Sam Shepard, who has died aged 73 from complications of ALS, a form of motor neurone disease, excelled as an actor, screenwriter, playwright and director. In each of those disciplines he challenged and reimagined mythic American archetypes. He wrote nearly 50 plays; the most coruscating of them, such as the Pulitzer prize-winning Buried Child (1978), True West (1980) and Fool for Love (1983), established him as one of the visionaries of US theatre and created a fresh vernacular for exploring the disparity in American life between myth and reality, past and present, fathers and sons.

He took flawed macho heroes who might have staggered out of an Anthony Mann western, and broken, overheated families redolent of a Tennessee Williams clan, and forced them into claustrophobic hothouse scenarios; the result was like Beckett performed in cowboy duds. He found in the process a large audience receptive to this blend of stormy psychodrama, pitiless analysis and bruised romanticism. By the age of 40, he had become the second most widely performed US playwright after Williams.

He was fascinated by the violence that arose in American life from feelings of inadequacy. This sense of failure runs very deep maybe it has to do with the frontier being systematically taken away, with the guilt of having gotten this country by wiping out a native race of people, with the whole Protestant work ethic, he said in 1984. I cant put my finger on it, but its the source of a lot of intrigue for me.

To articulate the charged, often oedipal confrontations that littered his work, and its friction between progress and tradition, he forged a genuinely original writing voice. His runaway soliloquies made urgent, rhythmic poetry out of the banal. I drive on the freeway every day, says Austin, the screenwriter grappling with notions of authenticity in True West. I swallow the smog. I watch the news in colour. I shop in the Safeway Theres no such thing as the west any more! Its a dead issue! But he could be just as eloquent with silence, as he proved in his screenplay (co-written by LM Kit Carson) for Paris, Texas (1984). Wim Wenderss plangent masterpiece reshaped the western as a modern road movie in which the wandering loner, played by Harry Dean Stanton, is mute for almost the first hour of the film.

As an actor, Shepard was a softer presence, cast early on for his wan, arresting handsomeness and his connotations of nobility. Later, as he grew craggier, his presence was typically used to denote grizzled tradition. He was fey as the dying farmer caught unwittingly in a love triangle in Terrence Malicks Days of Heaven (1978). His finest acting work was as the pilot Chuck Yeager in Philip Kaufmans mighty adaptation of Tom Wolfes The Right Stuff (1983). Shepard evoked achingly the determination of Yeager, who had been the first person to fly at supersonic speed, to set a new altitude record even if it meant jeopardising his life. Burned and battered at the end of the movie, he falls to earth with a bang but gathers up his dignity along with his tattered parachute. The performance, which brought him an Oscar nomination for best supporting actor, marked the point where his acting began to blur with his writing to create the intrepid artist-cowboy of popular imagination, as John J Winters put it in his book Sam Shepard: A Life (2017).

This impression persisted in films such as the Cormac McCarthy adaptation All the Pretty Horses (2000), The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007) and the Mississippi melodrama Mud (2012). Recently Shepard starred in the Netflix series Bloodline (2015), as the patriarch in a tempestuous family scarred by murder and double-crossing. The impression that he was having a whale of a time was enhanced by the suspicion that the programme makers had raided Shepards own thematic larder in cooking up the shows heady gumbo. No wonder he looked at home.

He was born in Fort Sheridan, Illinois, and raised largely in southern California, the son of Samuel Shepard Rogers, a teacher, farmer and former US army pilot, and Jane (nee Schook), also a teacher. The family moved around, living in Utah and Florida before settling for a while in Duarte, California, where his father owned an avocado farm. Sam was educated at Duarte high school, Los Angeles, and at Mt San Antonio College, where he studied agriculture.

Though he claimed to have been a rabble-rouser, classmates later recalled a nice, polite, quiet boy. He did, however, clash repeatedly with his alcoholic father, and left home after intervening in a parental argument. He had various odd jobs and briefly joined a travelling theatre troupe. Ending up in New York, he worked as a waiter and started knocking out one-act plays for the off-off-Broadway circuit.

These immediately earned him notoriety. A double-bill of Cowboys and The Rock Garden caused an uproar by its profane language; a scene from the latter was excerpted in Kenneth Tynans 1969 revue Oh! Calcutta! Shepards work was said to have caused a significant cancellation of subscriptions at some of the venues that staged it. But along with controversy came acclaim: between 1966 and 1968 he won six Obie awards for plays including Icaruss Mother and La Turista.

His own emerging creative life brought him into the orbit of other artists of that time. He became friendly with the Rolling Stones. Along with Allen Ginsberg, he was one of the writers of Robert Franks film Me and My Brother (1969). Less happily, he also co-wrote Michelangelo Antonionis Zabriskie Point (1970). Antonioni wanted to make a political statement about contemporary youth, write in a lot of Marxist jargon and Black Panther speeches, he said. I couldnt do it. I just wasnt interested. Shepards name ended up being one of five credited for the script.

He also drummed for the Holy Modal Rounders and married the actor O-Lan Jones, with whom he had a child. At the same time, he fell into a seven-month relationship with the musician Patti Smith, and co-wrote with her the 1971 semi-autobiographical play Cowboy Mouth, in which they both starred. Another of his plays, Back Bog Beast Bait, was included on the same bill and featured Jones as a character based on Smith.

