The articles, the opinions, the stories, the poems, the thoughts, the reviews, the photos, the paintings and the cartoons The Ovi covers.
Enjoy the full posts by tapping HERE!
The Ovi
We cover every issue!
The articles, the opinions, the stories, the poems, the thoughts, the reviews, the photos, the paintings and the cartoons The Ovi covers.
Enjoy the full posts by tapping HERE!
The Ovi
We cover every issue!
The articles, the opinions, the stories, the poems, the thoughts, the reviews, the photos, the paintings and the cartoons Ovi magazine covers for Friday Thursday 17th, 2023
RESISTING END-TIME by David Sparenberg
In a recent report, the United Nations set out some top priorities everyone can practice in helping to counter climate change and keep Earth (humanly) habitable.
Here is the short list: (1) eat a plant-based diet, (2) reduce unnecessary consumption and excessive waste (in the United States the reduction needs to be radical because the abuses are extreme and constant) (3) eliminate the burning of fossil fuels. This is, or could be/should be, a relatively easy, minimally painful, 3-step program.
I would add to the UN list the difficult but necessary demilitarization of the planet, working with diligent dedication toward removing nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, along with research into further development in these categories and arsenals of technologically efficient weapons of mass destruction.
Continue reading HERE!
South Chicago Night #poem by Michael Lee Johnson
“Night is drifters,
sugar rats, street walkers, pickpockets, pimps,
insects, Lake Michigan perch,
neon signs blinking half the bulbs
burned out.”
Continue reading HERE!
A fistful of cactus #67 #cartoon by Thanos Kalamidas
For more A fistful of cactus HERE!
For more Ovi Cartoons, HERE!
Ovi magazine
We cover every issue!
The articles, the opinions, the stories, the poems, the thoughts, the reviews, the photos, the paintings and the cartoons Ovi magazine covers for Thursday November 8th, 2023
SERIOUSLY a Back to the Future Story for Present Telling by David Sparenberg
The Collector rode around, galloping from kingdom to kingdom through fires and floods, through raging winds—the roaring blaze of day, the howling torments, tempests of night. The Doom Collector carried the gore-sword of sacrifice, blood moon of the midnight clock, the mercurial scales of evolutionary judgment.
Everyone everywhere wanted to live. Those who did not had already taken their own lives or were attempting, absurdly and in haste, to hide, deep in the cavernous underground, deep in the shadows of darkness. These latter as afraid to live as to die. Ah—the vanity of men!
Eyes wept. Mouths pleaded. The blood pandemic progressively inundated the globe.
Continue reading HERE!
Solidly So by Saloni Kaul
“All through life we’re riddled with extremes keen
Like towering highs and touching rock bottom
That render complicated thriving in between
If we take them to heart, like birthdays, eggs rotten.”
Continue reading HERE!
Velimir Khlebnikov: (9 November 1885 – 28 June 1922) The Futurian and World Citizen by Rene Wadlow
Velimir Khlebnikov was a shooting star of Russian culture in the years just prior to the start of the First World War. He was part of a small creative circle of poets, painters and writers who wanted to leave the old behind and to set the stage for the future such as the abstract painter Kazimir Malevich. They called themselves “The Futurians”. They were interested in being avenues for the Spirit which they saw at work in peasent life and in shamans’ visions; however the Spirit was very lacking in the works of the ruling nobility and commercial elite.
Continue reading HERE!
Mika Toxica #66 #cartoon by Thanos Kalamidas
For more Mika Toxica HERE!
For more Ovi Cartoons, HERE!
Ovi magazine
We cover every issue!
The articles, the opinions, the stories, the poems, the thoughts, the photos, the paintings and the cartoons Ovi magazine covers for Saturday April 22nd, 2023 – Mother Earth Day
Earth Day is a day designed to inspire awareness and appreciation for the Earth’s environment. It was founded by U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson as an environmental teach-in held on April 22, 1970 and is celebrated in more than 175 countries every year. Earth Day is celebrated in spring in the Northern Hemisphere and autumn in the Southern Hemisphere. Many communities celebrate Earth Week, an entire week of activities focused on environmental issues.
