Finding Beauty in a Broken World . Terry Tempest Williams. Pantheon Books: New York, 2008.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         “A mosaic is a conversation between what is broken.” Mosaic as Metaphor Terry Tempest Williams, in this piercing book, weaves the metaphors of brokenness and beauty into a work of astonishing power. After 911, Terry Tempest Williams, whose subject is usually the natural world, sought for a word to anchor her sense of fragmentation. The word that came to her was “mosaic” and this led to a study of mosaics.

keep reading...

 (Note: I am indebted to Jane Mayer’s groundbreaking work The Dark Side for contributions to the ideas I wrote about in the following blog.) Bush Administration Response to 9/11 Rooted in Shame and Humiliation The tragic mistakes made by the Bush administration provide lessons for those of us who yearn to see a happier world.  Now that the Bush team’s decision making process is coming to light, it is critical that we understand what happened here. The Bush-Cheney response to 9/11 was rooted in shame and humiliation. They were caught, one might say, with their pants down. They had been repeatedly warned that Al-Qaeda operatives were in the U.S. and chose to ignore that information.  When the planes hit the Twin Towers Bush was the Commander-in-Chief.  Three thousand lives were lost on his watch.  Somewhere inside themselves Bush and Cheney knew they were responsible. The Lust for Revenge These two men are not self-reflective people.

keep reading...

 Book Review: The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How The War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals.  Jane Mayer. Doubleday: New York, 2008.                                                                                                                                                               Prepare to be shattered. This is a difficult book to read. Mysteries of Bush Administration Response Post 9/11 Revealed Jane Mayer’s meticulous dissection of the actions of the Bush administration post 9/11 is an extraordinary service to Americans and to the world. Many of us have been trying to understand how this presidency went so wrong.

keep reading...

 Summer Inquiry  As the days of the Bush presidency wane and as we in the US prepare to elect a new President, I have been thinking about what lies ahead for the world.  I have been looking at my own failures of committed action over the past eight years when I saw the present administration act in ways  I knew were bound for disaster.  Will the next administration repeat the same errors and wreak more havoc on the globe? Why Were We So Ineffective? Reports now coming out reveal the sheer cruelty which the present administration became committed to in its response to 9/11. Why did we let this happen? How did it come to pass that the US  is now practicing torture? Why did the US Senate and House of Representatives vote for the Iraq War despite the fact that so many Americans were opposed to it?

keep reading...

The Lives of Others.  Written and directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmark. (2006) Starring: Sbastian Koch; Ulrich Muhe; Martina Gedeck.                                                                                                                                                               Daily Life in a Police State This film takes us back to 1984 in East Berlin in the GDR, where the lives of ordinary people are overseen by the state police, the Stasi.  A virtual Orwellian state exists to watch over the people to insure that no one deviates from the party line, and that no one escapes to the west. One of the bureaucrats in the Stasi, Captain Wiesler, is assigned to eavesdrop on the lives of a playwright, Georg Dreyman and his girlfriend, Christa Maria, a well-known actress.  This couple are successful in the artistic world of the GDR but constrained in what they can write. The actress, unbeknown-st to her lover, is being sexually abused and blackmailed by a high government official.

keep reading...

 Calming The Fearful Mind: A Zen Response to Terrorism.  Thich Nhat Hanh. Parallax Press: Berkeley, CA, 2005. On An Idyllic Fall Day In September Seven years have passed since those haunting days in September 2001 when the airplanes hit the twin towers in NYC and Washington DC. As I sit here on this idyllic summer afternoon, it could even be today, and thousands could be going to their deaths.  In fact, in Afghanistan right now, they are. For terrorism is not over. To read the newspapers  it has barely gotten started.

keep reading...

President Bush had one of his rare press conferences on Monday, March 21st and during it, something very interesting happened. Veteran journalist Helen Thomas asked the President a question many Americans have been longing to hear: “Why did you really go to war? . . . What was your real reason?” You could hear the gasps in the room from the audaciousness of her question.

keep reading...

As US planes head off into Operation Swarmer with Iraqi forces to carry an offensive against a pocket of insurgents, I find myself wondering about power. President Bush said today that first strikes or the ability to wage pre-emptive war remains one of our most important weapons in the War on Terror. You hurt us or you even threaten to hurt us and we’ll hurt you so bad you won’t even know what hit you. You know, the old shock and awe idea. If your enemy is dead they can’t threaten you anymore. Sadly, we have found out in the years since 9/11 that this idea doesn’t seem to work in reality.

keep reading...