Todays' Daily Om is a good one:

Letting Go Of Understanding
Deeper Meanings

All of us who seek to be conscious and aware regard our experiences as teachers, and we try to discern what lessons we are learning from the things that happen in our lives. Sometimes the lesson is very clear from the get-go, and other times we have to really search to understand the deeper meaning behind some event. While this search often yields results, there also comes a point in the search where what we really need to do is move forward. It is possible that we are not meant to know the deeper meaning of certain occurrences. Answers may come later in our lives, or they may come as a result of letting go, or they may never come.

We are all part of a complex system of being, and things work themselves out in the system as a whole. Sometimes we are just playing a necessary part in that process with a result larger than we can understand. It may have very little to do with us personally, and while that can be hard to understand, it can also free us from overthinking the matter. Sometimes it is best to see it in terms of karma, a past debt we have been able to repay in this way, or as the clearing of energy. We can simply thank the event for being part of our experience and let it go. This completes the process that the occurrence has made possible.

To make this letting go official, we can perform a ritual, make a final journal entry on the subject, or sit in meditation with the intention of releasing the event from our consciousness. As we do so, we summon it one last time, honoring it with our attention, thanking it, and saying good-bye. We then let it go out the door, out the window, out the top of our heads, or into the earth through the bottoms of our feet, liberating ourselves from any burden we have carried in association with it.

Some things I am grateful for today:

1) Halloween -- it's fun to see the kids dressed up in their little costumes. It reminds me of the fun we had when I was a kid. Halloween was always a magical holiday for me.

2) Truffle flavor Hershey Kisses -- how did I not know about these before this week?

3) Some good workouts the last couple of weeks. I've been getting stronger lately, and it feels good.

What are you grateful for today?

Bono would be one of my heroes, if I actually had any heroes at all. His talent is incredible, and his humanitarian work is unparalleled. Rolling Stone interviewed Bono for its 40th anniversary issue.

What is your most cynical vision of the future?

That's a good one. I'm genuinely excited about the future, but it's clear that there's jeopardy. I don't know if you've read Martin Amis' short-story collection Einstein's Monsters. He's writing about the post-splitting-the-atom universe. In an essay at the start, he writes about feeling sick in his stomach because he can't escape the mathematical implications of there being all these nuclear weapons around the world and the odds of them going wrong. He's putting his kids to bed, and he just can't put that thought out of his head. He wrote that in the late Eighties or early Nineties, when there were vaguely organized control systems to hold back Einstein's monsters. What are the odds now?

What's changed?

We don't know where Einstein's monsters are. Are they moving around the world? Are they coming to my city? If you talk about a demonic view of the world, that's my first thought. Unless things calm down, it is clear that if you want to take out the head of a nation, you probably can. Now that's always been true, as we found out in the Sixties, but in the future, I can imagine a situation in which heads of state no longer have a set residence. And it also might be true that you can take a city out if you really want to.

It is absolutely the monster in the room. And you feel it here in Manhattan. You must. But of course you don't talk about it. You don't think about it. But it must change the way you walk. And it must change the shape of your day in some tiny, tiny little increment. That thought is in the back of your head.

So we're in the era of asymmetrical war. The greatest army cannot protect you from hatred that gets busy and organized and has enough of an audience to protect it. There's a moment. Was that true of Caesar? Was that true of Napoleon? No. Might was always right. Strangely, we have now entered a phase where being powerful and having the biggest nuclear arsenal leaves you completely defenseless.

Now let's flip that. That could be a positive. Because if for the first time in history, military capacity doesn't protect you, what would? It would point us in the direction of prevention, rather than protection. When I'm arguing for increased aid to Africa, I always say, "Isn't it cheaper and smarter to make friends out of potential enemies than to defend yourself against them later?"

We seem to be headed in exactly the opposite direction. Maybe it was possible to think that way right after 9/11, but that opportunity was squandered.

When the French have you on the cover of their most treasured newspaper with the headline WE ARE ALL AMERICANS, something has been stirred! [Laughs]

But this administration destroyed that. I know that you have to deal with a lot of these people. . .

There was a plan there, you know. I think the president genuinely felt that if we could prove a model of democracy and broad prosperity in the Middle East, it might defuse the situation. I don't believe that, and in the capacity I had, I told them that.

Read the whole interview.

Another good Daily Om, this time on meditation and why we don't do it. A little woo-woo, as always, but useful.

Avoiding Your True Power
Afraid To Meditate

There are times when we feel the pull to meditate but are swayed from it by the excuses that spring to mind. We may think that we are too busy, have no time to ourselves, or that we do not have the right place to meditate. Our minds can think of dozens of reasons to put off meditation. But those are even stronger reasons to look past the illusion of the hustle and bustle of daily life and to connect to the place within that intersects with the timeless power and limitless potential of the universe. From that place we can experience that potent stillness that exists at all times, and it is only as far as away as our breath.

It might be useful to ask yourself why you would put off something so beneficial to your peace of mind and general well-being. There may be fear that if you were to stop your frantic pace, your world might fall apart, and then you would have to face the undeniable reality of who you really are and the results of the choices you have made. You might be afraid that you will be forced to make huge changes in order to align yourself with the universe and harness your true potential. Sometimes the frustrations of the known world seem less scary than the possibilities of the unknown. But the truth is that when we cooperate with the universe by creating our lives from the truth of our being, life becomes less of a struggle and more of a process of living blissfully on purpose.

Finding yourself alone for a few moments can give you the opportunity to turn within to infuse a sense of calm wisdom to your work. Whenever you can take the time to recenter and refocus, it will remind you how beneficial it is to connect to your source. Then you will make the time for longer sojourns of spirit, because once you are rejuvenated and enlivened by knowing that you are made of energy and light, you can channel the power to create your life in alignment with the highest potential of your soul.

Quote of the day:

"After I'm dead I'd rather have people ask why I have no monument than why I have one."
~ Cato the Elder

Image of the day:


BODY
~ Making tuna tastier -- "Tuna is one of the classic ‘bodybuilding’ foods that many resort to as an easy source of protein. Not only is it pretty much 100% pure protein but it is also quite cost effective as well, making it a good option for the heavier males out there who need to be consuming between two and three hundred grams of protein per day."
~ Weight Training's Dirty Little Secret -- "Chris wants to tell you a secret, but you gotta promise not to tell any strength coaches. And, after you read the article, bust up your CPU with a hammer and chuck it out the window so no one else can read it."
~ Excess Body Fat Causes Cancer -- "People should aim to be at the lower end of the healthy weight range, according to a landmark report published recently that links body fat and cancer more closely than ever before. The World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF) report is the most comprehensive ever published on the link between cancer and diet, physical activity and weight."
~ Tired of Orange Juice? Try Concord Grape Juice -- "Are you tired of facing down a glass of orange juice every morning? How about trying another juice that has more than twice the natural antioxidant power of orange juice?" How about ditching the juice and actually eating fruit?
~ Study Of Complementary Therapies On Patients Recovering From Heart Surgery -- "A new Mayo Clinic study shows that massage therapy decreases pain levels for patients after heart surgery. During a five-month period in 2005, 58 patients undergoing surgery participated in a pilot study to examine the effect of massage on pain after surgery. Of the 30 who received massage, the mean pain scores were less than 1 on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 as the most painful."
~ Health Tip: Protect Your Joints -- "Osteoarthritis, a disease of the joints, can be triggered by injury and overuse, by obesity, and by musculoskeletal problems. Here are ways to help protect your joints, courtesy of the Arthritis Foundation...."


PSYCHE/SELF
~ Husband and wife find joy in living apart -- "My husband and I have been married for 14 years, and we’ve never lived together. Unbeknownst to us, demographers have devised a name for our arrangement: living apart together, which refers to married couples living separately."
~ 10 Effective Ways to Increase Your Energy Levels -- "Here are 10 simple (and unique) exercises you can use to increase productivity and energy levels. If you are in search of a boost, consider implementing a few of these recommendations over the next few weeks and see how you feel."
~ The Neural Substrates of Addiction -- "The social burden of substance abuse and addiction is astounding. In the United States, the economic toll arising from the associated crime, loss of productivity, and medical consequences reaches an estimated half a trillion dollars per year."
~ Effective is Not the Same as Efficient -- "The key to effectiveness is that you’re doing things that lead to results in the realm of your responsibilities. Meanwhile the key to efficiency is getting your things done in a manner that consumes just the appropriate amount of energy and resources."
~ Mind meets body...and animal spirits run wild -- "This weekend's edition of All in the Mind looks at the interactions between the body and mind, and the challenge for scientists in nutting out just how the two 'talk' to each other. Woolly territory if you think the mind is something ethereal and not of the flesh. How do states of the mind - moods, emotions, feelings - influence bits of matter - blood and bone? Ah yes, the old Mind-Body problem strikes again..."
~ Feeling Self Conscious? Relax, No One is Staring -- "If you’re human, you’ve done something embarrassing in a public place. And if you’re like most people, you probably felt like everybody was staring at you and judging you harshly. But were they?"
~ Depression and Mindfulness: Making Contact -- "Depression is the most isolating thing. It seems as though there were an invisible sheet of glass between you and other people. This sheet of glass comes, in fact, between you and the world itself, between you and your own experience. Everything is covered in a kind of fog, everything is wrong, tasteless, dull, not as it should be, an insurmountable task, a deep pointlessness."
~ Are We Happier Facing Death? -- "A new psychological study reports an intriguing finding - that terrifying thoughts trigger unusually positive emotions."


CULTURE/POLITICS
~ “Openness” & “The Closing of the American Mind” -- "Nevertheless, conservatives were right to champion Bloom, just as left-wingers were right to regard him with fear and loathing. Not only was The Closing of the American Mind a powerful indictment of intellectual and moral corruption in the academy, it was also, if incidentally, an indictment that might make the public sit up and take notice. Jobs, tenure, academic institutes, and college curricula might finally be subject to open scrutiny."
~ When Poetry Meets Politics -- "Time and Materials, Robert Hass' fifth collection of poems, is a book about hitting the cold water of late middle age, but the story it tells is not so much of decline as of reinvention. Hass is in the front lines of a baby-boom generation coming to terms with its past."
~ Most OK with birth control at school, poll finds -- "People decisively favor letting their public schools provide birth control to students, but they also voice misgivings that divide them along generational, income and racial lines, a poll showed."
~ Chris Dodd: The Questions I Wish We Were Asked -- "For me, it starts with our Constitution. In November of 2006, the American people overwhelmingly elected Democrats with a mandate to change course. Much attention was focused on Iraq, but make no mistake - Americans were also signaling that they wanted Congress to rein in the abuses to the Constitution under the Bush administration and the Republican Congress. Over the last few weeks, we've seen issues pertaining to the rule of law come up time and again."
~ Anti-Gay Church Must Pay $11 Million -- "Members of a fundamentalist Kansas church who picket military funerals to protest homosexuality were ordered to pay nearly $11 million in damages to a grieving family." The only way to stop these idiots is to take away their resources.
~ Examining the Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act -- "The Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act passed the House of Representatives on Oct. 23 by a vote of 404-6. The wide margin is indicative of a growing concern among U.S. authorities about the potential for so-called "homegrown terrorism" in the United States."
~ Bush: Questions to Mukasey on torture "unfair" -- "U.S. President George W. Bush defended on Thursday his attorney general nominee Michael Mukasey, who has come under fire from Senate Democrats for refusing to say whether an interrogation technique that simulates drowning is illegal torture."
~ Candidates Pander to Geeks in the Webbiest Campaign Ever -- "Wired checks out the six leading candidates' online efforts. While there's a lot to like, we see plenty to suggest that this geek thing is still pretty new."


HABITATS/TECHNOLOGY
~ Hubble Sees Graceful Dance Of Two Interacting Galaxies -- "Two galaxies perform an intricate dance in this new Hubble Space Telescope image. The galaxies, containing a vast number of stars, swing past each other in a graceful performance choreographed by gravity."
~ White Dwarf 'Sibling Rivalry' Explodes into Supernova -- "Astronomers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) have found that a supernova discovered last year was caused by two colliding white dwarf stars. The white dwarfs were siblings orbiting each other. They slowly spiraled inward until they merged, touching off a titanic explosion. CfA observations show the strongest evidence yet of what was, until now, a purely theoretical mechanism for creating a supernova."
~ Groups Seek Stop to Comcast Net Meddling -- "A coalition of consumer groups and legal scholars on Thursday formally asked the Federal Communications Commission to stop Comcast Corp. from interfering with file sharing by its Internet subscribers."
~ Scientists rotate electron spin with electric field -- "Researchers at the Delft University of Technology`s Kavli Institute of Nanoscience and the Foundation for Fundamental Research on Matter (FOM) have succeeded in controlling the spin of a single electron merely by using electric fields. This clears the way for a much simpler realization of the building blocks of a (future) super-fast quantum computer."
~ Flying lemurs are the closest relatives of primates -- "While the human species is unquestionably a member of the Primate group, the identity of the next closest group to primates within the entire class of living mammals has been hotly debated. Now, new molecular and genomic data gathered by a team including Webb Miller, a professor of biology and computer science and engineering at the Penn State University, has shown that the colugos -- nicknamed the flying lemurs -- is the closest group to the primates."
~ Supermassive Black Holes Produce Powerful Galaxy-shaping Winds -- "Supermassive black holes can produce powerful winds that shape a galaxy and determine their own growth, confirms a group of scientists. The scientists for the first time, observed the vertical launch of rotating winds from glowing disks of gas, known as accretion disks, surrounding supermassive black holes in the centers of galaxies."


INTEGRAL/BUDDHIST
~ Rounding Up the Buddhas - Nov. 1, 2007 -- Renegade Buddha is back with a Buddhist blog roundup.
~ Enightenment Ain't Cheap: How Do We Support Our Partners' Transformation? -- "I have a T-Shirt on the i-Boutique that says "Enlightenment ain't cheap." It's a dual meaning: Yes, we pay a lot of money to attend workshops, etc., but we also pay with our relationships, our jobs, and our blood, sweat, and tears."
~ The Feminine Divine -- "One of the things that came up at this ISC event that I really feel aligned with is the sense that what is really needed right now is a full integration of the feminine. The divine feminine, of course, but also in a practical sense, socially, politically, and personally. Not just more feminine leadership and guidance, but a more full unfolding of the feminine in men as well."
~ Evolutionary Linguistics: A New Look at an Old Landscape -- "This paper by anthropologist Marc D. Hauser, David Barner & Tim O’Donnell explores the evolution of language, focusing on insights derived from observations and experiments in animals, guided by current theoretical problems that were inspired by the generative theory of grammar, and carried forward in substantial ways to the present by psycholinguistics working on child language acquisition."
~ Integral Life is Looking for Music Submissions..... -- "We are looking for some instrumentals to accompany our audio files on the new Integral Life portal, and are accepting submissions from the community. We are looking for positive, upbeat, professional-sounding tracks from pretty much any genre imaginable (although it's somewhat dificult to imagine a positive, upbeat Avant Garde Norwegian Black Ambient Metal track, but who knows....)"
~ Investigating participatory epistemologies: towards inclusional research -- "Alan Rayner, along with an impressive crew of participants, has launched a website devoted to an in-depth investigation of participatory forms of knowing, which he calls inclusionality, and is opposted to the isolationist effect of pure objectivist views, which sees objects as separate from their invisible environments...."
~ Kalmans Kosmos: The U Process -- "This is an article posted by Matthew Kalmann in new Integral Leadership Review. I have introduced Matthew Kalmans newly launched website yesterday, so here are reflections about the latest book written by Otto Scharmer. I have written seveal times about work of Otto Scharmer and I am endorsing his work. When I spoke personally with him in March 2004 it was very clear that he did not have an elaborated and in depth understanding of AQAL."
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Sadly, this is my kind of humor.

