The Light We Cannot See

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We have just returned from a visit to McCall Idaho.  There is a wonderful lodge there that sits on the confluence of the southern shore of  Payette Lake and the Payette River.  The river makes its way to the south there, creating several other large lakes as well as the often rafted river gorge with its class five rapids.  The Lake is an ancient 600 feet deep glacial lake with pristine snow melt water that is clear enough to see perhaps 30 feet down.  For a week, I did little more than stare at the lake with its 8,000 foot mountains on its northern shore from our room or the sandy beach just below.

The light there is magnificent.  The bright sand, the blue water, the green pine forest, the clear aired light blue sky with all manner of clouds hanging over it all.  It's like looking at the ocean, except you are a mile high and the waves lap instead of roar.

We had friends with us who we gladly shared our time with.

One night, we talked about the Pulitzer prize winning book,  All the Light We Cannot See.  Besides being one of the great titles of all time, some reviewers opine that it is one of the best historical fictions of our time. This from its Amazon page:

Written by Anthony Doerr, the highly acclaimed, multiple award-winning author of Cloud Cuckoo Land, All the Light We Cannot See is a beautiful, stunningly ambitious instant New York Times bestseller about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II.

Marie-Laure lives in Paris near the Museum of Natural History, where her father works. When she is twelve, the Nazis occupy Paris and father and daughter flee to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo, where Marie-Laure’s reclusive great uncle lives in a tall house by the sea. With them they carry what might be the museum’s most valuable and dangerous jewel.

In a mining town in Germany, Werner Pfennig, an orphan, grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find that brings them news and stories from places they have never seen or imagined. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments and is enlisted to use his talent to track down the resistance. Deftly interweaving the lives of Marie-Laure and Werner, Doerr illuminates the ways, against all odds, people try to be good to one another.

Doerr’s “stunning sense of physical detail and gorgeous metaphors” are dazzling. Ten years in the writing,  All the Light We Cannot See is a magnificent, deeply moving novel from a writer “whose sentences never fail to thrill”.

The book was a winner of the Pulitzer Prize, a New York Times Book Review Top Ten Book, and a National Book Award Finalist.  And it should soon also be available as a 4 part series on Netflix this year. 

But what does the title mean?   It's a reference first and foremost to all the light we literally cannot see: that is, the wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum that are beyond the ability of human eyes to detect (radio waves, of course, being the most relevant to the plot of the book).

But for me, the title is more ethereal than that. 

For as I have written in Lightland and Beyond,  we literally do not see light at all.  All the light we cannot see is the creation itself.  For we only see where the light has been.  Look up into the dark night sky to see for yourself.  Space is full of light, yet we see mostly darkness with our eyes.  And this distinction is not just some semantic trick.

In the Greek creation of the Cosmos as described in the Theogony,  Hesiod asks the Muses to reveal to him which came into being first and the answer was the Void.  Out of the Void came darkness and black night. Out of Night came Light and Day.  Even in the Hebrew version of the creation... darkness is first. 

But the point is this.

Most of us do not see Light.  

We see Day.  

For light cannot be seen without matter, and as sure as matter reveals light, it also creates shadow or the Night. In Doerr's masterful work, Marie-Laure LeBlanc evacuates Paris with her father after he is entrusted with a valuable diamond named the Sea of Flames. It represents the human desire for power and control.

And in this dark night of political ignorance,

All the light we cannot see will win the day.

 

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The Blue Tide

Election day finally came and even though there were disappointments, I found myself feeling better and better as the days turned into weeks. Taking over the house, the Dems look to gain 40 seats.  Democrats also gained 250 seats in state legislatures.  They took functional control of seven legislative chambers while the Rs only took control of the Alaska House.

All in all, Dems won over 53.4% of the vote and the Rs got  44.8%.  This margin of  9.7 million votes  is greater than the 8.6 million vote victory after the Nixon resignation in 1974.

And even though the Dems captured an equal margin of Senate votes, Republicans gained 2 seats. But they lost Arizona and Nevada, thus making the  populated West more and more blue.  Democrats are now the party of choice in our populated areas where Republicans are the party of choice for the rural areas.  That gives the R's an advantage in the Senate where North Dakota has the same amount of senators as California.

Dems also gained 7 governorships.

Democrats gained enough seats to deprive Republicans of supermajorities in Michigan, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. This will keep Republicans from having enough votes to override the vetoes of Democratic governors in those states.  Meanwhile, Democrats achieved supermajorities for themselves in seven chambers.

