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I've tried to correct, that is, to delete the malformed apostrophes in my post about Borther John. But I was unable to do so. This post is an example of my prose-poetry, a poetic form in which I draw on some topic(like a film), integrate it into my own experience(writing a journal among other things), and at the same time draw on the words of others in relation to that topic(other internet sites about the film). Please Note: Valentine's Day tomorrow and so, with this post, comes a Valentine to all those here at NewGrounds film site.

Part 1:

Brother John is a 1971 drama film about an enigmatic African-American man who returns to his Alabama hometown every time one of his loved ones is about to die. The film was released one month after I started teaching primary school in Whyalla South Australia. I was 27 and knew nothing of this film until 40 years later after I had been retired from the world of FT, PT and volunteer work for more than a decade in 2013.

We're in the small town in rural Alabama in this film. The star is Sidney Poitier. There is a Dr Henry L Thomas, one of the many old folk stereotypes, a doctor of the old school, dedicated to his patients whom he knows inside and out. There is a beautiful school teacher, played by Betty Todd. But Sidney Poitier is the key to this film; heâEUTMs in a role that fits him to a tee; he doesn't really need to act that much except in a couple of powerful scenes. He does much of his job in this film simply by doing what Poitier has always done best, and that is to stand out from those around him. He's always done that, regardless of the film, because of who he is.

He stands out amongst white folk because of, but not just because of, the colour of his skin, whether the white folk be nuns in Lilies in the Field, a bigoted cop In the Heat of the Night or anywhere in-between. He stands out amongst black folk too, because of his demeanour and presence, whether they be rich or poor, aiming upwards or comfortable in being downtrodden. He's the perfect choice for this part and yet he doesn't have to do much to fulfil it.

Part 2:

On 27 May 1970, the film Watermelon Man was released, among the first of the blaxploitation films. Blaxploitation or blacksploitation is a film genre which emerged in the United States in the 1970s. It is considered an ethnic subgenre of the general category of exploitation films. Blaxploitation films were originally made specifically for an urban black audience, although the genre's audience appeal soon broadened to cross-racial and ethnic lines.

Watermelon Man tells the story of an extremely bigoted 1960's white insurance salesman named Jeff Gerber who wakes up one morning to find that he has become black. The premise for the film was inspired by Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis and John Howard Griffin's autobiographical Black Like Me.

On 20 April 1971, the Supreme Court, in Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, upheld desegregation bussing of students to achieve integration. In December 1971, Jesse Jackson organized Operation PUSH. I knew nothing of any of these things, these developments in civil rights and racial equality, at the time, teaching primary school, being the secretary of the local BahaâEUTMi community, and in my last three months in Canada and the first months in Australia.

In 1972, Shirley Chisholm became the first major-party African American candidate for President of the United States and the first woman to run for the Democratic presidential nomination. By then I was teaching high school in Australia. In 1976, Black History Month was founded by Professor Carter Woodson's Association for the Study of Afro-American Life and History. The novel Roots: The Saga of an American Family by Alex Haley was also published in 1976. By then I was teaching at a university in Victoria Australia. I had remarried a woman with two children and my only son was born the next year.

President Jimmy Carter appointed Andrew Young to serve as Ambassador to the United Nations in 1977, the first African-American to serve in the position. Regents of the University of California v. Bakke bared racial quota systems in college admissions in 1978, but affirmed the constitutionality of affirmative action programs giving equal access to minorities. In 1978 I was on my way to Tasmania, the state in Australia where, by the 21st century, it looked like I would die in that countryâEUTMs oldest town.

Part 3:

John Kane was a man on the move
and he had no time for the normal
things-staying in his home-town, &
marriage and a family---had no time.

He said he had no time because the
winds of change forced him to keep
moving-onâEU¦..IâEUTMve been moving-on
from town to town although now, in
the evening of my life, IâEUTMm staying to
write my journal, the one John Kane
never did. For those many existential
questions which he could not answer
as the wind blew through his life; he
may have been symbolic for the wind.

We live our days until the end, until
that last syllable of our recorded time.
We each have to answer the questions
of life in our own way and I do in my
own journals: have been for 30 years.1

1 This film had a certain sci-fi aspect, a certain philosophical-religious aspect, an aspect in which many fundamental questions about life are asked and answered, but only partially. This prose-poem plays its part as a page or two in my journals, journals which are written-in by the 1000s of pages unlike those of John Kane which were blank.

Ron Price
12 February 2013

Part 1:

Since there are so many questions raised and issues discussed concerning peopleâEUTMs basic assumptions about life, about their philosophy, about their religious beliefs, indeed, about their very approach to reality and the way their society goes about organizing things, it seemed like a useful exercise, useful at least to me and hopefully to some others at this site, to say a few things about: My Position and Beliefs: My Religion. Religion, in the sense that I am using it here, is the set of values, beliefs and attitudes each of us has as we go about our daily life at a particular moment in time, in this case, at the time of my writing of this post on the internet and in the case of the person reading this post, at the time of the response of that reader. I hope this opening note of some 1700 words provides a general, a useful, a helpful context for any continuing discussion you and I may have. If the note I strike is too long, I advise readers to just click me off, a simple enough exercise of the hand and the mind.-Ron Price in Australia.