From The Onion:

Third-Person Limited Omniscient Narrator Blown Away By Surprise Ending

November 2, 2007 | Issue 43•44

PROVIDENCE, RI—The third-person limited omniscient voice, a narrative mode used to convey a story through the thoughts and senses of a literary character, was reportedly "caught totally off guard" after the main character was unexpectedly killed in the last chapter of the new novel Bertram's Way.

"Holy shit, I did not see that coming. Did you see that coming?" the disembodied literary device said on page 367 following the last paragraph of the novel. "Man, right in the head!"

The popular narrative method said it would try to pay closer attention when utilized in the book's planned sequel, Bertram's Revenge.

Today's Daily Dharma from Tricycle:

Grasping Buddhism

 

In a famous parable, the Buddha imagines a group of blind men who are invited to identify an elephant. One takes the tail and says it's a rope; another clasps a leg and says it's a pillar; another feels the side and says it's a wall; another holds the trunk, and says it's a tube. Depending on which part of Buddhism you grasp, you might identify it as a system of ethics, a philosophy, a contemplative psychotherapy, a religion. While containing all of these, it can no more be reduced to any one of them than an elephant can be reduced to its tail.

- Stephen Batchelor, Buddhism Without Beliefs; from Everyday Mind, edited by Jean Smith, a Tricycle book

Quote of the day:

"There are lots of ways of being miserable, but there's only one way of being comfortable, and that is to stop running round after happiness. If you make up your mind not to be happy there's no reason why you shouldn't have a fairly good time."
~ Edith Wharton

Image of the day:


BODY
~ Training Like an O-Lifter, Without The O-Lifts -- "It's recently dawned on me that if you follow my training recommendations, you'll be essentially training like an Olympic weightlifter, although you may not actually be doing the O-lifts themselves."
~ Fix Anything with Yoga -- "Whether you can't touch your toes or have lost a step turning the corner, yoga can pump up your sports performance and fend off injuries from shin splints to back pain. Watch Ford model Tara Stiles' yoga-jock workout video and see if you're man enough."
~ Christams Gift Ideas To Fight Obesity -- "For a healthy kick-start to 2008 choose Christmas gifts that promote healthy habits and fight obesity, says Australia's leading nutrition organisation, the Dietitians Association of Australia (DAA)."
~ Exercise improves balance in older adults -- "Growing older is a cause of concern for many individuals in our age-obsessed society. However, with medical and cosmetic advances making fast progress, aging isn’t nearly as scary as it used to be."
~ Healthy Diet Unaffordable for the Poor -- "The cost of fruits, vegetables may put healthy eating out of reach for the poor."
~ Weight loss during menopause linked to bone loss -- "Weight loss during menopause appears to be associated with increased rates of bone loss at the hip, the findings of a long-term study suggest."
~ Diet and Exercise May Help Prevent Ovulation-Linked Infertility -- "Following a so-called fertility diet and exercising may promote fecundity in otherwise healthy women with an ovulatory disorder, researchers here reported."


PSYCHE/SELF
~ Let Your Unconscious Mind Go To Work for You - Part II© -- "This month on Positive Psychology News Daily, I want to return to the power of the unconscious mind. Today’s article is a follow-up to the one I wrote earlier this year."
~ PTSD, Depression Sufferers Find Success with Web Based Treatment -- "An investigation undertaken by the Veterans Administration Boston Healthcare System and Boston University, and funded in large part by the NIMH, has found that an online self-treatment program was successful at treating post-traumatic stress disorder and depression in survivors of the 9/11 attacks and the war in Iraq."
~ 7 Ways to Help Your Child be a Homebody -- "After a 10 hour road trip this past weekend, my family and I spent the balance of the weekend puttering around the house and enjoying some of the simple things in life. We have come to accept that we are content spending time at home just being a family. Here are seven simple tips for helping you and your children enjoy time at home."
~ Evolution, cooperation and kinds of altruism -- "In a first approximation, a cooperative behavior i) benefits the recipient and ii) is beneficent or costly to the actor. Thus cooperation has two components: altruism (costly,) and mutual benefits (beneficent)."
~ Empathy And Understanding Should Be Employed When Patient Nondisclosure Requested -- "When family members ask physicians not to disclose bad news to ill loved ones, clinicians often struggle to balance their obligation to be truthful to the patient with the family's belief that the information would be harmful."
~ How Do I Know What I Feel? -- "Many people’s goal, in counselling and out, is to be ’sure of themselves’, which they conceive of as knowing exactly what they think and feel all the time. I would say that this is unlikely to work."
~ The Subliminal Thinker By Michael Mcgrath -- "Throughout your day you think an average of 50,000 thoughts. In what direction are yours going? Have you become a habituated negative thinker?"
~ Mind Tools: Egos at Work -- "Managing a Co-worker's Superiority Complex - All Readers - Do you work with people who have big egos? Learn how to manage egotists' behavior without sinking to their level."


CULTURE/POLITICS
~ Potter Author Begins Post-Harry Career With Fairy Tales -- "J.K. Rowling's first book after her wildly popular Harry Potter series is a hand-crafted collection of fairy stories called The Tales of Beedle the Bard."
~ The Feminine Critique -- "Writing about life and work means receiving a steady stream of research on how women in the workplace are viewed differently from men. These are academic and professional studies, not whimsical online polls, and each time I read one I feel deflated. What are women supposed to do with this information? Transform overnight? And if so, into what? How are we supposed to be assertive, but not, at the same time?"
~ Stephen Balkam: Towards a New Culture of Responsibility -- "The Internet has changed everything -- including the Internet itself. This vast, global, organically growing online medium has seeped into every facet of our lives and upended how we work, learn and play. And it is changing the way our children experience the world -- for good and ill."
~ Ben Fractenberg: Generation What? -- "A lot has been said recently about my generation: we are cynical apathetic, privileged, irrationally optimistic, ironically detached, isolated, connected in new ways through the Internet. We like to volunteer but not to protest, we like to protest but not to do grassroots organizing, and on and on. How can there be this much contradictory talk about today's youth?"
~ Tailgate Nation -- "The party before kickoff is often just as big as the game itself. Photographer David Burnett travels America in search of the best collegiate revels."
~ Election Scorecard: Romney on the cusp of leading all three early-primary states -- "A new Winthrop/ETV poll in South Carolina shows Mitt Romney tied for second with Rudy Giuliani in the state, only one point behind Fred Thompson for first. Romney's numbers have been trending upward recently, corresponding with increased advertising in the state. In case the GOP candidates need more motivation, the poll says nearly 30 percent of Republicans are still undecided."
~ The evangelical crackup is a myth -- "As a politically interested evangelical, I'm constantly surprised to find that newspapers know more about my political feelings than I do. I haven't even picked my presidential candidate yet, but, it turns out, I'm supposed to be frustrated and dissatisfied with my options—and my peers."
~ Study Challenges Bush Counterterrorism Strategy -- "The Bush administration's 2006 National Strategy for Combating Terrorism may rely too heavily on the benefits of democratization while ignoring some of the key factors driving terrorist violence, according to a new report from the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service."


HABITATS/TECHNOLOGY
~ Best Inventions of the Year -- "The iPhone (surprise!) heads TIME's list, but there's more, from a building made of water to a remote-controlled dragonfly."
~ Burrowing Mammals Dig For A Living, But How Do They Do That? -- "Next time you see a mole digging in tree-root-filled soil in search of supper, take a moment to ponder the mammal's humerus bones. When seen in the lab, they are nothing like the long upper arm bones of any other mammal, according to a paleontologist."
~ Microbes Plus Sugars Equals Hydrogen Fuel? -- "Wanted: Bacterium that can eat sugar or sludge; must be team player or electrochemically active; ability to survive without oxygen, a plus. Thus might read the bacterial "job description" posted by scientists, who are collaborating on ways to make microbial fuel cells more efficient and practical."
~ Divers find new species in Aleutians -- "There are unknown creatures lurking under the windswept islands of the Aleutians, according to a team of scientific divers from the University of Alaska Fairbanks."
~ Bursting dark energy's bubble -- "Theorist suggests mysterious force could be an 'artefact' of a void in space."
~ Shrinking glaciers threaten China -- "China's glaciers in western Xinjiang Uygur region are shrinking alarmingly due to global and regional warming, posing a threat to the oases in the area."
~ The Happiness Gap and the Future -- "David Brooks wrote a column Tuesday on The Happiness Gap that ought to be required reading for every bright green advocate on the planet, for here, now that we have come to the end of the beginning, is what the opposition sounds like. Brooks (who in 2002, you may remember, wrote an appalling pean to "Patio Man" in which he said that suburban sprawl was the highest manifestation of the American ideal, and a wholly good idea), makes the argument that American voters (by whom Brooks invariably means upper-middle class suburban voters) suffer from a "happiness gap," between their private success and their public gloom and fear for the future of the country and planet...."


INTEGRAL/BUDDHIST
~ New Blog -- Integral Strategies -- "The Integral Strategies website is written, designed and produced by me, Matthew Kalman, a founder member of the Integral Institute. It was launched on October 25th 2007. In 2000 I also founded the London Integral Circle (then called ‘Politics and Spirit’) – an integral/Ken Wilber-orientated salon/group – which is also featured on this site."
~ If You Meet Wilber on the Road, Kill Him -- "In the current essay I'd like to highlight three areas of criticism that seem relevant to me:

• Evolutionary theory,
• postmodernism and
• meditation research.

They are very Wilberologically correct taken from the broad spheres of It(s), We and I."
~ Deepak Chopra: A CAT-Scan of the Global Brain (Part 2) -- "When it first came into usage, "the global brain" seemed like only a metaphor. But the more we learn about how the human brain functions, the more convincing the parallels are in real life. In many ways each of us is participating in a brain without borders, one that encompasses humankind. I'd like to focus on several striking similarities between individual and collective intelligence."
~ Suicide Dictionary, a new book by Paul Lonely -- "Suicide Dictionary, a new book by author Paul Lonely, offers an intellectually moving and poetic expression of spirituality in our time. We now live in an age where to be Integral is to be on the leading edge of human consciousness."
~ Neuroscience and The Enlightenment Machine -- "In this episode we spoke with neuroscientist and Buddhist meditator Daniel Rizzuto. Vince and he discussed a number of topics including the link between contemplative and scientific methodologies, some of the potential technologies that could emerge for the neuroscientific research, including Daniel's favorite, an empathic training device."
~ FlailingFruit: Falling Fruit, the new podcast website, launches into a sea of green -- "Two-thirds of the Buddhist Geeks have teamed with eight others to form the webspace Falling Fruit, which is the new home for the "Buddhist Geeks" podcast series and a second, new podcast show -- as they‘re calling it -- "Conscious Business."
~ Postformal dialectics -- "The following is copied-and-pasted from the Integral Review forum on this topic. I pasted the first few posts here and the rest of the posts to date in the comments section."
~ I GET LETTERS -- Brad Warner -- "You guys can say whatever you want. All I know is that the comments section under my Suicide Girls articles is always pleasurable and informative. The comments section here is like a visit to the nut house."
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I just watched Hero for the first time since it came out on DVD. When I first saw this film, I was caught up in the sword play and special effects and didn't really notice the integral overtones. Jet Li is excellent as Nameless, the assassin, so it was easy to be distracted.

Here is a plot summary from IMDB:

In feudal China, the King of Qin is waging a bloody campaign to conquer the entire land. He has been made a target of three dangerous assassins: spear-wielding Sky, and the lovers Broken Sword and Flying Snow. One day word comes that he has nothing left to fear; a prefect known only as Nameless has killed all three assassins. Nameless is called to the palace and asked to recount the tale of how he accomplished this amazing feat. After he tells his story, however, the King notices some flaws in it...

The story, at its heart, looks at the efforts of a king to unite his land and put an end to war and violence. His motives are good, even if he is brutal in executing them.


The king is working from an Amber, authoritarian, ethnocentric worldview. He wants to put an end to the feudal, fragmented nature of the China of about 2,000 years ago. The moral code he is working from is foreign to most of his subjects, but some people get it -- the ones we'd least expect as viewers of the film.

I highly recommend this film to anyone who has not already seen it. It's a good interpretation of the rise of the Amber meme in China and how it subdued the Red meme that was prevalent at the time.
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It was widely reported in the independent press and blogs (see here and here) that the Bush administration used terror alerts during the 2004 presidential campaign to create an atmosphere of fear that would make Americans less likely to elect John Kerry to replace George Bush. The tactic worked exactly as they planned, and the corporate media never really picked up the story (although Time eventually did a story about it -- in 2006).

Now comes more evidence of their tactics in the form of memos issued by former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. As reported in the Washington Post:

In a series of internal musings and memos to his staff, then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld argued that Muslims avoid "physical labor" and wrote of the need to "keep elevating the threat," "link Iraq to Iran" and develop "bumper sticker statements" to rally public support for an increasingly unpopular war.

The memos, often referred to as "snowflakes," shed light on Rumsfeld's brusque management style and on his efforts to address key challenges during his tenure as Pentagon chief. Spanning from 2002 to shortly after his resignation following the 2006 congressional elections, a sampling of his trademark missives obtained yesterday reveals a defense secretary disdainful of media criticism and driven to reshape public opinion of the Iraq war.

* * * *

Under siege in April 2006, when a series of retired generals denounced him and called for his resignation in newspaper op-ed pieces, Rumsfeld produced a memo after a conference call with military analysts. "Talk about Somalia, the Philippines, etc. Make the American people realize they are surrounded in the world by violent extremists," he wrote.

A major part of the Bush administration's post-9/11 strategy has been to keep Americans convinced that they are unsafe in a world filled terrorist threats. Like all false-truths, there is an element of truth in their claims, but there has been no evidence that we are only just barely keeping the barbarians at bay, which is what they would have us think.

The downside for all of us in this strategy is that the administration has used this manufactured climate of fear to systematically eliminate our Constitutional rights, one by one, many of them in signing statements.

From Gary Hart and Joyce Appleby, writing at George Mason University's History News Network:

George W. Bush and his most trusted advisers, Richard B. Cheney and Donald H. Rumsfeld, entered office determined to restore the authority of the presidency. Five years and many decisions later, they've pushed the expansion of presidential power so far that we now confront a constitutional crisis.

