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Archive for the ‘Current Events’ Category

Watching Fire

Posted in Current Events, tagged , , on October 6, 2018| 4 Comments »

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On this road there are no godspoke men. They are gone and I am left and they have taken with them the world. 

― Cormac McCarthy, The Road

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You know you feel bad when you take to the awful beauty of Cormac McCarthy for comfort. But when you get the sense that the world is about to be set on fire, if it is not already ablaze, he seems like a natural choice.

I would much rather be referencing another book, like JFK’s Pulitzer Prize winning Profiles in Courage. that describes the brave stands taken by Senators which changed the course of our history. But as we now know Senatorial courage is only a myth now, some form of mythical quality from a long lost time.

The idea of someone with the power to affect change stepping forward to so without regard to their own personal benefit is something we may never see again. And what a lost opportunity it has been for someone to cement their place in history, to speak truth to the rampant dishonesty and corruption we are witnessing.

Instead we see cowering and mealy mouthed half explanations or full-throated deceptions that are disingenuous at the very least. No, there will be Profiles in Courage written from this time about those who sit in the majority. So long as they believe they have shelter, they would rather see the world burn than stand against the illegitimacy they helped create.

Like the fools they are, they somehow think that the flames won’t reach them, even as they stand among the fury of the fire.

And the world begins to smolder…

 

 

 

 

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Control!

Posted in Current Events, tagged on October 5, 2018| 4 Comments »

I so much want to comment on what is happening right now. Comment is not the right word.

Vent. Spout. Bellow.

But, unlike the Supreme Court nominee, I will maintain my composure.

Alice from Dilbert’s office shall be my role model today. 

Hope you can control your fist of death.

If not, use it responsibly and effectively.

 

 

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In Matters of Expediency

Posted in Current Events, Opinion, tagged , on October 3, 2018| Leave a Comment »

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We have become a nation of expediency.

Virtue, benevolence, and doing what is right has been set aside in favor of choosing to do what is easiest in the short term, even if that very thing is known to be harmful in the long run.

Theft. Corruption. Lying. Intolerance. Ignorance. Injustice. Inequality. Cruelty. Selfishness.

I think most of us agree that all of these things are bad. Except when it serves our expediency.

We are normalizing these things, accepting them because they somehow address some short term concerns. But once accepted, these things are hard to shake off. They become part of who we are, become identifying markers by which we are known to the rest of the world.

We are soon– if not already– going to be widely known for our cruelty, our selfishness, our injustice and intolerance. We soon shall be seen as a nation of corruption, where our promises no longer hold any weight and we are not to be trusted. Soon to be known as the nation that ignores facts and science. A nation that turns it back on the suffering of our neighbors and mistreats those who seek our help.

And all this lost for mere expedience. We have known what is right through the years and have generally moved forward with the promise of a more perfect union, as our Constitution describes it, as a goal.

But we stand at the crossroads now. We can either move straight ahead as a nation of virtues or continue on our current detour that is leading us to corruption, ignorance and intolerance. That path may look rosy now but the final destination may very well break our souls.

The current ruling party has become the party of expedience. They are displaying that they only care for what is right for them for the next election cycle. Every day, they normalize behavior that chips away at our national identity and show that they are willing to sacrifice all virtue for their own selfish, short term purposes.

We still have an opportunity to get back on that higher road on which we once traveled but only if we all band together and demand a return to virtues like truth, equality and justice. Like education, the rule of law, benevolence and righteousness.

But it will take a mighty effort. No expedience here, folks. No excuses. You can’t take a pass this time unless you are willing to admit your complicity when the whole thing burns down. And if history teaches anything, that is the where the current road leads.

So, just vote. And like Willie says: Vote ’em Out.

 

 

 

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Register!

Posted in Current Events, tagged , , on September 25, 2018| 2 Comments »

Today is National Voter Registration Day. I truly urge anyone who has not yet registered to make today the day that you finally take the plunge and join our democracy.

You are needed more than ever.

We are at a vital point in our history, one that may well rival the Civil War/Lincoln era of the 1860’s, the Great Depresson/FDR era of the 1930’s or the Civil Rights/Viet Nam era of the 1960’s in importance to the history of our country. There are still alternate paths to us going forward and this coming election may well dictate which path this country follows.

One takes us closer and closer to a government ruled by a private governing elite of corporate power that is wholly released from public accountability. This includes privatization of prisons, the military, education, infrastructure and social safety networks as well as the removal of most environmental, financial and workplace regulations.

