In remembrance of violence, no. In remembrance of love, yes.
Impotent Hate
Can you barely see the quote? That’s because it’s hardly possible to see clearly in the ‘fog of war’. It seems scarcely possible to see anything else when blood is all around. It seems beyond possible to hear love when hate is so loud.
Potent Love
But barely does not mean can’t. We can see love. Always triumphant, always victorious in the end. That’s because violence is a symptom of impotence. Though it seems so powerful at that moment, so strong, so hard to overcome, it can’t sustain itself. It falls because it is a lack of power, a lack of ability that led to it, not the opposite.
Love on the other hand is the essence of power itself. It is power. It is potency. It is capability. It is triumph. Always.
_________________
Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman, a runner.
I went down to Dallas this past weekend and bought 5 new quote books. I an going to take a quote from each one over the next 5 days. Today’s is from ‘Language Is a Place of Struggle – Great Quotes by People of Color, Edited by Tram Nguyen.
Facts
I often think about how much people depend on facts and statistics. It’s 3 hours driving to Wichita so we better leave by 1 if we are going to get there by 4. I ran my last 10k in 55:54, a personal record and the first time under 56 minutes. One of those facts is neutral, not a lot of interpretation to it. The other, the one about my run, is also a fact, but it has some emotional or psychological meaning to me, and perhaps to others who hear it.
Unfacts
But what about facts that aren’t facts at all? For example, Rebekah Evans (my daughter) wrote an article in her blog ‘The Cellular Scale’ titled, ‘Do small men think like big women?‘. It’s a great read about flawed science, gender bias and ‘facts’ that aren’t. It’s about the Corpus Callosum, a part of the brain that connects the right and left hemisphere. It’s been said for many decades that women’s are bigger than men’s and that as a result women have a more unified brain, can multitask better, etc.
But the truth is that is not true. Later studies showed that it isn’t based on male or female, but on the actual size of the brain. The larger the brain, the less proportion of the brain the corpus collosum is, leading to the wrong assumption it had something to do with women or men. Check it out and see how a ‘fact’ can be delivered and believed by many people due to many reasons not attached to the veracity of the truth. In this example it lead right into already existing gender bias.
What do you believe, not because it is true, based on facts, but because it feeds into a need to control yourself or others, or fits a bias you have?
_________________
Drawing and Commentary by Marty Coleman, factual.
_________________
Quote by Nikki Giovanni, 1943 – not dead yet, African-American writer and activist
I went to Starbucks early this morning to draw and get a cup of coffee before everyone else awoke. A woman was sitting in front of me and right as I finished drawing her head, she left and was replaced by a man. I continued drawing and she became a woman dressed in men’s clothing.
Can see the line about 2/3 of the way down her head where the napkin folds open? I opened it up and drew the woman again on the inside, this time imaging where she had just come from or perhaps was just going.
My neuroscientist daughter, Rebekah, is visiting this week. I am doing a series on science to honor her. She writes an awesome blog called ‘The Cellular Scale‘ that will open your eyes about the amazing world of brain research. I hope you check it out.
The Difference
That’s the difference to me. Both are creative, both are rooted in curiosity and love of exploration. They just go about it different ways.
Science, Creativity and Courage
Science finds hidden treasures that were there all along. It takes creativity and courage. It can be in plain sight but if you are not looking and thinking creatively, you won’t find it. And if you look for something others say isn’t even there, then you have to have courage to pursue the hunt. The scientist has to withstand peer pressure to pursue in a well worn direction, not in a new area that has no history to it.
Art, Creativity and Courage
Art creates treasures, finding them inside the artist’s own brain. The artist also needs creativity and courage. Without creativity the artist is always derivative, a copier machine. The artist needs courage because there will always be someone, often times plenty of someones, who say what you are pursuing, what you are creating, isn’t worth the time and effort. Whether it’s drawing a naked person or photographing the odd angles of a building, someone will say it’s a waste of time. The artist has to have courage to continue pursuing their passion and vision.
________________
Drawing, Quote and commentary by Marty Coleman
________________
Morning Haiku
While the cat is on my lap, I read baseball beaning news, After I stretched my unlimber parts.
Last we saw the Bodyless Ghirl Ghosts they were taking bubble baths in various hotel rooms. This is what happened next.
Drying off
After they snuck in and had bubble baths all over the hotel they had to dry off. They aren’t very good with towels, having no hands, so what they do is fly underneath the towels on the racks and float up into them, turning round and round inside to dry off. This is why humans find that towels are often wet on the inside. Humans have been fooled into believing it’s lack of evaporation, but that isn’t the truth. It’s a conspiracy waiting to be uncovered.
The almost got caught when ten of them went in the women’s locker room in the gym of the resort. A little ghirl who can see ghirl ghosts came in and walked past the towels. The bodyless ghirl ghosts acted frozen and stiff, hoping the little ghirl wouldn’t see them. The ghirl did see them but just thought they were the coolest towels ever with faces on them. She even dried herself off with the one that Maranatha was floating in. Maranatha was not happy about that since she got all wet again and got very dizzy when the little ghirl pretended to be a cowgirl and whipped the towel around driving cattle. Maranatha was very dizzy. The rest of the bodyless ghirl ghosts wanted to laugh but couldn’t.
