spiritually incorrect

Whatever Mitt!

2012-01-31T17:53:00.001-08:00

I'll be adding to this page of blatantly biased stuff about the Republican presidential candidate (sic) debates/gaffes as they catch my attention.

Republican "Presidential" Debates, really?

2012-01-20T12:31:00.000-08:00

“I’m … standing with Minney Mouse on one side and Goofy on the other.” --Newt

Listening to the "Republican Presidential Debates," I am reminded that Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry, Mitt Romney come from a rich Republican tradition--even nouveau riche compared to the lack-luster, lying rhetoric of Tricky Dick.

Please consider some of these gems as you ponder what would be best for the health of our democracy: Sarah Palin said during her campaign, "My concern has been the atrocities there in Darfur and the relevance to me with that issue as we spoke about Africa and some of the countries there that were kind of the people succumbing to the dictators and the corruption of some collapsed governments on the continent, the relevance was Alaska’s investment in Darfur with some of our permanent fund dollars."

Yes folks, that is what she really said! It makes no more sense now than it did then, but look at those photoshoped boobies!

Watch your pauses between Lybia and Momar, Mr. Cain.

And I don't think a fact-finding trip to Lybia is going to help: Christine O’Donnell said after a fact finding trip to that troubled part of the world: “I’ll tell you, I just came back from the Middle East, and it was refreshing. With all that is going on, it was refreshing not to be constantly bombarded with smut all the time.”

At least there's some syntax in Christine's English. The top photo is Sarah Palin--and some photoshopper. Sorry Herman you're just not up to snuff, not even in a fedora.

MLK Day -- Be a Buddha!

2012-01-16T00:00:00.000-08:00

At the moment there are barely 25 minutes left before the day on which we honor Martin Luther King, Jr.

But can't we carry his inspiration with us for the rest of the 525 948.766 minutes left in our year?

[Image from http://theworsthorse.com]

Lest we forget

2011-12-21T13:36:00.000-08:00

Please keep this in mind as the T'Party Republicans line up, and pony up, to defeat the President.

The Path of Liberation

2011-11-28T17:52:00.000-08:00

May ALL sentient beings have happiness!
May ALL sentient beings be free from suffering!
May ALL sentient beings never be separated from the joy that is free from suffering!
May ALL sentient beings abide in equanimity, free from attachment and aversion!
(The Four Immeasurables)

I anoint the Earth with fragrant water
And adorn it with Mount Meru, the four continents, the sun and the moon...
Imagining it a Buddha field,
I offer it that ALL beings may enjoy this pure realm!
(From Tibetan Buddhist Ngondro Mandala offering)

Birdbrain harpoons whales and chews blubber in the tropics
Birdbrain clubs baby harp seals and wears their coats to Paris
Birdbrain runs the Pentagon his brother runs the CIA, Fatass Bucks!
Birdbrain writes and edits Time Newsweek Wall Street Journal Pravda Izvestia
(Allan Ginsberg, Birdbrain)

I am looking forward to the upcoming Buddhisn 101 series presented by the Gay Buddhist Sangha.
http://www.gaybuddhistsangha.org/calendar/
Please join us if you can.

Quote for today, but it was 2 years ago

2011-11-24T01:03:00.000-08:00

Joe Biden said this a bit more than 2 years ago,

"Very few, the very few, wealthy and powerful have a seat at the table and the rest of us are on the menu."

Apperently it is now accepted as just another law about the way things are.

Michael is gone.

2011-07-01T09:00:00.000-07:00

24 June 2011, two years later

This morning I am finding it hard not to hear about Michael Jackson’s death. I don’t have a TV, but even my bank has CNN on, with captions, behind the tellers’ windows. I couldn’t escape. I considered myself immune to much feeling for a man who came across as so freakish – a pill-popper, a good client for plastic surgeons whose work was mixed, and perhaps a gay man with a sexual appetite that bordered on the illegal. We won’t make you a poster boy for same sex marriage anytime soon, Michael. And you yourself turned out not to be a puer aeternus, at least in this life. Having more money than God can’t buy everything, as my mother might have said, but you understood that truism all too well, didn’t you?

Just when I could sense my cynicism start to gain the upper hand, I happened to click in a uTube link that lead me to a video tribute to Michael by some 1500 men in a Philippine prison, mostly poor young men doing time for drug offenses. John Tarrant’s talk at a recent Zen retreat popped into my head. John had said that we all create our own prisons, and then spend time and money, plus all the mental energy we have available, to decorate the walls. Of course, these inmates, some little more than kids, understood Michael in a way I cannot, and they mourned him. I began to cry. Yes Michael, no one better than a freak to decorate our prison walls and provide the sound track, a song of hope. Life is a gift. Your life was a gift.

Here’s a link to the story on the Huffington Post. It’s almost 10 minutes long so if you don’t want to watch the whole thing, or don't have the time, it really gets going about 5-6 minutes in. And yes, that is Latin you hear at the very beginning, the final line of a prayer for Michael: “through our one Lord, Jesus Christ, your only born Son, who lives with you (Father) and the Holy Spirit, now and forever, world without end.” There always seems to be formal prayer, often in Latin, before any ceremony in the Islands, even dancing in prison. And the world without end refers to the divine realms, not Michael’s or ours.

And here is a Spanish translation of this post: http://truthspinners.blogspot.com/2009/07/michael-se-ha-ido.html
Posted 28th June by tellall

Michael se ha ido.

2011-06-30T09:04:00.000-07:00

Michael se ha ido.

Esta mañana, es difícil no oír hablar de la muerte de Michael Jackson. No tengo un televisor, pero incluso en mi banco veo las noticias de Michael en la CNN, con los subtítulos, por detrás de las ventanillas de los cajeros. No podía escapar. Yo mismo he considerado mucho más inmune a la sensación de un hombre que se encontró en una forma rara - una píldora-popper, un buen cliente para los cirujanos plásticos, y tal vez un hombre gay con un apetito sexual que se acercó al ilegal. No vamos a hacerte un Cartel chico para parejas del mismo sexo en cualquier momento, Michael. Y tú mismo no llegaste ser un Puer aeternus, al menos en esta vida. Después de haber más dinero que Dios no puede comprar todo, como mi madre podría haber dicho, pero tú entiendes esta perogrullada muy bien, ¿no?

