“I think the act of creation is a spiritual act. The more involved we are with nature and the spiritual side of life, the more it seems to have a good effect on creativity.
Think about how seeing the sunset can take your breath away. That’s the same feeling I get when I hear a beautiful line in a song or a great guitar solo. I don’t think great songs stem from us. They are just kind of in the universe. The best artists are the ones with the best antennae that draw it in, and meditation helps get rid of tension and tune into the ideas that are out there.”
His inner peace is, of course, in stark contrast to the hectic pace kept by most music industry execs. Yet, his success speaks for itself and his approach to life and his work certainly gives the rest of us plenty to meditate on.
Personally, I feel the need to meditate on this gem of encouragement pulled from the article:
“Go to a small club tonight, and if there is a band you like, figure out a way to make a recording with them — it’s easier than you think. There are thousands of bands just waiting for someone to ask them to make a record.”
Powerful words from a man who cut his first record in his dorm room at NYU.
Ted Turner went into the heart of darkness last week to deliver a message of hope, or a stern lecture, depending upon one’s allegiances and point-of-view.
Speaking before the Houston World Affairs Council (in an appearance funded by BP and Marathon Oil Corp.), Turner said, “What we need is a moratorium on all new coal plants, on all new carbon-producing energy power technologies, and work on replacing them with renewable alternatives.”
Turner also called for urgent action to address global climate change, which he referred to as the “single greatest challenge that humanity has ever faced.”
“The biggest danger is we won’t do enough soon enough,” he said.
“The days of fossil fuels as a fuel are over,” he told a packed ballroom over lunch at the Hotel Intercontinental. “It’s just a matter of how soon everybody recognizes it.”
If people aren’t motivated by helping the Earth, they should be drawn by the financial opportunities in clean energy, Turner said.
“The greatest fortunes in the history of the world will be made in this new energy business,” said Turner, who estimates his net worth at more than $1 billion. According to the Atlanta Constitution-Journal, Turner owns one-third of Dome-Tech Solar, the largest solar installer in the eastern United States, and together they are creating DT Solar, a renewable energy company.
In related news, billionaire philanthropist Richard Branson last week pledged $25 million dollars to the first person or group who can come up with a technology to remove one billion tons of green house gases from the atmosphere per year for ten years.
We attended a fantastic symposium this morning in Savannah, courtesy of Savannah Country Day School. The speakers addressed one of the more pressing topics for our time—sustainability. Featured speaker, Robert Kennedy Jr., a hardcore environmentalist and brilliant speaker, also addressed another critical topic for our time—corporate control of government and media. Kennedy explained the history of the Fairness Doctrine, how it was dismantled by Ronald Reagan and the sorry state we’re in because of it.
Today, five huge corporations — Time Warner, Disney, News Corporation, Bertelsmann, and Viacom own 90% of the TV stations and radio stations in the U.S. This is a dangerous situation for the people of our nation. The founding fathers warned against it, and after WWII and the fall of fascism in Europe, the U.S. Congress legislated against it. According to the Museum of Broadcast Communications, the FCC took the view, in 1949, that station licensees were “public trustees,” and as such had an obligation to afford reasonable opportunity for discussion of contrasting points of view on controversial issues of public importance.
Of course, there are no such safeguards in place today, which is why we have propaganda where news once was. Thankfully, people are waking up from this nightmare and beginning to demand a free and fair press. U.S. Congressman from New York, Maurice Hinchey has introduced a bill that will restore the Fairness Doctrine.
Here’s “Article I” from Hinchey’s bill:
Our airwaves are a precious and limited commodity that belong to the general public. As such, they are regulated by the government. From 1949 to 1987, a keystone of this regulation was the Fairness Doctrine, an assurance that the American audience would be guaranteed sufficiently robust debate on controversial and pressing issues. Despite numerous instances of support from the U.S. Supreme Court, President Reagan’s FCC eliminated the Fairness Doctrine in 1987, and a subsequent bill passed by Congress to place the doctrine into federal law was then vetoed by Reagan.
MORA would amend the 1934 Communications Act to restore the Fairness Doctrine and explicitly require broadcast licensees to provide a reasonable opportunity for the discussion of conflicting views on issues of public importance.
Raw Story reports that concerns about monopolies and fears of a possible “fascist” takeover of the US media prompted the bill. Hinchey said, “This is a critical moment in history that may determine the future of our country…maybe forever.”
Hinchey blames the media for reporting false information that it is fed by the administration. “What lies will they tell in the future to jeopardize this democratic republic or even end this democratic republic? That is the objective of many of those involved.â€
I came across the work of writer Hollis Gillespie yesterday, after reading her column in Paste Magazine. After looking through her site, I am struck once more by how many balls a writer must keep in the air to succeed (in economic terms).
Gillespie has two books for sale; she teaches writing seminars for $150 a pop; she’s a commentator on NPR; writes a weekly piece for Creative Loafing; she’s working on the Hollywood adaptation of her first book; she’s the Georgia editor for Fodor’s Gold Guide to The Carolina’s and Georgias; she writes for Salon.com; is a tri-lingual international flight attendant and a mom.
The fact is you can’t just write a book and hope the royalties come rollin’ in. A book’s economic function is to get you more and hopefully better work teaching, consulting, writing, editing, speaking, etc.
“I want every one of you, every one of us, 100 senators, to look in that camera, and you tell your people back home what you think. Don’t hide anymore; none of us. That is the essence of our responsibility. And if we’re not willing to do it, we’re not worthy to be seated right here. We fail our country. If we don’t debate this . . . we are not worthy of our country.” -Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE) during a meeting of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
Hagel tells it like it is. I like that about him. But before I get too thrilled with his truth saying, another truth begs to be observed. This time, it’s from Huffington Post writer Matt Browner Hamlin.