The citizen will live to serve the corporate bottom line.

The other moves us back towards a government that elevates the rights of citizens over those of corporations, one that looks to insure that the safety net that has saved so many of us from falling into abject poverty over the years stays intact. This path better protects our environment, our healthcare decisions, our workplace protections and our finances.

A government that would exist to serve the citizens.

This may well be the most important election that we will take part in. Some of you will say that is foolish hyperbole, that it will all work out for the country however you vote. In other times I might agree with that. But today that is precisely what they want you to believe. You see, we are at a point where a concerted effort over the past four decades by wealthy idealogues to weaken our public institutions and reconstitute the government in a way that serves and protects their purposes alone is coming to fruition. Part of this effort has been concerned with disenfranchising voters, both in making it more difficult to vote and in convincing would-be voters that their vote means little.

They want us disinterested or distracted. Or misinformed.

Prove them wrong. Be informed. Make your vote count.

I will not try to sway your vote but while I am known as the Red Tree guy, my favorite color is blue. Especially come November 6.

 

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A Seuss-y Morning

Posted in Current Events, Favorite Things, Quote, tagged , , on September 15, 2018| Leave a Comment »

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Nonsense wakes up the brain cells. And it helps develop a sense of humor, which is awfully important in this day and age. Humor has a tremendous place in this sordid world. It’s more than just a matter of laughing. If you can see things out of whack, then you can see how things can be in whack.

–Dr. Seuss
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Feeling a little Dr. Seuss-y this morning. It has been my experience– a lifelong one, at that– that when I am flummoxed by this world, a little Dr. Seuss often provides a positive way forward. After reading an article about the influence of the late economist James Buchanan on current events, I needed a pick me up.
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I am not going to go into detail here about his theories and how they have been behind many of the economic and political moves that have brought us the vast economic inequality and burgeoning corporate oligarchy present today.  I will say that it definitely made me see things as  being out of whack and I had a real need for some Dr. Seuss style humor and nonsense.
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I believe he is correct in saying that nonsense wakes up the brain cells. Just the imagining of absurdity causes one to take different perspectives, to try to see things in different lights. That is the basis for empathy and altruism, things that are in short supply in world that seems to be more and more running according to Buchanan’s theories.
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Give me The Lorax or  Green Eggs and Ham any day. Then maybe I can see the world back in whack.

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Heade’s Approaching Thunderstorm/ Redux

Posted in Current Events, Favorite Things, Painting, Quote, tagged , , on September 12, 2018| 3 Comments »

I ran this post about five years ago. It’s running again because the painting featured is a favorite of mine. But more than that, it seems to fit this time as well as any current artwork. I have added a quote from John Updike commenting on some of the works of the artist, Martin Johnson Heade. He points out attributes in Heade’s landscapes that I hope to find in my own work.

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“Heade’s calm is unsteady, storm-stirred; we respond in our era to its hint of the nervous and the fearful. His weather is interior weather, in a sense, and he perhaps was, if far from the first to portray a modern mood, an ambivalent mood tinged with dread and yet imbued with a certain lightness.The mood could even be said to be religious: not an aggressive preachment of God’s grandeur but a kind of Zen poise and acceptance, represented by the small sedentary or plodding foreground figures that appear uncannily at peace as the clouds blacken and the lightning flashes.”

― John Updike, Still Looking: Essays on American Art

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I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned Martin Johnson Heade here. This is really an oversight on my part as some of his work was really influential on the direction of my work early on, even though to the casual observer it may not seem apparent. After all, our styles and methods of painting were wildly different. The intensity of the color and contrast in his paintings of the floral subjects and tropical birds that he completed during his long and prolific career (born 1819 and died in 1904) really made me want to push my own color ahead. There is a site, Martin Johnson Heade- The Complete Works, that has his complete works online where you can see the great quality of his color and use of contrast.

But the painting shown at the top, Approaching Thunderstorm, from the Metropolitan Museum is my favorite Heade painting. The forms of the  black water of the lake set against the vibrant color of the shoreline is striking and  a most ominous storm cloud churns toward the boaters who have not yet fully heeded the signs of the oncoming storm.

