Richard Dawkins' jaw-dropping talk on our bizarre universe (TEDTalks)

Richard Dawkins is Oxford University's "Professor for the Public Understanding of Science." Author of the landmark 1976 book, The Selfish Gene, he's a brilliant (and trenchant) evangelist for Darwin's ideas. In this talk, titled, "Queerer Than We Suppose: The strangeness of science," he suggests that the true nature of the universe eludes us, because the human mind evolved only to understand the "middle-sized" world we can observe. (Recorded July 2005 in Oxford, UK. Duration: 22:42) - More TEDTalks at http://www.ted.com

Great BodihDharma Comic!

Understanding Peace, By Dyske Suematsu

We hear words like "evil", "brutal", and "dictator" quite often these days. What we tend to forget is that they are relative terms. A few hundred years ago, the world was much more "brutal" place with countries like Great Britain dictating many parts of the world. By todays standard, what many European countries did to their colonies would be described as "evil." What the settlers did to the Native Americans could also be described as "evil". If you compare what Americans did to blacks, what Saddam Hussein did doesn't sound so bad.

Even if you take a slice of time, some countries are always behind others in terms of how civilized they are. From the perspective of civilized countries, the behaviors of uncivilized countries appear "evil" or "brutal". We see Iraq's dictatorship to be "evil" and "brutal", but this too is relative and subjective. To most Europeans, Americans are still uncivilized when it comes to things like death penalty. Most Europeans see Americans to be "brutal", if not "evil", for continuing to kill their own people by capital punishment. One could argue that capital punishment is not "brutal" but that does not change the fact that Europeans perceive it as such. By the same token, Saddam could also argue that what he is doing to his own people is not "evil", but we will see it as evil regardless.

Once we crush Iraq, Iran, and North Korea, the standard of "evil" and "brutal" will simply be readjusted. Remember: what we consider "evil" today, isn't as evil as what was considered evil, say, a few hundred years ago. Other countries that did not appear so "evil" when the Axis of Evil was around, will eventually look evil. In this manner, the world will always live side by side with "good" and "evil". If we cannot manage to have peace with "good" and "evil" coexisting, we'll never achieve it. The path to good cannot be forced on others; it can only be shown by your own example, like Gandhi did. When you try to crush evil, you only grow it bigger. Don't underestimate the power of the dark side. Only by throwing your lightsaber and saying "Never. I'll never turn to the dark side," could you show others the path to good.

Puritanical Christians, for instance, who deny the existence of "evil" within themselves, project their own inner evil unto others, and attack them in order to give themselves the illusion that they are nothing but good. We all are mixtures of good and evil. Good cannot exist without evil, and vice versa. If you think you are nothing but good, like George W. Bush does, you create conflicts not only in the world but also within yourself. It is only when you are convinced you are absolutely good, that you can impose your own will on others, i.e., "dictate" others. That is exactly what Hitler did. He never thought he was doing anything evil. He thought he was doing the right thing for his people.

Tony Blair said about a month ago, "But sometimes it is the price of leadership and the cost of conviction." If you had never heard this before, and if I told you that these were words of Hitler in response to a criticism for executing the Jews, it would be perfectly believable.

A peaceful person, or world, is where good and evil live side by side.


By Dyske Suematsu | Apr-5-03

SOCOM U.S. Navy Seals TV Commercial PS2 from Japan

This is truly funny.

MATISYAHU: King without a Crown

Amazing... How far reggae culture..?

Meanwhile: Middle school girls gone wild, by Lawrence Downes

NEW YORK: It's hard to write this without sounding like a prig. But it's just as hard to erase the images that planted the idea for this essay, so here goes.

The scene is a middle school auditorium, where girls in teams of three or four are bopping to pop songs at a student talent show. Not bopping, actually, but doing elaborately choreographed recreations of music videos, in tiny skirts or tight shorts, with bare bellies, rouged cheeks and glittery eyes.