The President recently proposed a ‘brain mapping’ research initiative. I think it sounds like a great idea but it would really be better described as not drawing a map of the brain but creating a key to the map of the brain. Why is that? You think the human genome was tough to catalog? Try doing that for 85+ billion neurons and 100 trillion or so synapses. In other words, there is a lot of ground to cover.
But that doesn’t mean we can’t get started on it, it just means it will take a while. And a lot of money.
_________________
Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman
Quote by Emerson Pugh, American Physicist, 1929 – not dead yet
My eldest daughter, pregnant with my first grandchild, is coming to visit this week. She is almost finished getting her Ph.D. in Neuroscience so I thought I would do a few drawings about science this week in honor of her.
Late to the Party
I never had a huge interest in science growing up. But the 20 year influence of my ex-father in law, who was an engineer and had a huge knowledge of many scientific principles and Rebekah starting in on her studies of the brain, I found myself reading more and more books and articles on science over the years.
Leaving the Other Party
It coincided with a great dissatisfaction and frustration with religious stubbornness about science. Evolution, cosmology, climatology, biology, neurology…you name it and it seemed that religion was dragging it’s intellectual heels in accepting what was being learned about life and the universe. The fear that the discoveries of science could steal away power or faith or something else seemed to lead to a desperation of denial that I have found to be unacceptable for me to condone.
When Comfort Leads the Way
I have figured out a bit of the reason why that is. It seems to me that it is due to comfort being more important than truth. You might think it is the opposite, since religion often stands on ‘truth’ as a pillar of the faith. There is talk of sacrifice and bowing the the will of God and all sorts of other supposedly uncomfortable efforts we are told need to be made to get in line with God and his truth. But the truth is that truth is not really pursued. What is pursued is comfort (which can also be seen as peace and happiness). I am not talking about material comfort per se, though that is a big part of American life so is pursued by religious believers just as it is by non-believers. I am talking about comfort of intellect. The religious believer is more concerned with the assurance of happiness and peace than truth. It might not be happiness and peace in this life, but it is critical to believe so one can have peace and happiness in eternal life. Whether or not the theological construct they have believed makes any rational sense, is true, is not nearly as important as if it is just believable enough to allow for a feeling of peace and happiness. In other words, comfort.
When Truth Leads the Way
Here is my feeling about it. Science, in all its messy and human pursuit of truth, actually gives me a much more genuine feeling of peace and happiness than theology does. It does so because I trust it. I don’t mean I trust any one scientific discovery. I mean I trust the process of truth seeking that comes with science. I believe it is moving towards truth and won’t be stopped. Religion and theology meanwhile already has been stopped. It has it’s definitions and it isn’t interested in having those changed. I can’t trust a process that is stopped like that.
________________
Science Trivia Question of the Day
The fixed point on which a lever moves is called:
Fulcrum
Anchor
Pivot
_______________
Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman
Quote is by Marty Coleman, adapted from one by Le Bon
Before I met the two Goddesses I talked about in part 1, I visited the home of 2 of my heroes. I met them at the Truman library in Independence, Missouri, just east of Kansas City. Truman is obviously one of the men I am talking about.
Harry S. Truman Library and Museum
The other of my heroes is Thomas Hart Benton, the artist. You may have read about him in my ongoing ‘Artists I Love’ series I have been doing the past few winters. He has one of his large murals in the lobby of the Truman Library.
‘Independence and the Opening of the American West’
The Buck Stops Here
One of the most famous sayings in Presidential history is from Truman. ‘The Buck Stops Here’ was his motto and has been restated by virtually every president since. He actually had the saying on his desk, and you can see it right as you enter the museum. Much of the museum is dedicated to the many decisions only Truman, as President, had the power to make.
_________________
WAR
Bomb and Peace
Truman’s most controversial decision of his Presidency was one of his first. He chose to drop the Atomic Bomb on Japan. It led to their surrender but the decision was never unanimous within his inner circle nor among the military. It still is debated today.
One of the things I most admired in the Truman Museum was they did not shy away from bringing this controversy out in the open. they had a whole section dedicated to the arguments pro and con about the decision and allowed visitors to voice their opinion as well.
Here is a book visitors could write in giving their opinion and here is mine, in a drawing.
My opinion has always been that it wasn’t the dropping of the bomb that was the problem, it was dropping it on a population. I think that if they had dropped it 5 miles off the coast of Tokyo, the Japanese, who already were trying to figure out how to sue for peace and still save face, would have seen what was coming and surrendered pretty much along the same time table they did after the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
A History of War
Off in the corner of the downstairs are of the museum there are two examples of war. The first, in the background, is a 5,000 year old helmet from a Greek warrior. In the foreground is a small reproduction of the sculpture commemorating the raising of the American flag on the island of Iwo Jima towards the end of WWII. It’s a cruel testament to how incessant war is for us humans.