Relying on legal opinions from Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and Professor John Yoo, then working at the Justice Department, Bush has insisted that there can be no limits to the power of the commander-in-chief in time of war. More recently the president has claimed that laws relating to domestic spying and the torture of detainees do not apply to him. His interpretation has produced a devilish conundrum.

President Bush has given Commander-in-Chief Bush unlimited wartime authority. But the "war on terror" is more a metaphor than a fact. Terrorism is a method, not an ideology; terrorists are criminals, not warriors. No peace treaty can possibly bring an end to the fight against far-flung terrorists. The emergency powers of the president during this "war" can now extend indefinitely, at the pleasure of the president and at great threat to the liberties and rights guaranteed us under the Constitution.

Or this book review from Truthout:

In a new book, "Less Safe, Less Free: Why America Is Losing the War on Terror," law professors David Cole and Jules Lobel argue that the problem lies in the aggressive "preventive paradigm" the Bush administration adopted in the wake of 9/11.

The authors note that the administration "is fond of reminding us that no terrorist attacks have occurred on domestic soil since 9/11," but they ask, "Has the administration's 'war on terror' actually made us safer?"

Their answer: "While the 'preventive paradigm' can point to few gains in our security, it has come at great cost to our ideals. In the name of preemptive security, the administration has undertaken torture, indefinite detention without trial, extraordinary renditions, disappearances into CIA 'black sites,' warrantless wiretapping of American citizens, and an illegal and disastrous war in Iraq."

These measures, they add, "constitute the core of the 'preventive paradigm,' and have compromised the most basic commitments of the rule of law. And by doing so they have actually impeded our efforts to bring known terrorists to trial, limited our long-term options for security, sparked anti-American resentment and terrorist recruitment, and undermined relations even with our closest allies."

The politics of fear have served the Republicans well over the last seven years. Among the current crop of contenders for the GOP nomination, Rudy Giuliani -- more than anyone else -- is relying on the same tactic. He has positioned himself as the 9/11 candidate, making nearly constant references to his "leadership" following the 9/11 attacks. No matter that his mistakes made the rescue effort less effective.

Even Hillary Clinton is making use of this tactic. She refuses to recant her support of the Iraq War and has talked tough in regard to dealing with Iran. She is positioning herself as the only Democrat who has the toughness to deal with the falsely-termed "war on terror." As a woman, she may feel she has to do this, but I think it is more a case of doing what works.

I have a sense that people respond more to fear than to hope. Maybe there are some evolutionary psychologists somewhere who can she light on this topic, but my fear is that politicians have learned this lesson so well that we will be faced with fear-mongering for the near future as the primary election tactic.

Rove, Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld refined the approach in ways it had never been used before (which is not to say it is a new approach, only that they have made it an art). It makes me sad to think that we elect leaders based on fear rather than on hope for a better future.

What a different country this might be if we had leaders who appealed to our better angels.
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I had been feeling pretty disconnected the past few days, but having coffee with my friend Susan this morning really helped me get grounded again. It's amazing how important it is to know another person understands what we are going through when we are doing deep work on ourselves.

Some other things I am grateful for today:

1) The Oregon Ducks beat Arizona State yesterday to take control of the Pac-10 race. And with a loss by Boston College to Florida State, the Ducks are one step closer to playing for the national championship. We just need LSU or Ohio State to lose one (my pick is Michigan to beat Ohio State this year). I can see an LSU vs. Oregon BCS Bowl game.

2) After coffee this morning, I went to my favorite used bookstore and found DVDs of Hero and The Fountain. I also found a great book on psychotherapy and shamanic journeying.

3) I got some work done today on a ghost-writing project I am doing.

4) The New England Patriots beat the Colts today in a battle of unbeatens. It was an excellent game.

What are you grateful for today?

Jason, one of my Zaadz friends, has created MindBodyGreen, a social networking site for people interested in personal growth and Green living.

Your source for the newest and most popular news on better, healthier, greener living.

You can submit links to your own or anyone else's stories, add comments, and vote by clicking on the arrows, determining which submissions make the front page for everyone to see. Join today to get started!

It's like Digg for the Lohas crowd. Check it out. A lot of the of the sites I link to in my speedlinks (especially in psyche/self) are showing up on the main page.

Reuters talks to Trent Reznor and Saul Williams about their decision to circumvent the music companies and sell their new album online -- for no more than $5 each.

Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor has spent the past few years using new methods to disseminate his music to fans. Past experiments have included hidden messages on T-shirts, "forgotten" USB drives in bathrooms containing copies of his last record, "Year Zero," and cryptic Web sites, all culminating in a prerelease free stream on the band's MySpace page.

Having just fulfilled his contract with longtime label Interscope, Reznor is upping the digital ante in tandem with activist/musician Saul Williams. Williams' Reznor-produced concept album, "The Rise and Fall of Niggy Tardust," which went live October 31 via the Fader label, can be obtained in three download formats: 192 kbit/s MP3, 320 kbit/s MP3 and free Lossless audio codec (FLAC).

The lower-quality MP3 is free, while the high-quality MP3 and FLAC cost $5. In a twist on the "name your own price" scheme that Radiohead employed for its recent album, "In Rainbows," fans will not be allowed to pay more than $5 for "Niggy Tardust."

Billboard spoke to Reznor and Williams about the implications of their sales model, what this might mean for future Nine Inch Nails releases and why people should be willing to pay the same amount for music as they do for a good cup of coffee.

Q: How did you decide to collaborate? What sort of time line was involved?

Trent Reznor: "A couple of years ago, I came across a video from Saul's last record, and it was like a breath of fresh air. At the time, I was looking for tour support and hand-picked him to join us on the road. We became friends and decided to try recording a couple of tracks. It turned out to be an incredibly engrossing back-and-forth experience; I think there was a lot of mutual respect, and Saul really gave me a lot of confidence."

Saul Williams: "The record started on the road, in hotels. We ended up doing three drafts. We did 14 tracks, and I sat with those for a few months. We came back, revisited them, did some more work and took another four months off, and then we got around to the final mixing."

Read the rest.

Here is a track from the new album, which I quite like.

Saul Williams - Banged And Blown Through

Today's Daily Dharma from Tricycle:

Better or Worse

 

Ordinarily, we spend all our time comparing and discriminating between this and that, always looking around for something good to happen to us. And because of that we become restless and anxious about everything. As long as we are able to imagine something better than what we have or who we are, it follows naturally that there could also be something worse. We are constantly pursued by misgivings that something bad will happen. In other words, as long as we live by distinguishing between the better way and the worse way, we can never find absolute peace such that whatever happens is all right.

When we let go of our thoughts that distinguish better from worse and instead see everything in terms of the Universal Self, we are able to settle upon a different attitude toward life--the attitude of magnanimous mind that whatever happens, we are living out Self which is only Self. Here a truly peaceful life unfolds.

~ Kosho Uchiyama, Opening the Hand of Thought; from Everyday Mind, edited by Jean Smith, a Tricycle book.

 

The integral world is in transition. For a long time, to many of us, Ken Wilber was the only game in town. In recent years, however, there has been a concerted effort among some of those interested in integral theory to create an integral theory that is not simply Wilberian theory.

Among those working the integral territory is Robert Masters. In his November newsletter, he asks and answers the question, What Is Integral?

He manages to talk about integral without ever mentioning Ken Wilber.

WHAT IS “INTEGRAL”?

“Integral” is fast becoming a very loosely applied term, supplying a bit of contemporary heft to otherwise pedestrian nouns, while it slides ever further into that once-was-fashionable territory that has swallowed up such terms as “holistic.” This does not mean that we ought to dump “integral” or start dumbing it down or hoist it up onto a postpostmodern soapbox, but rather that we define it as clearly as possible, both directly and through comparison with related terms.

“Integral” to me basically means inclusive in a radically comprehensive manner. I say “radically” for a number of reasons: (1) What’s being brought together constitutes not just parts of a totality, but also as much as possible of that totality’s presence, in as many directions and depths as possible; (2) such a bringing-together is far more than just a get-together or reunion or conference of partially connected items or qualities; and (3) the circle of extension that reaches from within out beyond every part illuminates and deepens the connections between all the pieces or qualities being brought together, literally integrating them without any requisite homogenization or dilution of individual differences. (Implicit to this is the fully embodied realization that everything exists through relationship, along with the invitation to become intimate with it all.)

“Holistic” (and “wholistic”) was the pseudo-hippyish ancestor of “integral” (even though Aurobindo was using “integral” long before the 1960s), as full of New Age, anemically grounded optimism as it was lacking in genuine practicality. “Holistic” meant well, but didn’t rise for long from the kind of sloppy/fluffy thinking and metaphysical quicksand that made it an easy target for probing minds that didn’t give a damn about spiritualized cognition and its sidekick clichés. “Integral” is a more sober term than “holistic,” more imbued with a sense of true inclusiveness, but nevertheless is in growing danger of shipwrecking itself on overly intellectual reefs, especially as it busies itself theorizing about its theorizing. Where “holistic” had an anti-intellectual quality to it, “integral” can tend to lean too far the other way. In both cases, however, there is a lack of real embodiment.

“Integral” is an increasingly popular adjective. Placing it before words like “parenting” or “cooking” or “dog-grooming” tends to give them a touch more respectability. It’s easy to stick “integral” in places where it may not belong. So use it sparingly. Don’t trivialize it. Be discerning in your use of it.

An integral approach is not just sophisticated eclecticism or a neatly mapped mixture of applied methodologies. We may be meditating, working out, doing a bit of shadow-work, and keeping up with the latest in integral theory, but this does not necessarily mean that we are actually being integral. We can only say that we’re being integral if our various practices and ways of being are functioning together (and not just in our eyes!) as a consistently embodied, more-than-adequately functioning whole, through which we are, however gradually, cultivating intimacy with all that we are. We may not have fully arrived yet, but are on our way, and have the momentum to back this up, along with an integrity that runs more and more deeply through all that we do.

Being truly integral means, among other things, developing intimacy with everything that constitutes us. A genuinely integral consciousness lives such intimacy both conceptually and nonconceptually.

An integral approach works with our physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, and social dimensions, level upon level, consistently taking all of it into more-than-just-intellectual account, without losing touch with the totality that includes and pervades it all.

Overly intellectual approaches to being integral pay insufficient attention to emotions, in part perhaps because emotions are just too messy and too nonlinearly inclusive of the rest of our dimensions to be able to be neatly mapped. Emotions implicate us as a totality. They obviously involve the physical/physiological and the cognitive, but also include the social, and sometimes also the spiritual. (Very briefly, affect is the intrinsic, biological dimension of emotion; feeling is our conscious experience of affect; and emotion is the framing and dramatization of feeling. Where affect is reaction, and feeling the recognition of affect, emotion is adaptation.) Emotion involves feeling, cognition, social factors, related action tendencies, and perspectival capacity, all of which interact and work together. Any integral approach that only superficially deals with emotions is only superficially integral.

An integral approach is not going to be much of a reality for us if we ourselves are not already living, to a significant degree, in an integral fashion. Part of what is needed is a clear recognition of where we are not integral, not in healthy relationship to some aspect of ourselves, not in integrity. Facing our fragmentation rather than trying to rise above it or only superficially deal with it is a step toward integrity. “Integral” is a bit like “love,” in that both terms are actually quite profound in their meaning, but are often used too readily or superficially. The intention to be integral is not in itself integral.

May we do whatever is needed to make “integral” a fitting term for how we are actually living. May we align ourselves with what-really-matters in every area of our life, so that “integral” becomes not something we believe in, but rather something that we cannot help but live.

Any thoughts?

Quote of the day:

"Give a man a fish, and you'll feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he'll buy a funny hat. Talk to a hungry man about fish, and you're a consultant."
~ Scott Adams

Image of the day:


BODY
~ Nutrition for Newbies, Part 1 -- "The fantastic series on bodybuilding for newbies (and crusty vets who could use a reminder) continues with Christian's take on nutrition. Just about everything you need to know is here. Just add salt (but not too much)."
~ Exercise More Important than Weight Loss for Diabetes Prevention -- "Exercise is even more important than weight loss for prevention or control of diabetes, according to a report from the Australian National University in Canberra. Dr. Richard Telford concludes that obesity is associated with, but does not cause, diabetes, heart disease and premature death."
~ Starting Strength 2nd Edition Book Review -- "In 2004 Mark Rippetoe & Lon Kilgore wrote Starting Strength. It was the first book that not only taught you how to do an exercise correctly, but also why you’re doing it wrong & how to fix it. Starting strength became a reference. Three years later Mark Rippetoe & Lon Kilgore release Starting Strength 2nd Edition. I pre-ordered the book in August 2007 & received it last week. Here’s a review of Starting Strength 2nd edition."
~ Increased Injury Risk When Energy Drinks Mixed With Alcohol -- "College students who drink alcohol mixed with so-called "energy" drinks are at dramatically higher risk for injury and other alcohol-related consequences, compared to students who drink alcohol without energy drinks, according to new research from Wake Forest University School of Medicine."
~ Yoga found to boost health in heart failure patients -- "An eight-week regimen of yoga proved safe for patients with chronic heart failure and helped reduce signs of inflammation often linked with death, according to a study released on Monday."
~ NSAIDs Protect Against Parkinson's Disease (HealthDay) -- "Taking over-the-counter pain medicines called non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) may reduce the risk of Parkinson's disease, according to a study by researchers at the UCLA School of Public Health in Los Angeles."
~ Antioxidants Could Protect Against Nuclear Radiation -- "Scientists say that antioxidants found in whole grains and high-fiber foods can protect against radiation from sunlight and even nuclear bombs."


PSYCHE/SELF
~ Soul Pseudoexplanations -- "Out of this divorce between mechanism and experience came mind-body dualism and the conceptualization of a motivating 'soul' beneath physiological mechanisms. Dualism is the 'common sense' idea that some kind of supernatural mechanism is intimately connect to and drives the physical. Dualism is a soul-of-the-perceptual-gap pseudoexplanation."
~ Why Groups and Prejudices Form So Easily: Social Identity Theory -- "People's behaviour in groups is fascinating and frequently disturbing. As soon as humans are bunched together in groups we start to do odd things: copy other members of our group, favour members of own group over others, look for a leader to worship and fight other groups. Just glance at Sherif's Robbers Cave experiment for proof of how easy it is to provoke war between groups."
~ Is the developing world better for schizophrenia? -- "One of the most commonly repeated facts about schizophrenia is that people diagnosed with the condition tend to do better in developing countries, rather than in rich Western countries. A new study has reviewed outcome studies from low and middle-income countries across the world and found the picture just isn't that clear."
~ Dream Symbols 21: Animals (2) Fleeing From a Pre-Historic Creature -- "As previously said, animals may have to do with our not-yet explored instinctual (and often sexual) nature. If an animal is furthermore pre-historic, we may have a deeply primordial, chthonic (embedded in the depths) aspect of our psyche on hand. How this plays out, depends, of course, not only on the dream, but also on the dreamer and his or her life and understanding of the self to that point."
~ Love After Loss -- "When a boyfriend suffers grief and loss."
~ Coping with Grief -- "Grieving is not the same for everyone."
~ The Key to Archetypes -- "Carol Pearson & Hugh Marr's guidebook interprets the results of the Pearson-Marr Archetype Indicator test. It brings Jung's archetypes & psychological types to life!"