When Shepard and Jones moved briefly to London to escape that imbroglio, he met the director Peter Brook, who introduced Shepard to the teachings of the spiritual philosopher GI Gurdjieff and encouraged him to think more closely about character in his writing. Upon returning to the US, he went on tour with Bob Dylans Rolling Thunder revue, where he began a brief relationship with Joni Mitchell; her song Coyote was said to have been written about him (He pins me in a corner and he wont take no/ He drags me out on the dance floor/ And were dancing close and slow). Out of his friendship with Dylan came a screenwriting credit on the singers film Renaldo and Clara (1978) and a co-writing one on his song Brownsville Girl.

Unsettled by life on the road, and with Brooks advice in his ears, Shepard took up the post of playwright-in-residence at the Magic theatre in San Francisco and produced the plays that were to mark his most celebrated period and define him forever in audiences minds. Curse of the Starving Class, which had its premiere at the Royal Court in London in 1977, concerns a debt-ridden, alcoholic former pilot trying to offload his Californian farm.

In Buried Child, a dysfunctional family is haunted by the memory of a dead son and dominated by Dodge, the gone-to-seed patriarch marinated in booze. Shepards own father pitched up at one performance and began berating the actors on stage. He took it personally and he was drunk, the playwright said. He was kicked out and then was readmitted once he confessed to being my father. And then he started yelling at the actors again.

True West, about two warring brothers, dramatised what Shepard saw as an essential divide in human nature. I think were split in a much more devastating way than psychology can ever reveal Its something weve got to live with. (In a notable 2000 Broadway staging admired by Shepard, the connection between the characters was amplified by having the actors Philip Seymour Hoffman and John C Reilly swap roles on alternate nights.)

Fool for Love (1983) was a feverish, motel-bound drama about incestuous half-siblings; Shepard also adapted it and starred in Robert Altmans 1985 film version. Completing the playwrights most distinguished period, A Lie of the Mind (1985) examined an abusive marriage. It, too, was haunted by yet another drunk, domineering father.

During this time, Shepards career as an actor was picking up. Though he made only a mild impression in Frances (1982), a biopic of the actor Frances Farmer, it was important for another reason: he fell in love with its star, Jessica Lange, with whom he was in a relationship for 26 years. They appeared together in the rural dramas Country (1984) and Crimes of the Heart (1986), while Shepard directed her in Far North (1988), one of only two movies he directed. The other, Silent Tongue (1993), was a mystical western starring River Phoenix, Richard Harris and Alan Bates.

He starred with Diane Keaton in the comedy Baby Boom (1987) and alongside Julia Roberts in the weepie Steel Magnolias (1989) and the thriller The Pelican Brief (1993). He was a good choice to play the Ghost to Ethan Hawkes Prince in a modern-day Hamlet (2000) by Michael Almereyda, who also directed a revealing documentary about Shepard, This So-Called Disaster (2003), which followed the preparations for a staging of his play The Late Henry Moss. Other films included Black Hawk Down (2001), The Notebook (2004), Killing Them Softly (2012), an adaptation of Tracy Lettss play August: Osage County (2013) and the thriller Cold in July (2014).

Shepard continued writing, acting and directing throughout the rest of his life, branching out also into short fiction in collections such as Cruising Paradise (1996) and Day Out of Days: Stories (2010) and a novel, The One Inside, published this year. Asked in 2016 if he felt he had achieved something substantial, he replied: Yes and no. If you include the short stories and all the other books and you mash them up with some plays and stuff, then, yes, Ive come at least close to what Im shooting for. In one individual piece, Id say no. There are certainly some plays I like better than others, but none that measure up. For all the messy domestic histrionics that litter his work, he seemed ultimately to be grappling with solitude. Writing, he said in 2010, is almost a response to that aloneness which cant be answered in any other way.

He is survived by his son, Jesse, from his marriage to Jones, and two children, Hannah and Walker, from his relationship with Lange.

Samuel Shepard Rogers, writer and actor, born 5 November 1943; died 27 July 2017

Read more here:
Sam Shepard obituary - The Guardian

There are so many different skills that experts say can help you attain professional success. Some are especially valued in some lines of work, but dont matter much in others. But, some of the most important skills are extremely valuable regardless of industry.

Self-awareness is one of those most essential skills for any professional, regardless of what you do for a living. It can help lead to success in so many ways.

When you know yourself, you know your strengths. This gives you a better understanding of the unique qualities you bring to your interactions with others and to your work. You can lean on your strengths during difficult times to help you, and others, get through.

Similarly, its important to understand your weaknesses in order to continue to grow professionally. This is more difficult than it seems at first. It can be hard to take a good, honest look in the mirror. But, self-awareness can help you pinpoint what you need to improve.

We need to be self-aware enough to get that were only human in order to face our strengths and our weaknesses with maturity. When you develop self-awareness, it makes it easier to take the good with the bad, forgive yourself, and move forward.

Self-awareness can help improve your career because it makes it easier to understand how others see you. This is key for success. Its essential to be aware of the perceptions of higher-ups, of course, but its also important to know how you come off when youre working in a leadership capacity.

Put simply, the qualities commonly associated with management and leadership being authoritative, decisive, forceful, perhaps somewhat controlling,if not moderated by a high degree of awareness as to how one comes across and is perceived by others, are also qualities that have the potential to easily alienate those on the receiving end, writes Victor Lipman at Forbes.

In another Forbes article, Lipman addresses the important topic of leadership and self-awareness. He highlights a study that was conducted in 2010 by Green Peak Partners andCornells School of Industrial and Labor Relations. This study looked at 72 executives, and concluded that high self-awareness often correlates with achieving high degrees of success as a leader. Per the research:

Leadership searches give short shrift to self-awareness, which should actually be a top criterion. Interestingly, a high self-awareness score was the strongest predictor of overall success. This is not altogether surprising as executives who are aware of their weaknesses are often better able to hire subordinates who perform well in categories in which the leader lacks acumen. These leaders are also more able to entertain the idea that someone on their team may have an idea that is even better than their own.

