Michael Stipe Reminds Us That We Are In This Together!

Underneath the bunker. We are going to get through it. pic.twitter.com/y65bsL7MsD

— R.E.M. HQ (@remhq) March 21, 2020

Don't Forget to Show Love!

by Gregg Chadwick

4-year-old superhero using his power to feed the homeless

I am incredibly inspired by the compassion illustrated by Austin Perine from Birmingham, Alabama. CBS Sunday Morning featured the video embedded in the tweet below and it really touched my heart. Take a minute to watch and if you are inspired please click on the link below to support this young hero! 

the world doesn't deserve this kid pic.twitter.com/2KPi843yA6

— Oliver Willis (@owillis) May 5, 2018

Link to Show Love and Fight Hunger GoFundMe page: 

https://www.gofundme.com/show-love-fight-hunger?pc=tw_dn_cpgnsharemore_r&rcid=r01-152566420867-89057fc9c67d44fe

Jackson Browne - The Dreamer (Featuring Los Cenzontles)

A Compassionate Lens: Art Through the Eyes of Gregg Chadwick

I enjoyed this chat with Stephanie Case. Recorded in my studio, it provides a hint of the theme of compassion that runs through my artwork.  - Thanks for listening.

Love Songs to the City

by Gregg Chadwick


Turn the nightly news on today, or scan the latest headlines on your iPhone, and it would seem that the world grows uglier each day. Eleven years ago, I wrote about my search for images of peace. I hearken back to those thoughts prompted by a memory of a time in Perth, Australia reading an art review concerning an exhibition about non-violence. The title of the review was "How do you paint peace?" Prompted by these ongoing concerns, I have been creating a new series of paintings using ideas of New Urbanism - Los Angeles in particular with peace as a subtext. What the amazing writer, actor, and teacher Claudette Sutherland, in my studio yesterday evening, called "Love Songs to the City." 

Gregg Chadwick
Third L.A. (for Christopher Hawthorne)
30"x24" oil on linen 2015

Three books published in the last few years should be on every peacemaker's bookshelf: Steven Pinker's The Better Angels of Our Nature, Michael Shermer's The Moral Arc, 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 getting worse and that humanity is generally good. 

Gregg Chadwick
Thursday's Child
8"x6" oil on panel 2015

 Pinker's book successfully argues that the past was a much more brutal time. “The decline of violence may be the most significant and least appreciated development in the history of our species,” Pinker writes. As Elizabeth Kolbert notes in The New Yorker,"Another key development in Pinker’s narrative is the rise of cities, which in turn demanded stricter codes of conduct." This thought in Pinker's work connects to my painterly exploration of our new era in Los Angeles.  As the architecture writer for the Los Angeles Times explains - there have been three distinct iterations of modern L.A.:

"The First Los Angeles, stretching roughly from the city’s first population boom in the 1880s through 1940, a city growing at an exponential pace built a major transit network and innovative civic architecture.
In the Second Los Angeles, covering the period from 1940 to the turn of the millennium, we pursued a hugely ambitious experiment in building suburbia –- a privatized, car-dominated landscape –- at a metropolitan scale.
Now we are on the cusp of a new era. In a series of six public events, some on the Occidental College campus and others elsewhere, the Third Los Angeles Project will explore and explain this new city. "

 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.

Again I ask you: 
How would you paint peace? 

How would you create the idea of peace in your music? In your writing? In your life?

Compassion at Categorically Not on December 7, 2014

Gregg Chadwick, KC Cole, and Amy Parish on the radio promoting the reboot of Categorically Not

I had the wonderful opportunity last Friday to be on the radio with the esteemed Bonobo expert Amy Parish, and the marvelous science writer KC Cole  as we discussed Compassion and what it means in art, biology and physics. 

The three of us will be giving presentations at the reboot of Categorically Not  at the Santa Monica Art Studios on December 7th 2014 at 6 pm. 

Should be a fantastic evening.

RSVP and other information below. Feel free to share with friends.

Compassion

What could be more important these days than understanding compassion: How it works and when it fails, how to persuade people that being tuned to the needs of others is actually in everyone’s personal self-interest? Despite the reputation compassion has for seeming “softhearted,” its benefits are based on well-studied mathematics and neuroscience, as well as evolutionary biology. Society can’t survive without a sense of fairness. And a sense of empathy informs all great art.

