Loneliness

It is also why so many great photographs concern loneliness. The lens may distance the photographer from the rest of humanity, but with that distance comes an enhanced ability to see what is overlooked and underloved, whether it is the piebald of shadows decorating the side of a house, or the greased-glass door of a motel (the melancholy iconography of the American road—the motels, the slumping wooden houses, the elm half-choked to death by kudzu, the sun-cracked stucco building—is to modern photography what a wheel of cheese and a tumble of grapes were to Renaissance painting), or, most powerfully, the lone human being.

Exhibit Schedule

The dates of my exhibit at the South Florida State College Museum of Florida Art & Culture are now official:
Exhibit Opening: Wednesday February 6, 2019
Opening Reception: Thursday February 21, 2019 at 1:00 p.m.
Exhibit closing: May 8, 2019

Yes, the opening reception is at 1:00 p.m.

The college is located at 600 West College Dr., Avon Park, FL  33825

Immigrants Serving in the Military vs. Donald Trump

Trump and his administration are a disgrace and a stain on the honor of the tens, if not hundreds of thousands of immigrants and other minorities who have served this country in our military over the last two-plus centuries. The man who dodged the draft five times cares more about the rank prejudice of his “base” than he does about the national security of this country.

African American Sawmill Workers

Like shadows of history, black sawmill workers and loggers in the area that is now part of the Big Cypress National Preserve and its environs, made a way of life laboring in fearful and dangerous circumstances. They raised families, worshiped in harmony, and then disappeared with little notice taken of their presence, their passing or their contributions. In less than five decades, a way of life, and many of the people who lived it, has been dispersed from public memory. More is known about the ancient Calusa and Tequesta Indians than is known about this segment of the population from our recent past, and the tremendous contributions they made to our country and the world. It almost begs the question, “Were they ever really there at all?” There are only passing references to “negro labor” in the best-known history books. Recent efforts by local writer Maria Stone and the Museum of the Everglades have captured some of the stories from the mouth of the people who lived them. (We Also Came: Black people of Collier County, by Maria Stone) oral interviews collected by the Museum of the Everglades, April 28, 2001 and April 27, 2002.

Grizzly Hunt

This week, the Wyoming Fish and Game Commission voted to allow hunters to shoot as many as 22 grizzlies outside of Yellowstone National Park. The hunt, slated to start this September, will be the first allowed in the state in more than four decades. This action was made possible by a 2017 decision by the federal Fish and Wildlife Service to strip Endangered Species Act protections from this population of grizzly bears despite a recent spike in grizzly deaths in the Yellowstone region.

Florida and the Arts

At the end of March, Governor Rick Scott approved the state’s $88.7 billion budget for fiscal year 2018-19. Unfortunately, the final budget included only $2.6 million for cultural grants to be distributed among just 489 organizations across Florida—90 percent less funding than the current fiscal year. This year’s funding level moves Florida from 10th to 48th in per-capita appropriations for the arts for the nation’s third largest state.

Thoughts from Ansel Adams

We are not just talking about saving scenery. We are talking about the immediate future of the world.
Ansel Adams

The Savage in Us

"The savage lives in himself; the man accustomed to the ways of society is always outside himself and knows how to live only in the opinion of others. And it is, as it were, from their judgement alone that he draws the sentiment of his own existence." ~ Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Taking Care of Each Other

"Only the most arrogant, shortsighted, and spiritually bereft of our species would say that, at any cost to other species, we need only worry about our own."
- Timothy Walker

Sustainable Agriculture

Farmers who want to adopt sustainable practices on their land often turn to two government programs: the Environmental Quality Incentives Program and the Conservation Stewardship Program. The former funds individual projects like cover crops, forest buffers, and pollinator habitat, while the latter involves a holistic management plan for the whole farm.
Both programs are very popular -- forced to turn away three-quarters of the people who apply due to limited funds.1 Yet the House of Representatives wants to get rid of one!

Instead of dropping conservation programs, the House of Representatives should incorporate the SOIL Stewardship Act. This bill would level the playing field between corporations and small farmers by:
capping overall payments while increasing payment rates to farmers
requiring applicants be actively engaged in their farm
easing the transition to organic farming
increasing support for beginning farmers and wildlife habitat
encouraging crop rotation and rotational, pasture-based grazing, and
removing a mandate that 60 percent of all funding go toward livestock production

A Travesty by the Department of Justice

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Department of Justice has chosen to green light the Bayer-Monsanto merger despite widespread opposition from farmers and other stakeholders across the country. The news comes after the delivery of more than 1 million public comments opposing the merger.  A recent survey of farmers found that 93% of farmers are against the merger. After the merger, only four companies will control the vast majority of seeds and agrochemicals, threatening farmers, consumers and the environment.

