Drum beats . . .
In Freya's mailbox this rainy 24th 2023 March morning . . .
The worst oil spill in U.S. history — until the Deepwater Horizon incident in 2010 — occurred 34 years ago today in 1989. The Exxon Valdez oil slick covered 1,300 miles of coastline and killed hundreds of thousands marine life. Nearly 30 years later, pockets of crude oil remain in some locations.
Today is the 104th anniversary of the birth of Lawrence Ferlinghetti. The poet and painter was born on this day in 1919 Bronxville, New York. He created “City Lights” bookstore in San Francisco and was a champion of the “beat” generation. He became a pacifist after touring Nagasaki following its destruction by the atomic bomb.
Yesterday in 1942 the U.S. government began moving Japanese-Americans from their West Coast homes to internment camps. Between 110,000 and 120,000 people were forcibly relocated. The camps remained open until 1945. Some Japanese-American men were drafted into the War even as their families remained incarcerated. Another chapter in the “Greatest Generation” story usually not even footnoted.
Also, yesterday, in 1959, Chinese military killed thousands in Lhasa. Following The Dalai Lama's departure one week earlier, thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of Tibetans — men, women, and children — were killed on-site by Chinese military. Monasteries were destroyed, and the Dalai Lama’s remaining guards were executed. Many who remained followed the Dalai Lama to India, where he has since established a government-in-exile in the Himalayan mountains.
“I discovered that it is necessary, absolutely necessary, to believe in nothing. That is, we have to believe in something which has no form and no color--something which exists before all forms and colors appear... No matter what god or doctrine you believe in, if you become attached to it, your belief will be based more or less on a self-centered idea. . . .Whereever you are, you are one with the clouds and one with the sun and the stars you see. You are one with everything. That is more true than I can say, and more true than you can hear. . . .In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few. — Shunryu Suzuki