Today's Daily Dharma from Tricycle:

The Seeds of Our Actions

 

How is it that harmful results follow from harmful actions? It is by the force of an imprint placed on our mind that the potential to experience future suffering comes about. For example, a person who commits murder plants a very strong negative impression on his or her own mind and that impression, or seed, carries with it the potential to place that mind in a state of extreme misery. Unless the impression of that non-virtuous action is purified this latent seed will remain implanted in the mind, its power dormant but unimpaired. When the appropriate circumstances are eventually met, the potential power of this impression will be activated and the seed will ripen as an experience of intense suffering. . . .

The situation is analogous to that of an arid piece of ground into which seeds were placed a long time ago. As long as these seeds are not destroyed somehow, they will retain their potential to grow. Should the ground be watered sufficiently these long-forgotten seeds will suddenly sprout forth. In a similar fashion our karmic actions plant their seeds in the field of our consciousness and when we encounter the proper conditions these seeds will sprout and bear their karmic fruit.

~ Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, Meaningful to Behold; from Everyday Mind, a Tricycle book edited by Jean Smith.

Mark, over at Marco Polo, is doing a research project on Buddhism on the internet for his Eastern Religions and Philosophies class. he sent out a survey to some Buddhist blogs, and mine was one.

For the fun of it, I thought I'd share my answers.

1. How did you get acquainted with the teachings of the Buddha?

I first discovered Buddhism in a comparative religions class in college. I was interested, but I was into shamanism at the time, so I didn't really follow up on my interest until I was in my late twenties, really depressed, and looking for something that could explain my suffering. The integral author Ken Wilber talks a lot about Buddhism and meditation (with a lot of examples from his own life in One Taste) as tools for changing our relationship with ourselves, so I started studying and reading.

a. If you weren’t a Buddhist your whole life, which tradition did you grow up in?
Why did you leave that tradition (if you did)?

I was raised Catholic. I stopped believing in God at age 13, when my father died suddenly (though not unexpectedly, as I look back) of a heart attack. I couldn't believe in a God who would do that to me. Later, in my teens, I started reading Plato, Aristotle, and other philosophers -- at that point it was over. No more religion for me. When I came to Buddhism it felt more like a philosophy and psychology of mind, not a religion, so it worked for me.

2. What, if any, religion or philosophy do you associate yourself with currently? Could you describe your faith a bit?

I'm a progressive Buddhist, mostly in the Shambhala tradition of Chogyam Trungpa. I meditate three or more times a week, but I try to practice mindfulness and the eightfold path in my daily life. To be honest, this is mixed in with a lot of Western psychology practice -- shadow work, subpersonalities, and so on. Lama Surya Das and Thich Nhat Hanh have also influenced my thought, so I'm not tied to one school.

I don't believe in heavens or hells, demons or anything else. I'm essentially a rationalist who understands that there are increasing levels of consciousness, each one more expansive and compassionate than the previous one. Buddhist practice, combined with other forms of practice, can help us evolve through these stages of unfolding -- the unfolding of spirit in matter (Buddhanature).

3. Which of the Buddhist teachings do you find most valuable in your everyday life? Why?

My favorite sutra is the Heart Sutra, along with the interpretation by the Dalai Lama (Essence of the Heart Sutra).

Mindfulness has been incredibly useful for me, as well as the teachings about impermanence. I have also been a big fan of all of Pema Chodron's teachings -- a down to earth approach that works for an American with a busy life.

Mindfulness, both on the cushion or in daily life, has made me a much more compassionate person -- with others and with myself (I tend to have a loud inner critic, and being mindful keeps that voice from running my life).

Impermanence has helped me deal with my attachment and clinging to outcomes. I'm not a big materialist, but I am a control junky. Knowing that everything is fleeting, at best, has helped me free myself, to an extent, from some forms of clinging. I know that I can fully control outcomes, so it's easier to just do what I can do and let the rest happen as it will.

The teachings on Buddha-nature have also been crucial. When I begin to see Buddha-nature in myself and others, I lose a lot of me/you, I/other kind of thinking. I have a LONG way to go on this stuff, but I like the journey.

