E-NOTES: WHEN THE NEWS IS NOT ENOUGH. THE BLOG OF E. ETHELBERT MILLER
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Tricycle Daily Dharma
Many people have some ambivalence about silence; they fear it, or don’t value it. Because we only know ourselves through thinking and speaking and acting. But once the mind gets silent, the range of what’s possible is immeasurable. So first you taste the silence. Then you realize that it’s not a vacuum or dead space. It’s not an absence of the real stuff; it’s not that the real stuff is the doing, the talking, and all that. You get comfortable in it and you learn that it’s highly charged with life. It’s a very refined and subtle kind of energy. And when you come out of it, somehow you’re kinder, more intelligent. It’s not something that you manufacture—it’s an integral part of being alive. And it’s vast. We’ve enclosed ourselves in a relatively small space by thinking. It binds us in, and we’re not aware that we’re living in a tiny, cluttered room. With practice, it’s as if the walls of this room were torn down, and you realize there’s a sky out there.
Larry Rosenberg, The Art of Doing Nothing (Spring 1998)
The Truth of Silence
Larry Rosenberg, The Art of Doing Nothing (Spring 1998)
Friday, July 30, 2010
I was reading USA TODAY and came across a small article that mentioned militants in Iraq flew an al-Qaeda flag over a neighborhood. I realized I had no idea what that flag looked like. Do you? We've been at war all these years and I would have flunked the test. Now if someone will just translate the Arabic for me...
Here is a link to RK's website:
www.richardkostelanetz.com
Of course this prolific writer has a new book too:
http://www.borders.com/online/store/TitleDetail?sku=1570272123
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ORDER FROM OPEN HAND:WWW.OPENHAND.COM
where are the love poems for dictators?
by E. Ethelbert Miller
Website exclusive: We have a limited copy of autographed copies of where are the love poems for dictators? in stock and are selling them only here. Unless you plan to catch Ethelbert Miller at a reading, order yours now!
E. Ethelbert Miller is a founding member of the Humanities Council of Washington, D.C. and a former commissioner of the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities. He has served as a visiting professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, as an associate faculty member of Bennington College, and as the Jessie Ball DuPont Scholar at Emory and Henry College. Miller has won several honors, including the 1995 O. B. Hardison Jr. Poetry Prize and an honorary doctorate of literature from Emory & Henry College. He is also the editor of several anthologies, including In Search of Color Everywhere. His memoir, Following Words: The Making of an African American Writer, was published in 2000.Complementary Book for Education
As always, E. Ethelbert Miller conjures the smoke and fire we associate with love and politics. The versatile coming together of opposites; the welding of wholes; the traumas of the dialectic of loving between the sheets or behind myriad steel bars.
Ntozake Shange
Ntozake Shange
JOBS BEHIND WALLS
The nation's unemployment crisis is now reaching far inside prison walls. Since 2008, thousands of inmates have lost their jobs as federal authorities shutter and scale back operations at prison recycling, furniture, cable and electronics assembly factories to try to make up $65million in loses.
The job cuts, prison officials say, mean a dramatic reduction in job training for inmates preparing for release, lost wages for prisoners to pay down child support and other courthouse fines, and more tension in already overcrowded institutions.
-USA TODAY, July 19, 2010.
The nation's unemployment crisis is now reaching far inside prison walls. Since 2008, thousands of inmates have lost their jobs as federal authorities shutter and scale back operations at prison recycling, furniture, cable and electronics assembly factories to try to make up $65million in loses.
The job cuts, prison officials say, mean a dramatic reduction in job training for inmates preparing for release, lost wages for prisoners to pay down child support and other courthouse fines, and more tension in already overcrowded institutions.
-USA TODAY, July 19, 2010.