It was painted in 1859, in the years before our country exploded in civil war. This painting was part of a cultural movement of the time that depicted the tension gripping our nation in metaphorical terms. The metaphor is strong and obvious in this painting with the dark band of the river symbolizing the division between the pro-slavery/states rights factions and the abolitonist/republican side. Several prominent abolitionist preachers of the era owned versions of this painting, many often referring to this coming storm in their sermons.

Knowing this makes me appreciate the painting on a different level. But it is still about the sheer emotional impact of the color and forms that hit me long before I knew its history. There is a tension and that feeling of stillness that occurs in the moment just before action occurs, something I have tried to capture in my own work at times. I still find this piece brilliant and inspiring.

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Why Labor Day?

Posted in Current Events, Opinion, tagged , , , on September 3, 2018| 5 Comments »

This essay ran a couple of years ago. It says what I wanted to say say this morning so here it is again:

Noon hour in the Ewen Breaker, Pennsylvania Coal Co. Location: South Pittston, Pennsylvania.

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The labor movement was the principal force that transformed misery and despair into hope and progress. Out of its bold struggles, economic and social reform gave birth to unemployment insurance, old-age pensions, government relief for the destitute and, above all, new wage levels that meant not mere survival but a tolerable life. The captains of industry did not lead this transformation; they resisted it until they were overcome. When in the thirties the wave of union organization crested over the nation, it carried to secure shores not only itself but the whole society.

—Martin Luther King, Jr.

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Another Labor Day.

If you ask someone what the holiday represents they will no doubt say that it is symbolic end of summer. A last picnic. One last real summer weekend at the lake or shore. If you push them they might finally say that it honors the workers of this country.

But it really was created to celebrate the American Labor Movement, those unions and organizers that brought about all of the changes that Dr. King pointed out in the quote above from his 1965 speech before the AFL-CIO.

Fair wages, a shorter workday, a safer workplace, pensions, unemployment insurance, vacations, maternity leave, paid holidays such as today– all of these things came from the hard and dangerous efforts of union organizers.

As King points out, the owners– the captains of industry— did not agree willingly to these changes. No, they fought with every resource at their disposal including the influence they bought from politicians and the use of violence. The history of the labor movement is littered with bodies of workers killed in skirmishes with the forces of the owners.

Every step of progress throughout our history has been opposed by those in power. But progress and change has always come thanks to the efforts of people like those in the labor movement.

The use of children in the workforce was another thing that was ultimately changed by the labor movement. It’s hard to believe that the scenes shown here in the famed photos of  photographer and social reformer Lewis Hine took place just over a hundred years ago in the coal mines of eastern Pennsylvania. Harder yet to believe is that federal labor laws for child labor were not fully enacted until 1938. Earlier attempts at legislation by congress in 1916 and 1922 had been challenged in court by industry and were deemed unconstitutional.

Lewis Hine -Penn Coal Co Ewen Breaker Pittston 1911Imagine your child (or your nephew or grandchild) at age 12. Imagine them spending 10 or 12 or even 14 hours a day, six days a week in one of the breaker rooms of a coal mine like the one shown here on the right. Hunched over in the gritty dust of the coal, they picked the coal for differing sizes and to sort out impurities. Imagine the men who are shown in the photo with sticks poking your child, perhaps kicking him to speed him up. Imagine all of this for  seven and a half cents per hour.

There was no school books for these kids. No soccer. No violin practices. No college preps. Just a future filled with misery and drudgery and most likely a black lung. Imagine that. And think that it was all taking place less than a hundred years ago and it ended because of the labor unions and the brave and conscientious people who fought for them.

I know there are problems that arose in the unions over time. They are not perfect by any means. But that doesn’t take away from the incredible progress that they provided for our nation’s worker. Despite their shortcomings, the idea of workers uniting to have one strong voice is as important now as it was a century ago. Perhaps even more now that corporate power and political influence is as great as any time in our history.

So celebrate the day at the shore or in a picnic. Have a great day. But take one single moment and think of those kids in that Pennsylvania mine and the people who fought to set them free.

Breaker boys working in Ewen Breaker of Pennsylvania Coal Co. For some of their names see labels 1927 to 1930. Location: South Pittston, Pennsylvania.

Group of Breaker boys. Smallest is Sam Belloma, Pine Street. (See label #1949). Location: Pittston, Pennsylvania.

