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Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Faux News
Some former employees from Faux News talk about life at the network, from the film OUTFOXED: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism. . . .
via videosift.com
via videosift.com
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Satire: I'm Quite Eccentric Within Accepted Societal Norms
From The Onion:
I'm Quite Eccentric Within Accepted Societal Norms
Last week, I was feeling a little, but not excessively, crazy. I'd fallen into a boring routine and it was time to shake things up. So you know what I did? I got out this loud Hawaiian shirt and wore it to work. Work, of all places! You should have seen the look on my coworkers' faces when I strolled through the door in that outlandish shirt and also brought bagels for everyone. They probably thought the boss was going to call me on the carpet for that kind of restrained zaniness, but I had the foresight to wear a tie over the shirt, making the whole wacky display well within dress code.
That's me in a nutshell. I've got an unconventional personality that just loves to push the limits of what society's comfortable with, but inevitably stays safely within those limits.
I'm the kind of guy you have to watch out for, because at any time I'm likely to do something barely predictable. You know those shoes that have the wheels in them? They're like skates, but there's only one wheel? Well, I saw them in the store the other day, and I almost got a pair. Me! A full-grown adult. Think of how funny that would have been, had I bought them, to look up and see me go gliding by!
Of course, at the end of the day, there's decorum to keep in mind. I may confuse, but I will never offend. Just try to stop me!
To tell you the truth, I wouldn't even know how to be boring if I tried. I guess I was just born to be sensibly unconventional! If you don't believe me, take a look at my sixth-grade class picture. I'm the one all the way in the back, wearing glasses. The joke's on them, though, because I don't even wear glasses. Never have! That's just classic Martin. Ruffling feathers just enough so they can be smoothed back into place with minimal effort.
I've never been the kind of guy to blend into the background. When I walk down the street, I'm always whistling a happy tune just loud enough not to annoy my fellow pedestrians. And even though I'd stop immediately if anyone around me looked annoyed, doing that sort of slightly unusual thing is what I'm famous for.
It's like a pin I saw in a store once: "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro." And although I wouldn't classify myself as "weird" per se, because I think that word has some unflattering negative connotations, I'm certainly 15 to 20 percent odder than your average person. Anyone who's seen my garden decorations could tell you that!
I don't like to play by all of the rules, but I do most of the time just to be safe.
People are always telling me "Martin, you are just barely on the edge." I laugh and reply "Your what hurts?" That really takes them off-guard, but not to the point of discomfort. Offbeat? You betcha. Not off the wall, you know, but definitely a little out there.
Most guys my age go through each day trying to avoid rocking the boat, but not me. I live to make people look up for a brief second until they decide that I am in no way threatening, and then go back to whatever they were doing. I'm kooky without being totally off-putting. Like a modern-day Marty Allen.
You know where I really shine? Filling out the memo part of a check. Like, I might be paying my gas bill, but in the memo I'll write "Meatballs." I wish I could see the expression on the face of whoever opens up that bill! Of course, I always add an asterisk and an attached note to make sure they know I'm just kidding and don't return the check uncashed. I may be tastefully madcap, but I also have a credit rating to think of.
And you better believe the envelope I send it in will have a colorful stamp featuring some pollinating animals or maybe Jimmy Stewart. Normal? That's my dad!
Yes, sir. When it comes to me, you never know what you'll get next, although you can be sure you've seen it once or twice before. I swear, you'll think, "What an eccentric but reasonable guy," if you think about me at all. And that's exactly how I like it.
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Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Speedlinking 10/30/07
Quote of the day:
"Charm is a way of getting the answer yes without asking a clear question."
~ Albert Camus
Image of the day:
BODY
~ Training Disasters -- "Tony shoots apart training myths like they were ducks and he was a starving fat man sitting in a pond with a rifle. Read about the "other side of the core," deadlifting mistakes, and the pencil test. (You gotta' take the pencil test.)"
~ Overhead Press Variations & Which One You Should Do -- "Several readers contacted me with questions on the Overhead Press. There seem to be confusion about the Overhead Press variations: which they are, their technique & what they’re meant for. So here’s a post on topic."
~ Personal Health: My Diet Strategy? Controlled Indulgence -- "Despite my well-known interest in healthful eating, I don’t believe in deprivation."
~ Sweet Dreams Make for Smart Teens -- "Just an hour of sleep loss can have a huge effect on a child.
"
~ Stevia Instead of Sugar -- "If you've ever tasted stevia, you know it's extremely sweet. In fact, this remarkable noncaloric herb, native to Paraguay, has been used as a sweetener and flavor enhancer for centuries."
~ Stretching may offer extended benefits -- "If stretching ranks below turning down the volume on your iPod on your list of health priorities, a new report may give you extra incentive to reach, bend and twist."
~ Just two hours of TV a day doubles risk of child obesity -- "Children who watch more than two hours of TV a day are twice as likely to be obese and suffer high blood pressure, say researchers. A U.S. study found those glued to the screen for between two and four hours a day were 2.5 times more likely to have hypertension."
~ How can you tell good fats from bad? -- "Every Tuesday, Britain's leading nutritionist, JANE CLARKE, explains how to eat your way to health. This week she explains the differences between fats."
~ Low Buzz May Give Mice Better Bones and Less Fat -- "Dr. Rubin, director of the Center for Biotechnology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, is reporting that in mice, a simple treatment that does not involve drugs appears to be directing cells to turn into bone instead of fat."
PSYCHE/SELF
~ Fashion Bullying - You Aren't What You Wear... -- "...But try telling that to a 'tween or teen girl today. A recent Wall Street Journal article, Fashion Bullies Attack - In Middle School, focused on a dimension of adolescent bullying that is becoming more widespread. I have heard of it, but didn't realize how serious and pervasive it is."
~ Using Challenges to Grow, Instead of Fighting Problems to Overcome -- "When you consider a problem in your life, you possibly feel weighted down with the onerous task of solving it. Your shoulders sag under the figurative weight of whatever it is that has gone wrong. You sigh deeply within yourself, square your shoulders, and step manfully up to the plate in order to get on with it."
~ Emotional Abyss; Physical Cause? -- "I wonder whether doctors might routinely explore a physical basis for the sudden, unexplained onset of emotional pain."
~ Getting Rid of Yesterday: How to Start Your Day Fresh -- "Sometimes we start a day with the previous day still in mind. We think about the mistakes we made in the previous day, how things went wrong, and how we felt bad about it. No wonder it becomes difficult to focus on the current day."
~ Savoring Life's Little Indulgences -- "There are so many delicious, comforting, joyous moments in our life every day, but they are lost on us because we are often going too fast to savor them."