We should be crying Kalamazoo tears. More than 800,000 gallons of oil spilled Monday into the Kalamazoo River, a major waterway that flows into Lake Michigan. The leak came from a 30-inch pipeline that carries oil each day from Griffith, Ind,., to Sarnia, Ontario. Enbridge Energy Partners is the owner of the pipeline.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Call for Papers on the Intellectual History of Black Women
The Black Women’s Intellectual and Cultural History Collective (BWICH) is seeking paper submissions for a broad-ranging conference on black women’s contributions to black thought, political mobilization, creative work and gender theory. We are interested in work on any time period that explores black women as intellectuals across a broad geography including Africa, the Caribbean, North and South America, and Europe . BWICH aims to piece together a history of black women’s thought and culture that maps the distinctive concerns and historical forces that have shaped black women’s ideas and intellectual activities. To this end, we are interested in paper exploring subjects including, but not limited to, the genealogy of black feminism, the patterns of women’s leadership and ideas about religious culture and politics, the scientific work of black women, the economic ideas of black women, the politics of black women’s literature, and the history of black women’s racial, sexual or social thought. We encourage submissions from scholars of all ranks, and any relevant discipline.
Accepted papers will be featured at a conference on the Intellectual History of Black Women in New York City on April 28-30. The conference is sponsored by Columbia University ’s Center for the Critical Analysis of Social Difference, which will also cover the participants’ travel and lodging expenses. Submissions are due no later than October 15th, 2010, and should include a one-page abstract of the projected paper, as well as short C.V. Paper proposals and C.V.s should be submitted by email to: bwhichconference@gmail.com.
About BWHICH
BWICH is an interdisciplinary, collaborative effort dedicated to recovering the history of black women as active intellectual subjects. We aim to encourage scholarship on black women’s intellectual activities among a diverse and enduring community of senior and junior scholars, whose intellectual exchanges will cross generations and foster a scholarly tradition that outlives this particular project.
PROJECT DIRECTORS
Mia Bay , Rutgers University
Farah Jasmine Griffin , Columbia University
Martha S. Jones, University of Michigan
Barbara D. Savage, University of Pennsylvania
Tricycle Daily Dharma
Aristotle said that in order for people to become virtuous, we need role models—others who have developed their capacities for courage, self-control, wisdom, and justice. We may emphasize different sets of virtues or ideas about what makes a proper role model, but Buddhism also asserts that, as we are all connected and interdependent, none of us can do it all on our own.
Acknowledging this dependency is the first step of real emotional work within relationships. Our ambivalence about our own needs and dependency gets stirred up in all kinds of relationships. We cannot escape our feelings and needs and desires if we are going to be in relationships with others. To be in relationships is to feel our vulnerability in relation to other people who are unpredictable, and in circumstances that are intrinsically uncontrollable and unreliable.
-Barry Magid, No Gain (Summer 2008)
Don't Go It Alone
Acknowledging this dependency is the first step of real emotional work within relationships. Our ambivalence about our own needs and dependency gets stirred up in all kinds of relationships. We cannot escape our feelings and needs and desires if we are going to be in relationships with others. To be in relationships is to feel our vulnerability in relation to other people who are unpredictable, and in circumstances that are intrinsically uncontrollable and unreliable.
-Barry Magid, No Gain (Summer 2008)
CHARLES JOHNSON just sent this to me:
Middle Passages: Charles Johnson and the Raft of Dhamma
“I have taught the Dhamma compared to a raft, for the purpose of crossing over,
not for the purpose of holding onto.”
—Alagaddupama Sutta
At the start of Charles Johnson’s novel, Middle Passage, a former antebellum slave named Rutherford Calhoun considers the expansive view from a New Orleans pier and wonders if “the analogue for life was water, the formless, omnific sea.” To my mind, this fictional character's observations about the cleansing spray of light, wind, and mist also recall the longings of Frederick Douglass’s 1845 autobiography in which he writes of standing on the edge of the Chesapeake Bay, alone “in the deep stillness of a summer’s Sabbath” to contemplate the sails of ships gliding into the ocean. In these meditative moments, Douglass regards himself not as cargo, the way his owners do, but as a kindred vessel: “You are loosed from your moorings, and are free; I am fast in my chains, and am a slave!” He goes on to lament, “alas! betwixt me and you, the turbid waters roll. Go on, go on. O that I could also go! Could I but swim! If I could fly!” Douglass’s counterpart in Middle Passage does not see himself as part of this moving multitude of ships, at least not at first; Rutherford, though manumitted, is still a petty thief – hedonistic, self-grasping, and bound to a desire to steal the experiences of others. Over time, though, he will come to follow Douglass’s lead, moving in and through the turbid waters that signify “countless seas of suffering.”not for the purpose of holding onto.”
