We have been blind since our inception, until now. Why the change? Ecology.
But ecology is only a catalyst for all other revelations, one variation on the truths of the Cosmos:  infinity;  oneness;  divinity. All truths are related, because all in the infinite Cosmos are one. Right now, the vast majority of
human beings see themselves as plausibly the only "intelligent" beings in the
universe. How absurd! First, the Cosmos in infinite. Second, do the math:
multiply 1 (the number of Earths {the one planet in our solar system that we
know supports human life}) by 200,000,000,000 (the estimated number of solar systems in each galaxy) by 2,000,000,000,000 (the estimated number of
galazies that astronomers think exist in the Cosmos). I cannot do the math, and my computer calculator can't either, but it is not necessary to calculate the
estimated number of planets like Earth that can sustain human life (as well as
other kinds of flora and fauna), because, if one could, the product would be
infinitely large;  thus, to think Earth is the only place in the infinite Cosmos
that is able to support life as we experience it is patently insane. But, for now,
Earth is all we have, so we better become aware of all the ramifications (there
are simply too many to enumerate here) of ecology if life on Earth is to survive. It is past time for all of us to open our eyes, otherwise catastrophic, existential threats will cease to be threats and become realities, and our eyes,
by our own making, will be closed forever.

Copyright 2020 Tod Howard Hawks

I saw the spirit of Dorthea Lange as I looked out my window two days ago.
It was not an accident. It was not an apparition. It is time for her spirit to
come again to the great American wasteland. It is time for Dorthea to prepare for another dispiriting, but at once brutal and honest, recording of the anguish and torment and crushing poverty that awaits so many of us in the near future. No, she will not be taking portraits of Bezos and Buffett and Gates and the other other American billionaires;  rather, her spirit will see again the homeless, the jobless, the hopeless, the hungry. the utterly forlorn and forsaken of millions of us in interminably long soup lines and fellow citizens lying on folded cardboard boxes on cold cement sidewalks of virtually every city
and town in our great America. Perhaps Dorthea will create another photographic classic like "The White Angel Breadline."  No doubt, the spirit of Dorthea will be joined by the spirits of the other photographers who chronicled the American misery of the Great Depression for the Farm Bureau Administration:  Walker Evans;  Gordon Parks;  Jack Delano;  Russell Lee;  Carl Mydans;  Arthur Rostein;  John Vachon;  Theo Jung;  Ben Shahn;  John Collier;  Marion Post Wolcott. The spirits of Dorthea and her colleagues will document again the scourge of rural poverty and the exploitation of sharecroppers and migrant workers.  Dorthea Lange's iconic "Migrant Mother" is the photographic equivalent of John Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath." Steinbeck won a Nobel Prize for his literay canon. Dorthea Lange should have won a Nobel Prize for her photographic portfolio. Shortly, we all shall feel the presence of Dorthea and her fellow photograpers, for soon our fellow Americans will be without jobs, without homes, without food, without hope. In fact, the beginning of this abject disaster is aleady behind us, but we are blind to what is to become.

Copyright 2020 Tod Howard Hawks

There is nothing but the murmur of your breathing as the silver moon cutting across the darkness spreads its luminous light across white sheets. I am the keeper of the silence. You are the keeper of the sensuous. I kneel beside you on the bed, gazing at your flaxen hair. You are asleep now. I am enthralled.  The rest of the room is in darkness, highlighted only by silver streams, a chiaroscuro by the ghost of Giotto. I kiss you lightly on the forehead. You do not awaken. I begin to pull the white sheet gently from your shoulders to below your knees, a panoply of pulchritude. Silence and darkness and silver streams are timeless. Sleep, dear Sarah. I am the keeper of the silence, a post more regal than a throne, a crown. We are at the epicenter of love. Sleep, dear Sarah, sleep.

Copyright 2020 Tod Howard Hawks

It is never too late to find your heart.

