Sheep Camp

17/11/2023

11/11/2023

VFP's Ann Wright among CodePink activists who interrupted Senate hearing where two of President Joe Biden's top advisers asked U.S. lawmakers to provide billions more dollars to Israel.

10/11/2023

Tomorrow, Veterans For Peace calls for the observance of November 11 to be in keeping with the holiday’s original intent as Armistice Day, to be “a day dedicated to the cause of world peace," as it was celebrated at the ending of World War I when the world came together to recognize the need for lasting peace.

Read our full statement and learn more:
https://www.veteransforpeace.org/take-action/armistice-day

11/10/2023

Your Free Will Astrology Newsletter and Horoscopes are ready. Links are in the comments.

03/10/2023

Just gonna leave this here.

This week we're looking at an amazing sea slug that can photosynthesise - the Leaf Sheep!Peter the Great video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JUg3JDJh14&a...

10/08/2023

Poetry.

An elegy by Erika Meitner

27/07/2023

The tributes are pouring in, and they are beautiful and soulful, as they should be. As Seamus Heaney said:

"She was beautiful, courageous and wore her heart on her sleeve. She was before her time.

Nothing will ever compare to Sinéad O’Connor.

Rest easy Sinéad."

Sinéad.

If I were a different kind of person I would let it settle and wait a few days to collect my thoughts and do this the right and grown-up way but I think she’d be more proud of me for writing like this….pulled off to the side of the highway writing from my fu***ng heart because that’s she did, all her life, made from the heart.

I got my first Sinéad record at age 14 - I Do Not Want What I Have Not Got - dubbed from my mentor Anthony’s CD collection onto a 90-minute Maxell XLII blank cassette tape. It changed my life. I wanted the artwork, so I borrowed Anthony’s CD booklet, took it down to the town library xerox machine, copied it, and carefully and lovingly cut it to size for a cassette tape. So I could see her face.

Her face.

I learned every song by heart.

She was fierceness and honestly incarnate.

She howled her heart out so purely that people had no idea what to make of it.

This is a woman who ripped up a picture of the pope on Saturday Night Live (when it had no ”safety delay”) to draw attention to the s*x abuse happening in the Catholic Church, after delivering “War” by Bob Marley, a ca****la:

Until the philosophy which hold one race
Superior and another Inferior
Is finally
And permanently
Discredited
And abandoned
Everywhere is war.

Twelve days later she took the stage at Madison Square Garden for a Bob Dylan tribute festival and you could barely hear her sing over the boos and jeers from the crowd. She scrapped her planned Dylan song and screamed out “War” again, as the crowd tried to overpower her.

That feeling. Many women have been there. I have been there too, shaking, as it feels like the whole world is trying to shout and drown you out, and put you in your place. Wondering if I am the crazy one. Wondering if this many people are right. Or wrong. Or even real.

She was right about the church. She was very fu***ng right.

She was right about so many things.

Now that she is dead, I know she’ll be lauded and applauded.

But back then? That night? How do you imagine she felt that night, crawling into bed, having been abused by a crowd of thousands? How would you feel? What would that do to you? Would you care if the world turned around, forty years later, and said: “Sorry about that, you were actually very brave?”

This is a woman who boycotted the Grammys saying she did not want “to be part of a world that measures artistic ability by material success.” This is a woman who refused to play US national anthem before certain concerts. That went down reallll well, too.

She was hated, she was scorned, she was cancelled for being honest over and over again. That SNL move was the beginning of the end of a career in many ways. She never recovered.

Too much, they said. Go away.

She used her voice. She kept on speaking.

She was loud. Being a loud woman is not fu***ng convenient, for anyone. Ever. Not around here.

She was strikingly beautiful. She shaved her head and gave the middle finger to the beauty standard. She wore combat boots and jeans. She opened her mouth to the max, literally. She did not mumble; she roared. She inspired me into taking power; she inspired so many of my friends. She showed us all another way. There’s this way, too. Go this way, she seemed to be screaming, GO.

Dismissed as crazy. She struggled, and she struggled, and she struggled. She was punished, she was mocked, she was ridiculed.

She retreated and came back time and time again, her roar ragged, her frustration jagged and visible. Painful. You could see it, feel it. We mourned it, me and my friends.

Sinéad? Misunderstood? Which chicken, which egg?

What the world did to Sinéad was death by a thousand cuts. The world lauded her, worshipped her, bought her, sold her, forgave her, claimed her, disavowed her. Over and over in cycles. How could anyone survive that? Like a piece of metal getting bent over and over and over again. It breaks.

She began as a fragile person. A fragile artist. Which is why her songs were so beautiful and powerful to begin with. A raw heart. A mother. Not an idea, not a theoretical. A person.