—Alagaddupama Sutta
Rutherford’s transformational journey in this award-winning novel conveys a sense of interconnectedness that Johnson values as a black Buddhist practitioner. What’s more, in all of his fiction, essays, and scholarly writings, Johnson models a way of thinking about Buddhism that posits the philosophical and spiritual complexities of African-American narrative as a vehicle for exploring ultimate truths. In his 2003 collection, Turning the Wheel: Essays on Buddhism and Writing, Johnson notes an increasing number of black American writers and scholars who are known for engaging in some form of Buddhist practice: Thulani Davis, Jan Willis, Angel Kyoto Williams, Alice Walker, bell hooks, Steven Barnes and others. Jean Toomer emerges as a literary ancestor of sorts, one whose wide philosophical interests set him apart from other New Negro writers of the 1930s. Johnson even cites fellow travelers in the entertainment industry including Tina Turner and Herbie Hancock.
Yet when Johnson uses terms such as “radical, emancipatory, nonessentialistic, and empathetic” to characterize the Dhamma, or when he refers to issues of race “as foremost among samsaric illusions,” he is not necessarily speaking for a community of black Buddhists, but to advance an understanding of Western Buddhism that is mindful of African-American suffering. Turning the Wheel enthusiastically underscores points of convergence between Buddhist teachings and African-American creative and intellectual thought, placing the voices of Shantideva and Thich Nhat Hanh in conversation with Martin Luther King, Jr’s aspirations for “beloved community,” the sounds of “lower frequencies” in Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, and the introspective risks of poet Lucille Clifton’s “Ten Oxherding Pictures.” Consider that after Rutherford Calhoun inadvertently stows away on a ship bound for Africa in Middle Passage, he returns to the New Orleans pier changed, no longer a thief after having seen the transatlantic slave trade and survived the disease, starvation, and rebellion on board.He observes:
Looking back at the asceticism of the Middle Passage, I saw how the frame of mind I had adopted left me unattached, like the slaves who, not knowing what awaited them in the New World, put a high premium on living from moment to moment, and this, I realized, was why they did not commit suicide. The voyage had irreversibly changed my way of seeing, made of me a cultural mongrel, and transformed the world into a fleeting shadow play I felt no need to possess or dominate, only appreciate in the ever extended present.
To regard the cycle of samsara (and its cessation) through the Middle Passage experience, as this quote implies, carries profound cultural resonance for people like myself who are descended from the enslaved Africans that survived the global atrocity. Slavery, as Johnson points out in Turning the Wheel, “is, one must say, a frighteningly fertile ground for the growth of a deep appreciation for the First and Second Noble Truths as well as a living illustration of the meaning of impermanence.” He also suggests that just as racial difference has been used to build hierarchies of oppression, so do the delusions of our perceived selves keep us from a full awareness of an interdependent reality. All of us, every living being, will confront middle passages in our lives. Will we, too, take to the raft of Dhamma and emerge sea changed?In my book on the problem of evil in 20th century black American literature, I explore the ways in which black writers engage the classic considerations of God’s goodness, justice, and power that are traditionally associated with Christian communities of faith and scripture. Questions of divine justice, I maintain, are at the heart of the post-Emancipation religious reflections by Countee Cullen, Richard Wright, Nella Larsen, James Baldwin, Ernest Gaines, and Toni Morrison. Their characters risk the disapproval of church elders in order to reflect upon black suffering and contemplate the kind of questions that Douglass addresses to the ships at sea: “God, deliver me! Let me be free! Is there any God? Why am I a slave?”
