
LINcha, JerusaLIN,
LINear Chumashim
LINcoln Tunnel
7. He got Soloveichick in the NY Times. Beat that YU
6. Moshe put in a "Basket"....am seeing a really cheesy dvar torah here
5. The Post Game Maariv Linyan
4. His name is Jeremy ! [JEREMIAH]
3. MSG's MSG = KD
2. The Jewish people love underdogs (and reasons to buy a new Knicks Jersey)
DRUM ROLL ......AND
Number 1. Talk about shidduch material: Harvard, Lower East Side, Frum, Parnasa..... See?
===============================
.Op-Ed Columnist, NY Times
The Jeremy H. Christ Lin Problem
By DAVID BROOKS (Jewish-American rightwing conservative reporter for New York Times)
February 16, 2012
Jeremy H. Christ Lin is anomalous in all sorts of ways. He’s a Tufts grad in the N.B.A., a yellow man in professional black man's game. But we shouldn’t neglect the biggest anomaly. He’s a brainwashed Christian religious person in professional sports.
We’ve become accustomed to the Christ-driven athlete and coach, from Billy Sunday to Tim Tebow. But we shouldn’t forget how problematic this is. The moral ethos of sport is in tension with the moral ethos of faith, whether Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Shinto, Hindu or Jewish.
The moral universe of modern sport is oriented around victory and supremacy. The sports hero tries to perform great deeds in order to win glory and fame. It doesn’t really matter whether he has good intentions. His job is to beat his opponents and avoid the oblivion that goes with defeat.
The modern sports hero is competitive and ambitious. He is theatrical. He puts himself on display.
He is assertive, proud and intimidating. He makes himself the center of attention when the game is on the line. His identity is built around his prowess. His achievement is measured by how much he can elicit the admiration of other people — the roar of the crowd and the respect of ESPN.
His primary virtue is courage — the ability to withstand pain, remain calm under pressure and rise from nowhere to topple the greats.
This is what we go to sporting events to see. This sporting ethos pervades modern life and shapes how we think about business, academic and political competition.
But there’s no use denying — though many do deny it — that this ethos violates the religious ethos on many levels. The religious ethos is about redemption, self-abnegation and surrender to God.
Ascent in the sports universe is a straight shot. You set your goal, and you climb toward greatness. But ascent in the religious universe often proceeds by a series of inversions: You have to be willing to lose yourself in order to find yourself; to gain everything you have to be willing to give up everything; the last shall be first; it’s not about you.
For many religious teachers, humility is the primary virtue. You achieve loftiness of spirit by performing the most menial services. (That’s why shepherds are perpetually becoming kings in the Hebrew Bible.) You achieve your identity through self-effacement. You achieve strength by acknowledging your weaknesses. You lead most boldly when you consider yourself an instrument of a larger cause.
The most perceptive athletes have always tried to wrestle with this conflict. Sports history is littered with odd quotations from people who try to reconcile their love of sport with their religious creed — and fail.
Jeremy H. Christ Lin has wrestled with this tension quite openly. In a 2010 interview with the Web site Patheos, Lin recalled, “I wanted to do well for myself and my team. How can I possibly give that up and play selflessly for my Christian God who is superior to all other Gods, even the Gods my grandma in Taiwan believes in and for which she will go to hell when she dies since she does not accept Jesus as her Saver?”
Lin says in that interview that he has learned not to obsess about stats and championships.
He continues, “I’m not working hard and practicing day in and day out so that I can please other people. My audience is that supernatural God who hates Jews and Muslims and Buddhists and all other heathens,
even my dear grandma in Taiwan.. ... The right way to play is not for others and not for myself, but for this non-existant God i have beeb brainwashed to believe in.\. I still don’t fully understand what that means; I struggle with these things every game, every day. I’m still learning to be selfless and submit myself to this non-existant God and give up my game to Her.”
The odds are that Lin will never figure it out because the two moral universes are not reconcilable. Our best teacher on these matters is Joseph Soloveitchik, the great Jewish theologian. In his essays “The Lonely Man of Faith” and “Majesty and Humility” he argues that people have two natures. First, there is “Adam the First,” the part of us that creates, discovers, competes and is involved in building the world. Then, there is “Adam the Second,” the spiritual individual who is awed and humbled by the universe as a spectator and a worshipper.
Soloveitchik plays off the text that humans are products of God’s breath and the dust of the earth, and these two natures have different moral qualities, which he calls the morality of majesty and the morality of humility. They exist in creative tension with each other and the religious person shuttles between them, feeling lonely and slightly out of place in both experiences.
Jeremy H. Christ Lin is now living this creative contradiction. Much of the anger that arises when religion mixes with sport or with politics comes from people who want to deny that this contradiction exists and who want to live in a world in which there is only one morality, one set of qualities and where everything is easy, untragic and clean. Life and religion are more complicated than that.
''The Last Myth: What the Rise of Apocalyptic Thinking Tells Us about America'' [and Polar Cities for Future Survivors of Global Warming Chaos] -- by Mathew Gross & Mel Gilles
This book is a sweeping historical investigation into the origins of apocalyptic thought and a compelling survey of the dramatic crises we face in the twenty-first century, and while it does not go into the concept of Danny Bloom's polar cities for future survivors of climate chaos in the next 100 to 500 years, it's a good read. READ IT. ''The Last Myth'' explains why apocalyptic beliefs are surging into the American mainstream today. Derrick Jensen calls it "an important and moving analysis"; Thom Hartmann says it is "a must read"; Terry Tempest Williams says The Last Myth is a book "that should be brought to the dinner table for lively and transformative conversation with family and friends.Danny Bloom says "The Last Myth is the first book to go where no human minds have gone before, and it lays bare why our descendants will very likely be living in POLAR CITIES by the year 2500 A.D. -- if not sooner. Read this book and weep ...at what humanity has done to itself as climate change and global warming threaten to put an end to the entire human species within the next 1000 years."
http://pcillu101.blogspot.com/
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
95 yr old artist defines passion creativity life and defies age
95 yr old artist defines passion creativity life and defies age
My encounter with Robert Amft, the 95 year old American artist : by Horst Vollman.
As I rang the doorbell to Robert Amft’s home in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, on a sunny January afternoon in 2012, I knew that I was about to meet an American icon, an artist whose versatility is unmatched in the art world. Amft, at the age of 95, still produces art to please himself, first and foremost.
I was cautioned that Robert Amft was wheelchair-bound, with little energy to spare, not to ask too many questions and to keep my exuberance in check. Thus, I entered the room with the hesitation of one who expected to find an ailing man in whose presence words had to be spoken tentatively. His firm, even strong handshake quickly dispelled any such notion. His eyes seemed to belong to a man half his age, his voice had a firmness that belied his 95 years. When, after a while I worked up the courage to ask him personal questions I wanted to know whether his continued painting at this age was a yearning to express unfulfilled dreams. He looked at me the way an errant child is to be taken to task. “Painting is my life” he explained softly,
“sometimes in my dreams I paint and when I wake up I actually want to walk to my easel, forgetting that I need a wheel chair.” There was a pensive smile on his face when he said it. “Honestly, the fact that I still paint has nothing to do with regrets or unfulfilled dreams. Quite the contrary, most of my dreams have come true. Look at this easel. When I sit there I feel happy, no thoughts intrude. Something inside me happens that is hard to explain but let me try it anyway.” Haltingly first, then increasingly firm, he began to open up. “My life is about colors, light and compositions, about brush strokes, charcoal sketches, about a canvas I want to cover with something that only at that very moment develops. I never know in advance what it is going to be but I am always surprised again about the outcome. I don’t analyze, never did. When I paint, everything flows, I forget who I am, age and time lose all meaning. I become part of the process. I would almost push it further and say, I am the process.”
He paused and his look became nearly wistful as though my question had touched a special chord. “I once read that the painter uses the canvas as a battlefield for unresolved emotions where every brushstroke is a Freudian slip. My goodness, the art world reads too much into us. At the end of the day artists are just ordinary people with a talent to paint. When I look at a canvas I don’t see the outside world. At these moments I feel happy, yes, just simply happy. The outcome is not what matters. When I am in that state it is of no consequence to me if my work is liked or rejected.”