Apologetics is a branch of systematic theology, although some experience its thrust in religious studies or philosophy of religion courses. Some encounter it on the internet for the first time in a more populist and usually much less academic form. As I see it, apologetics is primarily concerned with the protection of a position, the refutation of the issues raised by that position's assailants and, in the larger sense, the exploration of that position in the context of prevailing philosophies and standards in a secular society, a religious society, indeed, any society past or present. All of us defend our positions whatever these positions are: atheistic, theistic, agnostic, humanistic, skeptic, cynic, realist, pragmatist and any one of a multitude of religions, denominations, sects, cults, isms and wasms. In a BaháâEUTMÃ- perspective, exclusivist ideas, the idea that my religion is the only true one, or that my view of reality is better than yours and you need to adopt my view, today raises walls of separation and conflict in an age when the earth has literally become one homeland and human beings must learn to see themselves as its citizens.

Apologetics, to put it slightly differently, is concerned with answering both general and critical inquiries from others. In the main, though, apologetics deals with criticism of a position and dealing with that criticism in as rational a manner as possible. Apologetics can help explore the teachings of a religion or of a philosophy in the context of the prevailing religions and philosophies of the day as well as in the context of the common laws and standards of a secular society. Although the capacity to engage in critical self-reflection on the fundamentals of some position is a prerequisite of the task of engaging in apologetics, apologetics derives much of its impetus from a commitment to a position.

Part 2:
Given the role of apologetics in religious and philosophical history and in the development of the texts and ideas that are part and parcel of that history, it is surprising that contemporary communities generally undervalue its importance and often are not even aware of the existence of this sub-discipline of philosophy. Authors, writers, editors of journals and leaders known for defending points in arguments, for engaging in conflicts or for taking up certain positions that receive great popular scrutiny and/or are minority views engage in what today are essentially forms of secular apologetics.

Naturally in life, we all take positions on all sorts of topics, subjects, religions and philosophies. Often that position is inarticulate and poorly thought out if given any thought at all. With that said, though, the apologetics I engage in here is a never-ending exercise with time out for the necessary and inevitable quotidian tasks of life: eating, sleeping, drinking and a wide range of leisure activities. The apologetics that concerns me is not so much Christian or Islamic apologetics or any one of a variety of those secular apologetics I referred to above, but Baha'i apologetics.

Part 3:

There are many points of comparison and contrast between any form of apologetics which I won't go into here. Readers here might like to check out Wikipedia for a birds-eye-view of the subject. Christians and Muslims will have the opportunity to defend their respective religions by the use of apologetics as will members of the other major religions in the world; secular humanists can also argue their cases if they so desire here. I in turn will defend the Baha'i Faith by the use of apologetics. In the process each of us will, hopefully, learn something about our respective Faiths, our religions and our philosophies, our various and our multitudinous positions, some of which we hold to our hearts dearly and some of which are of little interest to us or others.

At the outset, then, in this my first posting, my intention is simply to make this start, to state what you might call "my apologetics position." This brief statement indicates, in broad outline, where I am coming from in the weeks and months ahead. -Ron Price with thanks to Udo Schaefer, "Baha'i Apologetics?" Baha'i Studies Review, Vol. 10, 2001/02.

Part 4:

The defensive, the apologetic, mode originated in the law courts and political assemblies of fifth century Greece (BCE). Its model text is PlatoâEUTMs Apology of SocratesâEUTM defence before the Athenian assembly. Since then, defence and advocacy have become the twin functions of apologia. Although apologetics was for centuries one of the recognized disciplines in theology, with the progressive secularization of contemporary society, this engaged, faith-driven approach has fallen out of favour. This is not the case in confessional colleges and universities.

It has been rejected for its polemical, dogmatic, and authoritarian motives, and has been replaced with so-called âEUoeobjective,âEU value-neutral, historical-social-scientific treatments of religion. Despite its being contrary to academic fashion, the apologetic voice can be clearly heard in the words of many writers. The defensive mode takes basically two forms: (1) theoretical: as the advocacy, defence or explanation of a doctrinal point, and (2) actual: as âEUoedefender of the Faith.âEU In my case I see myself as a defender both of the BaháâEUTMÃ- communities, and the BaháâEUTMÃ- Faith itself. I defend it from attacks and advocate strategies for countering the assaults that come its way.

Part 5:

Aristotle argued against the mixing of strong emotion with reason when engaged in apologetics. Such a mixing, he saw, was something which weakened an argument. Pure logic he deemed to be closer to truth. The distrust of emotion can be traced back to PlatoâEUTMs Phaedrus in which he depicted the soul as a charioteer who is drawn up to heaven by the white-winged divine horse of reason, Pegasus. That soul was then drawn back down to earth again by the black horse of the emotions/passion. PlatoâEUTMs figure, his analysis, regrettably succeeded in dichotomizing reason and emotion.

Rhetorical theory has, since Plato, legitimized what has long been known, namely, that emotions have a legitimate and necessary place in discourse. Even within science, sociologists G. Nigel Gilbert and Michael Mulkay argue that emotion has a valid place. In their Opening PandoraâEUTMs Box: A Sociological Analysis of ScientistsâEUTM Discourse (1984), Gilbert and Mulkay found that emotions are part and parcel of the process of the scientific method and they are latently present in scientific statements, even if the emotional experience of the scientist is not explicitly acknowledged in scientific formulations.

