April – VICTORY!<\/strong><\/em> Woo hoo! Maryland banned fracking! The icing on the cake is that our often-used fracking tower costumes made the Washington Post!<\/p>\n ——————-<\/p>\n March 2017 – Representing Solutionary Rail, I was treated to a nighttime Houston Toxic Tour<\/strong>\u00a0led by incredible Yvette of\u00a0t.e.j.a.s.<\/a>\u00a0– Texas Justice Environmental Advocacy Services<\/p>\n ———————————————————————————–<\/p>\n Celebrated culture writer John Berger just passed away on January 2nd at the age of 90 years.<\/p>\n Since our profoundly troubling political moment has much in common with 2005, I am sharing an essay I wrote that year, having just met the man in London. I hope it proves to be fortifiying in 2017.<\/p>\n “There is Where We Met: An Homage to John Berger”<\/p>\n ‘At a large dinner table, you sat between S., filmmaker extraordinaire, and across from your partner B. I sat near D. and J. and G. In fact, during the entire evening, you and I only exchanged a few brief sentences. ‘Nice to meet you, I’ve admired your work,’ (me) and “You and your daughter were really talking about left and right brain functions when experiencing art,” (me) and, during a cheek-to-cheek kiss, “Of course! I’ll have to tell K. what you said! Remember: left and right!” (you). Yes, you kissed me with a smile and much enthusiasm, and I will never be the same. With piercing blue eyes and childlike wonder, it appears that you do everything with a happy curiosity. (In fact, you joined our table late because you felt compelled to finish a drawing in a quiet spot in the restaurant hallway before dinner. And you had just turned seventy nine years old.)<\/p>\n I was not convinced that I deserved to be at this meal with you. Had the adoring young Berger cousin with the golden curls been turned away at the restaurant entrance? Had a devoted fan of many years been told that she was of no consequence when it came to dining with John Berger? It had been awkward at the entry door because we all knew that the table had only been reserved for sixteen, and that G. would have to choose amongst the thick crowd eagerly gathered there. I merely had the advantage of being with D., your friend and mine, one of two people who originated the idea of this month-long, city-wide celebration of your life’s work.<\/p>\n Your daughter K. and your are quite close. You have exchanged frequent and ironic electronic text messages, about: the nature of art, the marvelous, flawed and mysterious human figure as depicted by Titian; the dissolution of the self through art (whether by Titian or Rothko); daughters having babies; father and daughter love; sensuality as central experience, and so on. Many of your exchanges became the book you wrote together, “Titian: Nymph and Shepherd” from which you read aloud to an audience just before the dinner.<\/p>\n You and K. had read to each other at a table on a stage in a sold-out lecture room at the National Portrait Gallery on Trafalgar Square. Behind you both, there was a large screen with images of Titian paintings. Initially, while listening to your exchange with your daughter, I was envious. I wanted those kinds of conversations with my father, upon whose lightness my entire family depends. Or with my older son whose fingers on the piano are astonishing. Or with my younger son whose perceptive actions touch my heart almost daily. But I am fortunate. It didn’t take long for me to realize that I already have an intimacy with my father and sons. These are gifts I must remember to treasure.<\/p>\n I had returned to London (where I had once lived) to attend as many “John Berger: A Season in London 2005” events as D. and I could manage. D. and I filled up our time together at his flat speaking about a few of your many books: “The Seventh Man” “G” “The Shape of a Pocket” and “Here Is Where We Meet”.<\/p>\n Then we feasted ourselves on your ideas by attending events all around London. We learned of your partnership with people in literature, visual arts, film, television, photography (especially Jean Mohr), live performance, and politics. So many have been influenced by your unique version of the essay form!<\/p>\n Why does a soul have early fame and success with an important book (“Ways of Seeing”, 1972) and then decide to go off to an isolated, distant mountain to quietly live? How does one maintain discipline, modesty, spontaneity, and a democratic spirit, along with the need for open-ended collaboration? Above all, how to pursue a a deep desire for a just world — all through the lens of what we actually allow ourselves to see?<\/p>\n Does the love of women help at all? And, if so, is that recognition sexist? What can any woman take from your writing, which is so clearly the work of a man?<\/p>\n Over the years, you and your collaborators got the big issues right, because your work remains painfully relevant in 2005:<\/p>\n **Looking at images is either about losing the self (a unifying thing) or about power, either of which can be good for the spirit or bad for us all (“Permanent Red” “The Shape of a Pocket”).<\/p>\n **Art as commerce and consumption has always been everywhere. Therefore, art is of no use when it comes to advancing the human spirit and community well-being unless deliberately created for these purposes ( “Permanent Red” “Wanting Now: A Thought for Trafalgar Square”).