December 2008 archive

So I’m glancing through the news this morning and I find this:

Every once in a while, something will appear in the night sky that will attract the attention of even those who normally don’t bother looking up. It’s likely to be that way on Monday evening, Dec. 1.

A slender crescent moon, just 15-percent illuminated, will appear in very close proximity to the two brightest planets in our sky, Venus and Jupiter.

People who are unaware or have no advance notice will almost certainly wonder, as they cast a casual glance toward the moon on that night, what those two “large silvery stars” happen to be? Sometimes, such an occasion brings with it a sudden spike of phone calls to local planetariums, weather offices and even police precincts. Not a few of these calls excitedly inquire about “the UFOs” that are hovering in the vicinity of our natural satellite.

Now I have been burned too many times by astrological events … either the sky is too cloudy to see the fabulous eclipses or there’s too much light in my neighborhood to view the wonderful meteor showers.

So I forgot about it until I got home from work.  I got off the subway in my usual trance, half asleep, and was walking the four blocks to my apartment when I inadvertently glanced up at the sky.

Wow!  There it was, a beautiful crescent moon, bright Venus and Jupiter right there!  Although it had been raining all week, tonight the sky was dark and clear.  The lovely sight put a big smile on my face.

Open thread is open for your tales of astronomical wowness or anything else that you’d like to share.

There are many greenwashing efforts for gas guzzling McSUVs, seeking to put a green shine on polluting behemoths.  Normally, these come from well-paid hacks and company publicity machines.  Sometimes, however, you have to ask yourself, “What were they thinking?”  

This is truly the case with the naming of the Chevy Tahoe Hybrid as the Green Car Journal’s Green Car of the Year.  Amid the overall absurdity of naming a 20 mpg, 5500 pound, $50,000+ light-duty vehicle that will mainly end up in suburban drive-ways (typically with just one person in them when driven) somehow green, one has to wonder at the “names” associated with the award. These include Carl Pope, Sierra Club’s executive director; Christopher Flavin (Worldwatch Institute), Jonathan Lash (World Resources Institute), and Jean-Michel Cousteau (Ocean Futures Society).  

Let’s be clear, the Tahoe Hybrid is less bad for the environment and less problemmatic for America’s oil addiction than the traditional Tahoe behemoth, but ‘less bad’ doesn’t mean “green”.

1. Like there was any doubt, but the NY Times reports “It’s Official: Recession Started One Year Ago“.

   The evidence of a downturn has been widespread for months: slower production, stagnant wages and hundreds of thousands of lost jobs. But the nonpartisan National Bureau of Economic Research, charged with making the call for the history books, waited until now to weigh in.

   In a statement released Monday, the members of the group’s Business Cycle Dating Committee – made up of seven prominent economists, most from the academic sector – said that the economy entered a recession in December 2007.

2. The LA Times reports Bombs kill at least 34 people in Iraq. Police recruits in Baghdad and U.S. and Iraqi security forces in Mosul were targeted.

   The monthly death toll for November, including civilians, police and soldiers, was 339, compared to 278 in October, according to figures from the ministries of health and interior. The number is far lower than for the month of November last year, when the death toll from bombings, shootings and other attacks linked to Iraq’s war was 608.

   The NY Times has the following quote in their coverage of the bombing:

   “If you dare to tell the truth, this is because of the American forces,” said a man who refused to give his name. “Their convoy went to the end of the street and the suicide bomber came right then. All of our troubles are because of the Americans.”

   At a press conference today to unveils his national security team, President-elect Barack Obama said “said he was sticking to his goal of removing American combat troops from Iraq within 16 months, which he called ‘the right time frame,’ and that this would be accomplished with safety for the troops and security for the Iraqi people.”

Four at Four continues with the climate talks in Poland and Pakistani-Indian tension.

On Saturday night I was invited to play for about a hundred yogis at ‘source yoga’, a studio in town, for the arrival of a swami from India. I get there and stand in a corner where I can hear myself tune, and think about what has happened in the last few days, specifically in Mumbai. I think of so many people who have given a message to us, a message of common humanity and shared values of goodness and compassion. In India, independence would not have come so easily had Gandhi not been there. Oh, it would have come; you cannot sustain a colonial presence, especially with ethnic differences as deep as between the British and the Indians; but somehow his message of Satyagraha, non-violent action, really succeeded where many armed uprisings failed.

I go to play, and the music comes out. I stand there, listening twice. Once for the music that I hear inside, and then again as I try to copy as accurately as I can the sounds that I hear in my heart. Mostly I do all right, and as I resolutely play without any amplifitation in the large and very full room, I let the music take me over until I’m hanging on for dear life as this sound emerges from my instrument.

The swami is late, held up in traffic; they ask if I would play some more. I take my instrument, and in the time that it takes to tune a new thing is there to be freed. I again try to be a pure conduit for the energy, thinking about everyone who has lost someone in the mess that was the siege of the hotels Oberoi, Taj, and Nariman house; the pictures of the young rabbi and his wife, the faces of the two ‘terrorists’ who were photographed, all come together in a face that reflects the intensity of the feelings of the situation.

The second piece starts with the hymn ‘Amazing Grace’, then moves into a terra ingognita of conflicting feelings, odd and jagged melodies contrasting with solemn tones that are like Bach’s cello suites in their sobriety. gradually the sound evolves back to finish where it began, with the simple notes of ‘Amazing Grace’, one of my favorite hymns, full of hope and redemption. I can’t help thinking that the young men who executed the attack left behind a grieving mother, a family burdened by grief; everyone of us pays for this, no matter the exhortations of religious figures that preach that violence is a great way of serving God. And I realize that we, as common humanity, have paid enough for religious differences; We have paid enough and too much for the exhortations of religious leaders who urge violence as a sacred duty, sanctioned by the Creator, who I believe has said no such thing.

And I return to my personal revelation, of Jesus coming to me late at night a few weeks ago and saying just this:

“I am love; first of all and most importantly, I am that love that moves all things. Remember this, and remember that apart from all sectarian feelings and dogmatic sayings I am first and last pure love.”

I pray that we all can move towards this universal love, the source of all good action towards all beings; beyond individual prophets and their revelations, “that love that moves the sun and the other stars”, as Dante so beautifully puts it, pulls all beings toward itself.

Lawrence of Arabia wrote that during one of his travels, he ran into an old blind hermit near a spring of pure water in the desert; and that finally, the old man said:

“The Love is From God, and of God, and towards God”.

That’s all the religion I need. And all the religion that the whole world needs.