Justo cuando mi cinismo empezó a ganarme la parte superior, me ocurrió hacer “click” en un vínculo utube que me llevó a un video homenaje a Michael por unos 1500 hombres en una cárcel de las Filipinas, en su mayoría jóvenes pobres haciendo tiempo para ofensas de drogas. Me acordé una plática de John Tarrant en un reciente retiro Zen. John dijo que todos estamos creando nuestras propias cárceles y, a continuación, pasamos el tiempo y dinero, además toda la energía mental que tenemos disponible, para decorar las paredes. Por supuesto, estos reclusos, algunos poco más que niños, entendieron a Michael. Ellos estaban llorando por Michael. Empecé a llorar. Sí, Michael, nadie mejor que un monstruo para decorar nuestras paredes de la prisión y facilitar la pista de sonido, una canción de esperanza. La vida es un regalo. Tu vida fue un regalo.

Aquí está el enlace a la historia en el Huffington Post.

Es casi 10 minutos de duración por lo que si no desea ver toda la cosa, realmente se va más interesante después de 5-6 minutos. Y sí, es latín que se oye en el comienzo, la invocación de una oración para Michael: "a través de nuestro único Señor, Jesucristo, su único Hijo nacido, que vive con usted (Padre) y el Espíritu Santo, los siglos de los siglos." Existe siempre parece ser la oración oficial, a menudo en latín, antes de cualquier ceremonia en las Islas, incluso el baile en la cárcel. Y el mundo sin fin se refiere a los reinos divinos, no del nuestro o lo de Michael. Añado mi oración de que su cielo sea como el cielo lleno de maravilla como el talento que compartió Michael con nosotros.

GLBT Weddings 6 years ago

2011-06-28T13:07:00.000-07:00

On March 11, 2004, as a Buddhist minister, I officiated at one of the last ceremonies performed in San Francisco during the brief time when Mayor Gavin Newsome took the brave step of allowing and sanctioning same-gender marriage. Now seven years later, after the New York State Senate recognized GLBT marriages, I am posting the dedication that I used at the end of the ceremony to pray that all the obstacles to our expression of love as gay, lesbian, bi-sexual and transgender people be removed.

Dedication:

When love appears and we witness it as we have done this afternoon, anything that stands in love's way is a cause of suffering. We pray that your life together may be free from suffering.

To the protectors of each moment
and to the benefactors who give us life,
we offer this ceremony in gratitude.

Broken things are now joined.
Where there was trouble, we can now find shelter.
Happiness is truly present.
We pass it on—

May the blessings of this ceremony brighten your lives,
Keith and Masahiro,
and those of all the other gay and lesbian couples
who have been married
here in San Francisco over these last weeks.

We send these blessings into
all worlds of darkness and light.
Let wisdom go to every corner of this city, our communities, and our nation.
Let people have joy in each other’s joy.

I want to second Bishop Spong. Please join me.

2011-05-26T16:00:00.000-07:00

A Manifesto! The Time Has Come!

I invite others to join me in this public declaration. I believe that such a public outpouring will help cleanse both the church and this nation of its own distorting past. It will restore integrity and honor to both church and state.

I have made a decision. I will no longer debate the issue of homosexuality in the church with anyone. I will no longer engage the biblical ignorance that emanates from so many right-wing Christians about how the Bible condemns homosexuality, as if that point of view still has any credibility.

I will no longer discuss with them or listen to them tell me how homosexuality is "an abomination to God," about how homosexuality is a "chosen lifestyle," or about how through prayer and "spiritual counseling" homosexual persons can be "cured." Those arguments are no longer worthy of my time or energy.

I will no longer dignify by listening to the thoughts of those who advocate "reparative therapy," as if homosexual persons are somehow broken and need to be repaired.

I will no longer talk to those who believe that the unity of the church can or should be achieved by rejecting the presence of, or at least at the expense of, gay and lesbian people.

I will no longer take the time to refute the unlearned and undocumentable claims of certain world religious leaders who call homosexuality "deviant."

I will no longer listen to that pious sentimentality that certain Christian leaders continue to employ, which suggests some version of that strange and overtly dishonest phrase that "we love the sinner but hate the sin." That statement is, I have concluded, nothing more than a self-serving lie designed to cover the fact that these people hate homosexual persons and fear homosexuality itself, but somehow know that hatred is incompatible with the Christ they claim to profess, so they adopt this face-saving and absolutely false statement.

I will no longer temper my understanding of truth in order to pretend that I have even a tiny smidgen of respect for the appalling negativity that continues to emanate from religious circles where the church has for centuries conveniently perfumed its ongoing prejudices against blacks, Jews, women and homosexual persons with what it assumes is "high-sounding, pious rhetoric." The day for that mentality has quite simply come to an end for me. I will personally neither tolerate it nor listen to it any longer.

The world has moved on, leaving these elements of the Christian Church that cannot adjust to new knowledge or a new consciousness lost in a sea of their own irrelevance. They no longer talk to anyone but themselves.

I will no longer seek to slow down the witness to inclusiveness by pretending that there is some middle ground between prejudice and oppression. There isn't. Justice postponed is justice denied. That can be a resting place no longer for anyone. An old civil rights song proclaimed that the only choice awaiting those who cannot adjust to a new understanding was to "Roll on over or we'll roll on over you!" Time waits for no one.

I will particularly ignore those members of my own Episcopal Church who seek to break away from this body to form a "new church," claiming that this new and bigoted instrument alone now represents the Anglican Communion. Such a new ecclesiastical body is designed to allow these pathetic human beings, who are so deeply locked into a world that no longer exists, to form a community in which they can continue to hate gay people, distort gay people with their hopeless rhetoric and to be part of a religious fellowship in which they can continue to feel justified in their homophobic prejudices for the rest of their tortured lives. Church unity can never be a virtue that is preserved by allowing injustice, oppression and psychological tyranny to go unchallenged.

In my personal life, I will no longer listen to televised debates conducted by "fair-minded" channels that seek to give "both sides" of this issue "equal time." I am aware that these stations no longer give equal time to the advocates of treating women as if they are the property of men or to the advocates of reinstating either segregation or slavery, despite the fact that when these evil institutions were coming to an end the Bible was still being quoted frequently on each of these subjects. It is time for the media to announce that there are no longer two sides to the issue of full humanity for gay and lesbian people. There is no way that justice for homosexual people can be compromised any longer.

I will no longer act as if the Papal office is to be respected if the present occupant of that office is either not willing or not able to inform and educate himself on public issues on which he dares to speak with embarrassing ineptitude.