What does it mean to explore “the sea-deep blues of american slavery” through a Buddhist framework?
What does it mean, then, to explore what poet Everett Hoagland called “the sea-deep blues of american slavery” through a Buddhist framework? Or to consider modern injustice through a religion that is devoted to obliterating suffering and cherishing others, but that is largely unconcerned with the question of God? What are the consequences of viewing the experiences of African Americans in accordance with the individual and collective dimensions of karmic law or through the precepts of an Eastern religion with its own history and cultural traditions?One of the ways that Charles Johnson addresses these questions in Middle Passage can be seen through Rutherford’s realization of himself at sea as a “cultural mongrel” not unlike Douglass’s moving multitude of ships. The novel also makes a case for Buddhism as part of our human inheritance through the enslaved Allmuseri, a fictitious African people who embrace a worldview that is very similar to Buddhist monastics (Johnson calls them “a rather Buddhist African tribe” in Turning the Wheel). The Allmuseri, with their unlined palms, are healers for whom lying, clinging, or causing harm brings multi-generational consequences. At times, Rutherford seems to romanticize the qualities of the Allmuseri as the “Ur-tribe of humanity,” yet the path that he ultimately chooses falls somewhere between the faultless values of their leader Ngonyama and the imperialistic greed of the slave ship captain. The Middle Path.
This column, “Middle Passages,” is the first in a recurring series that will consider how Buddha’s teachings take shape in black American literary and cultural texts. I am particularly fascinated by the manner in which Buddhist practice intersects with the subversive play of language and form for which writers like Charles Johnson are so well known. It is in the spirit of such wordplay that I’ve selected the series title, for like Rutherford, I am also mesmerized by the formless sea, its undertow of suffering as well as its emancipatory potential. After all, it was in the red shirt and tarpaulin hat of a sailor that Frederick Douglass made his final escape as a slave from the Chesapeake Bay. Equipped with his knowledge of ships, another sailor’s protection certificate, and the courage of his own convictions, he boarded a train for New York in September 1838 and never looked back. A fitting model, I would say, for those of us who are journeying to the distant shore of enlightenment on our own rafts of Dhamma.
Further Reading:
- Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Written by Himself, 1845.
- Everett Hoagland, Here: New and Selected Poems, Leapfrog Press, 2002.
- Charles Johnson, Middle Passage, Scribner, 1998
Turning the Wheel: Essays on Buddhism and Writing, Scribner, 2007. - “Alagaddupama Sutta: The Water-Snake Simile” (MN 22), translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu. Access to Insight.
Qiana WhittedQiana is the Arts Editor and sits on the Editorial Board of Prapañca: a buddhist journal. She is also Associate Professor of English and African-American Studies at the University of South Carolina, and the author of the book, “A God of Justice?”: The Problem of Evil in Twentieth-Century Black Literature.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
A PELICAN BRIEF
6 objectives for BP’s incoming CEO
6 objectives for BP’s incoming CEO
The new boss faces two messes: Deepwater Horizon’s and Tony Hayward’s.
HELP NEEDED: VERY IMPORTANT SOS FOR IPS Dear independent media/IPS/Earthbeat supporter: Earthbeat Radio is the only show of its kind, being broadcast on over 50 stations in the US and Canada for over 7 years now, with over 2 million potential listeners.
We would like to continue, expand, and improve Earthbeat--and, in fact, have been approached by a major public radio show host who has big dreams of expanding with us to produce Earthbeat and other progressive shows on both radio and TV (via Free Speech TV, perhaps hosted out of Busboys and Poets), but if we don't raise $10,000 toward Earthbeat by the end of August, we will need to go off the air.
Right now we are working without our wonderful producer, Aries Keck (due to the loss of a major funder who no longer funds national media work). We would love to hire her back and keep going, producing hard-hitting climate and environmental justice news and interviews. But we can't do it without you.