They writhe and strut, shake their bottoms, splay their legs, thrust their chests out and in and out again. Some straddle empty chairs, like lap dancers without laps. They don't smile much. Their faces are locked from grim exertion, from all that leaping up and lying down without poles to hold onto.

"Don't stop don't stop," sings Janet Jackson, all whispery.

"Jerk it like you're making it choke. Ohh. I'm so stimulated. Feel so X- rated."

The girls spend a lot of time lying on the floor. They are in the sixth, seventh and eighth grades.

As each routine ends, parents and siblings cheer, whistle and applaud. I just sit there, not fully comprehending. It's my first suburban Long Island middle school talent show. I'm with my daughter, who is 10 and hadn't warned me. I'm not sure what I had expected, but it wasn't this. It was something different. Something younger. Something that didn't make the girls look so one dimensional.

It would be easy to chalk it up to adolescent rebellion, an ancient and necessary phenomenon, except these girls were barely adolescents and they had nothing to rebel against. This was an official function at a public school, a milieu that in another time or universe might have seen children singing folk ballads, say, or reciting the Gettysburg Address.

It is news to no one, not even me, that eroticism in popular culture is a 24-hour, all-you-can-eat buffet, and that many children in their early teens are filling up. The latest debate centers on whether simulated intercourse is an appropriate dance style for the high school gym.

What surprised me, though, was how completely parents of even younger girls seem to have gotten in step with society's march toward eroticized adolescence — either willingly or through abject surrender. And if parents give up, what can a school do? A teacher at the middle school later told me she had stopped chaperoning dances because she was put off by the boy-girl pelvic thrusting and had no way to stop it — the children wouldn't listen to her and she had no authority to send anyone home. She guessed that if the school had tried to ban the sexy talent-show routines, parents would have been the first to complain, having shelled out for costumes and private dance lessons for their Little Miss Sunshines.

I'm sure that many parents see these routines as healthy fun, an exercise in self-esteem harmlessly heightened by glitter makeup and teeny skirts. Our girls are bratz, not slutz, they would argue, comfortable in the existence of a distinction.

But my parental brain rebels. Suburban parents dote on and hover over their children, micromanaging their appointments and shielding them in helmets, kneepads and thick layers of SUV steel. But they allow the culture of boy-toy sexuality to bore unchecked into their little ones' ears and eyeballs, displacing their nimble and growing brains and impoverishing the sense of wider possibilities in life.

There is no reason adulthood should be a low plateau we all clamber onto around age 10. And it's a cramped vision of girlhood that enshrines sexual allure as the best or only form of power and esteem.

It's as if there were now Three Ages of Woman: first Mary-Kate, then Britney, then Courtney. Boys don't seem to have such constricted horizons. They wouldn't stand for it — much less waggle their butts and roll around for applause on the floor of a school auditorium.

Lawrence Downes is a member of the New York Times editorial board.
Published: December 29, 2006

21 Century Peace Plan.

5. Each country will surrender their militaries to a to be established multi-national Earth Defence Force. An annual 10% of that country’s GDP shall be the cost;

4. All nuclear, biological & chemical weapons shall be dismantled or destroyed. War will be abolished. A world court will be established to address grievances;

3. The World will establish a body to find ways to address all mortal threats to the planet collectively;

2. Provide assistance for countries to provide for the needs of their domestic populations;

1. A supranational government shall be established, promote and account for the following four points;


Productive input will be appreciated.
REF: http://crawfordstake.blogspot.com/2006/11/five-steps-to-get-out-of-iraq-only.html

The universe is vast...

The universe is vast and
we are so small.
There is only one thing
we can truly control.
What's that?
Whether we are good or evil.

Meridan Epsiode, Stargate SG1

“Blasphemy”, “Irreverent”, “Disrespectful” and a must for the season.

Nice one...

The Tiger and the Snow

If you get a chance to see this...

The Hollow Men

We are the hollow men

We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom
Remember us -- if at all -- not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.
