While the first Earth Day was focused entirely on the United States, an organization launched by Denis Hayes—the original national coordinator in 1970—took it international in 1990 and organized events in 141 nations. Earth Day is now observed each year on April 22 in virtually every country on Earth. Earth Day is now coordinated globally by the Earth Day Network. World Environment Day, celebrated on June 5 in a different nation every year, is the principal United Nations environmental observance.
Earth: Our Common Home by Rene Wadlow
International Mother Earth Day on 22 April each year was established by the United Nations General Assembly in 2009. Its aim is to promote living in harmony with Nature and to achieve a just balance among the economic, social, and environmental needs of the present and future generations. The concept of living in harmony with Nature was seen by the U.N. delegates as a way “to improve the ethical basis of relationship between humankind and our planet.”
The United Nations began its focus on ecological issues with the preperations for the 1972 Conference in Stockholm and has continued with the 1992 Rio Declaration followed by the Rio plus 20 Conference 20 years later. However, the concept of living in harmony with Nature is relatively new as a U.N. political concept. Yet it is likely to be a concept increasingly used by both governmental policy makers and in non-governmental organization efforts.
Continue reading HERE!
Flowers In Bloom #poem & #painting by Nikos Laios
“Flowers
Do not bloom
In concrete,
They do not bloom
In steel and glass,
They do not bloom
In cold city streets
In construction sites
In alleyways
And empty lots.”
Continue reading HERE!
A fistful of cactus #53 #cartoon by Thanos Kalamidas
For more A fistful of cactus HERE!
For more Ovi Cartoons, HERE!
Ovi magazine
We cover every issue!
The articles, the opinions, the stories, the poems and the cartoons Ovi magazine covers for Wednesday March 15th, 2023
Steps Toward The Protection of The Oceans by Rene Wadlow
On 4 March 2023, at the United Nations in New York an important step toward the protection of the oceans was taken with the presentation of a new Treaty on the High Seas for the protection of the biodiversity of the oceans beyond the national territorial limits. These negotiations began in 2004. Their length is an indication of some of the difficulties of the issues.
The new treaty builds upon the 1970s U.N. effort on the Law of the Sea presented for ratification in 1982. (Link to an earlier Ovi article “Law of the Seas. Protect our Oceans”) The decade-long 1970s negotiations, in which non-governmental organizations such as the Association of World Citizens played an active role, dealt primarily with the extension of national jurisdiction to include an “exculsive economic zone” under the control of the state holding the 12 nautical mile jurisdiction. The state in question could make financial arrangements with other states on fishing or other activities within the exclusive economic zone. The 1970s Law of the Sea negotiations also led to the creation of a dispute settlement procedure as there were overlapping exclusive economic zones as well as issues of the creation of exclusive economic zones around national islands. These issues have taken on strong political dimensions concerning Chinese claims in the South China Sea around uninhabited islands as well as tensions between Greece and Turkey.
Continue reading HERE!
The Descent #poem & #painting by Nikos Laios
“The ascent,
The descent,
The trials and
Tribulations,
The revisions
And divisions,
Rebirths and
Redemptions,
The damnation
Of burnt souls.”
Continue reading HERE!
Insert Brain Here 2.0 #036 #cartoon by Paul Woods
For more Insert Brain Here 2.0, HERE!
For more Ovi Cartoons, HERE!
Ovi magazine
We cover every issue!
The articles, the opinions, the stories, the poems and the cartoons Ovi magazine covers for Monday February 27th, 2023
Is adverse weather mistaken for climate change? – The age of politicized science by Murray Hunter
With the advent of the “climate cult”, adverse weather conditions are espoused as proof of climate change.
Adverse weather like cold snaps, heat waves, torrential rain and floods, hurricanes, and other weather phenomenon, are now given prime time media slots, where a causal connection to climate change is claimed. In addition, climate change is no longer defined as a natural occurring event, the inference to climate change suggest these events are the result of human activities.
