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Justice through Creativity...
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My latest work for Chamber Orchestra will be premiered by the Ukiah Symphony Orchestra on March 24, 2019 from 2:00-4:00 pm at the First Presbyterian Church of Ukiah, 514 W. Church Street, Ukiah CA 95482. This 20-minute piece, entitled "Rose's Paintings", is a four movement work inspired by the paintings of Rose Xylona Ayala. You can go to my youtube channel at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAc4H-TDlUq2u7o606T6KnQ?view_as=subscriber to listen to the pieces. Just look for videos titled "Comets" "Stairway to Heaven", "Room With a Door", and "Rose". Please make plans to attend this fundraiser for the symphony. Other local composers to be featured are Jeff Ives, Joseph Nemeth, and Bill Taylor. DONATION - $30 SENIORS - $25 Click the poster below for details 
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This represents a critical point in the story of humanity... a morality play writ large. When faced with the mother of existential crises, human nature reveals itself. Some instinctively avert their eyes and drive full speed backwards off a cliff. Others see the threat clearly, take its measure, and true to the nobility inherent in humanity, rise to the challenge with bold, creative resolve. The Green New Deal is not a new initiative. It has needed new faces and new energy to propel it beyond the old, corrupt guard that would stand in its way. Welcome to the State of the Union. Welcome to the new world. I know it is shocking to witness a Congress that intends to both lead and legislate. I know those shiny new, not all white faces, that now populate the House are a fundamental threat to the powerful elite represented by the Senate. I understand that their ideas about fairness, equality, compassion, eliminating poverty, caring for people with medical needs, engaging the rest of the world in an effort to avert our extinction, and education for all is more important to them than purchasing a few more new aircraft carriers or squadrons of half billion dollar airplanes. If you have a problem with this approach to government, then get over it or get used to it. Here's the greatest shock of all, if you can bear to read it: this world belongs to the youth, who will inhabit it among the filth and chaos we older people have left it in. They will do what they can to fix our world, and they will die trying. They will call for radical change in every sector of our human activity because radical change is what is necessary for their survival. That means a world government will be formed, the needs of our planet will supersede all other considerations, what we now think of as individualistic rights to consume and plunder will be eliminated, spirituality will be expressed differently, religion will be radically altered, the immorality of the super rich owning more than they need will be corrected, wealth will be redistributed, and the quality of life will not be measured in GDP. It you have a problem with this view of the world to come, then you will suffer in the future. Your SUV will be crushed, along with your ego. If you are okay with this future, vote it into existence. Encourage the rebirth of true democracy in America. Call it whatever you like... socialism, globalism, elimination of racism, elimination of capitalism... even the destruction of "isms". However you feel, it's on the way. There is not a damned thing you can do to stop it. Embrace the change or step off the planet.  Click on the picture to link to the Huffington Post article or click here.
• GOP Congressman Spent His Week Harassing Muslim Colleague on Twitter
• Police Sergeant to Precinct: If a Homeless Person is Black, Just Shoot Them • 2 Years Later, Trump’s Muslim Ban is Still Keeping Families Apart • Ocasio-Cortez Flooded With Bigoted Calls • Virginia House Democrats Call for Gov. Ralph Northam’s Resignation (for black face photo) • The Covington Teens’ Racist “Tomahawk Chop” Is The Product Of Native Mascotry • Don Lemon Shreds Ralph Northam’s Disgusting Racism: ‘It Deeply Hurt’ Me • RNC Gets Roasted Over “Tone Deaf” Black History Month Tweet These headlines say a lot about our nation. We need to pay attention to the issues of race and bigotry that are becoming more - not less - prevalent as we struggle with white supremacy, white fragility, and white rage. We fought a civil war over these issues once before but we have never overcome them. Our government has never apologized for its role in the practices of genocide and slavery upon which our nation was built. Racist language is still present in the DNA of our Constitution, and has not been expunged or repudiated. I believe the United States needs to institute a national “Truth and Reconciliation” commission based on the South African model that addressed their apartheid era. God knows we could use such a process to help our nation transition from our myth of a white european ethos of the past to a superior one based on vibrant ethnic and racial diversity for the future. |