Eyes I dare not meet in dreams

In death's dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind's singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.

Let me be no nearer
In death's dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer --

Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom

T.S Eliot

The Purpose of...

The purpose of a fish trap is to catch fish, and when the fish are caught, the trap is forgotten. The purpose of a rabbit snare is to catch rabbits. When the rabbits are caught, the snare is forgotten. The purpose of words is to convey ideas. When the ideas are grasped, the words are forgotten. Where can I find a man who has forgotten words? He is the one I would like to talk to.

Chuang Tzu

The Face of Islamic Democracy

TEHRAN: Iranian reformers and moderate conservatives asserted Monday that they had struck a blow against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad by winning most of the seats in local elections and exposing public discontent with the president's hard-line political stances and inefficient administration.

The voting for local councils represented a partial comeback for reformists, who favor closer ties with the West and a loosening of social and political restrictions under the Islamic government. In past years, hard-liners drove reformers out of the council, Parliament and finally the presidency, leaving the once popular movement demoralized.

But the victory in Friday's elections was for moderate conservatives, supporters of the cleric-led power structure who are angry at Ahmadinejad, saying he has needlessly provoked the West with his harsh rhetoric and has failed to address the faltering economy...

Christmas without subscription...

May we all know Dana..

Confronting Holocaust denial, Ayaan Ali Hirsi

One day In 1994, living in Ede, a small town in Holland, I got a visit from my half-sister. She and I had applied for asylum in Holland. I was granted one, she was denied. The fact that I got asylum gave me the opportunity to study. My half- sister could not.

In order for me to be admitted to the institute of higher education I wanted to attend, I needed to pass three courses: language, civics and history. It was in this preparatory history course that I, for the first time, heard of the Holocaust. I was 24 years old; my half-sister was 21.

In those days, the daily news was filled with the Rwandan genocide and ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia. On the day that my half-sister visited me, my head was reeling from what happened to 6 million Jews in Germany, Holland, France and Eastern Europe. I learned that innocent men, women and children were separated from each other. Stars pinned to their shoulders, transported by train to camps, they were gassed for no other reason than for being Jewish. It was the most systematic and cruel attempt in the history of mankind to annihilate a people.

I saw pictures of masses of skeletons, even of kids. I heard horrifying accounts of some of the people who had survived the terror of Auschwitz and Sobibor.

I told my half-sister all this and showed her the pictures in my history book. What she said shocked me more than the awful information in my book.

With great conviction my half-sister cried: "It's a lie! Jews have a way of blinding people. They were not killed, gassed nor massacred. But I pray to Allah that one day all the Jews in the world will be destroyed."

My 21-year-old sister did not say anything new. My shock was partly at her reaction in the light of so much evidence and partly because of the genocides of our own time.

Growing up as a child in Saudi Arabia, I remember my teachers, my mom and our neighbors telling us practically on a daily basis that Jews were evil, the sworn enemies of Muslims who's only goal was to destroy Islam. We were never informed about the Holocaust.

Later in Kenya, as a teenager, when Saudi and other Gulf philanthropy reached us in Africa, I remember that the building of mosques and donations to hospitals and the poor went hand in hand with the cursing of Jews. Jews were said to be responsible for the deaths of babies, epidemics like AIDS, for the cause of wars. They were greedy and would do absolutely anything to kill us Muslims. And if we ever wanted to know peace and stability we would have to destroy them before they would wipe us out. For those of us who were not in a position to take arms against the Jews it was enough for us to cup our hands, raise our eyes heavenward and pray to Allah to destroy them.

Western leaders today who say they are shocked by the conference of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran denying the Holocaust need to wake up to that reality. For the majority of Muslims in the world the Holocaust is not a major historical event they deny; they simply do not know because they were never informed. Worse, most of us are groomed to wish for a Holocaust of Jews.