CULTURE/POLITICS
~ Twenty years ago today -- " So the “Music” chapter is the most difficult one for young fans of The Closing Of The American Mind—because it’s the point at which you realize just how much Allan Bloom means it. And by “young fans,” I mean anyone under the age of Mick Jagger, who features heavily in that section." This is an excellent article -- see Matthew Dallman for a critique.
~ Suffering, Evil and the Existence of God -- "Now two new books (to be published in the coming months) renew the debate. Their authors come from opposite directions – one from theism to agnosticism, the other from atheism to theism – but they meet, or rather cross paths, on the subject of suffering and evil."
~ Permanent Adolescents Go Public -- "P.J. O'Rourke in the Weekly Standard writes only half in jest of the coming drain on Social Security: "How can present Social Security allotments be expected to fund our sky-diving, bungee-jumping, hang gliding and white-water rafting, our skiing, golf and scuba excursions, our photo safaris to Africa, bike tours of Tuscany and sojourns at Indian ashrams, our tennis clinics, spa treatments, gym memberships and personal fitness training, our luxury cruises to the Galapagos and Antarctica, the vacation homes in Hilton Head and Vail, the lap pools, Jacuzzis, and clay courts being built thereat and the his and hers Harley-Davidsons?" The political implications are immense."
~ Literature and History: A Response -- "A recent post at Pinky's Paperhaus entitled "The backwards academic," muses critically on the backward-looking focus of the GRE subject exam in English literature, required for applicants to English department Ph.D. programs, and, in Pinky's case, Ph.D. programs in Creative Writing." This post is essentially a defense of the depth and history focus of the GRE test -- and I agree.
~ Thompson Adviser Quits Campaign -- "An adviser to Republican Fred Thompson quit the presidential candidate's campaign Monday, one day after a report about his decades-old criminal record for drug dealing."
~ Wavering Republicans -- "Party faithful are upset with Bush, but a Clinton nomination may bring them together."
~ Can Musharraf Keep His Grip on Pakistan? -- "The declaration of emergency fuels an angry backlash—and anxieties in Washington."
~ Iraq: Nearly 2.3 Million Displaced -- "Nearly 2.3 million Iraqis - the vast majority of them women and children - have fled their homes but remain inside the country's borders and are in urgent need of basic care, according to a report issued Monday by the Iraqi Red Crescent."


HABITATS/TECHNOLOGY
~ Goodbye Selfish-Gene: A New Upheaval in the Science of Human Behavior -- "Well, it seems that the father of sociobiology, E.O. Wilson has changed his mind: in the current issue of New Scientist (November 3, 2007), evolutionary biologists David Sloan Wilson and Edward O. Wilson effectively end the hegemony of the selfish gene idea: they review the field and declare in a voice loud and clear that group selection was mistakenly cast aside during previous decades, that the evidence for group selection is too strong to be ignored, and that the current ideas about how evolution works need to be revised."
~ Mars Express Probes The Red Planet's Most Unusual Deposits -- "The radar system on ESA's Mars Express has uncovered new details about some of the most mysterious deposits on Mars: The Medusae Fossae Formation. It has given the first direct measurement of the depth and electrical properties of these materials, providing new clues about their origin."
~ Cirrus Disappearance: Warming Might Thin Heat-trapping Clouds -- "The widely accepted (albeit unproven) theory that manmade global warming will accelerate itself by creating more heat-trapping clouds is challenged by new research. Instead of creating more clouds, individual tropical warming cycles that served as proxies for global warming saw a decrease in the coverage of heat-trapping cirrus clouds."
~ Scientists warn that species extinction could reduce productivity of plants on Earth by half -- "An international team of scientists has published a new analysis showing that as plant species around the world go extinct, natural habitats become less productive and contain fewer total plants - - a situation that could ultimately compromise important benefits that humans get from nature."
~ When Birds Get Lost, Experience Counts -- "A learned map of their migration keeps adult birds on track, but juveniles stay lost."
~ Three New Exo-planets Discovered -- "Three new extrasolar planets have been discovered. The planets orbit around stars similar to our Sun that are located at a distance of 850 light-years away from the Earth. Two are in the constellation of Phoenix visible only from the Southern hemisphere, while the third is in the Northern constellation of Lyra."
~ WCS study finds potential to double tiger numbers in South Asia -- "Researchers at the Wildlife Conservation Society and other institutions declare that improvements in management of existing protected areas in South Asia could double the number of tigers currently existing in the region."


INTEGRAL/BUDDHIST
~ Deepak Chopra: A CAT-Scan of the Global Brain (Part 3) -- "Trying to understand the global brain with the same objectivity that science explores the human brain is difficult, because every society is enmeshed in the global brain. None of us occupies a privileged position outside and apart. Our personal perceptions are often overwhelmed by influences from collective consciousness -- this is why so few people are able to separate themselves from fear of terrorism, for example, and why the vast majority don't even try. Yet the more objectively we observe the global brain, the more understanding it yields."
~ Hannah’s screening, tonight -- "Excited to report that Hannah has her first screening of her newest film this evening. The film is called Small Comforts. It runs 10 minutes. The screening takes place at Columbia College Chicago, along with four other films (made by her colleagues in the Directing III class). A medium-sized theater used for screenings of student films. But still, a big screen with theater-quality sound."
~ The Radical Spirituality of Generation X, Part 16: Where Soma Meets Soul: Body Stories from Within -- "Some say the soul transcends this mundane body, but I say the body is the transmutation of soul into dense fleshy form. Rather than profane, the body, the soma, is literally a medium of sacred transmission, the organic venue for the soul's voice. In our reaching, our holding, in our opening and closing, in each expansion and contraction within the pulse of a heartbeat or the rhythm of a breath, is the physiological signature of the soul."
~ What the Critics of the New Atheists Don't See -- "Overall, Dalrymple's essay is a good read. As he pointed out, intentionality, meaning, and purpose seem to have taken a back seat in the recent books by the New Atheists because of their focus on the bad side of religion and their often sarcastic, confrontational, and polemic tones. However, as Sam Harris had pointed out in his rebuttal to Dalyrmple...."
~ YET AGAIN MORE SNAPPY ANSWERS and MORE SNAPPY ANSWERS TO STUPID QUESTIONS* -- Brad Warner -- "I thought I’d try and answer a couple more e-mail questions."
~ Book Review: Basic Teachings of the Buddha by Glenn Wallis -- "Wallis is an associate professor of religion at Georgia and has a PhD in Sanskrit and Indian Studies from Harvard. The book he has written cuts through cliched translations of Buddhist terminology and popular assumtions of what practicing the dharma means, revealing the Buddha's teachings as a highly rational and pragmatic methodology based on direct, empirical, personal experience."
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This is the first of many best of lists sure to come in the next two months. At least this one is useful, suggesting some good titles to read that we may have missed during the year.

Here are only a couple of sections (of interest to me):

It's the end of the year—almost. A time for reflection, before the resolutions of 2008 send us all scrambling once again. So what did we read this year that kept us up at night, broke our hearts, opened our minds, made us fall in love? Three thousand books are published daily in the U.S., and PW reviewed more than 6,000 of them in 2007, in print and online. From that astounding number, we've culled a best books list covering our favorites in fiction, poetry, nonfiction, comics, religion, lifestyle and children's—150 in all. Some we've selected, such as Tree of Smoke, Fieldwork, Brother, I'm Dying and The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, are up for National Book Awards; others have been blessed by Oprah (The Secret) or are a testament to DNA (Heart-Shaped Box). Some made us think about the music of the past (Can't Buy Me Love; Coltrane) or shiver in our boots (Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA); some, to paraphrase Kafka, just broke that frozen sea inside us.

* * * * *

Fiction
Call Me by Your Name
André Aciman (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
This tender, gay coming-of-age novel set in an Italian palazzo exquisitely renders first love on the Riviera.
Fieldwork
Mischa Berlinski (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
This first novel about an anthropology student in northern Thailand who “goes native” has it all: story, mystery characters, suspense, resolution.
The Savage Detectives
Roberto Bolaño (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
Chilean-born novelist Bolaño (1953–2003), beautifully translated by Natasha Wimmer, deliriously tracks Mexico City poets Arturo Belano (Bolaño's alter ego) and Ulysses Lima as they travel the globe over 20-plus years.
The Tin Roof Blowdown
James Lee Burke (Simon & Schuster)
Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath provide the backdrop for an account of sin and redemption in New Orleans in Burke's 16th Dave Robicheaux novel.
Falling Man
Don DeLillo (Scribner)
DeLillo's 9/11 novel captures with breathtaking force the numbness and inchoate rage that followed the attacks.
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
Junot Díaz (Riverhead)
Díaz's fierce, funny and tragic first novel, starring a sci-fi-and-fantasy–gobbling nerd-hero, is just what readers have held out for since Drown.
The Reluctant Fundamentalist
Mohsin Hamid (Harcourt)
Hamid's intelligent war on terror novel is written from the perspective of a young Pakistani whose sympathies, despite his fervid immigrant embrace of America, lie with the attackers.
Returning to Earth
Jim Harrison (Grove)
This gorgeous novel of an early death spirals into a wrenching saga set in Upper Michigan, as grief grips a family.
The Chicago Way
Michael Harvey (Knopf)
Harvey's debut thriller spins a twisted story in which the line between cops and criminals becomes dangerously blurred; the author combines the sardonic wit of Chandler with the gritty violence of Lehane's Kenzie and Gennaro series.
Heart-Shaped Box
Joe Hill (Morrow)
A particularly merciless ghost goes on the rampage in this debut supernatural thriller from the son of Stephen King.
The Archivist's Story
Travis Holland (Dial)
Set in 1939 Moscow, the story of a disgraced literature professor who's in charge of destroying anti-Soviet writings and decides to save an unfinished manuscript of Isaac Babel's captures the mood and realities of life in Soviet Russia.
Body of Lies
David Ignatius (Norton)
One of the best post-9/11 thrillers yet, this highly elaborate novel tells the story of an idealistic CIA officer stationed in Jordan after being wounded in Iraq.
Tree of Smoke
Denis Johnson (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
Is it the ultimate Vietnam novel? Very likely. A terrifying epic that revolves around a murky intelligence operation.
Bowl of Cherries
Maynard Kaufman (McSweeney's)
The bawdy, original coming-of-age debut from the nonagenarian creator of Mr. Magoo has a delicious screwball sensibility.
What the Dead Know
Laura Lippman (Morrow)
In this outstanding stand-alone thriller, a driver who flees a car accident breathes new life into a 30-year-old mystery—the disappearance of two young sisters at a shopping mall—when she tells the police she's one of the missing girls.
The Complete Stories
David Malouf (Pantheon)
Australia's stark landscapes are at the harsh, violent center of a career's worth of Malouf's fictions, where relationships enter uncharted territory.
Them
Nathan McCall (Atria)
White people gentrify Atlanta's Old Fourth Ward—Martin Luther King Jr.'s parish—and things get very complicated and very ugly as real estate prices skyrocket along with tempers and resentments.
Remainder
Tom McCarthy (Vintage)
In McCarthy's haunting fiction debut, a semi-amnesiac London everyman uses newfound wealth to re-enact his memories in exacting detail.
Be Near Me
Andrew O'Hagan (Harcourt)
A priest's tumultuous, late-career assumption of a Scottish parish yields a surprising love story with emotional resonance and intellectual power to spare, laying bare a lifetime's worth of compromise.
Surveillance
Jonathan Raban (Pantheon)
An air of suspenseful dread hangs over every page of this intelligent, provocative thriller, set in Seattle.
Jamestown
Matthew Sharpe (Soft Skull)
A warped piece of American deadpan, Sharpe's postapocalyptic reimagining of the Jamestown settlement is a tour-de-force of black humor.
The Secret Servant
Daniel Silva (Putnam)
In Silva's superlative seventh novel to feature Gabriel Allon, the Israeli intelligence agent looks into the assassination of a professor in Amsterdam who's a secret Israeli asset.
Beyond Reach
Karin Slaughter (Delacorte)
The unflinching portrayal of lives ruined by methamphetamine makes the latest in Slaughter's Grant County, Ga., crime series a timely and unsettling read.
White Walls: Collected Stories
Tatyana Tolstaya (NYRB)
Beautiful, imaginative and disconcerting, the Russia of Tolstoy's great-grandniece is a labyrinth of eras, treasures and horrors: past and present, shabby and brutal, magical and otherworldly.
The Shadow Catcher
Marianne Wiggins (Simon & Schuster)
A magnificently Sebald-like approach to fictionalizing the life of photographer Edward Sheriff Curtis (1868–1952)—along with that of a woman named “Marianne Wiggins”—is suffused with crackling social commentary and breezy self-discovery.

* * * * *

Poetry
Next Life
Rae Armantrout (Wesleyan)
A veteran experimentalist and pioneering language poet, Armantrout cements her status as an important if oblique moral voice in this mature collection.
Elegy
Mary Jo Bang (Graywolf)
Bang wrote this powerfully moving investigation of grief in the year after her adult son's death.
Time and Materials
Robert Hass (Ecco)
Former poet laureate Hass's first book in a decade finds him meditating on the grim state of the environment and humanity's self-destructive tendencies.
The Collected Poems
Zbigniew Herbert (Ecco)
The late Polish master made myths of the shards of a ravaged century. Finally, all of his work is available to English readers in one volume.
Green and Gray
Geoffrey G. O'Brien (Univ. of California)
A rising star and a uniquely subtle voice, O'Brien has crafted poems that both take a long view of American capitalism and scrutinize the ways words interact.