The world loved the taste of her. The world didn’t know how to digest her. The world spit her out.

She never apologized for ripping up that picture of the pope. When asked later, she said “I’m not sorry I did it. It was brilliant”.

It was.

She was.

Never forget this woman.

Let her memory guide us.

Let them scream at you, but do not stop singing.

Never apologize just to make them happy, to make them go away, to “get along”, to make them accept you.

No, no, no.

Me say War.

Sinéad….rest in world-changing ripped paper phoenix-pieces from the stage, rising and burning into the white night stars. Find peace at last. I hope you forgive us what we could not give you.

19/05/2023

Behind all your stories is always your mother's story.
Because hers is where yours begin.

~ Mitch Albom

[Art: Garis Edelweiss]

30/04/2023

Ursula K. Le Guin writes:

I sit here perpetually inventing new people
as if the population boom were not enough
and not enough terror and problems
God knows, but I know too,
that's the point. Never fear enough
to match delight, nor a deep enough abyss,
nor time enough, and there are always
a few stars missing.

I don't want a new heaven and new earth,
only the old ones.
Old sky, old dirt, new grass.
Nor life beyond the grave,
God help me, or I'll help myself
by living all these lives
nine at once or ninety
so that death finds me at all times
and on all sides exposed,
unfortressed, undefended,
inviolable, vulnerable, alive.

20/01/2023

In 1965, Bob Dylan and I were discussing the state of the music scene. He said The Byrds, who had made a hit of “Mr. Tambourine Man,” were the only thing happening musically at that point in time. Perhaps an exaggeration, but certainly a tribute to the stellar musicians who formed the budding monster groups of the years to come like The Byrds and CSNY.

David Crosby was among the monster group icons who continued a solo career with the kind of success reserved for great musicians. And he could sing the hell out of a harmony.

He was also a friend to me. He was always, I repeat, always present for me, to defend my character and politics, and often included over the top (sometimes unwarranted) praise. He was funny, clever, and refreshing to be around. And I was honored that he chose my portrait of him as his last album cover.

He will be missed by millions, including myself. Sending my love to Jan and his family.

20/01/2023

“However much time I got isn’t really the significant thing — it’s what I do with that time, right? And it looks to me that the only contribution I can make, the place where I can help, is to make more music.” - David Crosby, 2021

"I don't like greed, I don't like ignorance. I really don't like anger. But I love love." - David Crosby

Rest in peace to the brilliant David Crosby. He will be greatly missed. 🕊

📸 Henry Diltz

03/12/2022

More than a year after being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, journalist Maria Ressa still faces a series of criminal charges in her native country of the Philippines. She spent much of her time reporting on former President Rodrigo Duterte’s regime and the war on drugs. Ressa sat down with Judy Woo...

01/12/2022

Farewell, Songbird 💔

Fleetwood Mac-Christine McVie - SongBird

12/11/2022

Very interesting recap of recent history, among other insights and revelations.

Academy Award-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney and New York Times best-selling author Michael Pollan present this documentary series event in four parts, each f...

10/10/2022

“Sen. Bernie Sanders on Friday …deemed the upcoming election “the most important midterm election in the modern history of this country.”

…

“We are here to do one single thing, and that is to protect and preserve our democracy,” Ellison said. “What is on the line is whether or not the United States, starting in Minnesota, will remain a democratic, multiracial society that respects everyone's rights.” https://youtu.be/oTP47qKzz1Q

The Vermont senator and former presidential candidate told hundreds at the University of Minnesota that voters faced a historic choice in the midterm election and encouraged them to support progressive candidates.

19/09/2022

History matters.

THE U.S. AND THE HOLOCAUST is a three-part, six hour series directed by Ken Burns, Lynn Novick and Sarah Botstein, that examines America’s response to one of the greatest humanitarian crises of the twentieth century. Full series now streaming.

26/08/2022

Join us for the Water Is Life Festival! Grab your ticket now!
🎟 https://buff.ly/3JbJkAX
Winona LaDuke - Ojibwe Business Owner Ani DiFranco, The Indigo Girls, Tia Wood, Allison Russell, Low, Keith Secola, David Huckfelt, Dessa, Gaelynn Lea Music, Annie Humphrey Music, Corey Medina & Brothers and MORE! We can't wait to see you!

17/07/2022

Van Gogh's "Starry Night" meets the
the deepest & sharpest infrared image of the early universe ever taken by the James Webb Space Telescope. (Literally, capturing it took less than a day!) This background is Webb’s first image released by NASA (et al.) as they begin to : https://www.nasa.gov/webbfirstimages

Image Source: https://opensea.io/assets/matic/0x2953399124f0cbb46d2cbacd8a89cf0599974963/8185740043500167708498739656394078529523899940128980554181147620661128069121

09/07/2022