So, don't spend any mental energy debating whether or not this was a wave.

It  clearly was and is a Blue Tide. Which I think is a better metaphor.

And we should be grateful that Nancy Pelosi will soon be third in line to the presidency.

Here in Texas, we watched Beto raise almost 70 million dollars in his close loss to his sneering McCarthy look-alike opponent, but his excitement brought down-ballot dividends.  Even in  Red (neck) Texas, all of the large cities are are now blue. Ed Emmett, the 11 year incumbent Republican county judge in Houston, lost to a 27-year-old newcomer named Lina Hildager. And Dems won a host of real judges.

Democrats in Houston won all 59 seats that were on the ballot leaving only Democrats on the bench in civil, criminal, family, juvenile and probate courts.

At the state level, Democrats flipped 12 seats, bringing their numbers in the House to 67 in a House where 76 votes brings control. Dems also gained seats in the Senate. In the  judiciary though, Texas Dems cleaned up flipping the four influential state appeals courts that serve Austin, Houston and Dallas.  Democrats now hold majorities on seven of the 14 appeals courts.  Before the election, they held seats on just three.

And finally, Democrats flipped two congressional seats, returning the 7th district to the Democratic column since it was first flipped to the R's with George H W Bush in the late sixties. And veteran Pete Sessions was retired by Colin Alred.

If you are a real geek, check out the Tribune for actual semi-offical numbers.

So even as POTUS in his usual reality challenged way tried to whistle through his election day graveyard, that Russian thing just keeps unfolding like a Venus fly-trap.  Here is what we know thanks to Axios.

• We now know several Russian officials reached out to a half-dozen Republicans very close to Trump and his campaign, including his eldest son, his closest adviser, his lawyer and his campaign manager. We now know they took the meetings, often enthusiastically, during and after the campaign. 
•  
• We now know Russia offered in those chats campaign assistance — “synergy,” they called it. We now know no one around Trump alerted the FBI of this effort to subvert our elections. 
•  
• We now know that 12 Russian intelligence officers were indicted for hacking the DNC and systematically releasing material for the purpose of hurting the Clinton campaign via WikiLeaks. 
•  
• We know that Trump associates Roger Stone and Jerome Corsi attempted — successfully, in some instances — to get in touch with WikiLeaks and that they are under investigation for whether they had advance knowledge about the email dumps.
•  
• We now know Donald Trump Jr. and others took a meeting with Russians promising dirt on Hillary Clinton. We now know Don Jr., when approached with the promise of dirt, wrote: “If it’s what you say I love it especially later in the summer.”
•  
• We now know Trump was negotiating a Trump property in Moscow during the presidential campaign — and hid this from the public and lied about it. We now know Mueller believes, based on his court filing, the “Moscow Project was a lucrative business opportunity that sought, and likely required, the assistance of the Russian government.”
•  
• We now know every arm of the U.S. intelligence community concluded Russia sought to systematically influence the election outcome. We now know this was an unanimous conclusion, save one dissent: Trump. 
•  
• We now know Trump officials continued talking with the Russians during the post-election transition. We now know Jared Kushner and Jeff Sessions failed to initially disclose any contacts with Russians on their government forms. 
•  
• We now know Jared Kushner suggested a secret backchannel with the Russians, which had it happened, would have been free of U.S. eavesdropping.
•  
• We now know Trump soured on FBI director James Comey, Attorney General Jeff Sessions and White House counsel Don McGahn in part over their handling of the probe. 
•  
• We now know Paul Manafort, who ran the Trump campaign in the summer of 2016, lied about his Russia contacts, was indicted and is going to jail.
•  
• We now know Flynn lied about his Russian contacts, was fired and pleaded guilty, after agreeing to become a key witness in the investigation.
•  
• We now know Cohen lied about his Russian contacts, was indicted and then flipped to become a key witness against Trump. 

A friend of mine told me over Thanksgiving that he only gives this administration another six months before it falls under the enormous weight of its own corruption, the unending lies, the incompetence, and its treacherous use of a foreign power to gain power.

I took the bet.

And will hope that a luminescent Blue Tide returns in 2020.

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The Hottest Month Ever

In case you haven't noticed, there is this from the Atlantic:

You've Just Survived the Hottest Month Ever, again 

by Robinson Meyer

The record: August 2016 was the hottest month measured since contemporary records began in 1880, according to a NASA analysis. It was not only the hottest August ever, but also it ties July 2016 as the hottest month ever—an extraordinary occurrence.