* * * * *

Nonfiction
The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943–1944
Rick Atkinson (Holt)
Atkinson surpasses his Pulitzer-winning An Army at Dawn with this empathetic, perceptive analysis of the second stage in the U.S. Army's grassroots development into the most formidable fighting force of WWII.
A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
Ishmael Beah (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
This absorbing account by a young man who, as a boy of 12, gets swept up in Sierra Leone's civil war surpasses the best journalistic efforts in revealing the life and mind of a child abducted into the horrors of warfare.
The Pursuit of Glory: Europe 1648–1815
Tim Blanning (Viking)
Blanning splendidly blends political events with social and intellectual history to trace the emergence of Europe as we know it today.
Photo by Sammy Davis Jr.
Burt Boyar (HarperEntertainment)
Davis biographer Boyar offers this collection of beautiful archival snapshots taken by Sammy Davis Jr., beginning in the early 1950s.
Brother, I'm Dying
Edwidge Danticat (Knopf)
Danticat's memoir recalls how a family adapted and reorganized itself over and over, enduring and succeeding to remain kindred in spite of living apart.
The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939–1945
Saul Friedländer (HarperCollins)
Integrating a wide-angle history with closeups of individual Jewish lives, Friedländer completes his masterly history of the Holocaust.
Can't Buy Me Love: The Beatles, Britain, and America
Jonathan Gould (Harmony)
Page after page, you can hear the music as Gould's deft hand makes the book sing—this is music writing at its best.
Graffiti L.A.
Steve Grody (Abrams)
A 17-year effort, this stunning, definitive examination of Los Angeles street art details all aspects of the still-illegal form with 900 gorgeous photographs, testimony from a double-handful of artists and additional material on an included CD-ROM.
How Doctors Think
Jerome Groopman (Houghton)
This could be the most important book on medicine you will ever read, analyzing why doctors misdiagnose—and how to help them get it right.
The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism
Naomi Klein (Holt/Metropolitan)
The economic policies—privatization, free trade, slashed social spending—of the “Chicago School” and Milton Friedman are catastrophic, argues this vigorous polemic that demonstrates how free-market ideologues both welcome and provoke the collapse of other people's economies.
The Curtain: An Essay in Seven Parts
Milan Kundera (HarperCollins)
The great novelist offers a remarkably concise history of the novel, arguing that we must tear away “the curtain of preinterpretation” to experience a work's truth.
The Atomic Bazaar: The Rise of the Nuclear Poor
William Langewiesche (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
World nuclearization “has become the human condition,” Langewiesche warns in this brief, tightly packed study that precisely defines an issue worthy of being at the forefront of our international policy.
Edith Wharton
Hermione Lee (Knopf)
Lee illuminates the dark corners of Wharton's life while examining this complex woman's contradictory values and impulses.
First Class Citizenship: The Civil Rights Letters of Jackie Robinson
Edited by Michael G. Long (Times)
Coinciding with the 60th anniversary of Jackie Robinson's color-barrier–breaking entry into major league baseball, this absorbing collection of letters reveals new facets of the icon's private nature.
Storm World: Hurricanes, Politics, and the Battle over Global Warming
Chris Mooney (Harcourt)
Having witnessed Katrina's devastation of his mother's New Orleans house, science writer Mooney explores “whether global warming will strengthen or otherwise change hurricanes in general.”
Coltrane: The Story of a Sound
Ben Ratliff (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
Always going past the legend to focus on the real-life stories and the actual recordings of this great jazz saxophonist, Ratliff's assessment is a model for music criticism.
The Baby Thief: The Untold Story of Georgia Tann, the Baby Seller Who Corrupted Adoption
Barbara Bisantz Raymond (Carroll & Graf)
Freelance writer (and adoptive mom) Raymond looks at the life and legacy of the little-remembered orphanage director Georgia Tann, a corrupt but nationally lauded figure whose whose adoption policies are still followed today; the book is a rigorous page-turner.
Arsenals of Folly: The Making of the Nuclear Arms Race
Richard Rhodes (Knopf)
This third volume in a history of nuclear weaponry, admirable for its research, might also be described as a chronicle of the unmaking of the arms race.
The Discovery of France: A Historical Geography from the Revolution to the First World War
Graham Robb (Norton)
The French provinces were once a foreign country to Parisians, intimately rendered by Robb in all their strange fascination.
The Door of No Return: The History of Cape Coast Castle and the Atlantic Slave Trade
William St Clair (BlueBridge)
Culled from previously unexplored papers in the British National Archives, this gripping history describes the British headquarters at Ghana's Cape Coast Castle, the “last look” point for more than three million sold into the 17th-century slave trade.
Touch and Go: A Memoir
Studs Terkel (New Press)
The legendary interviewer turns the microphone inwards in this wonderful memoir—a fitting portrait of a man who seeks truth with compassion, intelligence, moxie and panache.
Shadow of the Silk Road
Colin Thubron (HarperCollins)
In his latest absorbing travel epic, Thubron follows the course of the ancient network of trade routes that connected central China with the Mediterranean coast.
Poor People
William T. Vollmann (Ecco)
Varied responses to the question “Why are you poor?” fuel this meditation on the nature of poverty by National Book Award–winning novelist and journalist Vollmann.
Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA
Tim Weiner (Doubleday)
Weiner's comprehensive survey is a damning indictment of American intelligence policy that identifies the persistent problems that plague the CIA.
Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain
Maryanne Wolf (HarperCollins)
Child development professor Wolf maintains the tone of a curious, erudite friend as she synthesizes cutting-edge, interdisciplinary research—psychology and archeology, linguistics and education, history and neuroscience—in a pathbreaking look at the reading brain.

Read the whole list.

Quote of the day:

"We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office."
~ Aesop

Image of the day:


BODY
~ Nutrition for Newbies, Part 2 -- "People often don't read part 2 of an article. Muttonheads! Read this! Christian will fill your belly and mind with 14 nutritional nuggets and give some concrete advice on how to accomplish almost any physique goal you might have!"
~ Study shows link between body fat, red meat and cancer -- "There’s no question that excess body fat and regular consumption of red meat can have health-related consequences. Now, thanks to recent findings from the World Cancer Research Fund and the American Institute for Cancer Research, we know how severe these consequences can be."
~ Carb Cycling For Fat Loss -- "Carbohydrates are used as energy by the body; they fuel our workouts, as well as provide ample fuel over the course of any day. Learn what carb cycling is and how it is not the evil thing people make it!"
~ The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Power Cleans -- "The term Clean comes from “cleaning the floor”. You clean the floor from the barbell by pulling it on your shoulders. Starting position is similar to a Deadlift. End position is like the start position of the Front Squat."
~ Housework can help you burn 50,000 calories a year -- "If you're struggling to motivate yourself to do the dishes or dust the shelves, then just remember the number 50,261. That's the average number of calories burned off each year simply by doing household chores."
~ Intervals Cause Spot Reduction of Belly Fat -- "According to Professor Steve Boucher, the Australian co-author of the latest interval training study to show intervals work better than slow cardio, "high intensity intermittent exercise may result in greater fat loss in the abdomen". Basically, intervals burn stomach fat first, over all other sources of fat on the body."
~ 5 healthy foods that often get a bad rap -- "Bad reputations tend to stick, even with foods. Continued negative press about a fruit, vegetable, or beverage is enough reason for many of us to banish it. But scientists looking beneath the surface are finding redeeming qualities for often-maligned peanut butter, eggs, avocadoes, coffee and mushrooms."


PSYCHE/SELF
~ Secrets of the Orgasm Doctor -- Revealed -- "Physician-scientist Wilhelm Reich, best known for his claims of a cosmic life force associated with sexual orgasm, died in federal prison, and the government burned tons of his books and other publications and destroyed his equipment."
~ Do You Have Social Anxiety Disorder? - Take the Quiz -- "Most everyone panics a bit at the thought of speaking in front of a room full of people. In fact, reportedly that is the number one phobia! And we are all somewhat uncomfortable when meeting new people in social situations. But social anxiety disorder (or social phobia) is much more severe than the norm. It is a debilitating condition that can severely impair one's functioning."
~ Social Anxiety Disorder? Or Just Plain Shy? -- "But leave it to the researchers (or in this case, the lack of research) to turn a normal feeling into something that can be diagnosed and, naturally, treated… By medication."
~ Why We All Stink as Intuitive Psychologists: The False Consensus Bias -- "Many people quite naturally believe they are good 'intuitive psychologists', thinking it is relatively easy to predict other people's attitudes and behaviours. We each have information built up from countless previous experiences involving both ourselves and others so surely we should have solid insights?"
~ Against an Hierarchy of Suffering -- "Is there some kind of division between 'real' and 'unreal' suffering, noble sufferers and self indulgent rich kids?"
~ Four mental foibles we all cherish - and how to get rid of them -- "As human beings, we have a natural wish to improve ourselves, and are always looking for ways to be more efficient, focused and fulfilled. However, we also have the opposite tendency to cherish certain limitations that prevent us from achieving these exact things! Let’s go into four of these limitations in detail."
~ Adding Color Untangles the Brain’s Gray Secrets -- "Researchers have unveiled a new way to map the brain’s billions of neurons."


CULTURE/POLITICS
~ Bring back the Greek gods -- "Prominent secular and atheist commentators have argued lately that religion "poisons" human life and causes endless violence and suffering. But the poison isn't religion; it's monotheism. The polytheistic Greeks didn't advocate killing those who worshiped different gods, and they did not pretend that their religion provided the right answers."
~ The Golden Wingnut Award -- "The Wingnut Contest is over and the votes have now been tallied by the prestigious accounting firm of Pollhost.com. So without further ado, the five winners of the Golden Wingnut Award are...."
~ Jane Cooper: 1924-2007 -- "Read poems, listen to recordings, and learn about her life." The sad loss of a great poet.
~ Richard Reiss: Artist As Citizen -- "I'm the co-founder of a project called Artist As Citizen. We connect art students with donors to help them create projects on social issues."
~ Yahoo Ripped for Role in Persecution of Chinese Journalist -- "Yahoo was negligent at best and probably complicit in providing information to the Chinese government that helped it imprison a pro-democracy journalist, the head of the House Foreign Affairs committee says."
~ Feds Fight Ruling on Patriot Act -- "The U.S. government on Monday appealed a ruling that it shouldn't be able to get personal phone, e-mail and financial records without a judge's approval, as now allowed under the USA Patriot Act."
~ Paul Passes Thompson and McCain in GOP Primary -- "Betting markets show a surge for the libertarian presidential candidate."
~ Musharraf's War on Moderates -- "If his emergency rule is about terrorism, why is he going after mainstream politicians and lawyers instead of the extremists?"


HABITATS/TECHNOLOGY
~ David Sloan Wilson: What Do Selfish Genes, and Memes, Really Mean? -- "Dan Agin has boldly waved selfish genes goodbye in his report on my article with E.O. Wilson in the November 3 issue of New Scientist, which is a digest of a more comprehensive article that will appear in the December issue of Quarterly Review of Biology titled "Rethinking the Theoretical Foundation of Sociobiology." Agin´s farewell provoked a flurry of comments that raise the issue of what selfish genes, and memes, really mean."
~ The Top 10 Greenest Colleges and Universities in the U.S. -- " Higher education has responded to growing demand for more environmental focus -- here are the 10 best."
~ Why Do So Many Species Live In Tropical Forests And Coral Reefs? -- "There is a new development in a major debate over a controversial hypothesis of biodiversity and species abundance. Ecologists are reporting good agreement between the species richness of two of the most vulnerable ecosystems -- tropical forests and coral reefs -- and a simple mathematical model building on the "neutral theory of biodiversity." The research could aid the effort to protect terrestrial biodiversity from climate change and urban development."
~ Space Mission Xeus Probes Origins Of The Universe -- "XEUS, which stands for X-ray Evolving Universe Spectroscopy, aims to study the fundamental laws of the Universe. With unprecedented sensitivity to the hot, million-degree universe, XEUS will explore key areas of contemporary astrophysics: growth of supermassive black holes, cosmic feedback and galaxy evolution, evolution of large-scale structures, extreme gravity and matter under extreme conditions, the dynamical evolution of cosmic plasmas and cosmic chemistry."
~ Toshiba develops new MRAM device which opens the way to giga-bits capacity -- "Toshiba Corporation today announced important breakthroughs in key technologies for magnetoresistive random access memory (MRAM), a promising, next-generation semiconductor memory device."
~ The Bottom Line: A review of recycled toilet-paper brands -- "Deciding what kind of toilet paper to buy is a delicate issue. Perhaps most significantly because you want to protect those delicates -- but what about this delicate planet of ours?"
~ Texas' first hydrogen fuel cell bus on the road -- "The University of Texas at Austin and Gas Technology Institute (GTI) have introduced a joint technology program that features the first hydrogen fuel cell bus to be licensed and operated in Texas."


INTEGRAL/BUDDHIST
~ What Stage of Spiritual Growth Have You Attained? Find out Now! -- "Extensive religious research has shown that there are four distinct and classical stages of spiritual growth. Even those individuals who do not normally consider themselves spiritual or religious lie somewhere within one of these four evolving stages."
~ Premature Integral? -- "In this article, Chris Cowan - co-author of Spiral Dynamics - and his collegues discuss the uses and abuses of Spiral Dynamics, and directly address what they see as weaknesses within the Integral Movement in general. What is of particular interest is Cowan's framing of the distinctions he makes between Gravesian theory, Cowan's own use of Spiral Dynamics, and the work of Dr. Don Beck."
~ “Paideia in America” -- "I’ve lightly skimmed Marrs’ piece, deemed it of substance and have printed it out for deeper reading. My overall take on Marrs’ theme (not his essay, per se) is that no doubt there are not-small problems our society faces to reinvigorate classical education — meaning, in short, learning anchored in Greek and Latin languages, and the respective native civilizations — in any widespread fashion."
~ Saul Williams on YouTube -- "In celebration of Saul's new album release, we have uploaded these two videos to YouTube."
~ Compassion for self -- "This is something particularly interesting for me because I have a habit of mentally beating myself up when I think I should be doing something other than what I'm doing. For whatever reason, I feel that a lot of us are beating ourselves up for what we are or are not."
~ The Chemistry of Love (Part One) -- "There is still a lot of controversy about what happens in our bodies when we love, or fall in love, and to what extent the chemical soup of love determines what and how we feel. But there seems to be a consensus emerging. Part one of this two-parter summarizes the chemistry of love, to the extent scientists understand it today. If you've been reading my recent articles, you'll understand why I care about this. I hope you do, too."
.

From The Onion:

Fall Canceled After 3 Billion Seasons

November 7, 2007 | Issue 43•45

WASHINGTON, DC—Fall, the long- running series of shorter days and cooler nights, was canceled earlier this week after nearly 3 billion seasons on Earth, sources reported Tuesday.

The classic period of the year, which once occupied a coveted slot between summer and winter, will be replaced by new, stifling humidity levels, near- constant sunshine, and almost no precipitation for months.

"As much as we'd like to see it stay, fall will not be returning for another season," National Weather Service president John Hayes announced during a muggy press conference Nov. 6. "Fall had a great run, but sadly, times have changed."

Enlarge Image

A Beloved Classic Comes To An End

Some of fall's most memorable moments

1841: Leaves crumple gently underfoot

1969: Nation charmed by adorable kids bundled up in scarves

1998: A number of highly anticipated weddings showcase stunning foliage

2006: Crisp autumn air makes its final appearance

Said Hayes: "Frankly, we're amazed it lasted as long as it did."

Though it came as a surprise to many, the cancellation was not without its share of warning signs. In recent years, fall had been reduced from three months to a meager two-week stint, and its scheduled start time had been pushed back later and later each year. Still, many Americans continued to hold out hope that it would make a last-minute comeback.

"I guess I should have seen it coming, but it's still upsetting to think about fall being gone forever," said Peterborough, NH resident Dale Simmons, who was informed of the cancellation yesterday while waterskiing with his family. "Maybe other people won't miss it as much, but I practically grew up watching the leaves change color."