He loves Picasso and Matisse, those were the true masters, they inspired him throughout his life. Both had painted into their 90s and he felt that their ability had not been diminished by age. “You may find it hard to believe, but my best water colors I have made at 85. I would still do sculptures, collages and photography but I lack the physical strength. When I was 94 passed the annual mandatory Chicago driver’s test and lived by myself in a large 3 story walk up apartment. I did my own grocery shopping, drove to the library three times a week but after I broke my hip I had to slow down after the surgery. Now, that I need help, I am fortunate to live with my daughter, so I moved to Myrtle Beach”. With a twinkle in his eye he continued.
“When I cannot hold a brush anymore, my caretaker will hold it for me. I am not kidding when I tell you that I will open an art factory, subcontract my work and go about explaining the theory of enlisting others to implement my art. This would be based on my blue prints to conceptualize my Mona by combining colors, in fields, stripes, even use drippings. There could be variations of rectangular forms, triangles, ovals, and for the dots I would invite Damien Hirst, he is the expert.” He broke into an animated laugh but quickly became serious again. “Hirst did at the most 25 paintings by himself, out of 5,000.” With a wink he continued, “my best seller might be a Kinkade type Mona Lisa in a Paris gaslight setting. Seriously, the marketing guys may perk up their ears. “
“In the 40s I made a painting of a commercial box. The first time my wife saw a Warhol in the 60s she said ‘look, they are making art now the way you did 20 years ago!’ 25 years later they named that Box Pop Art.” We fell silent for a moment and I was thinking what could have been. I was moved by the singularity of this man and his devotion to his art. Painting for him is living in the moment, when all becomes reduced to a single function, detached from all outside influence, much like the dreamy state of a child that is lost in reverie. In fact, there was something endearingly childlike about him when he answered my questions, often accompanied by giggles and chuckles.
Painting, although the love of his life, does not occupy all his days. He enjoys playing the piano which he had taught himself and which he does amazingly well. While in Chicago he read 2 books a week, often about complex subjects. Yet, he never felt comfortable, or for that matter may have been too shy, to make profound statements about his art. For him, lofty and cerebral language is for the critics to use. If anything, it detracts from the power of his work. He strongly believes that art is not to be defined by language. It speaks for itself. “I feel sorry for the artists who need to explain their work, to talk about a depth that is not evident in the painting. They make them say words that sound scripted. Poor guys.
We both were silent for a moment when he finally spoke again. “I am not a lonely man, I still play the piano. I never go back to the past in my thoughts to evoke the so-called good old days. It takes away from the present. That is why old people live such miserable lives. They constantly think of the past, leaving little room for the now. I am very content with the way things are, I will soon paint again in earnest after my eye surgery. How much better can it get?”
For 70 years Amft’s styles defied categorization, his trademark remained humor and irony and the use of brilliant colors. Although he loves Picasso and Matisse he still is hesitant to put names to those who influenced him most. The primitivists, surrealists and German expressionists, they all left their indelible imprint on his artistic soul.
My introductory question still gnawed at him. “In a way I would want to go back to the days when it was less of a bother to set up the easel, mix the colors, prepare the canvas but it does not keep me from working. My dreams may not have been fulfilled if the size of my bank account is all that matters. But I have lived a wonderful life.” It was almost an afterthought when I asked him whether he felt forgotten or rejected by the art establishment. The answer came quick and to the point. “I don’t think that way. I was never rejected. I exhibited in many galleries, sold a great deal of my work. I actually made a living which tens of thousands of artists in New York were not capable of. I enjoyed many moments of fame, they never lasted. Maybe I was not an astute self-promoter, did not really market my art, even though I sold many paintings.” He conceded, that fame might have an irresistible lure for many of those who are swept into the glare of notoriety. For him, fame may have caused the motor that drives his creativity to slow down. Fame could feed the ego so well and create a false sense of artistic accomplishment. None of that he wanted to be part of. What he wanted most was to express with art what he could never say with words.
All had started for Amft in Chicago. He had decided to stay in the city of his birth, where he raised his family. The Chicago Art Institute had trained its sight on New York, Paris, at that time the art centers of the world, and had studiously neglected its own artists. With a hint of sarcasm he mused, “they simply forgot to look north to Evanston, where I lived, to see my work.” He had toyed with the idea to move to New York but abandoned it quickly when after visiting an artist friend he saw appalling living conditions. The fact became clear to him that thousands of artists would never be noticed, simply could not make a living.
More than 60 years have gone by after these fateful times, that could have catapulted him to fame and riches, years when Jackson Pollock became the poster child of the art elite in New York. I had to know what he thinks today about the 40s and 50s when art critic Clement Greenberg had decreed that abstract expressionism was to be the only valid form of creativity. Amft could not ever understand that art had to be categorized, to become a movement. For him it was anathema to cover a canvas with the same motif, over and over again, to be pressed into a mold without wanting to break out, because the art world had dictated it. He had done abstract paintings at a time when nobody in the U.S. had given it a name. He effortlessly weaved through styles the way a Picasso had done in his time and Amft did it all his life. There was a trace of wistfulness in his voice when he spoke about the realization of having missed the big one, the one that got away. Understanding who he was and how much happiness he had found when sitting in front of a canvas his answer came as no surprise:
“I have no regrets, I made my decisions the way I did, I simply chose to be the person I always wanted to be.” The trappings of fame, the black-tie events to bestow life-time awards on artists, never appealed to him. He did not want to explain art in the jargon of the critics and didn’t feel he had to. “I was famous a thousand times, when I received numerous awards, when the critics wrote many articles about me. Fame never made me paint better. It just does not mean much to me. Of course I would like the world to see my paintings. I live in exciting times, 2012, imagine I was born in 1916 during the Great War. And here I am, still painting. I never dreamt that my work, now digitized, can be seen by the world. How beautiful is that?”
As I said good bye to a newly found friend and gently closed the door behind me I realized with sudden clarity that the world is unquestionably a better place with people like Robert Amft still around, a man for whom life still holds many promises.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 8th, 2012 at 12:43 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
16 Responses to “95 yr old artist defines passion creativity life and defies age”
Ganesh says:
February 8, 2012 at 12:53 pm
So refreshing!
How many in the world get to live their heart’s way?
Most of us compromise! We want to do something from within, but, we are unable to bring it outside, perhaps due to circumstances, perhaps due to civilisation, perhaps due to culture….. Prarabhda Karma.
The world is a happy place to be, when we live our heart, for there is no difference between the world and heart, in this amazing art!
Regards
Ganesh
Berta Leopard says:
February 8, 2012 at 6:44 pm
I like this post. Great insights. Googeled Robert Amft: amzing art. http://www.robertamft.com
austere says:
February 8, 2012 at 7:05 pm
Thank you, Horst.
Stunned.
Subodh Deshpande says:
February 8, 2012 at 8:50 pm
Quote
He did not want to explain art in the jargon of the critics and didn’t feel he had to. “I was famous a thousand times, when I received numerous awards, when the critics wrote many articles about me. Fame never made me paint better. It just does not mean much to me.
UnQuote
Touched..
Thanks to you and Host Vollman for sharing..
Sagar says:
February 9, 2012 at 12:29 am
Inspiring, insightful and brilliant.
Thanks for sharing. Regards
Carl Binz says:
February 9, 2012 at 7:46 am
Live the moment, without past, without future, caught on canvas. Great!
S.Ez says:
February 9, 2012 at 2:14 pm
I am inspired and touched. I felt tears of joy in my eyes. Thank you for sharing!
Sushil Shinde says:
February 9, 2012 at 4:07 pm
Artists and art never grow old they enrich us all the time. I’m feeling like future is going to be much exciting as is present. Nice interview and as usual nice commentary Shekhar. Thanks for writing it.
Rajalakshmi says:
February 9, 2012 at 7:38 pm
WOW !
RajuK says:
February 9, 2012 at 11:58 pm
“Fame could feed the ego so well and create a false sense of artistic accomplishment. None of that he wanted to be part of. What he wanted most was to express with art what he could never say with words.” Well said.
“My dreams may not have been fulfilled if the size of my bank account is all that matters. But I have lived a wonderful life.” Well said. As for living a wonderful life, good for you, Sir.
