sweetheart-mine

I'm interested to see that there are a number of Buddhists on the board. Meditation practice is an idea I first encountered via psychotherapy for panic attacks, of all places, several years ago and it resonated for me and I began tracing backwards to buddhist traditions. I don't actually call myself a Buddhist, although I don't know why not since, as I understand it (and please correct me if I am wrong), in its most basic form seems to be more of a practice than a religion.(which is a pretty big distinction) Its an idea I'd like to explore more, although I think it still retains enough of an unknown quality in our culture that even my wife raises an eyebrow a little bit at my interest. But, hey, if we're going to agree to take our kids to church once in a while, why not teach them to meditate, as well?

many buddhists don't think of it as a religion, though it gets put in that category all over the place, i guess because if you're a buddhist you tend not to be a practicing catholic, hindu, jew, presbyterian, or anything else religious. in countries where there are large buddhist populations, though, some buddhist practices are very much considered sacred and for many it's a large part of daily life. it's one of the few organized religions (maybe the only one) that a person can practice yet call it whatever you think it is. my husband and i tend to think of it as a philosophy, though its teachings are more than that, really, and you're right that it's also a "practice" -- every part of it is, starting of course with the practice of meditation.

how interesting that you encountered meditation via therapy for panic attacks. i've had panic disorder for many years -- hey, maybe it's one reason i was drawn to my buddhist husband. you know, people argue about religion and prayer in schools, which i've never thought to be a good idea, but i sure would be all for teaching the practice of meditation in school. the kids would be a lot better prepared for just about anything they might encounter in life. zen buddhism is different from tibetan buddhism, but i do know that the meditation practice of the latter can be taught without any dogma or doctrine whatsoever.

ok, class is over for today.

Heartening, but a long way from actually demonstrating that complete tolerance. I wonder how each of those groups feels about atheism...and how tolerant towards atheists are they?

it's probably a mixed bag, as usual. some individuals in possibly every religious group exhibit tolerance toward atheists (or agnostics, which is what i consider myself), and some definitely don't. when they don't, we certainly do hear about it, and when they do, we usually don't hear about it, which is why it's hard to quantify these things and why those who are tolerant don't get their due in public or the media.

what has amazed me in my personal experience is how cruel some people who hold their religion very dear can be to their own (as in family and friends). my husband grew up in a fundamentalist baptist family who, though extremely nice in most ways, actually convinced him when he was very young that he had "the devil inside him" and would go to hell for it because he couldn't lie and say he was a believer. he was a wreck for years, as a little kid! eventually, after leaving home, he became a tibetan-type buddhist. i've learned a lot from him about big stuff, like life itself!, and "little" stuff, like how the mind works. he's not a teacher, i've learned just from watching him and listening to his turn of mind. if there's any organized religion whose groupthink doesn't scare me and isn't overpowering , it's buddhism, though i'm still agnostic.

what scares me most, in religion but in other organized groups too, is zealotry. i'd love to see more of that excessive energy transferred to art, music, nature, helping the world get along.

if it's true, most of this would be very heartening. i actually felt happier for a couple of minutes. better than none!

I'm not making a defense of whoever accepted money from the telecoms, but keep in mind that we're only given an average of moneys received. We're not given any names or specific amounts. Could there be very large amounts given to a few people that skewed the numbers? Are there some who received less who changed their vote? Are there some who received more who didn't change their vote?

whether specifics come out or not, it is beyond me why so many would pile on more huge, long-term damage to the country especially now (and, far less important, to their reputations) for a little cash. i mean, i've been around for a long time, and i just don't get this. i'd ask if anyone else understands why, but think i already did that, with no answers. this feels like after the '06 election. only worse.

NEITHER dobson or obama speaks for me...how 'bout them apples?

well i for one am shocked that you feel this way, uw. no, but i like your reliability, really and truly. you're starting to seem almost, well, avuncular!

well, if it's a politician's intention to unify a country, isn't the discussion of politics divisive enough without throwing religion into the mix? i'm glad that my church isn't among those giving political endorsments...like that's really necessary.

absolutely, i agree with you on this. (i thought i said that.) clearly obama is trying to stand up to those who would swift-boat him, and a certain amount of answering back has to be done, given the vitriol and falsehoods behind many of the accusations -- but i do think it would be wise to ignore and bypass those darts based on religion. no politician will make a lot of headway in unifying the country by trying to please all religions and any accompanying religious fanatics. when it comes to government, religion is or ought to be completely beside the point.