I will no longer be respectful of the leadership of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who seems to believe that rude behavior, intolerance and even killing prejudice is somehow acceptable, so long as it comes from third-world religious leaders, who more than anything else reveal in themselves the price that colonial oppression has required of the minds and hearts of so many of our world's population. I see no way that ignorance and truth can be placed side by side, nor do I believe that evil is somehow less evil if the Bible is quoted to justify it.

I will dismiss as unworthy of any more of my attention the wild, false and uninformed opinions of such would-be religious leaders as Pat Robertson, James Dobson, Jerry Falwell, Jimmy Swaggart, Albert Mohler, and Robert Duncan. My country and my church have both already spent too much time, energy and money trying to accommodate these backward points of view when they are no longer even tolerable.

I make these statements because it is time to move on. The battle is over. The victory has been won. There is no reasonable doubt as to what the final outcome of this struggle will be. Homosexual people will be accepted as equal, full human beings, who have a legitimate claim on every right that both church and society have to offer any of us. Homosexual marriages will become legal, recognized by the state and pronounced holy by the church. "Don't ask, don't tell" will be dismantled as the policy of our armed forces. We will and we must learn that equality of citizenship is not something that should ever be submitted to a referendum. Equality under and before the law is a solemn promise conveyed to all our citizens in the Constitution itself. Can any of us imagine having a public referendum on whether slavery should continue, whether segregation should be dismantled, whether voting privileges should be offered to women? The time has come for politicians to stop hiding behind unjust laws that they themselves helped to enact, and to abandon that convenient shield of demanding a vote on the rights of full citizenship because they do not understand the difference between a constitutional democracy, which this nation has, and a "mobocracy," which this nation rejected when it adopted its constitution. We do not put the civil rights of a minority to the vote of a plebiscite.

I also no longer act as if I need a majority vote of some ecclesiastical body in order to bless, ordain, recognize and celebrate the lives and gifts of gay and lesbian people in the life of the church. No one should ever again be forced to submit the privilege of citizenship in this nation or membership in the Christian Church to the will of a majority vote.

The battle in both our culture and our church to rid our souls of this dying prejudice is finished. A new consciousness has arisen. A decision has quite clearly been made. Inequality for gay and lesbian people is no longer a debatable issue in either church or state. Therefore, I will from this moment on refuse to di gnify the continued public expression of ignorant prejudice by engaging it. I do not tolerate racism or sexism any longer. From this moment on, I will no longer tolerate our culture's various forms of homophobia. I do not care who it is who articulates these attitudes or who tries to make them sound holy with religious jargon.

I have been part of this debate for years, but things do get settled and this issue is now settled for me. I do not debate any longer with members of the "Flat Earth Society" either. I do not debate with people who think we should treat epilepsy by casting demons out of the epileptic person; I do not waste time engaging those medical opinions that suggest that bleeding the patient might release the infection. I do not converse with people who think that Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans as punishment for the sin of being the birthplace of Ellen DeGeneres or that the terrorists hit the United Sates on 9/11 because we tolerated homosexual people, abortions, feminism or the American Civil Liberties Union. I am tired of being embarrassed by so much of my church's participation in causes that are quite unworthy of the Christ I serve or the God whose mystery and wonder I appreciate more each day. Indeed I feel the Christian Church should not only apologize, but do public penance for the way we have treated people of color, women, adherents of other religions and those we designated heretics, as well as gay and lesbian people.

Life moves on. As the poet James Russell Lowell once put it more than a century ago: "New occasions teach new duties, Time makes ancient good uncouth." I am ready now to claim the victory. I will from now on assume it and live into it. I am unwilling to argue about it or to discuss it as if there are two equally valid, competing positions any longer. The day for that mentality has simply gone forever.

This is my manifesto and my creed. I proclaim it today. I invite others to join me in this public declaration. I believe that such a public outpouring will help cleanse both the church and this nation of its own distorting past. It will restore integrity and honor to both church and state. It will signal that a new day has dawned and we are ready not just to embrace it, but also to rejoice in it and to celebrate it.

2010-10-08T01:00:00.000-07:00

"Wherever two or more are gathered..there is politics (and sometimes sex)"

To honor all who work to prevent the spread of HIV, and poke fun at those who oppose sane sex education--if the consequences weren't so deadly serious.

Imagine if manufacturers and retailers made condoms kept their slogans and jingles on the packet: Tesco (UK) condoms “Every little bit helps,” Nike “Just do it,” Peugeot “The Ride of Your Life,” KFC “Finger Lickin Good,” Duracell “Just keeps on going and going,” Pringles “Once You Pop, You Just Can’t stop,” Burger King “Home of the Whopper,” Andrex (UK) “soft, strong and very long,” MacDonalds “I’m lovin’ it,” and a favorite, Polo “The One with the Hole!"

Life does imitate reality. The sponsor of the US curling team in the Winter Olympics was “Harder Faster” condoms. Really. That's their logo.

Thanks Greg Nickson

And Do All the Employees of Walmart Support the Teabaggers?

2010-09-24T13:32:00.000-07:00

Go figure!

Zen Bland

2010-05-31T23:28:00.000-07:00

My friend Laurence Platt just sent me a piece he wrote called “Zen Bland.” [Please see Laurence’s website: Conversations For Transformation: Essays By Laurence Platt Inspired By The Ideas Of Werner Erhard, And More]. In it he makes a strong case that simple and unembellished language is the only authentic way to describe deeply moving, transformative experiences. His essay was not a bland piece at all but very juicy. What a really radical notion—living life here and now, speaking about it simply, not altering our experience trying to make it into something else! I think that it applies to meditation practice, and living, as well as writing.

As you may know, I have been a committed meditation practitioner for more than 35 years, the last twenty + in a rather disciplined Zen practice. For eleven years before that I was a member of a catholic religious order, the Jesuits, which has, at least in the first years of training, a disciplined, formal spiritual practice.

At the beginning of January this year, I was on retreat in Santa Rosa where our group, the Pacific Zen Institute, rented a former catholic convent for the week. The Angela Center had been the California motherhouse for a congregation of religious women, the Ursalines. The few remaining nuns have turned their property into a retreat center. The buildings themselves have that rather bland institutional architecture, working with very basic, simple materials, characteristic of most buildings put up to accommodate the large numbers of men and women who were entering religious life after World War II. As I unpacked my bag, I thought to myself that my “cell” was just a slightly less Spartan, more feminine version of the one where I was isolated from the outside world for two years as a Jesuit novice, August 15, 1966 to September 8, 1968. That period was for me an extremely difficult initiation into religious life, exactly the way that St. Ignatius, or his successors, designed it.