At 1/26/10 04:01 PM, Fro wrote: Feel free to chat among other regulars of the writing forum. If it's your first time posting then make sure you introduce yourself and tell us how writing has influenced your life.

-------------------------
I'm not sure if I have introduced myself before. If I have moderators should feel free to delete this post.-Ron
-----------------------
EMPLOYMENT-SOCIAL-ROLE POSITIONS: 1943-2013

2010-2013-Retired and on a pension in George Town, Tasmania
1999-2009-Writer & Author, Poet & Publisher, Editor & Researcher. Retired Teacher & Lecturer, Tutor & Adult Educator, Taxi-Driver & Ice-Cream Salesman, George Town Tasmania Australia
2002-2005-Program Presenter City Park Radio Launceston
1999-2004-Tutor &/or President George Town School for Seniors Inc
1988-1999 -Lecturer in General Studies & Human Services West Australian Department of Training
1986-1987 -Acting Lecturer in Management Studies & Co-ordinator of Further Education Unit at Hedland College in South Hedland WA
1982-1985 -Adult Educator Open College of Tafe Katherine NT
1981 -Maintenance Scheduler Renison Bell Zeehan Tasmania
1980-Unemployed due to illness and recovery
1979-Editor External Studies Unit Tasmanian CAE; Youth Worker Resource Centre Association; Lecturer in Organizational Behaviour Tasmanian CAE; Radio Journalist ABC---all in Launceston Tasmania
1976-1978 -Lecturer in Social Sciences & Humanities Ballarat CAE Ballarat, Victoria
1975 - Lecturer in Behavioural Studies Whitehorse Technical College, Box Hill Victoria
1974 -Senior Tutor in Education Studies Tasmanian CAE Launceston, Tasmania
1972-1973 -High School Teacher South Australian Education Dept.
1971-Primary School Teacher Whyalla South Australia
1969-1971 Primary School Teacher Prince Edward County Board of Education Picton Ontario Canada
1969-Systems Analyst Bad Boy Co Ltd Toronto Ontario
1967-68 -Community Teacher Department of Indian Affairs & Northern Development Frobisher Bay NWT Canada
1959-67 -Summer jobs-1 to 4 months each- from grade 10 to end of university
1949-1967 - Attended 2 primary schools, 2 high schools and 2 universities in Canada: McMaster Uni-1963-1966, Windsor TeachersâEUTM College-1966/7
1944-1963 -Childhood(1944-57) and adolescence(1957-63) in and around Hamilton Ontario
1943 to 1944-Conception in October 1943 to birth in July 1944 in Hamilton Ontario

2. SOME SOCIO-BIO-DATA TO 2012
I have been married twice for a total of 45 years. My second wife is a Tasmanian, aged 65. WeâEUTMve had one child: age 34. I have two step-children: ages: 46 and 41, three step-grandchildren, ages 18, 15 and 1, as well as one grandchild aged 6 months. All of the above applies in December 2012. I am 67, am a Canadian who moved to Australia in 1971 and have written several books--all available on the internet.

I retired from full-time teaching in 1999, part-time teaching in 2003 and volunteer teaching/work in 2005 after 32 years in classrooms as a teacher and another 18 as a student. In addition, I have been a member of the BahaâEUTMi Faith for 53 years. Bio-data: 6ft, 235 lbs, eyes-brown/hair-grey, Caucasian.

My website is found at: http://www.ronpriceepoch.com/ You can also go to any search engine and type: Ron Price followed by any one of a number of words in addition to: poetry, forums, religion, literature, history, bipolar disorder, psychology, sociology, philosophy, inter alia, to access my writing________________________

At 11/29/12 10:30 PM, RonPrice wrote: Charles Simic(1938- ) was appointed the fifteenth Poet Laureate and Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 2007. By 2007 I had been writing poetry seriously for 15 years, and had taken an early retirement at the age of 55 after half a century in classrooms as a student and teacher: 1949 to 1999.

Simic immigrated to the United States from Serbia with his family in 1954 when he was sixteen. He grew up in Chicago and received his B.A. from New York University. He began to make a name for himself in the early to mid- 1970s as a literary minimalist, writing terse, imagistic poems. He became professor emeritus of American literature and creative writing at the University of New Hampshire.

I grew up in the small town of Burlington Ontario, got my B.A. from McMaster University in 1967, and began to make a name for myself in those same early to mid-1970s as a teacher, tutor and lecturer, but not as a writer. I spent the three decades from the late 60s to the late 90s teaching a bewildering array of subjects across two continents and all levels of the educational enterprise.

Simic wrote the following in The New York Review of Books Blog which was sent to me my email today.(1)

It has always seemed strange to me that writers and poets of my generation and slightly older say little about the influence of movies on their work, and yet our first knowledge of the world came from them.

Simic belongs to what is sometimes called The Silent Generation, born from 1925 through 1945. I was a war baby, born between 1939 and 1945. I narrowly missed being a baby boomer since I was born in the last ten months of that war.

