Harriet Tubman's lifelong commitment to human rights exemplifies what it means to be a nurse. ❤️
— Bonnie Castillo (@NNUBonnie) August 2, 2020
Because #nurses vow to advocate for our patients, we know that it is literally our JOB to fight for a world that values their health and safety. pic.twitter.com/0uW9vrS5cw
Showing posts with label "#Black Lives Matter". Show all posts
Showing posts with label "#Black Lives Matter". Show all posts
Sunday, August 02, 2020
Harriet Tubman was a Nurse
Sunday, July 26, 2020
Heraclitus Weeps!
Philosopher Heraclitus, weeping at the state of the world. Know just how he feels! Painted in 1609 (though totally relevant today) by Abraham Janssens, whose day is today. pic.twitter.com/J3u6yBblZH
— Peter Paul Rubens (@PP_Rubens) July 26, 2020
Saturday, December 31, 2016
Happy New Year 2017 and Some of the Best Things that Happened in 2016
by Gregg Chadwick
Happy New Year 2017!
It’s raining this New Year’s Eve in Santa Monica. The haunting voice of Gil Scott-Heron singing Winter In America fills our living room. My thoughts trace a circuit from this moment back to an earlier New Year in Japan as 1989 rolled into 1990. I was in Tokyo following the spirit and artworks of Ando Hiroshige. That winter in Japan, I clutched a large volume by Henry D. Smith II and Amy G. Poster on Hiroshige’s One Hundred Famous Views of Edo and trekked on rail, foot and car across the historic core of what was Edo era Tokyo. Sponsored by the Nippon Seiyu-Kai's 30th Anniversary Award, I endeavored to create a series of new paintings inspired by Hiroshige’s woodcuts. Time, place, memory, mystery and lore all mixed in my artworks.
Gregg Chadwick
Passing View of Shohei Bridge
30"x24" oil on linen 1990
Today, on the Brooklyn museum’s Tumblr page, Alison Baldassano posted a photo of one of the most mysterious images from Hiroshige's One Hundred Famous Views of Edo. She wrote,"People aren’t the only beings who gather together for special celebrations on the night before a new year dawns. In this woodblock print by Hiroshige, foxes come together on New Year’s Eve to receive directions for the upcoming year and emit ghostly flames, the size of which helps predict the next year’s crop…. And, as the foxes could say in the morning, 明けましておめでとうございます (akemashite omedetou gozaimasu) or Happy New Year!"
Utagawa Hiroshige (Ando) (Japanese, 1797-1858)
New Year’s Eve Foxfires at the Changing Tree, Oji
( No. 118 from One Hundred Famous Views of Edo)
9th month of 1857 Woodblock print
Brooklyn Museum
And some of the best things that happened in 2016!
(Please scroll to the end for all 51)
Thinking about the past year and inspired by a series of tweets by Canadian Astronaut Commander Hadfield, who is back on Earth after living aboard ISS as Commander of Expedition 35 , I have put together a list of positive achievements from 2016. Yes, it has been a difficult year with the Trumpian circus and the deaths of far too many in Aleppo, Iraq, Turkey, Nice, and Berlin. Not to mention, the untimely passing of artists from David Bowie, to Prince, to Carrie Fisher and so many more.
1. It’s easy to forget that this year saw a great many positive accomplishments. Let’s take a look:
2. The Colombian government and FARC rebels committed to a lasting peace, ending a war that killed or displaced over 7 million people.
3. Sri Lanka spent five years working to exile the world’s deadliest disease from their borders. As of 2016, they are malaria free.
4. The Giant Panda, arguably the world’s cutest panda, has officially been removed from the endangered species list.
5. @astro_timpeake became the first ESA astronaut from the UK, symbolizing a renewed British commitment to space exploration.
6. Tiger numbers around the world are on the rise for the first time in 100 years, with plans to double by 2022.
7. Juno, a piece of future history, successfully flew over 588 million miles and is now sending back unprecedented data from Jupiter.
8. The number of veterans in the US who are homeless has halved in the past half-decade, with a nearly 20% drop in 2016.
Thank you Michelle Obama and so many more!
Army Sgt. 1st Class Nicole Howell, 8th Theater Sustainment Command public affairs operations noncommissioned officer, talks with a homeless veteran ahead of the annual Veterans Stand-Down in Honolulu, Aug. 5, 2015.