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Grade A Milkman

Posted in Current Events, Favorite Things, Motivation, Quote, tagged , , on September 1, 2018| 4 Comments »

There’s a tombstone in a local cemetery that we walk by nearly every day. I look at it nearly every time we pass and it always makes me smile. Below the name and the dates of his lifespan are the words Grade A Milkman. All I can think is what great pride this man took in his job before he passed away at an early age. It reminds me of a post from several years back that I ran for the Labor Day weekend. It fits here for this Grade A Milkman.

A little postscript: After years of walking by this grave, a bit of research revealed that this fellow was my mother’s 3rd cousin. Makes me smile even a little more.

Here’s the post from back in 2013:

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If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.

–Martin Luther King, Jr.

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Another Labor Day weekend is here. On this blog in the past I have bemoaned how the general public has forgot how much it owes to the labor movement, how the middle class that was the pride of this country during the middle of the last century was a direct result of hard fought gains from workers who banded together and stood against social injustice. But today I just want to speak briefly about taking pride in one’s job, the same sentiment reflected in the quote above from Martin Luther King, Jr.

When I was a waiter in a pancake house, even after I had started showing my work in several galleries, I was always a waiter first when I was at my job. Never a painter-slash-waiter, a title which served no purpose. Circumstances had put me in this place at this time and I had determined that if I had to be there I would give it my complete attention and effort. I would make it my own. If I disliked it so much that it made me miserable, I would do something about changing my job when my day there was done and the task before me was complete.

But while I was there, I treated it as though it were my destiny because, who knew, maybe it was. I took great pride in being good at that job and some other jobs that I’ve done that could be classified as menial. What was the cost in doing this? If I had to be there then I would rather be recognized for my excellence than for my displayed misery.

Simply put, take pride in the task before you, however menial you see it. Find pride in the toil and treat it as your destiny because, in that very moment, it is.

Have a great Labor Day weekend and remember what the day stands for.

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Last Day/ The Rising

Posted in Current Events, Event, Favorite Things, Motivation, tagged , , on August 30, 2018| Leave a Comment »

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Today is the last day to get into the West End Gallery to see The Rising.

Many thanks to those of you who were able to stop in and take a look. The response has been fantastic and the feedback I have received provides me a lot of inspiration going forward. That’s a big thing for me and for any artist.

Thanks as always to Jesse and Linda at the gallery for all the work they do for my work. I know it’s a lot and I truly appreciate it.

Hope you can make it into the West End Gallery today. Thank you!
2018 WE Show 2

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You Don’t Know What Love Is

Posted in Current Events, Favorite Things, Music, Video, tagged , , , , , on August 26, 2018| 2 Comments »

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Those he commands move only in command,

Nothing in love. Now does he feel his title

Hang loose about him, like a giant’s robe

Upon a dwarfish thief.

-William Shakespeare,  Macbeth

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I read an interesting article in The Atlantic  by Eliot Cohen this week that has stuck with me for the past few days. It parallels the possible fall of the current administration to that of Shakespeare’s Macbeth. How fitting that the Scottish play, as it is often called, might mirror the fall of a man with a Scottish ancestry.

The end may be brought about by those he has freely abused and those around him who serve him not from admiration or love but from fear and the self-serving nature of the position, things that will no doubt soon fall away as the downward spiral hastens and his true nature of this utterly selfish person becomes apparent to even those who still follow him with fervor.

As Cohen writes:

…his spirit remains tyrannical—that is, utterly self-absorbed and self-concerned, indifferent to the suffering of others, knowing no moral restraint. He expects fealty and gives none. Such people can exert power for a long time, by playing on the fear and cupidity, the gullibility and the hatreds of those around them. Ideological fervor can substitute for personal affection and attachment for a time, and so too can blind terror and sheer stupidity, but in the end, these fall away as well.

Who will be Macduff, the one who ends the reign of the tyrant, in this version of the play is yet to be determined. But the last words of Macduff before he is urged by Macbeth to Lay on, Macduff should be remembered:

Then yield thee, coward,
And live to be the show and gaze o’ the time:
We’ll have thee, as our rarer monsters are,
Painted on a pole, and underwrit,
‘Here may you see the tyrant.’

In case you don’t know the play, it doesn’t end well for Macbeth.

The Cohen article is an interesting read. You can see it here.

For this week’s Sunday morning music I have chosen a nice collaboration of a song from the great American songbook from Elvis Costello and the late great Chet Baker. The title fits well with an article about a man who demands love and loyalty but offers none in return: You Don’t Know What Love Is.

Take a look and a listen. Have a good Sunday.

 

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