“The finest album I ever made.” George Martin, producer of The Beatles albums
Think about that. George Martin, who produced The Beatles albums, says “Icarus” is the finest album he ever made.
Reviewers have tried to pigeonhole this masterpiece by saxophonist Paul Winter and this group of equally talented musicians. Some have called it “chamber jazz”. Some have pegged it as early New Age music.
Below are the first and last tracks, but please discover it all.
Like a vacation in a sonic paradise. Exactly the kind of music to truly help us through this moment.
“If the only prayer you say in your entire life is ‘Thank-you’, that would suffice.” Meister Eckhart (1260 – 1328), Catholic priest, theologian, philosopher and mystic
I read a column complaining that too many people say “thank you” too much. The writer’s point was that much of the time this is perfunctory and reflexive, and people often don’t mean it.
The above quote from Meister Eckhart is a fitting response.
“Thank you”, whether deeply felt or not, is an express acknowledgment that something has been given to you or done on your behalf. Even if the thanks are grudging—maybe even sarcastic—you may hear a message inside.
In some enlightened traditions, we are advised to offer thanks not just to those on our side but to those actively against us:
When I see beings of unpleasant character Oppressed by strong negativity and suffering, May I hold them dear – for they are rare to find – As if I have discovered a jewel treasure! Eight Verses on Transforming the Mind
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson is taking on Pope Leo regarding a matter of biblical interpretation. Johnson says that government oppressing strangers is the biblical thing to do. Pope Leo disagrees.
One line from the Book of Exodus crystallizes the issue.
As with all biblical Hebrew, the translation is challenging and varied.
Exodus 23:9: You shall not oppress a stranger, for you know the feelings of the stranger, having yourselves been strangers in the land of Egypt. (NJPS) You shall not oppress a resident alien; you know the heart of an alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt. (NRSV) No sojourner shall you oppress, for you know the sojourner’s heart, since you were sojourners in the land of Egypt. (Robert Alter)
Robert Alter addresses one of the translation challenges, the Hebrew word nefesh/נֶ֣פֶשׁ: “The Hebrew is nefesh, “heart”, “life,” “inner nature,” “essential being,” “breath.””
Another word needing expansion is the Hebrew ger/גֵּ֔ר. Scholars Mark Allen Powell and Dennis R. Bratcher explain in the HarperCollins Bible Dictionary:
alien (ger): In the Bible, one who is not a member of a particular social group. Accordingly, Abraham was an alien (NRSV: “stranger”) among the Hittites at Hebron (Gen. 23:4), as were Moses in Midian (Exod. 2:22) and the Israelites in Egypt (Deut. 23:7; cf. Ruth 1:1). The Hebrew word is ger, and it has often been translated “sojourner” in English Bibles. The NRSV is inconsistent, translating it “alien” in some instances and “stranger” in others. After the settlement in Canaan, the term not only designated a temporary guest but also acquired the more specialized meaning of “resident alien,” one who lived permanently within Israel (Exod. 22:21; 23:9). No doubt because the Israelites were keenly aware of their own heritage as aliens without rights in a foreign land, they developed specific laws governing the treatment of aliens. Strangers or aliens were to be treated with kindness and generosity (Lev. 19:10, 33–34; 23:22; Deut. 14:29). The basic principle was, “You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Deut. 10:19). And, again, “You shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt” (Lev. 19:34)….
“Alien” or “stranger” also appears in a figurative sense, usually in appealing to the generosity and mercy of God in dealing with undeserving people (Pss. 39:12; 119:19; 1 Chron. 29:15). The idea of dwelling in a land owned by someone else is also applied theologically to the relationship of the Israelites to the land; it belonged to God and they were the strangers in it (Lev. 25:23). (emphasis added)
Pope Leo has given lots of thought to the nefesh—heart, life, inner nature, essential being, breath—of the ger—stranger, sojourner, resident alien.
Has Mike Johnson given much thought to the nefesh of the ger? Have we?