~ Social Isolation May Have A Negative Effect On Intellectual Abilities -- "Spending just 10 minutes talking to another person can help improve your memory and your performance on tests, according to a University of Michigan study to be published in the February 2008 issue of the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin."
~ Buddhism and happiness -- "Perhaps more than any other religion, Buddhism is associated with happiness. According to Buddhist thinking, happiness and sorrow are our own responsibility – and completely within our control."
~ How to ‘Let It Be’ When You’re Upset -- "Something has you upset. You can’t get it off your mind. You’re troubled and you struggle with this ball of bad feelings. What’s the advice we frequently hear from others and even from ourselves? “Just let it go.” Well, that’s easier said than done."
CULTURE/POLITICS
~ The Great Novel I Never Read -- "Six years ago, Slate asked critics to reveal their "gravest literary omissions": the most important books they'd never read. Norman Podhoretz confessed that he'd tried, and failed, to finish Bleak House. The New Yorker's Alice Truax said she was particularly weak on American novels: Moby-Dick, The Grapes of Wrath, and Sister Carrie." A new group of authors responds.
~ Top 100 living geniuses -- "The top 100 living geniuses was compiled by a panel of six experts in creativity and innovation from Creators Synectics, a global consultants firm.The company emailed 4,000 Britons this summer and asked them to nominate up to 10 living people who they considered geniuses." Strange, and a little disturbing.
~ Study Of Former American Football Players and Homosexuality -- "A study of former high-school American Football players has found that more than a third said they had had sexual relations with other men.In his study of homosexuality among sportsmen in the US, sociologist Dr Eric Anderson found that 19 in a sample of 47 had taken part in acts intended to sexually arouse other men, ranging from kissing to mutual masturbation and oral sex." A much bigger sample is needed to generate useful results, but still interesting.
~ Author Q and A with Alan Lightman -- "From the acclaimed author of the national bestseller Einstein's Dreams comes Ghost, a stunning and disturbing new novel about one man's encounter with the unfathomable that Booklist calls a "brilliantly orchestrated and gripping tale." In this Q&A, Alan Lightman reveals the strangest job he's ever had (in a drive-in theater), discusses how his favorite pair of shoes has survived for thirty-five years, and more."
~ Government-as-ATM -- "We’re delighted at the volume and depth of coverage of government contracting lately, an area too long neglected by the private press army in Washington and the business press almost entirely."
~ Will the Tax Issue Bite Democrats? -- "It may be the only weapon Republicans have."
~ Girardi agrees to 2-year deal with Yanks (AP) -- "Joe Girardi is back in pinstripes, taking over as New York Yankees manager from his mentor. Girardi was hired Tuesday, agreeing to a three-year contract to replace Joe Torre in New York's dugout." Word is that Torre is talking with the Dodgers -- woo hoo!
HABITATS/TECHNOLOGY
~ Can Google kill PowerPoint? -- "It's cool to hate PowerPoint. The program's critics say it encourages lazy thinking, oversimplifies complex issues, and replaces spontaneous discussion with robotic presentation. Information design poo-bah Edward Tufte believes he has traced the Columbia shuttle disaster to one poorly conceived slide. But the old-school presentation utility gets a bad rap. Blaming PowerPoint for lame presentations is like blaming a screechy, overlong Daily Kos post on the blogging software."
~ Western Canada's Glaciers Hit 7000-Year Low -- "Tree stumps at the feet of Western Canadian glaciers are providing new insights into the accelerated rates at which the rivers of ice have been shrinking due to human-aided global warming."
~ Fossilized Spider, 50 Million Years Old, Clear As Life -- "A 50-million-year-old fossilized spider has been 'brought back to life' in stunning 3D. The male spider is a new species named Cenotextricella simoni. It was found preserved in amber in an area of France known as the Paris Basin."
~ Age of earliest human burial in Britain pinpointed -- "The oldest known buried remains in Britain are 29,000 years old, archaeologists have found - 4,000 years older than previously thought. The findings show that ceremonial burials were taking place in western Europe much earlier than researchers had believed."
~ How did chemical constituents essential to life arise on primitive Earth? -- "Experiments show that simple molecules can combine chemically rather than biologically to form the building blocks of DNA, the key component of all life forms. These processes might have taken place on primitive earth, but how they occur is an unsolved puzzle."
~ Fuel cells gearing up to power auto industry -- "The average price for all types of gasoline is holding steady around $2.95 per gallon nationwide, but the pain at the pump might be short-lived as research from the University of Houston may eliminate one of the biggest hurdles to the wide-scale production of fuel cell-powered vehicles."
INTEGRAL/BUDDHIST
~ A Witch-War…Against Vampire Power -- "I’m both a Wiccan and a technophile. I have no quibbles with technology (obviously). But technology, like anything else, can be misused. The latest danger to begin seeping into the national consciousness comes from vampire electronics - devices like DVD players, cell phone chargers, and computers on standby that waste seemingly minute amounts of energy when not in use."
~ How to Choose a Spiritual Teacher? -- "This seems like excellent advice. If one selects a venerable teacher from within a time-honored wisdom tradition, one is largely 'guaranteed' a legitimate teacher who can act as a 'source of grace.'"
~ Zentertainment Talk Radio -- "Conscious Radio Discovering Life's Possibilities ~ Host Jo Davidson describes Zentertainment Talk Radio as "a place to discover (or uncover) creativity, healing, peace, and laughter." Jo's soul-full voice, deep compassion and keen intelligence inform her interviews with a variety of fascinating people."
~ Remember the Bamiyan Buddhas -- "There has been speculation that these “twin towers” were destroyed at the behest of Osama bin Laden, in a kind of symbolic rehearsal for those other attacks that followed in September. Be that as it may, this needless, spiteful vandalism on the part of the Taliban stands as one of the great barbaric assaults on the splendors of human culture, conducted in the absurd belief that to destroy the symbols of a religion is to destroy the religion itself."
~ Meditation and Distractions -- "I have found that the stronger I try to force hindering thoughts out of my head while I am meditating the more powerful I make them. They seem to just return even louder and more intrusive then If I just acknowledge them, mindfully watch them and contemplate why they might be appearing."
~ What comes up -- "In this case, it has to do with what I write about here. My thoughts tells me it is all completely obvious. I have already written about it ad nauseum. There are lots of other topics equally or more important. Why not expand? Why not explore something else? Why chose to appear as a monomaniac on this blog, when that is not so much the case in the rest of my life? Why have a blog in the first place?"
