I was first introduced to this Renaissance man’s extraordinary journey from near the Narrows of the Harpeth to New Orleans – in a canoe – while I was “killing time” in the Nashville airport.  Reading Joe Nolan’s feature of Guider in Nashville Arts Magazine revitalized my long-held preference to make time rather than kill it.  I remain so impressed with that article from October 2006, that it’s held a prominent place in my room and I’ve re-read it several times for inspiration!

Again, on November 19, I was “killing time” waiting for my fellow “local enthusiast” to meet me at the Tennessee State Museum.  It felt utterly serendipitous when I gazed up at a glorious shot of a canoe and sunburst clouds reflecting on the Mississippi River with this exciting announcement:  The River Inside: John Guilder’s Amazing Journey: October 3 through November 30.

Despite the show’s end being so imminent and Nashville being approximately a 50 mile drive from here, I’m compelled to recommend this brilliant exhibit for many reasons, including:

1.  The clarity of Guider’s photographs is awe-inspiring in itself.  As explained in Nolan’s article, Guider utilizes a unique platinum process rather than the more common use of silver as a light-sensitizing agent in traditional black/white photography.  The difference must be as striking as HDTV versus “rabbit ears” because the gradations of contrast allow for 100 shades of grey between black and white compared to only 10 with silver!

2.  The “human spirit” is unified in so many examples from aptly-named Guider’s river experience. He used so many words implying trepidation – “daunting,” “untenable,” “unexpected” – yet he not only completed that first vision, but returned to explore even more of the Mississippi!  All this after enduring a lifetime of respiratory ailments, including asthma, recurrent bouts of pneumonia and bronchitis and allergies so severe that he remained hospitalized for over a year at age 8.  That isolation from his family helped him realize that he could become accustomed to so much time alone, which paradoxically leads to the third and most important reason to see this show.

3.  It expresses the universal power of love.  Guider met his wife Mona Lisa after formulating his dream journey for many months, so he was initially reluctant to broach the subject to the love of his life. In Nolan’s article, he graciously credited her with being “. . . really good about it . . . I had never been in a relationship . . . where I was given that autonomy to be who I am.”  Guider echoes that sentiment in his book while acknowledging countless souls who contributed to his “amazing journey.”  “In part, I set out on this adventure to find myself.  In the end, I found something better:  community.”  That sense of community has been extended to the very young by the Tennessee State Museum with a newspaper insert called “Student Supplement” that’s also free.  Bonus displays include a short film, maps, shells, rocks and the estimated 600 pounds of supplies and photographic equipment filling the entire 16 ½ foot-Kevlar canoe, leaving just enough room for one intrepid man of great human spirit.

Click here to view the embedded video.

“The River Inside” is presented in part by Ingram Barge Co. of Nashville.  Located at 5th and Deaderick Streets in Nashville, the Tennessee Museum is open 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday and 1:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m. on Sunday and is free to the public.  It is closed on Thanksgiving.  The museum website is www.tnmuseum.org

SDS: "Youth are not Cannon fodder"

As a global audience tuned in on the second presidential debate, held at Belmont University in Nashville, all the action was happening on the streets surrounding the campus. Political commentators and pundits agreed that the town hall debate format simply didn’t work, that the hoped for verbal battles failed to detonate any real excitement. Outside, it was another story.

I opted out of specific local debate coverage, and with CO writer Debbie Boen instead headed to Nashville to make our own voices heard. Debbie, founder of the FreeThinkers for Peace and Civil Liberties, and I (a devout member) headed for 21st and Blakemore, two blocks from the Debate Hall, center of the Nashville Peace Coalition et al rally and press conference. The Coalition the night before sponsored “an alternative debate” featuring the other candidates in the running for the US presidency. The ones without the political machine and the super-sized budgets.

Nearing Nashville on I-24 we were greeted with traffic signs directing debate trackers to the proper exits, so naturally, we made a wrong turn, got slightly misdirected and ended up exactly where we needed to be. Serendipity can be wonderful.

As we navigated Nashville, we were amazed at the sheer volume of Obama and issue-oriented activism; the streets were overflowing with energized people, male, female, old, young, diverse economic backgrounds. All motivated and more than ready to have their voices heard. At 4 p.m., the streets had already been layered with activists for hours. At 5 p.m., the press conference and public statements that had lured us to Nashville began.