4. Describe your blog.

My blog is an integral blog. Nothing is off limits -- music, art, pop culture, satire, animation, politics, poetry and literature, science, psychology, integral theory (Ken Wilber, Spiral Dynamics, Jean Gebser, Sri Aurobindo, and so on), and of course Buddhism. As much as possible, I take an integral and Buddhist approach to things, but not necessarily in every post.

What is your approach to writing?

I blog whatever interests me, which is why it is all over the place. As much as I cover all the topics above, I also write about my personal life from time, mostly growth challenges and major events. I try to post some kind of dharma teaching each day.

Who is your intended audience?

My audience was originally other integral and Buddhist bloggers. I have no idea who reads my blog now, but I average over 300 hits a day -- which isn't much. I'd like to think that non-Buddhist and non-integral thinkers also read my blog, which is know is true to some extent.

What issues does your blog tend to focus on, be they Buddhist or otherwise?

I've been focusing a lot on the new atheists of late, because I think they represent an important "leading edge" in the cultural conversation. But I also have focused on subpersonalities, integral theory, progressive Buddhism, relationships, among other things.

Anything that gets me fired up will become a topic for a while, until I move on to something else.

 

Storm

a slate sky reaches down
to touch the earth
with watery fingers

all the dry years
washed from my eyes

roaring in the dark distance
the river seeks its home
carrying the night away

all the submerged minutes
returning to hungry soil

Dalai Lama Quote of the Week from Snow Lion Publications.

...In the Buddhist teachings, when we search for the causes of suffering, we find what is called 'the truth of the origin of suffering', namely that negative actions--karma--and the negative emotions that induce such actions are the causes of suffering.

Talking about causes, if we take a step further and investigate more deeply, we find that the cause alone is not sufficient for bringing about the results. Causes themselves have to come in contact with co-operative circumstances or conditions. For instance, say we search for a material or substantial cause for this plant, we will find that it has a continuity stretching back into beginningless time.

There are certain Buddhist texts that speak of space particles, existing before the evolution of this present universe. According to these texts, the space particles serve as the material and substantial cause for matter, such as this plant. Now if the essential and substantial cause for matter is traced to these space particles, which are all the same, how do we account for the diversity that we see in the material world? It is here that the question of conditions and circumstances comes into play. When these substantial causes come in contact with different circumstances and conditions, they give rise to different effects, that is, different kinds of matter. So we find that the cause alone is not sufficient for bringing about a result. What is required is an aggregation of many different conditions and circumstances.

Although you can find certain differences among the Buddhist philosophical schools about how the universe came into being, the basic common question addressed is how the two fundamental principles--external matter and internal mind or consciousness--although distinct, affect one another. External causes and conditions are responsible for certain of our experiences of happiness and suffering. Yet we find that it is principally our own feelings, our thoughts and our emotions, that really determine whether we are going to suffer or be happy.

~ From Dzogchen: The Heart Essence of the Great Perfection by the Dalai Lama, translated by Thupten Jinpa and Richard Barron, Foreword by Sogyal Rinpoche, edited by Patrick Gaffney, published by Snow Lion Publications

And the news is not good.

From the World AIDS Campaign press release:

With thousands of events around the world marking World AIDS Day, December 1, the World AIDS Campaign is stressing the urgency of new and renewed leadership commitments by all stakeholders in the response to HIV and AIDS. The momentum must continue to build. “It is now time for bold leadership at all levels in order to turn the tide of HIV,” says Felicita Hikuam, Global Programmes Manager, World AIDS Campaign.

The World AIDS Day theme of leadership underscores that our knowledge of the HIV epidemic, political will and financial commitments have reached a critical point. With just three years to go until 2010 – the target governments have set to achieve universal access to prevention, treatment, care and support – leadership has to be demonstrated in concrete and immediate action. AIDS is the “biggest preventable and treatable threat to humankind in the 21st century,” states Greg Gray, International Coordinator, International Treatment Preparedness Coalition.

Improved methods in data collection have lowered estimates of people living with HIV in several countries and there are indications in some countries that the incidence of HIV has stabilised. Yet an estimated 33.2 million people around the world – one in every 200 – are living with HIV, and daily 6,800 people are infected with HIV and 5,700 people die of AIDS-related illnesses. AIDS is still considered the leading cause of death in Sub-Saharan Africa.

“This is not the time for complacency nor apathy,” says Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu. “It is the time for compassionate leadership.”