Thanks to the movies, Simic continues, we got acquainted with New York, Paris, London and scores of other cities and countries for the first time. We fought in hundreds of wars, clashed swords with Roman legions and Medieval knights, boxed in a ring, faced off with knives in dark alleys, escaped from orphanages, prisons, and chain gangs, met ghosts and visitors from outer space, had ourselves hung by the neck, executed by firing squads, pardoned at the last minute from the guillotine and the electric chair.

I could not have written Simics piece of autobiographical writing. I belonged to a different generation to him, and had a very different childhood and adolescence. By the time I was 21 in 1965 I had 15 years of going to the movies and, perhaps, several years of TV. My parents sold our TV after having a TV in our home in the early 1950s. My parents were not that enthusiastic about the cinema either. I remember going to the movies in the 50s and getting in free because I had a job as a marque operator in the local theatre.

We danced with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, says Simic, consorted in afterhours gambling joints with gangsters and their molls, smoked opium in Hong Kong, worked as spies, private detectives, and cowboys, ran from Genghis Khan, Napoleon, and Hitler, hunted for tigers and buffalos, explored jungles, deserts, and arctic wasteland. All this was between running errands for our mothers and grandmothers, doing our homework, and playing and fighting in the street with other kids from our neighbourhood. -Ron Price with thanks to (1) Charles Simic, When Movies Kept Us Awake At Night,The New York Review Blog, 30 November 2012.

I liked the movies, Charles, but
they were not the big influence
on me that they were on you.

I was a war-baby, Charles, and
I had small doses of movies &
TV, radio & newspapers, books
& magazines. I also had big lots
of sport & games, homework &
school, meetings and listening.

Reading came to be by degrees,
by my 20s, and by sensible and
insensible degrees, a pervasive
influence on my life, as did all
those Bahai meetings, & 1000s
of hours of teaching & talking,
as well as dealing with pains
& aches of a bipolar disorder.

---so---

..it was that by my 60s I was in
love with silence & the sound
of a literary life, with just a little
music and TV, radio & walking
as I reinvented myself......as a
writer and author, publisher &
poet, editor and scholar, online
journalist, researcher, blogger,
and I was my own assistant in
the routines of office publication.

Ron Price

30/11/12

Charles Simic(1938- ) was appointed the fifteenth Poet Laureate and Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 2007. By 2007 I had been writing poetry seriously for 15 years, and had taken an early retirement at the age of 55 after half a century in classrooms as a student and teacher: 1949 to 1999.

Simic immigrated to the United States from Serbia with his family in 1954 when he was sixteen. He grew up in Chicago and received his B.A. from New York University. He began to make a name for himself in the early to mid- 1970s as a literary minimalist, writing terse, imagistic poems. He became professor emeritus of American literature and creative writing at the University of New Hampshire.

I grew up in the small town of Burlington Ontario, got my B.A. from McMaster University in 1967, and began to make a name for myself in those same early to mid-1970s as a teacher, tutor and lecturer, but not as a writer. I spent the three decades from the late 60s to the late 90s teaching a bewildering array of subjects across two continents and all levels of the educational enterprise.

Simic wrote the following in The New York Review of Books Blog which was sent to me my email today.1

âEUoeIt has always seemed strange to me that writers and poets of my generation and slightly older say little about the influence of movies on their work, and yet our first knowledge of the world came from them.âEU Simic belongs to what is sometimes called The Silent Generation, born from 1925 through 1945. I was a war baby, born between 1939 and 1945. I narrowly missed being a baby boomer since I was born in the last ten months of that war.

âEUoeThanks to the moviesâEU, Simic continues, âEUoewe got acquainted with New York, Paris, London and scores of other cities and countries for the first time. We fought in hundreds of wars, clashed swords with Roman legions and Medieval knights, boxed in a ring, faced off with knives in dark alleys, escaped from orphanages, prisons, and chain gangs, met ghosts and visitors from outer space, had ourselves hung by the neck, executed by firing squads, pardoned at the last minute from the guillotine and the electric chairâEU.

I could not have written SimicâEUTMs piece of autobiographical writing. I belonged to a different generation to him, and had a very different childhood and adolescence. By the time I was 21 in 1965 IâEUTMd had 15 years of movies and, perhaps, several years of TV. My parents sold our TV after having a TV in our home in the early 1950s. My parents were not that enthusiastic about the cinema either. I remember going to the movies in the 50s and getting in free because I had a job as a marque operator in the local theatre.

âEUoeWe danced with Fred Astaire and Ginger RogersâEU, says Simic, âEUoeconsorted in afterhours gambling joints with gangsters and their molls, smoked opium in Hong Kong, worked as spies, private detectives, and cowboys, ran from Genghis Khan, Napoleon, and Hitler, hunted for tigers and buffalos, explored jungles, deserts, and arctic wasteland. All this was between running errands for our mothers and grandmothers, doing our homework, and playing and fighting in the street with other kids from our neighbourhoodâEU. -Ron Price with thanks to Charles Simic, When Movies Kept Us Awake At Night, The New York Review Blog, 30 November 2012.

