Essential Human Elements

Robert Bateman, Canada
Antarctic Evening – Humpback Whales

I'm still needing art. And I think it's interesting -- at a time when there is so much money being generated by and for oil in this country alone -- that there is no money for the arts. Some of this is a philosophical issue of what we choose as our values and what is important -- other is just logistics. Artists can't afford to do their work and live in this culture. In talking about funding for the arts -- and I include poetry and performance in this term -- we have to look at the role and purpose in art. Politics? Entertainment? Meaning? If we starve the arts what conversations do we end...

Yesterday, Andrew C. Revkin of the New York Times bemoaned the lack of initiative in this country. Hard to imagine I could possible be more cynical than a New York Times reporter, but really -- we don't even back the UN...

Following the environmental tenants of that organization is this statement:

Internationally co-ordinated work on the environment has been led by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), since its inception in 1973. UNEP has provided leadership and encouraged partnerships to care for the environment, for example, through Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs) which have addressed issues such as species loss and the need for conservation at a global and regional level. UNEP has created much of the international environmental law in use today.

The three environmental principles of the Global Compact are drawn from a Declaration of Principles and an International Action Plan (Agenda 21) that emerged from the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (the Earth Summit) held in Rio de Janerio in 1992. Chapter 30 of Agenda 21, identified that the policies and operations of business and industry can play a major role in reducing impacts on resource use and the environment. In particular, business can contribute through the promotion of cleaner production and responsible entrepreneurship.

The UN is a supporter of the arts in this endeavor.

"Science informs the mind, music and the heart but art connects with the human spirit," said Achim Steiner, Under Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Director of UNEP.

I love that. The human condition, right -- great art explores the human condition. Maybe that is part of what makes this particular topic so compelling, and so easy to integrate in terms of aesthetics and politics in a way that doesn't alienate one from the other -- demise is not foreign to the soul at all...

Steiner goes on to say: "We urgently need to empower all three of these essential human elements if we are to rise to the challenge and seize the opportunities for economic, environmental and social renewal glimpsed through the lens of climate change."

25% of the worlds oil reserves are believed to reside in the Arctic.
The icebergs are melting at a rate that far exceeds all expectations.

For UN World Environment Day 2007, the Natural World Museum in partnership with the United Nations Environment Programme produced an exhibition that addresses the theme of Climate Change from a global perspective - the melting and thawing of ice, snow and permafrost are environment-altering changes taking place around the world- from the Andes to the Himalayas to the melting ice caps of the Poles. "Change" the transition that occurs from same to different, the moment of transformation, a change of position or action. Change used in reference to our environment can describe the transformation of material substance -- from ice to water, liquid to gas - the changing conditions of our rivers, our rapidly melting glaciers,, and the overall changes in the earth's climate. Change requires organisms and organizations alike to adapt to new environmental conditions. Metaphorically, change can also refer to the transformation of society's mindset to act in a positive way individually and collectively to work toward a more sustainable future.
Press release from the Natural World Museum.

The Exhibit will be at the Field Museum in Chicago from April to October of this year.
I want to go.

Ali Baba's Wife

By this means Marjaneh found that her master ‘Ali Baba had admitted thirty-eight robbers into his house, and that this pretended oil-merchant was their captain. She made what haste she could to fill her oil-pot, and returned into her kitchen, where, as soon as she had lighted her lamp, she took a great kettle, went again to the oil-jar, filled the kettle, set it on a large wood fire, and as soon as it boiled, went and poured enough into every jar to stifle and destroy the robber within.
Stories from the Thousand and One Nights. The Harvard Classics. 1909–14.

Today I've been looking for articles about boiling in oil as a form of torture and of the death penalty. I assume that it works because the boiling temperature of oil is very high -- coupled with its adherence to the skin and blocking of pours.

I'm interested in the old stories about oil too -- the use of oil as weapon -- but also the importance in cooking and lighting -- I guess it's not so different -- the sight of the oil truck lumbering from house to house -- from the image of a oil merchant traveling with barrels big enough to fit thieves.

In the story of Ali Baba is targeted because he stole from the thieves -- he found their treasure trove and took some of the wealth for themselves. I read that in Iraq, American Servicemen are referred to by the slang term, "Ali Babas."

One thing I've noticed is that it is much easier to find current reliable information -- I guess when it comes to history, books are still the place to go. That's kind of comforting, and kind of worrisome -- I think it probably means a lot of history is going to be lost.

It's crazy the things that are on the web. For one thing, an ex-military guy paid some Navy Seals to waterboard him on video, so that people could really see what it was. I couldn't watch. Also, there's a video of a Malaysian martial arts ritual where people wash their hands in boiling oil. I couldn't watch that, either -- I guess maybe I'm a little sensitive today.

A woman in South Mississippi killed her husband last year by (allegedly) pouring boiling oil over him while he slept.
Sanders is accused of pouring two or three quarts of boiling cooking oil on her husband, Sherman, on July 28. She fled with her two children in a white Pontiac Grand Prix, Garber said. Attorney Brian Alexander was appointed to represent Sanders on Thursday. Alexander also worked on the James Boswell capital murder case in 2005. He said Friday he believes his client will be acquitted when she has her day in court.
"When all of the facts are brought forth, it will be clear that Edna Mae's behavior was justified in light of the circumstances," he said. "She only acted in a way any reasonable, prudent person would have acted under similar circumstances." Link When Marjaneh saw him depart, she went to bed, satisfied and pleased to have succeeded so well in saving her master and family.

I'm sort of interested, too, in the idea of the weapons of the women revolving around their home duties -- lighting the lamp -- cooking. We use what we have, I suppose -- what we have access to.