In Moyers’ own words:As you can imagine, I thought long and hard about who I would invite to be my last guest on the Journal. So many people have inspired my own work that I had a difficult time making that choice. But i finally decided to ask someone whose curiosity about the world, and pursuit of it, have set the gold standard for all of us whose work it is to explain those things we don’t understand.

For decades Barry Lopez has called western Oregon his home, but from there he has roamed the world: from the playas of Texas and the deserts and canyons of the American southwest, to the frigid extremes at both the polar ends of the earth and across Asia and Africa. Then, always home again, to write about what he has seen and learned… And such writing it is.

We will start out the Session watching the 35 minute Interview.
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04302010/watch3.html
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04302010/transcript3.html

To help get you started I have supplied the following excerpts with the context removed.  Listen for them.  They are in order.

“… hope is actually- toxic. If you hold it long enough without some resolution.“

“…we have created a world in which we marginalize that which we don’t think serves us as well as it could. We’ve turned nature into a thing. You know, Martin Buber’s wonderful I/it relationship and I/thou relationship. This is an “it.” The book is an “it.” It is soulless. It is utilitarian. I can throw it on the ground if I want. But if it’s an I/thou relationship, you never make those kinds of presumptions. So a lot of what traditional people when you watch- when you’re in their environment, everything is I/thou. The relationship to the wind; the wind is alive. It has a soul. It’s part of the moral universe.”

“…you know, you can turn on the television and see people who claim expertise that they don’t possess. And I say that, because the kind of expertise we need is not a facile grasp of policy, but a love of humanity. That’s what we need.

“Why does the Dalai Lama laugh? Why does Desmond Tutu–you know, was somebody that I worked with once–why is he capable of such laughter?” And I think part of the answer is that they’re fully comfortable with the riotous expression, the darkness and the light, of what it means to be alive.”

“And then you’ve got to be on your own, walking the earth, opening yourself up to it, becoming vulnerable. And it’s talking to you. And you take it in. And then you sit down with somebody whose- background is completely different from yours. And you say, “When you look out there, what do you see?” And then just listen. “

“And Kazumasa San said to me, “Your work is to take care of the spiritual interior of the language.” And he said in Japanese this word we use, kotodama, means that each word has within it a spiritual interior. The word is like a vessel that carries something ineffable. And you must be the caretaker for that. You must be careful when you use language to look at every part of the word and make sure that you’re showing respect for it in the place that you’ve given it to live in the sentence.”

“I think, what is at the core of every story. I mean, how many novels have you put down and said to yourself, “Oh, I never knew that.” Mostly you know it all, but you forget it. And you close a book and you say, “I knew that, but I’d forgotten it. And I am so glad to be reminded of what I intend to do and who I am. And what– and how I want to conduct myself in the world.”

” I was talking to a mutual friend of ours one night. And he has always been an affirmative and optimistic fellow. And he was saying, “You know, Moyers, for the first time in my life,” and he’s in his 50s, he said, “I’m beginning to think this America I believed in won’t work. That the forces arrayed against justice and fairness are so great that we’re going to go down.”

“When I sit at that typewriter, I have to be frightened of what I’m trying to do. I’m frightened by my own, belief that I can actually get a story down on paper. I still have that thing in my mind from childhood, “Who cares what you have to say?” So, my path is the same path. It’s still a path through confusion and lack of self confidence, and struggle and embarrassment over all of my imperfection. But I would tell you at the same time, I have seen things that have dropped me to my knees in a state of awe, and when I know that that too is there, if I can find a way to build with language a bridge between a failure to believe and a witness to what is incomprehensible. If I can build that bridge and then do it again and then do it again. I would hope that at the end of my life, somebody would say, “Well, his life was useful. He helped.”

“But for people all over the world, in small groups, to be in touch with each other about what is welling up in every country, among every group of people, which is a desire for justice. You know, there– I’m trying to remember the story. I don’t remember the philosopher, the Greek philosopher who told the story of Zeus and Prometheus. Which really stuck when I first heard it, is that Zeus said to Prometheus, “Okay, you stole fire. Great for you. Now your people have technology. Wonderful. But here’s something you don’t know. You lack two things. And if you don’t take these two things that I will give you, this will be a failure. Technology, you know, fire, all your magic, it will fail completely. It will be your undoing. And the two things that you need to make it work are justice and reverence.