I liked the movies, Charles, but
they were not the big influence
on me that they were on youâEU¦

I was a war-baby, Charles, and
I had small doses of movies &
TV, radio & newspapers, books
& magazines. I also had big lots
of sport & games, homework &
school, meetings and listeningâEU¦

Reading came to be by degrees,
by my 20s, and by sensible and
insensible degrees, a pervasive
influence on my life, as did all
those BahaâEUTMi meetingsâEU¦1000s
of hours of teaching & talking,
and dealing with the rigors and
pains of a bipolar disorder---so

âEU¦..it was that by my 60s, I had
fallen in love with silence & the
sound of a literary life, with a
little music and TV, radio and
walking as I reinvented myself
as a writer and author, poet and
publisher, editor and scholar,
researcher, online journalist,
blogger, & my office-assistant.

Ron Price
30/11/âEUTM12

I tried to edit this post since, for some reason, it got posted twice. But I could find no editing button/tool at this site.-Ron Price, Australia

Impressionism is, or rather was, a revolutionary 19th-century art movement within this 2500 year period of revolutions. It originated with a group of Paris-based artists. Their independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s, in spite of harsh opposition from the conventional art community in France. Impressionism came to my attention yet again yesterday. I first became aware of this movement in art when I was in my late 20s in 1974. At the time I was teaching the sociology of art at a technical college in Launceston Tasmania.
Yesterday afternoon, on AustraliaâEUTMs vernal equinox, while my wife and step-daughter were out for a walk with my son and his wife and daughter, I left my study somewhat tired by late-afternoon. I had a few crackers, a new type of dip and a drink of apple-juice, then turned on the TV. The British art critic Waldemar Januszczak was presenting the first in a series of four BBC programs on The Impressionists.1 -Ron Price with thanks to 1The Impressionists: Painting and Revolution, SBSHD TV, 3:20 to 4:30 p.m., 22 September 2012. This 4 part series was first shown in the summer of 2011 in the U.K.

Seemingly, of a sudden, art took on
an accurate depiction of light in its
changing qualitiesâEU¦as well as just
common, ordinary subject matter,1
inclusion of movement as a crucial
element of human perception and
experienceâEU¦.The development of
Impressionism in the visual arts was
soon followed by analogous styles in
other media such as music & literature.

It was also a precursor of various painting
styles: Neo-Impressionism, Fauvism, and
Cubism, Post-Impressionism, as well as a
part of an internal dynamism before WWI
that was accumulating and which sought a
violent release.2 During the century that saw
the births and deaths of these impressionists
two god-men came and wentâEU¦A foundation
was laid for the nucleus & pattern of a new
world order, an order whose architecture has
been slowly taking form in & after that WWI
which initiated changes far more profound than
any in humanityâEUTMs preceding recorded history.3

1 After the French Emperor Napoleon III saw the rejected works by the Académie des Beaux-Arts which dominated French art in 1863, he decreed that the public be allowed to judge the work themselves. So it was that the Salon des Refusés (Salon of the Refused) was organized. Photography inspired Impressionists to represent momentary action, not only in the fleeting lights of a landscape, but in the day-to-day lives of people. The development of Impressionism can be considered partly as a reaction by artists to the challenge presented by photography which seemed to devalue the artist's skill in reproducing reality. The Impressionists were the first to consciously offer a subjective alternative to the photograph.

2 These are the words of Stefan Sweig(1881-1942), an Austrian novelist, playwright, journalist and biographer who believed that WW1 had nothing to do with ideas or even frontiers. At the height of his literary career, in the 1920s and 1930s, he was one of the most famous writers in the world. His words, these words, are quoted by American historian and author Barbara Tuckman(1912-1989) in The Proud Tower: A Portait of the World before the war: 1890-1914, Papermac, 1980(1966), p.xv.

3 The phrase "New World Order" in the Bahá'Ã- Faith refers to a system of teachings, enunciated by Bahá'u'lláh(1817-1892), the founder of the religion. This Order Bahá'Ã-s believe embodies God's divinely appointed scheme for the unification of mankind in this age. Among the beliefs it includes is the eventual establishment of a world commonwealth based on principles of equity and justice, a commonwealth as vital spiritually as it would be materially.

Ron Price
23 September 2012

The sociologist Robert Nisbet(1913-1996) in his Social Change and History(1969) argues that change and revolution have been the norm in western civilization since the Greeks in the 5th century BC. I first read this book in 1974 when I was a tutor in education studies at what is now the university of Tasmania. For a useful summary of NisbetâEUTMs views go to: http://antiwar.com/stromberg/?articleid=3371
Impressionism is, or rather was, a revolutionary 19th-century art movement within this 2500 year period of revolutions. It originated with a group of Paris-based artists. Their independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s, in spite of harsh opposition from the conventional art community in France. Impressionism came to my attention yet again yesterday. I first became aware of this movement in art when I was in my late 20s in 1974. At the time I was teaching the sociology of art at a technical college in Launceston Tasmania.
Yesterday afternoon, on AustraliaâEUTMs vernal equinox, while my wife and step-daughter were out for a walk with my son and his wife and daughter, I left my study somewhat tired by late-afternoon. I had a few crackers, a new type of dip and a drink of apple-juice, then turned on the TV. The British art critic Waldemar Januszczak was presenting the first in a series of four BBC programs on The Impressionists.1 -Ron Price with thanks to 1The Impressionists: Painting and Revolution, SBSHD TV, 3:20 to 4:30 p.m., 22 September 2012. This 4 part series was first shown in the summer of 2011 in the U.K.
Seemingly, of a sudden, art took on
an accurate depiction of light in its
changing qualitiesâEU¦as well as just
common, ordinary subject matter,1
inclusion of movement as a crucial
element of human perception and
experienceâEU¦.The development of
Impressionism in the visual arts was
soon followed by analogous styles in
other media such as music & literature.