Please visit the Earthbeat site at www.earthbeatradio.org and make a secure, tax-deductible donation. Every bit helps.
Many thanks.
Daphne Wysham Host, Earthbeat Radio
A PELICAN BRIEF:
On the Surface, Gulf Oil Spill Is Vanishing Fast; Concerns Stay
By JUSTIN GILLIS and CAMPBELL ROBERTSON
The oil is clearing much faster than expected, but concern remains over the unseen effects.
On the Surface, Gulf Oil Spill Is Vanishing Fast; Concerns Stay
By JUSTIN GILLIS and CAMPBELL ROBERTSON
The oil is clearing much faster than expected, but concern remains over the unseen effects.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
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Liz Lerman Dance Exchange
Season Opening Performance and World Premiere!
LIZ LERMAN DANCE EXCHANGE
The Matter of Origins
Commissioned by the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, The Matter of Origins opens the season with what Liz Lerman describes as “a performance, a conversation, a floor show, a quiz show and a chance to meet big minds.” The work uses science as its point of departure but even though the company has engaged physicists to help them explore the topic, The Matter of Origins is not just a dance about physics but a lively meditation on the capacity of the human mind to imagine, discern, speculate and draw conclusions.Act One is a dance performance illuminated by video and a vivid soundscape, exploring the nature of beginnings and the physics that underlies the origin of matter. Lerman has conducted extensive research into historic and current points of reference including the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos and the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. Act Two will incorporate tea and conversation as Dance Exchange cast members serve tea and chocolate cake made from the famous recipe of Edith Warner, the Los Alamos local whose tea house was a gathering spot for the scientists at the Manhattan Project. This experience will allow audiences to respond to what they’ve seen and contribute their own insights to the spirit of discovery at the heart of The Matter of Origins.
$35
[$28 for subscribers]
[$28 for subscribers]
How many racial incidents and issues will take place over the rest of the year? What will be the major racial issue during Obama's campaign for re-election? What person will suddenly emerge as a "racial speed bump" for a few days in the media? Boy, is the "next" white president going to have his hands full.
After Obama will we return to dark days? Will the "next" white president do more to improve race relations than Obama? Let's be honest, some people major in race studies and will always talk about it.
But do we always have to see race as a problem? I don't need another "teachable" moment about race or another race discussion. I know what's going to be on the final exam. Right now I'm wondering if there are other subjects I can take - what electives must a black person take in order to move ahead in the world? I don't want to be forced to do "Graduate Race" work? Must we all? I was raised with the understanding that there will always be problems in the world. Is Race a problem? Not for me. I'm not a problem and refuse to define myself as one. I'm not a speed bump either. Yet, if we keep "Racing" down the street - what alternatives do we have to protect the neighborhood from accidents? CAUTION - SPEED BUMP AHEAD.
Monday, July 26, 2010
A PELICAN BRIEF:
Dahr Jamail | BP Response Workers Report Low Morale, Lack of Pay, Sickness
Dahr Jamail, Truthout: "BP oil disaster response workers are reporting endemic problems, such as not being paid on time, low morale, rampant sickness, equipment failures and being lied to regularly. 'Yesterday was a catastrophe,' one worker, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Truthout, 'People are waiting 2-3 hours for their paychecks to be brought to them and I know for a fact three people that didn't get paid and no reason was given.'"
Read the Article
Dahr Jamail | BP Response Workers Report Low Morale, Lack of Pay, Sickness
Dahr Jamail, Truthout: "BP oil disaster response workers are reporting endemic problems, such as not being paid on time, low morale, rampant sickness, equipment failures and being lied to regularly. 'Yesterday was a catastrophe,' one worker, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Truthout, 'People are waiting 2-3 hours for their paychecks to be brought to them and I know for a fact three people that didn't get paid and no reason was given.'"
