“I recently went to a new doctor and noticed he was located in something called the Professional Building. I felt better right away.”
The controversial, counter-culture comedian authored Brain Droppings, and made millions laugh over his routine: “The Seven Dirty Words that are keeping us from winning the war.”
– George Carlin
Twenty some years ago my wife Lorraine awoke and assured me that I was craving to build an authentic Japanese Teahouse in our back meadow. So I did – and the original thatch has lasted a quarter century. These pictures show the new bundles of thatch I scythed down, hauled up, and tied down onto the roof, with a lot of help from my buddy – Thanks Marvin. Everyone should have a retreat, be it for solitude and/or contemplation with a few close friends.
‘Twas a dizzyingly moveable feast of music. Within barely more than one brief rotation of our terrestrial orb I have had my soul opened to the finest music that we humans and the Divine have to offer.
The morning sun’s lifting over the Osa Peninsula in southern Costa Rica once again orchestrates a fugal flood of God’s most elegant song birds. Our guide Abraham slings his scope and tripod over shoulder, leading Lorraine and me down slender trails through the leafy jungle. Somewhere, amidst this dense ramage, bellbirds cello, pink-legged woodrails trill, tanagers staccato, and the clay-colored thrush lets loose the sweet stab of a call that has won him the honor of Costa Rica’s National bird. Thousands join the chorus – even sun-dappled pairs of macaws lend their raucous cries to this symphonic surge of life.
Compared to Abraham, Lorraine and I cannot find a lion in our living room, but with his tutelage and our binoculars we try to poke our eyes where bodies could not possibly penetrate – to spy the sources of this symphony in the bush. With each bird sighted comes an almost disenchanting ease at their songs. Such magnificent rhapsodies so effortlessly, so spontaneously brought forth – and yet enchanting beyond telling.
Then, suddenly – thanks to the near-magical mechanics of today’s travel, and scores unseen assisting hands – here Lorraine and I sit: a mere tanager’s swoop from virtuoso violinist Joshua Bell and the Academy of St. Martins in the Fields Orchestra performing Paganini’s Violin Concerto No. 1. (After landing at Newark airport, a friend raced us home with enough time to pick up our tickets and arrive back at Newark’s NJ Performing Arts Center for the 8 p.m. curtain.) Poised concentration etched Bell’s face and passion poured through his agile fingers and on into the 1713 Huberman Stradivarius which delivered his mastery. That same awe of the Avian’s morning’s symphony returned. Again, we paused, still, amazed that such beauty was ours for the hearing…reveling in the sounds and letting our souls crescendo and descend with the moment of the music.
But with this second concerto an additional emotion kept creeping in: admiration. Joshua Bell had labored admirably, astoundingly, to achieve this pinnacle of performance. The untold thousands of hours of practice, the hundreds of thousands of hours of his fellow musicians in the orchestra, had prepared them for this soul-enriching experience we were sharing. And even during the performance, each measure of music hung precariously on that instant’s expertise.
The entire house rose to its feet and applauded the artists – none more enthusiastically than Lorraine and I. To compare the morning’s vs. the evening’s symphony would be ludicrous. Both transformed and uplifted me. Both were divinely inspired. Yet walking out of NJPAC into the evening air, the truth of this beauty became clear: whatever the source we are better for seeking it; we should accept it with gratitude; and while beauty’s creation comes with easy spontaneity for some and only with sweat for others, it always God’s best within us.
– Bart Jackson
The Power of the Youthful Pen – Princeton Writing Academy Grand Writing Contest
Yes, this Younger Generation will amaze you. On Thursday, Bart had the privilege to announce the winners of the Princeton Writing Academy’s Grand Writing Contest, sponsored by Prometheus Publishing. Academy Director Janine Edwards and her instructors have taught their students remarkably well. Before an audience at the Princeton Community Television Station, 5 and 6th grader semi-finalists read their own notably insightful, finely crafted tales. These authors addressed homelessness, struggling under the competitive spotlight, fickle popularity, and an imaginative depiction of a young Chinese girl’s experience of encountering Chairman Mao Zedong. Meanwhile, the 7-8th grade authors read impressively thoughtful offerings as an allegory of destructive greed, inventively mystical self-discovery, and a probing story about facing the final moments of our world.
Janine had given me the honor of acting as judge for the finalists. As I read through their stories, I couldn’t help but be struck by the honesty and perceptive scrutiny of these young authors. Then I looked at what I was writing when I was their age, and all I can say is that we have no cause to despair of today’s youth. A new generation of idealists is blooming.
“China is a company masquerading as a country,” stated Alfred Berkeley former NASDAQ CEO and Board Chair of Security First. Recently, I attended the Nassau Club meeting in Princeton, NJ where Al and three FBI security specialists outlined potential cyber-threats and cyber warfare tactics, including China’s clear plans to dominate several global industries, by any means available. Chatting with Al and the FBI agents afterward I picked up two fascinating news bits: Good news – we now have chips large enough to automatically encrypt data (e.g. stock transactions) as they occur, thus protecting data immediately. Unsettling news: China subsidizes its manufacturers with a 17 percent rebate on each deal. Thus Chinese makers can bid and produce at a 10 percent loss and still turn a profit.