Along with the Book of Exodus, we can sing along with Randy Newman in his song have You Seen My Baby?:
I say, “Please don’t talk to strangers, baby” But she always do She say, “I’ll talk to strangers if I want to ‘Cause I’m a stranger, too”
I have lived in a variety of places with hard winters, where occasionally in February it seemed like spring but was actually false spring, followed by more, sometimes much more, hard winter.
Here is not one of those places.
The Winter Olympics are happening now. Some places share Winter Olympics-type weather, some people prefer that, some people tolerate it, with the promise of spring arriving soon or eventually. Just not yet.
Some places, like this one, rarely have anything like hard winter, though on the other hand we know that hard summer will arrive eventually, just not yet.
The birds and the plants know. So do I.
If you are somewhere in the Northern Hemisphere where winter has more than a month to go, spring is coming. If you’ve never believed anything I’ve said, believe that.
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty,” – that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.
John Keats, Ode On A Grecian Urn
Maxfield Parrish was one of the most popular and ubiquitous American artists and illustrators of the first half of the twentieth century. For decades, his work was seen and instantly recognizable in books, magazines, and advertising. His extravagant and romantic style was inimitable, and he was honored by having his signature color—now known as Parrish Blue— named after him.
A new generation rediscovered Parrish in the 1960s, and walls of dorms and apartments were adorned with Parrish posters. Eventually the appreciation spread beyond college students, and Parish prints became more widely popular. And then, like all art trends, interest died back down. Today Parrish and his work are not so well known.
His most famous series was the calendars he illustrated for Edison Mazda light bulbs (above). General Electric named the bulbs for Ahura Mazda, the supreme deity of Zoroastrianism. The religion’s central theme is the cosmic struggle between light and darkness. Parrish’s first calendar was so well-received that he continued to create it for 17 years.
A few decades ago, these luminous pictures spoke to a young generation navigating through unsettled times. Maybe it was the beauty of the pictures. Maybe it was their implicit idealism. Maybe it was the drugs. Maybe it was not just the promise and possibility of light, but the actuality of unseen colors that are right in front of our eyes—if we choose to see them. We could use some of that and some more Maxfield Parrish today.
Fury erupted early on Friday after Donald Trump posted a racist video that depicts Barack and Michelle Obama as apes.
The clip appeared during one of the 79-year-old US president’s increasingly frequent late-night posting sprees to his Truth Social account, and shows the laughing faces of the former president and first lady superimposed on the bodies of primates in a jungle setting, bobbing to the song The Lion Sleeps Tonight.
There have been American moments when your reaction is “this is not happening.” Sometimes it is the sudden shock of an assassination or of towers under attack and collapsing. Sometimes it is an extended situation, like the Covid pandemic.
The Trump presidency is both. There are particular moments that shock. There is a cumulative extended experience. Defenders may say again and again that it is just “Trump being Trump.” The rest of us wonder when we will wake up from the seeming interminable nightmare.
Have we “normalized” the aberrant, hateful, inhumane and frankly demented? Have we become uncomfortably numb, knowing what is wrong but just wanting to pull the covers over our heads and get on with our lives, compromised as they may be?
Let us wake up, not from the nightmare, but to the heart of the nightmare to actualize a better dream right now.
For those who wonder whether meanness is a sin or vice, you can start with Summa Theologica by St. Thomas Aquinas, where Question 135 addresses the issue. Or you could ask your parents or your elementary school teachers or your spouse or your children: It’s not nice to be mean.
Which should make us think about why rampant meanness is not only acceptable, but encouraged, entertaining, and profitable. Cheaters may never prosper (though they often do), but meaners are doing very well these days.
Saying that all things virtuous seem to be dying and on life support is an overstatement that doesn’t get us far. Instead, four possible explanations of how what was once a private disturbance has become such a pandemic, a public poison:
Meanness by proxy: All art and performance is based on the ability and willingness of creators to express what we can’t or won’t. It would be nice to think that we only long to be the one who can move people to tears or laughter, inspire people to reach higher, and if we can’t be those creators, at least they are doing that for us. The same thing unfortunately applies to darker messaging, though. We may not be able to attack quite so sharply and eloquently, but we appreciate that someone can. “Yeah, what he said!”
