White Is Neutral, Nu?

Satirist Stephen Colbert, one of our finest, addresses a salient point behind the strange spectacle of the Sonia Sotomayor confirmation hearings. Enjoy.

The Word - Neutral Man's Burden

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What Am I Missing Here?

When I lived in Rhode Island, many of my neighbors were employed building submarines for our armed forces. A great many people depended on those production lines for employment, and our Congressmen worked hard to keep those lines open even when the Pentagon was cutting its budget.

It is not surprising, then, to know that Senators Kennedy and Kerry of Massachusetts are lobbying hard (alongside Lockheed Martin of course) to make the Pentagon buy more F-22 war planes. Never mind the fact that the Air Force does not want them (waaaay high maintenance), the Secretary of Defense does not want them (wants to spend that $1.75 billion elsewhere), and the Commander-in-Chief does not want them.

Jobs! The Senators want to keep jobs in their district. You can't blame them for that. It's their job.

It occurs to me, however, that Senator Kerry has been out there as a defender of the American Clean Energy and Security Act -- the far-reaching energy policy bill that, among other things, invests heavily in the "clean energy" manufacturing sector.

In other words, Kerry has been a supporter of legislation that saves factories slated for closure, and converts them into production lines for renewable energy technology.

So instead of lobbying for a war plane the military does not want, why doesn't Kerry simply lobby to make Massachusetts a major producer of energy technology?

Seems to be a good fit.

You Don't Say!

With your help, Sean. With your help.

Perpetuum Jazzile

A million thanks to Dick for bringing this wonderful performance to my attention.

It's More Like Driving

[cross-post from the Deming Zen Group website]

Last night, I was chatting with Tim, our neighbor across the street. Among other things, he was curious about the meditation group. At one point he narrowed his eyes and asked me in a voice wrought with suspicion, "What kind of meditation do you do?"

He did not need to hear much about the nuts and bolts of sitting meditation before he waved his hand and said, "Heck, I do that in front of the television every single night." He was all done with the subject.

It is a popular assumption that meditation is about going into a trance of some kind. If you watch someone doing formal meditation, that's what it looks like: they sit on a cushion or in a chair with their eyes closed or partly open, not asleep yet not doing anything. I once heard a story about some children who crept up and looked in the window of a Zen center and saw people meditating. The children yelled, "Zombies!!" and ran off. Adults sometimes carry this notion as well.

How can we sit there and not do anything? How does that help us or the world?

The meditation we practice is about waking up, rather than going into some kind of trance. Watching television is more conducive to being in a trance. Indeed, many of us go about our daily lives in a kind of trance, doing things all the time yet not feeling any happier at the end of the day. Television grabs our mind and pulls us around, selling us products and distracting us from our life.

The direction our meditation practice is headed is more like, to use another analogy, our mind when we are driving a car. Or rather, when are driving a car well. A very good way to drive is to put our eyes a distance in front of the car where we can see things in our peripheral vision, and easily check our mirrors. We sit up straight in a comfortable position where we can easily reach the levers and gearshift. If another driver behaves badly, we compensate and let the "bad behavior" go. We are calm, paying attention, driving efficiently and safely. With this kind of mind, driving can actually be rather enjoyable -- and the road is much safer for everyone.

To practice that kind of attention, we do sitting meditation. When we practice something, we get good at it. What do you think? Does the world benefit when there are more "good drivers" who pay attention, let negative stuff go, and find a way to be efficient and joyful in what they do?

Monday Morning Gabriel

4th of July in Silver City

The Stupidity Shall Leave Us All Behind

In 2005 the Dalai Lama wrote, in a New York Times op-ed, about his view of science and religion. He related a story from his childhood that set the tone:

One night while looking at the moon [through a telescope] I realized that there were shadows on its surface. I corralled my two main tutors to show them, because this was contrary to the ancient version of cosmology I had been taught, which held that the moon was a heavenly body that emitted its own light.

But through my telescope the moon was clearly just a barren rock, pocked with craters. If the author of that fourth-century treatise were writing today, I'm sure he would write the chapter on cosmology differently.

If science proves some belief of Buddhism wrong, then Buddhism will have to change. In my view, science and Buddhism share a search for the truth and for understanding reality. By learning from science about aspects of reality where its understanding may be more advanced, I believe that Buddhism enriches its own worldview.

This week, a legislator from our neighboring state of Arizona made the news for arguing, in a hearing about uranium mining in her state, that we did not need environmental laws and, at any rate, the world is 6,000 years old. She repeated this twice, casually, as one repeats a universally accepted truth.