Self-awareness goes a long way toward improving people-skills overall. Without it, youre more likely to misunderstand situations and misread people. You learn to understand other people a little better once you yourself have become more self-aware. After all, how can you really have a mature understanding of what its like to be someone else if you dont have a good understanding of your own experiences.

Its often better to focus on your own actions rather than on others, especially when trying to solve a problem. People who are self-aware start by examining what they can change, personally, in order to succeed. Others might begin by pointing a finger at others.

Self-awareness leads to self-responsibility. And, that goes a long way to support positive behaviors and positive interpersonal relationships. Chances are that developing better self-awareness will have a positive impact on your personal life, too.

Has self-awareness helped you professionally? We want to hear from you! Leave a comment or join the discussion on Twitter.

people skills self-awareness tips for success

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7 Reasons Self-Awareness Leads to Success - PayScale Career News (blog)

NEW YORK (AP) Perhaps no show in TV history ever had a title that was better suited to it: Difficult People.

In this Hulu comedy, 30-something best friends Julie and Billy form a pushy, shameless united front as they wage war with New York and the world of show business they half-heartedly are trying to break into.

The upshot for viewers as they feast on this screwball, cringey series third season (which premieres Tuesday): Their difficulty not busting a gut.

Difficult People flings snark at Woody Allen, David Blaine, Passover, unhinged subway riders, a government initiative to deprogram gays, and Alcoholics Anonymous.

It finds Julie and Billy ducking into a church sanctuary to charge their phones but, when she finds no outlet there, blurting out indignantly, What is this place good for?

The show spoofs drug advertising with its commercial for Ridshadovan, an antidepressant that personifies depression as a sour, cronish woman who stalks the sufferer (including Julie, who finds this TV sourpuss actually stalking her).

The difficult duo of Difficult People are portrayed by Billy Eichner and Julie Klausner, with the jams they get into flowing from the mind of Klausner, who also created and writes the show.

Its a love story, she says. Granted, Julie lives with an ever-submissive partner (played by James Urbaniak, one among the series splendid troupe). Billy, a gay man, looks elsewhere for his flings.

But Billy and Julie share a transcendent bond.

The fact that we are so loyal to each other buys us a lot of real estate in the Being Horrible Department, Klausner says.

So its them against the world, armed with rat-a-tat, pop-culture-powered dialogue that spares nothing and no one. (Ever since President Trump replaced the Department of Health with Jenny McCarthys blog, says Billy, nothing makes sense.)

One of the most romantic things of all is finding someone you can hate everything else with, Klausner notes. Theres definitely a lot of opinions expressed by these characters. And a lot of agreement: They harmonize in stirring up their chaos.

The real-life team of Klausner and Eichner first joined forces on Billy on the Street, the breathless sidewalk quiz show for which she served as a producer. Its off-the-cuff style and pop-culture frenzy is akin to the meticulously scripted Difficult People she would mastermind soon after.

I spent more time with TV and movies than I did playing outside with people my age, the way healthy children are supposed to do, says Klausner, explaining her store of knowledge. Popular culture is the language I speak. And Billy speaks it too.

Earlier in her career, she applied that passion to churning out recaps of reality-show episodes. (Which, between auditions and capers with Billy, is what Julie does for money on Difficult People.)

For Klausner, recaps provided a great training ground for writing snappy commentary. She loved it.

But there is something about recap culture that feels like youre on the outside looking in, she says. Youre commenting on something that you really want to be making instead. So I definitely leaned into that with the character Julie, who feels like an outsider and is really frustrated.

Obviously, Real-Life-Julie and TV-Julie part ways in many respects. The red hair, air of mischief, and rapid-fire delivery are all the same.

But Im not stupid, and she kinda is, says Klausner, citing one distinction. She knows a lot about certain things. But she has no self-awareness. She is not enough of an adult to learn how to play the game. She doesnt do the work. Shes very stubborn: Ill stay exactly the way I am, and the world will come around to me.

Also: Unlike TV-Julie, mired lackadaisically with her boyfriend, Real-Life-Julie is currently single.

Im very picky, she cracks I want someone who is damaged in a very specific way.

Finally: What about Klausners emotional state?

In a touching scene, TV-Julie declares, I am an unhappy person. But the alternative is being somebody I dont know.

Klausner admits depression is definitely something Ive struggled with, but bursting out with a laugh, she adds, Im happier than I was before I had the TV show!

And the show is very therapeutic. Its definitely very helpful to be able to write about being a quote-unquote unhappy person, and in the process become a happier person and make other people feel like theyre not alone.

Thats what she demonstrates with Difficult People: You never feel alone when youre laughing.

The rest is here:
'Difficult People' star Julie Klausner: making it look easy - Norfolk Daily News

I read with great interest the report from Hadley Police Sgt. Mitchell Kuc, who remarked that the majority of the 400-500 accidents they dealt with happen on the towns Main Drag, Route 9 (Hadley police get unexpected clue in search for hit-and-run suspect, July 5).

It made me think about the causes, how fast they happen, and which are ones I am sometimes guilty of. I hope those who read this will look inside themselves, as well. Eight possible causes of fender benders:

1. Cell Phone behavior.

2. Reaching to change the station on the radio.

3. Driving with food or drink in one hand.

4. Distracted by someone walking by.

5. Leaning down to change the air conditioning controls.

6. Distracted by someone in a car in the opposite lane.

7. Following too close to be able to stop in time when the car in front of you suddenly jams on the brakes.

8. Finally, being too greedy to get ahead in the merges where double lanes get squeezed into one.

Id hate to see my lovely 1995 Toyota Celica Convertible banged by anyone doing any of these 8 dangerous and often mindless causes of accidents.