My Zen retreat at the Angela Center might have been a re-stimulus for both the ecstatic and painful memories of my noviceship. And like clock work, floods of memories and other mental stuff occurred in silence and meditation from 4:30 AM to after 9:30 PM–a schedule slightly more demanding than in a Jesuit house of formation where we got up an hour later and went to bed a half hour earlier.

After breakfast on the morning of the 4th day, as I was walking back to the room that we had set up as the meditation hall, I noticed that my perception of the building had suddenly shifted. It was not dramatic, there were no flashing lights of insight, no angels descended from heaven with all the answers that I had been so hungry for, or had told myself that I really sought. I was just walking on a linoleum floor that was just a floor, and the walls of lightly plastered-over cinder block were just walls. Nothing more. Nothing added, no sounds but the sound of my feet and no visions but what I saw through my eyes – just walls, just a door, just a room, just a grey carpeted floor with black cushions. Rather bland for a mystical experience.

But then I began to notice something very powerful open up inside me—every burden that I had been carrying since my Jesuit training was gone. It was extinguished, not conceptually but actually. My past life as a Jesuit was gone, completely gone. Not that it didn’t happen, not that it had no effect on me, but I understood in a non-intellectual way that anything I carry into the present moment was for me to carry. It isn’t there; it isn’t real; it doesn’t drag itself along.

And suddenly I realized that in that moment of bland Zen that I was totally and irrevocably free—no one, no thing, no outside authority, no god, no doctrine, no experience could ever enslave me.

Three cheers for bland Zen!

No Sackcloth and Ashes for these Guys!

2010-05-24T05:29:00.000-07:00

"I would just say this. The most important thing is to clean up the truth. And the truth is I have never said anything."

What kind of double-speak is this?

They are the words of then Archbishop of New York, Edward Cardinal Eagan, regarding a statement made by the rector at St. Patrick's Cathedral, one Monsignor Eugene Clark, in 2002. Standing in for the embattled Cardinal Egan, Clark blamed the sex abuse scandal on gays, railed against homosexuality as a "disorder" and said it was a "grave mistake" to allow gays into the priesthood. Clark would later be forced to resign after his affair with his secretary, a woman 30 years his junior, came to light in 2005. You can bet the king of outing high level hypocrites, Michelangelo Signorile, had blast with this: A Monsignor's Closet, 2005-08-24.

I have also said at least a few things about the hypocrisy of the Catholic Church, though with a more sympathetic voice, I hope, having some experience of the cloak of secrecy that gay priests are forced to wear. I didn’t fit me well, but that is another story. Here is what I wrote when I revisited a conversation that I had with my friend Avery Dulles (who by the way did not much like wearing his cardinal duds). I did not mention him by name when he was alive out of respect for his position and our friendship; though I think that he might have endorsed what I said, I didn’t want to expose my version of his words to the lurkers on the Internet who love bits of gossip that they can distort.

I don’t want to make some high sounding statement and then stand back. It’s time to keep up the pressure. So let’s try a little humor. I don’t think that it will surprise anyone that among gay clergy there’s a lot of dark humor and jokes that float from one “pink” rectory to another. When I heard this one, the main characters were John 23, Francis “Fanny” Cardinal Spellman, and John Joseph Cardinal Wright of Pittsburg and the Vatican. Even though Wright wasn’t yet a cardinal during Vatican II, it still works. John 23 and Wright, even if gay as suspected, were straight arrows, but “Fanny” was notorious for his liaisons with any number of New York chorus boys and hustlers, so much so that it seems he had part of his staff dedicated to quelling rumors and preventing them from reaching the pages of the NY Times. In New York gay bars in the 60’s there was always someone who swore that they heard from his lips: “If you threaten to go public, who’ll believe you? You’re a nobody and I’m the Cardinal Archbishop of New York.” That was another age, though his brother cardinals are now reaping the fruit of his indiscretions—among others.

So after all that preamble, here’s the joke.

When John 23 sent out the official announcement to the opening of the Second Vatican Council, he included a private note to all the cardinals, archbishops, and bishops asking them to tone down their dress. It was to be a solemn occasion, yes, but given that he as Pope was striving for reform, remaking the image of Church in the modern world, simple clerical garb would be enough. In other words, leave the cappae magnae home.

The day of the opening of the Counsel rolled around and the US prelates were gathered together in St. Peters, dressed down as requested. After the appropriate drum roll and trumpets, the doors swung open and there was John 23, sporting a Triregnum, carried on his sedia gestatoria by 12 hunky guys in red, surrounded by fans of white feathers (a boa that might have seemed out of place).

Spellman turns to Wright and mutters, “Bitch.”

The current occupant of the chair of Peter has called for penance for the sins of the Church, one presumes for not reprimanding pedophile priests and allowing them access to children even after their crimes had been reported. But I hope that it’s not lost on anyone that Benedict’s penance doesn’t call for sackcloth and ashes. Oh no, quite the contrary. He’s taken the Pope’s little red slippers out of the closet—you have to have shoes to match.

He’s taken the papal throne out of the Vatican Museum where it has been since Paul VI's reign.

Even lowly bishops have taken to the 60 foot cappa magna once again. (It is reported to me from a reliable former Jesuit source that it was cut to 12’ by Pius XII more than 50 years ago).

The photograph is of Bishop Edward Slattery of Tulsa at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception on April 26th of this year.

And there are humors that Benedict will dust off the sedia gestatoria “for security reasons.” This certainly doesn't look like penance, or maybe that is how old queens do penance. I could check that out if I could find any among my friends who really did molest teenagers, or even have that proclivity. But they’re not in the Castro. They’re all in jail or under Vatican protection. (The picture is of Pius VIII riding high in 1828).

Penance my ass.

Haruki Murakami 村上春樹

2010-04-28T22:54:00.000-07:00

April 25, 2010

Reading and wonderment: Haruki Murakami
村上春樹

One of my first teachers, an admitted fraud who preyed on gullible Berkeley seekers by claiming to stand in the line of Mr Gurdjeiff’s authorized teachers, once gave me some useful advice: if you have five bucks burning a hole in your pocket and you’re fascinated by a title in the remainder pile, don’t hold back. Splurge!

I would recommend the practice to anyone with no reservations.

When Cody’s was selling every last book, Linda Anderson and I wandered into their store on 4^th St in Berkeley where I saw Haruki Murakami’s “Kafka on the Shore” slashed to $6.99. That was 1.99 over the limit for the fascination practice and I had no idea who he was—I hadn’t read “The Wind-up Bird Chronicle,” but I had to find out where, how a Japanese writer found Kafka anywhere, much less the shore.