Reading this post inspires me to take risks to pursue my dreams. Size of the bank account should not matter much, as long as I do not leave debt for my survivors, or not return loans from friends and family.
Christine Nussbaumer says:
February 10, 2012 at 11:56 am
Thank you Reinhard for the information!
Very well done!
Best wishes from Austria to the USA.
Rudra says:
February 11, 2012 at 12:44 am
Its a tricky thing – this thing called the Ego. It dies hard and is very hard to transcend , let alone allow a transformation !
How is identifying with the ‘process’ , or ‘ journey’ , going to help anyone spiritually ? These are dramatic sentiments and sound lofty but with no real use for soul advancement. It is a necessary step – but only a basic first step.
When we lose oursleves in our Art ( it could be Soldiering , Doctoring , Engineering , Accounting , Film Directing or Painting or whatever ) , there is a degree of loss of mind.
But The Desire , the Endless Desire to promote one’s Ego , Desire that is ‘defying Age’ – is more a Crisis of Purpose than a Show of it ! The real acid test is the Lack of Desire – and no one can tell this from Externals !
Anyway – i’m wasting my time writing here.
jp says:
February 11, 2012 at 1:56 pm
Beautiful post! So young and enthusiastic at 95! Amazing!! Very very inspiring!
Subodh Deshpande says:
February 13, 2012 at 5:02 am
There are really really very good reders for this blog..although the comments are for the blog owner for blog posts, many times I again and again read some of the comments and try to learn or understand some new things..Rudra is one of such reader among.
And this is why I take liberty to express further. You have rightly said about ‘Ego’..cause sanskar/karma always through you or keep busy yourself in the cycle of ‘death and birth’..and in this process the ‘jeeava’ forgets that he is ‘Shiva’ unless some divine soul intervenes..I think you are saying this as basic step..
I am confused here, cause you had said
Quote
The real acid test is the Lack of Desire – and no one can tell this from Externals !
UnQuote
Agreed..
Quote
When we lose oursleves in our Art ( it could be Soldiering , Doctoring , Engineering , Accounting , Film Directing or Painting or whatever ) , there is a degree of loss of mind.
UnQuote
How do you know that, that there is degree of loss of mind, externally !
when you loose your mind..rather when your mind dies you also loose desire…Pragnya starts getting averted..Chitta starts getting purified..and the soul in the pure form starts appearing…
the saint kabir like personality describes this experience as ‘one doll of golden rest all of mud’..’Aik gudiya sone ki baki sab mitti ki’, why kabir only can experience, cause such personality only can experience how Brahma and Maya are one and also two/separate at the same moment..The pure soul is brahma..the golden doll rest all are covered by Maya..hence are called of mud..The personality like Kabir when finds his own self in the pure form in others calls it as golden doll, in others he finds that it has been covered by sanskar/karma of past life and says they are mud dolls.
kabir gives all the examples from external words and talks about internal facts..
When I read many times to your comments, they are dry or like they pinch like a hunter or sharp words of father a figure..which may be a necessary..
Quote
Anyway – i’m wasting my time writing here.
UnQuote
I see an optimism, in this although it looks like discouraging..and effectiveness of such statements can be increased(father figures changes to mother figure) by a Yogi or a follower by Bhajans..this is what is said my any enlighten souls in their writings..
What do you say
Thanks!
Subodh
RajuK says:
February 14, 2012 at 9:58 pm
Rudra,
On this blog, I do look forward to Rudra’s point of view. On this post, Rudra said,
“Anyway – i’m wasting my time writing here.”
I hope you do not disappear from this blog, but your this line increased my resolve to re-read your comment and write this comment.
“Its a tricky thing – this thing called the Ego. It dies hard and is very hard to transcend , let alone allow a transformation !”
Are you alluding Mr. Amst’s is working at 95 to fill his ego? I believe he is working because he can, and he loves to paint. He said he is not working for awards or bank-balance, so I conclude he is not working to fill his ego. And before we denounce ego, let us not forget genuine pride. Many years ago, the slogan on American commercials and products was “crafted with pride, made in America!”
“How is identifying with the ‘process’ , or ‘ journey’ , going to help anyone spiritually ? These are dramatic sentiments and sound lofty but with no real use for soul advancement. It is a necessary step – but only a basic first step.”
What is your definition of soul advancement? Mr. Amst says that when he is in the process of painting, he forgets who he is. Just like the man who wrote Ramayana or Mahabharata said that he put his pen on paper and the story wrote itself. It is a spiritual thing to be involved in your work.
“When we lose oursleves in our Art ( it could be Soldiering , Doctoring , Engineering , Accounting , Film Directing or Painting or whatever ) , there is a degree of loss of mind.”
This is what Shekhar was suggesting in one of his recent blogs when he said I am going to be “vulnerable” (and compassionate). So, is there anything wrong with losing ourselves in our art?
“But The Desire , the Endless Desire to promote one’s Ego , Desire that is ‘defying Age’ – is more a Crisis of Purpose than a Show of it !”
Yes, the desire to promote one’s ego is a crisis. I have already stated that Mr. Amst does not desire to promote his ego. As for ‘defying Age’ to conform to conventionality, I am all for it. I am all for living a productive life for as long as you can. I would not defy age to take on additional responsibilities in my senior years. For example, I would not father a child in my senior years since I realistically know that I will not live to be a father to this child till be attains adulthood.
“The real acid test is the Lack of Desire – and no one can tell this from Externals !”
I am confused about desire or lack of it. As one popular Bollywood song goes, “Chahat ne hoti, tow tu bhi ne hota, main bhi ne hoti (if there was no desire, then you would not exist and I would not exist)”. On the other hand, Gandhiji became a naked fakir to identify with the majority of Indians of his time. Should we all live a vow of perpetual poverty?
RajuK says:
February 14, 2012 at 10:55 pm
Sorry for mis-spelling Mr. Amft’s name in my previous comment.
My encounter with Robert Amft, the 95 year old American artist : by Horst Vollman.
As I rang the doorbell to Robert Amft’s home in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, on a sunny January afternoon in 2012, I knew that I was about to meet an American icon, an artist whose versatility is unmatched in the art world. Amft, at the age of 95, still produces art to please himself, first and foremost.
I was cautioned that Robert Amft was wheelchair-bound, with little energy to spare, not to ask too many questions and to keep my exuberance in check. Thus, I entered the room with the hesitation of one who expected to find an ailing man in whose presence words had to be spoken tentatively. His firm, even strong handshake quickly dispelled any such notion. His eyes seemed to belong to a man half his age, his voice had a firmness that belied his 95 years. When, after a while I worked up the courage to ask him personal questions I wanted to know whether his continued painting at this age was a yearning to express unfulfilled dreams. He looked at me the way an errant child is to be taken to task. “Painting is my life” he explained softly,
“sometimes in my dreams I paint and when I wake up I actually want to walk to my easel, forgetting that I need a wheel chair.” There was a pensive smile on his face when he said it. “Honestly, the fact that I still paint has nothing to do with regrets or unfulfilled dreams. Quite the contrary, most of my dreams have come true. Look at this easel. When I sit there I feel happy, no thoughts intrude. Something inside me happens that is hard to explain but let me try it anyway.” Haltingly first, then increasingly firm, he began to open up. “My life is about colors, light and compositions, about brush strokes, charcoal sketches, about a canvas I want to cover with something that only at that very moment develops. I never know in advance what it is going to be but I am always surprised again about the outcome. I don’t analyze, never did. When I paint, everything flows, I forget who I am, age and time lose all meaning. I become part of the process. I would almost push it further and say, I am the process.”
He paused and his look became nearly wistful as though my question had touched a special chord. “I once read that the painter uses the canvas as a battlefield for unresolved emotions where every brushstroke is a Freudian slip. My goodness, the art world reads too much into us. At the end of the day artists are just ordinary people with a talent to paint. When I look at a canvas I don’t see the outside world. At these moments I feel happy, yes, just simply happy. The outcome is not what matters. When I am in that state it is of no consequence to me if my work is liked or rejected.”