Meanness as superiority: This is a subset of meanness by proxy. There’s perversity in enjoying the meanness of others, but at the same time taking pride in being one who would never say something like that because…we are better than that and would never be so mean. (Whatever the theological status of meanness, by the way, pride is definitely on all the lists of sins.)
Meanness as incompetent and faulty criticism: This is the explanation of meanness as sub-juvenile behavior. When little children aren’t sure why they hate somebody or something, or can’t articulate it, they revert to name-calling and indiscriminate meanness: “You’re a poo-poo head!” It’s a fantastic dream that one day, thanks to some spell, the most gratuitously mean would be magically forced to speak only such childish epithets.
Meanness unconditioned by a thought/speech barrier: The thought/speech barrier, the wall that should keep many thoughts from ever being spoken, is dissolving. Whether phenomena such as social media are causal, enabling, or merely symptomatic is beside the point. Thought moves from brain to mouth (or phone or keyboard) at the speed of synapse. Mean heart becomes mean words in a literal instant.
There is a genuine critical function, which can be exercised with thoughtfulness, care, and respect. That simple sentence, a foundation of a free, enlightened society, is looking particularly quaint, and seems for many to have lost its meaning.
Federal Agents Left Behind “Death Cards” After Capturing Immigrants ICE agents dropped customized ace of spades playing cards, recalling a practice by U.S. soldiers during the Vietnam War.
Nick Turse The Intercept February 3 2026
The cars sat abandoned at the side of the road. Their engines idling, with hazard lights flashing, according to a witness who captured video of the incident on his phone. The occupants of the vehicles had been taken away by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers late last month in what a local immigrant rights group calls “fake traffic stops.” During these encounters, ICE vehicles reportedly employ red and blue flashing lights to mimic those of local law enforcement agencies, duping people into pulling over.
When family members arrived on the scene in Eagle County, Colorado, their loved ones had already been disappeared by federal agents. But what they found inside the vehicles was disturbing: a customized ace of spades playing card — popularly known as a “death card” — that read “ICE Denver Field Office.”
“We are disgusted by ICE’s actions in Eagle County,” Alex Sánchez, president and CEO of that immigrant rights group, Voces Unidas, told The Intercept. “Leaving a racist death card behind after targeting Latino workers is an act of intimidation. This is not about public safety. It is about fear and control. It’s rooted in a very long history of racial violence.”
During the Vietnam War, U.S. troops regularly adorned Vietnamese corpses with “death cards” — either an ace of spades or a custom-printed business card claiming credit for their kills. A 1966 entry in the Congressional Record noted that due to supposed Vietnamese superstitions regarding the ace of spades, “the U.S. Playing Card Co. had been furnishing thousands of these cards free to U.S. servicemen in Vietnam who requested them.”…
The ace card has a long and macabre history. A British tax on playing cards, which specifically required purchasing aces of spades from the stamp office, resulted in the hanging of a serial forger of the “death card” in 1805. Legend has it that “Wild Bill” Hickok held the Dead Man’s Hand — aces and eights, including the ace of spades — when he was gunned down in Deadwood in Dakota Territory in 1876. In 1931, murdered Mafia boss Giuseppe Masseria was photographed with the ace of spades clutched in his hand. By that time, it was firmly entrenched in culture as the “death card.”
The U.S. use of death cards in Vietnam was immortalized in the 1979 film “Apocalypse Now” in a scene in which Lt. Col. Bill Kilgore, played by Robert Duvall, places unit-branded playing cards, reading “DEATH FROM ABOVE,” on the bodies of dead Vietnamese people. During the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency developed a set of playing cards to help troops identify the most-wanted members of the Iraqi government. President Saddam Hussein, who was eventually captured and executed, was the ace of spades.