The more adverse weather events shown in the media, the more people believe climate change is the cause. These causality suggestions create an availability heuristic, reinforces the perception these events are the result of climate change. We now have a tendency to believe that adverse weather is associated with climate change, through a socially created input bias about climate change. We also believe these events are more common that before. Most, particularly the young, believe this ‘as reality’, which adds to the fear of climate change.
Lifetime memories for older generations are impossible to quantify. The underlying reality is there have always been adverse weather conditions, that may or may not be occurring more regularly than previous times. Through these input biases, most succumb to the power of suggestion, adverse weather is more frequent and more violent than previously.
Continue reading HERE!
Since I… #poem & #painting by Amir Khatib
“Since I remember things,
the past became ill,
And the night is a swing between two palm trees,
then,
the sky aborted her fetus,
And she turned a blind eye.”
Continue reading HERE
Roberto Assagioli: The Will as a Road to the Higher Self by Rene Wadlow
Roberto Assagioli (1888-1974) set out a path to the Higher Self with the power of the will. Roberto Assagioli, whose birth anniversary we mark on 27 February was a close co-worker of both Sigmund Freud and Carl Gustave Jung. In 1910, he broke from the Freudian approach and began to develop his own psycho-spiritual model which he called psychosynthesis He was closer in approach to Jung, but as the first translator of Freud’s writings into Italian, he is often cited as the introducer of Freudian thought into Italy.
Roberto Assagioli was an Italian psychiatrist, humanist and Theosophical student of the world’s spiritual traditions. (His mother and wife were members of the Theosophical Society).
A short presentation of Assagioli’s view is that “I am what I will to be”. In a sense, the individual does not have a will: rather he is a will, a directing energy, that has taken human form as an individual. The individual will-force is in some way identical to the universal will-force. Assagioli who had studied Asian thought highlighted the Chinese sage becoming one with the universal energy – the Tao.
Continue reading HERE
2nd opinion, quarantined! #05 #cartoon by Thanos Kalamidas
For more 2nd opinion, quarantined! HERE!
For more Ovi Cartoons, HERE!
Ovi magazine
We cover every issue!
The articles, the opinions, the stories, the poems and the cartoons Ovi magazine covers for Friday December 23rd, 2022
Biodiversity: A Pledge, Now Action by Rene Wadlow
In the early hours of 19 December 2022, the delegates to the U. N. Convention on Biodiversity (COP 15) reached an agreement on a Biodiversity Framework after 12 days of intense negotiations. The theme of COP 15 was “Ecological Civilization: Building a shared future for all life on earth”. There were some 15,000 persons present during the meetings: government delegates, some 70 Non-governmental Organizations, academic research institutes and business companies. The global biodiversity framework, to be called the “Kunming-Montreal Framework ” sets out to protect at least 30 percent of the world’s land and water by 2030. Montreal is the headquarters of the U.N. Secretariat of the Convention on Biodiversity. Kunming is the city in the People’s Republic of China where the conference was to be held but was changed because of COVID 19 restrictions.
There is general agreement among specialists that world-wide there is a loss of biodiversity due to a number of factors such as increase in monoculture agriculture, livestock grazing, the loss of forest lands through lumbering and firewood gathering, overuse of pesticides and the growth of urbanization. Many ecosystems are under stress and facing degradation. The tree and plant cover of the world have been taking increasing losses in almost all parts of the world. There is also the impact of climate change and a lack of rainfall in some parts of the world.
Continue reading HERE!
The Window #poem & #painting by Nikos Laios
“I sat in a chair in front of a window
Watching the rain pour outside trickling
Down the window and I drank a glass of red wine
Listening to a Rolling Stones blues album
Playing in the back round.”