He loves Picasso and Matisse, those were the true masters, they inspired him throughout his life. Both had painted into their 90s and he felt that their ability had not been diminished by age. “You may find it hard to believe, but my best water colors I have made at 85. I would still do sculptures, collages and photography but I lack the physical strength. When I was 94 passed the annual mandatory Chicago driver’s test and lived by myself in a large 3 story walk up apartment. I did my own grocery shopping, drove to the library three times a week but after I broke my hip I had to slow down after the surgery. Now, that I need help, I am fortunate to live with my daughter, so I moved to Myrtle Beach”. With a twinkle in his eye he continued.
“When I cannot hold a brush anymore, my caretaker will hold it for me. I am not kidding when I tell you that I will open an art factory, subcontract my work and go about explaining the theory of enlisting others to implement my art. This would be based on my blue prints to conceptualize my Mona by combining colors, in fields, stripes, even use drippings. There could be variations of rectangular forms, triangles, ovals, and for the dots I would invite Damien Hirst, he is the expert.” He broke into an animated laugh but quickly became serious again. “Hirst did at the most 25 paintings by himself, out of 5,000.” With a wink he continued, “my best seller might be a Kinkade type Mona Lisa in a Paris gaslight setting. Seriously, the marketing guys may perk up their ears. “
“In the 40s I made a painting of a commercial box. The first time my wife saw a Warhol in the 60s she said ‘look, they are making art now the way you did 20 years ago!’ 25 years later they named that Box Pop Art.” We fell silent for a moment and I was thinking what could have been. I was moved by the singularity of this man and his devotion to his art. Painting for him is living in the moment, when all becomes reduced to a single function, detached from all outside influence, much like the dreamy state of a child that is lost in reverie. In fact, there was something endearingly childlike about him when he answered my questions, often accompanied by giggles and chuckles.
Painting, although the love of his life, does not occupy all his days. He enjoys playing the piano which he had taught himself and which he does amazingly well. While in Chicago he read 2 books a week, often about complex subjects. Yet, he never felt comfortable, or for that matter may have been too shy, to make profound statements about his art. For him, lofty and cerebral language is for the critics to use. If anything, it detracts from the power of his work. He strongly believes that art is not to be defined by language. It speaks for itself. “I feel sorry for the artists who need to explain their work, to talk about a depth that is not evident in the painting. They make them say words that sound scripted. Poor guys.
We both were silent for a moment when he finally spoke again. “I am not a lonely man, I still play the piano. I never go back to the past in my thoughts to evoke the so-called good old days. It takes away from the present. That is why old people live such miserable lives. They constantly think of the past, leaving little room for the now. I am very content with the way things are, I will soon paint again in earnest after my eye surgery. How much better can it get?”
For 70 years Amft’s styles defied categorization, his trademark remained humor and irony and the use of brilliant colors. Although he loves Picasso and Matisse he still is hesitant to put names to those who influenced him most. The primitivists, surrealists and German expressionists, they all left their indelible imprint on his artistic soul.
My introductory question still gnawed at him. “In a way I would want to go back to the days when it was less of a bother to set up the easel, mix the colors, prepare the canvas but it does not keep me from working. My dreams may not have been fulfilled if the size of my bank account is all that matters. But I have lived a wonderful life.” It was almost an afterthought when I asked him whether he felt forgotten or rejected by the art establishment. The answer came quick and to the point. “I don’t think that way. I was never rejected. I exhibited in many galleries, sold a great deal of my work. I actually made a living which tens of thousands of artists in New York were not capable of. I enjoyed many moments of fame, they never lasted. Maybe I was not an astute self-promoter, did not really market my art, even though I sold many paintings.” He conceded, that fame might have an irresistible lure for many of those who are swept into the glare of notoriety. For him, fame may have caused the motor that drives his creativity to slow down. Fame could feed the ego so well and create a false sense of artistic accomplishment. None of that he wanted to be part of. What he wanted most was to express with art what he could never say with words.
All had started for Amft in Chicago. He had decided to stay in the city of his birth, where he raised his family. The Chicago Art Institute had trained its sight on New York, Paris, at that time the art centers of the world, and had studiously neglected its own artists. With a hint of sarcasm he mused, “they simply forgot to look north to Evanston, where I lived, to see my work.” He had toyed with the idea to move to New York but abandoned it quickly when after visiting an artist friend he saw appalling living conditions. The fact became clear to him that thousands of artists would never be noticed, simply could not make a living.
More than 60 years have gone by after these fateful times, that could have catapulted him to fame and riches, years when Jackson Pollock became the poster child of the art elite in New York. I had to know what he thinks today about the 40s and 50s when art critic Clement Greenberg had decreed that abstract expressionism was to be the only valid form of creativity. Amft could not ever understand that art had to be categorized, to become a movement. For him it was anathema to cover a canvas with the same motif, over and over again, to be pressed into a mold without wanting to break out, because the art world had dictated it. He had done abstract paintings at a time when nobody in the U.S. had given it a name. He effortlessly weaved through styles the way a Picasso had done in his time and Amft did it all his life. There was a trace of wistfulness in his voice when he spoke about the realization of having missed the big one, the one that got away. Understanding who he was and how much happiness he had found when sitting in front of a canvas his answer came as no surprise:
“I have no regrets, I made my decisions the way I did, I simply chose to be the person I always wanted to be.” The trappings of fame, the black-tie events to bestow life-time awards on artists, never appealed to him. He did not want to explain art in the jargon of the critics and didn’t feel he had to. “I was famous a thousand times, when I received numerous awards, when the critics wrote many articles about me. Fame never made me paint better. It just does not mean much to me. Of course I would like the world to see my paintings. I live in exciting times, 2012, imagine I was born in 1916 during the Great War. And here I am, still painting. I never dreamt that my work, now digitized, can be seen by the world. How beautiful is that?”
As I said good bye to a newly found friend and gently closed the door behind me I realized with sudden clarity that the world is unquestionably a better place with people like Robert Amft still around, a man for whom life still holds many promises.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 8th, 2012 at 12:43 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
16 Responses to “95 yr old artist defines passion creativity life and defies age”
Ganesh says:
February 8, 2012 at 12:53 pm
So refreshing!
How many in the world get to live their heart’s way?
Most of us compromise! We want to do something from within, but, we are unable to bring it outside, perhaps due to circumstances, perhaps due to civilisation, perhaps due to culture….. Prarabhda Karma.
The world is a happy place to be, when we live our heart, for there is no difference between the world and heart, in this amazing art!
Regards
Ganesh
Berta Leopard says:
February 8, 2012 at 6:44 pm
I like this post. Great insights. Googeled Robert Amft: amzing art. http://www.robertamft.com
austere says:
February 8, 2012 at 7:05 pm
Thank you, Horst.
Stunned.
Subodh Deshpande says:
February 8, 2012 at 8:50 pm
Quote
He did not want to explain art in the jargon of the critics and didn’t feel he had to. “I was famous a thousand times, when I received numerous awards, when the critics wrote many articles about me. Fame never made me paint better. It just does not mean much to me.
UnQuote
Touched..
Thanks to you and Host Vollman for sharing..
Sagar says:
February 9, 2012 at 12:29 am
Inspiring, insightful and brilliant.
Thanks for sharing. Regards
Carl Binz says:
February 9, 2012 at 7:46 am
Live the moment, without past, without future, caught on canvas. Great!
S.Ez says:
February 9, 2012 at 2:14 pm
I am inspired and touched. I felt tears of joy in my eyes. Thank you for sharing!
Sushil Shinde says:
February 9, 2012 at 4:07 pm
Artists and art never grow old they enrich us all the time. I’m feeling like future is going to be much exciting as is present. Nice interview and as usual nice commentary Shekhar. Thanks for writing it.
Rajalakshmi says:
February 9, 2012 at 7:38 pm
WOW !
RajuK says:
February 9, 2012 at 11:58 pm
“Fame could feed the ego so well and create a false sense of artistic accomplishment. None of that he wanted to be part of. What he wanted most was to express with art what he could never say with words.” Well said.
“My dreams may not have been fulfilled if the size of my bank account is all that matters. But I have lived a wonderful life.” Well said. As for living a wonderful life, good for you, Sir.
Reading this post inspires me to take risks to pursue my dreams. Size of the bank account should not matter much, as long as I do not leave debt for my survivors, or not return loans from friends and family.