For our December 7th program, Categorically Not! founder KC Cole will explain how math proves the golden rule, simple ways to think about sharing and fairness, what neuroscientists have to tell us about empathy—and how the ability to feel compassion may actually atrophy in powerful people who have no real need for it. She’ll explain the physics behind one of Frank Oppenheimer’s favorite sayings: “The worst thing a son-of-a-bitch can do is turn you into a son-of-a-bitch,” and show how sometimes hidden symmetries are the keys to mysteries of physics as well as matters of the heart.

Can apes apologize? Can monkeys mourn their dead? Darwinian feminist and biological anthropologist Amy Parish, a world expert on our closest living relatives—bonobos—will take us into the lives of (other) primates and explore how empathy and fairness work in monkeys and apes. She’ll show some striking examples, including the classic case of when a cucumber is enough—until someone else gets a grape. She’ll navigate the nature/nurture divide, addressing contentious topics like morality, shame, ethics—the roots of our capacity to show compassion. We may even get a chance to watch monkeys act as midwives.

Finally, we are delighted to have back Santa Monica Art Studios own Gregg Chadwick, whose paintings explore the hum of humanity with deep compassion for life across the globe. Gregg has exhibited his artworks in galleries and museums both nationally and internationally and he lectures on the arts worldwide—from Amsterdam to Esalen and UCLA. His blog, Speed of Life, was recently honored by Carnegie Hall as one of the Top 16 Art Blogs in the country: Gregg paints in an old airplane hangar—the home of Categorically Not!

RSVP to 310-397-7449 or evelina@santamonicaartstudios.com

We ask for a minimum $5 donation to cover expenses.

"We Were Strangers Once, Too": President Obama Lays a New Path on Immigration (Full Transcript)

"Scripture tells us that we shall not oppress a stranger, for we know the heart of a stranger -- we were strangers once, too. My fellow Americans, we are and always will be a nation of immigrants. We were strangers once, too."

-- President Obama, November 20, 2014

Remarks of President Barack Obama

Address to the Nation on Immigration
The White House
November 20, 2014
As Prepared for Delivery –

My fellow Americans, tonight, I’d like to talk with you about immigration.

For more than 200 years, our tradition of welcoming immigrants from around the world has given us a tremendous advantage over other nations. It’s kept us youthful, dynamic, and entrepreneurial. It has shaped our character as a people with limitless possibilities – people not trapped by our past, but able to remake ourselves as we choose.

But today, our immigration system is broken, and everybody knows it.

Families who enter our country the right way and play by the rules watch others flout the rules. Business owners who offer their workers good wages and benefits see the competition exploit undocumented immigrants by paying them far less. All of us take offense to anyone who reaps the rewards of living in America without taking on the responsibilities of living in America. And undocumented immigrants who desperately want to embrace those responsibilities see little option but to remain in the shadows, or risk their families being torn apart.

It’s been this way for decades. And for decades, we haven’t done much about it.

When I took office, I committed to fixing this broken immigration system. And I began by doing what I could to secure our borders. Today, we have more agents and technology deployed to secure our southern border than at any time in our history. And over the past six years, illegal border crossings have been cut by more than half. Although, this summer there was a brief spike in unaccompanied children being apprehended at our border, the number of such children is now actually lower than it’s been in nearly two years. Overall, the number of people trying to cross our border illegally is at its lowest level since the 1970s. Those are the facts.

Meanwhile, I worked with Congress on a comprehensive fix, and last year, 68 Democrats, Republicans, and Independents came together to pass a bipartisan bill in the Senate. It wasn’t perfect. It was a compromise, but it reflected common sense. It would have doubled the number of border patrol agents, while giving undocumented immigrants a pathway to citizenship if they paid a fine, started paying their taxes, and went to the back of the line. And independent experts said that it would help grow our economy and shrink our deficits.

Had the House of Representatives allowed that kind of a bill a simple yes-or-no vote, it would have passed with support from both parties, and today it would be the law. But for a year and a half now, Republican leaders in the House have refused to allow that simple vote.