"Now what am I supposed to do with myself between August and December?" Simmons asked. "Wear shorts?"

Though disappointed by the cancellation, a number of Americans have admitted that the last few seasons of fall were "completely underwhelming" and often lacked the trademark mood and temperatures of earlier years.

"In my opinion, fall stopped really being fall after 2004," Margaret Davies of Augusta, ME said. "Once the birds quit migrating south and the need for air-conditioning extended into late October, it just wasn't the same anymore. To tell you the truth, I was shocked to hear that fall was even still around."

Fall's recent slide isn't uncommon, however, with spring and winter also suffering from quality issues. According to recent NWS data, winter has not had a consistent showing in almost four years, while last year spring was cut down to just five days to make room for an extended run of summer that began in March.

"With the way things have been going lately, it only makes sense that fall would be canceled," said Eric Fausbaum, an observer at an independent weather-watch agency, as he wiped beads of sweat from his brow. "But then I still remember when December meant having to put on a sweater to go outside."

Though thousands have signed Internet petitions to save fall, and protests have been scheduled throughout the week, many are skeptical that they will ever see the temperate season again. In addition, the National Weather Service said that even if fall were to return at a later date—perhaps for a brief guest appearance next spring—citizens shouldn't be too optimistic.

"I know people are upset to see fall go, but let's try to keep things in perspective," Hayes said. "After all, it's not like it's the end of the world or anything."

Regardless of whether it ever returns, Americans said they would always have fond memories of the once-ubiquitous season.

"The crunch of fallen leaves underneath your feet, the smell of ripening fruit hanging heavy on nearby trees, the crisp and cool evening air—I'll never forget it," Minnesota resident Jessica Bellauc said. "That was fall, right?"

As anyone who reads this blog from time to time will know, I am a huge fan of The Onion -- I have been ever since I worked for a magazine wholesaler who carried The Onion -- and this was back in the mid-1990s.

At a time when many print papers are struggling, The Onion is thriving, causing AlterNet to ask if The Onion is America's most intelligent newspaper.

In August 1988, college junior Tim Keck borrowed $7,000 from his mom, rented a Mac Plus, and published a 12-page newspaper. His ambition was hardly the stuff of future journalism symposiums: He wanted to create a compelling way to deliver advertising to his fellow students. Part of the first issue's front page was devoted to a story about a monster running amok at a local lake; the rest was reserved for beer and pizza coupons.

Almost 20 years later, The Onion stands as one of the newspaper industry's few great success stories in the post-newspaper era. Currently, it prints 710,000 copies of each weekly edition, roughly 6,000 more than The Denver Post, the nation's ninth-largest daily. Its syndicated radio dispatches reach a weekly audience of 1 million, and it recently started producing video clips too. Roughly 3,000 local advertisers keep The Onion afloat, and the paper plans to add 170 employees to its staff of 130 this year.

Online it attracts more than 2 million readers a week. Type onion into Google, and The Onion pops up first. Type the into Google, and The Onion pops up first.

But type "best practices for newspapers" into Google, and The Onion is nowhere to be found. Maybe it should be. At a time when traditional newspapers are frantic to divest themselves of their newsy, papery legacies, The Onion takes a surprisingly conservative approach to innovation. As much as it has used and benefited from the Web, it owes much of its success to low-tech attributes readily available to any paper but nonetheless in short supply: candor, irreverence, and a willingness to offend.

Read the rest.

I love the Cohen Brothers' films, and I have enjoyed the Cormac McCarthy novels I have read. So it seems like a match made in heaven for the Cohens to make their first literary adaptation a McCarthy novel.

Rolling Stone gives it 4 stars (out of 4):

Misguided souls will tell you that No Country for Old Men is out for blood, focused on vengeance and unconcerned with the larger world outside a standard-issue suspense plot. Those people, of course, are deaf, dumb and blind to anything that isn't spelled out between commercials on dying TV networks. Joel and Ethan Coen's adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's 2005 novel is an indisputably great movie, at this point the year's very best. Set in 1980 in West Texas, where the chase is on for stolen drug money, the film — a new career peak for the Coen brothers, who share writing and directing credits — is a literate meditation (scary words for the Transformers crowd) on America's bloodlust for the easy fix. It's also as entertaining as hell, which tends to rile up elitists. What do the criminal acts of losers in a flyover state have to do with the life of the mind?

Plenty, as it turns out. McCarthy reveals a soulless America that is no country for anyone, never mind old men. The so-called codger representing besieged law and order is Sheriff Ed Tom Bell, played by Tommy Lee Jones with the kind of wit and assurance that reveals a master actor at the top of his game. On the page, the sheriff is a tad too folksy, dishing out cracker-barrel wisdom to his good wife, Loretta (Tess Harper), with a twinkle written into his homespun truths. As you already know by now (and In the Valley of Elah categorically proves it), Mr. Jones does not do twinkle. He's a hard-ass. And when he chews into a good line, you can see the bite marks. Here's the sheriff on how crime has gotten so out of hand: "It starts when you begin to overlook bad manners. Anytime you quit hearin' 'sir' and 'ma'am,' the end is pretty much in sight."

That unpretty end takes the form of Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem), an assassin who rivals Hannibal Lecter for dispatching his victims without breaking a sweat. Bardem, with pale skin and the world's worst haircut, is stupendous in the role, a monster for the ages. Beneath his dark eyes lies something darker, evil topped with the cherry of perverse humor. Chigurh carries around a bulky cattle gun. He'll politely ask a mark to get out of a car before he caps him in the head; that way the car won't get messy with gristle and brain matter. And he has this little game he plays. Staring at the human species like a visitor from another planet, Chigurh flips a coin. Your choice of heads or tails might just save your life. Only don't piss him off.

Read the whole review.

Reviews at Rotten Tomatoes.

The trailer:

Quote of the day:

"Why is it that our memory is good enough to retain the least triviality that happens to us, and yet not good enough to recollect how often we have told it to the same person?"
~ Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Image of the day:



BODY
~ Stretches that can help sciatica pain -- "According to an article from spine-health.com, most types of sciatica will benefit from a regular routine of hamstring exercise, especially hamstring stretching."
~ Hell on Wheels -- "'You're a worm — a gutless worm, with puny legs to boot.' And that's just Rob Fortney talkin' to his kids about their leg development! Imagine what he's going to say to you, you weak little douchebag." Aside from the bad lede, this is a good leg training article.
~ Hesfit 30 minute muscle routine -- "By altering load, rest periods, and movement selection, you can achieve the results you want in as little as 30 minutes per day. Fat loss, sure! Strength gains, you betcha! In this article, I’ll give you some ideas on packing on some lean muscle mass in 30 minutes or less."
~ Antioxidants Abound In Ripe Fruit -- "Fall, the season of colors: Leaves turn red, yellow, and brown. The disappearance of the color green and the simultaneous appearance of these other colors are also signs of ripening fruit. A team led by Bernhard Krautler at the University of Innsbruck (Austria) has now determined that the breakdown of chlorophyll in ripening apples and pears produces the same decomposition products as those in brightly colored leaves."
~ Key To Good Health May Be Concentrating On Food Not Nutrients -- "In a recent academic review, a University of Minnesota professor in the School of Public Health has concluded that food, as opposed to specific nutrients, may be key to having a healthy diet. This notion is contrary to popular practice in food industry and government, where marketers and regulators tend to focus on total fat, carbohydrate and protein and on specific vitamins and added supplements in food products, not the food items as a whole."
~ Research Links Diet To Cognitive Decline And Dementia -- "Research has shown convincing evidence that dietary patterns practiced during adulthood are important contributors to age-related cognitive decline and dementia risk. An article published in Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences highlights information on the benefits of diets high in fruit, vegetables, cereals and fish and low in saturated fats in reducing dementia risk."
~ Cause Of Insulin Resistance Discovered By UCSD Researchers -- "Researchers at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine have discovered that inflammation provoked by immune cells called macrophages leads to insulin resistance and Type 2 diabetes. Their discovery may pave the way to novel drug development to fight the epidemic of Type 2 diabetes associated with obesity, the most prevalent metabolic disease worldwide."


PSYCHE/SELF
~ van Gogh & the history of manic depression -- "The introductory chapter of Manic-Depressive Illness: Bipolar Disorders and Recurrent Depression, by Frederick K. Goodwin and Kay Redfield Jamison, provides an excellent description of how Emil Kraepelin first classified manic depression (or bipolar disorder) and related conditions in the late 19th century, and how his work has influenced the way in which psychiatrists treat these illnesses today."
~ When Love Can't Cure -- "Life with a borderline partner."
~ 5 Secrets to a Successful Long-Term Relationship or Marriage -- "There have been a thousand or more articles written about how to have a successful long-term relationship or marriage, but none that seem to capture some of the core ingredients I’ve found important in relationships. So here’s the straight dope, from my experience."
~ 7 Rules for a Life Worth Living -- "Are you writing the story of your life, or are you letting other people and circumstances write it for you? You might not consider yourself a follower, but here are a few signs you aren’t in control...."
~ Meditation for Beginners: 20 Practical Tips for Quieting the Mind -- "Although a great number of people try meditation at some point in their lives, a small percentage actually stick with it for the long-term. This is unfortunate, and a possible reason is that many beginners do not begin with a mindset needed to make the practice sustainable."
~ 7 Powerful Tips to Overcome Failure -- "Failure is inevitable if we are to succeed in life. Unfortunately, many people do not know how to overcome failure, and they are stopped by it when they encounter one. The ability to overcome failure is one big difference between successful and mediocre people."
~ 7 ways to catch your breath -- "When life leaves you gasping for air there are ways to catch your breath, but they seem impossibly distant at the time. When you are in the middle of trouble, just trying to survive, solutions seem out of reach. The best you can do is prepare yourself in advance by learning these 7 ways to catch your breath, before you need to use them."
~ Further evidence that genetics has a role in determining sexual orientation in men -- "Is sexual orientation something people are born with - like the colour of their skin and eyes - or a matter of choice?"


CULTURE/POLITICS
~ Review says abstinence-only ed fails teens -- "Programs that focus exclusively on abstinence have not been shown to affect teenager sexual behavior, although they are eligible for tens of millions of dollars in federal grants, according to a study released by a nonpartisan group that seeks to reduce teen pregnancies."
~ Portrait of a poet as eco warrior -- "The newly published letters of Ted Hughes make no mention of his political life. But nature for the former poet laureate was more than a source of poetry. Seeing his beloved rivers and moors dying pushed him into a second career - as a fearless environmental activist."
~ The Cultural Contradictions of Democracy: Political Thought Since September 11 -- " What counts as "political thought" in the six years since 9/11? John Brenkman addresses this question in The Cultural Contradictions of Democracy by turning to the political language used by the government, its opponents, philosophers and policymakers. He is interested in how the United States developed a rhetoric to legitimate its "war on terror," particularly its invasion of Iraq. Not surprisingly, he finds contradictions and incoherence almost everywhere."
~ Climate Consensus: Bravery or Blunder? -- "In early October, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama unveiled their campaign platforms on energy and the environment. John Edwards hasn't made an event out of his, but he has one, and so do the other Democratic candidates. All of them support some kind of legislation to curb climate-warming greenhouse gas emissions, but they might be doing so at their own peril, a recent headline suggests."
~ To Bomb or Not to Bomb? -- "A recent Zogby poll has lit up the blogosphere for several days now with its claim that a majority of Americans are on board for U.S. military action against Iran. Both sides of the aisle are lamenting or celebrating accordingly, but a closer look at the poll itself could save everyone the effort."
~ The difference between watching Obama and Clinton in Iowa -- "I knew what to expect Tuesday night at his event at Kirkwood Community College in Cedar Rapids, and yet after it was over I was still impressed. He was funny and passionate, and he connected with his big audience. When he left the stage, the room was on its feet and chanting with him. Nothing like that happened during the two days I followed Hillary Clinton."
~ Pat Robertson Endorses Giuliani -- "Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson, a prominent Christian leader and social conservative, endorsed former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani for the Republican nomination for president." Either Robertson is fully senile now, or Giuliani has sold out the rest of his moderate positions to the far right.


HABITATS/TECHNOLOGY
~ Saving Monkeys from Extinction -- "A recent census of the world's primate population finds that many of them are in danger of disappearing."
~ Crude oil stalls in march toward $100 -- "Oil prices stalled in their climb toward $100 a barrel Wednesday after a government report said oil inventories fell less than expected last week while refinery utilization remained flat." With oil at nearly $100 a barrel, you'd think it might be time to develop alternative energy sources.
~ Malaria Deaths Dropped To One Quarter Previous Level In Zanzibar, Tanzania -- "Research in Zanzibar, Tanzania has found a remarkable fall in the number of children dying from malaria. Within a three-year period (2002 to 2005), malaria deaths among the islands' children dropped to a quarter of the previous level and overall child deaths to half."
~ Wind Patterns Spur Fla. Red Tide Blooms -- "Harmful red tide blooms along Florida's west coast in the fall are spurred when seasonal changes in wind patterns move nutrients east from the Mississippi River, scientists reported Wednesday."
~ La Niña Persists -- "The tropical Pacific Ocean remains in the grips of a cool La Niña, as shown by new data of sea-level heights from mid-October of 2007, collected by the U.S-French Jason altimetric satellite." Which means a warm dry winter here in the desert.
~ Bill Clinton, Green Building Council Launch Effort To Green US Schools -- "Today at the world’s largest green building exposition in Chicago, Greenbuild 2007, former President Bill Clinton announced a joint commitment to green all of America’s schools within a generation."
~ Wolf Controversy Resurfaces -- "A few years ago, a 22-year-old student was killed in the wilds of Saskatchewan, and evidence suggested that wild wolves were the culprits. The incident was widely reported in the media, since there had never before been a documented case of death-by-wolves in North America. Last week, the coroner's inquest finally finished, and the wolves were found guilty. But some wildlife experts still have their doubts. Goat, the blog over at High Country News, has a good summary of the controversy."


INTEGRAL/BUDDHIST
~ Women, Men, and the Evolution of Culture -- Andrew Cohen -- "I just did the unthinkable: held a weekend retreat for women only." Uh, yeah, whatever . . . .
~ The power of gratitude -- "As I mentioned previously, this pilot light event had been associated with thinking about something I had heard in various forms and reflected on - that we don't have to "earn" the deathless, indestructible joyful peace of a Buddha. We always have permission to be truly unshakably happy deep down even if our conditions, including our thoughts and emotions, are responding negatively to the perception of an unfair or adverse situation."
~ A Glimpse of the Portal—Integral Content easier to navigate! -- "As we rapidly approach the completion of the new Integral Life web portal, we thought you would enjoy a few sneak peeks of the site. Welcome to the future of Integral Consciousness on the net!"
~ In partnership with Majeski Media, Stuart Davis is getting ready to Rock the (R)evolution! -- "Majeski Media paid an even $1,000,000 to Davis for the comprehensive rights, making Davis and Majeski partners in all endeavors past, present, and future. The powerful venture stands in stark contrast with general trends in the entertainment industries, which many feel have decreasing commitment to artist development, much less those with spiritual dimensions."
~ Neuro-Science & Photography??? -- "I have been struggling to find out if photography has the ability that music and meditation has on the brain (Neuroplasticity). When the human eye sees, it does not see life as a complete picture."
~ INTEGRALWORLD: 'If You Meet Wilber on the Road, Kill Him' -- ~C started a discussion at the Zaadz I-I pod that is, um, interesting.