Christine Nussbaumer says:
February 10, 2012 at 11:56 am
Thank you Reinhard for the information!
Very well done!
Best wishes from Austria to the USA.
Rudra says:
February 11, 2012 at 12:44 am
Its a tricky thing – this thing called the Ego. It dies hard and is very hard to transcend , let alone allow a transformation !
How is identifying with the ‘process’ , or ‘ journey’ , going to help anyone spiritually ? These are dramatic sentiments and sound lofty but with no real use for soul advancement. It is a necessary step – but only a basic first step.
When we lose oursleves in our Art ( it could be Soldiering , Doctoring , Engineering , Accounting , Film Directing or Painting or whatever ) , there is a degree of loss of mind.
But The Desire , the Endless Desire to promote one’s Ego , Desire that is ‘defying Age’ – is more a Crisis of Purpose than a Show of it ! The real acid test is the Lack of Desire – and no one can tell this from Externals !
Anyway – i’m wasting my time writing here.
jp says:
February 11, 2012 at 1:56 pm
Beautiful post! So young and enthusiastic at 95! Amazing!! Very very inspiring!
Subodh Deshpande says:
February 13, 2012 at 5:02 am
There are really really very good reders for this blog..although the comments are for the blog owner for blog posts, many times I again and again read some of the comments and try to learn or understand some new things..Rudra is one of such reader among.
And this is why I take liberty to express further. You have rightly said about ‘Ego’..cause sanskar/karma always through you or keep busy yourself in the cycle of ‘death and birth’..and in this process the ‘jeeava’ forgets that he is ‘Shiva’ unless some divine soul intervenes..I think you are saying this as basic step..
I am confused here, cause you had said
Quote
The real acid test is the Lack of Desire – and no one can tell this from Externals !
UnQuote
Agreed..
Quote
When we lose oursleves in our Art ( it could be Soldiering , Doctoring , Engineering , Accounting , Film Directing or Painting or whatever ) , there is a degree of loss of mind.
UnQuote
How do you know that, that there is degree of loss of mind, externally !
when you loose your mind..rather when your mind dies you also loose desire…Pragnya starts getting averted..Chitta starts getting purified..and the soul in the pure form starts appearing…
the saint kabir like personality describes this experience as ‘one doll of golden rest all of mud’..’Aik gudiya sone ki baki sab mitti ki’, why kabir only can experience, cause such personality only can experience how Brahma and Maya are one and also two/separate at the same moment..The pure soul is brahma..the golden doll rest all are covered by Maya..hence are called of mud..The personality like Kabir when finds his own self in the pure form in others calls it as golden doll, in others he finds that it has been covered by sanskar/karma of past life and says they are mud dolls.
kabir gives all the examples from external words and talks about internal facts..
When I read many times to your comments, they are dry or like they pinch like a hunter or sharp words of father a figure..which may be a necessary..
Quote
Anyway – i’m wasting my time writing here.
UnQuote
I see an optimism, in this although it looks like discouraging..and effectiveness of such statements can be increased(father figures changes to mother figure) by a Yogi or a follower by Bhajans..this is what is said my any enlighten souls in their writings..
What do you say
Thanks!
Subodh
RajuK says:
February 14, 2012 at 9:58 pm
Rudra,
On this blog, I do look forward to Rudra’s point of view. On this post, Rudra said,
“Anyway – i’m wasting my time writing here.”
I hope you do not disappear from this blog, but your this line increased my resolve to re-read your comment and write this comment.
“Its a tricky thing – this thing called the Ego. It dies hard and is very hard to transcend , let alone allow a transformation !”
Are you alluding Mr. Amst’s is working at 95 to fill his ego? I believe he is working because he can, and he loves to paint. He said he is not working for awards or bank-balance, so I conclude he is not working to fill his ego. And before we denounce ego, let us not forget genuine pride. Many years ago, the slogan on American commercials and products was “crafted with pride, made in America!”
“How is identifying with the ‘process’ , or ‘ journey’ , going to help anyone spiritually ? These are dramatic sentiments and sound lofty but with no real use for soul advancement. It is a necessary step – but only a basic first step.”
What is your definition of soul advancement? Mr. Amst says that when he is in the process of painting, he forgets who he is. Just like the man who wrote Ramayana or Mahabharata said that he put his pen on paper and the story wrote itself. It is a spiritual thing to be involved in your work.
“When we lose oursleves in our Art ( it could be Soldiering , Doctoring , Engineering , Accounting , Film Directing or Painting or whatever ) , there is a degree of loss of mind.”
This is what Shekhar was suggesting in one of his recent blogs when he said I am going to be “vulnerable” (and compassionate). So, is there anything wrong with losing ourselves in our art?
“But The Desire , the Endless Desire to promote one’s Ego , Desire that is ‘defying Age’ – is more a Crisis of Purpose than a Show of it !”
Yes, the desire to promote one’s ego is a crisis. I have already stated that Mr. Amst does not desire to promote his ego. As for ‘defying Age’ to conform to conventionality, I am all for it. I am all for living a productive life for as long as you can. I would not defy age to take on additional responsibilities in my senior years. For example, I would not father a child in my senior years since I realistically know that I will not live to be a father to this child till be attains adulthood.
“The real acid test is the Lack of Desire – and no one can tell this from Externals !”
I am confused about desire or lack of it. As one popular Bollywood song goes, “Chahat ne hoti, tow tu bhi ne hota, main bhi ne hoti (if there was no desire, then you would not exist and I would not exist)”. On the other hand, Gandhiji became a naked fakir to identify with the majority of Indians of his time. Should we all live a vow of perpetual poverty?
RajuK says:
February 14, 2012 at 10:55 pm
Sorry for mis-spelling Mr. Amft’s name in my previous comment.
Saturday, February 11, 2012
全新的的汽車貼紙-''BABY IN WOMB'' - - news for national page of Taipei Taiwan news media
- February 13, 2012
contact Daniel at
bikolang@gmail.com
WEBSITE:
http://pcofftherails101.blogspot.com/2012/02/baby-in-womb-car-bumper-sticker-and.html
全新的的汽車貼紙-''BABY IN WOMB''
這是一則關於嘉義的消息。還記得''Baby in Car''這張經常貼在汽車車尾角落的貼紙標誌嗎? 這是為了提醒用路人包含有嬰兒在內而駕駛緩慢的汽車。這樣的概念也有人實現在不同議題上。在嘉義有個藝術家為了提醒大家降低全球二氧化碳(CO2)的排放量，發揮創意做了「''baby in womb''」的標語，並且做成用來貼在汽車上的貼紙。製作這個貼紙的人叫Miss Huang Pei-chi，是居住在南部的女性藝術家。她認為現今的二氧化碳排放量對未來的新生兒會造成很大危害，因此她做了一個這樣的貼紙期待大家將它貼在如車窗、汽車保險桿等讓更多人可以注意到，這樣一來就會有更大的效果，這個貼紙同時也做為環保活動組織的工具。，藉此提醒每個人都應該一同響應降低二氧化碳這件事。「我創造這樣的貼紙只是希望能提供世界各地的環境保護的活動和氣候保育小組使用」，擁有三個孩子的黃佩琪說道。「如果這張貼紙能夠激起人們在環境議題上的關注和改變，這是我們的目的」。雖然這張貼紙將來會印製並銷售，貼紙本身也具有版權，但所有的營利都將捐出給環境保護議題相關團體作為其經費，而且我也並不想販賣其版權，所有的人都可以免費取得並且自行印製並使用和分發，這也算是我做為台灣人送給世界的小禮物。
text by Roger Chen, TAIWAN
IMAGE LINK:
http://pcofftherails101.blogspot.com/2012/02/baby-in-womb-car-bumper-sticker-and.html
Friday, February 10, 2012
''BABY IN WOMB'' - car bumper sticker and window decal - YouTube
''BABY IN WOMB'' - car bumper sticker and window decal - YouTube
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kj8qCpPYBd8
''BABY IN WOMB'' rear window decal and bumper sticker -- FREE ...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPo0JLOrIA8
Thanks to Jim Buchan for the revised and completed artwork. BRAVO!
