Provocations

Care for the planet by living like a tree: Wendell Berry

Quote for the day:

"We must see that it is foolish, sinful and suicidal to destroy the health of nature for the sake of an economy that is really not an economy at all but merely a financial system, one that is unnatural, undemocratic, sacrilegious, and ephemeral. We must see the error of our effort to live by fire, by burning the world in order to live in it. There is no plainer symptom of our insanity than our avowed intention to maintain by fire an unlimited economic growth. Fire destroys what nourishes it and so in fact imposes severe limits on any growth associated with it. The true source and analogue of our economic life is the economy of plants, which never exceeds natural limits, never grows beyond the power of its place to support it, produces no waste, and enriches and preserves itself by death and decay. We must learn to grow like a tree, not like a fire."

Wendell Berry, from Conservation and Local Economy in The Art of the Commonplace.

Leonard Cohen - poet again

Tomorrow is a big day . . .  and I'll tell you why:

Leonard Cohen is launching his first book of poetry in many years. For a man I first knew through his poems -  because at that time he hadn't yet entered "the tower of song" -  this will be a big day.  I know he lost a lot of money recently (stolen it seems) and that may have something to do with new music and now poetry being launched.  But I like to think that also he is returning to his first love.  He has said something to the effect that he took up singing because poems weren't much at paying the bills. 

So, here comes The Book of Longing.

To add to the occasion, the official launch, at Indigo Books in Toronto, will include performances by the Barenaked Ladies, Ron Sexsmith and Anjani.

See also Leonard Cohen - a Tower of Song-writing and Poetry

Canadian government tries to control what we see

A Canadian civil servant was advised  by the Canadian environment minister not to attend a promotional event for his new book. The advice (which he took, in fear of losing his job) came at the last minute and left his publicist trying to explain what she didn't understand herself.  The title of the book?  Hotter than Hell - a novel described by the CBC as "set in the not-so-distant future and dealing with the effects of global warming and a Canada-U.S. battle over fresh water."  And, guess what?  Thanks to the publicity this ministerial intervention gave to the book, it's now going for its second printing.  Who needs a book promotion? 

The Canadian government, getting increasingly controlling as it exercises power, claims the book promotion would have given the impression that the government endorses the book. Sounds fair on the surface but their reason for preventing media from attending the return of slain Canadian soldiers from Afghanistan also sounds fair on the surface:  protection of family privacy. As one father of a deceased soldier said today, that decision should be up to the families, not the government.  Why anyone would want to borrow a page from George Bush's copybook beats me but the media and Canadian public are smelling cover-up: an attempt to control the optics of the war in Afghanistan - which is looking more like Iraq with every passing day.

In the US,  slain soldiers in their caskets are flown in at night and the media is prohibited from photographing them.  Perhaps that's why, when an image does find its way through the censorship, it has great impact.

Pollan on food and culture in The Omnivore's Dilemma

"A country with a stable culture of food would not shell out millions for the quackery (or common sense) of a new diet book every January," he writes. In France and Italy, by contrast, people "decide their dinner questions on the basis of such quaint and unscientific criteria as pleasure and tradition, eat all manner of 'unhealthy' foods, and lo and behold, wind up actually healthier and happier in their eating than we are."

- Michael Pollan, in his newly-released book, The Omnivore's Dilemma

No Bar Code - excerpt from The Omnivore's Dilemma (in Mother Jones)

See also: Why French Women Don't Get Fat.

Hunter S Thompson goes out with a bang

Last night the ashes of Hunter S Thompson were blown into the sky from a cannon in Aspen, Colorado.

He commited suicide in February of this year.

BBC report on last night's ceremony.

Hunter S Thompson

The American writer Hunter S Thompson has been found dead, aged 67.
His son said that he had shot himself.
- BBC Tributes

Hunter S Thompson - Wikipedia

On removing the Bush Regime

Quote: We disagree so violently on almost everything that it's a real pleasure to drink with him. - Pat Buchanan.

Review and Perspective on "Collapse" by Jared Diamond

In his thorough review of  Collapse, by Jared Diamond, Richard Heinberg takes the scenario and analysis beyond where Diamond was willing/able(?) to take it - and comes up with what seems like a more realistic (and challenging) prospect.  In this passage Heinberg deals with one aspect: the lack of political and economic leadership in the USA.

Averting collapse would require changes that must be championed and partly implemented by political leaders: unprecedented levels of national and international cooperation would be needed in order to allocate essential resources in order to avert deadly competition for them as they become scarce, and our economic and monetary systems would have to be reformed despite pressure from the entrenched interests of wealthy elites. Yet the American political regime - the most important in the world, given US military supremacy and economic clout - has evidently become terminally dysfunctional, and is now the province of a group of extremist ideologues who apparently have virtually no interest in international cooperation or economic reform. This is a fact widely recognized outside the US, and by many sober observers within the country. The problem is not merely that politicians are being bought and sold by corporations (this has been going on for decades), but that the entire system has been hijacked by partisans who pride themselves on making decisions solely on the basis of ideology and in supreme disdain for "reality." At the same time, the US electoral system has been eviscerated and commandeered by a single party (using various forms of systematic fraud that have now become endemic), so that a peaceful rectification of the situation by a vote of the people has become virtually impossible. Moreover, the American media have been so cowed and co-opted by the dominant party that most oft he citizenry is blissfully unaware of its plight and is thus extremely unlikely to vigorously oppose the current trends.

Heinberg goes on to a briefer review of Dark Age Ahead  by Jane Jacobs.

The most important aspects of culture are continually reinforced through example, and are thus as perishable as flesh itself.

BC Grasslands Blog Gathering Momentum

The  BC Grasslands  blog is gathering steam. Follow photographer Cbris Harris as he chronicles his making of the book  in words and many photographs. Here's a recent post:

A couple of weeks ago my sister Jane who lives in Ireland, came to visit me here in the Cariboo. As this was her first trip ever to British Columbia, I was extremely excited to show her the extensive open grasslands. Jane is a painting artist who is used to the miniature scapes of England and Ireland so I was anxious to see how she would respond visually.

Go there

Pierre Berton Rolls a Joint

Canadian "icon" Pierre Berton died recently, as most Canadians well know. To put his standing in perspective for those in Canada and beyond who don't, the news of his death pushed George Bush's state visit to Canada into second spot on the national tv news.

Berton was known for many qualities and achievements, including books on Canadian history and books for children - and for his wit. Forty years of recreational use of marijuana don't seem to have dulled his brain a bit. He was sharp and funny to the end. Not long ago, on Rick Mercer's Monday Report, he gave a demonstration on How to Roll a Joint.

Pierre Berton - In Depth

Book by Iranian Nobel Prize-winner Banned in U.S.

Censorship in "The Land of the Free":

Iranian Nobel Prize winner Shirin Ebadi is suing the US government for blocking publication of her memoirs. - BBC

Our new sanctions against expression - CNN

Azara Nafisi is director of The Dialogue Project

I believe that the experience of reading is truly universal and that universality creates an empathy which speaks to the shared desire for basic human needs. - Azara Nafisi