Bohemian Women

Warwick Avenue

Pamela Leavey — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 00:54:46 +0000

Click here to view the embedded video.

Melody Gardot: Your Heart Is As Black As Night

Pamela Leavey — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 02:33:26 +0000

Melody Gardot is one of my favorite new singers. Here she is performing “Your Heart Is As Black As Night”:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Not only is Gardot a fabulous singer and entertainer, but her story of using music as therapy after a tragic accident in which she suffered serious head and spinal injuries is amazing.

“Trust Us” Is Getting Old

barbaraobrien — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 13:30:00 +0000

When British Petroleum (BP) applied for a permit to build the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico and begin drilling, it claimed to have the technology and know-how to handle any oil spill.

But in the face of an actual spill, BP is much less confident. “This scares everybody: the fact that we can’t make this well stop flowing, the fact that we haven’t succeeded so far,” BP CEO Doug Suttles said. “Many of the things we’re trying have been done on the surface before, but have never been tried at 5,000 ft.”

They’ve never been tried at 5,000 feet. Drilling for oil this deeply under the ocean is a relatively new enterprise for our species. Oil has been drilled offshore in shallow water for more than a century. But deepwater drilling is much more expensive than shallow-water drilling. For a long time drilling in deep water wasn’t tried, because it would have cost more to extract a barrel of oil than a barrel of oil was worth on world markets. It took the spikes in oil prices in recent years to make deepwater drilling profitable.

Politicians and oil executives assured us that offshore oil drilling was safe. Those tree huggers who worry about environmental disasters are nuts, they said. Yes, there have been oil rig disasters in the past, but (big wink) we know what we’re doing now. Trust us.

The laws of physics work differently nearly a mile underwater than they do on land, or shallow water, however. By now, it is obvious BP is still trying to invent a procedure that might stop the oil leak, maybe, if we’re lucky. No one appears to have been ready for the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

Really, this “trust us” business is getting old. How many times have we been told to “trust” some new thing, and then when the dangers surface we find out the “trusted” ones hadn’t told us the whole truth?

In the mid-20^th century we humans went into overdrive digging asbestos out of the earth to use in countless structures and products. There is asbestos in navy ships, in shipyards such as Bath Iron Works, asbestos in our homes and schools, asbestos in old car parts, and asbestos in landfills. And eventually, years after medical science had determined asbestos exposure causes terrible disease, industry executives and politicians reluctantly agreed to shut down asbestos production, or at least most of it. And now the cost of asbestos abatement and mesothelioma treatment is an ongoing problem for individuals, taxpayers, and businesses.

And do we want to talk about Vioxx? Tanning beds? And now there are questions being asked about Bisphenol A (BPA), a chemical found in just about every plastic bottle you’ve ever touched. It may be dangerous, it may not. Opinions vary. Just note that the same political and business leaders who deny BPA could be dangerous are the same ones who like to yell “drill, baby, drill.”

See The Woman

Pamela Leavey — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 01:19:31 +0000

John Trudell and Bad Dog perform See The Woman:

Click here to view the embedded video.

There’s more John Trudell and Bad Dog here on YouTube.

Tina Turner: Better Be Good To Me (Live) 1990

Pamela Leavey — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 02:37:55 +0000

Tina Turner performs “Better Be Good To Me” live, 1990:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Quote of the Day: Being Related

Pamela Leavey — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 14:23:35 +0000

“Without relationship, there is no existence: to be is to be related…. Most of us do not seem to realize this-that the world is my relationship with others, whether one or many. My problem is that of relationship. What I am, that I project; and obviously, if I do not understand myself, the whole of relationship is one of confusion in ever-widening circles. So, relationship becomes of extraordinary importance, not with the so-called mass, the crowd, but in the world of my family and friends, however small that may be-my relationship with my wife, my children, my neighbor. In a world of vast organizations, vast mobilizations of people, mass movements, we are afraid to act on a small scale; we are afraid to be little people clearing up our own patch. We say to ourselves, “What can I personally do? I must join a mass movement in order to reform.” On the contrary, real revolution takes place not through mass movements but through the inward revaluation of relationship-that alone is real reformation, a radical, continuous revolution. We are afraid to begin on a small scale. Because the problem is so vast, we think we must meet it with large numbers of people, with a great organization, with mass movements. Surely, we must begin to tackle the problem on a small scale, and the small scale is the “me” and the “you.” When I understand myself, I understand you, and out of that understanding comes love. Love is the missing factor; there is a lack of affection, of warmth in relationship; and because we lack that love, that tenderness, that generosity, that mercy in relationship, we escape into mass action which produces further confusion, further misery. We fill our hearts with blueprints for world reform and do not look to that one resolving factor which is love.” ~~ J. Krishnamurti, ”The Book of Life.”

Quote of the Day: Relationship Is A Mirror

Pamela Leavey — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 14:03:44 +0000

“Surely, only in relationship the process of what I am unfolds, does it not? Relationship is a mirror in which I see myself as I am; but as most of us do not like what we are, we begin to discipline, either positively or negatively, what we perceive in the mirror of relationship. That is, I discover something in relationship, in the action of relationship, and I do not like it. So, I begin to modify what I do not like, what I perceive as being unpleasant. I want to change it-which means I already have a pattern of what I should be. The moment there is a pattern of what I should be, there is no comprehension of what I am. The moment I have a picture of what I want to be, or what I should be, or what I ought not to be-a standard according to which I want to change myself-then, surely, there is no comprehension of what I am at the moment of relationship.I think it is really important to understand this, for I think this is where most of us go astray. We do not want to know what we actually are at a given moment in relationship. If we are concerned merely with self-improvement, there is no comprehension of ourselves, of what is.” ~~ J. Krishnamurti, “The Book of Life.”

Loreena Mckennitt: The Mummers Dance (HD)

Pamela Leavey — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 23:47:34 +0000

In honor of St. Patrick’s Day… a little music from the Eclectic Celtic, Loreena McKennitt performs “The Mummers Dance” live:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Quote of the Day

Pamela Leavey — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 13:06:57 +0000

“Most of us are so unconcerned with this extraordinary universe about us; we never even see the waving of the leaf in the wind; we never watch a blade of grass, touch it with our hand and know the quality of its being.” – J. Krishnamurti

Quote of the Day

Pamela Leavey — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 14:07:46 +0000

“Road-weary, overwhelmed by the magnitude of the difficulties we face during our brief days, we are tempted to despair or to settle for cheap optimism. But in the deep place of the spirit, we are moved and called forth to undertake this ongoing adventure by the yearning, restless and creative One who – though called by the ten thousand names of God -is still clothed in marvelous silence.” – Sam Keen – Hymns To An Unknown God