Another preview of art from Therefore Repent!

More here

I tend not to get into politics so often here on this blog, but on the 1st day of a tentative cease fire between Israel and Hizbolla, I thought I’d share some discussion on the subject I’ve had lately.

I’ve been following whats going on - as I always do - over there.

I was first made aware of the relationship between Israel and it’s neighbours when I was a kid, and my relatives kept telling me I should go over and get my citizenship. As the child of Jews, regardless of my own religious leanings, or lack there of, I was entitled until very recently to claim citizenship in Israel anytime I wanted I was told. Of course this would also mean I’d have to be willing to serve in the army if I lived there.

I asked if they were fighting anyone…..

Since then I have followed closely what my distant relatives have been doing, and how they act, and react towards their neighbours.

I never did go claim citizenship. I don’t know, maybe I should have, I could then make a direct bid from within to change the way things are done there. But in the end I could never bring myself to actually join, seek membership in a country that I feel is so deeply in the wrong in the way It deals with it’s problems.

With that in mind, as context – I came across this photo and thread at Flickr, a shot of a protest sign by Gail Orenstein. That led me to post a comment, and one thing led to another…

As a result of some of my comments, I was made aware by John Gault of this article on the guardian web site by George Monbiot, posted Aug 8.

So, not so unprovoked it seems, not that it’s a surprise. I suspected as much to be honest, nothing happens in a vacuum, for no reason.

There are always reasons, explanations for why things happen. They may not be apparent to you, but that’s likely because you lack information. Or you’re simply in denial.

New Illo gig for kitchen sink magazine

Nicole Neditch: creative manager

title: I Feel Your Pain

subtitle: Just Tell Me When It's Over

by Sam Hurwitt

"I love movies more than the next guy -- I mean, I'd better, editing this section and all -- but I have to confess I'm a total lightweight. I'm far too squeamish. More and more I find that there are scenes in movies that I just can't watch. --- No, what makes me hide my eyes and grope wildly for the pause button isn't death and dismemberment as assorted maiming -- I'm long since inured to that. What I can't stand is seeing someone embarrass herself."



www.kitchensinkmag.com

I've been.
I came to do so
as a result of deciding a few weeks back
to start spending my spare energies
researching an old heartfelt topic
with an eye towards near future actions.

I've been reading papers on the topic of Global warming, Geoengineering, ties between temperature and human behavior, and brushing up on the Ice caps.

Came across this map of my neck of the woods, as well as the rest of the world by Dave Pape.

Printing the slightly altered one above out for my wall, so I can ponder where I'm likely to move in the next 10 years.

No, it's not supposed to happen that fast, at least not quite, but that's my point.

Imagine the populations for all the people who now live where this map shows water, on the move over a 10 to 20 year period, starting with when the waters of Iceland or Antarctica melt.

If your one of those who recently saw An Inconvenient Truth you might remember Gore's nicely phrased line, where he reminds us of what hundreds of thousands looks like, as war and natural catastrophes have given us plentiful examples of.

And then asks that we imagine 5 or more billion.

I've thought about this before, and I’ve always thought it's probably not a bad idea to plan ahead for this contingency.

Maybe have made the move before it's necessary, just in case....?

Montreal is gone. Toronto looks like it's mostly gone too, and on an inland sea. I Always did like guelph....

Bit different from my usual talk of doodles and comics stuff eh?

No, this possibly new seeming line of subject for me was not brought on by Al Gore's new film, but yes you should see it, and yes you do need to take him completely seriously and watch knowing he's giving you the soft pedaled version of things. And no, it's not to late to do something about it.

But no, no I've been preoccupied for a long time by the subject. And a few weeks ago, talking about how I felt about what Gore was doing with his influence these days, an old friend said I should do something about it.

I agreed in the end.

Or rather I began to contemplate the fact that I had no choice but to do so one way or another in the very near future, and I rather it not only be running for high ground when the sea comes.

I hope we can avoid the worst outcome of Global Warming, I really do.
I'm not a fatalist.

I have been a not so in the closet at all environmentalist ever since my first conscious awareness of what the stakes were, at about 6 or so when I read a copy or more of the Whole Earth Catalog, I'd already gone on marches with my parents, but a summery of the Gaia hypothesis and a number of other articles drove it home in the end.

I thought about being a lot of things as a kid, a Astronaut of course, and a Cop or a PI like I saw on TV.

Later more illuminated, I thought an engineer might be fun, & aeronautics were a major draw for me.

But in school I was lead to believe such things were to be beyond me by supposedly well meaning guidance councilors.

I knew Arts, as my mother was a working artist and my father a hobbyist photographer, ranter and writer.

So Arts became my main focus.

But all along, I kept coming back to the thought that I should do something to help save this planet.

So when I was 18 I got a job at Green Peace thinking this might be the higher calling for me.

Long story cut short, in 88/89' Green Peace, in Toronto at least, was internally a feudsum and ineffectual mess. A story for another post perhaps, but the thing I came away from the yearlong experience with the most was a strong distaste for the so-called activists I had met.

In hindsight I made the youthful mistake of associating my feelings about activism with my reaction to the work environment and turned my back on that for a while. A week bit of a pattern that was to turn out to be.

Saving planets was always on my mind though, and it's quite likely that had something to do with my drawing comics, even if superheroes weren't my bag exactly.

But one can escape from reality, I never was under the impression I could. Maybe just put it off for a few years. But I never let myself forget that this was happening. I rant about it to friends, and strangers at cafe's.

For a long time one of the Facts of global warming I have come to see as possibly already too late to avoid - so long as the last 30 years of ineffectual action on the issue is indicative of the future - is the ice cap melting and sea level rise.

You should know, it's very likely to happen at this point. If we're lucky we'll mange to not melt Greenland. But it's already started, and so have the Antarctic ice sheets.

Those that saw Gore's film take note; he only talks about what would happen if on or the other melts - causing a sea's to raise 20 ft. But if one does, it's almost cretin the other will too, and not just the shelf he shows us, the one equal to Greenland, but the rest of it too.

The world will be a very different place.
What are you going to do about it?

The survivalist in me is looking at this map, and thinking about why the dry land will be.

The Activist is wondering what I'm going to do to stop it.

I intend to spend some time talking about this and all the rest soon, perhaps on a new dedicated blog.

My thinking is that I've been perusing the art thing pretty much exclusively for good long while now, it's high time I dusted off the activist hat in Ernest. Not retiring from art or anything so melodramatic. Art is still what I do best. But there's a lot of room for art in action, thinking and doing something about consequences.