In many cases, it has been people living with HIV themselves who have led the way, emphasising the urgency of the pandemic and highlighting the need for all sectors to work together to tackle the complex issues fueling the spread of HIV.

"The leadership of HIV-positive people since the beginning of the pandemic has challenged attitudes, changed laws, and advocated advances in treatment that are now saving millions of lives," says Deloris Dockrey, Chair of the Global Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS (GNP+). "We have come a long way, and now if we have similar will, energy, commitment and partnership from all sectors, we can truly stop the spread of HIV and enable all those affected to live full and productive lives."

 

Read the rest.

Now the bad news, first from Medical News Today:

Writing in this week's edition of The Lancet, to coincide with today, Saturday 1st December being World AIDS Day, a senior science advisor and global health specialist argues that although we are making considerable progress in the global race against the spread HIV/AIDS, the disease is still outpacing us, and there is a need to dispel some myths if we are to stand a chance of winning the race.

In developing countries, the rate of new infections hugely outnumbers the rate at which people infected with HIV start anti-retroviral therapy, wrote Dr James Shelton, senior medical scientist at the Bureau for Global Health, US Agency for International Development, Washington, DC, USA.

Although HIV incidence has dropped in Uganda, Kenya and Zimbabwe, the generalized epidemic continues to spread at a pace. According to Shelton, there are 10 misconceptions about HIV which he believes are getting in the way of successfully preventing the spread of the disease. He discussed them one by one in a Comment article in the journal.

1. Myth: HIV Spreads Like Wildfire.
   This is not true, because typically, it does not, wrote Shelton. While it is very infectious in the first weeks, because the levels of virus are high, for the many years after this, virus levels are low. This is borne out by the statistic that only 8 per cent of people whose main heterosexual partner has the virus become infected with HIV every year. This is part of the reason the virus has not spread like wildfire all over the world, wrote Shelton who suggested the reason the epidemic is spreading more rapidly in Africa seems to be down to people having more than one sexual partner at a time.


2. Myth: Sex Workers are the Problem.
   Sex workers are not likely to be the problem in Africa as formal sex work in uncommon in the regions affected. For instance, in Lesotho, only 2 per cent of men said they had paid for sex, whereas 29 per cent said they had had multiple partners, in the previous year. Shelton argued that targetting of sex work in HIV prevention campaigns is ineffective in areas where economic support helps people sustain multiple partners and pay for sex.


3. Myth: Men Are the Problem.
   This may be partly true, but a heterosexual epidemic also requires that some women have multiple partners too. A 2003 national survey of couples in Kenya showed that both partners had HIV in 3.7 per cent of couples, and in 4.7 per cent only the woman was HIV positive, and in 2.8 per cent, only the man was positive.


4. Myth: Adolescents Are the Problem.
   Shelton argued that targetting young people, to promote abstinence for example, might be important, but has limited use in stemming an epidemic, because generalized epidemics span all reproductive ages.


5. Myth: Poverty and Discrimination Are the Problem.
   While these factors can result in risky sex argued Shelton, it is wealth that enables concurrent partnerships, thus explaining why HIV is more common among wealthier than among poorer people. He referred to Zimbabwe where HIV has dropped in the absence of significant improvements in poverty and discrimination.


6. Myth: Condoms Are the Answer.
   While they can help to contain epidemics and protect some people, for example sex workers, condoms have limited effect in generalized epidemics, wrote Shelton. Many people don't like them, especially in stable relationships, use is not regular, and they do not offer 100 per cent protection. He argued that promoting condoms seems to encourage people to become less inhibited, and thereby engage in riskier sex, either with condoms, or with the intention of using them.


7. Myth: HIV Testing is the Answer.
   While many people might assume that having an HIV test might cause them to change their behaviour, the evidence does not support this, especially for the large majority who find they do not have the virus. Newly infected people, who are highly infectious because the virus levels are at their highest in the early weeks, are likely to test negative. Changes in behaviour also have to last ten years to be effective, wrote Shelton.


8. Myth: Treatment is the Answer.
   In theory, while treatment reduces infectiousness, it should also encourage people to change behaviour. But, wrote Shelton, this is not supported by the evidence; once people realize they are not going to die, and when the antiretrovirals kick in and they feel better, they resume sexual activity.