Copyright 2020 Tod Howard Hawks

The pandemic, that ****, inimical plague enveloping our world. So it all started in China, or so they say, yet in what seems to me in a very short time, it has circled Earth. Really, that fast, and everywhere, even Okinawa? Moreover, does it not seem a tad morally "grostesque" that so many look to "profit" from the scourge? This is not the way I want our world to work. "Gee!' many will say. "The more corpses, the more money!" Life, any life, should never be predicated on monied worth. Life is sacred. It is not meant to be financially profitable. The indigenous peoples of Earth for the most part knew intuitively that human lives were not meant to be spent on the 103rd floor of some skyscrapper. They realized that all forms of life on Earth were inextricably intertwined, inter-connected. They realized profoundly that all are one. The way we have sectionalized politically our Earth into arbitary nations (over 200 now) is both ludicrous, as well as illusory. The wind, the waters--even the pandemic--do not recognize borders. The divisions of mankind have resulted, over millennia, in aggrandizement, which has inexorably lead to wars on top of wars on top of even more war. And what happens during wars? Millions and millions and millions of human beings have been murdered, a military pandemic of untold proportions. And what if we wanted to love instead of ****? You can't hug someone who is 6-to-10 feet away from you. You can't kiss the one you love with a mask over your face. But phamaceutical giants are all furiously trying to become the first to create a viable vaccine and thus make billions and billions. But that is not love--just the opposite. And what of all the poor human beings on Earth, so many of whom already have contracted the virus, or eventually will--how are they going to be able to pay for the vaccine? The coronavirus is not the only plague circling Earth. Uncaring has been doing the same it seems forever.

Copyright 2020 Tod Howard Hawks

You were first seen in a painting in the Trois Freres cave circa 13,000 B.C. in what in now France. Like all beautiful women, over centuries you changed shapes, styles, names. You became lyres, then lutes. You played dyads and chords. The Persians callrd you "barbat." The Arabs called you "oud." When the Moors flocked to Iberia, they brought you along. You spread to Provence
where you influenced troubadors and eventually the rest of Europe. But wherever you traveled, whatever evolutions you underwent, you always retained your sonorous tones. You became the French "mandore. You became the German "mandoer." You became the Spanish "vandola." You became the Italiam "mandola." Your path was tortuous. Eventually, though, you became the mandolin, but you still had highs and lows. Your first high was in 1744. Your first low was the end of the Napoleonic Wars of 1815. Your next high was the Paris Exposition of 1878. And further, from the late 19th Century through the early years of the 20h Century, was the "GoldenAge" of the mandolin. But after World War I, the mandolin gradually sufferred another decline supplanted by the advent of Jazz. You, a mandolin, beautiful women you have always been, have lived a long, long life, and it's not over yet. You contine to bring beautiful, musical sounds to all music lovers around the world. Your lovely life may never end.

Copyright 2020 Tod Howard Hawks

Most people don't know this, but as a boy, Criminal Trump worked at the
Auschwictz-Birkenau death camp where from 1940 to 1945 the Nazis murdered 1,100,000, mostly Jews, the largest number of murders committed  
in any of the other 15,000 death camps spread over Europe in World War II.
Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp was locacated in the province of Upper Silesia in Poland. The camp used Zyklon B to ****** these men, women, and children in their gas chambers. Criminal Trump had multiple duties. He would help the **** guards force the Jews out of the railroad cars, enduring somehow the yelling and screams of the Jews who, for the most part, had already heard the fate awaiting them. Criminal Trump laughed with the **** guards. Criminal Trump, even though he was just a boy, was allowed to carry a club to beat any recalcitrant Jew who would resist getting into line. One of Criminal Trump's most favorite tasks was to watch the women and their female children be forced to take off all their clothing. Criminal Trump enjoyed staring at these naked females, choosing for himself those who were the most beautiful to him. He would wait longer than most of the **** guards before turning on the Zyklon B gas. One of his least favorite jobs was carrying the corpses covered with human excrement to the ovens where they were to be burnt. The smell was almost too fetid for him to do his job. Though Criminal Trump showered after each of these horrid, but necessary, tasks, he never could get rid of either of the smell or the memory of what he had to do hours each day in the gas chambers. In fact, as a man, he would awaken with a start from recurring nightmares of these atrocities he had participated in as a boy.
What Criminal Trump did as a boy at Auschwitz-Birkenenau death camp shaped how he would treat virtually every human being he encountered later
in life--with lack of any empathy at best, with sociopathic cruelty at worst.

Copyright 2020 Tod Howard Hawks