~ The Sutras of Abu Ghraib -- " The Sutras of Abu Ghraib is Aidan Delgado’s account of the year that he spent stationed in Iraq, but this is not your standard military memoir. Delgado’s story is made complicated by the fact that, whilst he was engaging in military training, at the same time he was engaging in the practice of Buddhism, and the book charts the growing tension between his military obligations on the one hand and on the other hand his developing moral unease with the circumstances in which he finds himself.
"Charm is a way of getting the answer yes without asking a clear question."
~ Albert Camus
Image of the day:
BODY
~ Training Disasters -- "Tony shoots apart training myths like they were ducks and he was a starving fat man sitting in a pond with a rifle. Read about the "other side of the core," deadlifting mistakes, and the pencil test. (You gotta' take the pencil test.)"
~ Overhead Press Variations & Which One You Should Do -- "Several readers contacted me with questions on the Overhead Press. There seem to be confusion about the Overhead Press variations: which they are, their technique & what they’re meant for. So here’s a post on topic."
~ Personal Health: My Diet Strategy? Controlled Indulgence -- "Despite my well-known interest in healthful eating, I don’t believe in deprivation."
~ Sweet Dreams Make for Smart Teens -- "Just an hour of sleep loss can have a huge effect on a child.
~ Stevia Instead of Sugar -- "If you've ever tasted stevia, you know it's extremely sweet. In fact, this remarkable noncaloric herb, native to Paraguay, has been used as a sweetener and flavor enhancer for centuries."
~ Stretching may offer extended benefits -- "If stretching ranks below turning down the volume on your iPod on your list of health priorities, a new report may give you extra incentive to reach, bend and twist."
~ Just two hours of TV a day doubles risk of child obesity -- "Children who watch more than two hours of TV a day are twice as likely to be obese and suffer high blood pressure, say researchers. A U.S. study found those glued to the screen for between two and four hours a day were 2.5 times more likely to have hypertension."
~ How can you tell good fats from bad? -- "Every Tuesday, Britain's leading nutritionist, JANE CLARKE, explains how to eat your way to health. This week she explains the differences between fats."
~ Low Buzz May Give Mice Better Bones and Less Fat -- "Dr. Rubin, director of the Center for Biotechnology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, is reporting that in mice, a simple treatment that does not involve drugs appears to be directing cells to turn into bone instead of fat."
PSYCHE/SELF
~ Fashion Bullying - You Aren't What You Wear... -- "...But try telling that to a 'tween or teen girl today. A recent Wall Street Journal article, Fashion Bullies Attack - In Middle School, focused on a dimension of adolescent bullying that is becoming more widespread. I have heard of it, but didn't realize how serious and pervasive it is."
~ Using Challenges to Grow, Instead of Fighting Problems to Overcome -- "When you consider a problem in your life, you possibly feel weighted down with the onerous task of solving it. Your shoulders sag under the figurative weight of whatever it is that has gone wrong. You sigh deeply within yourself, square your shoulders, and step manfully up to the plate in order to get on with it."
~ Emotional Abyss; Physical Cause? -- "I wonder whether doctors might routinely explore a physical basis for the sudden, unexplained onset of emotional pain."
~ Getting Rid of Yesterday: How to Start Your Day Fresh -- "Sometimes we start a day with the previous day still in mind. We think about the mistakes we made in the previous day, how things went wrong, and how we felt bad about it. No wonder it becomes difficult to focus on the current day."
~ Savoring Life's Little Indulgences -- "There are so many delicious, comforting, joyous moments in our life every day, but they are lost on us because we are often going too fast to savor them."
~ Social Isolation May Have A Negative Effect On Intellectual Abilities -- "Spending just 10 minutes talking to another person can help improve your memory and your performance on tests, according to a University of Michigan study to be published in the February 2008 issue of the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin."
~ Buddhism and happiness -- "Perhaps more than any other religion, Buddhism is associated with happiness. According to Buddhist thinking, happiness and sorrow are our own responsibility – and completely within our control."
~ How to ‘Let It Be’ When You’re Upset -- "Something has you upset. You can’t get it off your mind. You’re troubled and you struggle with this ball of bad feelings. What’s the advice we frequently hear from others and even from ourselves? “Just let it go.” Well, that’s easier said than done."
CULTURE/POLITICS
~ The Great Novel I Never Read -- "Six years ago, Slate asked critics to reveal their "gravest literary omissions": the most important books they'd never read. Norman Podhoretz confessed that he'd tried, and failed, to finish Bleak House. The New Yorker's Alice Truax said she was particularly weak on American novels: Moby-Dick, The Grapes of Wrath, and Sister Carrie." A new group of authors responds.
~ Top 100 living geniuses -- "The top 100 living geniuses was compiled by a panel of six experts in creativity and innovation from Creators Synectics, a global consultants firm.The company emailed 4,000 Britons this summer and asked them to nominate up to 10 living people who they considered geniuses." Strange, and a little disturbing.
~ Study Of Former American Football Players and Homosexuality -- "A study of former high-school American Football players has found that more than a third said they had had sexual relations with other men.In his study of homosexuality among sportsmen in the US, sociologist Dr Eric Anderson found that 19 in a sample of 47 had taken part in acts intended to sexually arouse other men, ranging from kissing to mutual masturbation and oral sex." A much bigger sample is needed to generate useful results, but still interesting.
~ Author Q and A with Alan Lightman -- "From the acclaimed author of the national bestseller Einstein's Dreams comes Ghost, a stunning and disturbing new novel about one man's encounter with the unfathomable that Booklist calls a "brilliantly orchestrated and gripping tale." In this Q&A, Alan Lightman reveals the strangest job he's ever had (in a drive-in theater), discusses how his favorite pair of shoes has survived for thirty-five years, and more."
~ Government-as-ATM -- "We’re delighted at the volume and depth of coverage of government contracting lately, an area too long neglected by the private press army in Washington and the business press almost entirely."
~ Will the Tax Issue Bite Democrats? -- "It may be the only weapon Republicans have."
~ Girardi agrees to 2-year deal with Yanks (AP) -- "Joe Girardi is back in pinstripes, taking over as New York Yankees manager from his mentor. Girardi was hired Tuesday, agreeing to a three-year contract to replace Joe Torre in New York's dugout." Word is that Torre is talking with the Dodgers -- woo hoo!
HABITATS/TECHNOLOGY
~ Can Google kill PowerPoint? -- "It's cool to hate PowerPoint. The program's critics say it encourages lazy thinking, oversimplifies complex issues, and replaces spontaneous discussion with robotic presentation. Information design poo-bah Edward Tufte believes he has traced the Columbia shuttle disaster to one poorly conceived slide. But the old-school presentation utility gets a bad rap. Blaming PowerPoint for lame presentations is like blaming a screechy, overlong Daily Kos post on the blogging software."