Continue reading HERE
A Finnish Merry Christmas by Jan Sand
We bunnies have been allocated a special place in the yearly schedule and have done well in that slot. That is why we have become disturbed in the inefficiencies in the manner of operations of the person known as Santa Claus. The man has obviously passed his prime and we realized that, for the benefit of the tradition and out of pity for the elderly Father Christmas something radical had to take place. So we assumed time was ripe for an aggressive takeover. We have accomplished this with dispatch and minimum damage.
Of course, some downsizing was imperative and we have performed this carefully. Rumors of elves wandering the Arctic wastes in a daze are absolutely untrue. Most are now employed by McDonalds and Walmart at standard wages which are quite sufficient to sustain an elf. Santa himself is living comfortably ln a large cardboard carton in a safe dry area under the Brooklyn Bridge. Visitors should be forewarned that he has not yet come to appreciate the benefits of being brought into the modern era.
Continue reading HERE
I don’t see any claws #cartoon by Patrick McWade
For more For the Moment HERE!
For more Ovi Cartoons, HERE!
Ovi magazine
We cover every issue!
The articles, the opinions, the stories, the poems and the cartoons Ovi magazine covers for Friday November 18th, 2022
Ave mundus, humanitas te salutant and thanks for all the fish by Thanos Kalamidas
November 15th, 2022 marked something historically and environmentally significant, earth population reached 8 billion. Let’s see what other numbers peak. 1.2 billion people live in extreme poverty globally; nearly 100 million of them live in dangerous for their life situations. Every single day somewhere in this 8 million souls globe, 14.200 children under the age of 5 die due to poverty, lack of food, settler, medication, or …clean water.
More numbers? The global extinction rate in the animal kingdom is calculated at up to 8,700 species a year, or 24 a day and natural resources are dying with oil in a few years counting not in barrels but in drops. There are far more interesting numbers, but …who counts.
And whilst this is just a peak of the numbers nothing has change regarding the constantly melting iceberg, global warming. On the contrary things are getting worse and yes, nuclear power is back trending thanks to man-greed-stupidity -made wars and humanity’s need to charge …mobile phones, tablets, social media and likes.
Continue reading HERE!
Weight #poem by Dr. Lawrence Nannery
“It’s really bright in there, in the bathroom with the theatrical vanity.
Peroxide Mary is in front of the mirror, busy with her implements.
She’s got the mascara, and the eyeliner, and the foundation and the powder and the lipstick,
But most of all she’s got the tweezers, and right now she’s working up inside her nose.”
Continue reading HERE
Jacques Maritain (18 November 1882 -23 April 1973) World Citizen Philosopher by Rene Wadlow
Jacques Maritain was a French intellectual who spent the years of World War Two in Princeton in the U.S.A. He was a friend of the anti-Nazi German author Thomas Mann who also lived in Princeton. Both men were among the active advocates of world citizenship. When Thomas Mann’s daughter, Elizabeth Mann Borgese was editing the world citizen journal Common Cause from the University of Chicago in the 1947-1950 period, Jacques Maritain wrote a number of articles for the journal along the lines of his thinking set out in his Man and the State.
At the time that he was writing for Common Cause he was the Ambassador of France to the Vatican, having been named ambassador by Charles De Gaulle from 1945 to 1948. Maritain had supported De Gaulle during the war when many French Catholics had sided with the Vichy government or were silent.
Continue reading HERE
Insert Brain Here 2.0 #026 #cartoon by Paul Woods
For more Insert Brain Here 2.0, HERE!
For more Ovi Cartoons, HERE!
Ovi magazine
We cover every issue!
The articles, the opinions, the stories, the poems and the cartoons Ovi magazine covers for Saturday October 8th, 2022 – World Migratory Bird Day
World Migratory Bird Day is an annual awareness-raising campaign highlighting the need for the conservation of migratory birds and their habitats. It has a global outreach and is an effective tool to help raise global awareness of the threats faced by migratory birds, their ecological importance, and the need for international cooperation to conserve them.
TO YOUTH of the WORLD by David Sparenberg
When the corrupters, swindlers, betrayers, deniers – the practitioners of ecocide and insanity – tell you, “Calm down.” Don’t calm down. Rise up!