“We have seen what Nashville looks like during a small gas crisis — tempers flaring, people irate — long lines. What would happen if it lasted a week? A month? A year? If the power shut down? How about if the food ran out in the grocery stores? If nobody removed your trash? How would people react? We’ve seen a taste of things to come in New Orleans? Welcome to the next Miramax movie.”

Then cam a quoted from a 9.8.08 Army Times article, barely a blip on the media radar, that reported:

“The 3rd Infantry Brigade Combat team that has spent 35 of the last 60 months in Iraq patrolling in full battle rattle, helping to restore essential services and escorting supply convoys has now been ordered to come home and be under the command of the US Army North, an on-call federal response force for natural disasters or manmade emergencies including terrorist attacks.

“The 1st BCT’s soldiers will learn how to use ‘the first ever nonlethal package that the Army has fielded’” states 1st BCT Commander Col. Roger Cloutier — referring to crowd and traffic control equipment and non lethal weapon designed to subdue unruly or dangerous individuals without killing them.”

As this voice boomed through the crowd and across Nashville streets, listeners were reminded of  how these weapons were used most recently at protests during the Republican national Convention. Pepper spray, tazers, assault weapons and sound grenades used by police in tandem with federal officials and task force. The result? Dissenting opinions were silenced. News commentator Amy Goodman and her news crew were arrested.

“Iraq is the practice grounds for what is coming to America.” That statement summed up part one of this presentation.

One perspective on the Iraq War...

When I took the microphone, I recounted my feelings at seeing a fairly recent film, Across the Universe, which is one of the better anti-war films I’ve seen. Advertising as “the new Beatles music movie,” it begins with the Camelot/Kennedy era innocence, until the scene, circa 1965 or so — frames two soldiers speaking to a mother who crumples to the stoop, having learned her son was killed in Vietnam. Scene shift: young women in little black dresses, white gloves, pearls, standard mourning garb.  I had that dress, those pearls, the pristine gloves. In 1965. ‘66. ‘67. ‘68. ‘69. And ‘70. More than once in some years. I protested the war then. Same peace symbol. Same songs. Same handmade signs. I watched this film with a sinking feeling of memory in my gut, a “deja vu” across the decades to now.

New recruits carry Lady Liberty across napalm'd fields of Vietnam in "Across the Universe"

I told my listeners how I grew up outside a major northeastern Air Force Base. Years later I became complacent, and moved through midlife and yes, through that earlier Gulf War, taking care of family, work, and all the mundane things.

“When I moved to Tennessee in 2004, I found myself outside another major military base, with another war raging, and suddenly the same symbols, signs, songs and outrage surged. I never thought I’d be doing this again. Not at 58. Forty years, and apparently we haven’t learned too much. This time, though, we’ve added economic disaster to the mix.”

Members of the SDS speak out against war

I watched as the new incarnation of the SDS (Students for a Democratic Society – and yes, there is an SDS group at APSU too) stepped up to the microphone, calling for young voters to be a “catalyst for change.”  Joey King of Veterans for Peace spoke, followed by Liz Barger of the Code Pink ladies. Senate Candidate Chris Lugo. Eric Schechter. Brian Moore, Presidential Candidate for the Socialist Party. Roger Clark of the Nader/Gonzalez presidential ticket. Green Party Senate candidate John Migllietta.

‘Debate Ralph Nader’ signs were everywhere. As were “Christians for Planned Parenthood.” And “‘Forecloz’ Wall Street.”

The song “I Miss America” was sung to the melody of God Bless America, substituting civil liberties losses among other losses American citizens have endured.

The line may have seemed thin at times, but it was "never-ending"...

Across the street, a steady line of Obama supporters marched toward Debate Central. A French documentary filmmaker filmed and interviewed our group, among others. The C-Span, CNN and NEA buses passed by, the latter scrolling statements of what Iraq war funding could buy for Americans on the home front. The NEA bus was, for me, the “best of show.” Police presence was everywhere, but thankfully not in an aggressive stance. We haven’t apparently reached a  point requiring RNC response tactics — yet.

Cars passing by waved, honked their horns, gave the “V” for victory sign. The rain held off. The crowds remained steady, heavy and true.

As Debbie and I left Nashville, the streets were still alive with people carrying signs and banners, with the dozens and dozens of young Green Power group toting pristine white windmills from their designated protest site through downtown.

What was refreshing was the eclectic of mix of people, and more importantly, the energized young people blasted out of complacency by war and economics to take action and stand up to have their voices heard. In them, I saw pieces of myself from forty years ago. It was an honor to share the streets of Nashville not just with those who have done this before, but with those who are finding their political voice for the first time.

