Ed Mooney | ZETEO

Politics, Death Threats, Decency: The Roosevelts

October 1, 2016 by Ed Mooney

Mr. Trump hangs scapegoats like piñatas and invites people to take a swing. — Arizona Republic, September 28, 2016, lead editorial A friend is watching the PBS series, The Roosevelts. She’s taken in by the first episodes. I find myself pushed back in time, reliving the powerful impact of the series when I first viewed it two years ago. Back then, I was a complete fan, a true believer. I was abroad, and no doubt nostalgic for a number […]

Categories: Ed Mooney, ZiLL • Tags: decency, Donald Trump, History, politics, Roosevelts

The Ballerina and the Bull, Adbusters poster - Occupy Wall Street

Artistry, Joy, Complexity, Freedom

June 5, 2016 by Ed Mooney

Allowing the full Influx of the World Artistry mitigates disaster and keeps us alive. I mean both the artistry of the world and our individual artistry in responding to it. It’s a balancing act, a ballet on the back of a dancing bull. Artistry, incoming and outgoing, from the world and from us, gives us both freedom and happiness, both joy and misery, both terror and adventure. I used to think the world was full of either/or’s, and your life […]

Categories: Ed Mooney, ZiR • Tags: love, philosophy, poetry, Thoreau

Friendship, communion, autonomy, philosophy

May 29, 2016 by Ed Mooney

By Ed Mooney, Zeteo Contributor These are preliminary notes on a tension between philosophy and friendship. They are prompted by two texts I encountered nearly in conjunction, within the passage of just a few days. The first is a remarkable passage from Moby Dick where Ishmael, the narrator whose name echoes the Biblical figure cast into wilderness, reflects on friendship. Specifically, he reflects on his bond with Quequeeg, a tattooed, South Pacific, Muslim “Cannibal.” From the deck of the […]

Categories: Ed Mooney, ZiR • Tags: literature, love, philosophy, race

Leave a comment

Fascism American Style: Il Duce, Il Donald

May 22, 2016 by Ed Mooney

As Alexander Hamilton watched the French Revolution unfold, he feared in America what he saw play out in France — that the unleashing of popular passions would lead not to greater democracy but to the arrival of a tyrant, riding to power on the shoulders of the people. His public discourse consists of attacking or ridiculing a wide range of “others” — Muslims, Hispanics, women, Chinese, Mexicans, Europeans, Arabs, immigrants, refugees — whom he depicts either as threats or as […]

Categories: Ed Mooney, ZiR • Tags: civil rights, politics, social justice

Glory, Surprise, Salman Rushdie

May 15, 2016 by Ed Mooney

Five mysteries hold the keys to the unseen: the act of love, and the birth of a baby, and the contemplation of great art, and being in the presence of death or disaster, and hearing the human voice lifted in song. — Salman Rushdie There […]

Categories: Ed Mooney, ZiR • Tags: art, children, death, love, poetry, reading, writing

Leave a comment

Chutzpah, Self-abnegation, Creation

April 24, 2016 by Ed Mooney

I s creation, in the arts, or elsewhere, a matter of chutzpah or daring — perhaps of overweening pride? It often is. And sometime it’s a matter of humility, stepping aside, letting another speak through one. Thus the Odyssey begins, Sing in me muse, Sing of the man of twists and turns driven time and again off course This makes the poet almost incidental to the creation. Can we generalize here? No doubt some poets are models of humility […]

Categories: Ed Mooney, ZiR • Tags: books, literature, philosophy, writing

Leave a comment

CIA, Obstruction of Justice, 9/11

April 17, 2016 by Ed Mooney

The only good thing that came out of 9/11 was that the building fell on him. –Michael Scheuer, former head of the CIA anti-bin Laden task force, testifying before a congressional committee, applauding the death of John O’Neill, former head of the FBI’s NYC anti-terrorist task force. The New Yorker has begun to produce short documentaries to view on line. The topics are as varied as the contents of any recent print issue, and the stories might […]

Categories: Ed Mooney, ZiR • Tags: death, ethics, New York City

Imagination, Rowling, Happiness, Carnival

April 10, 2016 by Ed Mooney

Memorable lines from William Blake: Twofold, twofold always May God us keep From single vision And Newton’s sleep Imagination lets us see the world as other than a Newtonian assembly of spinning atoms (updated to Quarks), or as a Darwinian stage for Fitter-gene transmissions, or as a Brainy locus for neurological pathways. Blake was worried about a physics take-over of claims to reality. The situation is more complex today, with a variety of sciences vieing for top […]

Categories: Ed Mooney, ZiR • Tags: death, literature, poetry, reading

Leave a comment

Consumers, Apprentices, Failed Universities

April 3, 2016 by Ed Mooney

I have no complaints about living in Maine. I find good music, good restaurants, good friends in the small city of Portland. I’ve taught inland and upstate in Bangor – just this side of Old Town, home of the classic canvas canoes I grew up with and rigged for sailing in a tidal river that opens on Buzzards Bay. That inlet-laced coast reminds me of the Maine Coast. There’s an older, slower, pace to life here. All this nostalgia […]

Categories: Ed Mooney, Uncategorized, ZiR • Tags: capitalism, education, literature, reading, technology, writing