I remember the presence of Western philanthropists, nongovernmental organizations and such institutions as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. Their agents brought those they thought of as needy medicine, condoms, vaccines, building materials — but no information on the Holocaust.

Secular and Christian donors and relief organizations did not come with an agenda of hate, but neither with a message of love. This was surely a missed opportunity in the light of the hate- spreading charities from oil-rich Muslim countries.

The total number of Jews in the world today is estimated to be around 15 million, certainly no more than 20 million. In terms of fertility, their growth can be compared to that of the developed world, and in terms of aging too.

On the other hand, the Muslim population is estimated to be 1.2 to 1.5 billion people, and it is not only rapidly growing but also very young. What's striking about Ahmadinejad's conference is the (silent) acquiescence of mainstream Muslims.

I cannot help but wonder: Why is there no counter-conference in Riyadh, Cairo, Lahore, Khartoum or Jakarta condemning Ahmadinejad? Why is the Organization of the Islamic Conference silent on this?

Could the answer be as simple as it is horrifying: For generations the leaders of these so-called Muslim countries have been spoon-feeding their populations a constant diet of propaganda similar to the one that generations of Germans (and other Europeans) were fed that Jews are vermin and should be dealt with as such. In Europe, the logical conclusion was the Holocaust. If Ahmadinejad has his way, he will not wait for compliant Muslims ready to act on his wish.

The world needs conferences of love, a promotion of understanding of cultures and antiracist campaigns, but more urgently the world needs to be informed again and again of the Holocaust. Not only in the interest of the Jews who survived the Holocaust and their offspring, but in the interest of humanity in general.

Perhaps the first place to start is to counter the Islamic philanthropy that comes laced with hatred against the Jews. Western and Christian charities in the third world should take it upon themselves to inform Muslims and non- Muslims alike, in the areas where they are active, about the Holocaust.

The People Own Ideas!

"We're against software piracy. We believe Microsoft's rights should be respected. And the simplest way to respect their rights is for Brazilians everywhere to switch to free software."

2005 World Social Forum
Brazilian Government Member

Senate Democratic Policy Committee Hearing

Sunday

Today is the first day of actually returning to military service. I thought or rather have been thinking about it for weeks.

"It has perhaps never been more important for the world's voices to be heard in America, never more important for the world's ideas and dreams to be known and thought about and discussed, never more important for a global dialogue to be fostered. Yet one has the sense of things shutting down, of barriers being erected, of that dialogue being stifled precisely when we should be doing our best to amplify it. The cold war is over, but a stranger war has begun. Alienation has perhaps never been so widespread….”

SALMAN RUSHDIE


Let reason be heard...

Thursday...

I hope this makes you smile as it does me. I is from the Michael Leunig, cartoonist, philosopher, poet and artist.

Courage: Ilguilas Weila et al

Anti-Slavery International, founded in 1839, is the world's oldest international human rights organisation and the only charity in the United Kingdom to work exclusively against slavery and related abuses.

Hero: Aung San Suu Kyi

Born 19 June 1945 in Yangon (Rangoon), is a nonviolent pro-democracy activist and leader of the National League for Democracy in Myanmar (Burma), and a noted prisoner of conscience. A devout Buddhist, Suu Kyi won the Rafto Prize and the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought in 1990 and in 1991 was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her peaceful and non-violent struggle under a repressive military dictatorship.

Reference

Boondocks: Return of the King

Return of the King was the controversial 9th episode of The Boondocks, which debuted on Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday, (January 15) 2006, on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim. The episode depicts a hypothetical scenario in which Martin Luther King, Jr. (voiced by Kevin Michael Richardson) survives his assassination at the Lorraine Motel on April 4, 1968. In the episode, King goes into a 32-year long coma. King awakens to find himself alienated with modern black culture and his steady, sincere demeanor made awkward by modern forms of mass media. His popularity diminishes significantly due to his controversial opinions after 9/11.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Return_of_The_King_(Boondocks_episode)

