I wrote this essay when I was 53 years old, 17 years ago, and surprisingly, it’s dialectical, paradoxical swing still describes what I’m going through now, at 70. What matters? It all does, every wrenching, subtle, kaleidoscoping moment.
Meanwhile, last weekend at the retreat with Francis Piso, I met a 96 year old woman who seemed to be just a crumpled up “little old lady” — with massive age spots on her face and painfully swollen ankles — until she raised her hand to tell us that she had just read a poem by Basho, how the life well lived is one that has been filled with love. I asked her to lunch. She said yes. She asked me if I wanted to attend her Thursday morning meditation group. I said yes.
She lives alone, in a second floor apartment in a tiny village. Her son lives four miles away and helps out when she needs it. She climbs the stairs several times a day. Is this her secret?
I thought I’d “know more” about the mysterious process of aging at 70. I was mistaken. Will I know more at 96?
Let us remember, “Curiosity is the engine of achievement. . . Great teachers stimulate and provoke. The role of the teacher is to facilitate learning, not testing. Testing should not be the dominant culture of education. Great teachers individualize teaching and learning.”
Speaking of which, Seattle’s teachers have begun to achieve their goal . . .
I do wonder about the timing of Snowden’s disclosure and its intense MSM publicity (distracting the public from both the Manning trial, from skullduggery in Syria, and from who knows what else), and, more and more, I’ve been wondering how he’s managed to get to “safe houses” and remain there. Who is the group that is protecting him?
BTW: Gordon Duff also thinks that the CIA killed Aaron Swartz. So then he did not hang himself? The CIA did? Or he was mind-controlled to hang himself? Or, if he didn’t hang himself but was murdered some other way, then his girl friend, who said she found the body, didn’t? She’s part of the psyop? On and on. Hard to believe Duff on this one. Easier to believe that the relentless investigation into Swartz had weakened his life force to the point where it just wasn’t worth living any more. Which makes me wonder afresh about this other extraordinary young one, Edward Snowden. How could he appear so seemingly integrated and articulate with so much intense heat directed his way?
Since both Duff and Rappoport seem to have deep connections and/or familiarity with these weird alphabet agencies and their rivalries, I can’t discount their views of Snowden as CIA. On the other hand, maybe Edward Snowden really is who he says he is. I certainly thought so after that Q & A with the guardian.
Once again, I’m back to seeing reality as infinitely multidimensional, where anything you can imagine as real, probably is — in some universe or another. I.e., it’s all true. And if it is “all true,” then the responsibility lies with each of us, and with humanity as a species, to choose which reality, which “time-line” we want to follow, because whatever we most strongly imagine, sooner or later, will come to pass.
What kind of world do we choose to create? Let’s go there and do that. Make every thought and every action count.
On June 17, the Brazilian World Cup website was hacked by activists who were looking to shed light on the events occurring in Brazil. Demonstrations and protests in Brazil have been held since June 6, in response to ongoing corruption and the raising of public transportation fare from BRL 3.00 to BRL 3.20. Grievances the protesters hold also include the outrage over the ballooning government spending in the construction and preparation of facilities for the World Cup and the future Olympics.
Photo: Wayback Machine The original Brazil World Cup website before it was hacked by activists.
In the original website’s place, hackers embedded a YouTube video that shows several videos of protesters calmly walking from placards, eventually being confronted by a line of riot police behind riot shields. Throughout all of this the protesters are shouting “Sem violencia!” — which means “Without violence!” in English.
Photo: YouTube Video that replaced the Brazil World Cup website after it was hacked by activists.
Mass protests continued throughout Brazil on Monday, with hundreds of thousands of demonstrators converging in Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte, the capital of Brasilia and other cities. Protests initially began last week following a government announcement of an increase in public transportation costs, which brought out students and young workers and led to more than 250 arrests. READ MORE:
http://on.rt.com/m0gce2
Award-winning journalist and war correspondent Michael Hastings. Photo: AP
Stephen Cook: In a week where truth is spouting forth everywhere, I’m hoping the death of this young man was, in fact, accidental. Michael Hastings certainly ruffled a number of high-level feathers via his whistleblowing and investigative articles.