Besides the horrible conduct of ICE, mention of Apocalypse Now (1979) inspires some thoughts. If you have seen the movie, see it again, and if not, see it now. It is not only a great movie and insight into the Vietnam War, but an insight into America.
The villain of the story is Colonel Kurtz, based on Kurtz in Josef Conrad’s novella Heart of Darkness. Colonel Kurtz has gone rogue and fled from the Vietnam War to Cambodia. There he leads natives who worship him almost as a god. The U.S. military command has sent Captain Willard to find him and eliminate him with extreme prejudice. Willard’s journey through the war and his encounter with Kurtz is the story of Apocalypse Now.
Kurtz’s dying words are the same in Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now, words that echo today: “The horror! The horror!”
Han Shan (寒山, meaning “Cold Mountain”) was a legendary Tang Dynasty Chinese poet who lived sometime between the 7th-9th centuries CE. He’s one of the most beloved figures in Chinese Buddhist literature.
His historical existence is debated. He may have been a recluse living on Cold Mountain (Hanyan) near Tiantai in Zhejiang province, or a literary persona created by one or more Chan (Zen) Buddhist poets.
About 300 poems survive, written in colloquial language rather than formal literary Chinese. They blend Chan Buddhism, Daoism, and nature imagery with humor, social criticism, and spiritual insight.
Themes include mountain solitude, the foolishness of worldly pursuits, enlightenment, and the beauty of simple living. His work often ridicules conventional society and religious formalism. He embodies the archetype of the wandering, enlightened madman.
He is traditionally paired with his sidekick Shide (拾得, “Foundling”), another hermit-poet. They are depicted as eccentric, laughing sages.
He remains hugely popular in East Asia. He was brought to Western audiences by Gary Snyder’s translations.
Please read some poems by Cold Mountain. Following are three translations, all worthy, with those of Red Pine (Bill Porter) especially recommended.
The new year ends a year of sorrow spring finds everything fresh mountain flowers laugh with green water cliff trees dance with blue mist bees and butterflies seem so happy birds and fishes look lovelier still the joy of companionship never ends who can sleep past dawn
Cold Mountain (Hanshan), c. 9th century Translated by Red Pine (Bill Porter)
Why do I persist? Because Gene Sharp was a brilliant global strategist at actually moving nations from dictatorship to democracy. Because the list is the greatest ever of practical nonviolent actions big and small. Because much of America, which is well on a path to corrupt authoritarian rule, is either in denial or unable to figure out anything to effectively do about it. This is a list of things to do about it.
Will I be posting this list again, an eighth or ninth time? I suspect so. There are some capable and effective democracy leaders, but also many powerful authoritarian-friendly leaders and many well-meaning but inept and compromised leaders who are supposed to be fighting for democracy, but can’t seem to figure out how.
This is how.
198 Methods of Nonviolent Action
Formal Statements
Public Speeches
Letters of opposition or support
Declarations by organizations and institutions
Signed public statements
Declarations of indictment and intention
Group or mass petitions
Communications with a Wider Audience
Slogans, caricatures, and symbols
Banners, posters, displayed communications
Leaflets, pamphlets, and books
Newspapers and journals
Records, radio, and television
Skywriting and earthwriting Group Representations
Deputations
Mock awards
Group lobbying
Picketing
Mock elections
Symbolic Public Acts
Displays of flags and symbolic colors
Wearing of symbols
Prayer and worship
Delivering symbolic objects
Protest disrobings
Destruction of own property
Symbolic lights
Displays of portraits
Paint as protest
New signs and names
Symbolic sounds
Symbolic reclamations
Rude gestures
Pressures on Individuals
“Haunting” officials
Taunting officials
Fraternization
Vigils
Drama and Music
Humorous skits and pranks
Performances of plays and music
Singing
Processions
Marches
Parades
Religious processions
Pilgrimages