Sidney B. Simon

Hadley

Continued here:
Sidney B. Simon: Advises self-awareness to avoid driving mishaps - GazetteNET

You may have heard Yoga practice compared to the lotus flower, the flower of a thousand petals that grows in muddy waters.The metaphor that we are like the lotus flower, continuously creating and recreating itself and a reminder that we are in a constant state of renewal.

Yoga instructor Johanna Steinfeld demonstrates the viparita virabhadrasana with tree support pose.Gavin Young / Postmedia

The dedicated practitioner of Yoga practice will observe a multitude of blessings present and unfold themselves slowly and overtime.These are experienced initially by the physical body in forms of more flexibility, strength and improved ability to balance.Later on they are experienced more deeply as one penetrates the layers of the body to the more subtle realm and to fostering a quieter more relaxed mind.One will cultivate a deeper internal intelligence and learn how to listen and adjust to what the body is trying to tell you.

Yoga instructor Johanna Steinfeld demonstrates the modified adho mukha svanasana / downward facing dog with tree support.Gavin Young / Postmedia

The longer we have a relationship to our Yoga practice the more deeply these things unfold and open.

Like a cherished relationship that deepens and evolves over time, Yoga is the doorway to creating a strong and healthy relationship with all parts of yourself

Our bodies are made for full movement and huge range of motions.Yoga has us exploring movement in every direction and encourages us to keep our bodies connected, healthy and aligned.We practicepostures that work the left side of the body, the right side of the body and the centre line of the body.We expand, extend and work at opening the body in every plane and to moving with more awareness.And along the way, we grow ourselves from the inside out.

Yoga instructor Johanna Steinfeld demonstrates the modified virabhadrasana I / warrior 1 with tree to support the chest and shoulder opening for her August 2017 yoga column.Gavin Young / Postmedia

Overtime we learn to attune to what is happening deep within us.We have one side thats stronger and one side thats weaker.One side that is more open and one side that is more tight.Sometimes the disparity is obvious and sometimes it is more subtle.

Yoga practice shows us these subtle imbalances with constant illumination.We learn to work with the body to help create ease caused by misalignment and lack of awareness.And along the way we are bringing back to life what may have gone to sleep.

An example from one of my personal habits is that I hold my head slightly tilted to the right. I have learned that when I do this my ribs shift slightly to the left, my right hip lifts a little higher than the left and I am putting more weight and more pressure onto my right knee.Now that I am awake to the effects this small head tilt has on my body, I am working hard to break this habit and carry my entire structure in better balance.It is not easy to break our personal habits, but the work and effort will hopefully help elude bigger problems down the road.

The following poses will encourage you to stretch out both sides of your body.Pay attention to where things are tight.Move slowly and with your breathPractice patience, practice awareness and practice Yoga tree is optionalTo be guided in and out of each of the following poses, follow along with the attached video.

Be advised that it is always best to practice under the watchful eye of a dedicated Yoga teacher to grow your practice safely and slowly.

May your practice grow like the lotus flower, and may you be at home in the muddy waters.

Johanna Steinfeld teaches Yoga to people just like you in Calgary SW. http://www.itsjustyoga.comJoin me for a Yoga Vacation and Retreat at the Villa Sumaya eco resort on beautiful Lake Atitlan, Guatamala this October.All levels of Yogis encouragedwww.itsjustyoga.com/guatamala2017

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Yoga helps foster deeper self awareness - Calgary Herald

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Author William Sullivan

What: Slide show, Ghost Dancers to Rajneeshees: Cults in Oregon

When: 6:30 p.m. Saturday

Where: Paulina Springs Books, 252 W. Hood Ave, Sisters

Cost: free

Contact: paulinasprings.com or 541-549-0866

What: Sullivan discusses new hikes in Oregon

When: 5:30 p.m. Wednesday

Where: REI, 380 SW Powerhouse Drive, Bend

Cost: free

Contact: rei.com/stores/Bend or 541-385-0594

What: Slide show, Oregons Greatest Natural Disasters

When: 6 p.m. Aug. 10

Where: Sunriver Nature Center

Cost: free

Contact: sunrivernaturecenter.org or 541-593-4394

What: Slide show, New Hikes and Rajneeshees in Southern Oregon

When: noon Aug. 11

Where: Sisters Library, 110 N. Cedar St., Sisters

Cost: free

Contact: deschuteslibrary.org/calendar or 541-312-1070

What: Slide show, Ghost Dancers to Rajneeshees: Cults in Oregon

When: 5 p.m. Aug. 12

Where: Sunriver Books & Music, 57100 Beaver Drive, Building 25-C, Sunriver

Cost: free (registration requested)

Contact: sunriverbooks.com or 541-593-2525

What: Slide show, New Hikes and Rajneeshees in Southern Oregon

When: 2 p.m. Aug. 13

Where: Downtown Bend Library, 601 NW Wall St., Bend

Cost: free

Contact: deschuteslibrary.org/calendar

Eugene author William Bill Sullivan might be doing more running than hiking these days, thanks to his absolutely crazy summer schedule packed with speaking events, hiking research trips and work on his next novel. As part of this whirlwind, Sullivan has six events (and plenty of hiking) slated for his visit to Central Oregon from Saturday through Aug. 13.

Probably best known for his 10 Northwest hiking guide books, including the well regarded Central Oregon Cascades: 100 Hikes/Travel Guide, Sullivan has also published two Oregon histories, two adventure memoirs and five novels.