Today's Daily Dharma from Tricycle is reason enough to be grateful:

Automatic Joy and Sorrow

 

The view of interdependence makes for a great openness of mind. In general, instead of realizing that what we experience arises from a complicated network of causes, we tend to attribute happiness or sadness, for example, to single, individual sources. But if this were so, as soon as we came into contact with what we consider to be good, we would automatically be happy, and conversely, in the case of bad things, invariably sad. The causes of joy and sorrow would be easy to identify and target. It would all be very simple, and there would be good reason for our anger and attachment. When, on the other hand, we consider that everything we experience results from a complex interplay of causes and conditions, we find that there is no single thing to desire or resent, and it is more difficult for the afflictions of attachment or anger to arise. In this way, the view of interdependence makes our mind more relaxed and open.

~ The Dalai Lama, A Flash of Lightening in the Dark of Night; from Everyday Mind, edited by Jean Smith, a Tricycle book.

I remember hearing about this idea a year or two ago. I can't remember who the scientist was, but he was arguing that a great deal of our evolution as a species was the result of bacteria, viruses, and other foreign DNA changing our own genetic make-up. Without this "intervention" from outside sources, we would not have survived as a species. Kind of humbling when you think about it.

This article is from Wired:

Most of the cells in your body are not your own, nor are they even human. They are bacterial. From the invisible strands of fungi waiting to sprout between our toes, to the kilogram of bacterial matter in our guts, we are best viewed as walking "superorganisms," highly complex conglomerations of human cells, bacteria, fungi and viruses.

That's the view of scientists at Imperial College London who published a paper in Nature Biotechnology Oct. 6 describing how these microbes interact with the body. Understanding the workings of the superorganism, they say, is crucial to the development of personalized medicine and health care in the future because individuals can have very different responses to drugs, depending on their microbial fauna.

The scientists concentrated on bacteria. More than 500 different species of bacteria exist in our bodies, making up more than 100 trillion cells. Because our bodies are made of only some several trillion human cells, we are somewhat outnumbered by the aliens. It follows that most of the genes in our bodies are from bacteria, too.

Luckily for us, the bacteria are on the whole commensal, sharing our food but doing no real harm. (The word derives from the Latin meaning to share a table for dinner.) In fact, they are often beneficial: Our commensal bacteria protect us from potentially dangerous infections. They do this through close interaction with our immune systems.

"We have known for some time that many diseases are influenced by a variety of factors, including both genetics and environment, but the concept of this superorganism could have a huge impact on our understanding of disease processes," said Jeremy Nicholson, a professor of biological chemistry at Imperial College and leader of the study. He believes the approach could apply to research on insulin-resistance, heart disease, some cancers and perhaps even some neurological diseases.

Following the sequencing of the human genome, scientists quickly saw that the next step would be to show how human genes interact with environmental factors to influence the risk of developing disease, the aging process and drug action. But because environmental factors include the gene products of trillions of bacteria in the gut, they get very complex indeed. The information in the human genome itself, 3 billion base pairs long, does not help reduce the complexity.

"The human genome provides only scant information. The discovery of how microbes in the gut can influence the body's responses to disease means that we now need more research into this area," said Nicholson. "Understanding these interactions will extend human biology and medicine well beyond the human genome and help elucidate novel types of gene-environment interactions, with this knowledge ultimately leading to new approaches to the treatment of disease."

Nicholson's colleague, professor Ian Wilson from Astra Zeneca, believes the "human super-organism" concept "could have a huge impact on how we develop drugs, as individuals can have very different responses to drug metabolism and toxicity."

"The microbes can influence things such as the pH levels in the gut and the immune response, all of which can have effects on the effectiveness of drugs," Wilson said.

The Imperial College research demonstrates what many -- from X Files stalwarts to UFO fanatics -- have long claimed: We are not alone. Specifically, the human genome does not carry enough information on its own to determine key elements of our own biology.

 

Today's Daily Dharma from Tricycle poses an interesting parable from the Buddha:

The Sweetest Strawberry

 

Buddha told a parable in a sutra:

A man traveling across a field encountered a tiger. He fled, the tiger after him. Coming to a precipice, he caught hold of the root of a wild vine and swung himself down over the edge. The tiger sniffed at him from above. Trembling, the man looked down to where, far below, another tiger was waiting to eat him. Only the vine sustained him.

Two mice, one white and one black, little by little started to gnaw away the vine. The man saw a luscious strawberry near him. Grasping the vine with one hand, he plucked the strawberry with the other. How sweet it tasted!

~ Paul Reps, Zen Flesh, Zen Bones; from Everyday Mind, edited by Jean Smith, a Tricycle book.

 

Quote of the day:

"To believe is to know you believe, and to know you believe is not to believe."
~ Jean-Paul Sartre

Image of the day:


BODY
~ A Beautiful Snatch -- "Whether you're a bodybuilder, strength athlete, or football player, learning the snatch can take you to a whole new plane of development. This article is chock-full of helpful videos that will have you snatching in no time."
~ Personal Best: Pregnant Exercisers Test Limits -- "Advice on when, how long and how much to train is all over the map." I've trained two women through eight months, and each was back to their pre-pregnancy weight within a couple of weeks of giving birth.
~ High Fat Diet Changes The Body Clock -- "US researchers have discovered that a high fat diet can change a mammal's body clock and thereby disrupt a range of behavioural and physiological processes, including those controlled by genes that switch on and off at certain times to keep the body's metabolism, storage and use of energy in balance."
~ Ostrich, and the 7 other foods you should be eating -- "We've heard it all before — eat your spinach, your broccoli, your whole-grain pastas. But there are a whole host of other good-for-you foods that most of us aren't eating."
~ Caveman diet found to be the best choice to control diabetes -- "Now, in the first controlled study of a Paleolithic (stone age) diet in humans, Lund University, Sweden, heralds the simple diet of the caveman as the “best choice to control diabetes 2”."
~ Exercise Away Heart Failure -- "Exercise can spur the growth of new cells to mend weakened muscles and spur the growth of blood vessels in people with heart failure, according to two new studies."
~ Experts play the heavy on news of chubby perks -- "Being overweight may not kill you, but it could lead to obesity, U.S. health experts cautioned on Wednesday in response to research suggesting that being a bit heavy does not raise the risk of death."


PSYCHE/SELF
~ Addicted to love? -- "Experts continually debate whether sexual addiction is a real problem. Some argue that there is no such thing, and that terms like "sexual addiction" and "porn addiction" are unhelpful at best, dangerous at worst."
~ Do You Have a Deeply Fulfilling Career? -- "If you’re already on a stable or semi-stable career path, this article will help you determine whether your current career is really the right one for you, using a very simple assessment process."
~ Amygdala Abnormalities Linked to Violent Aggression -- "Patients struggling with uncontrolled aggressive urges often appear irrational and frightening to the victims of their impulsive rages as well as anyone who happens to witness them in action. Such behaviors are most commonly seen among teenagers and young adults, and experts have long suspected abnormal brain functions to be at least partly responsible for their seeming inability to restrain themselves."
~ The Borderline Parent -- "Moving beyond a bad parent."
~ Domestic Drama: Prickly Pere -- "What are your obligations to a bad parent?"
~ Sounds Like Music Therapy -- "Check out these emotional, spiritual and physical effects of music therapy. Music helps with the grieving process and can teach stroke victims to walk again."
~ Researchers Examine Social Interactions in Anorexia Nervosa -- "Dr. Zucker noticed that individuals with anorexia notoriously failed to comply with treatment, and often this failure was coupled with a failure to establish a healthy relationship with a treating therapist."
~ Susan Smalley: Meditation: The Seat Belt Of Mental Health -- "We all know that the road of life is bumpy with unexpected drop-offs, accidents, and only the occasional smooth-sailing highway. I believe that meditation -- a practice for increasing awareness -- is truly a seat belt of mental health, a protection for us on the hazardous road of life."


CULTURE/POLITICS
~ Secular Fundamentalists -- "Ninety percent of Americans claim to believe in God, church attendance is higher than in any other Western nation, and political leaders still invoke divine blessing at the end of major addresses. But in the past three years, six books touting atheism have reached the New York Times’s bestseller list. Features in Newsweek, a fawning Nation cover, and endless TV appearances followed."
~ Holy communion -- "It's not been a good year for God. Richard Dawkins’s The God Delusion and Christopher Hitchens’s God is Not Great have been riding high in the international bestseller lists, while in the US Sam Harris has addressed his Letter to a Christian Nation and Daniel Dennett’s Breaking the Spell has explored the question of how to explain the irrationality of religious belief. Michel Onfray’s In Defence of Atheism has added a distinctively French tone to the assault, and AC Grayling’s latest collection of elegant English essays is Against All Gods. It’s not surprising that cultural commentators have identified a cultural wave, and given it a label: “The New Atheism”."
~ Asia's Hottest Modern Painters -- "Five of Asia's hottest artists talk to TIME about their lives, influences and art."
~ Musharraf's Emergency -- "Pervez Musharraf claims he imposed martial law because of a rising tide of Islamic extremism and a politicized judiciary. He lied. Graham Usher reports from Islamabad on the forces behind Pakistan's slide into chaos."
~ Was Radiohead's download experiment a failure? (Crazed by the Music) -- "Radiohead’s radical “pay what you like” experiment for their In Rainbows album shook up the industry and is already one of the biggest music biz stories of the year. But after some number crunching, reports are coming back (see this Comscore article) that the vast majority of people who downloaded the record didn’t pay squat for it."
~ Welcome to the 700 Club, Rudy -- "Pat Robertson's endorsement could be both a blessing and a curse for Rudy Giuliani."
~ Kerouac exhibit sheds new light on Beat writer -- "The name "Kerouac" typically evokes a sense of hip, cool, rebellion, exploration and of course "Beat," as in voice of the Beat Generation."


HABITATS/TECHNOLOGY
~ How The Physiological Effects Of Poverty On Young Children Takes Its Toll On Health -- "Scientists have known for years that people living in poverty have poorer health and shorter life spans than the more affluent. Now, Cornell University researchers have identified several key mechanisms in 13-year-olds that may help explain how low socio-economic status takes its toll on health."
~ Biofuels Are No Cure for Climate Change -- "Sigh. Another day, another inane strategy to fight global warming. The bee in my bonnet this time is biofuels. They're nothing new, but governments and corporations are pushing biofuels with a renewed ferocity as the panacea for our ailing planet."
~ Primates in Peril -- "A gallery of the World Conservation Union's list of the most endangered primates."
~ Genetically Modified Foods Unsafe? Evidence that Links GM Foods to Allergic Responses Mounts -- "Genetically modified (GM) foods are inherently unsafe"
~ Yellowstone Is Rising on Swollen "Supervolcano" -- "Yellowstone National Park is rising. Its central region, called the Yellowstone caldera, has been moving upward since mid-2004 at a rate of up to three inches (seven centimeters) a year—more than three times faster than has ever been measured."
~ Scientists link mysterious highest-energy cosmic rays with violent black holes -- "Scientists of the Pierre Auger Collaboration announced today (Nov. 8) that active galactic nuclei are the most likely candidate for the source of the highest-energy cosmic rays that hit Earth. Using the Pierre Auger Observatory in Argentina, the largest cosmic-ray observatory in the world, a team of scientists from 17 countries found that the sources of the highest-energy particles are not distributed uniformly across the sky. Instead, the Auger results link the origins of these mysterious particles to the locations of nearby galaxies that have active nuclei in their centers."
~ Locals lose out to sexy aliens -- "Globalisation has led to an increase in invasions by new species around the world and this is costing agriculture and the environment dearly."


INTEGRAL/BUDDHIST
~ More on “Paideia In America” -- "America is certainly famous for its pragmatism — of needing to understand some sense of possible effects of undertaking an action or project. We are a young country, with no native tradition of fine art or “high culture”, as Camille Paglia rightly reminds us. We are known for rugged entrepreneurship. We are known for the American Dream, and its material rewards. These all lead one towards a conclusion that Americans, in a general sense, are not particularly suited to the temperament required for a classical education. But is that a truly earned conclusion? I don’t think so."
~ Can Buddhism become American? -- "By this, I’m not asking about whether Buddhism can mesh with American values or whether American culture can or will grow to accept Buddhism. These are worthy questions but not for today, at least for me. What I am asking about is whether Buddhism can become American in the sense of its organizations, teachers, and adherents."
~ Announcing: The Second Global Integral International Development Meeting in Istanbul, Turkey -- "The focus for this second global Integral International Development meeting is on "The Integral Practitioner" - with a particular emphasis on what Integral governance includes in today's complex world. Practitioners, consultants, coaches, social change agents, activists, scholars, and all those involved in 'Integral Praxis' are invited to discuss many important global issues...."
~ Death and what continues -- "A quick look at death and what continues.... First the obvious one: Our human self, with its personality and quirks, dies. It is gone forever. At most, some of its influences on others and society continues for a while, but then that is gone too."
~ Ngawang Tenzin Rinpoche Visits Portland to Teach the Mystery of Vajra and Dorje -- "According to Wagner University, Holiness Ngawang Tenzin is a high reincarnation of the Drukpa Kagyu Lineage of Buddhism in Bhutan. He is regarded as one of the most revered teachers of the Drukpa Kagyu lineage in Bhutan. He is the reincarnation of Drubthop Chenpo Jinpa Gyeltshen Rinpoche who was alive in the 18th century."
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I found this video at Psychology, Transformation & Freedom Papers, a cool site for psychology information.

In this video, Stan Grof talks about how shamans have used breath control to create non-ordinary states of reality. Grof developed holotropic breathwork when LSD became illegal, as a way to generate the same or similar states of consciousness.



I've used holotropic breathing in my own shamanic work, combined with Michael Harner's shamanic drumming CD. I've found this to be an incredibly useful way of entering inner space, specifically the unconscious mind. Having also used all the standard hallucinogens, I can say it bears no resemblance to any of them (although a very small dose of LSD is most similar in that consciousness shifts more easily -- without the hallucinations of higher doses).

The process I have used involves holotropic breathwork until I sense my consciousness opening up (the drumming CD is playing already during this process). I then visualize an opening into the earth, for me it's small cave in the Siskiyou Mountains of Southern Oregon that I explored on a couple of occasions.

When I enter the opening, the scene quickly shifts to some sort of cosmic spiral tunnel through which I move very quickly. When I come out the end I am almost always in the same landscape (going through a different opening takes me to a different landscape -- I find the consistency in this aspect of the work very interesting).