It was also a precursor of various painting
styles: Neo-Impressionism, Fauvism, and
Cubism, Post-Impressionism, as well as a
part of an internal dynamism before WWI
that was accumulating and which sought a
violent release.2 During the century that saw
the births and deaths of these impressionists
two god-men came and wentâEU¦A foundation
was laid for the nucleus & pattern of a new
world order, an order whose architecture has
been slowly taking form in & after that WWI
which initiated changes far more profound than
any in humanityâEUTMs preceding recorded history.3
1 After the French Emperor Napoleon III saw the rejected works by the Académie des Beaux-Arts which dominated French art in 1863, he decreed that the public be allowed to judge the work themselves. So it was that the Salon des Refusés (Salon of the Refused) was organized. Photography inspired Impressionists to represent momentary action, not only in the fleeting lights of a landscape, but in the day-to-day lives of people. The development of Impressionism can be considered partly as a reaction by artists to the challenge presented by photography which seemed to devalue the artist's skill in reproducing reality. The Impressionists were the first to consciously offer a subjective alternative to the photograph.
2 These are the words of Stefan Sweig(1881-1942), an Austrian novelist, playwright, journalist and biographer who believed that WW1 had nothing to do with ideas or even frontiers. At the height of his literary career, in the 1920s and 1930s, he was one of the most famous writers in the world. His words, these words, are quoted by American historian and author Barbara Tuckman(1912-1989) in The Proud Tower: A Portait of the World before the war: 1890-1914, Papermac, 1980(1966), p.xv.
3 The phrase "New World Order" in the Bahá'Ã- Faith refers to a system of teachings, enunciated by Bahá'u'lláh(1817-1892), the founder of the religion. This Order Bahá'Ã-s believe embodies God's divinely appointed scheme for the unification of mankind in this age. Among the be

On April FoolsâEUTM Day this year I watched Van Gogh: Painted With Wordson ABC1.1 It has taken me 3 weeks to find the right combination of time and circumstance to write a few words about this moving docudrama. I wonâEUTMt tell you chapter and verse about the content of this TV program; you can read all about it, if you are interested at one of the many internet sites on the subject. There is also an immense bibliography that is devoted to van Gogh. You might call it the van Gogh industry.

My interest in this doco was heightened by the use of van GoghâEUTMs letters which, for the millions who would have seen this doco since it came out more than two years ago, brought Vincent brilliantly and evocatively alive. Perhaps one of EnglandâEUTMs great young actorâEUTMs Benedict Cumberbatch also helped to heighten my viewing pleasure.

IâEUTMve had an interest in van Gogh and his letters for years. My wife has had Arnold PomeransâEUTM, The Letters of Vincent van Gogh( London: Penguin Classics, 1997) on her book shelves for many years. Van GoghâEUTMs temperamental instability due to his bipolar disorder among other causative factors has been of interest to me since I also suffer from BPD. His intense religious predispositions and mine have also drawn me toward this now famous artist.2

Van GoghâEUTMs letters are the best autobiography of an artist that we have, noted The Economist. Vincent wrote mostly to his brother, over 800 letters, to stave-off loneliness and perhaps achieve some psychic integration.3 Irving Stone used van GoghâEUTMs letters to write his bio-history, his biographical novel.4 -Ron Price with thanks to (1)ABC1, 4-5 p.m., 1 April 2012>BBC 11 & 14 April 2010, (2) go to this link for VincentâEUTMs religious views: http://jaar.oxfordjournals.org/content/XLVI/1/66.abstract; mine are due to my intense association with the BahaâEUTMi Faith over 60 years; (3)Leo Jansen, Hans Luijten and Nienke Bakker(eds.), Vincent Van Gogh: The Letters, 6 Vols., Thames and Hudson, 2009, and (4)Irving Stone, Lust for Life, 1934.

Did you need to work yourself
to mental exhaustion, Vincent?
You were clearly a driven man.
If you had had these wonderful
meds that I have been given off
& on for the last 40 years, what
would happened to you Vincent?

Would you have been able to get
an erection?1 âEU¦ItâEUTMs all guesswork
for us even with the research that
is now available to scholars & the
historians available for this book.2

You were not so good at personal
relationships, eh Vincent? As you
went headlong into your life-work,
into crisis after crisis, inner torment
after inner torment, the personal, the
relationships of yours were a disaster
as you said.3âEU¦.But the depth of your
inner life is still unplumbed as it is for
all of usâEU¦..Does anyone ever find out
who, what, their real self is, Vincent?!?4

1 Alex Danchev, Vincent Van GoghâEUTMs tartan torment in The Times Literary Supplement, 21 March 2012. A Review of Steven Naifeh and Gregory White SmithâEUTMs, Van Gogh: The Life.
2 Steven Naifeh and Gregory White SmithâEUTMs 1000 page book, which came out in late 2011, Van Gogh: The Life had a team of 20 researchers and a database so vast that it required custom software and a team of digital scholars---so runs the press release.
3 Van Gogh wrote: âEUoeI have no talent for relationshipsâEU and âEUoeI canâEUTMt help that.âEU-Alex Danchev, op. cit.
4 The literature that now exists on this enigmatic question is burgeoning. The Real Self theory in politics and philosophy proposes that people often have a private "real will" or real self, that is different from their public "expressed will". As good a place to start as any on this mysterious question is at this link: http://www.trueself.org/ But this link is just a start. All the major religions and philosophies, to say nothing of the several dozen theories of personality in psychology, have a take on this subject, this topic and the issues related to it.

