Monthly Archives: July 2017

Fresno Bee (blog)

Marin County gets another smug reprieve from housing quotas Fresno Bee (blog) ... Will wrote at the time, a Baedeker guide to a desolate region, the monochromatic inner landscape of persons whose life is consumption, of goods and salvations, and whose moral makeup is the curious modern combination of hedonism and earnestness..

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Marin County gets another smug reprieve from housing quotas - Fresno Bee (blog)

By Steve Krause

Ive been sitting here for two days trying to figure out a profound way to start this column that I had a funny feeling I was going to write. And then it dawned on me that there really wasnt a way to express my overall feelings about David Bowie that contained the right amount of intellectual gravitas and dewy-eyed admiration.

Thats because to me, David Bowie was, first, last and always, delightfully daffy. Weird. Willing to go to whatever outrageous lengths necessary willing to take on almost any persona and run with it, whether it was to relieve his boredom or to keep people guessing. Whatever it was, Bowie was game.

And that could be because despite all of his antics, his costumes, his glitter, his whatever else, David (nee Jones) Bowie knew he could get away with it because, beneath it all, the man had talent oozing out of him.

Theres nothing really intellectual about any of that, nor was there anything really intellectual about Bowie. He wasnt Yes or the Moody Blues, or anyone else penning metaphysical meanderings for the masses. He wasnt John Lennon or Bob Dylan, writing music that stood as representative of a generation stuck between hedonism and eternal angst.

He was unique. He gave us androgyny, and when he was tired of that, he gave us something else, whether it was the soul sound of Young Americans, or the Thin White Duke days of Golden Years, or his reincarnated disco king of the Lets Dance era (for which the late Stevie Ray Vaughan played lead guitar).

Stripped of all his definitions, David Bowie wrote, and sang, killer songs. It didnt matter what he looked like or how much cocaine he was ingesting (and apparently it was quite a bit, especially in his emaciated Thin White Duke look).

In whatever iteration Bowie presented himself to the world, there was sure to be great music to go along with it. His early years were full of wonderfully innovative music, from Changes to Space Oddity, to Starman. And when he grew tired of that glam rock persona, he bade farewell to it with his album Diamond Dogs, that contained one of his stone-classics, Rebel, Rebel.

Bowie had the knack of easing out of one role and into another seamlessly. He took a lot of flack in some circles for Young Americans, but even if it represented a radical departure at the time, it was still a good song.

To me, that was Bowies gift to rock n roll. Songs. Some groups made their mark with albums. He did his with songs and not just the ones he sang by himself. He gave Ian Hunter of Mott the Hoople All The Young Dudes, and it became a huge smash (and, personally, one of the real thrills of seeing the J. Geils/Ian Hunter doubleheader last August was listening to that song, which closed the opening set).

His collaborations with Iggy Pop made him better and his protege famous.

He went into the studio one day with Freddie Mercury and Queen, ostensibly to record another song. Next thing you know, they were collaborating on Under Pressure, one of the real strong eighties songs.

He even sang with Bing Crosby. As the story goes, he and Der Bingle were to do a Christmas show (which, ironically, was wrapped up about two days before Crosby collapsed and died of a heart attack after playing 18 holes of golf). The plan was to sing a duet of The Little Drummer Boy, except that Bowie hated the song. So, a counterpointed tune was written for him that became the Peace on Earth part of a song that is now one of the staples of the Christmas season.

Bowie went through several other phases during his career, and they always ended up yielding signature tunes, whether Fame, Ashes to Ashes, and my personal favorite, Heroes.

Bowie was more fortunate than many of the heavyweights among the circles in which he traveled. John Lennon was murdered at the age of 40. George Harrison died of cancer at 59. Through the last 30 years, weve seen so many of our childhood rock idols cut down by some combination of bad living and natural causes. Frank Zappa anybody? Chris Squire? Jerry Garcia? The list is long and there are too many names to mention.

Bowie died of cancer Sunday night at the age of 69. And while that might be too much for some to comprehend, when you see how some of these people including Bowie lived, you wonder how its possible theyve lasted as long as they have. Keith Richards? David Crosby?

Bowies musical legacy is writing a string of tremendous songs that, when you line them up and play them back-to-back-to-back on Spotify, as one of my friends said the other night, youre gobsmacked by how great he really was.