~ Western Canada's Glaciers Hit 7000-Year Low -- "Tree stumps at the feet of Western Canadian glaciers are providing new insights into the accelerated rates at which the rivers of ice have been shrinking due to human-aided global warming."
~ Fossilized Spider, 50 Million Years Old, Clear As Life -- "A 50-million-year-old fossilized spider has been 'brought back to life' in stunning 3D. The male spider is a new species named Cenotextricella simoni. It was found preserved in amber in an area of France known as the Paris Basin."
~ Age of earliest human burial in Britain pinpointed -- "The oldest known buried remains in Britain are 29,000 years old, archaeologists have found - 4,000 years older than previously thought. The findings show that ceremonial burials were taking place in western Europe much earlier than researchers had believed."
~ How did chemical constituents essential to life arise on primitive Earth? -- "Experiments show that simple molecules can combine chemically rather than biologically to form the building blocks of DNA, the key component of all life forms. These processes might have taken place on primitive earth, but how they occur is an unsolved puzzle."
~ Fuel cells gearing up to power auto industry -- "The average price for all types of gasoline is holding steady around $2.95 per gallon nationwide, but the pain at the pump might be short-lived as research from the University of Houston may eliminate one of the biggest hurdles to the wide-scale production of fuel cell-powered vehicles."
INTEGRAL/BUDDHIST
~ A Witch-War…Against Vampire Power -- "I’m both a Wiccan and a technophile. I have no quibbles with technology (obviously). But technology, like anything else, can be misused. The latest danger to begin seeping into the national consciousness comes from vampire electronics - devices like DVD players, cell phone chargers, and computers on standby that waste seemingly minute amounts of energy when not in use."
~ How to Choose a Spiritual Teacher? -- "This seems like excellent advice. If one selects a venerable teacher from within a time-honored wisdom tradition, one is largely 'guaranteed' a legitimate teacher who can act as a 'source of grace.'"
~ Zentertainment Talk Radio -- "Conscious Radio Discovering Life's Possibilities ~ Host Jo Davidson describes Zentertainment Talk Radio as "a place to discover (or uncover) creativity, healing, peace, and laughter." Jo's soul-full voice, deep compassion and keen intelligence inform her interviews with a variety of fascinating people."
~ Remember the Bamiyan Buddhas -- "There has been speculation that these “twin towers” were destroyed at the behest of Osama bin Laden, in a kind of symbolic rehearsal for those other attacks that followed in September. Be that as it may, this needless, spiteful vandalism on the part of the Taliban stands as one of the great barbaric assaults on the splendors of human culture, conducted in the absurd belief that to destroy the symbols of a religion is to destroy the religion itself."
~ Meditation and Distractions -- "I have found that the stronger I try to force hindering thoughts out of my head while I am meditating the more powerful I make them. They seem to just return even louder and more intrusive then If I just acknowledge them, mindfully watch them and contemplate why they might be appearing."
~ What comes up -- "In this case, it has to do with what I write about here. My thoughts tells me it is all completely obvious. I have already written about it ad nauseum. There are lots of other topics equally or more important. Why not expand? Why not explore something else? Why chose to appear as a monomaniac on this blog, when that is not so much the case in the rest of my life? Why have a blog in the first place?"
~ The Sutras of Abu Ghraib -- " The Sutras of Abu Ghraib is Aidan Delgado’s account of the year that he spent stationed in Iraq, but this is not your standard military memoir. Delgado’s story is made complicated by the fact that, whilst he was engaging in military training, at the same time he was engaging in the practice of Buddhism, and the book charts the growing tension between his military obligations on the one hand and on the other hand his developing moral unease with the circumstances in which he finds himself.
Tags:
Daily Om: Being Receptive To What You Want
Some good wisdom from the Daily Om:
Softening And Expanding
Being Receptive To What You Want
In order to get what we want in life, we have to be willing to receive it when it appears, and in order to do that we have to be open. Often we go through life with defenses we developed early on in order to protect ourselves. These defenses act as barriers, walls we needed at one time to feel safe, but that now serve to shut out desired influences, like intimacy or love. So an essential part of being receptive to what we want is to soften these barriers enough to let those things in when they show up. For example, we may spend a lot of time alone as a way to protect ourselves from being hurt by other people, but we can see how this is now preventing us from meeting new friends.
Another obstacle to our receptivity can be our tendency to believe that we have to act aggressively in order to achieve our desired goal. This can cause us to become mono-focused and to fail to see, and be open to, opportunities on the periphery of our vision. So becoming receptive involves a softening of our defenses and a willingness to remain open to possibilities outside our immediate realm of vision. If we are looking for love or friendship, it means first looking within ourselves to see where we are shut down, and second, not getting too fixated on where we might find the love we want. In this way, we become more open as individuals and more expansive in terms of what we see as possible.
Often, the things and people we want to draw into our lives elude us because we are unconsciously blocking them out, either with our defenses, or with tunnel vision that causes us to not see them when they appear. When this is the case, we can take action by exploring and softening our barriers, and expanding our vision to encompass new possibilities. These actions are the essence of receptivity.
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Theocracy Now!
This video is from the Value Voters Summit a week or so ago. This is a bit scary -- you can read the whole article at Huff Post.
Recently, there has been a lot of mainstream media noise about a new, more socially conscious evangelical movement rising from the angry ashes of the Christian right. Pastors like Rick Warren and "evangelical feminist" Bill Hybels are supposedly bringing issues like the environment and poverty to the forefront of the movement's social agenda, while pushing anti-abortion and anti-gay activism to the wayside. Yet no one told those evangelicals gathered at the Value Voters Summit about this friendly new initiative.
If anything, the movement seemed more extreme and paranoid than it did four years ago. Rev. Lou Sheldon, dubbed "Lucky Louie" by his former paymaster Jack Abramoff, told me that homosexuality is a "pathological disorder" and "a groove" that is difficult to escape from. He proceeded to passionately defend his friend, Senator Larry Craig, from allegations of homosexuality.
Star Parker, a former welfare cheat who had multiple abortions, claimed to me that abortion is the leading cause of death among African American women between the ages of 25 and 34. Then she described her wish for the forced quarantine of all "sodomites." Parker was not a lone wacko milling around in the hallway; she was a speaker invited by the Family Research Council.
Neoconservative activist Frank Gaffney appeared at the Summit as well. Before a standing room audience, Gaffney exclaimed that "by not being bigoted and not being racist, [George W.] Bush has embraced Islamofascists on several occasions." Phyllis Schlaffly echoed Gaffney's comments, declaring that there are too many mosques in America.