When they tell you, “Don’t be an alarmist.” Don’t! But sound the alarm clear, loud, and relentlessly. There are no “alternative facts.” There is reality. And there is no Planet B.
When they tell you, “Don’t panic.” That’s right. But not for the reasons the corrupters, swindlers, betrayers, deniers – the practitioners of ecocide and insanity – want you to believe. Right because sanity is indispensable in confronting madness, when dismantling the weaponized ego, and combating species suicide.
Continue reading HERE!
I Didn’t Know What to Say #poem by Bohdan Yuri
“Look at me,
I’m dripping,
Tears, Blood.
My heart
Was ripped from
My soul.”
Continue reading HERE!
Mika Toxica #37 #cartoon by Thanos Kalamidas
For more Mika Toxica HERE!
For more Ovi Cartoons, HERE!
Ovi magazine
We cover every issue!
The articles, the opinions, the stories, the poems and the cartoons Ovi magazine covers for Friday August 5th, 2022 – International Beer Day
Originally started in the United States, in Santa Cruz, California to be exact, Beer Day was begun with the purpose of celebrating the craft of brewing. And it was also created with the intention of showing appreciation for those involved in the making of beer. The day then quickly expanded to include celebrations of bartenders and other beer technicians as well. Not only did Beer Day expand in scope, but in size as well. It quickly began gaining international recognition and following within only one short year. In between 2007 when it was started in Santa Cruz, and where it currently is no– celebrated in 207 cities, 50 countries and on 6 continents all across the globe!
SERIOUSLY a Back to the Future Story for Present Telling by David Sparenberg
The Collector rode around, galloping from kingdom to kingdom through fires and floods, through raging winds—the roaring blaze of day, the howling torments, tempests of night. The Doom Collector carried the gore-sword of sacrifice, blood moon of the midnight clock, the mercurial scales of evolutionary judgment.
Everyone everywhere wanted to live. Those who did not had already taken their own lives or were attempting, absurdly and in haste, to hide, deep in the cavernous underground, deep in the shadows of darkness. These latter as afraid to live as to die. Ah—the vanity of men!
Eyes wept. Mouths pleaded. The blood pandemic progressively inundated the globe.
Continue reading HERE!
Snapshot #poem by Bohdan Yuri
“The sun was lazy in setting on our last day,
A Labor Day breeze cooled most repartee,
The drive back to the city would be delayed,
As Mike and Donna, in whose house was played,
This last summer weekend, our family’s soiree.
The camera was set for one last memento
Of what was shared on their country estate.”
Continue reading HERE!
Worming #42 #cartoon by Thanos Kalamidas
For more worming, HERE!
For more Ovi Cartoons, HERE!
Ovi magazine
We cover every issue!
The articles, the opinions, the stories, the poems and the cartoons Ovi magazine covers for Saturday July 9th, 2022
The Major Questions Doctrine: The US Supreme Court Blunts the EPA by Dr. Binoy Kampmark
The US Supreme Court has been frantically busy of late, striking down law and legislation with an almost crazed, ideological enthusiasm. Gun laws have been invalidated; Roe v Wadeand constitutional abortion rights, confined to history. And now, the Environmental Protection Agency has been clipped of its powers in a 6-3 decision.
The June 30 decision of West Virginia v Environmental Protection Agency was something of a shadow boxing act. The Clean Power Plan, which was the target of the bench, never came into effect. In 2016, the Supreme Court effectively blocked the plan, which was announced by President Barack Obama in August 2015. It has been originally promulgated under the Clean Air Act.
In 2019, the Trump administration repealed the CPP, replacing it with the Affordable Clean Energy Rule. It argued that the EPA’s authority under Section 7411 of the Clean Air Act only extended to measures pertinent to the plant’s premises, rather than industry-wide measures suggested by the CPP. The ACER vested states with the discretion to set standards and grant power plants much latitude in complying with them. In their decision, the DC Circuit vacated the repeal of the CPP by the Trump administration, and the ACER, sending it back to the EPA. In effect, the EPA’s powers of regulation were held to be intact.