He also added an element of risk and campiness to the genre that has served it well over the years. How many times has Madonna reinvented herself? Do you suppose she thought of Bowie the king of reinvention every time she launched another incarnation? How about Boy George? Do you think hed have ever seen the light of day were it not for Bowie?

Think of all the rock n roll acts that were long on camp if not always talent. All of them can thank David Bowie for making that possible. Every time I saw Twisted Sister on MTV in the 1980s, all I could think about was how proud Bowie must have been to see that.

In typical Bowie fashion, he left us with one more bit of bizarre theater by which to remember him. If you havent already seen it, look up the Lazarus video on YouTube. Itll haunt you.

The journey is over for Major Tom, regrettably. But what a trip it was.

Steve Krause can be reached at skrause@itemlive.com.

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The world says farewell to David Bowie - Daily Item

It's an unlikely encounter, but popular comedian and provocative activist Russell Brand met this week with acclaimed Oxford professor and Christian apologist Alister McGrath to discuss the question 'Is there any point in God?'

The pair met for a wide-ranging, reflective conversation for Brand's podcast Under the Skin,in which Brand meets guests from academia, pop culture and the arts to explore 'what's beneath the surface of people we admire, of the ideas that define our time, of the history we are told'.

As an Anglican priest, molecular biologist and Professor of Science and Religion at Oxford University, McGrath straddles the worlds of both science and religion. He and Brand discussed the pressure points, even though as McGrath sees it, both science and religion should work together to give a 'big picture' of the universe.

The tension between science and religion, he said, has often been 'all about power, who do you trust? Who's the top guy?' McGrath spoke from his own background as a committed atheist growing up in violent, religiously divided Northern Ireland in the 1960s. He had thought: 'If there was no religion, there'd be no religious violence...religion was a malevolent religious force.'

McGrath was once committed to a strict materialism that judged truth only on what could be empirically proved. But, he found, 'the really big things like "What's life all about?", "What is the good?", these lie beyond proof. We've got to go beyond what we can prove to lead meaningful lives.'

Rather than it being a combative debate, the conversation saw Brand frequently resonating with McGrath's ideas. He said he liked the idea of Christ's call to 'die to self' and being 'decentred by something bigger', and the ideas of deeper layers of truth and meaning to reality that McGrath spoke about.

However, Brand also said he was 'sympathetic' with the atheist worldview, given all the wrongs that have been committed in the name of religion. And he noted that in contemporary culture 'science' seems to hold far more value than religion.

While religion seems to be often bound up in power struggles, and demands faith where there is no proof, 'science has solved the problems where mankind most needed them to be solved, dealing with death, disease, fear...Connection, communication, healing...all of these problems seem to have been resolved [by science]', Brand said.

But, he added, a void remains. He said: 'My fear of atheism is that if there is nothing else, the material, the mechanical...then why not materialism? Why not individualism...without a deeper truth, for me there is only hedonism. Only indulgence.'

McGrath agreed, saying: 'What we need is a way of thinking that says no, you're part of something bigger, you need to go figure out what that is and transcend yourself, stop making the universe about you.'

Reflecting on his previous podcast interviews, Brand reflected that many of his guests had shared a common idea, a sense that human beings, particularly in the west, 'need a vision' wearied by the dead-end, cynical, hedonistic worldview of consumer-capitalism.

Again, McGrath agreed, saying that materialism 'boxes us in'.

He said: 'This is an age of fading dreams dying visions...I think we need hope. [But] that's not about being optimistic. No, it's saying things might actually get a lot worse. But there is meaning and once we see that and embrace it we can cope with whatever gets thrown at us and we feel we can do something with it, and there's a bigger vision of which we're a part and it empowers us to keep going even when it seems the world is falling to bits around us.'

The full conversation can be listened to here.

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Russell Brand meets Oxford Christian apologist Alister McGrath to ... - ChristianToday

Written by D.N. Jha | Published:July 29, 2017 12:34 am There was a ruckus in the Rajya Sabha over the alleged association of Hindu deities with alcohol. (Express Photo/Ravi Kanojia, File)

I was amused to read in the media that there was a ruckus in the Rajya Sabha over the alleged association of Hindu deities with alcohol. Since the objectionable remarks were expunged, I am not able to refer specifically to the god or to the MP who mentioned him. Our politicians may not be well versed in all our ancient lore specially because and knowledge of the past is not their strong point; but it is not too much to expect that they should have the basic idea of the qualities and activities of the divinities whom they worship and defend. For constraints of space it is not possible to discuss here the traits of all those gods and goddesses who used alcohol, but I would like to draw the attention of readers to only few of them who binged on intoxicating drinks.