A Poem and Prayer

God of Creation
There at the start
Before the beginning of time
With no point of reference
You spoke to the dark
And fleshed out the wonder of light
And as you speak
A hundred million galaxies are born
In the vapour of your breath
The planets form
If the stars were made to worship
So will I
I can see your heart in everything you've made
Every burning star
A signal of fire and grace
If creation sings your praises
So will I

Florida lumber industry

Back in the late 1800's and early 1900's, I believe the state of Florida was exploited by several industries for its resources. One resource in particular was lumber. Companies set up towns all over Florida for living quarters for their workers and built a saw mill around it. Once the lumber was depleted in an area, usually a span of 10 years or so, the company moved the town and mill where the resource was plentiful. One such lumber town was known as Sumica, an acronym for the French Company Societe Universelle Commerce de Mines Industrie et Agriculture. Some remains still exist at Sumica - the concrete structures that apparently supported tools of the sawmill.

2nd Visit

My 2nd visit to the Giddens Cemetery, also in Hernando County, in the Withlacoochee State Forest. An attempt has been made to locate the Giddens homestead, but no cultural remains have ever been found.

Nature

"A margin of life is developed by Nature for all living things - including man. All life forms obey Nature's demands - except man, who has found ways of ignoring them."
- Eugene M. Poirot

Climate Change

Climate change is negatively affecting every aspect of our world … including the Winter Olympics. A recent study found that of 21 former Winter Olympic cities, nine of them — that’s almost half — may be too warm to support the winter games 30 years from now.

Boomers

I am one of the seventy-six million babies born in the United States between 1946 and 1964, a Baby Boomer, the generation once called the pig in the python, the bulge in the snake, not the first generation to be tagged as a generation, as the “Lost Generation” and the “Silent Generation” preceded us, but perhaps the first generation to be aware of ourselves as a generation. 

We are also the “Me Generation”, privileged as other generations had not been, raised in post-war affluence with a sense of our generational superiority to the sleepy repressed stiffs littering the world and workplace, keenly aware of ourselves as the new generation. Thus, the “generation gap” emerging at the end of the 1960’s as we believed ourselves the champions of social awareness and humanitarian progress battling the useless vestiges of antequated, social conventions and convictions.

 

We had a moment, somewhere between Watts and Detroit and Newark and Nixon’s resignation, when we might have made a difference. For all of our pride in our highly evolved sensibilities and sensitivities, we became a lost generation ourselves, a hedonistic, self-serving bulge, taking up space, distracted by pleasure.

We became the generation that did not recognize itself. What happened, we wonder? Weren’t we the generation that would change the world?

Look around. I’m afraid we did.

We believed in progress, that every subsequent age would continue to flourish as ours had done, but we did not hold the opportunities given to us in trust for those who came next. We liked the idea of an increasingly comfortable world so much that we wallowed in it without securing the future. We knew the environment was fragile. We knew natural resources were limited. We knew that cities built in the desert would need water. We knew garbage had to end up somewhere. We knew people lived in poverty and violence. We knew the rich got richer and the poor got poorer. We knew we were 

distracting ourselves with mindless pleasures. We knew that schools had become warehouses. We knew that children went to bed hungry.

We made a lot of noise in the 1960’s, but what remains? John Steinbeck wrote of the dignity shown by hard-working people of good will; the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. broke the silence of the Silent Generation with words that took us to the mountain. Where is our voice now? We once heard Dylan, but now, perhaps hear Stephen King spinning dark tales of fun house world and stalking killer clowns.

We are perched now on a thin branch at the top of a tall tree. The eldest of us are now seniors, seventy years old, retired, hoping that in these “golden” days, seventy-five is the new fifty.

I’m pretty sure it isn’t, but life isn’t over yet for many of us. Maybe there’s time enough to circle back and put a few things right, plant a few trees to provide shade for children we will never know. We’re outnumbered now, finally; Millennial’s are the current bulge, and our python is looking flatter with every passing year.

Our health and nature

Research suggests that time spent outdoors in nature is integral to a life well lived. And yet, humans have impacted (and in some cases destroyed) natural habitats worldwide.