Continue reading HERE!
Blue Mountain #poem by George Cassidy Payne
“Anointed by
the elements
you are my blue
eyed mountain”
Continue reading HERE!
Always something; the family edition #37 #cartoon by Thanos Kalamidas
For more Always something; the family edition, HERE!
For more Ovi Cartoons, HERE!
Ovi magazine
We cover every issue!
The articles, the opinions, the stories, the poems and the cartoons Ovi magazine covers for Sunday July 3rd, 2022
RESISTING END-TIME by David Sparenberg
In a recent report, the United Nations set out some top priorities everyone can practice in helping to counter climate change and keep Earth (humanly) habitable.
Here is the short list: (1) eat a plant-based diet, (2) reduce unnecessary consumption and excessive waste (in the United States the reduction needs to be radical because the abuses are extreme and constant) (3) eliminate the burning of fossil fuels. This is, or could be/should be, a relatively easy, minimally painful, 3-step program.
I would add to the UN list the difficult but necessary demilitarization of the planet, working with diligent dedication toward removing nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, along with research into further development in these categories and arsenals of technologically efficient weapons of mass destruction.
Continue reading HERE!
The morning sun in the garden #poem by Abigail George
“Somebody said that to me once
When I was young and brave.
‘And sadness in one as young as
You is frightening.’ Sadness and
Loneliness in an old woman is”
Continue reading HERE!
Insert Brain Here 2.0 #014 #cartoon by Paul Woods
For more Insert Brain Here 2.0, HERE!
For more Ovi Cartoons, HERE!
Ovi magazine
We cover every issue!
The articles, the opinions, the stories, the poems and the cartoons Ovi magazine covers for Wednesday June 8th, 2022 – World Oceans Day
World Oceans Day is an international day that takes place annually on 8 June. The concept was originally proposed in 1992 by Canada’s International Centre for Ocean Development (ICOD) and the Ocean Institute of Canada (OIC) at the Earth Summit – UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. “World Oceans Day” was officially recognised by the United Nations in 2008. The international day supports the implementation of worldwide Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and fosters public interest in the protection of the ocean and the sustainable management of its resources.
7 years of Buhari dwindling expectations by Kola King
The Buhari administration clocked 7 on May 29 having clinched power in 2015. Back then the incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was defeated in the presidential elections by General Muhammadu Buhari who ran on the platform of the All Progressive Congress, APC. That election was Buhari’s fourth shot at the presidency. He went on to win reelection in 2019 against the opposition candidate, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party.
Buhari’s 2015 upset victory was the first time an incumbent at the centre had lost elections in Nigeria’s political history. Naturally, there were a lot of inflated expectations and high hopes that the Buhari administration swept into power on the mantra of change will clean the Augean stable and set the nation on the path of rapid growth and development.
Continue reading HERE!
Distillation #poem by George Cassidy Payne
“Having grown bored
with wisdom, resting
by an old fence of fist”
Continue reading HERE!
Our Common Oceans and Seas by Rene Wadlow
The Association of World Citizens has long been concerned with the Law of the Sea and had been active during the 10-year negotiations on the law of the sea during the 1970s, the meetings being held one month a year, alternatively in New York and Geneva. The world citizens position for the law of the sea was largely based on a three-point framework:
a) that the oceans and seas were the common heritage of humanity and should be seen as a living symbol of the unity of humanity;
b) that ocean management should be regulated by world law created as in as democratic manner as possible;
c)
that the wealth of the oceans, considered as the common heritage of
mankind should contain mechanisms of global redistribution, especially
for the development of the poorest, a step toward a more just economic
order, on land as well as at sea.
Continue reading HERE!
Mika Toxica #027 #cartoon by Thanos Kalamidas
for more Mika Toxica, HERE!
For more Ovi Cartoons, HERE!
Ovi magazine
We cover every issue!