9. Myth: New technology is the Answer.
   A lot of work is going on in developing vaccines, antiretrovirals and microbicides, but the day when these will start to have a substantial effect are years away, and they may only be targetted at high risk populations, suggested Shelton, and they could also encourage people to resume risky behaviour. Male circumcision, which has been proved to be effective, will also take years to reach a level where it has a substantial impact on a generalized epidemic.


10. Myth: Sexual Behaviour Will Not Change.
    Shelton disagrees: faced with a deadly illness, he wrote, many people do change. He cited the example of homosexual American men in the 1980s, and in Kenya, where there has been substantial progress in encouraging people to give up multiple, concurrent sex partners.

Shelton's overriding argument is that reducing concurrent partnerships is the key to making substantial and rapid impact on generalized epidemics of HIV/AIDS. Many people do not appreciate this, he wrote, and it has only recently been appreciated from a technical standpoint.

There is a barrier among medical professionals, however, to promoting reduction in sexual partners, because as Shelton pointed out "it smacks of moralising", and "mass behavioural change is alien to most medical professionals".

State of the art techniques are available to effectively promote behaviour change, for instance using explicit messages, sensitive to local cultures, that can increase people's perception of the risks they are taking with their current behaviour:

"Even modest reductions in concurrent partnerships could substantially dampen the epidemic dynamic," wrote Shelton.

Other approaches have merit, but they are more effective when run together with partner-limitation strategies.

"Now, more than 20 years into HIV prevention, we have to get it right," wrote Shelton.

And this from a news report by Reuters:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The government is raising its estimate of how many Americans are becoming infected with the AIDS virus every year by 50 percent, according to newspaper reports on Saturday.

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now believes the number of new HIV infections each year is between 55,000 and 60,000 -- up from the 40,000 figure used for the past decade, The Washington Post reported.

The Post cited two unidentified people in contact with the scientists preparing the new estimate.

It said the higher figures were based on data from 19 states and large cities that were extrapolated to the nation as a whole. The CDC has not made the new estimate public.

The Wall Street Journal also reported the CDC's expected upward revision, citing unidentified outside researchers and public health officials.

The Journal said Robert Janssen, director of the CDC's Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention, declined to comment on the new estimates, saying they could change.

The newspapers attributed the revision to new testing technology developed by the U.S. public health agency, which also revised its methodology to make estimates more precise.

"The higher estimate is the product of a new method of testing blood samples that can identify those who were infected within the previous five months. With a way to distinguish recent infections from long-standing ones, epidemiologists can then estimate how many new infections are appearing nationwide each month or year," the Post said.

It seems to me that there is still a prevailing view in this country that HIV/AIDS is a "druggie" disease or a "gay" disease or a third world disease. Which is nonsense -- the fastest growing groups with HIV in America are young adults and middle aged women. More than twice as many Americans get HIV from heterosexual sex as from IV drug use. And among young adults, the rate of infection is about 50/50 between men and women. Even in African nations, as noted above, women tend to have HIV more often in relationships than do men.

This is such a complex issue when one factors in biology, psychology, cultural issues, and social structures that make prevention or treatment difficult. For example, India and China are experiencing huge surges in HIV-positive people and in death from AIDS. While some parts of Africa are showing progress, others are not and may be getting worse.

This may be one area where we really need integral solutions for a very complex disease. I have no idea what those might be, but if Ken Wilber and the Integral Institute really want to make a difference in the world, they could organize a think tank on how to solve this problem and really save lives. And if they worked together with the Gates Foundation and/or the Clinton Foundation, they could certainly get the funding to implement some kind of action plan for education, prevention, and treatment.

This disease can be beat if we really want to do it.
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Long before it's release, The Golden Compass has received a lot of attention. The film is based on the best-selling book by Philip Pullman, the first in the His Dark Materials trilogy.

First, the trailer:



Plot summary:

Based on author Philip Pullman's bestselling and award-winning novel, The Golden Compass tells the first story in Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. The Golden Compass is an exciting fantasy adventure, set in an alternative world where people's souls manifest themselves as animals, talking bears fight wars, and Gyptians and witches co-exist. At the center of the story is Lyra (played by newcomer Dakota Blue Richards), a 12-year-old girl who starts out trying to rescue a friend who's been kidnapped by a mysterious organization known as the Gobblers - and winds up on an epic quest to save not only her world, but ours as well.