It sat on a shelf for at least two years before I opened it. After 4 pages I could barely put it down. It is Japanese magical realism, but for some reason I really started to understand something about the origins of koans, or imagined that I did.

Then two days ago I found one of the republished “Paris Review Interviews” in a remainder pile in San Francisco. OK, So maybe it was 6 or 7 dollars, again over the limit, but the fake Gurdjeiff advice was almost 40 years old—there has to some adjustment for inflation—let’s get real. In it, an interview with Haruki Murakami. Yes, some of his narrative structures (he calls them) do come from the Buddhist tales of his childhood. His grandfather was a Buddhist priest. He hallowed them out and then let his imagination repopulate them. His words. He also loves jazz; he was not trained as a writer at all but had run a jazz club—you can hear the notes of his riffs even in translation. He began writing at night after work on the kitchen table. Sounds like a friend who would be right at home in our PZI/Zen crowd.

I don’t know if he ever passed a koan. I don’t know if he would even be interested. But his stories are marvelous.

The sunshine is so wonderful on this bight Saturday afternoon that I had to pass this along.

All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

2010-04-28T13:29:00.000-07:00

“Very early I learned to value and respect words, and I also uncovered a passion for reaching my own conclusions.”

When I started to consider the origin of my values, a memory of my kindergarten teacher began to emerge. I struggle for real memories of early age, but this much is clear--she was a wiry woman with a tight bun who seemed a hundred years old, and, at least from the taste of decades-old feelings, someone who did not like children.

She ran her kindergarten in an upper room at the Methodist church that the stood at the base of the triangular New England town green in Nichols. Her fixed ideas were shaped by the way Yankee families held that children should behave from time immemorial, or at least as back as the 400 odd years since our religious fanatic forbearers fled Europe, and childrearing was fundamentally religion. My guess is that she had no love for Dr. Montessori who was, after all, a Catholic.

She was one of the elder “Misses” in town, who, along with the two spinsters who ran the library, always stood for us children as a clear demarcation between our families and single women who obviously preferred the company of their own sex. We were told that because spinsters were just not lucky enough to find husbands, they were forced into a world of loneliness and the company of other women. This we learned by listening to the distain in the pauses between sentences of our parents’ conversations.

My own experience has lightened any ill will that I might have carried through the years, and perhaps even added a touch of magic to the story that I am going to tell.

I did not want to nap when were told in a voice that did not beckon negotiation: “Put your heads down on the desk.” I would defiantly look up and examine her, and another woman, her enforcer, who were clearly happy to be relieved from having to entertain, occupy or educate their charges. Several times my mother chastised me for not following instructions—she had been warned that I was very “willful”. My response to my mother was probably a complaint, setting the tone for a long battle in our relationship. I would bet the farm that her response was “That is the way things are. Some things are unchangeable and, besides, you are in no position to think for yourself.” So of course, I began to think for myself even if it was entirely reactive.

But there is one memory that comes back to me. It has even appeared in my dreams. I call it the “blue redbird.” We had coloring books that had rudimentary, inelegant, drawings of things-to-be named in the world, mothers and fathers, doctors, siblings and pets, houses and gardens, flowers and birds. The white spaces inside the outlines were labeled with names and colors. On command, in unison, we all opened to a prescribed page, scrambled for the crayons heaped in a pile on a low table in the center of the room, and began filling in the spaces neatly and correctly. Sometimes I would read the labels and oftentimes, not. My coloring was meticulous and colorful. I never had colors bleed from a shirt or cat. I was also very aware of the colors, even at the expense of labels. One day I was carefully coloring a bluebird red. I think it was the woman enforcer who looked over my shoulder and motioned for Frau Dominatrix to come and examine a bird that had been designated blue—clearly.

“Ken that is not a redbird. Can’t you read?”

“Of course I can read, but there are almost no redbirds in Nichols.’

“That was to be a blue-bird. You never going to go anywhere or make something of yourself unless you read and then carefully follow instructions.”

“But I want a redbird!”

“Hush. You have made a very serious mistake. I am going to have a word with your mother.”

I began to cry. And now everyone had turned to look at the boy who wasn’t man enough to hold back his tears.

When my mother arrived in the white station wagon to pick us up, very likely unhappy at the prospect of her two hours in the car with three preschoolers, she was not pleased to hear that I could not read nor follow instructions. She certainly didn’t comfort me. The martinet reflected her own theories of child rearing almost exactly. The kindergarten “Miss” had humiliated me and that meant one less thing that she would have to correct—with any luck.

Why do I consider this an event to be appreciated? I learned that words themselves have consequences and that definitions cannot be assigned arbitrarily. Language was not a child’s game. Language was powerful. It could also become a tool for enforcement.

Rigid language stifled creativity. The blue bird that I had created was far more handsome than the red would have been. The person who had made the drawings of the alleged red bird was inept. The outline of its shape matched the blue birds that gathered on the big nut trees in our side yard. The sting forced me to notice their shapes and coloring with more attention and care.

But I am still left with a crying five-year-old boy with the unwanted attention of fifteen other five-year olds staring at him with fear in their eyes. The cruelty of adults is not entirely a learned behavior, but five-year old kids are perhaps more malleable than adults. Perhaps.

And finally, as a testimony to Creativity, a few words from a poem

THE PROBLEM OF DESCRIBING COLOR

by Robert Hass

If I said—remembering in summer,

The cardinal’s sudden smudge of red

In the bare gray winter woods—

[Our Nichols Methodist Church is not pictured, but looked very much the one that I found in Google images although the main door was set at an angle facing Longhill Road.]

Tom Marshall, S.J. (October 9, 1922 - March 11, 2010)

2010-04-22T17:49:00.000-07:00

Monday, March 22, 2010

This morning, after his funeral mass at the Jesuit Sacred Heart Center in Los Gatos, I chanted the Heart Sutra as well as the Kanon Gyo at the graveside of Tom Marshall, S.J., a lay brother of the Society of Jesus, an ordained Zen priest in both the Soto and Rinzai lineages, a wonderful teacher and friend. Here is the dedication I wrote for the occasion:

God that hews mountain and continent,
Earth, all, out; who, with trickling increment,
Veins violets and tall trees makes more and more,
Listen: We humbly place our feet on the Path of liberation.