The stand-down was part of the Mayors Challenge to End Veteran Homelessness initiative announced by First Lady Michelle Obama as a way to challenge the mayors in major cities to provide services and supplies to homeless veterans such as food, shelter, clothing, medical, dental and benefits counseling with the hope of getting them off the streets. Courtesy photo
9. Malawi lowered its HIV rate by 67%, and in the past decade have seen a shift in public health that has saved over 250,000 lives.
10. Air travel continue to get safer, and 2016 saw the second fewest per capita deaths in aviation of any year on record.
11. India’s dogged commitment to reforestation saw a single day event planting more than 50 million trees, a world record.
Hundreds of thousands of people in India's most populous state Uttar Pradesh planted 50 million trees in 24 hours.
(AP Photo/Rajesh Kumar Singh)
12. Measles has been eradicated from the Americas. A 22 year vaccination campaign has led to the elimination of the historic virus.
13. After a century, Einstein’s theory of gravitational waves has been found verifiable, in a ‘moon shot’ scientific achievement.
14. China has announced a firm date for the end of the ivory trade, as public opinion is becoming more staunchly environmentalist.
15. A solar powered airplane flew across the Pacific Ocean for the first time, highlighting a new era of energy possibilities.
16. Costa Rica’s entire electrical grid ran on renewable energy for over half the year, and their capacity continues to grow.
17. Israeli and US researchers believe they are on the brink of being able to cure radiation sickness, after successful tests this year.
18. The ozone layer has shown that through tackling a problem head on, the world can stem environmental disasters, together.
19. A new treatment for melanoma has seen a 40% survival rate, taking a huge step forward towards long-term cancer survivability.
20. An Ebola vaccine was developed by Canadian researchers with 100% efficacy. Humans eradicated horror, together.
21. British Columbia protected 85% of the world’s largest temperate rainforest, in a landmark environmental agreement.
Spirit bears are the best known part of the unique flora and fauna of the Great Bear Rainforest that will be protected under an agreement finalized in B.C.
Spirit bears, also known as Kermode bears, are black bears with a unique genetic variation that gives them their cream-coloured fur. (Photo by Ian McAllister)
22. 2016 saw the designation of more than 40 new marine sanctuaries in 20 countries, covering an area larger than the United States.
23. These marine reserves include Malaysia’s 13 year struggle to complete a million hectare park, completed this year.
24. This also includes the largest marine reserve in history, created in Antarctica via an unprecedented agreement by 24 nations.
25. Atmospheric acid pollution, once a gloomy reality, has been tackled to the point of being almost back to pre-industrial levels.
26. Major diseases are in decline. The US saw a 50% mortality drop in colon cancer; lower heart disease, osteoporosis and dementia.
27. Uruguay won a major case against Philip Morris in a World Bank ruling, setting a precedent for other small countries that want to deter tobacco use.
28. World hunger has reached its lowest point in 25 years, and with poverty levels dropping worldwide, seems likely to continue.
29. The A.U. made strides to become more unified, launching an all-Africa passport meant to allow for visa-free travel for all citizens.
30. Fossil fuel emissions flatlined in 2016, with the Paris agreement becoming the fastest UN treaty to become international law.
31. One third of Dutch prison cells are empty as the crime rate shrank by more than 25% in the last eight years, continuing to drop.
32. Homelessness in the United States declined by 35% since 2007, and Los Angeles committed to $1.2 billion to help get more people off the street. Amanda Hoover in the Christian Science Monitor writes,"The decreases nationwide, especially those involving chronic homelessness, come in part thanks to a push for permanent housing options rather than temporary placements that are no longer seen as a good path to getting people 'back on their feet.' Communities, such as Boston, that have explored supportive, long-term options have seen more of their vulnerable citizens thrive, and some say an expansion of that plan could eradicate the issue of homelessness entirely."
33. @BoyanSlat successfully tested his Ocean Cleanup prototype, and aims to clean up to 40% of ocean-borne plastics starting this year.
34. Israel now produces 55% of its freshwater, turning what is one of the driest countries on earth into an agricultural heartland.
35. The Italian government made it harder to waste food, creating laws that provided impetus to collect, share and donate excess meals.
36. People pouring ice on their head amusingly provided the ALS foundation with enough funding to isolate a genetic cause of the disease in 2016.
37. Manatees, arguably the most enjoyable animal to meet when swimming, are increasing their population.
38. The United States now feeds healthy lunches to more than 30 million children, is about to ban trans fats, and has enacted one of the biggest overhauls of nutrition labels in decades.
http://www.vox.com/2016/10/3/12866484/michelle-obama-childhood-obesity-lets-move Thank You Michelle Obama!