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Georges Cziffra plays Liszt
Very cool.
via videosift.com
Breathtakingly fast and perfect. Georges Cziffra (1921 - 1994) plays "Grand Galop Chromatique" by Franz Liszt, recorded in the early 60's.
via videosift.com
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Satire: Political Scientists Discover New Form Of Government
From The Onion:
Political Scientists Discover New Form Of Government
WASHINGTON, DC—Political scientists at the Cato Institute announced Monday that they have inadvertently synthesized a previously theoretical form of government known as megalocracy."We were attempting to recreate a military junta in a controlled diplomatic setting, and we applied too much external pressure," said head researcher Dr. Adam Stogsdill, a leading expert in highly reactionary ruling systems. "The resultant government has the ruthless qualities of a dictatorship combined with the class solidarity of a plutocracy—it's quite a remarkable find."
Stogsdill explained that megalocracy is extremely unstable and can only exist in idealistic conditions for a few minutes before collapsing into anarchy.
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Ninja Parade Slips Through Town Unnoticed Once Again
From The Onion News Network:
Ninja Parade Slips Through Town Unnoticed Once Again
Modesto, CA residents turned out for the city's annual Ninja Parade, where no ninjas were seen for the 30th year in a row.
Ninja Parade Slips Through Town Unnoticed Once Again
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Monday, October 29, 2007
Curry Tuna and Black Beans
When trying to eat healthy, I am a big fan of having healthy foods ready to eat as needed. For example, I usually cook six chicken breasts at a time to have a ready made meal when needed -- just chop one up and toss it onto some baby spinach (or other greens).
One of the other quick and easy meals I like is the following:
3 cans of dolphin-safe white tuna (in water) drained
1 can of organic black beans (partly drained -- keep some fluid)
1 tablespoon of fat-free mayo
2 heaping tablespoons of HOT curry powder
Other spices to taste (I add pepper and cayenne pepper)
Mix it all in a resealable bowl and you have two or three meals ready to eat (depending on appetite). The curry kills the fishy taste of the tuna, plus it has anti-cancer and anti-inflammatory qualities that are good for all of us.
This is a high-protein, high-fiber, and low glycemic meal. It's perfect for any diet, whether trying to add muscle or drop fat.
If you are trying to bulk up, or you simply need more carbs in your diet, you can add a cup or two of cooked, organic, whole grain wild rice to the mix. Wild rice has a nutty flavor that is so much better than boxed rice. Plus, you get the added fiber of a whole grain, with all the nutrients that get lost when rice is made easier and faster to cook.
Do you have other recipes that you like? Please mention them in the comments and I'll assemble a post of quick and easy meals.
One of the other quick and easy meals I like is the following:
3 cans of dolphin-safe white tuna (in water) drained
1 can of organic black beans (partly drained -- keep some fluid)
1 tablespoon of fat-free mayo
2 heaping tablespoons of HOT curry powder
Other spices to taste (I add pepper and cayenne pepper)
Mix it all in a resealable bowl and you have two or three meals ready to eat (depending on appetite). The curry kills the fishy taste of the tuna, plus it has anti-cancer and anti-inflammatory qualities that are good for all of us.
This is a high-protein, high-fiber, and low glycemic meal. It's perfect for any diet, whether trying to add muscle or drop fat.
If you are trying to bulk up, or you simply need more carbs in your diet, you can add a cup or two of cooked, organic, whole grain wild rice to the mix. Wild rice has a nutty flavor that is so much better than boxed rice. Plus, you get the added fiber of a whole grain, with all the nutrients that get lost when rice is made easier and faster to cook.
Do you have other recipes that you like? Please mention them in the comments and I'll assemble a post of quick and easy meals.
Tags:
Speedlinking 10/29/07
Quote of the day:
"If you develop an ear for sounds that are musical it is like developing an ego. You begin to refuse sounds that are not musical and that way cut yourself off from a good deal of experience."
~ John Cage
Image of the day:
BODY
~ Low bone density is a risk factor for athletes -- "A University of Missouri study suggests that athletic men may be at risk for low bone density. According to the National Osteoporosis Foundation, “osteoporosis affects more than 2 million men in the United States and nearly 12 million more have osteopenia-- clinically significant low bone density that is less severe than osteoporosis.” The study now suggests that men who engage in low-impact forms of exercise have a higher incidence of osteopenia." Another good reason for men to engage in weight training.
~ The Ultimate Legs Program -- "Scott thinks most quad routines consist of very low volume, too high a load for the individual trainee, and very low reps. Time to break out the puke bucket and embrace sets of 50 and a 100." This doesn't sound fun -- I'll have to try it.
~ Bill Starr’s Strength Training Program: The Big Three -- "This is a description of Bill Starr’s strength training program described in The Strongest Shall Survive: Strength Training for Football (1976). I recommend reading Bill Starr’s book, even if you’re not a football player." This is an excellent foundation program for intermediate lifters -- and for all athletes.
~ Organic Food Is More Nutritious Say EU Researchers -- "Early results of a 12 million pound, 4-year EU study on the benefits of organic food suggest that some of them, such as fruit, vegetables and milk, are more nutritious than non-organically produced food and may contain higher concentrations of cancer fighting and heart beneficial antioxidants."
~ Phys Ed: Twist and Ouch -- "Most athletes will have back trouble sooner or later — if they’re not suffering already. Here’s what to do about it."
~ Doctors Test Hot Sauce for Pain Relief -- "Devil's Revenge. Spontaneous Combustion. Hot sauces have names like that for a reason. Now scientists are testing if the stuff that makes the sauces so savage can tame the pain of surgery...."
~ Stumped for Healthy Snacks Ideas? -- "Rapidly growing children often require refueling between meals and a cookie is often the answer. Busy parents frequently resort to processed snack foods, which fill the tummy, but don’t offer much in the way of nutrition. A snack is a mini-bite or portion."
PSYCHE/SELF
~ Are Kids Getting Too Much Praise? -- "Efforts to build self-esteem in schools may be leading to a generation of children with inflated egos."
~ Decision-making special issue in Science -- "This week's Science has a special selection of papers on the psychology and neuroscience of decision making. While most of the articles are closed-access, one on how game theory and neuroscience are helping us understand social decision-making is freely available."
~ New Possibilities in the Treatment of Auditory Hallucinations -- "Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) is one of the latest treatments being studied by researchers. While studies have shown that it can diminish auditory hallucinations, more research is necessary to improve our understanding of auditory hallucinations and how TMS affects them."
~ Two Ways To Boost Your Low Self-Esteem -- "For me, self-esteem has always been a funny thing. I've always had pretty high self-esteem and have continually tried to help others who don't."