How "Borat" Lowers the Bar of Political Satire, by Megan Boler

Satire is the sign of the times. With truth a casualty of war, the populace north and south of the border is desperate for a reality check. When mainstream media admits it vacated its constitutional role to ensure informed citizenry and instead parrots White House Press briefings, it's no wonder we turn in desperation to satire. Jon Stewart's The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, Rick Mercer, The Simpsons, South Park all set a high standard for delivering some of the most biting political commentary to be found in mainstream media. Colbert deserves the award for biggest cohones of the year for his unbelievable keynote to the White House Press Correspondent's Dinner, while Dubya sat three seats away:

"Let's review the rules. Here's how it works: the president makes decisions. He's the Decider. The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Just put 'em through a spell-check and go home. Get to know your family again. Make love to your wife. Write that novel you got kicking around in your head. You know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration. You know--fiction!"

Now that's satire-and brilliant deployment of irony: saying one thing and meaning another. Using his Bush-loving ("I stand by this man. I stand by this man because he stands for things. Not only for things, he stands on things. Things like aircraft carriers and rubble and recently flooded city squares") ingenious persona (which parodies Bill O'Reilly of FOX) Colbert is able to make audiences laugh-even the stuffed ties and Hollywood babes at this Dinner-while roasting the Bush administration and the media.

But why is Borat getting classed as political satire? The "man who invented Borat is a courageous political satirist ... Borat makes you laugh but Baron Cohen forced you to think" (J. Hoberman City Pages Minneapolis Nov 1 p45).

"The brilliance of "Borat" is that its comedy is as pitiless as its social satire, and as brainy." The International Herald Tribune, Manohla Dargis, Nov 2)

Then there's Claudia Puig in USA Today "shockingly hilarious satire ... Cohen's genius lies in his ease with provocative material. What ends up on the screen feels almost revolutionary, even subversive." (Nov 3)

Sadly, Borat has lowered the quality of satire from five-star political savvy to slapstick that traffics in audacious racism and sexism without biting that hand that feeds. Don't get me wrong, I love to laugh-especially at razor sharp political satire that shows the world's absurdities. I tolerate cringe moments watching Jon Stewart ("I felt Condi up the other nite") and Colbert who also resort to sexist jokes and toilet humor, because at least one finds a consistent satirical bite that demands accountability from media and Washington. Political satirists speak truth to power.

In contrast, What exactly are Borat audiences laughing at? When Sasha Boren Cohen appeared on The Daily Show a few nights ago, Stewart should have asked the real Cohen to stand up and offer some answers. Instead, Borat (apparently Cohen is too "publicly shy" to grant any press interviews) discovers Stewart is a Jew, asks where his horns are and begins backing off stage.

Granted people are laughing at different things. Certainly screwed up American cultural politics are a worthy target. But Cohen is not able to expose these vulnerabilities without himself engaging in performances that traffic in atrocious jokes. As a result, the film sets us audiences to laugh not only at the admittedly complex aspects of Borat but at straightforward racist and sexist material. Fat jokes? Come on. While Cohen deserves credit as comedian who has some political dimension in his performance, Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan cannot be classed with the top-notch political satire that has flourished in the wake of post-9/11 media muzzling. Is Cohen profiting from the deadly political and social ethnic tensions? $8.9 million already at this box office, and his next movie already contracted at $42 million. The fact that Cohen is devoutly Jewish does not let him off the hook. The fact that he performs equal opportunity humor, taking punches at everyone, doesn't change the fact that he has stooped to the low common denominator of rude and audacious transgression of every possible social more. Sometimes his rude and audacious comedy reveals American racism, often trafficking in stereotypes himself, and often using toilet humor-a mockumentary that relies on candid camera suckers who for some reason signed a release.