Now, some controversy, via the LA Times:

What's really astonishing, and telling, is how long it's taken America's religious fear-mongers to notice Pullman. He's never hidden his skepticism about God or his rejection of organized religion. A quick Internet search turns up a 2004 essay he wrote deploring "theocracies" for a newspaper in his native Britain, and his own Web site states that he thinks it "perfectly possible to explain how the universe came about without bringing God into it." "His Dark Materials" features a sympathetic character, an ex-nun, who describes Christianity as "a very powerful and convincing mistake," while "The Amber Spyglass" concludes with the two child heroes participating in the dissolution of "the Authority," a senile, pretender God who has falsely passed himself off as the creator of the universe.

Only with a movie attached, however, does an outfit like Focus on the Family deem the "blasphemous and heretical" content of Pullman's fiction worthy of their attention. The Catholic League is calling for a boycott of the film and books; evangelical Protestant organizations have settled for simply urging their constituencies to approach both with extreme caution. Whether the controversy will harm the film or wrap it in the glamour of the forbidden remains to be seen. As for the books, well, you have to wonder how much actual reading goes on in the sort of household that welcomes e-mails like the ones denouncing "The Golden Compass," anyway.

Yes, it's true, as the e-mails virtually shriek, that Pullman once told an interviewer "His Dark Materials" is about "killing God," and that he wrote an op-ed piece describing C.S. Lewis' "The Chronicles of Narnia" as "ugly and poisonous." It's also true that these statements have been taken out of context -- not just out of the context of a particular interview or newspaper editorial, but out of the context of an entire culture, a culture of conversation, debate and consideration, rather than paranoia, alarmism and extremism.

I first met Pullman in England, at an annual lecture sponsored by a trust dedicated to the furthering of religious education. I buttonholed Simon Pettitt, an Anglican priest and the trust's chairman, to marvel at this; his counterparts in the United States, I said, would never have invited a figure like Pullman to speak at a flagship public event. And yet, Pettitt is no renegade. Rowan Williams, the archbishop of Canterbury, has enthused about "His Dark Materials" and participated in an onstage discussion with Pullman when a stage version of "His Dark Materials" was produced by the National Theatre in London.

"In America," I told Pettitt, "religious groups gain political advantage and rally their followers by presenting themselves as embattled. Actually listening to the other side is tantamount to admitting you're not really being persecuted." With a look of mild pity, he replied, "In order to come to views, you don't just listen to people you agree with. Education is a good thing, and, therefore, so is openness to different views."

Although Pullman has some vehement detractors among Britain's Christians, the liberal clergy there have more often valued his books for tackling the great questions of existence: life, death, morality and humanity's role in the universe. They regard his fiction as a springboard for discussion, the kind of discussion that does sometimes lead people to embrace God. They recognize him not as an enemy but as an ally in a society increasingly colonized by the vapid preoccupations of consumer culture.

Pullman also turned out to be no dogmatist. His practice of tossing out provocative statements struck me as a habit acquired during his years as a middle-school teacher, intended not to shut out opposing ideas but to flush them from the underbrush of adolescent inertia. He too is interested in what the other side has to say. This curiosity is in keeping with an ideal he calls "the democracy of reading," in which "to-and-fro between reader and text" leaves each "free to engage honestly with the other."

The article is a bit longer and worth the read.

The theme of animals representing human souls sounds vaguely shamanic to me, which is kind of cool. I'm actually quite looking forward to seeing this. I have no idea how I never read the books, but then I haven't read much fiction in the last 15 years (not even Harry Potter).
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Music for a Sunday Morning.

Herbert Von Karajan conducts - Beethoven Symphony No. 7 in A Major, Op. 92.

A nice quote from the Dalai Lama to start the day:

“I believe that the very purpose of life is to be happy. From the very core of our being, we desire contentment. In my own limited experience I have found that the more we care for the happiness of others, the greater is our own sense of well-being. Cultivating a close, warmhearted feeling for others automatically puts the mind at ease. It helps remove whatever fears or insecurities we may have and gives us the strength to cope with any obstacles we encounter. It is the principal source of success in life. Since we are not solely material creatures, it is a mistake to place all our hopes for happiness on external development alone. The key is to develop inner peace.”