39. Canadian PM Justin Trudeau announces ban on transgender discrimination
40. In December, Gambia became the latest African country to show that voting does count, and dictators do fall.
41. The Gates Foundation announced another 5 billion dollars towards eradicating poverty and disease in Africa.
42. Individual Canadians were so welcoming that the country set a world standard for how to privately sponsor and resettle refugees.
43. Teenage birth rates in the United States have never been lower, while at the same time graduation rates have never been higher.
44. In 2012, the US and Mexico embarked on an unprecedented binational project to revive the Colorado River. By 2016, the results had astonished everyone.
45. SpaceX made history by landing a rocket upright after returning from space, potentially opening a new era of space exploration.
46. Black incarceration rates fell in the United States. Not fast enough, but certainly something worth celebrating.
47. The proportion of older US adults with dementia, including Alzheimer’s, declined from 11.6% in 2000 to 8.8% in 2012, a decrease of about a million people.
48. Mobile phones made significant inroads in the fight against rabies, a disease that kills more people annually than all terrorists combined.
49. In November, the Obama administration followed up its March announcements by banning offshore exploration and drilling for oil and gas in the Arctic until 2022. http://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/5-year-drilling-plan-arctic-waters-obama-231615
50. The World Health Organisation released a report showing that, since the year 2000, global malaria deaths have declined by 60%.
51. Katherine Johnson, 98, was able to see her life's work as a mathematician realized, recognized, and appreciated. #STEMwomen
There are countless more examples, large and small. If we refocus on the things that are working, our new year will be better than the last.
Thinking of all of you this holiday season!
We remain hopeful in this dark moment and send healing thoughts your way.
Thank you for your love and support!
Gregg
This is an update from an earlier letter. I will be sending these out as the situation develops.
It is my goal in these updates to point out the injustice our country faces and actions we can take to find peace and overcome this tide of hate coming from DJT supporters and DJT ideas and policies.
I have posted the content of my first letter without personal details on my blog Speed of Life -
Sunday, July 17, 2016
Thinking About Peace and Painting With Melissa Pickford
by Gregg Chadwick
Just spent a rich afternoon in my studio with Monterey Peninsula College Art Gallery Director Melissa Pickford. Her father Rollin Pickford was an accomplished painter of the California scene and she is an accomplished curator and artist as well. We caught up on our lives, and talked about art, and memory, and time, and we also discussed the recent violent acts across the globe. Writer Anne Lamott on her Facebook page writes, "And then in recent weeks, Orlando, police shooting innocent people, and innocent police officers being shot, and now Nice. How on Earth do we respond, when we are stunned and scared and overwhelmed, to the point of almost disbelieving?" This morning as I scan the reports trickling out from Istanbul about the failed coup in Turkey, a news alert scans across my computer screen informing me of a new shooting of police officers in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. This summer of discontent continues to boil. But Anne Lamott reminds us,"What is true is that the world has always been this way, people have always been this way, grace always bats last, it just does--"
As we consider recent events, three books published in the last few years should be on every peacemaker's bookshelf: Steven Pinker's The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined
, Michael Shermer's The Moral Arc: How Science Makes Us Better People
, and the Dalai Lama's Beyond Religion: Ethics for a Whole World
. These three volumes begin with the premise that global violence on an historical timeline is not increasing and that humanity is generally good. As Melissa and I talked about - turn the nightly news on, or scan the latest headlines on your iPhone, and it would seem that the world grows uglier each day. Pinker's book successfully argues that the past was a much more brutal time. Shermer argues that because of the Enlightenment, thinkers consciously applied the methods of science to morally solve social struggles and that again, on an historical timeline, humanity is in the most moral period in history. The Dalai Lama makes it clear in Beyond Religion: Ethics for a Whole World that an individual does not have to be religious to be ethical. Love and compassion are necessities for living. Compassion expresses deep sensitivity to the sufferings of others and a fierce drive to help alleviate those sufferings. Compassion is also the realization that we - human beings, animals, and the earth itself - are all interconnected.
How do we respond to our summer of discontent with compassion? Anne Lamott writes:
We must continue to fight for justice and to celebrate life.