更多符合「baby in womb decal sticker」的影片 »
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kj8qCpPYBd8
''BABY IN WOMB'' rear window decal and bumper sticker -- FREE ...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPo0JLOrIA8
Thanks to Jim Buchan for the revised and completed artwork. BRAVO!
更多符合「baby in womb decal sticker」的影片 »
BABY IN WOMB -- rear window decal and bumper sticker - FREE! USE IT!
Tip of the hat to Jim Buchan in Taipei for the good eye, the smart heart,
the global brain, and the finishing touches of graphic design. BRAVO!
Thursday, February 9, 2012
''BABY IN WOMB'' -- car bumper stick and rear window display decal
Remember those old "Baby on Board" signs placed on car windows andRewind to 1984: The "Baby in Car" messages were usually placed on
bumper stickers? Sometimes they said "Baby in Car" and their message,
which went worldwide in over
35 languages, was to drive carefully and pay attention to the cars
around you, especially this car with a baby infant seated inside. Now
comes the "Baby in Womb" bumper
sticker, as an environmental and climate action protest targetting the
ridiculous and deadly amount of carbon dioxide emissions our car and
factory culture belch out each day, 24/7, day and night.
square decals or horizontal bumper stickers and were intended, of
course, be placed either in the back window of an automobile or on the
rear fender to encourage safe driving. First marketed in September of
1984 by Safety 1st Corporation, the signs became popular, flourishing
worldwide
throughout the 1980s and 1990s. In some nations, the signs read
"Princess on board" or "Little Person on board."
The signs have entered the American lexicon. In 1993, an episode of
the Simpsons TV show titled "Homer's Barbershop Quartet" featured a
barbershop quartet tune called "Baby On Board". The song was written
by Homer Simpson in a flashback to 1985 when Marge bought a sign,
hoping it would stop people "intentionally ramming our car."
There's an urban legend which claims that the actual death of a baby
led to the creation of the signs. The founder of Safety 1st, Michael
Lerner, claimed to have heard about similar signs in Europe, when in
fact, he entered into a partnership with Patricia and Helen Bradley of
Medford, Massachusetts, to market the signs. The Bradleys had been
trying to market the signs since Patricia brought them back from
Germany, where her husband was stationed. Lerner eventually bought
PHOB, the company set up by the Bradleys, for approximately
US$150,000, and changed the name to Safety 1st.
Someone else created a warning decal similar to the "Baby on board"
signs. The purpose of the sticker is to let people know that there is
a ''child with autism'' in the car who may not respond to emergency
personnel.
Now fast forward to 2012 and meet the two artists who created the "Baby in
Womb" sign as a car decal targetting co2 emissions worldwide, which
may very well be putting
the future of the human species, let alone new-born babies, in great
peril. An artist in southern Taiwan, a woman named Huang Pei-chi, made
the sign as a window
and bumper sticker attention-getter and climate activist organizing tool. A Canadian
expat in Taipei, NAME HERE, married to a Taiwanese woman and the father of a young son here,
revised the drawing as well, adding to its graphic power to its message
"I just wanted to create something that might be useful for climate
activists and climate protest groups around the world," Huang, 35 and
the mother of three, said. "If
this sign can help people in the world focus better on what our carbon
dioxide emissions are doing to the future of this planet, and
humanity, then I will feel
I accomplished something. The decal is for sale and there is a
copyright, but all the money is being plowed back into climate protest
groups around the world. I
didn't make the sign to make money. I don't intend to sell the rights
to it for $150,000. It's free and available for anyone to copy and use
and distribute. It's my little
gift from Taiwan to the world."
Go little sign and find your world, before it is too late.
For a free email version of the "BABY IN WOMB" sign seen here, just
send a request to bikolang@gmail.com and a free online image will be
sent to you, in yellow and black.
Get one today: free!
''BABY IN WOMB" bumper stickers and decals protest excessive CO2 emissions worldwide -- Get one free here! Post it all over your town!
Rewind to 1984: The "Baby in Car" messages were usually placed on square decals or horizontal bumper stickers and were intended, of course, be placed either in the back window of an automobile or on the rear fender to encourage safe driving. First marketed in September of 1984 by Safety 1st Corporation, the signs became popular, flourishing worldwide
Remember those old "Baby on Board" signs placed on car windows and bumper stickers? Sometimes they said "Baby in Car" and their message, which went worldwide in over
35 languages, was to drive carefully and pay attention to the cars around you, especially this car with a baby infant seated inside. Now comes the "Baby in Womb" bumper
sticker, as an environmental and climate action protest targetting the ridiculous and deadly amount of carbon dioxide emissions our car and factory culture belch out each day, 24/7, day and night.
throughout the 1980s and 1990s. In some nations, the signs read "Princess on board" or "Little Person on board."
The signs have entered the American lexicon. In 1993, an episode of the Simpsons TV show titled "Homer's Barbershop Quartet" featured a barbershop quartet tune called "Baby On Board". The song was written by Homer Simpson in a flashback to 1985 when Marge bought a sign, hoping it would stop people "intentionally ramming our car."
There's an urban legend which claims that the actual death of a baby led to the creation of the signs. The founder of Safety 1st, Michael Lerner, claimed to have heard about similar signs in Europe, when in fact, he entered into a partnership with Patricia and Helen Bradley of Medford, Massachusetts, to market the signs. The Bradleys had been trying to market the signs since Patricia brought them back from Germany, where her husband was stationed. Lerner eventually bought PHOB, the company set up by the Bradleys, for approximately US$150,000, and changed the name to Safety 1st.
Someone else created a warning decal similar to the "Baby on board" signs. The purpose of the sticker is to let people know that there is a ''child with autism'' in the car who may not respond to emergency personnel.
Now fast forward to 2012 and meet the artist who created the "Baby in Womb" sign as a car decal targetting co2 emissions worldwide, which may very well be putting
the future of the human species, let alone new-born babies, in great peril. An artist in southern Taiwan, a woman named Huang Pei-chi, made the sign as a window
and bumper sticker attention-getter and climate activist organizing tool.
"I just wanted to create something that might be useful for climate activists and climate protest groups around the world," Huang, 35 and the mother of three, said. "If
this sign can help people in the world focus better on what our carbon dioxide emissions are doing to the future of this planet, and humanity, then I will feel
I accomplished something. The decal is for sale and there is a copyright, but all the money is being plowed back into climate protest groups around the world. I
didn't make the sign to make money. I don't intend to sell the rights to it for $150,000. It's free and available for anyone to copy and use and distribute. It's my little
gift from Taiwan to the world."
Go little sign and find your world, before it is too late.
For a free email version of the "BABY IN WOMB" sign seen here, just send a request to bikolang@gmail.com and a free online image will be sent to you, in yellow and black. Or copy
from this website. Cut and paste.
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
POLAR CITY RED -- an introduction to a PR campaign for Jim Laughter's new sci fi novel about life in a polar city in Alaska in 2080
But what about a fictional novel -- sci-fi, cli-fi -- about climate change in the future, that aimsSometimes all the talk about climate change and global warming -- some polite and informative, some angry and loud -- gets us nowhere. Both sides of the climate debate have their agendas, their cheerleaders, their PR platforms, their fundraising efforts. But with all the shouting, from both supporters and denialists, climate activists and climate skeptics, the lines seem to be drawn in the sand and nobody wants to budge. It has
become a shouting match, on blogs and in newspaper columns worldwide.
to tell a good yarn, an old-fashioned story in the storytelling genre? Afterall, we humans love stories, and people
all over the world mark their lives by storytelling.
POLAR CITY RED by Jim Laughter, set for release on Earth Day 2012, is that kind of novel. A climate thriller,
speculative fiction, science fiction, cli-fi, call it what you will. It's a book that will change your life, no matter
which side of the climate issues you are currently on.
So get ready to read POLAR CITY RED, a novel set in Alaska in the year 2080 A.D., far from today and yet not so far away as it seems. Just 60, 70 years or so.
The book is art, literature, and it gives us a new way to examine the issues: through the human lens
of imagination and fiction, via a powerful storyteller.
Read POLAR CITY RED and make up your own mind. There's no agenda here. There's no shouting.
There's no PR platform and there's no fundraising campaign. It's entertainment for the masses, pure
and simple, page after page.