. Can we just take religion out of the political equation and focus on the meat and potatoes? Pleeease?

right on! and i would include evangelists who use their whatever to sway politicians and voters both. so tiresome, so fear-mongering, and often so hypocritical. they ought to knock it off, and politicians ought to stop addressing religious issues that have no place in our public life and government.

I think a reasonable argument could be made that because of McCain's 5 years as a P.O.W. he is actually less equipped to deal with protecting the country against terrorism. No one really knows how the trauma of something like that has affected his mental stability (and his medical records, glimpsed ever-so-briefly, don't give much indication). We all have friends and/or relatives who came home from Nam with PTSD, and few were subjected to levels of torture that McCain was. Just sayin'.

i don't think that case can be made. the guy has been functional since those years. he hitched himself to the wrong wagon after 2000, but that was simply a combination of ambition and poor judgment. and if there were such a case, you can be sure someone in the media would be making it based on some little piece of "evidence," even if only circumstantial, in his medical records.

Oh no. Here we go again:

 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080624/ap_on_...ccain_terrorism

 

The thing that really blows my mind is that we have a sitting President, the least popular of all times (possibly), who has made glaring error after error in this 'War On Terror', and John McCain has voted the way the White House would want him to (in regards to the 'War On Terror') time after time - but according to most polls, Americans (by a wide margin) think he would do better combating terrorism than Barack. I just do not understand the logic here (if there is any).

some people mistake mccain's endurance as a vietnam p.o.w. ca. 35 years ago for experience that qualifies him to protect the country against anything related to war, including the so-called war on terror. yes, it's a gigantic stretch, especially when, like you point out, his sticking to the not-only-failed-but-extremely-destructive policies of the bush administration demonstrates a pretty warped view of reality. it's not 100% warped, though, because there are, in reality, people who will automatically feel more secure due to mccain's heroic and military image. i think it's more image than logic at work here, unfortunately.

"Saint Obama" is much like "Bitter Michelle" in that both are cartoon characters that exist nowhere but in the paranoid nightmares of Republicans. These visions have nothing to do with the real Obamas, of course, but when reality stands in the way of demonizing your opponent, it's always been politically convenient to believe the cartoon. When you buy into the myth, it's much easier to work yourself up into a lather and justify your irrational hatred. (The same thing is happening with "Addict Cindy," who I suspect bears zero resemblance to the real-life Cindy McCain.)

 

The irony is that the Obama "messiah" sarcasm is often mouthed by the same people who believe George W. Bush is God's agent.

yes.

and gwb believes it himself, or so he has said in the past. another of the top scariest aspects.

Let me ask everyone here - do you REALLY want someone as president who is and has been so certain of his own judgment and the principles he or she bases that upon that he or she never changes his or her mind on anything? In the Bjorn Book, if you are so stupid that you cannot change your mind based on new information and improved reasoning, then you are f unqualified to be an ice cream man (woman), much less president. Sheesh. We have a lot of shit bass-ackward in this society, yes we do.

my hat is off to the Bjorn Book. the charges of flip-flopping flying back and forth lately are silly and a waste of time and energy. i hope they both knock it off.

other than the changes in the reasons for our invasion and occupation of iraq (changes that were only for convenience anyway), i'd say we have a good example right now in the white house of someone unable to change his mind based on new information and improved reasoning. it's one of the top three scariest aspects of the current administration.

Looks like Obama has already dropped the seal. I thought the seal was a tad obnoxious...

whew, that's a relief. was definitely not a fan of that seal.

these kind of people are the sheep i've referred to.

 

 

there has never been a politician unmarred by corruption to some degree.

 

why would "saint" barack be assumed to be any different?

well, like you say, there are degrees. in everything.

i've never known of a politician -- or any other person -- to be unmarred. the question was about whether every political compromise is for a corrupt reason. many seem to think so.

i don't recall anyone referring to obama as a "saint." it's just the folks who can't stand him (or, more likely, the idea of him) who label him, with oh so familiar sarcasm, a saint.

