Patience is a Virture

Check out Robert Bergman’s exhibit at the National Gallery of Art.  He has been a photographer for almost 6 decades.  Check out this article about him on NPR.  He has developed a printing process that he describes as:

“multiple impression inkjets with various isolation coats of conservator chemicals used to intensify the colors, some of them with three days of hand-applied micro-crystal and waxes over the isolation coats.”

He worked for 14 years to get his show at the National Gallery.  He is there until Jan. I think it will be worth a visit.  Here is another article on his work.

Free Troy Anthony Davis

Today Democracy Now interview’s Troy’s sister Martina Correa. The video is available at DemocracyNOW.ORG. This man is innocent. Judge Rosemary Barkett dissented. “To execute Davis, in the face of a significant amount of proffered evidence that may establish his actual innocence, is unconscionable and unconstitutional,” she wrote.

To take action go to Amensety International.

Bike DC No More

Yesterday I talked to a guy who commutes to work on a bike, and he told me that Bike DC no longer happens. This is the first full summer I am back in DC and I am so sad to hear that Bike DC does not happen anymore.  Is there any chance this can come back?  Does anybody miss it too?

Bike DC is a day when some streets are shut down and you can bike a route around the city.  It is great.  I did it back in 2002 and I loved it.

Well it could be a myth that it is no longer around b/c Bike DC does have a website and they have an October 17, 2009 date up, but where are the details?  I hope that I can make it.  That would be lots of fun.

If not Bike DC, what about bike the new fast lane coming in on the Beltway?  Wouldn’t that be a crazy race?  Biking on the fast lane could be better than sending cars through it.  It is probably faster at certain times than cars.  That would be cool to have it only bikes during rush hour.

Return to El Salvador

Check out this movie called Return to El Salvador.  One of my friends is the director and I helped him with some interviews for the movie.

Chandamama

Anybody got a translation for this song?

Our baby loves to listen to the Chandamama Around the World. She laughs and begins dancing when we put it on.

The Around the World project has some good music.

A wonderful insight into the Creation Narrative

The Mind of the Maker by Dorothy Sayers (New York: Meridian Books 1956)

How then can [humans] be said to resemble God? Is it his immortal soul, his rationality, his self-consciousness, his free will, or what, that gives him a claim to this rather startling distinction?  A case may be argued for all the elements in the complex nature of man.  But had the author of Genesis anything in particular in his mind when he wrote?  It is observable that in the passage leading up to the statement about man, he has given no detailed information about God.  Looking at man, he sees in him something essentially divine, but when we turn back to see what he says about the original upon which the “image” of God was modelled, we find only the single assertion, “God created.” The characteristic common to God and man is apparently that: the desire and the ability to make things. (34)

Aside: I just changed the first instance of “man” to “human” but the rest is quoted as was written by Sayers

Currently Reading

Over the past three days I have been reading A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah.  I am almost done with this book, I just cannot put it down.  It is tragic to read about the loss of innocence of a child in the middle of war and the transformation of a child into a soldier.  Ishmael’s childhood was stolen by adults.  It is terrible to read the account of a child in such a situation.  It is amazing to also read about this child’s return to humanity as the love and care of adults melts away the winter of violence from his heart.  It is amazing that this young man could speak out his story and is now advocating for children in war.

Video: Why I Wrote My Book for A Long Way Gone: memoirs of a boy soldier by Ishmael Beah

Here is Ishmael Beah sharing on why he wrote the book.

What we cannot be

The church … cannot be content to play the part of a nurse looking after the casualties of the system. It must play an active part both in challenging the present unjust structures and in pioneering alternatives.

- Donald Dorr
Catholic missionary priest

Interview with Breyten Breytenback

If you get a chance check out this interview with this exiled artist from South Africa. This man speaks the truth.