POLAR CITY RED is set in the future, but it's also about the present, too. You will never be the same once
you finish reading it. It's that powerful, but it doesn't tell you how to think or what to think about climate
change or global warming. It's up to you to decide. Make up your own mind. Let POLAR CITY RED be your paperback, dime-store novel guide.
Remember those old Westerns about the settling of the West in America long ago? Well, in some ways,
POLAR CITY RED is the world's first "polar Western" about a possible new frontier in America -- up in the Last Frontier!
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
POLAR CITY RED sci-fi cli-fi novel has Taiwan connection ([press release)
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: April 20, 2012
Jim Laughter's sci fi climate novel POLAR CITY RED set in 2080 in Alaska has a connection
to Taiwan, too.
"The population of Taiwan in the distant future will have migrated north to
Russia’s northern coast or northern parts of Alaska and Canada to find
safe harbor from the devastating impact of global warming," wrote American expat in Taiwan -- and global director of the Polar Cities Project -- Dan Bloom in
an oped published in the Taipei Times newspaper in 2009.
A researcher at Academia Sinica in Taipei, Dr Wang Chung-ho (王中和), Bloom
wrote, had told a reporter
for the Liberty Times earlier
that year that there was a good chance Taipei would be flooded by the
end of this century, adding that the the capital might have to be
relocated to higher ground in less than 100 years. Wang said the
entire Taipei basin would likely be engulfed by rising seas by 2100,
triggered, of course, by global warming. Wang said his research showed
that most of the west coast of Taiwan would be submerged by rising sea
levels by that time, as well.
Wang’s report, which was presented at a public forum sponsored by
the think tank and research center in Taipei called Academia Sinica, theorized that sea levels would rise by at least 1 meter,
gobbling up all low-lying areas of Taiwan, from Kaohsiung to Taipei.
“Taiwan must be prepared for the worst-case scenario,” Wang said,
according to the Liberty Times.
'If Wang is correct, and Taipei is faced with major flooding in 90
years, then what will life be like in Taiwan in the distant future? Most
likely, Taiwan’s population will have left the country for faraway
northern regions to find shelter in UN-funded climate refuges in
places such as Russia, Canada and Alaska. Taiwanese climate refugees
will join millions of others from India, Vietnam, Thailand, Japan and
the Philippines. It won’t be a pretty picture," Bloom wrote.
When a reporter asked Wang if this was a possible future scenario for
Taiwan some 500 years from now, he said it was very possible, and that
these issues needed to be addressed now, if only as a thought
exercise, and even if it all sounded like a science fiction movie
script. When Bloom acclaimed British scientist James
Lovelock if such a scenario for Taiwan were likely, he said in an
e-mail: “It may very well happen, yes.”
In Jim Laughter's own book, titled POLAR CITY RED and for which Bloom served
as an informal editorial consultant, chapter 11 introduces a
scientist named Hei Chu, from Taiwan.
An excerpt from Chapter 11 reads:
“What the hell is that noise?” Carson Moore asked Dr. Hei Chu, one of his
instructors at Polar City Red in 2080 sitting at a computer console
across the room from him.
“What noise, Dr Moore?” Chu was used to the noise. He’d heard it for
years and no longer paid any attention to it. Chu's family had escaped
from Taipei, Taiwan when it became evident the island would vanish
beneath the rising waters of the East China Sea. They watched Okinawa,
Japan falter beneath the same tidal onslaught, so they’d abandoned
their ancestral home and escaped to mainland China. After years of a
vagabond existence, they’d managed to find transportation across the
Asian mainland to Alaska and made their way to Polar City Red.
Canadian film director to direct "Polar City Red" movie
it was announced Thursday. The budget for POLAR CITY RED is said to be near $50
million.
U.S. Release Date: July 4, 2015 (Wide)
Back in February, director Roland Lafiche revealed that
his next big movie would be one titled POLAR CITY RED, a disaster movie that
takes place in the year 2080 at a wilderness polar city in Alaska, after climate chaos
has decimated the Lower 48 and sent millions of climate refugees north.
Our
friend Steve caught up with Lafcihe last weekend and tried to get him to reveal what
exactly happens in POLAR CITY RED, but still had no luck - he's keeping a very
tight lip.
The script for POLAR CITY RED is apparently so good, that the studios started a
bidding war for distribution, with Sony ending up the winner. Now it's
heading into production for a July 4, 2015 opening. He has
said previously that "it will be very expensive, you see the whole
Lower 48 go to shit" and other sources reported that the "project has
more going for it than the big idea that studios love," but what
exactly that means yet, no one knows. What Lafiche is depicting, however, is a "natural disaster" of
some sorts, related to climate change and global warming.
Before we get into the juicy details, Lafiche explains his
inspiration for the movie, and how he convinced himself, after saying
he'd never watned to do disaster movie, but now he is committed.
"…This whole movie I'm doing next was inspired by just the phenomenon
of the internet when you type in Google, 'polar cities', you get a million
hits. That's a lot. And it's just, so many people write about them,
believe it, that our world will lead to polar cities in the future. I said wow. I kind
of said before I never wanted do a disaster movie. I said, for
this idea I have to do it."
"This time there's no blowing up in POLAR CITY RED. It's a
natural disaster. Well, actually yeah, like a… I'm not saying it! I'm
giving things away." Damn, too close! If only he just finished his
sentence…
To be honest, he has done such a great job of teasing POLAR CITY RED, that
I'm getting into it already, where it's become
all about figuring out "what it is" more than anything else.
Unfortunately we'll have to wait until we see the first teaser trailer
or hear reports from the set to get to that point. He goes on
talking about how "undoable" this is, especially
considering they're going to, basically, destroy the entire Lower 48 and continental Europe.
Check out what he had to say!
"Yes, it will be expensive, but I think it will be for a price
because people who read the script said this is undoable. And I said,
well but we'll do it. I mean, it's one of these things that everybody
says it's undoable because it's like, you see the whole Lower 48 go to
shit… It's kind of one of these things when I write a script, and I
wrote it again with my writing partner Cloe Smith together, we just said no, we'll
not think if it's doable or not, we'll just write it. We'll just come
up with it. And then we'll figure out how we'll do it. I think it's
worth doing it because it's also when you have something where you
have adrenaline because you are nervous about it, that's good. That's
a little bit like… it's good when actors have this adrenaline when
they go on stage. I think they do their best work, and for us it's the
same thing…"
I love the way he thinks - don't write it with "is POLAR CITY RED doable?" in
mind, just write it, and then figure out how to do it. And even be
nervous about it, challenge yourself - that's awesome. I'm already very
excited for POLAR CITY RED. I'm really wondering what the hell is going to
happen, and how the entire Lower 48 is going to get destroyed! This
should be fun!
Does Jim Laughter Know Something We Don't About Polar Cities?
The countdown is on to year 2080, the year in which Jim Laughter's new
sci-fi climate thriller "Polar City Red" takes place in Alaska
as survivors of climate chaos at that time try to eke out a life in
the wilderness. It's fiction but it's based on facts, lots of facts.
A publication called "An Encyclopedia of claims, frauds and hoaxes of
the occult and supernatural" lists 44 distinct “end of the world”
predictions that all have gone unfulfilled.
But "Polar City Red" is
not that kind of book. It's speculative fiction, yes, and a good yarn.
But it is about
what might happen to the human race if we don't take care now to mend our ways.
But even though 2012 is not the year to worry about, that doesn’t stop
speculation -- and denial from climate denialsts like Marc Morano
and Anthonty Watts -- from occurring.
Laughter's book treats you to a feast of death and destruction.
Buddy Doyle of Boston said he is not impressed with the premise behind
the cli-fi thriller.
"I think it's ridiculous," he said. " I'm not that kind of a believer
in that kind of thing."
End times predictions come from many sources. However, "Polar City
Red" is not about the end of times. It is about survival and hope.
That mad eccentric poet the 16th Century Frenchman Nostradamus, who
followers credit with predicting the rise of Napoleon and the 9-11
terrorist attacks, say he forecast a comet will strike the Earth or
pass closely in 2012, with cataclysmic repercussions. He also
predicted Polar Cities in the far north, too.