Read the Article
:ksitchyfeet.wordpress.com
During the last AWP Conference in Denver, Karen and I got together one morning for a lovely breakfast and better conversation. It was good to finally sit down with her. Over the years I've been getting her postcards from so many places around the world. Good to see her blogging - now I'll know where she is before the mailman rings my bell.
Los Treinta30 Years of the Salvadoran Presence in DC Through Poetry and Performance
Written by Quique Aviles
Directed by B. Stanley
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Written by Quique Aviles
Directed by B. Stanley
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The District of Columbia Arts Center and the Gala Hispanic Theatre invite you to see and hear the poetry and characters that have been developed over the last 30 years on the immigrant Salvadoran experience in the Washington D.C. area.
Two shows only!! Fri/Sat July 30th & 31st @ 8pm.
Only $10 General admission at Gala Hispanic Theatre!
Two shows only!! Fri/Sat July 30th & 31st @ 8pm.
Only $10 General admission at Gala Hispanic Theatre!
ABOUT LOS TREINTA
In 1980, thousands of families left the war-torn country of El Salvador and found their way to Washington DC, transforming it one of the largest Salvadoran-American communities in the United States and contributing to the city’s current growth and success. During these 30 years, Salvadorans have established businesses, developed neighborhoods, and created new opportunities for success and growth that extends beyond the city limits. Writer and performer Quique Aviles shares his collection of characters and performances that documents the arrival, struggles, success, and growth of this dynamic community in the nation’s capital. LOS TREINTA, which translates to “the thirty”, is a rare opportunity to learn from a misunderstood and underappreciated community by one of its own voices.
ABOUT QUIQUE AVILES
Quique Avilés is a poet, actor and community activist whose work is dedicated to addressing social issues through performance and poetry. A native of El Salvador, Quique has been writing and performing about issues of race, identity, and the plight of poor people in the US for 30 years. In 1985 he founded the LatiNegro Theater collective, and in 1999 co-founded and was artistic director of Sol & Soul.
TICKET INFORMATION
Remember, the performance is for two nights only, so purchase early! To purchase call 202-234-7174 or (800) 494-8497 or visit www.galatheatre.org Parking is available at a discount in the Giant parking garage on Park Road, NW. Gala Hispanic Theatre is located on 3333 14th Street, NW Washington DC, 20009
Sunday, July 25, 2010
A PELICAN BRIEF
Despite the April 20 Deepwater Horizon disaster, BP has no plans to leave the Gulf or Mexico or stop drilling for oil in other deep ocean waters.
Just the opposite: with its runaway well apparently under control, the troubled oil giant is now staking its future more than ever on deepwater wells. Although such wells are far riskier than land-based or shallow-water ones, oil fields that are located under a mile or more of water can be extremely lucrative, and BP continues to see them as worth the risks.
The New York Times, July 21, 2010
Despite the April 20 Deepwater Horizon disaster, BP has no plans to leave the Gulf or Mexico or stop drilling for oil in other deep ocean waters.
Just the opposite: with its runaway well apparently under control, the troubled oil giant is now staking its future more than ever on deepwater wells. Although such wells are far riskier than land-based or shallow-water ones, oil fields that are located under a mile or more of water can be extremely lucrative, and BP continues to see them as worth the risks.
The New York Times, July 21, 2010
After the play I went to the Takoma Public Library (DC) and borrowed MEMORIES OF MY MELANCHOLY WHORES by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, A MERCY by Toni Morrison and MIGRATION by W.S. Merwin.
I completed the reading of the novel by Gabriel Garcia Marquez this morning around 9AM. MEMORIES OF MY MELANCHOLY WHORES spoke to me on so many levels. Here are lines and passages that had special meaning to me:
Sex is the consolation you have when you can't have love.
Don't let yourself die without knowing the wonder of fucking with love.
From then on I began to measure my life not by years but by decades. The decade of my fifties had been decisive because I became aware that almost everybody was younger than I. The decade of my sixies was the most intense because of the suspicion that I no longer had the time to make mistakes. My seventies were frightening because of a certain possibility that the decade might be the last.
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Friday, July 23, 2010
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