I actually started writing fiction first, Sullivan said. I have a degree in creative writing from Cornell, but realized you cant make a living doing that so I started doing the hiking guidebooks.

Sullivan is a fifth-generation Oregonian who grew up in Salem, where he nurtured a love of the outdoors. He feels his creative writing background helps his hiking guides stand apart from many on the market thanks to their descriptive narratives, which he hopes will motivate or inspire his readers to get out and complete the hikes and adventures he presents.

Sullivan re-hikes all the trails in his hiking books on a seven- year schedule and frequently updates the guides. He revises the Central Oregon guide annually, posting the new versions online (at oregonhiking.com) and reprinting the updated book every two to three years. He also offers free copies of his guides to anyone who contacts him with corrections to the data and information in them.

The research and updates for his hiking guides take most of the warmer months each year, but that means Sullivan has his winters free for other projects such as his first love fiction.

My fiction is almost entirely about Oregon and Oregon history, Sullivan said. With the hiking guide books, Im showing the physical landscape, but with the fiction, I can talk about the emotional landscape and the cultural landscape.

Sullivans latest novel, The Case of the Reborn Bhagwan, was released in February. The murder mystery centers around a 26-year-old Portland barista who is believed to be the reincarnation of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, the infamous spiritual leader whose red-robed followers tried to build a utopia north of Madras in the 1980s.

In a case where the facts really were stranger than fiction, the original Rajneeshee commune fell apart when its leaders resorted to attempted murder and mass poisoning in an effort to remove local and state leaders who opposed their presence and the development of their 64,000-acre ranch.

In the novel, the re-established Rajneeshees are now building a new commune on an Indian reservation near Crater Lake when people associated with the project are targeted by a mysterious sniper. Detective Neil Ferguson must expose the killer and uncover the truth behind the Rajneeshee revival.

The novel is meant to be fun, but like all my fiction, Im trying to illuminate an aspect of who we are as Oregonians and give us pause for reflection, said Sullivan.

Sullivan wondered how the Rajneeshee episode might have turned out differently if it had happened today, and felt it was something that deserved to be re-examined beyond the sensational news headlines about the Baghwans collection of Rolls Royce cars and the host of criminal convictions against the groups leaders after its collapse.

Some of Sullivans Central Oregon events (see If you go) will focus on hiking, some on the states history and others on The Case of the Reborn Bhagwan. And at some, the author will wear both his fiction and nonfiction hats literally. Sullivan likes to wear his hiking hat when discussing the hiking guides, and remove it to talk about his novel.

17794090

See original here:
Author pens mysteries between hikes - Bend Bulletin

As someone who also was there and who embraced the hippie culture during the 1960s and early 1970s, my reading of Goldbergs book is that it is spot on. Its not glorified and nostalgic, and certainly not condescending and dismissive as most books written on the 1960s subculture are these days.

Written in clear congenial prose and in a very orderly and organized fashion with great informative and entertaining detail, Goldberg puts his readers through the paces of the various aspects of the 1960s cultural renaissance/revolution and beyond. Starting in 1966 with the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood in San Francisco followed by chapters on the Media, the Music, Mind and Body Consciousness, the Black Power Movement, the Flower Power and Peace Movements, the Psychedelic Revolution, the Viet Nam War, the Yippie movement, the eventual Death of Hippie downfall, then an epilogue summary of where things went right and where things went wrong, Goldberg presents us with nothing less than a college course on the 1960s cultural revolution from a perspective which is both personal and highly researched, including a timeline of key events and news for that era at the end of his book.

Yes, this book is full of the usual suspects, but it is a far cry from the same ole same ole in previous books written about the various aspects of the 60s. Goldberg has done his research and alongside his personal associations with many of the stars of the 60s counterculture he elucidates the issues and the ironies inherent in that decade beginning with a manifesto from the premiere counterculture newspaper, the Oracle, stating When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for people to cease obeying obsolete social patterns which have isolated man from his consciousness we the citizens of the earth declare our love and compassion for all hate-carrying men and women.

The books narrative continues with a quote from Allen Ginsberg who says about the Berkeley BE-IN, which more or less launched the hippie movement: a gathering together of younger people aware of the planetary fate that we are all sitting in the middle of, imbued with a new consciousness, and desiring of a new kind of society involving prayer, music, and spiritual life together rather than competition, acquisition, and war.

Meanwhile, on the east coast poet-musician Ed Sanders is quoted in the East Village Other (New Yorks truly liberal newspaper at the time) as saying: a generation that fervently believes that important and long-lasting changes will occur in the United States which would bring free medical care to all plus an end to war and the growth of personal freedom and good vibes. And in the July 1967 issue of Time magazine the lead article stated that Hippies preach altruism and mysticism, honesty, joy, and nonviolence Their professed aim is nothing less than the subversion of Western society by flower power and the force of example.

With these quotes as a prelude and a foundation for the rest of his book, Goldberg cites Henry David Thoreau, Mahatma Gandhi, Aldous Huxley, Gautama Buddha and St. Francis as models and mentors from the past for the hippie generation. A generation that he describes as one that revealed the exhaustion of a tradition of Western, production-directed, problem-solving, goal-oriented and compulsive way of thinking. At the time of the now famous quote created by LSD guru Timothy Leary of turn on, tune in, and drop out, Goldberg quotes University of Chicago theologian Martin E. Marty saying In the end it may be that hippies have not so much dropped out of American society as given it something to think about. But there was another form of communication in 1967 that touched most of us baby boomers more deeply than all of the underground and mainstream papers and TV shows put together, and it usually involved a guitar.