Critics say Nostradamus' prophecies are often dead wrong, or are so
vague as to have no value in predicting events in advance.
But the doomsday dialogue is alive and well.
Among the eye-popping theories, polar cities will spring up in the
Arctic, a mysterious planet will enter the solar system and disrupt
planetary orbits, causing earthquakes and tidal waves, and that the
earth's magnetic field is about to flip, leaving us vulnerable to
solar flares.
Lawrence Joseph. author of ''Apocalypse 2012'', puts it this way: "
My great fear is the domino effect, where one thing leads to another,
leads to another and we plunge into chaos."
Chris Highlen, with the University of St. Francis, sees no scientific
evidence that mass chaos is just around the corner.
He says: " We've had millions of years of earth's history and nothing
has wiped out life on earth yet, so I don't think we need to worry
about polar cities particularly. It could happen tomorrow, it could
never happen."
"Mainline churches don't subscribe to the notion that polar cities
ideas going around the Internet since 2006 have any special
apocalyptic significance. But that doesn't mean churches will
necessarily ignore the subject altogether," he adds.
Just in case Nostradamus is right, Chris Highlen downloaded an
application for his phone that counts down the hours and minutes to
the release date of Jim Laugher's "Polar City Red" -- and to other
horrors or hoaxes.
Monday, February 6, 2012
Re-imagining Humanity as the Earth Heats Up Due to Global Warming Causing Billions to Migrate North to Polar Cities as Safe Refuges
A global contest for people around the world invites written works or“The Great Work: Re-imagining Humanity as the Earth Heats Up Due to
videos that tell hopeful stories about new ways for humans to survive
after global-warming caused climate chaos forces billions of climate
refugees to migrate north in search of polar cities as climate refuges
on a warmed-up Earth in the not so distant future
Global Warming Causing Billions to Migrate North to Polar Cities as
Safe Refgues" is sponsored by the Polar Cities Project --
http://pcillu101.blogspot.com/
Winning written entries will be published in newspapers and on climate
and survivalist blogs worldwide, and winning videos will be screened
on YouTube.
“Turbulent times are coming in the not so distant future, bringingclimate chaos, and ensuing environmental, economic and socialdisruptions,” says Danny Bloom of the Polar Cities Project. “They willalso present huge opportunities to re-imagine how we live will on
Earth on a warmed up planet.”
“
If we are reluctant to change, it may be because we don’t have enough
good stories about how we might live and survive as a human species on
this changing planet,” Bloom says. “Engineers have some ideas about
greener technology, but as big a challenge is to imagine new ways of
thinking about what we value the most -- success, community,
happiness, and human thriving. That’s why we are looking for new
stories that bring our values and aspirations together with our best
scientific and social information to create meaningful options for
embracing the future of climate chaos and polar cities for millions,
perhaps billions, of climate refugees.”
The contest takes its title from the visionary moral thinker Thomas
Berry. Berry wrote that “the Great Work” is for the human species to
transform ourselves from destructive forces into co-creators of the
planet’s ecological abundance. Or, as Bill McKibben, founder of the
350.org campaign, puts it, “The physical world will be degraded --
there is no doubt about that. But perhaps the human world can still be
made sweeter, deeper, more open.”
The deadline for submissions is April 20, 2012 -- EARTH DAY!
The Great Work is open to written and video entries in any genre:
documentary, essay, opinion, creative. “We want to hear from people
young and old in engineering and agriculture, music and creative
writing, fisheries, pharmacy, every field,” said Bloom. “Everybody has
a role in the ‘Great Work.’”
Contest guidelines and submission information can be found on the
Polar Cities Project website:
http://pcillu101.blogspot.com/
FMI: contact the project's student intern, Biko Lang,
bikolang@gmail.com
=========================
ENTRY NUMBER ONE:
Dear Dr. Gloom, er, Bloom,
Here's my submission to your contest. Send the prize soon. I'm broke.
The Uber-Rich Step Up
Mayor Bloomberg has vowed
to take shorter showers. The Koch brothers
are lowering the thermostat two degrees
in every one of their mansions. Rupert Murdoch
has ordered a fleet of Priuses
for his domestic staff.
When all the billionaires
of the Walton family changed to compact
fluorescent light bulbs, they saved enough energy
to buy Corpus Christi, Texas.
Corporations are doing their part, too:
Goldman Sachs is making compost
with five years of shredded account sheets,
while British Petroleum is recycling
advertising strategies from the tobacco industry.
Whole mountains are being removed
in the effort to bring you clean coal.
Change is in the air. Citizens,
we invite you to sit back
and watch it all happen on television.
-- submitted by Charles Goodrich, Oregon USA
Friday, February 3, 2012
Quotes
"Polar Cities a Haven in Warming World?"
-- New York Times
Dr. Lovelock foresees humanity in full pole-bound retreat within a century as areas around the tropics roast..."
-- New York Times
"A thought experiment that might prod people out of their comfort zone on climate.''
-- New York Times
''Planning a good retreat is always a good measure of generalship.
The retreat, Lovelock insists, will be toward the poles.''
-- New York Times
"There is already an intensifying push to develop Arctic resources and test shipping routes that could soon become practical should the floating sea ice in the Arctic routinely vanish in summers."
-- New York Times
''Urban planners, get out your mukluks."
- New York Times
-- New York Times
Dr. Lovelock foresees humanity in full pole-bound retreat within a century as areas around the tropics roast..."
-- New York Times
"A thought experiment that might prod people out of their comfort zone on climate.''
-- New York Times
''Planning a good retreat is always a good measure of generalship.
The retreat, Lovelock insists, will be toward the poles.''
-- New York Times
"There is already an intensifying push to develop Arctic resources and test shipping routes that could soon become practical should the floating sea ice in the Arctic routinely vanish in summers."
-- New York Times
''Urban planners, get out your mukluks."
- New York Times
'Cli-fi' novel 'Polar City Red' points to 'polar cities' for survival in distant future
interchangable 'POLAR CITY RED' and "Cli-fi' novel in headlines:
'Cli-fi' novel reads like today's headlines
'Cli-fi' novel points to polar cities for survival
'Cli-fi' novel points to future with hope, despair
'Cli-fi' novel marries religion, science in climate thriller
'Cli-fi' novel marries today's headlines to future of Earth
'Cli-fi' novel mixes methane, Co2 in lethal combo
'Cli-fi' novel tries to balance Earth out of balance
'Cli-fi' novel sees Earth out of balance
'Cli-fi' novel is chilling take on global warming
'Cli-fi' novel puts Alaska in focus
'Cli-fi' novel puts climate chaos in focus
'Cli-fi' novel sees Alaska as lifeboat, ark
'Cli-fi' novel puts climate denialists on trial
'Cli-fi' novel puts global warming on trial
'Cli-fi' novel puts world leaders on trial
'Cli-fi' novel puts humanity on trial
'Cli-fi' novel poses climactic questions
'Cli-fi' novel 'Polar City Red' points to
'polar cities' for survival in distant future
'Cli-fi' novel is bleak take on tundra
'Cli-fi' novel imagines havens in warmed world
'Cli-fi' novel speculates on our species' future
'Cli-fi' novel reads like today's headlines
'Cli-fi' novel points to polar cities for survival
'Cli-fi' novel points to future with hope, despair
'Cli-fi' novel marries religion, science in climate thriller
'Cli-fi' novel marries today's headlines to future of Earth
'Cli-fi' novel mixes methane, Co2 in lethal combo
'Cli-fi' novel tries to balance Earth out of balance
'Cli-fi' novel sees Earth out of balance
'Cli-fi' novel is chilling take on global warming
'Cli-fi' novel puts Alaska in focus
'Cli-fi' novel puts climate chaos in focus
'Cli-fi' novel sees Alaska as lifeboat, ark
'Cli-fi' novel puts climate denialists on trial
'Cli-fi' novel puts global warming on trial
'Cli-fi' novel puts world leaders on trial
'Cli-fi' novel puts humanity on trial
'Cli-fi' novel poses climactic questions
'Cli-fi' novel 'Polar City Red' points to
'polar cities' for survival in distant future
'Cli-fi' novel is bleak take on tundra
'Cli-fi' novel imagines havens in warmed world
'Cli-fi' novel speculates on our species' future
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