Why are critics so quick to call this "political comedy"? If ever there was a time for savvy political humor to raise the sophistication of awareness about Middle Eastern cultural and ethnic tensions-gee, now would be a good time. Will the real Cohen please stand up and explain what must be a complicated answer to how anti-Semitism, racism and hating women is the best vehicle for his cultural comedy? I'm not convinced the guffawing audiences are thinking new thoughts that critics claim. What insight is gained while laughing at drunk frat boys solemnly wish slavery would return? Or laughing at "the Running of the Jew" holiday? "But people get that, it's absurd and over the top!" So what? Once you get the joke "Americans are over the top," where's the savvy cultural commentary? The only moment in the film that can readily be called satire (as opposed to slapstick spoof that uses candid camera to make people look idiotic and reveal sad realities) is when Borat, dressed in an American flag shirt, wades into a rodeo ring and shouts out his support for the "War of Terror", and "hopes Bush will drink the blood of every Iraqi man woman and child". There is great irony in this candid moment with the Rodeo audience trying to grasp his meaning, for once in the 90 minutes.

In the Saturday Globe and Mail (November 4) Camilla Gibb concludes that Borat is getting away with this because we "need this provocation," that such "freedom of expression" is the "sign of democracy." While by no means advocating censorship of the film, am I alone in my hope for a higher level of democratic debate?

I am not shocked by Borat but by the dozens of international reviews reporting that people are laughing for 90 minutes without asking why. The bottom lime is that Cohen, Larry Charles, marketing staff and god knows how many corporate interests, has figured out a multi-million dollar, lowest-common denominator pleasure that rakes in millions. Just don't call it politically courageous satire.

Megan Boler

I (We) Need to Wake Up to "An Inconvenient Truth"

by Shen Shi'an, The Buddhist Channel, Nov 22, 2006

...If you believe in karma and rebirth, you will be reborn into a world of your making...

Oxygen

Imagining America

Iraq:The hidden story

This reports should be required viewing. Although I disagree with the Channel 4's opinions that the news should come solely through our western lens for our consumption, I believe that a more truthful explanation of these events is outside that genera. Rather the story should be considered a vehicle of what some in the Iraqi population see as their reality. More of our broadcast resources should be made available to local Iraqi journalist and individuals to explain to our population their messages. The net is a good conduit but NBC, ABC, CBC and the like have better “gates” to our hearts and minds. But we in the West must still be willing to seek and find then listen to an Iraqi reality even when it’s outside of comfortable opinions and perceptions. Only by doing this will we be able to understand a way through this war.

You become a new person every ten years...

I guess the trick is to know approximately when in that time you are...

Goals for 2007
Become a Buddhist*

• Take Refuge;
  
• Live by the Five Precepts;
• Incorporate The Nobel Eight Fold Path;
  

Become parents again with my wife
Produce the BF Festival in Canada

The Truth about Right Effort..

Even if it takes hundreds or thousands of lifetimes to get enlightened, so what? However many lifetimes it takes we just keep practising with a heart at ease, comfortable with our pace. Once your mind has entered the stream, there’s nothing to fear.
Anoymous

The past is just that

I used to know this young women in university. We protested against Apartheid, we danced until dawn at local clubs, we talked, laughed and cried about the future and the past. We debated religions endlessly. Huddled our bodies in the cold North American nights.

Sometimes i think i miss her only but I really miss that time in my life. She has grown into a great women who i hope still looks at the moon and wonders...

Words to live by...

"Be more concerned with your character than with your reputation. Your character is what you really are while your reputation is merely what others think you are." John Wooden

Today is like every other day

I am very grateful for the wonderful life I have. I won't live forever. Everything is not perfect. I could afford to lose a few pounds but I am grateful none the less...

I read "If the World Were a Village": A Book About the World's People by David Smith the other day. It does tend focus the mind onto unfamiliar territory for most North Americans. It certainly adds perspective as I type on my MAC laptop connected to the internet wirelessly all the while watching TV in my house.

When did I become that guy?

namaste...

The price one pays...

The price one pays for pursuing any profession, or calling, is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side.
James A. Baldwin

And I work in the video game industry...