Crossing a Sea of Dunes, with Craig Childs

Acclaimed author, extreme traveler, and master storyteller...

For the last five years Craig Childs has been making treks across a 5,000-square-mile sand dune sea in northern Mexico, a place he calls the most enchanting and treacherous landscape he has ever witnessed.

On grueling journeys, walking barefoot with over a hundred pounds of
water strapped to his body, he has traveled into the heart of this
desperately beautiful country.

He comes with a stunning slideshow and breathtaking stories from an otherworldly desert.

Author of several critically acclaimed books,including Soul of Nowhere, The Secret Knowledge of Water, The Way Out, and forthcoming, House of Rain, Childs is often compared to Edward Abbey and Barry
Lopez. Childs has made himself an intimate of the American continent's most extreme and arid environment and has distilled a compelling message of home and warning from his adventures.

The LA Times says Childs' writing is "pure oxygen," that "stings like a slap in the face."

The New York Times Book Review wrote, "Childs feats of asceticism are nothing if not awe-inspiring: he's a modern day desert father."

A brief Bio:

Much of Craig Childs' work is hand-written before it appears in print, his penmanship hounded by wind storms, by freezing nights alone, and by the blaze of desert heat. What comes out is writing that the Los Angeles Times calls "pure oxygen." The San Francisco Chronicle says, "Where his language is as taut as the lands he chronicles, Childs
achieves the spare elegance of these Southwestern landscapes."

Childs has written several highly acclaimed books, including The Secret Knowledge of Water, and most recently, House of Rain. His work has appeared in the LA Times, Orion, Outside, Audubon, and Sierra. He is also a commentator for National Public Radio's Morning Edition and for his radio report from near Ground Zero on September 11th, 2001, the Washington Post called him "one of the only sane voices heard on that day."

Childs won the Spirit of the West Award for his body of work, an honor shared by Wallace Stegner, N. Scott Momaday, Tony Hillerman, Leslie Marmon Silko, and Terry Tempest Williams. He is also recipient of the Colorado Book Award. Twice his books have made the Book Sense Top 76 list, and Secret Knowledge of Water was picked by the LA Times as "one of the best books in the country."

FILM: The War Tapes

We screened this striking piece of journalism last night to a full house. Thanks to all who came, and those who stayed for the discussion.

The War Tapes was made by three national guardsmen in Baghdad. The footage is honest, up front, and personal.

Please feel free to request this selection for: "The best single document... you could see on the War in Iraq," says John Fisher Burns--Baghdad Bureau Chief for the NY Times, and two-time Pulitzer winning journalist.

Peter Yarrow Still Sings for Peace!

Friday, January 5, 2007--Peter Yarrow, the songwriter and activist of Peter, Paul and Mary fame, screened a premiere of his new documentary to friends and filmmakers at the Wilkinson Public Library, requesting feedback on his unique vision for bettering our world.

Legacy of Denial is a 52 minute long film that takes the viewer through the Civil Rights Movement and Vietnam era to a post-war Vietnam where the repercussions of the war there continue. It shows the larger picture, and unfinished tale, of the legacies of war, the unexploded ordinance, and the onging effects of Agent Orange, that pollute the grounds they commandeer.

Third-generation congenital deformities due to Agent Orange
Unexploded Ordinance

are just some of the symptoms remaining from the specious, nationalistic US foreign policy which still, to this day, denies any wrong-doing in the Vietnam deception.

The film is a potent collage evincing an evolution of consciousness, and the horror that, contrary to the adage, "History repeats itself": Humans repeat history.

It's shocking to think that after all the apparent progress in the 60s and 70s--civil rights, and the grassroots termination of an unjust war--here we are again today, repeating the same egregious folly, and for the same reasons.

Peter is a heartfelt, Jupiterian man. He is filled with benevolent energy. His voice alone is enough to make one weep--and when a guitar augments that sound with the perfect fifths and pithy Pythagorean ratios, well, it just makes you cry!

Why?

Because it is so simple! Peter asks us to open our hearts and realize the truth behind our motives. His music tells of the great pity--that suffering is unnecessary; that it results from restriction of others and the supremacy of unchecked national hubris. He asks us to take responsibility for our actions and the actions of our country, and adress the mistakes of the past with acknowledgement and actions to prove it. He says there is more than this! Something sublime, in the hearts of all children, before the corruption of years and the conditioning of societal norms... He asks us, simply, to be honest--with ourselves and others.

The tragedy is that this simple, honest, natural human state, is sullied by pervasive greed, perverse ambition, and the profit-driven immorality of multi-national corporations that have no loyalty to creed or country.

"Man is born free, and yet I see him everywhere in chains," said the French Philosopher Rousseau. Peter asks us, with endless love and patience, if we will let him share the key to unshackle ourselves, and begin the transformation of consciousness to a better world through acknowledgement, apology, and the forgiveness of ourselves and those we have harmed.

This film is a clarion call to embrace its cause. At once it offers compassion toward all humanity; a kaleidoscope of imagery that is profound in its implications. It's the story that seems to end where it started. From early Civil Rights footage, protests; the power of the 'folk music' movement that took music back from the entertainers and gave it to the artists as an inspired medium for change; and Peter's central role in it, to the rhetoric of the war machine (the military-industrial-government complex) disguising the hunger of the wallet with the blood of the patriot.

This rhetoric has never changed. And the truth hasn't either.

FREE FILM: The War Tapes

Monday, January 22, at 6pm in the Program Room.

This internationally recognized film gleans an intimate portrait of the Iraq restructuring effort, straight from the front lines. Filmed by three National Guardsmen, who were given camcorders specifically for the purpose, throughout their respective tours, The War Tapes is a soldier's-eye view of the conflict. A view that includes the disparate, ever-widening gulf between cultures. Watch American soldiers, perhaps the truest patriots, as they become embittered at the situation: Watch them transfer their frustrations to Iraqi civilians in an exacerbating antagonism of repeated social foibles and misperceptions.

This disease--the symptoms of which we are all familiar--only worsens. In fact, it self-propogates!

See how these problems are reinforced through the ranks, as prejudice and anger take the place of reason and truth.

In order for this effort to be successful, the American troops are going to have to be more Muslim than the Iraqis American! And any general knows--you must know your enemy. And yet, we are creating enemies because we do not know, or respect, the culture we're trying to "democratize." We have kids who don't know a single Arabic word, fighting--and interacting with civilains--in an Arabic-speaking country. Would you send your son to the Congo wihtout knowing a modicum of French?

Who is in charge here?

That's the one question you're left with.

Legacy of Denial, a film by Peter Yarrow

Peter Yarrow will be showing his film, Legacy of Denial, he made with the Mudbutts in Vietnam recently.

The film is a call to US citizens to take responsibility for the post-war effects of the US led wa there, a little more than 30 years ago. Economic repercussions still persist, directly from the US invasion: Third generation births remain affected by Agent Orange. Fertile lands remain unnavigable by abandoned mine fields. Increasing poverty and international debt. Polluted water resources. Etc. Etc...

Peter Yarrow is the singer of the famous 60s trio, Peter, Paul and Mary, who sang, among others, "Puff the Magic Dragon."

The film is apporx. 52 minutes in legth.