In the Vedic texts soma was the name of a god as well as of a plant from which a heady drink of that name was derived and was offered to gods in most of the sacrifices; according to one opinion it was different from another intoxicating drink, sura, which was meant for the common people. Soma was a favourite beverage of the Vedic deities and was offered in most of the sacrifices performed to please gods like Indra, Agni, Varun, Maruts and so on, whose names occur frequently in the Rig Veda. Of them Indra, who is known by 45 epithets and to whom the largest number of Rig Vedic hymns 250 out of more than a thousand are dedicated, was the most important. A god of war and wielder of thunderbolt, rowdy and adulterous, potbellied from excessive drinking, he is described in Vedic passages as a great boozer and dipsomaniac; he is said to have drunk three lakes of soma before slaying the dragon Vritra. Like Indra, many other Vedic gods were soma drinkers but they do not seem to have been tipplers. Agni, for example, may have drunk moderately though a detailed analysis will show that teetotalism was unknown to the Vedic gods and drinking was an essential feature of sacrifices performed in their honour. In a ritual performed at the beginning of the Vajapeya sacrifice, a collective drinking took place in which a sacrificer offered five cups to Indra as well as 17 cups of soma and 17 cups of sura to 34 gods.

Like the Vedic texts, the epics provide evidence of the use of intoxicating drinks by those who enjoy godly status in Hindu religion. In the Mahabharata, for example, Sanjay describes Krishna (an incarnation of the god Vishnu) and Arjuna in the company of Draupadi and Satyabhama (wife of Krishna and an incarnation of Bhudevi), exhilarated by Bassia wine. In the Harivamsa, which is an appendix to the Mahabharata, Balarama, an avatara of Vishnu, is described as inflamed by plentiful libations of kadamba liquor dancing with his wife. And in the Ramayana, Rama, an avatara of Vishnu, is described as embracing Sita and making her drink pure maireya wine. Sita, incidentally, seems to have a great fascination for wine: While crossing the river Ganga, she promises to offer her rice cooked with meat (shall we call it biryani!) and thousands of jars of wine, and while being ferried across the Yamuna, she says that she will worship the river with a thousand cows and 100 jars of wine when her husband accomplishes his vow. The use of alcohol by the gods is not confined to the Vedic and epic traditions. In the Puranic mythology, Varuni, who emerged from the samudramanthana (churning of the ocean), is the Indian goddess of wine; Varuni was also the name of a variety of strong liquor.

The Tantric religion is characterised by the use of five makaras madya (wine), mamsa (meat), matsya (fish), mudra (gesture) and maithuna (sexual intercourse) and these were offered to gods, though only the followers of Vamachara were entitled to the use of panchamakara (five Ms). Much can be said about the Tantric affiliation of the goddess Kali and her various manifestations but it should suffice to refer to a goddess called Chandamari, a form of Kali and described in an 11th century text as using human skulls as drinking vessels. In the Kularnavatantra, an early medieval text, it is stated that wine and meat are the symbols of Shakti and Shiva respectively and their consumer is Bhairava. Not surprisingly, liquor was offered to Bhairava in early India. The practice has continued in our own times and one can see this at Bhairava temple in Delhi and at Kala Bhairava temple in Ujjain. According to a practice current in Birbhum, a gigantic vessel of wine is brought in front of the deity called Dharma who is carried in a procession to the house of a Sundi, who belongs to the wine-making caste. In both Tantric and tribal religions, the divinities are often associated with alcohol in various ways. These few examples cited here clearly show that some gods and goddesses were fond of alcohol and their worship would remain incomplete without it.

It may be pointed out that there were a large variety of intoxicating drinks, nearly 50 types of them, available in ancient India. The use of alcohol by men was quite common, despite occasional dharmashatric objections in the case of Brahmins; and instances of drinking among women were not rare. Buddhist Jataka literature mentions many instances of drunkenness. Sanskrit literature is replete with references to intoxicating drinks. The works of Kalidasa and other poets speak frequently of alcoholic drinks. Ancient Indians were bon vivant in a sense. If their gods were fond of good things of life, our politicians need not be offended by the divine hedonism. Prohibitionists should be considerate: Dont forget, gods are watching!

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What the gods drank - The Indian Express