Now, I continue to believe that the best way to solve this problem is by working together to pass that kind of common sense law. But until that happens, there are actions I have the legal authority to take as President – the same kinds of actions taken by Democratic and Republican Presidents before me – that will help make our immigration system more fair and more just.

Tonight, I am announcing those actions.

First, we’ll build on our progress at the border with additional resources for our law enforcement personnel so that they can stem the flow of illegal crossings, and speed the return of those who do cross over.

Second, I will make it easier and faster for high-skilled immigrants, graduates, and entrepreneurs to stay and contribute to our economy, as so many business leaders have proposed.

Third, we’ll take steps to deal responsibly with the millions of undocumented immigrants who already live in our country.

I want to say more about this third issue, because it generates the most passion and controversy. Even as we are a nation of immigrants, we are also a nation of laws. Undocumented workers broke our immigration laws, and I believe that they must be held accountable – especially those who may be dangerous. That’s why, over the past six years, deportations of criminals are up 80 percent. And that’s why we’re going to keep focusing enforcement resources on actual threats to our security. Felons, not families. Criminals, not children. Gang members, not a mother who’s working hard to provide for her kids. We’ll prioritize, just like law enforcement does every day.

But even as we focus on deporting criminals, the fact is, millions of immigrants – in every state, of every race and nationality – will still live here illegally. And let’s be honest – tracking down, rounding up, and deporting millions of people isn’t realistic. Anyone who suggests otherwise isn’t being straight with you. It’s also not who we are as Americans. After all, most of these immigrants have been here a long time. They work hard, often in tough, low-paying jobs. They support their families. They worship at our churches. Many of their kids are American-born or spent most of their lives here, and their hopes, dreams, and patriotism are just like ours.

As my predecessor, President Bush, once put it: “They are a part of American life.”

Now here’s the thing: we expect people who live in this country to play by the rules. We expect that those who cut the line will not be unfairly rewarded. So we’re going to offer the following deal: If you’ve been in America for more than five years; if you have children who are American citizens or legal residents; if you register, pass a criminal background check, and you’re willing to pay your fair share of taxes – you’ll be able to apply to stay in this country temporarily, without fear of deportation. You can come out of the shadows and get right with the law.

That’s what this deal is. Now let’s be clear about what it isn’t. This deal does not apply to anyone who has come to this country recently. It does not apply to anyone who might come to America illegally in the future. It does not grant citizenship, or the right to stay here permanently, or offer the same benefits that citizens receive – only Congress can do that. All we’re saying is we’re not going to deport you.

I know some of the critics of this action call it amnesty. Well, it’s not. Amnesty is the immigration system we have today – millions of people who live here without paying their taxes or playing by the rules, while politicians use the issue to scare people and whip up votes at election time.

That’s the real amnesty – leaving this broken system the way it is. Mass amnesty would be unfair. Mass deportation would be both impossible and contrary to our character. What I’m describing is accountability – a commonsense, middle ground approach: If you meet the criteria, you can come out of the shadows and get right with the law. If you’re a criminal, you’ll be deported. If you plan to enter the U.S. illegally, your chances of getting caught and sent back just went up.

The actions I’m taking are not only lawful, they’re the kinds of actions taken by every single Republican President and every single Democratic President for the past half century. And to those Members of Congress who question my authority to make our immigration system work better, or question the wisdom of me acting where Congress has failed, I have one answer: Pass a bill. I want to work with both parties to pass a more permanent legislative solution. And the day I sign that bill into law, the actions I take will no longer be necessary. Meanwhile, don’t let a disagreement over a single issue be a dealbreaker on every issue. That’s not how our democracy works, and Congress certainly shouldn’t shut down our government again just because we disagree on this. Americans are tired of gridlock. What our country needs from us right now is a common purpose – a higher purpose.

Most Americans support the types of reforms I’ve talked about tonight. But I understand the disagreements held by many of you at home. Millions of us, myself included, go back generations in this country, with ancestors who put in the painstaking work to become citizens. So we don’t like the notion that anyone might get a free pass to American citizenship. I know that some worry immigration will change the very fabric of who we are, or take our jobs, or stick it to middle-class families at a time when they already feel like they’ve gotten the raw end of the deal for over a decade. I hear these concerns. But that’s not what these steps would do. Our history and the facts show that immigrants are a net plus for our economy and our society. And I believe it’s important that all of us have this debate without impugning each other’s character.

