From Guernica to Qana

The images from Lebanon remind me of this piece but somehow the painting now fails to show the horrors of war to me. It seems too tame to me now. I could've chosen to post an image of a dead child pulled from the rubble in Qana to represent what I am talking about but it is too painful.

It is strange how, as a parent, every child is my child. You see the same eyes and the same expressions of fear. It is simply painful to see a dead child because it is your own.

Picasso's Guernica can't speak of these things in the same way. It is first and foremost an intellectualization of the horrors of war and then a visceral one. But one that ultimately says the same thing about the human cost of war.

Shout Out: Dennis' Daily Bliss

Dennis Bennett, my most loyal reader (besides my wifey-poo...actually I am convinced you two are my only readers), has a new blog. What Dennis has created is the blog equivalent of licorice allsorts. Chewy politics dipped in little Buddhist sprinkles or surrounded by another chewy layer of smart progressive observations.

I am digging what Dennis has called "Daily Bliss" - small stories to highlight a Buddhist thought or to simply make you think. I spent an hour one day trying to make sense of one story. I sat there staring at my monitor then folded up the laptop and walked away. I guess when it starts to make sense to me, I will have made the journey. (Either that or found the Diamond Sutra Cliff Notes - Har Har Har)

I can't wait 'til Dennis folds baseball into this all.

DIAMOND SUTRA UPDATE:

from the British Library:

"Hidden for centuries in a sealed-up cave in north-west China, this copy of the ‘Diamond Sutra’ is the world’s earliest complete survival of a dated printed book. It was made in AD 868."

"The sutra answers that question for itself. (Greg's comment: Of course!) Towards the end of the sermon, Subhuti asks the Buddha how the sutra should be known. He is told to call it ‘The Diamond of Transcendent Wisdom’ because its teaching will cut like a diamond blade through worldly illusion to illuminate what is real and everlasting."

"The teachings of Buddhism are subtle and open to more than one interpretation. The ‘Diamond Sutra’ urges devotees to cut through the illusions of reality that surround them. Names and concepts given to both concrete and abstract things are merely mental constructs that mask the true, timeless reality lying behind them."

To see the Diamond Sutra in all its illusory glory click here.

DIAMOND SUTRA UPDATE 2:

I got to thinking. Doesn't some of the Diamond Sutra sound like String Theory?

Thursday Lovin': Document(ed) Weirdness

Wednesday Lovin': New York Rooster

New York Rooster

Illustration Friday: Opposites

Yeti and Squirrel's 1st Date

My 6 Keys to Peace in the Middle East

TIME has an article with 6 Keys to peace in the middle east. Without going off on the shortsightedness of the suggestions I decided to promote my own 6 Keys for Peace:

1.) Impeach Bush and Cheney for lying to get us into Iraq

2.) Recall troops from Iraq

3.) Close Guantanamo

4.) Support the Palestinian State to the same degree as Israel (and promote business development and International Peacekeeping forces in Palestine)

5.) Deal with so-called terrorists states in an open and honorable way (it may even require looking at the root causes of terrorism - I bet you'll find plenty of young, openminded, and rational people ready to be part of the global economy)

6.) Get over your racist, bigoted impressions of Arabs and Muslims

Bonus:

7.) Realize the rest of the world doesn't believe this is WWIII and the Second coming and especially don't want America to bring promote more bloodshed in the hopes of bringing both on

If you want to know what really prompted this entry read this article.

Forgive me the Digression

Israel's (and by proxy the U.S.) response to Hizbollah has been horrifying to say the least. I was surprised the mainstream media let Americans fleeing Lebanon report about the insanity of the air raids. While Hizbollah's provocation might have been an act of war it seems the Israeli response is too brutal if not a war crime.

There have been a lot of interesting visual artifacts outside of the usual spectacular images - not to mention that this is the 1st real "blog war" providing gruesome and vivid accounts from the war zone. Of the artifacts take these drawings warning people about the Hizbollah leader Nasrallah. The article calls it "clumsy war propaganda".

More hard-hitting are these illustrations by Mazen Kerbaj. Mazen so skillfully gives us insights into the frustrations, fears, and anger. The drawings, like so much from this whole series of events, are, I am sure, eye opening for many. I say to myself: "Here is a blogger and artist like me but someone made a decision that has inexorably impacted his life in a very real way." Could it happen to me?

Visit Kerbaj's blog for his updates and very real commentary.

Saying it all

click image for slightly larger version

Illustration Friday: Sacrifice

Britcom Revisited

We are back in the States but I had to post this.

What Americans Think of Britons...

I find these clever.

What Britons Think of Americans....

Found this on Huffington Post.