I generally go in with some sort of question, which dictates the experience that follows. When the CD signals time to emerge, I make my way back to the opening through which I entered and move back up the spiral tunnel.

Only once has this pattern varied. The last time I journeyed, I ascended into the heavens during the experience -- more precisely, I was summoned by some kind of archetypal female energy. I didn't return from that experience in the same way, but I did emerge from the originating cave when the journey was over.


Anyway, I promised someone I would blog about this work a while back and hadn't done so until now. I've hesitated because shamanic work has so many negative New Age connotations to a lot of people.

Shamanic work can be integrally informed, however, and need not be some New Age load of regressive pre-trans fallacies. If one understands the process in terms of psychological processes more than as some literal journey to the underworld or whatever, we can avoid the pitfalls in the way shamanism has been co-opted by the New Agers.

Still, it helps to suspend disbelief while engaging in the process of the work. If we are in our rational minds, we will not be able to surrender to the experience. I find it best to just be open, in as much of an observing space as possible, much like in meditation.

Today's Daily Dharma from Tricycle comes from Robert Thurman, describing his understanding of the enlightenment of the Buddha.

The Enlightenment of the Buddha

 

The enlightenment of the Buddha was not primarily a religious discovery. It was not a mystical encounter with “God” or a god. It was not the reception of a divine mission to spread the “Truth” of “God” in the world. The Buddha's enlightenment was rather a human being's direct, exact, and comprehensive experience of the final nature and total structure of reality. It was the culmination for all time of the manifest ideals of any tradition of philosophical exploration or scientific investigation. “Buddha” is not a personal name; it is a title, meaning “awakened,” “enlightened,” and “evolved.” A Buddha's enlightenment is a perfect omniscience. A Buddha's mind is what theists have thought the mind of God would have to be like, totally knowing of every single detail of everything in an infinite universe, totally aware of everything--hence by definition inconceivable, incomprehensible to finite, ignorant, egocentric consciousness.

~Robert A.F. Thurman, Essential Tibetan Buddhism; from Everyday Mind, edited by Jean Smith, a Tricycle book.

 

Certainly, I am not the scholar that Thurman is, and I never will be. But my understanding of the Buddha's enlightenment does not involve "perfect omniscience" or God-like qualities of mind.

I can get behind the Buddha's enlightenment, otherwise I wouldn't be a Buddhist. But for me there is no equation with God in his insight into the nature of suffering and how to end suffering. The Buddha was most certainly released from the wheel of samsara, achieved non-dual consciousness, and maybe even developed some ability to see into others, but to ascribe perfect omniscience is to say that he became a God.

I understand that Thurman is coming from the Tibetan tradition, which is much more open to those types of declarations than is the Theravada tradition, but I'm not buying it.
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Quote of the day:

"Mistakes are a part of being human. Appreciate your mistakes for what they are: precious life lessons that can only be learned the hard way. Unless it's a fatal mistake, which, at least, others can learn from."
~ Al Franken

Image of the day:

BODY
~ Chronic pain: where does it come from and why? -- "Often, injuries carry an aggravating side effect: pain. More and more frequently, pain is not just a temporary result that will go away, but becomes a permanent factor that affects people’s lives. Jane E. Brody of the New York Times reports that chronic pain often changes a person for the worst and can lead to anxiety, fear, anger, and depression."
~ Dieters Who Eat In Response To Emotions Versus Social Situations, Lose Less And Regain More -- "Just in time for the start of the holiday eating season -- a new study finds that dieters who have the tendency to eat in response to external factors, such as at festive celebrations, have fewer problems with their weight loss than those who eat in response to emotions (internal factors)."
~ Boosting Vitamin D May Have Long-Term Benefits For Inflammation, Aging, New Study Suggests -- "There is a new reason for the 76 million baby boomers to grab a glass of milk. Vitamin D, a key nutrient in milk, could have aging benefits linked to reduced inflammation, according to a new study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition."
~ Taking Care Of Your Skin Starts From Within -- "The old adage "you are what you eat" not only applies to our overall health and nutrition, but how our skin looks and feels as well. As the largest organ in the body, our skin can benefit from the same nutrition we get from foods that have a positive effect on our heart and other major organs. In fact, new research suggests that eating foods rich in protein and certain vitamins and minerals might provide valuable anti-aging effects."
~ Strategies to curb your hunger while you lose -- "Everything from stress to hormones to people, places, and situations can kick your appetite into overdrive. The good news: Whatever the cause, you can beat your hunger pangs. Health.com offers up the latest stay-full strategies from the experts."
~ Do you know how many calories your workout burns? -- "Find out if you're working as hard as you think you are with the Calories Burned Calculator."
~ Sunshine 'helps to keep you young' -- "A healthy dose of sunshine may be the secret to staying young, British scientists have revealed. Vitamin D is produced naturally by the skin in response to sunlight and may help to slow the ageing process and protect against disease, according to the study."
~ The nature and nurture of muscles -- "Some of the truly fascinating insights into talent and greatness emerge from the realm of human musculature -- how our skeletal muscles are initially formed, the attributes of different muscle fibers, and the different ways muscles can be transformed by activity and training."


PSYCHE/SELF
~ Is IQ actually AQ? (Mistaking Achievement for "Intelligence") -- "I've just gotten my hands on a copy of Andrew Elliott and Carol Dweck's mammoth Handbook of Competence and Motivation. Following the lead chapter from the editors is an utterly fascinating contribution from Yale psychologist Robert Sternberg, who, in just a few pages, seems to completely shatter the popular myth of I.Q. and intelligence testing."
~ The Art of Visualization: How to Mentally Learn New Skills, Develop Awesome Habits, and Improve Your Health -- "Although primarily used in athletics, visualization is a tool that has powerful applications in personal development. In this post, I’ll be describing what visualization is, how it works, and how you can essentially re-architect your life using it."
~ I Can't Believe My Eyes: Conforming to the Norm -- "Solomon Asch's classic top 10 social psychology experiment shows that many of us will deny our own senses just to conform with others."
~ Marriage Is Not the Key to Happiness -- "Husbands and wives are no more happier than singles."
~ 10 Reasons You Aren’t Achieving Success -- "A couple of months ago, I asked you not to fear failure, saying that embracing failure — or at least the possibility of failure — was essential to success. But, of course, in the end the goal is to succeed, and fear of failing isn’t the only thing that keeps us from succeeding."
~ Dr Mindfulness: Science and the meditation boom -- "This weekend's edition of All in the Mind looks at the explosion of mindfulness-based research and interventions in health. How do we establish a solid scientific evidence base for what is such an introspective endeavour?"
~ Feeling Stressed? -- "Pending job cuts at the office. Back-to-back final exams. A messy divorce. An unexpected surgery. What do they all have in common? In a word -- stress. While everyone knows that stress can take a toll on a person physically and psychologically, it also can lead to dermatologic problems, such as acne, brittle nails or even hair loss."
~ 8 Ways to Spark Your Creativity -- "Creativity is a strange, elusive creature. Sometimes is flowing like a river. Sometimes it’s all dried up and nowhere to be found. Here are some thoughts and ideas that I like and have found useful to spark or improve my own creativity."

 

CULTURE/POLITICS
~ Review - Changing Conceptions of the Child from the Renaissance to Post-Modernity -- "At a glance, childhood seems to fall into the background of philosophical inquiry, but Kennedy proceeds in this fascinating study to demonstrate the centrality of definitions of childhood in determining the self-understandings, daily behaviors, institutional practices, and punishment rituals practiced across the West."
~ Bush's Lap Dogs -- "The CIA's new target? John Helgerson, the man appointed by President Bush to expose wrongdoing at the CIA. As inspector general of the agency, Helgerson came under attack from his superiors simply for trying to do his job: He was aggressively investigating torture at the CIA's secret prisons."
~ In the Middle -- "The working class and intellectuals speak different languages, and working class activists are caught between the two. It's time for theory to reconnect with practice, says Brian Ashton."
~ The Obligations of Academic Freedom -- "Many academics, including myself, rise to defend "academic freedom" in response to claims that professoriate is too "liberal". The concept of "academic freedom," however, seems to mean many things to many people, and there is often a lack of appreciation about why it is necessary and what it ought to entail."
~ Judge: Druggists may withhold "morning-after" pill -- "A federal judge has suspended controversial state rules requiring pharmacies to dispense so-called "Plan B" emergency contraceptives, saying the rules appear to unconstitutionally violate pharmacists' freedom of religion." That's a load of crap.
~ Are We All Lockeans Now? -- "Intentionally or not, the president's words evoke the thinking of John Locke (1632-1704), the quintessential philosopher of the Enlightenment era and a key influence on the American founding fathers. It is a mistake, then, for secularists to dismiss the president's position as necessarily an unsophisticated throwback to pre-modern times."
~ Suu Kyi 'Optimistic' on Burma Talks -- "Detained Burma opposition head Aung San Suu Kyi is "very optimistic" about prospects of the UN-promoted process for reconciliation between the military government and pro-democracy forces."
~ Mukasey Sworn In as Attorney General -- "Michael B. Mukasey took the oath at the Justice Department less than a day after winning confirmation."


HABITATS/TECHNOLOGY
~ How to Plan a Green Thanksgiving -- "These 10 green Thanksgiving ideas will save money and time while protecting the environment. Green holidays can be creative, fun, and easy - and easy on your conscience."
~ Bay Area Spill Fouls Coastline -- "An oil spill fouled miles of coastline Thursday, sending environmentalists scrambling to save tarred marine life."
~ Oil Find Could Transform Brazil -- "Brazil's state oil company said Thursday that it has discovered as much as 8 billion barrels of light crude in an ultra-deep field off the coast of Rio de Janeiro."
~ Some humpback whale calls deciphered -- "Australian scientists studying the sounds of humpback whales say they have begun to decode their mysterious communication system, identifying male pickup lines and motherly warnings."
~ Atomic-level Microscopy At Least 100 Times Faster With New Technique -- "Using an existing technique in a novel way, physicists have made the scanning tunneling microscope -- which can image individual atoms on a surface -- at least 100 times faster. The simple adaptation, based on a method of measurement currently used in nano-electronics, could also give STMs significant new capabilities -- including the ability to sense temperatures in spots as small as a single atom."
~ Green is the new blah -- "Last night I watched the TNSFKAMST (Thursday Night Shows Formerly Known as Must-See TV). To be honest I'd forgotten it was Green Is Universal week; I was just indulging in a little sitcom sitdown. But there was no escaping the green message, and it was ... what's the word? ... artificial and painful and forced."
~ Waterways downstream from oil sands are full o' toxins, says study -- "Fish, water, and sediment downstream from the gigantic oil sands projects in Alberta are chock-full of carcinogens and other toxins, says a new study."


INTEGRAL/BUDDHIST
~ The Beginning and the End -- "'Right View' is said to be both the beginning and the end of the path of liberation in Buddhism. From Right View, the first step of the Eightfold Path, we can realize the Four Noble Truths, which is the beginning of wisdom."
~ T-Shirt of the Week: Got AQAL? -- "This weeks T-Shirt is all about "Change Your Mind, Change Your World," and asks if you're applying AQAL in your life....and if you've got this T-Shirt?"
~ A CAT-Scan of the Global Brain (Part 4) -- "If it's true that every individual brain is like a single neuron in the global brain, we are all connected at an invisible level. In itself this isn't a radical statement: scholars of art and myth have discovered countless similarities between cultures that were historically isolated from one another."
~ Participatory Spirituality, an update on John Heron’s book -- "One year ago, John Heron wrote an important, but self-published book, on Participatory Spirituality, which was subtitled, a Farewell to Authoritarian Religion. This important book is now also available through Amazon and I would therefore like to bring it once more under your attention. Below is the short review that I added to it."
~ Andrew Cohen on Women, Men, and the Evolution of Culture -- "So what is it that I notice arises from my being when Cohen speaks or writes? I think it's that ego. I think it's the Guru syndrome that he steps so willingly and so easily into. I think it's that he takes so much credit for things that are already emerging , with him, without him, around him, away from him, and in spite of him."
~ Will Solving the 'Hard Problem' of Consciousness Unweave the Rainbow? -- "Some say in fifty years or so we'll have enough neuro-scientific evidence to completely describe the functioning of the brain. The question is, will this mountain of evidence be enough to explain the emergence of human consciousness?" I doubt it.
~ Postformal dialectics 3 -- "I’m starting another thread continuing the re-posting of the Integral Review discussion because we’ve been having technical problems. It seems comments, including my own, have been ending up in the spam bin. We’re working on correcting this so please bear with us, thanks."
~ Revision3 - They’re Hip, Young, & Geeky. But Are They Conscious? -- "urchinTracker ('/outbound/article/www.fallingfruit.tv');">Falling Fruit is one among several of the first netcasting media companies. urchinTracker ('/outbound/article/www.revision3.com');">Revision3, based out of San Francisco, is another such company who are paving the way and doing it quite well. They focus primarily on technology and offer all of their content in a video format. What’s so interesting about Revision3, and why I wanted to dedicate a post to them is that their project is similar to ours in many ways, but also diverges in some unique ways."

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Today's Daily Om.

As we get caught up in the subjective reality of our everyday lives, sometimes it's hard to remember and accept that everything is exactly as it should be -- right here, right now, we are each always already fully enlightened. The trick we all must learn is to access the divine spark within us.

Unlimited Vision
Everything Is In Divine Order

We can only see so much from where we sit in our particular bodies, in the midst of our particular lives, rooted as we are in the continuum of space and time. The divine, on the other hand, is not limited to the constructs of either space or time, and its wisdom and workings often elude us as we try to make sense of what is happening in our lives. This is why things are not always what they seem to be and even the best-laid plans are sometimes overturned. Even when we feel we have been guided by our intuition every step of the way, we may find ourselves facing unexpected loss and disappointment. At times like these, we can find some solace in trusting that no matter how bad or just plain inexplicable things look from our perspective, they are, in fact, in divine order.

Even as we take our places in this earthly realm, a part of us remains completely free of the confines we face here. Regardless of what is happening in our lives, this part of us remains infused with joy and gratitude, connected to the unbroken source from which we come. Our small self, on the other hand, who is caught up in our false identity as a being limited in space and time, regards happiness as the result of things going the way it wants them to go. It is this part of us that suffers the greatest confusion and upset when the logic of events does not compute. And it is to this self that we must extend unconditional love, forgiveness, and compassion. In order to do this, we tap into our inner divinity, holding the space of a tender authority, extending love and light to our ego as a mother extends her love to a troubled child.

There are many ways to access our inner divinity—meditation, prayer, chanting, channeling, and conscious breathing, to name a few. It is helpful to develop a regular practice that provides us access to this all-powerful, healing presence, as it can be difficult to reach once we are in a stressful position, if we have not already established a connection. The more connected we are with this part of ourselves, the more we share its unlimited vision and the secure, knowing that all the things of our life, no matter how they appear, are in a state of divine and perfect order.