Read more quotes from the Dalai Lama.

This is a cool video by an English dharma teacher whom I have never heard before.

Gary Snyder is one pf my favorite writers. And he is a genuinely nice person. This interview was conducted by Pam Jung for The Union/Prospector:

Prospector: Of all the kinds of writing you do - prose, poetry and translations - which gives you the most pleasure and why?

Gary Snyder: These are all apples and oranges, and I would hesitate to put them into some special hierarchy. Poetry is not something you can order up - the beginnings of poems come unbidden and then one goes to work on them, always keeping a huge space of mind open around it. The trick is to listen with the inner ear. This is maybe the most rewarding sort of artistic work, but it would be greedy to expect to be able to do it all the time.

Prose, and the challenge of writing "a good sentence," is enormously demanding in its own way, and it forces one to be clear. Poetry (and art), as Keats said, will be somewhat in darkness - never mathematically perfect - and yet be full of suggestion and significance. Prose can be made clear.

Translation is a challenging exercise that calls on the intuitive and receptive side of the mind, even as one strives for clarity. I do not pretend to translate from languages that I have no knowledge of (as some writers do). Even with languages I know a little (literary Chinese, modern Japanese, French), I ask a bilingual native speaker of that language to go over my translation for me and help me catch what I might have lost. This makes it slow work, so I haven't translated a lot. I am in awe of the great translator from both Chinese and Japanese, Burton Watson (an old friend) who is still doing great work in both languages, both poetry and prose. Many writers of poetry know that translation of poetry can help one jump-start one's own writing of poems when stalled.

P: As professor emeritus of English at UC, Davis, what has teaching taught you over the years?

GS: Teaching over the years (mostly in creative writing) has taught me to be subtle and various enough to respond to a wide range of styles and materials and to teach each student according to their need and potential. One thing with poetry that everybody needs to learn is to study your own language - our American English - on every level and cultivate a great sensitivity to its nuances.

I enjoyed teaching right up 'til when I quit, and I still do. I had other work, writing and research that I needed to finish up in the time left to me, though, and I figured I'd better leave Davis while I was still ahead.

P: One bio says you were elected a chancellor of The Academy of American Poets in 2003. If this is so, what are your duties, and how does this advance the art of poetry?

GS: The Academy of American Poets is a large and well endowed nonprofit with a professional staff. The chancellors are a set of accomplished American poets (elected from within the group) whose main task is to give away various scholarships and prizes to younger poets in an accountable manner. It also maintains a very educational Web site and hosts a lot of programs. Except for the annual meeting in New York, I can manage all my duties by phone and e-mail.

P: What are you doing of a creative nature now that stirs your passion?

GS: A few years ago, the artist Tom Killion and I collaborated on a book called "The High Sierra of California." It combined his rich and realistic color prints made from sketches taken on dozens of high Sierra backpacking trips and my backpacking journals from over the years.

That was such a pleasure to do that we have initiated another collaboration closer to home. This book will be Tom's prints of Mt. Tamalpais, the lovely mountain that presides over San Francisco Bay, with some poems and an essay on "walking the mountain" by me.

Tamalpais has been a noted hiking destination for thousands of Bay Area people for the past 150 or so years, myself among them. As I now study and reflect on walking through history, I am more and more struck by its deep value to both mind and body and how much one learns and sees on foot. As the ancient Chinese said (in a time when there was no way to travel but by walking) "For a person of vitality and spirit, all of China is your back yard."

Read the rest.

Helen Vendler is the most important poetry critic in this country, but no one outside of poetry knows who she is, which is sad. She is a devoted lover of poetry and has spent her life trying to help people understand poetry better. She can make or break a career with her reviews -- just ask Jorie Graham, who owes her career to Vendler in many ways.

Vendler has written a new book about W.B. Yeats, a look at his use of form. She talked about the book at a recent event at Harvard University. The Harvard Crimson covered her appearance.

Noted poetry critic and English professor Helen Vendler presented her latest book, “A Secret Discipline: Yeats and Lyric Form,” last night in a talk in which she read Yeats poems—at one point breaking into an Irish brogue—and told anecdotes from Yeats’ life to an audience of several hundred.

Vendler was introduced to the Sackler Auditorium crowd by Homi K. Bhabha—the head of the Humanities Center at Harvard—who said that Vendler’s “critical presence draws together rare moments of insight and instruction that renew the life of the poem.”