Ron Price
20 April 2012

In the 1950s and 1960s I grew from a boy of 5 to a young man of 25. These two decades were, indeed, formative ones. I often reflect on these years as we all do on our childhood, adolescence and young adulthood. These reflections are often more acute as we head into late adulthood and old age. The Kennedys on ABC11 television had a mnemonic and nostalgic effect on me as I gazed at a replay of some of the major events of the presidency of JFK, Jack Kennedy, in the years 1960 to 1963. These events have been endlessly repeated anecdotes in the last half century, anecdotes about Kennedy, his women and his administration's crises dominate this series.

The background of the period, the wider society and the major aspects of its contemporaneity took a back seat in this telemovie. The focus in this episodic four part series was squarely on The Kennedys and the more than five hours of visual stimulus took me back to my mid-to-late teens. I was a hippy back then, 15 in 1960 and 25 years of age by 1970, part of that sixties generation. -Ron Price with thanks to ABC1, 22 and 29 May as well as 5 and 12 June, Sundays, 8:30 to 10:00 p.m.

Thanks, Bruce, for your illuminating1
analysis, for that background, to this
telemovie which I've enjoyed these
last several weeks...You say that the
period was dominated by a reform-
minded, bipartisan, consensus liberalism,
classical liberalism's last hurrah,1 as you
put it... And there was all that talk about
a new world order, sex and the single girl,2
Betty Friedan's Feminine Mystique3 and a
talk of oneness. Did anyone know about an
election of the Universal House of Justice?

1 Bruce Bawer, "The Other Sixties," The Wilson Quarterly: Surveying the World of Ideas, Spring 2004.
2 Helen Gurley Brown wrote this book in 1962 the year my travelling-pioneering life began in and for the Canadian Baha'i community.
3 Betty Friedan's Feminine Mystique was published in 1963.

Ron Price
4 June 2011

LUCIAN FREUD

In our world of the knowledge explosion and burgeoning information far beyond the capacity of any ordinary mortal to keep up on more than a sliver, a small portion, of it all, I am no longer surprised when yet another artist or academic, celebrity figure or other person of significance--unknown to me--is given a TV bio-pic.(1) Lucian Freud, now 88, has been at the game of life more than two decades than I. He gained a pre-eminence among British artists, a celebrity status, far beyond anything I will achieve even if I live to be a centenarian.

Jurgen Habermas achieved a celebrity status in the field of sociology, but people with little knowledge of sociology will not know of this intellectual giant. One also needs to know more than a little about the field of history to be familiar with Peter Gay, and I could go on and on through the fields of knowledge to mention names with which only those who are connoisseurs or scholars in those fields are familiar.-Ron Price with thanks to (1) SBS2 TV, 3 February 2011, 8:30 to 9:50 pm. and updated on hearing of Freud's death yesterday---22 July 2011.

You had your first solo exhibition
the year I was born, Lucian, and
you travelled to Paris the year I
travelled to Burlington and the
same year as the opening of the
2nd Seven Year Plan: 1946-1953.(1)

You were championed in and
contributed to Patrick Swift's
X magazine which ran from '59
to '62 just as I was entering the
Baha'i Faith and beginning my
pioneer-life for the Canadian
Baha'i community in Ontario.

In my years of association with
this new world religion all the
way back to the fifties you have
been painting nudes to almost
the complete exclusion of all-else.

Your subject matter, Lucian, is
autobiographical and so is all my
writing. "It's all to do with hope,
memory, sensuality, involvement,"
you once said-and I would add
much more. The 4000 hours you
spent on a series of paintings of
your mother are equalled by the
same number of hours on Baha'i
history. I like to think, Lucian...
that I too have had an omnivorous
gaze but it translates my world into
words not portraits. My tendency to
socialize and play the raconteur is
limited now by my bipolar disorder
and I trust your tendency to father
children is also limited now as well.(2)

1 The second Baha'i Plan, 1946-1953, one of a series of plans running well into the 21st century, if not beyond into later centuries, for the extension and consolidation of this new world religion on the planet.
2 Simon Edge, "LUCIAN FREUD THE LOTHARIO," in Express.co.uk, Friday May 16, 2008. Freud is reputed to have fathered some 40 children.

Ron Price
4 February 2011
-------------------AN UPDATE-----A QUASI-EULOGY-------------------
The Los Angeles Times in their obits
said you got better, more youthful &
more ambitious as you got older: I'll
have some of that Lucian. Indeed, they
said you were a young elder statesman.
By the late '50s you had embarked on
what became your very-signature style
of textured nude paintings....and I had
embarked on what would become my
signature meaning system, too, in life.(1)

It is said you were a fine painter with a
very narrow repertoire: that could be said
of me and my literary portfolio, Lucian.
For you "the paint was the person." For(2)
me the words only go so far; the person
remains an enigma. I thank you, Lucian
and wish you well in Shakespeare's land:
that undiscovered country he called death.