~ Manic Depression: A Mistaken Diagnosis -- "Sometimes bipolar disorder is easy to miss."
~ How to Survive Bipolar Disorder -- "Tips on gaining control of a bipolar mood cycle."
~ The Heart of the Matter -- "Depression is a disease, not an excuse but surely it makes for some extenuating circumstances. If only we could understand and forgive ourselves. If only we could make others understand and forgive . . . but we can’t. It’s a rare person that understands the twisted nature of depression, even rarer when they can forgive. We have to learn to forgive ourselves."
~ The Art of Effective Self Criticism -- "If you value your own progress, you need to learn how to criticise yourself. We are often eager to criticise others, but when it comes to criticising ourselves we are strangely reluctant. The art of self criticism is essential to learning from mistakes and gaining an improved perspective on life." As Pema Chodron often reminds us, the key here is to be gentle with ourselves.
~ Brain Activity Differs For Creative And Noncreative Thinkers -- "Why do some people solve problems more creatively than others? Are people who think creatively different from those who tend to think in a more methodical fashion? Scientists found a distinct pattern of brain activity, even at rest, in people who tend to solve problems with a sudden creative insight -- an "Aha! Moment" -- compared to people who tend to solve problems more methodically."
CULTURE/POLITICS
~ Pope objects to dispensing immoral drugs (AP) -- "Pope Benedict XVI urged Catholic pharmacists on Monday to use conscientious objection to avoid dispensing drugs with 'immoral purposes such as, for example, abortion or euthanasia.'" This is crap -- if you don't want to dispense drugs as prescribed, get a new job.
~ Bruce E. Levine: Has Psychiatry Earned Its Unpopularity? -- "Until recently, most journalists have been extremely timid about confronting Big Pharma's hijacking of psychiatry. One exception is Robert Whitaker, winner of the George Polk award for medical writing. Whitaker, in his book Mad in America (2002), summarizes the beginnings of the corruption of America's psychiatrists and their professional organization, the American Psychiatric Association (APA)...."
~ Rights and Liberties: Free Speech for Everyone, Except for Foreigners -- "The American commitment to free speech is the most robust in the world. But these days that tolerance stops at the border."
~ Michael Giltz: Good Grief! Celebrating Peanuts -- "Tonight on PBS's American Masters, they take a close look at the life of Peanuts creator Charles Schulz. Linked to the new biography by David Michaelis, it focuses on the parallels between Schulz's real life and the strip, as well as the very real melancholy Schulz dealt with his whole life."
~ The Red Sox Sweep! -- "The Boston Red Sox beat the Colorado Rockies in four games, taking home their second championship in four years."
~ The All-TIME Top 25 Horror Movies -- "From silent vampires to animated murders, from sharks that won't die to a love story set amid a zombie takeover, more than a century's worth of big-screen scares."
~ Interview With a Vampire Expert -- "As Nuzum crunched Count Chocula one morning in his Washington, D.C. home, he flipped on his TV and caught President Bush warning against the soft fascism of plugging in too many appliances and becoming an "energy vampire." Flipping through a magazine, Nuzum saw a model with fangs and a cape enticing him to buy some vodka and "drink in the night." He had his project. "If the vampire is ubiquitous," he wondered, "how did this happen? Why did this happen? I wanted insight.""
~ Show Us Your Geeky Jack-o'-Lanterns -- "From Battlestar Galactica to Steve Jobs, pumpkin carvers take a stab at creating Halloween masterpieces."
HABITATS/TECHNOLOGY
~ Why Do Autumn Leaves Turn Red? Soil May Dictate Fall Colors -- "Soils may dictate the array of fall colors as much as the trees rooted in them, according to a forest survey out of North Carolina. By taking careful stock and laboratory analyses of the autumn foliage of sweetgum and red maple trees along transects from floodplains to ridge-tops in a nature preserve in Charlotte, N.C., scientists found that in places where the soil was relatively low in nitrogen and other essential elements, trees produced more red pigments known as anthocyanins."
~ Researchers Study Bat Colony in Wash -- "Researchers are studying a colony of bats that live in an underground concrete structure at the Hanford nuclear reservation in hopes of determining how to provide a new home for them once the structure is demolished."
~ HIV's path out of Africa: Haiti, the US then the world -- "The AIDS virus entered the United States via Haiti, probably arriving in just one person in about 1969, earlier than previously believed, according to new research. After the virus, HIV-1, entered the U.S., it flourished and spread worldwide."
~ Researchers show evidence of 'memory' in cells and molecules -- "Research to be reported October 29 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences provides evidence that some molecular interactions on cell surfaces may have a “memory” that affects their future interactions. The report could lead to a re-examination of results from certain single-molecule research."
~ Primates: Extinction Threat Growing For Mankind's Closest Living Relatives -- "Mankind's closest living relatives -- the world's apes, monkeys, lemurs and other primates -- are under unprecedented threat from destruction of tropical forests, illegal wildlife trade and commercial bushmeat hunting, with 29 percent of all species in danger of going extinct, according to a new report."
~ New Ideas About Human Migration From Asia To Americas -- "Questions about human migration from Asia to the Americas have perplexed anthropologists for decades, but as scenarios about the peopling of the New World come and go, the big questions have remained. Do the ancestors of Native Americans derive from only a small number of "founders" who trekked to the Americas via the Bering land bridge? How did their migration to the New World proceed? What, if anything, did the climate have to do with their migration? And what took them so long?"
~ Social standing influences elephant movement -- "When resources are scarce, who you know and where you're positioned on the social totem pole affects how far you'll go to search for food. At least that's the case with African elephants, according to a study led by ecologists at the University of California, Berkeley, who collaborated with researchers at Save the Elephants, a non-profit research organization based in Kenya, and at the University of Oxford in England."
INTEGRAL/BUDDHIST
~ Roky Erickson at the El Ray -- "I saw Roky Erickson at the El Ray Theater last night. For those who don’t know, Roky Erickson was the leader of the 13th Floor Elevators, the world’s first psychedelic rock band. The Elevators were from Austin, Texas, of all places. In Austin, Roky and the band faced constant harassment from the authorities who didn’t like their long hair and their anti-authoritarian message. Roky was busted for possession of a single joint. For this crime he was sent for three years to the Rusk State Hospital for the Criminally Insane where we was subjected to electro-shock treatments. Whether it was insanity or not that led him to smoke dope, by the time he came out of Rusk he wasn’t quite right anymore."
~ Debunking Satan and Hell. Plus, The Governator Not Worried about Marijuana -- "Here's something to think about regarding the Christian idea of "hell" and "satan" being "god's" strong man, torturing those who don't "measure up" to the so-called, "all-loving" Supreme Being."