Motorcades
Honoring the Dead
Political mourning
Mock funerals
Demonstrative funerals
Homage at burial places
Public Assemblies
Assemblies of protest or support
Protest meetings
Camouflaged meetings of protest
Teach-ins
Withdrawal and Renunciation
Walk-outs
Silence
Renouncing honors
Turning one’s back
The Methods Of Social Noncooperation
Ostracism of Persons
Social boycott
Selective social boycott
Lysistratic nonaction
Excommunication
Interdict
Noncooperation with Social Events, Customs, and Institutions
Suspension of social and sports activities
Boycott of social affairs
Student strike
Social disobedience
Withdrawal from social institutions Withdrawal from the Social System
Stay-at-home
Total personal noncooperation
“Flight” of workers
Sanctuary
Collective disappearance
Protest emigration (hijrat)
The Methods of Economic Noncooperation: Economic Boycotts
Actions by Consumers
Consumers’ boycott
Nonconsumption of boycotted goods
Policy of austerity
Rent withholding
Refusal to rent
National consumers’ boycott
International consumers’ boycott
Action by Workers and Producers
Workmen’s boycott
Producers’ boycott
Action by Middlemen
Suppliers’ and handlers’ boycott
Action by Owners and Management
Traders’ boycott
Refusal to let or sell property
Lockout
Refusal of industrial assistance
Merchants’ “general strike”
Action by Holders of Financial Resources
Withdrawal of bank deposits
Refusal to pay fees, dues, and assessments
Refusal to pay debts or interest
Severance of funds and credit
Revenue refusal
Refusal of a government’s money
Action by Governments
Domestic embargo
Blacklisting of traders
International sellers’ embargo
International buyers’ embargo
International trade embargo
The Methods Of Economic Noncooperation: The Strike
Symbolic Strikes
Protest strike
Quickie walkout (lightning strike)
Agricultural Strikes
Peasant strike
Farm Workers’ strike
Strikes by Special Groups
Refusal of impressed labor
Prisoners’ strike
Craft strike
Professional strike
Ordinary Industrial Strikes
Establishment strike
Industry strike
Sympathetic strike
Restricted Strikes
Detailed strike
Bumper strike
Slowdown strike
Working-to-rule strike
Reporting “sick” (sick-in)
Strike by resignation
Limited strike
Selective strike
Multi-Industry Strikes
Generalized strike
General strike
Combination of Strikes and Economic Closures
Hartal
Economic shutdown
The Methods Of Political Noncooperation
Rejection of Authority
Withholding or withdrawal of allegiance
Refusal of public support
Literature and speeches advocating resistance
Citizens’ Noncooperation with Government
Boycott of legislative bodies
Boycott of elections
Boycott of government employment and positions
Boycott of government depts., agencies, and other bodies
Withdrawal from government educational institutions
Boycott of government-supported organizations
Refusal of assistance to enforcement agents
Removal of own signs and placemarks
Refusal to accept appointed officials
Refusal to dissolve existing institutions
Citizens’ Alternatives to Obedience
Reluctant and slow compliance
Nonobedience in absence of direct supervision
Popular nonobedience
Disguised disobedience
Refusal of an assemblage or meeting to disperse
Sitdown
Noncooperation with conscription and deportation
Hiding, escape, and false identities
Civil disobedience of “illegitimate” laws
Action by Government Personnel
Selective refusal of assistance by government aides
Blocking of lines of command and information
Stalling and obstruction
General administrative noncooperation
Judicial noncooperation
Deliberate inefficiency and selective noncooperation by enforcement agents
Mutiny
Domestic Governmental Action
Quasi-legal evasions and delays
Noncooperation by constituent governmental units
International Governmental Action
Changes in diplomatic and other representations
Delay and cancellation of diplomatic events
Withholding of diplomatic recognition
Severance of diplomatic relations
Withdrawal from international organizations
Refusal of membership in international bodies
Expulsion from international organizations
The Methods Of Nonviolent Intervention
Psychological Intervention
Self-exposure to the elements
The fast a) Fast of moral pressure b) Hunger strike c) Satyagrahic fast
Bob Schwartz 