The lackluster debate may have meandered over old territory, but it was a brave new world beyond that forum.

All Photos by Debbie Boen. “Across the Universe” frame from Revolution Studios/Sony Pictures.

[Show as slideshow]

“G-d’s Thoughts on the Presidential Election”

It’s time to play that fun, all-American game, Who is G-d punishing now? Three years ago, when Katrina devastated New Orleans, some on the religious right suggested that the city with the infamous French Quarter was being destroyed for its debauchery and licentiousness. G-d poured fire and brimstone on Sodom in ancient times, and He rained down lightning and broken levies on New Sodom in modern times.

Fast forward three years and here we go again, only this time G-d is punishing innocent men and women in Louisiana for the Republican Convention in Minnesota. According to filmmaker Michael Moore “Gustav is proof that there is a God in heaven. To just have it planned at the same time, that it would actually be on its way to New Orleans for Day One of the Republican convention, up in the Twin Cities, at the top of the Mississippi River.” The theme was echoed by Don Fowler, the South Carolina Democratic Party chairman, who joked that the hurricane was God’s favor to Democrats. But Mr. Fowler will have to forgive some of the residents of New Orleans, both Democrat and Republican alike, if they don’t get the joke.

We Americans are a famously religious people and can therefore be forgiven for sometimes, arrogantly, claiming to know the mind of G-d. But it behooves us to always remember the words of Abraham Lincoln, our most pious president who said, when he was asked whether G-d was fighting on the side of the Union armies, “We trust, sir, that God is on our side. It is more important to know that we are on God’s side.” While none of us can know the mind of G-d, we can know right and wrong based on what all world religions agree G-d has revealed to be moral, holy, and ethical. And, dare I say, even atheists and agnostics agree with the general, universal morality propounded by religion.

Based on this revealed, universal morality, here is a list of what we can assume, based on the Bible, G-d is thinking about the current presidential election.

1. We do not know if G-d wishes Obama to win or lose, but we certainly know that G-d is overjoyed that, perhaps for the first time in our history, tens of millions of Americans are looking beyond skin color and seeing all human beings as equal children of G-d and equally deserving of the highest national office. At the very beginning of the Bible G-d made clear that he created every human being equally in His image, something that it’s taken us Americans several centuries to digest.

2. We don’t know if G-d wishes McCain to win or lose, but we know He shines with favor toward Cindy and John McCain for adopting their youngest daughter, Bridget, who is Bengali, dark-skinned, but has been welcomed as an equal alongside the McCain’s three biological children.

3. America needs leadership, and people must run for President and be away from their families. But G-d instituted a Sabbath day of rest, even in the midst of the toughest contests, to be with family and focus on what is even more important that becoming President. This is especially true for people like Barack Obama and Sarah Palin, both of whom have young children whose development cannot be put on hold until after an election. In this sense, both campaigns can learn from the example of Joe Lieberman who, while running for the Vice-Presidency of the United States in 2000, refused to campaign every Saturday and was with family instead.

4. G-d loves unity among his children and hates division. The first human sin was the fratricidal conflict between Cain and Abel with the horrific result of one becoming a murderer and the other a dead victim. Likewise, the Bible is clear that slander and character assassination are forbidden by divine decree. Attack ads, therefore, however effective, are unG-dly and unjust. (Emphasis added.)

5. G-d loves the penitent. He shows special grace to those who are courageous enough to confess their sins and correct previous error by trying to act better. We should therefore be forgiving both of Obama’s admission to prior drug use and McCain’s confession to moral lapses in his first marriage. America often punishes its leaders for their shortcomings. This is wrong. Righteousness in G-d’s eyes is defined not as perfection but as engaging in the struggle to try and be better. So long as our leaders take responsibility for their actions and commit themselves to more righteous action, we should be inspired by their courage and commitment.

6. G-d delights in stories of redemption and joyfulness. He repeatedly commands us to be happy and rise above slights and resentment. This might explain why He has shined especially brightly on Obama and McCain. The former is a black man, abandoned by his father, who after educating himself in the best Universities chose to work with the poor and downtrodden. The latter is a man who lived through hell for five-and-a-half years but rose above his horrific experiences of being tortured as a POW to devote himself to inspirational public work rather than indulging in brokenness and bitterness.

7. G-d does not mind that Barack Obama made millions of dollars on his book or that John McCain has seven homes – that is, so long as both are charitable in pocket and in deed. Those making money are required to give at least ten percent of their earnings to charity and so long as they commit a significant percentage of their money to the poor, we should applaud them for their industry.