~ Connecting with the History of the Divine Mother -- "Some Wiccans used to maintain that their religion was the revival of a long-dormant Witch cult that had been put down for thousands of years by the Christian patriarchy. That may be romantic apologetics, but it’s awful history."
~ Deep Dialogue and Mindfull Change -- "While meditation strives for one-pointedness, dialogue attempts to enact multi-pointedness: dialogue focuses on each speaker, with multiple nodes of meaning, intention and response. Rather than transcending "the world," dialogue works with raw materials of the world, creating coherence & meaning out of the blitz of our multitasking 21st-century."
~ Buddhist Geeks is Moving to a New Home! -- "We just wanted to let you know that starting this week Buddhist Geeks will be moving to a new home urchinTracker ('/outbound/article/www.fallingfruit.tv');">www.fallingfruit.tv. Falling Fruit TV is a conscious media network that two of the founders of Buddhist Geeks helped to start, which will include a full network of podcasts on topics such as Spirituality, Business, Politics, Health, Technology, and more."
~ Love is not a feeling, it’s an ability -- "But if love is an ability, there is nothing to judge. As an ability love isn’t destroyed in the ravages of time and loss, insecurity or disappointment. As an ability, love is always there, ready to flourish and help our lives flourish. As conditions come together for anything to come into existence, always within there is the ability of love, recognized or not, given life or not."
~ The Radical Spirituality of Generation X, Part 15: Breaking the Cycle of Fear and Violence -- "I come from an unusual background. My dad, John Robbins (author of Diet for a New America, and an inspiration to millions) and my mom, Deo, are not just parents to me, they are also my dear friends. From an early age, they helped me to look at problems in the world not as monsters to fear, but as opportunities for healing. “However bad things are,” my mom used to tell me, “is exactly how much better they can be with a change.”"
"If you develop an ear for sounds that are musical it is like developing an ego. You begin to refuse sounds that are not musical and that way cut yourself off from a good deal of experience."
~ John Cage
Image of the day:
BODY
~ Low bone density is a risk factor for athletes -- "A University of Missouri study suggests that athletic men may be at risk for low bone density. According to the National Osteoporosis Foundation, “osteoporosis affects more than 2 million men in the United States and nearly 12 million more have osteopenia-- clinically significant low bone density that is less severe than osteoporosis.” The study now suggests that men who engage in low-impact forms of exercise have a higher incidence of osteopenia." Another good reason for men to engage in weight training.
~ The Ultimate Legs Program -- "Scott thinks most quad routines consist of very low volume, too high a load for the individual trainee, and very low reps. Time to break out the puke bucket and embrace sets of 50 and a 100." This doesn't sound fun -- I'll have to try it.
~ Bill Starr’s Strength Training Program: The Big Three -- "This is a description of Bill Starr’s strength training program described in The Strongest Shall Survive: Strength Training for Football (1976). I recommend reading Bill Starr’s book, even if you’re not a football player." This is an excellent foundation program for intermediate lifters -- and for all athletes.
~ Organic Food Is More Nutritious Say EU Researchers -- "Early results of a 12 million pound, 4-year EU study on the benefits of organic food suggest that some of them, such as fruit, vegetables and milk, are more nutritious than non-organically produced food and may contain higher concentrations of cancer fighting and heart beneficial antioxidants."
~ Phys Ed: Twist and Ouch -- "Most athletes will have back trouble sooner or later — if they’re not suffering already. Here’s what to do about it."
~ Doctors Test Hot Sauce for Pain Relief -- "Devil's Revenge. Spontaneous Combustion. Hot sauces have names like that for a reason. Now scientists are testing if the stuff that makes the sauces so savage can tame the pain of surgery...."
~ Stumped for Healthy Snacks Ideas? -- "Rapidly growing children often require refueling between meals and a cookie is often the answer. Busy parents frequently resort to processed snack foods, which fill the tummy, but don’t offer much in the way of nutrition. A snack is a mini-bite or portion."
PSYCHE/SELF
~ Are Kids Getting Too Much Praise? -- "Efforts to build self-esteem in schools may be leading to a generation of children with inflated egos."
~ Decision-making special issue in Science -- "This week's Science has a special selection of papers on the psychology and neuroscience of decision making. While most of the articles are closed-access, one on how game theory and neuroscience are helping us understand social decision-making is freely available."
~ New Possibilities in the Treatment of Auditory Hallucinations -- "Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) is one of the latest treatments being studied by researchers. While studies have shown that it can diminish auditory hallucinations, more research is necessary to improve our understanding of auditory hallucinations and how TMS affects them."
~ Two Ways To Boost Your Low Self-Esteem -- "For me, self-esteem has always been a funny thing. I've always had pretty high self-esteem and have continually tried to help others who don't."
~ Manic Depression: A Mistaken Diagnosis -- "Sometimes bipolar disorder is easy to miss."
~ How to Survive Bipolar Disorder -- "Tips on gaining control of a bipolar mood cycle."
~ The Heart of the Matter -- "Depression is a disease, not an excuse but surely it makes for some extenuating circumstances. If only we could understand and forgive ourselves. If only we could make others understand and forgive . . . but we can’t. It’s a rare person that understands the twisted nature of depression, even rarer when they can forgive. We have to learn to forgive ourselves."
~ The Art of Effective Self Criticism -- "If you value your own progress, you need to learn how to criticise yourself. We are often eager to criticise others, but when it comes to criticising ourselves we are strangely reluctant. The art of self criticism is essential to learning from mistakes and gaining an improved perspective on life." As Pema Chodron often reminds us, the key here is to be gentle with ourselves.
~ Brain Activity Differs For Creative And Noncreative Thinkers -- "Why do some people solve problems more creatively than others? Are people who think creatively different from those who tend to think in a more methodical fashion? Scientists found a distinct pattern of brain activity, even at rest, in people who tend to solve problems with a sudden creative insight -- an "Aha! Moment" -- compared to people who tend to solve problems more methodically."
CULTURE/POLITICS
~ Pope objects to dispensing immoral drugs (AP) -- "Pope Benedict XVI urged Catholic pharmacists on Monday to use conscientious objection to avoid dispensing drugs with 'immoral purposes such as, for example, abortion or euthanasia.'" This is crap -- if you don't want to dispense drugs as prescribed, get a new job.
~ Bruce E. Levine: Has Psychiatry Earned Its Unpopularity? -- "Until recently, most journalists have been extremely timid about confronting Big Pharma's hijacking of psychiatry. One exception is Robert Whitaker, winner of the George Polk award for medical writing. Whitaker, in his book Mad in America (2002), summarizes the beginnings of the corruption of America's psychiatrists and their professional organization, the American Psychiatric Association (APA)...."