Having worked inside the music industry for almost four decades (1969-2004), Goldberg gives us a backstage pass to the 60s music scene and its countercultural history. We get to be witness to everything from underground radio to the Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco and the West Coast psychedelic rock explosion to the Monterey Pop Festival and the Los Angeles bands to the folk and rock scene in Greenwich Village in New York to London and the famous UFO club and, of course, the Beatles.

Its all there, including great behind-the-scenes stories about the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Country Joe and the Fish, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Moby Grape, Steve Miller Blues Band, Big Brother and the Holding Company, Jimi Hendrix, Otis Redding, The Rolling Stones, Cream, Eric Burdon & The Animals, Love, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Frank Zappa & The Mothers of Invention, Lovin Spoonful, Johnny Winter, John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Sun Ra, MC5, J. Geils Band, James Brown, Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee, Muddy Waters, Electric Flag, The Allman Brothers Band, and the list goes on and on all adding to the countercultures consciousness.

In the wake of the Be-Ins and concerts in 1967, it seemed to many in the hip world (including Goldberg) that the force of agape was sufficient to overcome societys obstacles and that a utopian vision could meaningfully change mass culture for the better. Hence the coining of the term Flower Power and all that this moniker implied. Or as Allan Watts put it: Western man has lost touch with original intelligence through centuries of relying solely on analytic thinking. Now, with psychedelics and meditation, some are reconnecting with original intelligence and giving birth to an entirely new course for the development of civilization.

During this time the Eastern religions became more popular in America with a plethora of Indian gurus like the Maharishi, Hare Krishnas, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, Swami Satchidananda, and books like the I Ching and Autobiography of a Yogi became mainstream among celebrities and the hippie masses alike. And all of this the music, the psychedelic drugs, the literature, the Eastern spiritual influences all fed in to hippie politics and in particular the movement against the war in Viet Nam.

In looking back on the years of the late 1960s, the feminist and political activist Heather Booth adds: There always have been people working in particular areas like womens rights, gay rights, the environment, the peace movement, and civil rights, but in my heart, I always felt like it was one movement and I still do.

Finally, Goldberg speaks about the end of the hippie era, citing the fateful events of the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago, the birth of the Yippie culture and political countercultural perspective, The Weather Underground, and the Civil Rights Movement.

Goldberg goes on to conclude that decades later people began to view the late sixties as a time of superficial trends, like the Roaring Twenties, worth remembering primarily for the interesting music and colorful fashions. But finally and appropriately Goldberg quotes one of the 60s cultural heroes: Moral and spiritual progress usually takes decades or even lifetimes. Hippie skeptic Kerouac said, Walking on water wasnt built in a day, but he didnt say it could never happen. Its been decades since the 1960s and we could sure use a dose of the values, compassion and consciousness that was created back then.

Thomas Crowe is a regular writer for The Smoky Mountain News and is currently writing a personal memoir on the literary renaissance in San Francisco in the 1970s. He can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

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Searching for the 60s - Smoky Mountain News

FSM eDigest | August 1, 2017

By Robert A. Norton, Ph.D., and Brad Deacon

Last April 24, an alert employee at a Whole Foods Market in Ann Arbor, MI, noticed a young man spritz liquid from a small spray bottle onto food in the hot food bar. The man, 29-year-old Kyle Bessemer, was arrested after the media published a surveillance image showing him carrying a red shopping basket and striding past the avocados. Bessemer told police he mixed a Tomcat rodent poison with water in a bottle of hand sanitizer and, over the past two weeks, had sprayed the mixture onto open salad and food bars at several grocery stores. He was suspected of doing the same at 15 other foodservice establishments. Surveillance photos also showed Bessemer squirting liquid on avocados as he squeezed them.

In his statement to police, Bessemer said he had a history of mental illness and thought people were poisoning him, and he ultimately was found unfit to stand trial. This time, nobody got sick from the watered-down poison, but the specter of what if? hovers over the affair. Imagine what could have happened if Bessemer had been what we call a thinking adversary, one who researched and carefully planned an operation targeting vulnerable, open salad bars. Its happened before: Back in 1984, followers of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh used the pathogen Salmonella to poison more than 750 residents of The Dalles, OR. They deliberately contaminated salad bars at 10 local restaurants in hopes of incapacitating voters so their candidate would win in an upcoming county election.

And what if the culprit not only knew what he was doing but was an insider, someone who knew how to avoid security cameras and pick a time when no one would see him? What if he worked in the back, prepping salad bar ingredients? An insider could get into the system, find concentration points and make sure a poisoned product was widely distributed to the public.

This could have been a very different event. Fortunately, a Whole Foods employee was not only alert but willing to speak up; store management responded immediately, contacting local police and removing all produce and salad bar items; and federal, state and local officials responded rapidly, decisively and effectively. Now, there has been enough time to look back and ponder lessons learned. The number one thing to remember is that alert employees are the most important company asset in any food defense program. Food defense plans are important, but worthless without vigilant employees willing to act decisively. Food defense has to be a team effort.

Other InsightsThe first thing that happened is that store management immediately contacted local police and removed produce and salad bar items to a landfill rather than using the food as animal feed or compost.

Lessons learned:Quick removal of contaminated food material is essential to prevent spread of the incident.

Removal of contaminated food material must be done in a way that does not allow the material to be a source of further contamination in animal feed or the human food chain.

At the time, limited samples were taken of the potentially contaminated food. Additional samples would have been desirable. Consultation with law enforcement officials before disposal of food material would also have been desirable.In the future, it would be wise to segregate food that is suspected to be contamined in a location where sampling by law enforcement can be accomplished, without danger of contaminating other, safe food or introducing the contaminated food into the human or animal feed chains.