1 The Baha'i Faith
2 In company he was exciting, humble, warm and witty," his art dealer, Acquavella, said in a statement. "He lived to paint and painted until the day he died, far removed from the noise of the art world." L.A. Times, 22 July 2011. I trust this will be true for me and my writing.

Ron Price
23 July 2011

_________________
married for 42 years, a teacher for 35 years and a Baha'i for 50 years.

ANIMATION AND THE PLAN

The first cinematic environmental hero may have been in Walt Disney's nine minute animated film Little Hiawatha released on 15 May 1937. This was at the very start of the first Bahá'í teaching plan; in fact, the film went into theatres as the delegates left the national convention in Chicago and arrived back in their homes. In the film an Indian boy is on a journey to become a hunter and he befriends the animals he had intended to kill. This film was released seven months before a second animated film Snow White. The Disney studio had begun its full artistic bloom. The extravagant artistry developed for Disney's first features was very evident in these debut films.

Hiawatha ventures forth with his little bow and arrow intent on emulating the mighty hunters of his village. It turned out that he was too soft-hearted to kill a rabbit. Later, when he was endangered by a ferocious bear, the rabbit rounded up an animal posse and saved him. Hiawatha rowed off in his canoe into the sunset safely back to his home, but empty-handed.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs premiered in the week before Christmas in 1937, eight months to the day after the inception of the Seven Year Plan: 1937-1944. This animated film was based on Snow White, a fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm. It was the first full-length animated feature in motion picture history as well as the first animated feature film produced in America. It was the first animation produced in full colour by the Walt Disney team. It was the first to become part of the Walt Disney Animated Classics canon.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs premiered at the Carthay Circle Theatre on December 21, 1937, and the film was released to theaters by RKO Radio Pictures on February 4, 1938. The noted filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein went so far as to call this animated film "the greatest film ever made." -Ron Price with thanks to Wikipedia, 8 April 2010.

The mission they inaugurated
animated the world little-by-
little and day-by-day.....little
did that world know......This
new life, this animation, had
begun releasing the greatest
potentialities of the community
of the Greatest Name & lending
a lustre no-less-brilliant than the
immortal deeds that signalized
the birth of this emerging world
religion for humankind. Indeed
the animation was far, far, more
than Hiawatha & Snow White ever
produced & would be part of the...
greatest story ever to be told....!!!!

Ron Price
8 April 2010

Readers at this site might be interested in the following news item hot off the press for 12 June 2010.

Australian Baha'i Family Members Anxiously Waiting

SYDNEY, 12 June 2010

Roya Kamalabadi of Melbourne and Amin Tavakoli of Adelaide face anxiety today. They wait as they have been waiting for more than two years. Mrs Kamalabadi, a mature-age pharmacy student, is waiting to learn the fate of her sister, Fariba, who will face trial in Branch 28 of Iran's Revolutionary Court in Tehran today Saturday, 12 June 2010.
"My sister, Fariba is an angel, who has dedicated her entire life to the education and service of her fellow countrymen. Her only crime is serving humanity and promoting love, unity, and fellowship among friends and foe," Mrs Kamalabadi said recently.
Mr Tavakoli, a businessman, is in a similar position to Roya Kamalabadi. His brother, Behrouz, will appear in court today alongside Fariba Kamalabadi and five other long-imprisoned, innocent Baha'i leaders. "If I could have one wish, it would be to see him one more time," Mr Tavakoli said. "I would hug him and put my ear to his chest and listen to the melody of his heart, a heart that plays the melody of love: love of God, and love of humanity," he added.
Two of the other imprisoned Baha'i leaders also have relatives here in Australia. For more than two years the seven have been incarcerated in appalling conditions in Tehran's notorious Evin Prison. At the first three sessions of the trial, on 12 January, 7 February and 12 April 2010, respectively, no evidence was presented to support several grave charges including: espionage, propaganda activities against the Islamic order, acting against the security of the country, and "spreading corruption on earth."
The court date of 12 June 2010 coincides with the anniversary of last year's controversial presidential election in Iran, as well as the global day of action aimed at calling attention to human rights abuses in Iran. The Australian Baha'i Community spokesperson Tessa Scrine said: "At the very least, the seven should be released on bail pending a prompt, fair and open trial that upholds international legal standards." "Iran should know that its actions against these seven innocent people are being watched by the rest of the world" she said.
Australian diplomats recently spoke out at the United Nations in the latest of the repeated official expressions of concern for the seven leaders by Australian Government representatives over the past two years. Resolutions of the Australian Federal Parliament and State Parliaments have called for their immediate release as have individual MPs from both major parties. The seven defendants are: Mrs Fariba Kamalabadi, Mr Saeid Rezaie, Mrs Mahvash Sabet, Mr Behrouz Tavakkoli, Mr Jamaloddin Khanjani, Mr Afif Naeimi, and Mr Vahid Tizfahm
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