In other words, you just lived through the hottest month in meteorological history and likely in human history. And then you did it again.

The August record was last broken in: 2014.

Why it’s so scary: There are three big reasons.

First, it’s the 11^th straight month to break the previous monthly heat record, according to NASA. In other words, in 2015, the hottest October ever took place, and it was followed by the hottest November ever, and then by the hottest December ever—and this sequence continued right up to the present.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) keeps separate records, and its streak of record-breaking months stretches even further back in time: Every month since May 2015 has been the hottest version of that month ever, according to the agency. (NOAA and NASA’s models vary in how they estimate weather where there are few sensors, such as the Arctic Ocean and the Southern Ocean.)

Second, August’s record essentially ensures that 2016 will be the warmest year on record. 2016 could wind up being as much as 1 degree Celsius hotter than the pre-industrial temperature average. This is a stark accomplishment when you consider that the nations of the world committed last year to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial average. We are two-thirds of the way there already.  more

Finally? What might be scariest of all is that only one of the two main candidates for U.S. president has a detailed set of policies to address climate change and these longterm trends. Donald Trump isn’t sure climate change exists—and his party refuses to fund climate-change adaptation even when the Navy begs them to.

And even worse, climate change doesn't seem to be of interest to those who are coming up with questions for the presidential debates coming in September.

The New York Times covered it this way:

It just keeps getting hotter.

August has tied July for the distinction of being the hottest month since record-keeping began in 1880, NASA said in a news release on Monday.

And there’s a good chance 2016 will become the third year in a row of record heat. clip

The records being set continue to stack up.

• August and July are now the hottest months on record.

• Every month since October 2015 has set a new monthly high-temperature record.

• The first six months of this year beat 2015 for the hottest half-year ever recorded.

• Both 2014 and 2015 set new heat records, and 2016 is on pace to continue the trend.

It's pretty clear that if Donald Trump doesn't destroy the Republican Party, 

then climate change will.

But how far behind are we?

I guess he pretty much is a Canary.

In his own cold mind.

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Summer of Hope

Its been a summer of fear...but also a summer of hope.

With each month breaking the temperature records and July being the hottest on record and 2015 being hotter than 2014 and 2016 being hotter than 2015, its actually has not been that terrible here in Texas this year.

We've received more rain than usual and the Highland Lakes are unusually full.

The summer Olympics in Rio came off without much of hitch except for the drunk spoiled American swimmers who had to lie to get out of a little trouble thus within a few days finding themselves in real trouble and international liars on the way to losing real money as sponsors ran from them like Trump runs from the truth.

The National Conventions were early this year and both were spectacular.

The R's went first and theirs was spectacularly bad.  Breaking tradition, Trump actually appeared in the fog of dramatic lighting to introduce his wife.  She then gave a newly reprised edition of the  speech given by Michelle Obama 8 years ago.  When confronted with the the use of the almost exact words, they staff steadfastly did what they do so well...they lied and they denied.  They let Ted Cruz speak and then booed him off the stage for telling the mostly white crowd to vote their conscience.

Every night was a different little Trump, and each night they did a pretty good job of selling their Dad.  For all of them, it was the Dad that had divorced their mother, with one of the mothers stating in her divorce papers that he had actually raped her in a pique of anger over his failed hair surgery.

Then came the D's.

It opened up with the Chairman of the DNC resigning over the Russian assisted stolen emails of DNC staff which had discussed the race between  Clinton and Sanders in seemingly biased ways.  We were shocked to see that long time democratic staffers acted as if the non democrat Sanders was trying to take away the nomination from the Democrat from adulthood Clinton.  (She was a R in her youth)

So Wasserman resigned in shame, but from then the party took off.

With great speeches from the President, from Michelle, Joe Biden, Bill Clinton, Chelsea Clinton, and the whole democratic constellation, the Convention soared.  And it culminated with the Virgin Hillary all in white against that royal blue background, and a blizzard of balloons that actually eclipsed the Trump dump. Many have called it the best Political Show perhaps ever.  And the polls showed it.

Within a week, HR Clinton was way ahead in the polls.  She was well ahead in Florida, in Ohio, in Michigan, and competing in Arizona and Georgia.

Meanwhile Trump's thuggish campaign manager became better known for running the Kremlin's man for president in Ukraine than for running the Kremlin's man here in the good old USSA. Meanwhile, Trump decided to go after the Gold Star mother and father that spoke at the Democratic Convention with such authority and impact.