~ Rights and Liberties: Free Speech for Everyone, Except for Foreigners -- "The American commitment to free speech is the most robust in the world. But these days that tolerance stops at the border."
~ Michael Giltz: Good Grief! Celebrating Peanuts -- "Tonight on PBS's American Masters, they take a close look at the life of Peanuts creator Charles Schulz. Linked to the new biography by David Michaelis, it focuses on the parallels between Schulz's real life and the strip, as well as the very real melancholy Schulz dealt with his whole life."
~ The Red Sox Sweep! -- "The Boston Red Sox beat the Colorado Rockies in four games, taking home their second championship in four years."
~ The All-TIME Top 25 Horror Movies -- "From silent vampires to animated murders, from sharks that won't die to a love story set amid a zombie takeover, more than a century's worth of big-screen scares."
~ Interview With a Vampire Expert -- "As Nuzum crunched Count Chocula one morning in his Washington, D.C. home, he flipped on his TV and caught President Bush warning against the soft fascism of plugging in too many appliances and becoming an "energy vampire." Flipping through a magazine, Nuzum saw a model with fangs and a cape enticing him to buy some vodka and "drink in the night." He had his project. "If the vampire is ubiquitous," he wondered, "how did this happen? Why did this happen? I wanted insight.""
~ Show Us Your Geeky Jack-o'-Lanterns -- "From Battlestar Galactica to Steve Jobs, pumpkin carvers take a stab at creating Halloween masterpieces."
HABITATS/TECHNOLOGY
~ Why Do Autumn Leaves Turn Red? Soil May Dictate Fall Colors -- "Soils may dictate the array of fall colors as much as the trees rooted in them, according to a forest survey out of North Carolina. By taking careful stock and laboratory analyses of the autumn foliage of sweetgum and red maple trees along transects from floodplains to ridge-tops in a nature preserve in Charlotte, N.C., scientists found that in places where the soil was relatively low in nitrogen and other essential elements, trees produced more red pigments known as anthocyanins."
~ Researchers Study Bat Colony in Wash -- "Researchers are studying a colony of bats that live in an underground concrete structure at the Hanford nuclear reservation in hopes of determining how to provide a new home for them once the structure is demolished."
~ HIV's path out of Africa: Haiti, the US then the world -- "The AIDS virus entered the United States via Haiti, probably arriving in just one person in about 1969, earlier than previously believed, according to new research. After the virus, HIV-1, entered the U.S., it flourished and spread worldwide."
~ Researchers show evidence of 'memory' in cells and molecules -- "Research to be reported October 29 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences provides evidence that some molecular interactions on cell surfaces may have a “memory” that affects their future interactions. The report could lead to a re-examination of results from certain single-molecule research."
~ Primates: Extinction Threat Growing For Mankind's Closest Living Relatives -- "Mankind's closest living relatives -- the world's apes, monkeys, lemurs and other primates -- are under unprecedented threat from destruction of tropical forests, illegal wildlife trade and commercial bushmeat hunting, with 29 percent of all species in danger of going extinct, according to a new report."
~ New Ideas About Human Migration From Asia To Americas -- "Questions about human migration from Asia to the Americas have perplexed anthropologists for decades, but as scenarios about the peopling of the New World come and go, the big questions have remained. Do the ancestors of Native Americans derive from only a small number of "founders" who trekked to the Americas via the Bering land bridge? How did their migration to the New World proceed? What, if anything, did the climate have to do with their migration? And what took them so long?"
~ Social standing influences elephant movement -- "When resources are scarce, who you know and where you're positioned on the social totem pole affects how far you'll go to search for food. At least that's the case with African elephants, according to a study led by ecologists at the University of California, Berkeley, who collaborated with researchers at Save the Elephants, a non-profit research organization based in Kenya, and at the University of Oxford in England."
INTEGRAL/BUDDHIST
~ Roky Erickson at the El Ray -- "I saw Roky Erickson at the El Ray Theater last night. For those who don’t know, Roky Erickson was the leader of the 13th Floor Elevators, the world’s first psychedelic rock band. The Elevators were from Austin, Texas, of all places. In Austin, Roky and the band faced constant harassment from the authorities who didn’t like their long hair and their anti-authoritarian message. Roky was busted for possession of a single joint. For this crime he was sent for three years to the Rusk State Hospital for the Criminally Insane where we was subjected to electro-shock treatments. Whether it was insanity or not that led him to smoke dope, by the time he came out of Rusk he wasn’t quite right anymore."
~ Debunking Satan and Hell. Plus, The Governator Not Worried about Marijuana -- "Here's something to think about regarding the Christian idea of "hell" and "satan" being "god's" strong man, torturing those who don't "measure up" to the so-called, "all-loving" Supreme Being."
~ Connecting with the History of the Divine Mother -- "Some Wiccans used to maintain that their religion was the revival of a long-dormant Witch cult that had been put down for thousands of years by the Christian patriarchy. That may be romantic apologetics, but it’s awful history."
~ Deep Dialogue and Mindfull Change -- "While meditation strives for one-pointedness, dialogue attempts to enact multi-pointedness: dialogue focuses on each speaker, with multiple nodes of meaning, intention and response. Rather than transcending "the world," dialogue works with raw materials of the world, creating coherence & meaning out of the blitz of our multitasking 21st-century."
~ Buddhist Geeks is Moving to a New Home! -- "We just wanted to let you know that starting this week Buddhist Geeks will be moving to a new home urchinTracker ('/outbound/article/www.fallingfruit.tv');">www.fallingfruit.tv. Falling Fruit TV is a conscious media network that two of the founders of Buddhist Geeks helped to start, which will include a full network of podcasts on topics such as Spirituality, Business, Politics, Health, Technology, and more."
~ Love is not a feeling, it’s an ability -- "But if love is an ability, there is nothing to judge. As an ability love isn’t destroyed in the ravages of time and loss, insecurity or disappointment. As an ability, love is always there, ready to flourish and help our lives flourish. As conditions come together for anything to come into existence, always within there is the ability of love, recognized or not, given life or not."
~ The Radical Spirituality of Generation X, Part 15: Breaking the Cycle of Fear and Violence -- "I come from an unusual background. My dad, John Robbins (author of Diet for a New America, and an inspiration to millions) and my mom, Deo, are not just parents to me, they are also my dear friends. From an early age, they helped me to look at problems in the world not as monsters to fear, but as opportunities for healing. “However bad things are,” my mom used to tell me, “is exactly how much better they can be with a change.”"
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