May your path continue, dear Tom.
We, the many people whose lives you touched,
Send you on your way with our gratitude.

We remember your many gifts to us,
The books you gave us to train our minds,
Your ready compassion and your sweet smile.

Denis Genpo, Les Keye and your meditation companions salute you.
Your Jesuit brothers honor and bless you.

May your teachers, Shakyamuni, Maha-Kasyapa, Hakuin Ekaku, and Taizan
Maezumi,
Welcome you.

May the Jesuit blessed and saints, Alphonsus, Peter Faber, Xavier, and Father
Ignatius,
Open their wide embrace.

We dedicate any merit from your meditation and chanting
To relieve suffering in all of life and to clear your way, dear Tom.

You are among the bodhisattvas and other great beings,
Wide-eyed in the Cosmos, totally alive, right now.
Earth hears no hurdle,

The door to deep meditation opens yet again.
The teaching goes on without end.

Yes. Just look at It All!

All Buddhas throughout space and time, all bodhisattvas, saints and great beings,
the Mahaprajnaparamita.

[Many thanks to GM Hopkins, S.J. for allowing me, by his silence, to use portions of his poem, “In Honour of Saint Alphonsus Rodriguez.” The italicized lines are from Tom's private correspondence.]

We will miss you. We love you.

Gratias á Lulu, Esta Noche y Monica Naranjo

2010-03-20T16:59:00.000-07:00

I began new Fracebook friendships with Andres and Bill. We exchanged some email about Latin music and gay Madrid. I hope to learn a lot about Latin music and my new correspondents will be great resources. But there is one Latina star I already admire enormously.

When I take visiting friends out for a night on the town in San Francisco, I tend to end the festivities at Esta Noche on 16th St.

This Latin gay club has been in that once-seedy neighborhood for more than 20 years. Now it’s becoming hip, and the crowd is definitely more mixed than even a few years ago, but I still find Esta Noche welcoming and lively. It's seen more than a few very memorable moments: it was there that Ken MacDonald was kissed in the bathroom by the most handsome man within miles–a high compliment—this is San Francisco after all. It was there—at the bar, not the bathroom—that Miguel Pou taught me to distinguish between the popular music of Spain, and Mexico, Central America plus Colombia and Argentina and a few other countries in the Southern Hemisphere. I usually can pick up that distinctive Brazilian samba-like beat, and of course the lyrics are in different language though that is not easy to distinguish when you know only a few words in Spanish and Portuguese, fiesta, siesta, libertad, y “Et tu mama tambien”—just because I saw the movie and loved it.

But it was “Lulu” who introduced me to Monica Naranjo. How can I say this delicately? Lulu is not a pretty drag queen, and she can have a pretty foul mouth, but she's one hell of performer and knows her divas. During her show, I heard this voice that felt like a combination of Madonna, Bette Midler and Janis Joplin, with a touch of Maria Callas. “Who’s that?” I asked the bartender. “Monica,” he said, “She is THE star of gay Madrid.” I have since learned that she is much more than that, and she moved to Miami so now I don’t have to visit Madrid to hear her live though I still plan a Madrid expedition as soon as I sock away enough dinero.

OK, OK, sometimes her staging and orchestration is a bit cheesy but listen to the quality and strength of that voice! Music unleashes the animal!

http://www.youtube.com/embed/YdVUt1CYqGY</a>" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen>

Dear Independent Voter

2010-01-21T11:35:00.000-08:00

by Spandan Chakrabart

"’Democrats on the Hill and in the White House don't seem to get that independent voters are upset with them,’ said the source, who spoke candidly about the president and his team on the condition of anonymity.” – Michael D. Shear, Washington Post Staff Writer

Spandan Chakrabart, deaniac83, postede this open letter in his Blog, The People’s View. It hit home. I have reprinted it in full with his kind permission. Please read it and pass it on. He doesn’t coddle the independent voter as you will see. I hope that his message, in some form, will convince enough independents to take on the role of mature citizens and seriously tackle real reform.

Thursday, January 21, 2010

Dear 'Independent' Voter,

As you keep swinging with the wind, and 'revolting' against Washington, you are costing our country a great deal. You flocked away from the Republican party in a rage against George Bush's policies of torture, tax breaks for the wealthy and Wall Street deregulation and corruption and elected Barack Obama president in a landslide in 2008. Then, you figured, hey, why isn't he waving his magic wand and changing everything in one fell swoop? Damnit! So you turned right back to W's party in 2009 and 2010.

You know what, dearest Independent Voter? You are acting like a five-year-old throwing tantrums. A five year old who voted for a piece of candy, and now is turning around and voting for a piece of turd because the candyman didn't give him the candy fast enough. A five-year-old with the fate of our nation in your hands. You are having your buttons effectively pushed by the right wing thugs who want to destroy this country and what it stands for. You are being had by the nutjobs that have no interest in being serious about solving whatever it is your particular problem happens to be. You are walking right into the trap laid out by those who would represent anyone but you in Washington. And why? 'Cause the guy's got a truck. And the other gal didn't get on her proverbial political knees and beg for my vote. You have "Look-at-me-I'm-important" syndrome. And the dude talked about how b-a-d Washington is. And did you hear? The gal went to Washington for a fundraiser! Oh, and who can forget, the lady called the bastion of public service and democracy, Curt Schilling a - gasp - Yankee fan! Oh noes!

You just elected, in Massachusetts, the guy who supports waterboarding and torture, scares the bit-jesus out of you about terrorists being tried in American courts - despite having elected a Constitutional scholar who explained to you barely a year ago that our courts and prisons are perfectly capable and effective in handling terrorists, and boasts about going to Washington to kill health care reform. The same health insurance reform that might have put your costs under control. The same reform that would insure anywhere between 31 and 36 million Americans who have no insurance now. You voted to send a guy to Washington who would just as soon let 45,000 people die a year for the lack of health insurance. Well, Congratulations. Now when you have to file bankruptcy because your insurance company dropped you when you got sick, please, call your Senator and see if he gives a shit. You just voted in a guy that - if he has anything to say about it - will stop us from recovering our money from the bank bailouts. And a guy that will put the interest of polluters over the right of your children to breathe clean air and drink clean water. A man that wants you to pay all the taxes so the ultra rich can get a break. But hey, don't you let any of that take away from the feel-good of punishing "Washington" or anything. That's the important thing.