By the end of the month, Trump and his campaign were struggling.  But convention bumps are called Bumps for a reason.  Labor day will tell the true story and as amazing as it seems, the election will tighten depending on the gaffs, the outside influences from the Russians and ISIS, and the debates which start in late September.

For me, rather than obsessing about our potential national large step backwards for a man, one giant leap backwards for mankind,  I have managed the stress and anxiety of the possibility of a white supremist, misogynist, power hungry narcissist becoming a national embarrassment that would try to unravel the global climate change accords signed in Paris last year by making my self busy making things look better.

Yes, after graduating from cardiac rehab, we started working on the back side of the big house in late spring.  I bought the doors and windows over two years ago, and drew up the plans three years ago.

The before and afters tell the story.

Then, after several years of sitting fallow, we started work on my now not so recently departed daughter's home.  A strange mixture of trust ownership, grief, and circumstance had left it in the small town American urban bar ditch.  But now, the magic harp has returned.

Before

After

I'm hoping that the headlines on November 9th look this good.

And that the magic harp doesn't get stolen by the orange pygmy.

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March Mania

Most of us look forward to March Madness, especially if we are B ball fans.  We get to watch the NCAA playoffs as 64 teams turn into 4 until one finally wins.  This year it was Villanova.

But every four years we have super Tuesday and the big primaries in March.

And this year, it is indeed madness.

How a substantial number of Republicans can vote for a guy who is  (or was) a casino owner is way beyond my power to add or detract.  Here is a guy with some of the most god awful taste known to  bad taste.  He has had 3 wives, with the most recent one posing in the nude in his jet with fur and jewels.  Now that's a first lady I can get behind.

His money came from his Dad who made his money in Brooklyn leasing his apartments to white people.  One of his most famous tenants who lived in Beach Haven wrote a song about him after he left in disgust.

I suppose
    Old Man Trump knows
    Just how much
    Racial Hate
    he stirred up
    In the bloodpot of human hearts
    When he drawed
    That color line
    Here at his
    Eighteen hundred family project ....

 Woodie Guthrie 

When his son decided to join his Dad in business, the first thing he did was use Daddy's contacts to get some public money.  His history is just as tawdry as his art collections and home decor.

According to Wikipedia:

In 1971, Trump moved to Manhattan, where he became involved in larger construction projects, and used attractive architectural design to win public recognition.^[41] Trump initially came to public attention in 1973 when he was accused by the Justice Department of violations of the Fair Housing Act in the operation of 39 buildings, including false "no vacancy" statements, and sham leases presenting higher rents to minority applicants, to facilitate the denial of housing to racial minorities.

Trump settled the charges in 1975 without admitting guilt, saying he was satisfied that the agreement did not "compel the Trump organization to accept persons on welfare as tenants unless as qualified as any other tenant."^[43] The Trump Organization was again in court several years later for violating terms of the settlement.^[42] 

Now this is real presidential material.  Yet, look at his delegate count:

And here is the end of March and early April

Amy Goodman and others ask:

"Fascism: Could it happen here?" That’s a question increasingly being raised as Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump continues his bid for the White House. People as varied as former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, actor George Clooney, comedian Louis C.K. and Anne Frank’s stepsister Eva Schloss have suggested Trump is a fascist. Earlier this month, Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto criticized Trump by invoking the fascist dictators Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini."

AMY GOODMAN: What is fascism?

ROBERT PAXTON: Well, fascism is a mass nationalist movement intended to restore a country that’s been damaged or is in decline, by expansion, by violent attacks on enemies, internal as well as external enemies, and measures of authority, the replacement of democracy by an authoritarian dictatorship.

Make America Great Again.

This is March Mania.

The Democrats have been fun too.

Bernie is giving Hillary a real run for the money.

And he has actually raised a lot of it.

But the coming General Election between Clinton and Trump

is going to be Hell.

I could write a lot about this but I won't.

It's too painful.

For this March Mania will not end soon.

I miss Barack Obama more and more each passing day,

and we still have him being the great president that he has been.

He has been dignified and smart,

and measured and responsible,

and a great gift to this nation

and to the World.

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Near Dawn Light

Today is the beginning of the 5th year for earthfamilyalpha. Oz is on the way to Mexico and I have the honor of pushing us off yet another cliff in time. Perhaps we've budged a smidgen in the grey zone between then and now, one thing and another, empire and international cooperation, for instance.

