Culture

Supplicant

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Hearing about our Phone Forum with psychologist Michael Eigen, the artist Barrie Karp wrote us that she is a regular member of Eigen’s seminar. Her painting “Fear and Hope” appeared in Tikkun last November with the remarkable article “Love in Adversity” by Alix Kates Shulman: the two women are friends. It was a pleasure to hear from her and discover this other connection. She attached this painting, “Supplicant,” which she felt was relevant to Eigen’s themes of shame, humility, vulnerability, despair, and hope.

Spirituality

A delight and a must-read

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If you’ve been married or partnered for many years or know anyone who has been, you’re going to enjoy Those Aren’t Fighting Words, Dear in the NYT about the woman who refused to let her husband’s midlife crisis get a reaction out of her. She doesn’t say what prompted her own change of approach to life in general, including to her husband, but I would be staggered if she hadn’t clued in to some spiritual practice or tradition. If she invented it whole cloth on her own, she’s a genius. The author, Laura Munson, has written about her life in Montana here, and people are leaving comments already about the NYT piece, including this gem:
My grandmother is a family therapist and was a close friend of Virginia Satir who once said “The problem is not the problem, but how you handle the problem.” Aha!

Environment

How To Survive This Century

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Naomi Klein has a fine prophetic piece in The Progressive this month. She laments the economic recovery that is now likely under way, because it is happening before we got around to completely changing our economic system. We are wasting the crisis. As a result full-growth capitalism will resume its destruction of the planet’s ecosystems. But it will happen in a meaner way than before, because it wasn’t just water that was bailed out to save the ship, it was people, and many of them will never recover. Her last word:
Capitalism can survive this crisis.

Politics & Society

Michael Eigen on the Phone Forum

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As the host of Tikkun’s Phone Forum I shouldn’t play favorites, but I did find the discussion last night with psychologist Mike Eigen to be one of the most enjoyable and thought-provoking of the series for me personally. You can access the recordings here, in three parts this time. People have said that the interview part is often better than the Q&A, which is one reason we split them, but I think the reverse was true this time. Mike Eigen is the author of 12 books, a psychologist in private practice and a psychology professor. Dharma Cafe says ” Michael Eigen is widely acknowledged to be the finest, most profound psychoanalytic writer of our time.”

Politics & Society

Home Defense Defeat

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Back in May I posted in Home Defense Victory about how a group of people kept the sheriff away from Tosha Alberty’s foreclosed home in Oakland, CA. The week before last Tosha called a bunch of us to come at once. The sheriff had arrived unexpectedly. I couldn’t get there. I don’t know how many did.

Politics & Society

Fundamental Change has not come to Washington DC

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Still at Open Left, a quote that sums up where we are after seven months of Obama’s administration:
Big business lobbyists, in this case from the health insurance industry, still have more power than the President. The media establishment, for all their lost audience and credibility, still have the ability to drive a negative conventional wisdom story about how change is impossible. And Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill, out of a combination of caution and the fear of these aforementioned lobbyists, still don’t have the ability to deliver transformational change. The kind of change Barack Obama based his campaign around is, so far, nowhere to be seen.

Politics & Society

Bush Lite

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I find myself going to Open Left for a dose of reality. Today: polling shows that Republicans have almost caught up with Democrats in people’s voting plans for the next election, with a strong analysis of why that is so. Ian Welsh, sounding very like Michael Lerner, argues it is because the Republicans pursue conflict with vigor while the Democrats, lacking the courage of their supposed convictions, are doing Bush lite:
Continuation of ineffective Bush policies. Not to put too fine a point on it, but in too many cases Obama and the new Congress are pursuing Bush lite policies. Escalate in Afghanistan
Spend more money on the military
Get out of Iraq around about the time Bush wanted to anyway
Continue the Bush/Paulson financial policies
A stimulus bill which was 40% tax cuts (granted, not tax cuts for the rich, but still tax cuts)

Americans voted for Democrats because they were sick of Bush and Bush era policies.

Environment

Belief and Action

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The article is called “Are you a believer?” in the print magazine. On the web it’s first called “Why don’t people believe in climate change?” and then “Why people don’t act on climate change.” Are the folks at New Scientist confused about the difference between belief and action?

Judaism

The Planet-Saving Mitzvah

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A mitzvah is a Hebrew word for the commandments in Jewish tradition (you thought there were only ten? That’s about 610 short) and so it also became a word for a good deed, a kind act. Could one mitzvah save the planet? Not on its own, but few things that you or I do could have a bigger impact on everything from global warming to water quality to biodiversity loss than going vegetarian. In my case, I’ve still got a ways to go.