This is the blog for the Bentari Project.
Saturday, June 07, 2014
How did Finland do it? Under Swedish rule from the 12th to the 19th centuries; then under Russian control for over 100-years, how did Finland become a neutral nation? Finland lies between Sweden and Russia—two countries that used Finnish land as a battlefield for centuries. So, how did the Finns manage to become a neutral and independent republic? ...
Read full postSunday, June 01, 2014
In Finland and Sweden, Ruth Mackenzie has been called “the Janis Joplin of folk.” [1] I like her song “Give Us Room to Roar.” [2] I hear lionesses roaring with power from ancient days. Listening, I see and feel a thousand eager feet that yearn to dance—dance and loudly stomp despite their aching. We will do great things; the words make a solemn oat...
Read full postSaturday, May 31, 2014
Many years before I ever dreamed of blogging, in fact years before we owned a computer, I chose this Wells’ quote to represent the primary theme of Bentari. “Our true nationality is mankind.” [1] Well sums up war from a working man’s point of view in his 1907 novel The War in the Air. His book was prophetic in many areas—though it was written at th...
Read full postMonday, May 26, 2014
Mark Twain’s sense of humor acted on him like the force of gravity². He could not even hold back when commenting on the dark subject of vivisection (experimentation on living animals). “I believe I am not interested to know whether Vivisection produces results that are profitable to the human race or doesn't. To know that the results are profitable...
Read full postSunday, May 25, 2014
“When a man loves cats, I am his friend and comrade without further introduction.” Mark Twain freely gave away one path to his heart. [1] By his own life’s habits, Twain clearly had more use for cats than for dogs, with perhaps one exception—his daughter Jean’s German shepherd. After Jean’s sad death, the dog and Twain were devoted to each other. Y...
Read full postSaturday, May 24, 2014
“Get a bicycle. You will not regret it if you live.” ~Mark Twain, "Taming the Bicycle" “When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race.” ~H.G. Wells [1] Sam Clemens and H.G. Wells’ trod upon the planet for 44-years in common. I have found no evidence that they ever met. In addition to time on Earth, they shared ...
Read full postSunday, April 27, 2014
Mark Twain didn’t grow up in poverty. His dad was a judge, after all. Yet the young Sam Clemens was not bound for a fancy Ivy League education—quite the contrary. Sam began his education like me, by avoiding studies. But Sam was blessed with an uncanny ability to spell almost any word, a skill, by the way, that Sam placed little stock in. (“—for al...
Read full postSunday, April 06, 2014
This paragraph from Mark Twain’s autobiography [1] stands alone as introspection for the human race. “The last quarter of a century of my life has been pretty constantly and faithfully devoted to the study of the human race—that is to say, the study of myself, for in my individual person I am the entire human race compacted together. I have found t...
Read full postSaturday, March 29, 2014
This goes back to an old classroom debate from my college days that is now decided by Mark Twain’s own words in his autobiography (volume 1). [1] I was studying American literature back in the “Middle Ages”—at Portland State in the ‘70s. The debate jumped me like a giant Calaveras frog. A student in my class said he believed Mark Twain to be a raci...
Read full postMonday, February 17, 2014
For fifty-years and counting, Dr. Jane Goodall [1] has studied apes where they live. She has done her level best to ensure that her work equates to a better future for her subjects. Sometimes the future is now—as in the case of Wounda, a chimpanzee that nearly died. Take a few minutes to watch Wounda explore the forest where she can now live freely...
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