Dear Independent Voter, grow up. You live in a Constitutional democracy, and your votes have consequences. If you are willing to vote for change, then please stick with it. If you are willing to trust a president into office, hold his feet to the fire, but stop whining that he isn't parting the seas. And for goodness' sakes, stop voting to undermine what you voted for just a year ago. Change isn't easy. Your wild swings from side to side won't make it any easier, either. It will make it harder. Stop being so easily punked. Grow up and see what's going on around you. See that your vote isn't a candy bar. Grow up and realize that the system cannot be changed in a day, and your wild swings aren't helping things change. They are helping us return to gridlock.

Grow up. Just goddamn grow up.

Sincerely,

A Proud Democratic Voter.

Re-examiination time -- again

2010-01-17T11:56:00.001-08:00

I don't find very much sympathy today for any of the programs that helped the United States, particularly after the end of the Second World War, become the world's economic super power. These include FDR's New Deal which was in place but became a stable part of American life when there was enough money to fund its programs; Medicare and Medical, obviously examples of government health care that doesn’t work and without which I would be dead; student tuition programs like the GI bill that gave us the largest well educated work force in history; and more particularly the huge infusion of money into infrastructure, e.g. the huge interstate highways system that Ike sold as essential for national defense.

Republican attacks on the bailout rely on an underclass handout image for these programs. Wall Street tycoons are the new welfare mothers in Cadillac’s. I liked this article because it helped me see that the way I personally view both the programs themselves and the way that we view them as skewed.

Read it. I think Mr. Wolff has a point, or even several!

clipped from www.laprogressive.com

Does Welfare Work?

If social welfare programs work, then countries with more extensive programs should report a smaller percent of their population living in poverty. And that is exactly what we find. According to UNICEF, the percentage of children living in poverty in 2005 was: Denmark, 2.4%; France, 7.5%, Norway, 13.4%; Canada, 14.9%; United Kingdom, 15.4%; United States, 21.9%. (Thank goodness for Mexico — 27.7%.)

The Human Development Index (HDI) measures general well-being, with special emphasis on child welfare. Ratings released in 2009, covering the period up to 2007, reveal the following: the U.S. ranks 13th, in a virtual tie with Austria, Spain, and Denmark, surpassed by some countries noted for extensive welfare programs: Norway, Canada, the Netherlands, Sweden, France, and Finland.

And among the disturbing reports that have convinced Benedict that gays are destroying Creation...

2010-01-13T15:45:00.001-08:00

But in the interests of fairness and balanced coverage, a piece of private investigation: On my recent trip to San Diego, I met a young man, a former Mormon missionary who said just before midnight, "Well, hate to be Cinderella, but I 'm outta here. Got to get up early for church, St John's Episcopal. They got a gay bishop. I'm gay so I guess I'm there."

clipped from www.theonion.com

Gay Teen Worried He Might Be Christian

LOUISVILLE, KY—At first glance, high school senior Lucas Faber, 18, seems like any ordinary gay teen. He's a member of his school's swing choir, enjoys shopping at the mall, and has sex with other males his age. But lately, a growing worry has begun to plague this young gay man. A gnawing feeling that, deep down, he may be a fundamentalist, right-wing Christian.

"I don't know what's happening to me," Faber admitted to reporters Monday. "It's like I get these weird urges sometimes, and suddenly I'm tempted to go behind my friends' backs and attend a megachurch service, or censor books in the school library in some way. Even just the thought of organizing a CD-burning turns me on."

Added Faber, "I feel so confused."

Occam's razor and the debate about condoms in Africa

2009-12-13T21:08:00.000-08:00

“Keep your eye on the ball.” A case for the ethical use of condoms to combat the spread of HIV/AIDS

Fire at Samuel Wesley's House

HIV/AIDS is a medical problem.

Occam’s Razor: entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem, "entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity." It is also expressed this way: Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate, "Plurality ought never be posited without necessity".

Promoting the use of condoms is an ethical and necessary step towards preventing the spread of HIV, and that the conversation about the use of condoms to stem the spread of HIV in Africa has to be kept simple and direct.

Only unencumbered language will allow us to arrive at an effective strategy to stop AIDS. That has to be the goal – reduce the rate of HIV infection among poorer African populations. Considerations from other disciplines, practices, myths, cultures, religions, or magic cloud the thread of the argument.

Here is an analogy that I hope brings home some of the contending impulses that get in the way of thought and action.

Imagine that you are walking along, minding your own business, and suddenly you notice a crowd standing around a huge building that is being engulfed by flames. I think all of us would agree that the most human, immediate response would be to alert the people inside that there’s a fire, to call the fire department, organize a bucket brigade, and help get those in harm’s way to safety as quickly as possible with the least risk to yourself and anyone else close to the flames.

But when you begin to take any action – grab a bucket, ring the fire alarm, shout to people in the building so that they might be able to find a way out – various subgroups among the bystanders try to stop you.

One group says that one floor of the building has been taken over by crack heads and that it’s better to let them burn than possibly influence their kids and turn them towards the path to addiction.

Another group says that there are whores living in a part of the building and they spread venereal disease and, besides, the injunction in their holy books says that prostitution is punishable by death. The fire itself is their god’s wrathful punishment.

Another man says that his wife is on one of the upper floors, but that she has been unfaithful, and is a burden. It makes no difference to him whether she lives or dies. He is cheered on by a larger group of men who do not believe that men should put themselves in danger by trying to rescue any women.

Another group of women say that they will blockade any intervention because their husbands are in the building, each and everyone is HIV infected, and the fire is the hand of god saving them from certain infection.

A group of priests stand by and say that the only possible solution is to avoid fires. They also claim that it is immoral to intervene in a situation where the laws of nature have been violated – they have certain knowledge that the fire was set by an arsonist who is doing the devil’s work. And finally they claim that dousing the flames with water will not work in cases like this anyway.

A group of social workers stands to one side shaking their heads and says that this situation could have been avoided entirely if the basic needs of the folks in the burning building had been meet, if they had been educated, fed, given classes in self esteem.

Meanwhile the fires engulfs floor after floor. More and more people die. The professional firefighters cannot do what they know how to do. They know for certain that fires are extinguished by suppressing the flames with water or chemicals, and they also have also been trained to handle emergency catastrophic fires and reduce the loss of human life. But they cannot do their job.

Each group has very sound reasons for blocking the intervention of the firefighters. The group opposed to drug addicts point to tons of studies that prove that proximity to drug addicts increases the risk of addiction. The group that is content to let prostitutes die shouts age-old taboos about sex and virginity to justify themselves. The man whose unfaithful wife is going to be burned feels justified because his honor will be satisfied. The women whose husbands are HIV infected feel that finally nature has set about to reset the balance of power between the sexes. The priests use myth about being possessed by the devil to justify their claim that water will not put out these flames. The social workers feel that their profession might finally be recognized for the possible benefit for all mankind when finally the fire has taken its toll and they can sift through the ashes.