The day after the incident, local law enforcement, the FBI, HazMat, the county emergency operations center, the county public health department, the state health department and the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (MDARD) mounted a coordinated, multiagency response. MDARD also notified the grocery industry.

Lessons learned:The state system worked quickly and efficiently, but may have been somewhat delayed because the incident occurred on a Sunday. A thorough after-action review is expected to assess the response time.

Incidents tend to occur at inconvenient times, including weekend and holidays. This should be considered the norm, and emergency plans should include contingencies for incidents when a minimal number of response personnel may be available, Further, it is critical that after-hours emergency contact numbers for key personnel and key agencies be readily accessible.

Emergency response plans should include contingencies for segregating potentially contaminated food materials during off hours, as well as first-run sampling of contaminated materials. States, counties and municipalities should consider identifying collection points ahead of time, where suspect food materials could be collected and initial sampling initiated. These collection points need not be a stand-alone or sole use facility, but should be secure and a location where further contamination of the human or animal food supplies can be prevented.

In the early stages, where identification of the contamination agent(s) has not occurred, it is essential that public access to the portion of the facilities and any equipment associated with the event be temporarily suspended, until which time the type of contamination be identified. Clean up in such instances should not be initiated until which time state or local HazMat does initial testing at the site, so as to ensure that radioactive materials or highly hazardous chemicals are not present.

The Michigan Public Health Laboratory screened the food suspected of contamination on April 27, three days after the incident, finding no evidence of select agents. The first multiagency call took place, and the store was notified that the risk to the public was low.

Lesson learned: Definitive identification of potential hazard(s) takes time beyond initial screenings by HazMat. There is no good go-around for this, and therefore food industry defense plans should take into consideration these types of inevitable lag times. Interruption of the process should be anticipated and contingencies built into the plan.

On April 28, four days after the incident, the Michigan Intelligence Operation Center generated an Official Use Only Bulletin and shared it with law enforcement and the grocery industry. The bulletin proved essential in the identification of the suspect by alerting other grocery store employees. An alert employee recognized the suspect and contacted law enforcement officials.

Lessons learned:The decision to release information to the public in future events will be dependent on the nature of the hazard(s) and the state of the investigation. Rather than establishing a hard and fast rule, it is advisable that each case be handled independently with the watchword being transparency, wherever and whenever possible.

Avoidance of panic by the public is an essential consideration in any decision.

Release of information must also be done in such a way to avoid investigatory compromise.

The Big PictureBig picture, what can the government and the food industry gain from the lessons learned? Overall, the system worked well in Michigan, although there were issues that both the private sector and public sector agencies are working to address. There is always room in any plan for improvement. In fact, it is not certain that another municipality or state would have been as efficient. In all, 16 grocery stores were investigated by state officials, and the breadth of the investigation was costly. Not all jurisdictions would be able to quickly muster such resources, which could translate into the event spreading quickly and becoming even larger. Illness complaints first emerged after the public announcement. Although claims of illness ultimately proved to be unfounded or unrelated to the contamination events, the investigation nevertheless expended additional law enforcement and public health resources.

The motive to date still remains unknown, which is a troubling gap that may never be answered. There are indications mental illness may have been involved. Insight into the suspects motivations might give valuable clues into how the incidents evolved. Although the investigation to date has not uncovered information indicating involvement of others, that question remains open.

A particularly troubling aspect to any event like this is whether it could lead to copycat incidents. The event revealed vulnerabilities in grocery store food defense planning and operations. One of the conundrums in any incident investigation is the question of what should be exposed. Obviously, during the incident, the grocery stores that might be affected need timely information on what transpired and what to look for if similar events were to occur in their facilities. A thoroughly researched after-action report is also essential but may, in some cases, need to include redactions, particularly if proprietary information related to the affected facilities is exposed during the course of the investigation. Specific information related to the affected facility should be restricted to the owners of the facility, while more generalized lessons learned should be distributed industrywide as soon as possible.

The possibility of thinking adversaries must always be considered in planning for future events. A thinking adversary is one who will learn from personal mistakes or those of others. It is generally safe to say that future events will not be the same as those in the past. Frequently while planning for future events, companies find security solutions for past events. Thinking adversaries know this and will plan work-arounds to overcome new strategies and safeguards implemented in response to the last incident. Planners need to anticipate generalities, rather than specific scenarios. A security camera system placed over a salad bar might be a valid response, but its placement could also cause a thinking adversary to shift attention to some other location in the grocery store. A whole-of-property camera system could be used to prevent this adversarial shifting, but can such a system actually prevent an event or just detect an event once it has occurred? Security camera systems are very good to have, but are only as good as the comprehensive food defense program of which they are an essential part.

Threats evolve with the adversaries. Food defense plans must also evolve. What might have been effective in the past is not necessarily going to be effective in the future. Essential to any robust planning and operational execution is the training of personnel, who are going to be on the front lines when something occurs. They must be empowered with knowledge of what to look for in terms of suspicious activity and authority to act with the full support of the facility or corporation leadership. That being said, one threat that should not be minimized is the potential for events to be precipitated by insiders. Disgruntled employees are the most immediate problem for any corporation, food-based or otherwise. Insiders know the system and how it works, and they also know defense strategies and gaps. It is imperative to hire only thoroughly vetted individuals whose identities are definitively known, and for supervisory staff to monitor all employees activities and demeanor. Employees showing signs of discontent or agitation should be immediately removed from critical processes or functions, such as concentration points where large numbers of food products could be intentionally contaminated.

