Speedlinking 8/12/06

I slept in this morning, so this is a little later than usual.

My Zen page-a-day calendar offers this sage wisdom to start the weekend:

The entire universe is the single eye of a monk. Where will you go to defecate?
~ Hsueh-feng

And with that nugget of Zen brilliance, we shall begin.

~ The Zero Boss had a couple of nice posts yesterday: “What Else Should I Say?/Everyone is Gay” and The Five Things My Auntie Ayn Rand Taught Me. I don't groove with the Ayn Rand thing, but for those who do, you might like the post.

~ Matthew Dallman left a long and well-argued response to a comment I made in yesterday's speedlinks about liberals not getting how to deal with fascist terrorists (coming from a largely Spiral Dynamics angle). MD asked some good questions, which I plan to respond to today. In the meantime, you can read his comments and his response to CJ Smith at The Daily Goose.

~ Bob at Dust rejects the notion that mental illness (depression in this case) is the result of chemical imbalances in the brain. He recently read a Mother Jones article that supports his cynacism. Whether you agree with Bob or not, check out his argument. While I tend to agree in part (most depressed people would be better served by sitting meditation and regular exercise), I think we have to recognize that some organisms can become imbalanced in ways that have nothing to do with environmental context (clinical depression). Alas, Bob's argument is true but partial.

~ CJ Smith at Indistinctunion has another post on the Middle East: The Gingrich Who Stole the Debate. It's long, but he makes some good points alongside some not so good points. I'll leave it to you to decide which is which.

~ Dan at The Woodshed offers a review of A Scanner Darkly (not plot spoilers, so go read it).

~ m alan kazlev of Integral Transformation is a busy writer and thinker. His newest offering (still in beta form) is Suggested definition for a complete Integral metaparadigm (check it out -- he's looking for feedback).

~ Integrative Spirituality takes a look at integral theory in the classroom, an article by Intergal Institute honcho Sean Esbjorn-Hargens which is slated to appear in the ever-forthcoming AQAL Journal.

~ Ray Harris at Open Integral takes a critical look at Wilber's notion of agency and interiors. He at one point observes:

“The fact that our world is more constructed by us than existing as an objectively real static entity is an ever-new revelation. It’s the most challenging insight: that there is very little that is actually given and that the way we perceive everything is a creative and co-creative process.”

This is just plain sloppy. We do not construct the world - we construct an interpretation of the world. Our interpretation may affect our perception but it does not actually affect reality itself. This is just New Age nonsense. I invite Andrew and his followers to stand naked in Death Valley on a hot day or naked in the middle of Antartica and see if they can co-create a reality in which they do not die.

Now, that is a thought experiment I'd like to see -- the Death Valley Test. It could become a benchmark in consciousness studies.

~ How to Save the World has an interesting post -- a sort of integral approach to healing the body. Not sure I agree with all of it, but some of it is very good.

~ Katherine Turner at Dating God went to see the new Oliver Stone film, World Trade Center, hoping to reclaim lost pieces of her life from when the towers fell. She didn't find what she was looking for, but she has an excellent post about her life surrounding that event and its aftermath, about the ways she was changed.

~ Blogmandu is back with another cool roundup, and this one includes the welcome return of Kit of Paper Frog fame.

~ Ken Wilber and crew have announced the beginning of Phase II for the Integral Institute, which I believe would be world domination. Nah, not really. But Geoff Falk sure does hate him some Wilber. Makes me wonder if there was ever a woman involved.

~ Colmar reprints George Orwell's WWII argument that pacifism is pro-fascist. Nice thought from a brilliant man, but wrong century. War has changed and that argument no longer stands up in the current world, especially when one tries to buttress it with Cal Thomas advocating for old school warfare against an enemy (and yes, terrorism is the enemy) that doesn't play the same game. This is where the neo-cons fall flat on their faces -- and why we are losing in Iraq and why Israel lost in Lebanon. The liberals have nothing better (actually, nothing at all), so we're pretty much screwed politically.

~ Picture of the Day is from Mighty Optical Illusions (this is graffiti):


Have a great Saturday.

Tags: Mighty Optical Illusions, Cal Thomas, George Orwell, Pacifism, Ken Wilber, Integral Institute, World Trade Center, Blogmandu, Dating God, How to Save the World, Ray Harris, Open Intergal, Integrative Spirituality, education, A Scanner Darkly, Newt Gingrich, The Middle East, depression, The Zero Boss, Zen