He reported from war zones and brought down a top American general with a hard-hitting profile. But now American publishers and readers are mourning the death of young award-winning journalist Michael Hastings, who died on Tuesday in a car accident in Los Angeles.
Hastings, who was 33, was described by many of his colleagues as an unfailingly bright and hard-charging reporter who wrote stories that mattered.
Matt Farwell, a veteran of the Afghanistan war who worked as a co-reporter with Hastings on some of his recent pieces, said in a eulogy sent to Rolling Stone, “Part of his passion stemmed from a desire to make everyone else wake the f— up and realise the value of the life we’re living.”
“As a journalist, he specialised in speaking truth to power and laying it all out there. He was irascible in his reporting and sometimes/often/always infuriating in his writing: he lit a bright lamp for those who wanted to follow his example.
Hastings won awards for magazine reporting for his Rolling Stone cover story “The Runaway General.”
The story was credited with ending General Stanley McChrystal’s career after it revealed the military’s candid criticisms of the Obama administration.
Hastings quoted McChrystal and his aides mocking Obama administration officials, including Vice President Joe Biden, over their war policies.
At a Pentagon ceremony for his subsequent retirement in 2010, McChrystal made light of the episode in his farewell address. The four-star general warned his comrades in arms, “I have stories on all of you, photos of many, and I know a Rolling Stone reporter.”
Most recently, Hastings wrote about politics for the news website BuzzFeed, where the top editor said colleagues were devastated by the loss.
“Michael was a great, fearless journalist with an incredible instinct for the story, and a gift for finding ways to make his readers care about anything he covered from wars to politicians,” said Ben Smith, BuzzFeed’s editor-in-chief.
Smith said he learned of the death from a family member.
When he died, Hastings was a contributing editor at Rolling Stone. Managing Editor Will Dana released a statement on Tuesday saying Hastings was one of those great reporters who “exude a certain kind of electricity”.
“The sense that there are stories burning inside them, and that there’s no higher calling or greater way to live life than to be always relentlessly trying to find and tell those stories. I’m sad that I’ll never get to publish all the great stories that he was going to write, and sad that he won’t be stopping by my office for any more short visits which would stretch for two or three completely engrossing hours.”
Hastings was also an author of books about the wars. The Operators: The Wild and Terrifying Inside Story of America’s War in Afghanistan was published late last year and details shocking exploits of the military overseas.
In 2010, with the publication of I Lost My Love in Baghdad, Hastings told the story of being a young war correspondent whose girlfriend died in Iraq.
In the summer 2013 issue of Vermont Life magazine, Hastings was quoted telling an audience at the Burlington Book Festival that he doesn’t believe in objectivity in journalism.
“What I try to do is be intellectually honest in my writing,” he said.
Hastings’ family moved to Vermont when he was 16, a state he told the magazine was his “spiritual home.” According to the magazine, he lived in New York with his wife.
Sent to me by my young housemate Jim Ollis, who was in Brazil last winter. He wrote the text. It makes us look at giant international stadium construction with entirely new eyes.
Trilha do Senhor
I came across one of the strongest and kindest communities I have ever met, in Fortaleza Brazil.
This community was right in the middle of the city, surrounded by high-rise skyscrapers and the typical encroaching elements of Gentrification.
There was a set of railroad tracks right beside the community and I saw big train cars of freight move through, with the engineer giving a blow of the whistle and all the local young men working on the freight cars waving and smiling to the community as they passed by.
The community had planted a long stand of trees right by the tracks to block out some of the pollution from the trains. Cats, Chickens and young children playing soccer and other games filled the small space between the train tracks and the front stoops of the houses; Many of the families had small gardens right outside their doors.
A group of us, comprised of activists from several parts of Brazil along with activists from the U.S. were invited into their community and so many of their family homes to see what they had, what they were proud of and what would be taken away.