Me too. I heard John Dean saying that, well, this bill does still leave room for criminal prosecution, possibly an accidental oversite by the bill's authors, and perhaps that that is why Obama is choosing political efficacy over principle on this matter. I've also heard speculation elsewhere that he is just planning on reversing this once he is president anyway, but I see no reason to believe that -- he's given no indication of this whatsoever and it sounds like wishful thinking on behalf of his supporters. This is a major disappointment on all levels.

what are your own thoughts on why he's backing this bill? (i'm asking mr rain, but am interested too in the thoughts of anyone who isn't just drowning in scatological cynicism and sarcasm because apparently it must be fun, i guess.) i'm disappointed also, if i completely understand what it means! sometimes i wonder: not every single compromised principle by someone in government can be about money and ambition, and that's it, can it? every single one? or have they all been hauled aside since ww2 and had their lives seriously threatened by people more powerful than themselves every time it looks like someone is going to buck the system?

they've got to be kidding about those top 3. more important, where is Adaptation??? and where is The Hours?

also, At Play in the Fields of the Lord.

One Tweedy interviewer put it to Jeff -- and he acknowledged it -- the recording approach harkened back to the late 60s early 70s, when albums were crafted and developed collectively, rather than the disparate approach of separate tracks, even recorded in separate studios, and created pulled together by some further disparate producer.

oh yah, i've read him talking about that too, and do like that about it. it still sounds like its own self to me in other ways, but the late '60s and early '70s were my big time with rock music and there may be a kind of familiarity about sbs that i'm not aware of and just sneaks in. i wasn't thinking about the recording approach when i first read you.

you may be right that sbs didn't break any new musical styles, but i'm confused about that because sbs strikes me as unique. i mean, it reminds me of nothing and no one else; to my ears it has its very own sound. of course, that may be because i'm not up on a lot of other music from the last ten years or so!

you sure can say "immerse ourselves" again -- it's been a long time since i've been as immersed as i've been in tweedy and wilco for the past year. have listened almost every day, starting way back and then to sbs. and like you say, i do try to make sense of why their music has taken me over so wholly.

there is some music that i like a lot or can't stand, and that's all it calls out in me. but jeff tweedy's music affects me so much and so deeply that i simply can't not think about it. the thoughts and the reflections make the music that much more enriching and irresistible. it's a boiling pot of music, emotion, and thought, to me, and wow, i really love all of it.

by the way, i'm a definite sbs fan.

now i'm really going to have to hear this guy -- have never heard a thing he has done.

i love his first sentence: "I listened to my record recently and I'm concerned about how much I like it."

Does anyone read any Edward Abbey?

 

a while ago i picked up The Monkey Wrench Gang and finished it in 2 sittings. since then he's essentially all i've read.

 

anyways, discuss

my brother read "desert solitaire" and loved it so much that he moved from boston out to utah and changed his whole life.

Hey, at least there'll be some sharp (albeit very hot) looking bums walking around your town

the bums dress better than i do, so hey, now we'll all look alike.

this actually happened two days ago but was discovered today (i seem to make it a point never to complete a small project in one day when i can stretch it out to three or four). but yes, d, i'll take the real bag over there, and thank you for that hot tip!

i filled a trash bag with winter clothes to store in the attic, and another trash bag with no-longer-wanted clothes to take to goodwill.

guess which bag got taken to goodwill.

louieb, this is F A N T A S T I C ! i feel like hopping on the train this minute and losing myself in chicago.

it's great reading anyhow because you just have a way, and your outlook sparks out all over the place.

thanks a lot.

Obama's so-called "cult of personality" is a right-wing talking point that is intended to serve as a distraction; if Obama can be reduced to a cartoon, and his supporters marginalized as unthinking, then it's easier to dismiss him and avoid having to answer the substance of his campaign. After all, sheep can't be taken seriously, so why bother engaging them in the first place?

 

It's not much different than how the Bush Administration cartoonishly reduced terrorists to "evildoers" intent on attacking freedom itself, as opposed to thinking creatures angered by American imperialism. That way, America could keep things simple and jingoistic rather than engage in the tougher work of national self-examination and proper measurement of our enemy--two actions that might have helped us understand how to more effectively fight back

amen. most eloquently said, and with more substance and perceptiveness than i've seen in any other post in this thread, certainly including my own. thank you.

.plus, who is gonna want to do the mccain character on snl? seriously, where's the funny in that?

wasn't mccain on snl? he was on something fairly recently, and he really was funny, i mean it. he was witty. granted, his appearance was very short, but it was witty. he surprised me. i've also seen him be very charming with jon stewart.