About ten days ago Jay was driving between Tulia and Canyon on the caprock in West Texas and found himself wrapped in Near Dawn Light, what he has since learned is called a Superior Mirage -- a sort of bending and bouncing of light that lets one see past the horizon with the help of a wave of trapped, refracted light. He said it looked a bit like the photo above, remarkable if you understand that Tulia, Texas is flat, flat as far as the eye can see. Usually.

But sometimes we see differently.

Let's do that.
SB


Event Horizon

I move through cold water as rain pelts down around me in a creek teal gray today— a balmy wind brushes water against the flow. I love to swim in the rain, kick through three quarter-mile laps, watch the sky create soft rain from a thunderhead small enough to see. I step out determined to be positive in opposition to an empire eating itself and everything it touches, determined to refuse the despair which spreads like a fire blanket across history. So what, we have not yet changed the world, cured cancer, mental illness, drug addiction, stopped climate change? I will do one thing differently today, be more effective, attend a protest, write a letter, boycott Middle Eastern oil and gas. I will create action to join the work millions of people generate for peace, the environment, gender equality, social and economic justice. If, at this instant, I see no alternative for the planet that does not involve the end of capitalism and can’t yet make that happen, then a break in the day, a long swim in emerald water, a good night’s sleep, a mellow glass of red wine, a beautiful poem — these small things must be enough blessing to hold off despair. I have long been interested in the difference between one thing and another — boundaries, the point at which black is not black anymore, but white, the turn of a stripe. Was there an instant when the Age of Reason began? I choose to resist Empire not because it has, in my lifetime, appeared the least bit vulnerable to containment, but because it trivializes life. I move in the mainstream of a deep paradigm shift and can’t see the edge. If scale is the measure of declination, there is no difference between one thing and another at close range, but one can see the point of a star and the circle of space through a telescope. Maybe someone will look back in 500 years and identify one moment as the event horizon of the American Empire. On the other hand, perhaps the concept "500 years" will have no significance at all. Possibly history will stop some Tuesday. The line of demarcation will exist but will be the event horizon for a different universe. However, on the human plane, where I live, it is gray now. Meaning comes from engagement, so I go to the post office, bank, sign a petition, try to get some work done, light a candle for my children, resist oblivion.

© Susan Bright, 10/05/05

Susan Bright is the author of nineteen books of poetry. She is the editor of Plain View Press which since 1975 has published one-hundred-and-ninety books. Her work as a poet, publisher, activist and educator has taken her all over the United States and abroad. Her most recent book, The Layers of Our Seeing, is a collection of poetry, photographs and essays about peace done in collaboration with photographer Alan Pogue and Middle Eastern journalist, Muna Hamzeh.



*Turning a circle inside out.

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On the Death of Raul Salinas

Here's a tribute by Able Salas on Latino USA.

On the death of poet Raul Salinas
March 17, 1934 - Feb 13, 2008

The gift that names itself today
is faith in our capacity for change —
the revolution of one soul, fanning out
like the spokes of the Sun Dance Raul
longed for but didn’t complete because
he said he would do his Sun Dance
when Leonard Peltier was free to
do his, and that didn’t happen
in his lifetime.

You could say the system — neocolonialism,
globalization, the military industrial complex,
the prison industry — is so evil
no one can soften it, and you’d be right.

But change, the revolution of humanity
insisting on justice
will not be silenced, stopped, repressed.

Raul Salinas, a poet, a reformed
convict, a man kicked out in his youth of
his home town, booted to prison, I’ve
been told for ample reason, used his time
behind bars to read, write, finish his education,
start it, formulate an agenda, La Resistencia,
a book store, cultural center, revolutionary hub,
Raul, always a gracious host, welcoming
visitors to the home he’d won back,
layer after layer, taking back his home,
homeland, the community that became
the movement he devoted his life to—
a peacemaker on the streets,
fiercely committed to justice
denied to so many —
Guadalupe torso, fist raised forever
on Vieques — stop dropping bombs here,
anywhere.

He became an Elder —
honed, chiseled, exactly beautiful and wise.

I am sad today.
So many artist/activists have gone
in the last decade —
Ahmos ZuBolton, Lorenzo Thomas,
Susan Lee Solar, Joanie Whitebird,
Ricardo Sanchez, Marsha Gomez,
and now Raul Salinas —
each sang a different part of the song,
spun a different part of the dream.
How to continue without them?