Plenty and Plenty of Nothing
But often out of the worst of events great efforts can arise. While we in the US were starting to come out of the trauma of war, Europe was not. Truman’s Marshall Plan was our initiative to help Europe make it’s way back.
While Secretary of State Marshall’s name and face was front and center in the plan to help all of Europe back on it’s feet, it really was Truman’s initiative. He knew however that due to his own political baggage a plan with his name on it would not have the universal support it needed to succeed. Marshall, the leader of the overall US War effort was one of the most popular men in the country and he was able to lead the project to fruition.
____________________
Civil Rights
A number of Benton’s paintings were on display at the museum in a temporary exhibition titled ‘Truman and Benton: Legends of the Missouri Border’ that documented the interrelationship between the two over the course of their lives.
The Negro Soldier
During the middle of WWII Benton painted this painting. It was pretty controversial at the time. It depicted an American soldier, but it was a ‘Negro’ soldier, not something white America was used to seeing or celebrating. His choice to depict an African-American was his way of forcing people to see the black person as equal in war. Not long after the war was over Truman, in spite of a typical Missouri upbringing of his era that was rooted in the racism of slavery and segregation, signed an executive order desegregating the US Armed forces. It was met with much resistance in the south, breaking apart the Democratic party at the time, but very likely helped Truman win the 1948 election due to increased support in the north and west.
One of the reasons I like Truman is that, while by today’s standards he wouldn’t be considered enlightened on race, he certainly grew and moved beyond his own upbringing to move the country forward into racial equality as best he could at the time.
________________________
Communism
Communism and Korea
When North Korea invaded South Korea in 1950, the cold war got hot. The policy of containment of communism had been fleshed out by the US and allies and it included not allowing the USSR or China to push into any areas they weren’t already occupying. The amount of fear that pervaded the US at that time regarding communism is hard for most of us to understand now but it was real. Some fears were valid but much was due to ranting demagogues like Sen. McCarthy and high pitched propaganda as seen below.
____________________
Later
While the President and the Painter did not enjoy a friendship early on in their careers, they did become friends during the painting of the mural. Benton did a painting of Truman later in his life.
The Old President
Benton’s Tools
________________________
The museum was well worth the trip to Independence. If you are anywhere near Kansas City I highly recommend it.
On Sunday I drove 9 1/2 hours to get to Cedar Rapids, Iowa to attend my Aunt Ann’s funeral on Monday. I left to return home that same afternoon. I could have driven it straight back but it would have had me arriving around 2am, waking up Linda, if she wasn’t still up worrying about me driving home in the rain.
The Fortuitous Stop
I also wanted to to stop for a selfish reason. I wanted to reacquaint myself with some heroes of mine, which I will tell you about tomorrow. But unbeknownst to me I would also meet a Goddess or two on the trip.
I stopped for lunch in Independence, Missouri (That should give you a hint about the heroes I was coming to see). I asked for recommendations after visiting the heroes and was told Cafe Verona was a great choice. It was very cold out so I was happy to sit next to this arrangement in the sun drenched bar area.
__________________
The Goddess and the Mortal
When I first came into the establishment, this is what I saw. Way up high was a huge reproduction of Sandro Botticelli’s ‘Birth of Venus’ (1485). And below was a woman with a Grecian/Roman look to her. She had a gold band around her hair with an elegant bun, an Aqualine profile and all around her were things that felt Roman; vases, urns, wine, etc.
The juxtaposition between the woman and Venus was just too cool not to capture. I debated what to title the image . Perhaps ‘The Two Goddesses’ would make sense. Perhaps ‘Venus and…’ and who? I didn’t know her name. I settled on ‘The Goddess and The Mortal’.
_________________
Drawing the Mortal
The mortal, who was the restaurant manager, was standing still at the bar, working on some afternoon paperwork. I took advantage of her stillness to draw and came up with this.
When she took a break and looked around I gestured to her, asking her to come over to my table. I showed her the drawing, which she liked, and I asked her to pose with it, which she graciously did.
______________________
The Mortal becomes a Goddess
I told her of my naming dilemma over the photo, that I wanted to call it ‘The Two Goddesses’ or ‘Venus and…’ but I didn’t know her name. She blushed, smiled and then said, ‘My name is Diana‘.
And that is how I met a Goddess living incognito and working in a restaurant in Independence, Missouri. One never knows who you will meet if you are willing to engage.
Here is the drawing after I completed it this morning.
And finally, since I had my good camera with me I couldn’t resist asking the one Goddess who was 3 dimensional to let me take a photo.
Diana of Verona
_____________________
Part 2 tomorrow – ‘Meeting Old Heroes’
_____________________
Drawing, photos and story by Marty Coleman, who enjoys meeting Heroes and Goddesses.