Because for all the back-and-forth of Washington, we have to remember that this debate is about something bigger. It’s about who we are as a country, and who we want to be for future generations.

Are we a nation that tolerates the hypocrisy of a system where workers who pick our fruit and make our beds never have a chance to get right with the law? Or are we a nation that gives them a chance to make amends, take responsibility, and give their kids a better future?

Are we a nation that accepts the cruelty of ripping children from their parents’ arms? Or are we a nation that values families, and works to keep them together?

Are we a nation that educates the world’s best and brightest in our universities, only to send them home to create businesses in countries that compete against us? Or are we a nation that encourages them to stay and create jobs, businesses, and industries right here in America?

That’s what this debate is all about. We need more than politics as usual when it comes to immigration; we need reasoned, thoughtful, compassionate debate that focuses on our hopes, not our fears.

I know the politics of this issue are tough. But let me tell you why I have come to feel so strongly about it. Over the past few years, I have seen the determination of immigrant fathers who worked two or three jobs, without taking a dime from the government, and at risk at any moment of losing it all, just to build a better life for their kids. I’ve seen the heartbreak and anxiety of children whose mothers might be taken away from them just because they didn’t have the right papers. I’ve seen the courage of students who, except for the circumstances of their birth, are as American as Malia or Sasha; students who bravely come out as undocumented in hopes they could make a difference in a country they love. These people – our neighbors, our classmates, our friends – they did not come here in search of a free ride or an easy life. They came to work, and study, and serve in our military, and above all, contribute to America’s success.

Tomorrow, I’ll travel to Las Vegas and meet with some of these students, including a young woman named Astrid Silva. Astrid was brought to America when she was four years old. Her only possessions were a cross, her doll, and the frilly dress she had on. When she started school, she didn’t speak any English. She caught up to the other kids by reading newspapers and watching PBS, and became a good student. Her father worked in landscaping. Her mother cleaned other people’s homes. They wouldn’t let Astrid apply to a technology magnet school for fear the paperwork would out her as an undocumented immigrant – so she applied behind their back and got in. Still, she mostly lived in the shadows – until her grandmother, who visited every year from Mexico, passed away, and she couldn’t travel to the funeral without risk of being found out and deported. It was around that time she decided to begin advocating for herself and others like her, and today, Astrid Silva is a college student working on her third degree.

Are we a nation that kicks out a striving, hopeful immigrant like Astrid – or are we a nation that finds a way to welcome her in?

Scripture tells us that we shall not oppress a stranger, for we know the heart of a stranger – we were strangers once, too.

My fellow Americans, we are and always will be a nation of immigrants. We were strangers once, too. And whether our forebears were strangers who crossed the Atlantic, or the Pacific, or the Rio Grande, we are here only because this country welcomed them in, and taught them that to be an American is about something more than what we look like, or what our last names are, or how we worship. What makes us Americans is our shared commitment to an ideal – that all of us are created equal, and all of us have the chance to make of our lives what we will.

That’s the country our parents and grandparents and generations before them built for us. That’s the tradition we must uphold. That’s the legacy we must leave for those who are yet to come.

Thank you, God bless you, and God bless this country we love.

Our immigration system has been broken for decades. That's why President Obama announced new steps tonight to address as much of the problem as he can using his executive authority, and why he'll continue to work with Congress to pass comprehensive reform.

Find out more about President Obama's plan -- then pass it on.

Live Video of the Dalai Lama at San Diego State

Watch live streaming video from hhdl at livestream.com

Live Video of the Dalai Lama at San Diego State
Compassion Without Borders

 **APRIL 19TH, 9:30-11:30am, San Diego State University. --Upholding Universal Ethics & Compassion in Challenging Times.-- To access the webstream, please visit <http://sdsu.edu/> on the day and time of this event.

**APRIL 19TH, 1:30-3:30pm, University of San Diego. --Cultivating Peace & Justice.-- H.H. Dalai Lama s talk will be streamed online at <http://www.sandiego.edu/dalailama/media/> at 1:30pm on April 19th.