In terms of response improvements needed, Michigan identified first the need to take more and better samples should future events occur. When in question, always take more samples, thoroughly document their source, and let the laboratories sort out what they do or do not need to test. Geocode everything and document sample location with imagery and video.

Another important conclusion in the lessons learned is the need for government agencies to better understand industry practices. This can only be accomplished if industry and government work cooperatively, which is never easy if collaboration is impeded by agencies that have both regulatory and emergency response authority. In times of emergency response, regulatory authorities must temporarily be subservient to the needs of the response. Sensitive, incomplete and rapidly changing information is very challenging to communication, but solutions to overcome these frictions must be found to prevent exacerbation of the emergency. In addition, emergencies are no time for meetings; conference calls with appropriate authorities and direct communications with liaisons should be used to communicate, not meetings. Briefings should be just that, brief and succinct, clearly communicating the knowns and unknowns. Goals for the response, as well as for the subsequent investigation, should be set as early as feasible. The most immediate goal is to identify the nature of the threat and contain its spread and therefore its impact. The investigation will come later. The investigation should never be allowed to impede the response.

Robert A. Norton, Ph.D., is a professor at Auburn University and chair of the Auburn University Food System Institutes Food Defense Working Group. A long-time consultant to federal and state law enforcement agencies, the Department of Defense and industry, he specializes in intelligence analysis, weapons of mass destruction defense and military-related national security issues. For more information on the topic or for more detailed discussions about specific security related needs, he can be reached at nortora@auburn.edu or by phone at 334.844.7562.

Brad Deacon is Michigans emergency management coordinator and director of the Office of Legal Affairs for the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development. He can be reached at 517.284.5729.

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Case Update: Produce Targeted by Man Spraying Mouse Poison - Food Safety Magazine

Todays long trade idea:You can get long US large cap growth companies via the iShares S&P 500 Growth Index ETF, IVW. As long as IVW trades above $134.24, then use declines below $139.89 for new long trades, suggests Landon Whaley of Focus Market Trader.

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If you want to be a consistently successful investor, then you must channel your inner Eckhart Tolle and focus on now. Stay with me; Im not going to launch into a diatribe about mindfulness. But what I can tell you is that if you focus on better understanding what is happening right now, you will see both opportunities and risks that most market participants miss. Focusing on now helps you better handicap the probabilities of various scenarios in the future.

This now approach is in stark contrast to most investors, who either look in the rearview mirror at three-month-old data, or focus on forecasts in an effort to predict what will happen months in the future.

Successful investing is not about forecasting the weather for tomorrow, but instead about noticing if its sunny or raining today.

Last week, investors were caught driving while looking in the rearview mirror when the initial estimate of U.S. Q2 GDP was released. Folks, we are a third of the way through Q3. Who gives a rip what happened in Q2?

Not only is this data point as dated as my last relationship, but its also going to be revised 700 times over the next six weeks.

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Driving while Looking in the Rearview Mirror - Moneyshow.com (registration)

IN JEWISH TRADITION when celebrating a special occasion or showing gratitude for a new and unusual experience, we recite a blessing from the Talmud called the shehechyanu.

In this blessing, we thank God for having given us life, sustained us and brought us to this moment.

Reciting blessings is an important part of Jewish life. We are taught that we should actually recite at least 100 blessings a day.

Assuming one is awake for 16 hours, that would mean during a 960-minute day, we would need to say a blessing about every nine minutes.

Of course, we can all think of things for which we should show gratitude, but 100 daily blessings feels like an onerous task.

So why is there such an emphasis on being grateful in Judaism?

The sages understood that it seems to be a part of human nature to focus on the negative and neglect what is good in our lives. The Hebrew phrase for gratitude, Hakafot Hatov, translates as a recognition of the good.

How often we grumble and complain about all that is going wrong but fail to see the good. Its so easy to feel gratitude when all is going well not so much when life hands us challenges.

Gratitude is one of the traits studied in the Jewish Mussar tradition where one is encouraged to reflect on various human characteristics in a very deliberate manner.

Using a conscious, intentional focus, we learn to recognize the importance of finding balance in these traits, and with daily meditation, this focus can become a habit.

Alan Morinis, in his book on the practice of Mussar, Every Day, Holy Day, points out the importance of gratitude: If youve lost your job but you still have your family and health, you have something to be grateful for. If you cant move around except in a wheelchair but your mind is as sharp as ever, you have something to be grateful for.

The importance of practicing gratitude is seen by many as crucial to a well-lived life. Eckhart Tolle said, It is through gratitude for the present moment that the spiritual dimension of life opens up. American author Melody Beattie says, Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.

A direct result of being grateful for our blessings is the recognition that others are not so lucky, and we are nudged to extend our hand in help.

We understand that because we have so much more than others, we dedicate ourselves to doing what we can to ease their burdens, thus working toward the goal of tikun olam, repairing the world.

John F. Kennedy pointed out: Things do not happen. Things are made to happen. As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.

Live your life from your heart. Share from your heart. And your story will touch and heal peoples souls. Each moment in time we have it all, even when we think we dont (Beattie).

Practice gratitude every day in your life, and you will not only develop empathy for those who have less, but you will also realize all the blessings you truly have.

As Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch taught, First become a blessing to yourself so that you may become a blessing to others.

Kein yehi Ratzen may it be Gods will. Shalom.

_________

Issues of Faith is a rotating column by five religious leaders on the North Olympic Peninsula. Suzanne DeBey is a lay leader of the Port Angeles Jewish community.

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ISSUES OF FAITH: Gratitude crucial to a well-lived, -balanced life - Peninsula Daily News