Here is a modern gloss of Occam’s razor: any good baseball coach teaches young players to keep their eye on the ball. It is that simple – there is only the ball flying through space, only you with a bat, or your glove, can stop its trajectory. When you hear people screaming at you from the stands, “if you catch it, you’ll be no better than the devil, you’ll go to hell, there’s a spell on that ball, it carries drug addiction and disease,” what do you do? Eliminate the noise as best you can.

Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.

HIV/AIDS is a medical problem. Nothing else.

Hey Harry, your sentences are a total mess!

2009-09-11T18:24:00.000-07:00

Senator Harry Reid of Nevada said in ”remarks prepared for delivery” to note the passing Senator Edward Kennedy:

"The impact he etched into our history will long endure. The liberal lion's mighty roar may now fall on deaf ears, but his dream shall never die."

Hey Harry, these sentences are a total mess! I think I am beginning to see why health care reform is getting so jumbled in the Senate debate. You guys can’t think straight.

I hate to be a nitpicker—no that’s a lie—I enjoy it more than you can imagine. I have a pet theory, hatched in the Geo W Bush years: totally mashed up semantics, weird modifiers and misdirected metaphors that paint a dreadful picture reflect mashed up, weird, misdirected and dreadful thinking. QED.

Here we go. Not to leave poor Geo way ahead in the war of malapropisms, the Democrats, with Harry at bat, have scored some whopping points!

"The impact he etched into our history will long endure.” Harry gets off to a slow start. Though “etching an impact” is a bit hard for me to get visually, “to etch in memory” is a common way to say “unforgettable.” Etching is a process in the visual arts that requires the application of acid, mordant or abrasive of some sort to the unprotected areas on a metal to create the negative of an image for reproduction. Doesn’t he just mean that it will be hard to forget Teddy and that his legacy will be equally hard to erase. The use of the word “history” might be trying to sound the sad note that Teddy is no longer with us, but his body is barely cold. But I will give “etched impact” 4 points, but take 2 away for the introduction of Teddy’s death with an weak nuance for “history”–if that is even his meaning.

“The liberal lion's mighty roar may now fall on deaf ears, but his dream shall never die." But here’s where the real fun begins, and Harry racks up real points. These are two great images, the roaring lion and the “I have a dream” rhetoric of any visionary. But in the same sentence? Both images are diminished plus it makes no sense. Minus 10 points for each infraction. The middle phrase, “deaf ears,” must mean that the Republicans in the Senate, those in power, those in the opposition, are so stupid that they cannot hear or understand his strong cogent, articulate arguments. But did this just happen now that Teddy is dead—now that he is no longer around to twist arms in the Senate cloakroom? Hardly. They were deaf long before. So I am going to deduct 40 points for nonsense. I have also heard that one can dream with all the organs, but the ears are not usually regarded as the instrument of dreams in ordinary speech, but then again, people who dream do hear voices, usually ominous warnings of danger. But if this is the meaning, it is very obtuse. I will deduct another 30 points. That leaves Harry with a score of 8 out of a possible 100. George scored 0 on multiple occasions. Keep it up Harry, you can still give him a run for his money.

Political Cartoon by Michael Ramirez

"Give up. The War is lost!"

Healthcare reform may actually be very simple

2009-09-09T20:05:00.000-07:00

Another view from abroad

I have been talking with Australians, asking questions and listening to their reactions to the continuing debate over the overhaul of our healthcare system in the US.

As they become aware of what we pay for the services we receive, they, for the most part, are shocked. As they try to understand the debate, public options, death panels, the rationing scare, they are appalled at our greed. Companies charge exorbitant prices for services delivered by a shoddy system. Overstuffed, pampered Americans want the "Right" to a full body scan in a shopping mall so that they can feel good while there are lines of working people in emergency rooms who cannot afford basic coverage.

Australians have had their fair share of corruption with regards to government contracts and kickbacks—they are not naive. But the conversation has allowed me to look at the American situation with fresh eyes. There is far too much money floating around in the system, far too many loopholes. Fat pigs are making a mess of any rational reform so they can keep the money flowing.

It might be that simple, folks. Cut the pigs and their cronies out of the conversation. The simplest solution is usually one that cures.

Our not so slow drift towards fascism?

2009-09-03T17:54:00.001-07:00

A view from abroad

Amazing what a new perspective can do for you. I was sitting behind the Queen Victoria Building last night after a concert, waiting for a bus with a friend. She asked me, in a matter of fact way, “Aren’t people concerned about the rise of fascism in the States? That’s what we see, the tea parties, the disruptions during the town hall meetings, the virulent attacks from the Right, the blocking of any meaningful reform, the blind eye turned towards the most hideous forms of torture. Obama seems like a very principled and talented man, but the continued attacks will only increase until the fascists seize power again. They can’t believe they lost it.”

And perhaps we cannot see what we are in danger of losing.

I felt a chill run down my spine. We’re Americans. We beat Hitler. We are also the most poorly educated and misinformed democracy on the face of the globe, and we never experienced anything like the rise of Nazis.

She said that the evidence suggests that it takes at least two generations to recover from fascism. By that time the streets Manhattan and Miami may be rivers and the temperature too hot for human survival. I don’t like sounding alarmist, but I think that we may be plugging along in a very deluded state, hoping that things will turn out. I heard the Dalai Lama in the Greek Theater at UC Berkeley say, “Hope for the best. Prepare for the worst.” He has some experience with calamity.

The worst may get worse. Sometimes you just can no longer avoid the evidence. Even if you chose to close your eyes, it will eventually smack you in the face.

clipped from andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com

Here's a document from Norway's 1948 war-crimes trial detailing the prosecution of Nazis convicted of "enhanced interrogation techniques" (the phrase in its original German is "verschaerfte Vernehmung)" in the Second World War. Here's a document detailing Nazi bureaucratic description of these techniques. You will note the striking similarities between its content, its legalisms, its bureaucratic tone, and the recent CIA documents pried out of the US government's hands by the ACLU:

And they were executed for war crimes.

The question Americans have to ask themselves is why they hold the former president and vice-president to lower moral and ethical standards than the United States once held the Gestapo. That's all. And that's everything, isn't it?