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Patriot Act Renewed
The House and Senate have reached a deal to re-authorize the Patriot Act. What do you think? Mary Alice Cornog, Beekeeper “It’s about time they did something to stop all the out-of-control patriotism in this country.” — read more
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Life Is Suffering
James Lipton appeared on tonight’s episode of Arrested Development, and I’m devastated. This is the worst thing that’s happened to me in a long, long time. You might think I’m joking, but I assure you I’m not. You might think I’ve lost all sense of perspective, and there you might be right. But I’m not… — read more
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It’s Not the End Time
I’ve read the first half of Harold Bloom’s Jesus and Yahweh: The Names Divine, his meditation on the figure of Jesus, and found him at his incisive, dyspeptic best in his critique of what he finds in the New Testament that’s not Jesus: For Paul, the Resurrection, or Christ event, proclaimed the death of Torah:… — read more
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Imagine
Though it’s lyrically admirable, I never thought that “Imagine” was a very good song. Does that make me a bad person? Yet at the very least, the deluge of that song today has provided a brief respite from the blitz of Christmas carols to which we’re otherwise subjected for the month of December. A far… — read more
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National Geographic
I did my talk in class last night, and I think the final verdict is that I write well, but don’t read nearly so well. Prior to class, as I was sitting outside the shrine room, I saw a copy of the latest issue of National Geographic, which has a great article about Buddhism. Unfortunately,… — read more
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Hegemonies Lost?
Ricky Gervais (with the assistance of the too seldom mentioned Stephen Merchant) is making a foray into the world of podcasting. The Ricky Gervais Show podcast, though there’s only one episode to judge from so far, might just be the best podcast ever. It’s certainly the funniest, and it might also be the smartest. The… — read more
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What I Did on My Thanksgiving Vacation
I’m going to try to speak to my Buddhism class again on Wednesday. Fortuitously, my topic this time (a lojong slogan about transforming mishaps into the path of awakening) draws on the topic of my last such attempt (patience) and on an experience I had on my retreat. You can read what I’m going to… — read more
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What Time Is It?
Harold Bloom has recently published Jesus and Yahweh: The Names Divine, which I’ve purchased, but haven’t read. Jonathan Rosen’s review in Sunday’s New York Times (forgive me, I’m still catching up from my week away) suggests that it’s as fascinating as I had hoped it would be when I got it. It focuses on the… — read more
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Flip the Switch
The Chemical Brothers have put a remixed version of their most recent album, Push the Button, and an EP of remixes of one of the singles from that album, “Believe,” on the Web for anyone who wishes to download it. Their only request is that people downloading the album or EP make a donation to… — read more
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I’m Back
It was hard, though not necessarily in the ways that I expected, but I held my seat. Here are some pictures. — read more
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