This wonderful community was under serious threat of losing everything they had; Their homes, their neighbors, their friends, being torn apart and scattered to the winds, with no (significant) compensation. People already without much, would be left with even less.
All of this was being done ……. for a Soccer Stadium.
Brazil had been chosen as the host of the 2014 World cup.
And like International sporting event after international sporting event. The poor were being displaced, so a brand new stadium could be built, along with new service rail lines for the event.
You would think a preexisting stadium would be enough, but it never is.
The stadiums with the highest crowd capacity in Brazil currently are Morumbi which can seat 84,000 in São Paulo and Maracanã in Rio de Janeiro originally built for the 1950 Fifa world cup which can seat 82,238. While these two large stadiums can already seat more people than the entire population of large towns in the U.S., Fifa has projected that 3.3 million tickets will be available for the 2014 World cup, which to put in perspective, will be a stadium that could seat the entire population of the city of Chicago and then some.
So who are these stadiums really for?
When you think about it, anyone coming to this game from Europe or the U.S. is going to travel by air, which alone might cost 1,200 to 2,000 dollars or more and the tickets per game can average between 200 to 800 dollars! The world cup being a multi-game event.
The average person can not afford this, despite Fifa’s propaganda.
Another somewhat insidious fact is that 450,000 tickets are reserved through Fifa’s “Hospitality Packages” which have been available for sale, but not to the general public, since 2011.
On top of this there are even more reserved seats through V.I.P. Tickets and the tickets given to corporate sponsors.
I would make the case that these are the people who this elaborate spectacle is really for.
These are the people who destroy communities by building soccer stadiums and call it urban development, these are the people who leave a trail of homeless refugees in their wake.
While visiting with the community of Trilha do Senhor (Trail of the Lord) an Elder of the community approached me and began to tell me Her story.
I did my best to understand at the time, but my Portuguese is very bad and no translator was nearby. I desperately wanted to understand her words, because I knew they were important and of great significance. I saw the emotion in her face and heard it in her words and I wanted to cry with her.
Though I was unable to understand her words and her story, I was able to listen; those in power also need to learn to listen.
I hope now, these few pages might convey the situation that the people of Trilha do Senhor and all the other communities affected by these large stadium constructions face.
The People of Trilha do Senhor are good, strong people who have built a fantastic community over 70 years in the middle of the city, just off the train tracks.
They should not be forced to lose everything they have built within these past 70 years, so that an elite group of people can have their fun for a few days watching a soccer match in person.
The mentality of those building these stadiums is not dissimilar to the ancient Romans watching their bloodsport, spare no expense for the sake of entertainment, in this case a sum of 33 billion dollars for the World Cup and Olympic Stadiums plus related structures, and ethics be dammed.
It’s ok to watch a Football game, but we don’t have to destroy entire communities and throw people into drastic conditions of homelessness and poverty while doing it.
With the cameras we have today, do we really enjoy watching the game that much less through T.V.? And even if the experience of watching the game is enhanced by being there in person, is it really worth all this expense and destruction?
Most people would agree to these rational points of using existing stadiums with a diminished stadium audience and watching from home, but the real issue is that these are events pushed forward and primarily held for an elite wealthy group of people.
If we are able to see these events as such, instead of as the benign sporting events they are presented to be and if we make the related consequences of these events widely known, perhaps we can then exert pressure enough to prevent these massive stadium constructions, now and in the future.
____
Jim’s new friends in Brazil sent these videos to him, hoping to get more publicity for what is going on. The first video was posted in September, 2012. The second video calls for “a world-wide outlash” to embarrass Brazilian officials enough to make them change what they’re doing. “Please, make some noise!”
— to see how it all ties in to what Naomi Klein first identified as predatory shock doctrine capitalism, here using infrastructure preparations for the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympics to funnel ordinary Brazilian workers’ money into the usual few corporate hands.
Question: what will be the final straw in the U.S.?
I wrote this essay when I was 53 years old, 17 years ago, and surprisingly, it’s dialectical, paradoxical swing still describes what I’m going through now, at 70. What matters? It all does, every wrenching, subtle, kaleidoscoping moment.