I really hope you will preview the video and/or read the transcript, and I suggest you follow the interview along in the transcript.  There is considerable more material referenced in the following, some about about Barry and his mentors and an eclectic collection of articles about the thrill and hell of war, a definition of peace, today’s youth trusting Uncle Sam, etc. which I hope to work into the discussion, because asin real life “Everything Connects”About Barry Lopez:His travels have taken him to some of the most inhospitable places on the earth, outside the furthest reaches of human civilization. But Barry Lopez always returns to his home in Oregon to write about what he has seen. April 30, 2010
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04302010/profile.html
>>Watch Bill Moyers and Paul Woodruff discuss reverence.
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04302010/woodruff.html

>>Find out more about some of the thinkers Lopez mentioned in the interview.
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04302010/profile.html#teachers
Sebastian Junger On The Thrill And Hell Of ‘War’
 Five times between June 2007 and June 2008, the writer Sebastian Junger traveled to a remote Army outpost in the Korengal Valley in Afghanistan. Junger, a contributing editor for Vanity Fair, made the trip to embed with a company of soldiers from the Army’s 173rd Airborne Brigade as they fought to keep the Taliban from controlling a small, treacherous plot of land. After he returned, Junger wrote about the experiences of these soldiers in a book that he says attempts to locate exactly what it is about combat that appeals to young men.

That book is called, simply, War. And, as Junger points out in it, though war may be a lot of things, it is useless to pretend it’s not exciting. That’s something some civilians may not be prepared to hear.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126676276

Defining peaceThe concept of peace is notoriously difficult to define. The simplest way of approaching it is in terms of harmony achieved by the absence of war or conflict. Applied to nations, this would suggest that those not involved in violent conflicts with neighbouring states or suffering internal wars would have achieved a state of peace. This is what Johan Galtung defined as a “negative peace” – an absence of violence. The concept of negative peace is immediately intuitive and empirically measurable, and can be used as a starting point to elaborate its counterpart concept, “positive peace”: having established what constitutes an absence of violence, is it possible to identify which structures and institutions create and maintain peace
http://www.visionofhumanity.org/gpi/about-gpi/overview.php
Opposite Of Radical: Today’s Youth Trust Uncle SamMay 11, 2010
A generation ago, young people vowed never to trust anyone over 30. But as it turns out, those under 30 today are actually more trusting of the government of all age groups, according to a survey by the Pew Research Center.

“As of now, I trust the government,” says Brittany Tucker, a poli-sci major at Northeastern University in Boston. “I feel like they are trying to do what’s best for us and their constituents.”

Tucker believes the government helps more than it hurts. The percentage of young people who agree with her is significantly higher than is the percentage of older people who agree, though it’s worth noting that it’s still only about a third of the younger set who say they trust the government all or most of the time — and it’s often with caveats.

As another poli-sci major, Jennifer Kral, puts it, everything is relative.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126359205
TIMELINES OF THE GREAT DEPRESSION: (Remember this from Nov 2008?)http://www.hyperhistory.com/online_n2/connections_n2/great_depression.html
Excerpt: (recommend reviewing the entire timeline)
1945
    * Although the war is the largest tragedy in human history, the United States emerges as the world’s only economic superpower. Deficit spending has resulted in a national debt 123 percent the size of the GDP. By contrast, in 1994, the $4.7 trillion national debt will be only 70 percent of the GDP!
    * The top tax rate is 91 percent. It will stay at least 88 percent until 1963, when it is lowered to 70 percent. During this time, America will experience the greatest economic boom it had ever known until that time.  (Why do you suppose the economy grew under such high tax rates on the rich? GCG)
For extra credit…Read

When to Doubt a Scientific ‘Consensus’, By Jay Richards Tuesday, March 16, 201Anyone who has studied the history of science knows that scientists are not immune to the non-rational dynamics of the herd.
http://american.com/archive/2010/march/when-to-doubt-a-scientific-consensus
Current Events is back:
Oil Spill (and how),  Raising Arizona (70 percent of Arizona voters agree with the new law, will the mob still win?), Greece (Will they ever get them to pay taxes, I wonder how much this will cost us?),  Our Senate say the Fed should be audited (– One time only??) The President selects a new Supreme Court Candidate with a thin paper trail (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100511/ap_on_go_su_co/us_kagan_s_legal_mind_3), Britain gets a new Prime Minister (for a while anyway.) and more …

Course Information –