I always think change is possible,
that the ordeals holding us down
today, tomorrow will lessen their grip
on our lives, that the mistakes people
make early on will diminish with time,
that we will each come home, like Raul did
make peace, grow to be elders
embrace the best our souls can glean
from outrageous realities —

Sometimes it happens —

and it gives me hope, the stamina to go on,
when one of us finds his, finds her way home
when la familia opens their hearts
as wounds fall away, or not,
each person healing any way they can.

We can do this.
We can change

ourselves —
the world.

©Susan Bright 2008

Susan Bright is the author of nineteen books of poetry. She is the editor of Plain View Press which since 1975 has published one-hundred-and-fifty books. Her work as a poet, publisher, activist and educator has taken her all over the United States and abroad. Her most recent book, The Layers of Our Seeing, is a collection of poetry, photographs and essays about peace done in collaboration with photographer Alan Pogue and Middle Eastern journalist, Muna Hamzeh.


Photo © Alan Pogue, 2000, Vieques, Puerto Rico.

Note: Poets, friends — add your words, poems in our comments section and/or send them to: Rene Valdez, revolu@swbell.net. If you are in Austin there is an altar for Raul at La Resistencia, at the corner of W. Annie and South First Street where you can leave notes, poems, etc.

Here is the notice Rene and the bookstore sent out:

“A Tender Warrior fell today…”

Poet and Activist Raúl Salinas, March 17, 1934-February 13, 2008.

It is with profound sadness and heartache that we inform the Austin, Texas and international community of the passing on February 13th, 2008 of raúlrsalinas.

Xicanindio elder, poet, and human rights activist raúlsalinas was the Executive Director of Red Salmon Arts and founder of Resistencia Bookstore—a literary venue and community center for aspiring writers in Austin, Texas. raúl also conducted intensive creative writing clinics locally and throughout the country with disenfranchised youth. These clinics were held in conjunction with a variety of arts organizations, correctional facilities and social service agencies. raúl’s work with various political movements earned him an international reputation as an eloquent spokesperson for justice and advocate for the challenges and struggles of youth. Through SOY (Save Our Youth) raúl reached countless marginalized young people and trained other members of the Red Salmon Arts collective to continue this invaluable work nationally. He worked extensively with the American Indian Movement and the International Indian Treaty Council. raúl was the author of four books of poetry: Viaje/Trip, East of the Freeway, Un Trip Through the Mind Jail, and Indio Trails, as well as three spoken word cds: Los Many Mundos of raulrsalinas, Beyond the BEATen Path, and Red Arc. Most recently the University of Texas Press published raulrsalinas and The Jail Machine: My Weapon is My Pen, a collection of his essays, newspaper articles, and letters. His last published work, an anti-war poem “Loud and Proud”, appeared in the 2007 anthology Telling Tongues: A Latin@ Anthology on Language Experience, a Calaca/Red Salmon Press publication. Since 2001 he was an adjunct professor at St. Edward’s University teaching classes in incarceration and media studies. raúlrsalinas is also the recipient of numerous awards: The Louis Reyes Rivera Lifetime Achievement Award presented by La Causa and The Dark Souls Collective at Amherst College, Massachusetts in 2003; The Martin Luther King Jr./Cesar Chavez/Rosa Parks Visiting Professorship Award given by the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor in 2003; The Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Association of Latino Arts and Culture in 2004; Con Tinta, a coalition of Chicana/o Latina/o cultural activists and writers honored raúl with the Veterano Writer Award in 2006, and finally the Alfredo Cisneros Del Moral Foundation Award in 2007. He was honored this past year at a pre-opening event, AMORINDIO, held at the Mexican American Cultural Arts Center and “The Road to Austin Concert” held at Auditorium Shores. raúlrsalinas served as a beloved mentor as well to many artists, writers, and scholar-activists whom sought to make a difference beyond the academy. It was fortunate that raul received this recognition in his life and many community memorials are currently being planned in his honor. The work and struggles that raúl was so deeply committed to and was a vital part of will continue after his death.

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These are the stakes.

Last night, Colbert had a guest from thelivingroomcandidate.org, a website that has all the old presidential TV ads back to 1952. They showed the famous daisy ad from 1964. As the mushroom cloud emerges from the little girl's eye, Lyndon is the voice from the grave.

These are the stakes: To make a world in which all of God's children can live or to go into the dark. We must either love each other, or we must die.

Colbert and his guest chuckled.

As things fall apart, no one pays much attention.

Jesus Buddha and the space between us that does not exist, maybe it's something as small as a prayer that will save us.