The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree
Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.
–Robert Frost’s “Dust of Snow”
A few of us drove towards Mt. Hood for some rock climbing last Saturday, only to find cold rain at our destination. An impromptu hike further up-valley led us through the first snow of the season, and turned into a bit of a recon mission for tours in the coming months. Hooray for snow!!
Following the 2005 bombings in the London Underground James Caisco wrote:
“Scholars who look back on events of the early 21st century will not have to rely solely (or at all) on the stories told by officials, or the images deemed sufficiently interesting by newspaper editors….History can now be written by those who experience it, rather than just by those who believe they control it.”
Over the past week I’ve been reminded of his words as stories and pictures of the pro-democracy protests and subsequent military crackdown in Myanmar have emerged for the world to see. Our friends over at Worldchanging explore the subject of Web 2.0 citizen activism in a thoughtful essay entitled “How Mobiles and Blogs Don’t – and Do – Help Human Rights” by Emily Gertz. It’s worth the read.
Also, to take direct action visit Avaaz.org where you can sign a petition directed to Chinese President Hu Jintao and the UN Security Council supporting reconciliation and democracy in Burma. Avaaz, which means “Voice” or “Song” in several languages including Hindi, Urdu, Farsi, Nepalese, Dari, Turkish, and Bosnian, is a community of global citizens who take action on the major issues facing the world today.
When we first pulled up our chairs in The Thought Kitchen one of the people whose thinking we referenced was Naomi Klein, until recently probably best known for her book No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies. (We took her literally by deciding not to put any external logos on our product, but that’s another story). Klein has just published a controversial best seller entitled The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. In it she defines shock doctrine as “the use of public disorientation following massive collective shocks—wars, terrorist attacks, natural disasters—to push through highly unpopular economic shock therapy.”
The metaphor of “shock” is important because her thesis stems from a contention that what works on a person also works on a nation. Think 9/11 and fear-induced politics that have eroded some of the fundamentals of what we knew as American democracy. To peer into her thinking, check out the short film by Alfonso Cuaron, who made Y Tu Mama Tambien and Children of Men. Klein was hoping he’d send her a quote for the book jacket, but instead he assembled a team of artists and this short film. Sweet indeed.
