The Funny Papers

Black Crowned Night Heron

Click on title above for slide show of Black Crowned Night Heron -- immature stage; mature; then at its usual night time vigil, hunting at water's edge.

Some Words I Like

What the character Tito says in a story by Jim Breeden...

"All I ever wanted was to roam

 through fields of imagination,

 knowing that I could always return

 home to someone who loved me."

The Interdependence of Individuals

           "Believe me, we will not interfere with your individual freedom to be unemployed, starving, unable to find work, with you and family members succumbing to illness, living in your car now that you have lost your home to the banks.  It might weaken you if we pampered you with aid in your distress."  -- Mr. Right Wing.
            "Independence? That's middle class blasphemy. We are all dependent on one another, every soul of us on earth." -- George Bernard Shaw
           The yin/yang/tao of elephants hugging elephants (my rough sketch, perhaps a friend who is a good artist, will recreate this some day):

Happy Humanukkahmass

      James McColley Eilers

We do not celebrate our feast

to deny a Great Darkness,

winter, pain, or tribulation,

but to triumph at our own behest.

We rest inside, beneath green branches,

and dine with candle suns and ribbon

rainbows; no fields of snow in here 
except on cakes that icing blanches.

In St. Mary's, Chinatown, San Francisco

Click on title to see some of the stained glass windows in old St. Mary's in Chinatown, San Francisco.  Famously, the shell of the church still exists, having survived the 1907 earthquake.

Spathiphyllum

Autumn Abandoned Sofa

Great Gas from the Past

From one of my old storage boxes, the 1968 poster (I cannot find anyone who would like it) for a gathering of poets who supported the San Francisco State Strike:

Winter Solstice, Earth Solace

On Bradley Manning's 24th Birthday

On 17 December 2011, Bradley Manning's 24th birthday, we marched and rallied for Bradley.  Where we paused for speeches, Scott Olson was recovered enough to be able to speak a few words, and I show two photos of him here.  Although I feel I am being intrusive, it seems I should share his look -- worn but surviving -- with the many people who feel concern for him...and for Bradley Manning, the first day of the military's hearings having been the day before, Friday, 16 December 2011.

Peter Martyniak passed along the news that the Welsh are presenting a play about Bradley Manning's years in Wales:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/dec/15/bradley-manning-play-wales-wikileaks

I am sure I should not be surprised that there are still some people who don't know who Bradley Manning is, or that there are gay men who did not know he was gay until they read it on the placard I carried on my back:

Part TWO of MAKE DRAG NOT WAR

CLICK ON THE TITLE ABOVE for a continuation of photos of this great show -- as described in "Part ONE of MAKE DRAG NOT WAR" -- sponsored by Veterans for Peace and Iraq Veterans Against the War, and directed by Stephen Funk, the first man to refuse to serve in the U.S. Occupation of Iraq.   More of the program will appear later.  Also, after viewing the slide show, check out their website:  http://veteranartists.org/

Part THREE of MAKE DRAG, NOT WAR

Click on title above for slide show.

Part FOUR of MAKE DRAG, NOT WAR

Click on title above for slide show.

Outside "Make Drag, Not War"

Click on title above for photos of some friends outside the production of "Make Drag, Not Love"

Occupy Tree, Occupy Raft

Click on title above to see a slide show about:
The man who has constructed a tree house as part of Occupy Oakland has had his tree house pulled down a second time.  But, in the meantime, there is an Occupy Raft now in Lake Merritt!  Will they sink it?

Part One of MAKE DRAG, NOT WAR

CLICK ON THE TITLE ABOVE so that you won't miss the first part of this great show, sponsored by Veterans for Peace and Iraq Veterans Against the War, and directed by Stephen Funk, the first man to refuse to serve in the U.S. Occupation of Iraq.   More of the program will appear later.  Also, after viewing the slide show, check out their website:  http://veteranartists.org/

Stacking Rocks

For a slide show, hit the title, "Stacking Rocks," above.  But here are seven of the photos (with black and white versions of two of them) of what an Oakland poet is creating in his yard.

The New Doxology

Did you belong to a church where they sang the Common Doxology?  For Catholics, it always came at the end, a good-bye song after the Mass -- a tune that, to my ear, sounds like the turning of a key in a lock, a ritual tune for passing from "sacred space" into everyday life.  Do you remember the brief tune to the traditional words?  "Praise God from whom all blessings flow;/Praise God, all creatures here below;/Praise God for all that love has done;/Creator, Christ, and Spirit, One."  [In the Catholic church, the last line was "Father and Son and Holy Ghost."]  A final "Amen" won't hurt.  You might try singing the following words to that old tune (rewritten because I dream of the age when all churches or temples are temples to humanism and the health of the earth).  

As I wandered on warm summer nights in my old Indiana small town, I would hear, from its many, plain Christian churches, the old church tunes.  Singing them, with the rhythm of a lullaby, or hammock slowly rocking, surely must have brought a peaceful mood to their congregations. Some may want to rewrite the words of their favorite hymns.  Others have written variants of the traditional wording for the Doxology tune.  Curtis W. Reese’s version also avoids Deism, using an 18^th century paraphrase by Isaac Watts of Psalm 117:

                  From all that dwell below the skies

                  Let songs of hope and faith arise;

                  Let peace, goodwill on earth be sung

                  Through every land, by every tongue.

 

Latest Marquee, Oakland's Grand Lake Theatre