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Under the Gun Film Poster Reflected in Window at Premiere in Beverly Hills, CAMay 3, 2016 photo by Gregg Chadwick |
Just spent a rich afternoon in my studio with Monterey Peninsula College Art Gallery Director Melissa Pickford. Her father Rollin Pickford was an accomplished painter of the California scene and she is an accomplished curator and artist as well. We caught up on our lives, and talked about art, and memory, and time, and we also discussed the recent violent acts across the globe. Writer Anne Lamott on her Facebook page writes, "And then in recent weeks, Orlando, police shooting innocent people, and innocent police officers being shot, and now Nice. How on Earth do we respond, when we are stunned and scared and overwhelmed, to the point of almost disbelieving?" This morning as I scan the reports trickling out from Istanbul about the failed coup in Turkey, a news alert scans across my computer screen informing me of a new shooting of police officers in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. This summer of discontent continues to boil. But Anne Lamott reminds us,"What is true is that the world has always been this way, people have always been this way, grace always bats last, it just does--"
As we consider recent events, three books published in the last few years should be on every peacemaker's bookshelf: Steven Pinker's The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined
, Michael Shermer's The Moral Arc: How Science Makes Us Better People, and the Dalai Lama's Beyond Religion: Ethics for a Whole World. These three volumes begin with the premise that global violence on an historical timeline is not increasing and that humanity is generally good. As Melissa and I talked about - turn the nightly news on, or scan the latest headlines on your iPhone, and it would seem that the world grows uglier each day. Pinker's book successfully argues that the past was a much more brutal time. Shermer argues that because of the Enlightenment, thinkers consciously applied the methods of science to morally solve social struggles and that again, on an historical timeline, humanity is in the most moral period in history. The Dalai Lama makes it clear in Beyond Religion: Ethics for a Whole World that an individual does not have to be religious to be ethical. Love and compassion are necessities for living. Compassion expresses deep sensitivity to the sufferings of others and a fierce drive to help alleviate those sufferings. Compassion is also the realization that we - human beings, animals, and the earth itself - are all interconnected.How do we respond to our summer of discontent with compassion? Anne Lamott writes:
"I know that we MUST respond. We must respond with a show of force equal to the violence and tragedies, with love force. Mercy force. Un-negotiated compassion force. Crazy care-giving to the poor and suffering, including ourselves."And we must continue to paint, to write, to dance, to sing. To value creation over destruction.
We must continue to fight for justice and to celebrate life.
Wednesday, September 23, 2015
Kids Who Die (Ferguson to Baltimore)
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Gregg Chadwick
Kids Who Die (Ferguson to Baltimore)
24”x48” oil on linen 2015
inspired by Langston Hughes and the #BlackLivesMatter movement
|
Kids Who Die
by Langston Hughes
This is for the kids who die,
Black and white,
For kids will die certainly.
The old and rich will live on awhile,
As always,
Eating blood and gold,
Letting kids die.
Kids will die in the swamps of Mississippi
Organizing sharecroppers
Kids will die in the streets of Chicago
Organizing workers
Kids will die in the orange groves of California
Telling others to get together
Whites and Filipinos,
Negroes and Mexicans,
All kinds of kids will die
Who don't believe in lies, and bribes, and contentment
And a lousy peace.
Of course, the wise and the learned
Who pen editorials in the papers,
And the gentlemen with Dr. in front of their names
White and black,
Who make surveys and write books
Will live on weaving words to smother the kids who die,
And the sleazy courts,
And the bribe-reaching police,
And the blood-loving generals,
And the money-loving preachers
Will all raise their hands against the kids who die,
Beating them with laws and clubs and bayonets and bullets
To frighten the people —
For the kids who die are like iron in the blood of the people —
And the old and rich don't want the people
To taste the iron of the kids who die,
Don't want the people to get wise to their own power,
To believe an Angelo Herndon, or even get together
Listen, kids who die —
Maybe, now, there will be no monument for you
Except in our hearts
Maybe your bodies'll be lost in a swamp
Or a prison grave, or the potter's field,
Or the rivers where you're drowned like Leibknecht
But the day will come —
You are sure yourselves that it is coming —
When the marching feet of the masses
Will raise for you a living monument of love,
And joy, and laughter,
And black hands and white hands clasped as one,
And a song that reaches the sky —
The song of the life triumphant
Through the kids who die.
Must Watch Reading of Hughes Poem - Kids Who Die: A Tribute to the Movement (Narrated by Danny Glover)
youtu.be/e5k2pfkXd0c
youtu.be/e5k2pfkXd0c
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