The problem is, the earth is not 6,000 years old. When a reporter asked her about this later she said, "I think people are welcome to believe whatever they want about how old the Earth is." Fair enough, but should they be in a position to legislate environmental policy if they believe the world is flat? A person has a right to believe that the moon is a divine sphere that emits light, but that doesn't mean the person is entitled to be head of NASA.

There are some religious people, like the Buddhist monk above, who feel that when an ancient claim made by religion is debunked by proven scientific data, the religious claim should be revised or junked. In their view, this does not diminish religion but enriches it, because what is most important is the search for truth.

Religion and science are not natural enemies, and to put them in conflict is childish. Indeed they are necessary partners. Much damage has been to the world by the application of knowledge with no reference to morality or the organizing myths by which human beings understand themselves and their place in the world.

It does not help that we elevate people to positions of power who believe that facts are in opposition to religion, and on that basis reject facts. This is delusional behavior.

Denial of material facts may, indeed, be a factor in our destruction. Some think it will be the Rapture, but it might instead be the Stupidity, as God shakes his head in dismay.

Gift From The Buddhist Antique Dealer

Tim runs an antique shop on Hemlock Street, by the corner of Silver. He's a kindly man with a short white beard, always wearing a kufi-style cap, or perhaps the Mongolian version of it. Tim lived in China for a while and is something of a scholar, has taught Chinese studies, and has been making noises about retiring to China once and for all.

Gabriel and I paid a visit to him last week and noticed that his prices, generally out of my reach, have been reduced. "Getting rid of everything," he confirmed. "I've been accepted at a monastery in China, I just have to clear out my inventory and raise money."

Tim's a Buddhist, so we had much to talk about as we crept softly around his tightly-packed little store, hung with old thangkas and chests with exquisite old clasps, statues of various Chinese figures and buddhas.

A moment after we left, while I gave Gabriel a sip of his pear-juice and water and congratulated him on being so wonderful in the store, Tim came out in pursuit of me. He pressed a gift into my hand. Here is what he gave me:

click on it for a larger view

This small buddha statue is hundreds of years old, and was once sheathed in silver -- there are some remains of it. The head was chopped off during the Cultural Revolution, when the Red Guard decapitated every buddha image they could find.

Wishing Our Country Failure

"It appears that the Republican Party leadership in the Congress has made a decision that they want to deny President Obama success, which means, in my mind, they are rooting against the country, as well."

Rep. Henry Waxman


This is correct, and we really should be tired of it.

Anyone reading this blog knows we are no fans of the Democratic party here in the Burning House, and that we have been critical of Barack Obama since he was a candidate for President.

Winning is not everything, especially when it comes to the politics and the public's business. Yet for years I have watched the "win at any cost" mentality distort the public record, justice, and natural science all for the sake of winning elections. Meanwhile, innocent people die in unnecessary wars, sea levels rise, and even measures that enjoy public favor are not enacted because politicians are more nervous about their competition than the prospect of letting the public down.

You and I are to blame for putting up with this.

The failing of our anti-democratic two-party system is that now we have a majority party that fights with itself and waters down its best ideas, and a minority party that strategizes for the government to fail just so to gain an advantage in future elections.

Solutions, not victories, ladies and gentlemen. Thomas Paine was leery of political parties, especially national ones, for just this reason. As about many things, he was right.

I will give the Democrats this much: when they were the minority party, even during the presidency of Bush Jr,. they did not openly root for the United States to fail. The Republican Party, in this mode, does not deserve to govern an ice-cream truck.

Gasps To Turn A Father's Hair White

It's not the boy. He's just doing what toddlers do. Sometimes he does not look where he is going and hits his head. He cries and gets over it in a minute or two.

What will turn my hair white is something unexpected. It is my wife's gasps.

My wife has perfected a blood-curdling gasp. It never fails to launch me from wherever I am, to go running in bone-chilled terror expecting to find unimaginable horror. Blood, eyes hanging out, rattlesnakes on the porch, the house collapsing -- something I might not be able to handle.

It is the only gasp my wife knows, and she knows it well. It always works. She gasps and I am instantly afraid. This despite the fact that when I go to the center of our house, phone in hand, remember where I put my car keys, I find no disaster. Gabriel walked a bit close to the piano, perhaps, or brushed past a floor lamp, or lost his balance and nearly fell.

It's a "defcon 5" gasp, a gasp that alerts the household to the march of the living dead. It's a gasp that grips the stomach and clutches the spine in an icy fist. Had we only known, she could have dubbed this gasp for countless horror film actresses when we lived in Los Angeles. My wife has it down to perfection. It is a gasp that can penetrate a policeman's kevlar and go right to his heart.

Do they teach this gasp in maternity classes or something? Because as the father, I can feel this gasp even when I am out of the house somewhere.