Chuck Hagel’s voting record is clear. He votes with Bush and he votes the way conservatives want him to vote. Hagel votes against abortion rights, against civil rights, and against environmental protections. Hagel’s beliefs are squarely in line with the Republican Party platform. Period.
Please, the next time you hear Chris Matthews, Tim Russert, or even a Republican blogger claim that Hagel is a moderate, a maverick, or any other adjective that paints him as an anti-Republican figure, remember that it simply is not true. He remains a purebred Republican despite his correct positioning on Iraq.
Hamlin makes a good point. But I’m not as willing, nor as quick, to downgrade the man. Despite his voting record, Iraq is the central issue of the day and he’s right on Iraq. Just as importantly, he’s also right about another critical issue of our day–that’s it’s our duty as Americans to think critically, then stand up and be heard. He’s totally consistent on this issue. In fact, I’ve postedtwice before about his opposing stance to the President and his administration.
“Owning a firearm brings me some sort of balance. When I am angry at the world I find relief in dropping a clip into the air.” -Drew (photographed below)
Photographer Kyle Cassidy got the idea to document Armed America. Here’s part of his artist’s statement:
The idea was to photograph a hundred gun owners, in their homes, and do a gallery show. I figured this would take about two years. But very soon after I started, it became evident that my ambitions were too low. My mailbox flooded with letters from people I didn’t know wanting to participate — I realized that I could probably photograph a hundred people in two months, but it wasn’t a number of people that was important, it was their stories — a cowboy in Texas, a survivalist in Montana, a deer hunter in Pennsylvania, a sheriff in Georgia, a soldier in Idaho…. What I really needed, I realized, was to get moving, to drive across the country and find America somewhere between here and there.
Cassidy’s book of these photos comes out in October.
In an ESPN article that reads like a piece from The Onion (but isn’t), the sports network question’s Prince’s ability to perform at his peak this Sunday during the Superbowl halftime show. Apparently, he has a bad hip.
But that’s not what interested me most. The fact that Prince became a Jehovah’s Witness in the 1990s caught my attentiion. But even more interesting than that is the common-sense notion that hips are an essential part of the funk.
Mark Anthony Neal, a professor of African and African-American studies at Duke University and one of the foremost authorities on black popular culture, says, “In a traditional sense, the word funk was about an odor — an odor generated by intense physical movement. By the time James Brown and others were embracing the word to describe their music, it was generally accepted that one had to be seriously shaking their hips, if one was really going to get funky.”
Of course, it makes perfect sense. I just don’t think I’d put it all together before.
According to Reuters, Shins fans lined up last last Monday night to buy the band’s third (and final) record on Sub Pop.
Anchored by the Shins’ “Wincing the Night Away,” indie retailers used the January 23 release date to bring back an old tradition — the midnight sale.
Many stores abandoned the ritual during the past few years, as the era of Internet leaks have all but killed the need for die-hard fans to stand in line on a Monday evening.
But the drawing power of the indie pop act, as well as a heavy marketing push from Sub Pop, persuaded store managers to keep their doors open. Grimey’s owner Dolye Davis says the Nashville store staged its first midnight sale since opening in 1999, and Eric Levin at Criminal Records says he hasn’t opened at midnight since the 2004 release of the Beastie Boys’ “To the 5 Boroughs.”
“To the fucking rich man all poor people look the same.” -Patterson Hood
Last night, while considering the meaning of Drive-By Truckers’ song, “The Southern Thing,” I was struck by a self-evident but often overlooked fact of American history–that only rich Southerns held slaves. America is now, and has always been a culture defined by class distinctions.
This morning, while reading “The Socialist Senator,” a piece on Bernie Sanders in The New York Times Magazine, I was struck by the noble path this uncommon common man has chosen. It’s not easy to buck societal, nor political norms and win. But win he has, ever since 1980 when the people of Burlington first made him mayor.
Mark Liebovich, the Times writer on the story looks at the reasons behind the new Senator’s success. They are more personal, than political, which works well in a state of 620,000.
Sanders has made himself known in a state small enough — physically and in terms of population — for someone, particularly a tireless someone, to insinuate himself into neighborly dialogues and build a following that skirts ideological pigeonholes. Indeed, there are no shortages of war veterans or struggling farmers in Vermont who would seemingly have no use for a humorless aging hippie peacenik Socialist from Brooklyn, except that Sanders has dealt with many of them personally, and it’s a good bet his office has helped them procure some government benefit.
On what drives the man to espouse Socialist values:
Sanders’s parents were Jewish immigrants from Poland. His father, Eli, a struggling paint salesman who saw his family wiped out in the Holocaust, worried constantly about supporting his wife and two sons. His mother, Dorothy, dreamed of living in a “private home,†but they never made it beyond their three-and-a-half-room apartment on East 26th and Kings Highway. She died at age 46, when Bernie was 19. “Sensitivity to class was imbedded in me then quite deeply,†Sanders told me.
According to the article, Sanders has a poster of Eugene Debs on his office wall. It’s a telltale sign. Debs was a founder of The Industrial Workers of the World, a.k.a. The Wobblies.
Socialism isn’t some freak show in American politics. Rather it’s one of the most important voices for labor the nation has ever seen. Given the present day corporate takeover the White House, the courts and Congress, I’d say Sanders is exactly what the doctor ordered.
