Martin LeFevre - Meditations - Latest News [Page 23]
LeFevre: Al Gore - ‘To the Ramparts of Reason!’
Saturday, 9 June 2007, 8:31 pm | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
You have to hand it to Al Gore for chutzpah. He voted for Gulf War I, which paved the way for George W. Bush and Gulf War II, and nearly destroyed the United Nations. Now “the Goracle” lectures the American people for their “lack of outcry” ... More >>
Martin LeFevre: Death Is Awareness
Saturday, 9 June 2007, 8:30 pm | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
Color as thick as the clouds themselves suffuses the massive, multi-layered cumulus. The color appears almost solid, so that the substance of the clouds seems to be color itself. More >>
Martin LeFevre: Insight Is Always New
Monday, 28 May 2007, 9:09 pm | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
Waves crash onto the rocks a couple hundred meters from the beach. Some shoot up like geysers, or spouting whales, in narrow plumes of white spray. Small shorebirds scamper in and out of the surf, ebbing and flowing like the tide itself. More >>
Martin LeFevre: Paradise Lost
Thursday, 24 May 2007, 4:41 pm | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
Paradise Lake supplies all the water to the mountain communities of Paradise and Magalia in northern California. It is usually so quiet there that you can speak to someone in a normal voice a quarter mile away across one of its inlets. Not anymore. ... More >>
Martin LeFevre: A Workable Global Polity, Part Two
Thursday, 24 May 2007, 4:41 pm | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
The hard truth is that UN commitments, beginning with the Millennium Goals, aren't being met. The vast majority of efforts within the international framework amount to spinning wheels, going nowhere. Soon the machinery is going to grind to a halt, ... More >>
Martin LeFevre: A New Foundation for the Left?
Monday, 14 May 2007, 1:40 pm | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
The Bush Administration was reported this past week to be positively “giddy” about the results of the election in France, what with Sarkozy indicating France would now be Washington's best friend in Europe. Bush and Sarkozy “had a very friendly ... More >>
Martin LeFevre: Negation in Meditation
Wednesday, 9 May 2007, 11:08 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
It’s late spring in northern California. People cross the iron footbridge on bikes or foot on a hazy, lazy, warm Sunday afternoon. I sit about 75 meters upstream from the bridge, and though I’m in the open, few passersby see me either from the bridge, ... More >>
Martin LeFevre: A Workable Global Polity
Wednesday, 2 May 2007, 11:41 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
Will an effective system of global governance emerge in the foreseeable future, or will it continue to be seen as utopian science fiction in an increasingly dystopic world? The answer does not depend on nation-states and the UN, but on the growing ... More >>
Martin LeFevre: Isolated Incidents
Wednesday, 25 April 2007, 8:03 pm | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
So now America has three anniversaries of unvarnished evil to commemorate in a single week: April 19, 1995--Oklahoma City; April 20, 1999-- Columbine; and April 16, 2007--Virginia Tech. Nonetheless, the need to believe they are “isolated incidents” will continue, ... More >>
Martin LeFevre: Beyond Misanthropy
Wednesday, 18 April 2007, 12:54 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
A reader in New Zealand wrote to protest a recent column, saying, “You seem to think we are important in some way when we are really stupid beyond belief.” Apart from the sad streak of misanthropy, the reader raises a question that’s worth examining. ... More >>
Martin LeFevre: Celebrity Activism
Wednesday, 11 April 2007, 4:07 pm | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
In a recent essay in “Time” magazine, Bono said, “Looking inward won’t cut it. We discover who we are in service to each other, not the self.” There is some truth, and a lot of falseness packed into that statement. Let’s unpack it. More >>
Martin LeFevre: “Chocolate Jesus”
Wednesday, 4 April 2007, 2:00 pm | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
The planned Easter Week exhibition of a full-size, anatomically correct sculpture of Jesus on an invisible cross, made from 200 pounds of chocolate, was cancelled at the Lab Gallery in midtown Manhattan. Called, with ostensible seriousness, “My ... More >>
Richard Dawkins Throws Baby Out with the Bathwater
Monday, 2 April 2007, 2:28 pm | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
Though the rain didn’t begin until nearly 10 this morning, by 3 pm the parkland had already returned to its creatures. A light drizzle, imperceptible in the wood, fell as I walked along the redolent paths, devoid of people except for a couple of ... More >>
Martin LeFevre: The Problem of Mugabe
Wednesday, 28 March 2007, 12:22 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
There is a squabble between the West and southern Africa on how to deal with the sclerotic tyrant Robert Mugabe. Zimbabwe has become a touchstone of the differences, and indifferences, shared by the EU, US, and AU regarding the people of Africa. It ... More >>
Martin LeFevre: We’re All Refugees
Wednesday, 21 March 2007, 2:26 pm | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
Seven Asian young men, dripping wet from just having been in the cold creek, walk slowly along the narrow path that parallels the stream. It’s a warm day, and the first new leaves of spring are bursting their buds on the trees and bushes in the ... More >>
Martin LeFevre: The Technology of Human Beings
Friday, 16 March 2007, 10:32 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
In America at least, we are still in the ‘new toy’ phase of high technology. Every new gadget that comes out receives oohs and aahs in the media, with the subtext, ‘aren’t we the most amazing people for inventing all these wonderful things!’ ... More >>
Martin LeFevre: Canine Consciousness
Friday, 9 March 2007, 2:49 pm | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
Though the weather was dicey this morning—windy, chilly, and threatening another storm—there was a break in the early afternoon. So, before a new series of storms roll in off the Pacific, I made the most of the lull and drove to Upper Park. More >>
Martin LeFevre: Homage to “2001: A Space Odyssey”
Tuesday, 6 March 2007, 10:58 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
There’s a lot of interest in human origins these days. A new, permanent exhibition, featuring more than 200 casts of prehuman and human fossils, just opened at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. The exhibition addresses three fundamental ... More >>
Martin LeFevre: President’s Day in the USA
Tuesday, 6 March 2007, 10:48 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
President’s Day in the USA brings Bush to Mt. Vernon, George Washington’s home, drawing surreal comparisons between his warmongering and the American War of Independence. At the same time, the presidential candidates are out on the interminably long stump, ... More >>
Martin LeFevre: The Gods Were Once Human
Sunday, 11 February 2007, 10:34 pm | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
A high, thin layer of clouds fills the western sky, blunting the warmth of the sun and giving the land a subtly somber cast. The little stream on the edge of town is now full enough to create a cascade over a step of rocks, as it wends it way along ... More >>