8. G-d created the world with words, “Let there be light,” etc. He demands that language likewise be used for constructive and holy purposes. G-d’s favor therefore shines brightly on Barack Obama’s enormous capacity for using words to inspire and uplift. But the Bible makes it equally clear that G-d hates evil and those who use language to sow discord between His children. He therefore abjures us to forcefully oppose people like Mahmoud Ahmedenijad who has repeatedly threatened to ‘wipe Israel off the map.’ G-d calls upon all men of justice – especially those in positions of leadership – to neutralize evil before its words are turned into irrevocable action.

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach hosts a daily national radio show on “Oprah and Friends.” He will hosting an all day seminar at Radio City Music Hall on October 12. www.shmuley.com

National Hurricane Center map shows the projected path of Gustav, which is expected to be a Cat 3 or higher storm when it makes landfall. In its path, New orleans, which is already preparing to evacuate parts of the city.

Last week hurricane-savvy Floridians learned the kind of devastation a tropical storm, albeit a persistent one, can do. Fay ambled leisurely across the state with three landfalls and rain measured by the foot. Now tropical storm Gustav, currently cruising the shores of Cuba, is poised to hit the warm Gulf of Mexico waters and exploded into a Category 3, possible a Cat 4, storm before it rocks the coastline of east Texas or Louisiana.

Today is the 3rd anniversary of Katrina and its first levee breach. Louisiana  officials, fearing a repeat performance,  have already pre-declared a state of emergency for Louisiana and have 750 buses on tap to evacuate at least 30,000 people from the most vulnerable areas. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has faith in the levee repairs and rebuilding. But the fact is that New Orleans is a below sea level basin and is especially vulnerable to anything at or over a Cat 3 storm, especially if Gustave gets lazy and decides to hang around a bit. That’s what Fay did to Florida last week. Louisiana has activated 5,000 National Troops to deal with preparation for the storm and to do whatever needs to be done in its wake next week.

Texas followed suit with a disaster status for its eastern coast, and Mississippi, which will be on the stronger easterly side of the storm, has declared a state of emergency. All this nearly four days before the storm breaks over land. Offshore oil rigs are running with minimal crews and may be fully evacuated as the storm develops. The oil market is reacting to the potential disruption of the Gulf oil flow with a rise in crude oil prices.

The eye of the storm will pass west of New Orleans, but close enough to New Orleans that it will be a true test of just how well rebuilt levees and canals will do with that treacherous eastern edge of a storm.

New Orleans may be closing its floodgates at Lake Ponchatrain Saturday, putting a halt to Union Pacific and other rail traffic.  Union Pacific is the largest railroad in America, is routing trains through Memphis TN and St. Louis MO.

National Hurricane Center 5-day projection of wind from the Gulf storm, Gustav (left), and the Atlantic storm, Hanna

Complicating this picture is a second tropical depression, Hanna, churning up and gaining strength in the Atlantic. Hanna is nearing hurricane strength, and the five day cone puts it on an easterly track with a bend toward the Carribead Island by Monday.

National Hurricane Center five-day wind charts show Hanna’s winds overlapping Gustav’s by Monday, which could make from some interesting weather across Florida as the outer bands of these potentially giant storms collide.

Tennesseans need to be aware of Gustav’s approach, since hurricane winds and residual rain could drift up in the aftermath of a Louisiana landfall. We need rain; we probably don’t need a Fay-like deluge from a slow-moving or stalled storm.

Waiting in the wings, deep in the Atlantic waters, are two more areas  “of interest” that meteorologists are keeping an eye on.

While skeptics say Gustav isn’t even a hurricane yet, state and federal officials, having already watched Fay wreak havoc, are willing to look ahead with a conservative eye and prefer to err on the side of caution. No one wants a repeat of the Katrina tragedy.

In this half-hour film, Greg Palast and his team travel to New Orleans to investigate what has happened since Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast last year. On his visit, he discovers that the population of New Orleans is miniscule, the reconstruction sparse, suicide rates are climbing, and many have not, nor know how to, return to the city that care forgot. He examines why residents had to leave, what really caused the flood and why they aren’t returning.

Bonus Features Include: Tomorrow’s New Orleans – Whose City Will it Be? A half-hour conversation with Amy Goodman and Greg Palast where they sit down to discuss who is accountable for the ongoing disastrous situation in New Orleans.

Click here to view the embedded video.