<\/p>\n **The migrant\/immigrant\/NAFTA experience can be universalized when we express our opposition to exploitation of people for corporate profits and greed. Big government exists mostly to promote large-scale capitalist interests. This problem is a cancer that is heart and planet destroying (“The Seventh Man” “The Shape of a Pocket”).<\/p>\n **We have lost our former innate intimacy with other animal and life forms, and so have cut ourselves off from the essential creative force that touches every cell of our bodies (“Parting Shots from Animals” a television documentary).<\/p>\n **We must challenge the disappearance of native and peasant cultures worldwide without whom we cannot maintain our original sources of nourishment, the old stories of our land and water, and our necessary role in these narratives. In the end, yes, it is about our survival (“Pig Earth” television documentary, “Into Their Labors” fiction trilogy).<\/p>\n **Subcomandante Marcos of Mexico and you have agreed that seemingly powerless people – often forced into armed conflict for mere survival – must, of necessity, use memory, dreams, and hope to shape and share a better world (“The Shape of a Pocket”).<\/p>\n I know that you are now thinking of death in “Here Is Where We Meet”. But, for you, old age and death are not sad songs. Instead, being an elder becomes yet another opportunity for you to listen, listen, listen and reflect back, to form a charmed chain of lived experience. Even with those who have passed. This moment seems to be partly about departed family members, friends and lovers, who speak through and to you, about earthly magic and, yes, tragedy, that never dissipates. For instance, in your essay, “Some Fruit As Remembered By The Dead”, we are reminded that every bite of fruit that touches our lips is a pure and sacred celebration of color and taste.<\/p>\n Speaking of food, I think, with envy, of your enormous appetite for meat and drink (and conversation and cigars) that night at dinner. I stole glances at you, and was impressed. Most of us at the gathering could not match your energy. When our party was finally asked to leave, around midnight (the waiters had been patient!), you seemed disappointed. Finally, we all left the table, said our goodbyes, and four of us shared a taxi home.<\/p>\n Still, I have more questions for you. Do you believe that others have joined you on your life’s journey? That is, how can we be political idealists and hungry for culture in this impossible moment? Have there been, in recent memory, easier times? Although ugly people and behaviors loom large, how can we still seek remedies with one another? Will you tell us, yet again, about the critical role of the artist in society?<\/p>\n I think I finally understand your biggest gift. It became clear to me in an essay you wrote in “The Shape of a Pocket” about Mexican Artist Frida Kahlo. In that essay, you speak to Kahlo’s ability to paint her pain in luminous colors onto hard flat surfaces, as if the very surfaces were her own skin in agony. You then say:<\/p>\n “In the dark age in which we are living under the new world order, the sharing of pain is one of the essential preconditions for a refinding of dignity and hope. Much pain is unshareable. But the will to share pain is shareable. And from that inevitable inadequate sharing comes a resistance.”<\/p>\n And so, with Kahlo’s self portraits and your gentle words, we go beyond metaphor, back to life itself, because this is possible. You offer out what you have at last understood to be true: that there is a heartbreaking impossibility, an aching beauty, and a chance to heal in our shared human condition. This precious truth will surely help us to defy to formidable tyrants wer face today.’<\/p>\n Diane Wittner 2016<\/p>\n November 9<\/p>\n Tragically, my banner from 2005 is more relevant than ever, albeit with a few changes.<\/p>\n ————————-<\/p>\n October 2016<\/p>\n Dr. Gwen Dubois, President of Chesapeake Physicians for Social Responsibility<\/a>, and Lili Sheeline, local resident of Lusby, MD and member of Calvert Citizens for a Healthy Community<\/a> penned this ground breaking op-ed on why Dominion Energy’s LNG refinery and export facility needs to be stopped:<\/p>\n Cove Point Poses Intolerable Health and Safety Risks<\/a><\/p>\n —–<\/p>\n September: My “Disappearing Drawings” were featured in the United Workers ‘Development Without Displacement’ art show at Chesapeake Art Center. They are my home made upcycled paper and seed discs: art made to inspire, then to be planted, to become perennial flowers that feed multiple pollinators, in order to regenerate life. Purple Cone Flower seeds are in the disc where I drew that flower; ditto with Black-eyed Susans. Plant the drawing and the real thing emerges instead! #LifeGivingCorridors<\/a>#FlipTheScript<\/a> #WhatShouldHumansDoWhileOn —–<\/p>\n July – Our fracking towers made center stage again! At a public hearing and in the streets, it became clear that Marylanders know that now is the time to ban fracking in Maryland! Thanks to HoCo Climate Change!<\/p>\n ————-<\/p>\n June – \u00a0The escalation of the demand – to halt Dominion Energy’s disastrous LNG plant in Cove Point on the Bay, and save the Bay and our bioregion from this insanity – has begun.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/chesapeakecitizens.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/Screen-Shot-2017-04-09-at-10.24.06-AM.png\")
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\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/p>\nWhere’s Our Safety Study? Sign the Petition Now.<\/a><\/blockquote>