“She is a deep friend to the poets she writes about,” Bhabha said.

Vendler began by joking that, unsure what to focus on during her talk, she asked fellow English professor—and Pulitzer Prize-winning poet—Jorie Graham for advice.

“When I said, What should I do, [Graham] said, ‘Read them some poems and talk about them!’” Vendler said.

Vendler said that she decided to write the book, which is about the way Yeats employs form in poetry, because of a gap in the current literature.

“Often, we write these books because we go to the shelf and they’re not there,” she said. But in this case, “It was a long, long time before I went to a shelf and didn’t find this book there—I didn’t know to look for it.”

At first, Vendler said, she didn’t find it unusual that Yeats would adopt varying poetic forms, such as sonnets or ballads; indeed, she said, many poets do. But in the end she found his use of varied poetic forms was too important to pass over.

“So finally I got tired of my ignorance, and I felt ignoble standing up and teaching a sequence when I didn’t know why it had the rhyme scheme it had, or why it had the shape it did,” she said.

Through her readings, Vendler—who is also a contributor to the New York Review of Books, the London Review of Books, and the New Republic—provided engaging summaries of the poems before reading them aloud.

At one point, she imitated Yeats’s reading with an Irish accent.

“When you read [his poems] as a female, in the wrong tenor, you feel you are betraying [their] sonic quality,” she said.

The audience, however, appeared to disagree. At the event’s end, when Bhabha asked the crowd if they would like to ask a last question or hear Vendler read a short poem, audience members shouted, “read a poem.”

Today's Daily Om reminds us that we all have everything we need within us -- no need for gurus, just a need to tune into to our deeper truths. The downside of this seeming truism is that too few people have the resources and ability to cultivate this self-led approach without some outside help.

Turn To Yourself
You Are The One You Are Waiting For

We spend a lot of our lives looking for role models, mentors, teachers, and gurus to guide us on our path. There is nothing wrong with this and, in fact, finding the right person at the right time can really help. However, it is important to realize that in the absence of such a figure, we can very safely rely upon ourselves. We carry within us everything we need to know to make progress on our paths to self-realization. The outer world serves as a mirror. Or to use another metaphor, our inner world has a magnetic force that draws to us what we need to evolve to the next level. All we need to do to see that we already have everything we need is to let go of our belief that we need to seek in order to find.

The path of the spirit is often defined as a journey with a goal such as the fabled pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. In this metaphor, a person begins a search for something they want but do not have and then they find it, and there is a happy ending. However, most of us know that getting what we want only makes us happy for a moment, and then the happiness passes until a new object of desire presents itself. Joy is a permanent aspect of our inner selves and is not separate from us at any point. We do not have to travel to find it or imagine that it resides only in the body of another. In fact, what the best teachers will do is point out that this very precious elixir is something we already possess.

So when we find ourselves on our path, not knowing which way to turn and wishing for guidance, we can turn to ourselves. We may not know the right answer rationally or intellectually, but if we simply ask, let go, and wait patiently, an answer will come. The more we practice this and trust this process, the less we will look outside ourselves for teachers and guides for we will have successfully become our own.

Quote of the day:

"If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them."
~ Isaac Asimov

Image of the day:


BODY
~ Questions of Strength: December -- "The true Master Blaster discusses planks, high reps for legs, determining your 1-RM without killing yourself, backward rep counting, bad-ass Beta Alanine, building big arms, losing your pump, and the glories of buffalo meat."
~ Strike a Yoga Pose: Lotus -- "Lotus is the next pose in the closing sequence of Ashtanga Yoga after Bound Lotus. This is the pose I'm sure everyone thinks of when they think of yoga. It's a calming pose that many people choose to meditate in, and many yoga classes often begin or end in this pose."
~ Free eBook: StrongLifts 5×5 -- "Several of you asked me for an eBook. So I wrote one. StrongLifts 5×5 eBook: 52 pages big & available for free!"
~ Morning Jolt Of Caffeine Might Mask Serious Sleep Problems -- "With the holiday season's hustle and bustle in full swing, most of us will race to our favorite coffee shop to get that caffeine boost to make it through the day. However, that daily jolt that we crave might be the reason we need the caffeine in the first place."
~ Honey Seems to Calm Children's Coughs -- "A teaspoon of honey before bed seems to calm children's coughs and help them sleep better, according to a new study that relied on parents' reports of their children's symptoms...."
~ Holidays bring the heart attack season (AP) -- "Those lords-a-leeping and ladies dancing may want to consider the downside of the holidays: Heart attack season has arrived. December and January are the deadliest months for heart disease, and many of the things that make the season merry are culprits: Rich meals, more alcohol — and all that extra stress."
~ Natural Compound In Broccoli Could Treat Devastating Genetic Skin Disorder -- "The compound sulforaphane whose natural precursors are found at high levels in broccoli and other cruciferous vegetables has been hailed for its chemopreventive powers against cancer. Now sulforaphane has demonstrated new skills in treating a genetic skin blistering disorder called epidermolysis bullosa simplex (EBS), Pierre Coulombe and colleagues at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore report at the American Society for Cell Biology 47th Annual Meeting."
~ Finding a Diet that Works -- "How many new diet plans have you tried? Some people can tick off a list of new diet after diet that they have tried. They yo-yo back and forth. Atkins, weight watchers, the grapefruit diet, the soup diet, the salad diet, the low-fat diet some people can't even count every new diet they have tried."


PSYCHE/SELF
~ This is your brain. This is your brain on video games... [Greg Laden's Blog] -- "Sex differences in certain abilities, which have persisted for decades in various psychological tests, are now widely believed to be the result of conditioning that is in turn shaped by cultural factors. This applies to math abilities, spatial skills, and a range of other activities. Neural plasticity is key, and widely misunderstood or ignored."
~ New Study Shows Anorexics Have Different Brain Patterns -- "An article in U.S News & World Report, Brain Activity Points to Origins of Anorexia, cites a study about differences in brain activity between anorexic patients and those who do not have the eating disorder. The study at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine did MRI scans of the brains of 13 "normal" women and 13 recovered anorexic patients while they played a computer game."
~ Synchronized Movement and the Self-Other Boundary -- "I've been reading The Happiness Hypothesis, by Jonathan Haidt -- one of those delightful books pitched to the non-specialist, yet accurate and meaty enough to be of interest to the specialist -- and I was struck by Haidt's description of historian William McNeill's work on synchronized movement among soldiers and dancers...."
~ Does IQ Reflect Temporal Acuity? [Developing Intelligence] -- "Your IQ can be reliably predicted by simple reaction time tasks - perhaps even more reliably than with much more complex cognitive tasks. This surprising psychometric fact has led to the belief in human "processing speed." In the same way that a computer with a faster microprocessor might carry out more computations, with potentially less demand on memory, the idea is that brains with better neuronal efficiency also manifest both higher IQ and proportionately faster reaction times even in simple tasks."
~ Silence and Breath: Always There! -- "I remember first learning meditation practice, as a somewhat distracted and giggly student. The leader of the session said that "the great thing about your breathing is that it's always with you, you even take it with you on the bus!" I was sorely challenged in my attempt to keep a straight face. It was funny but it was true, it was funny because it was true."
~ My review of "The Body Has a Mind of Its Own" [Cognitive Daily] -- "I've reviewed Sandra and Matthew Blakeslee's recent book The Body Has a Mind of Its Own over at The Quarterly Conversation. So, is this the science book that should have made the New York Times' Notable Books list? (Several ScienceBloggers have complained that the list includes no science books)."
~ Weighty Bedroom Issues -- "The better he looks, the worse she feels."
~ Scientist Finds Way To Measure Covert Attention -- "The person you're speaking with may be looking at you, but are they really paying attention" Or has the person covertly shifted their attention, without moving their eyes" Dr. Brian Corneil, of the Centre for Brain and Mind at The University of Western Ontario in London, Canada has found a way of actually measuring covert attention."
~ Initial depressive bipolar mood linked to suicide history -- "Assessing the effect of patients’ initial bipolar mood state on their subsequent risk for suicidal behavior."
~ Happiness Comes Cheap -- Even For Millionaires -- "A bar of chocolate, a long soak in the bath, a snooze in the middle of the afternoon, a leisurely stroll in the park. These are the things that make us the most happy, according to new research. Researchers found that it's the simple things in life that impact most positively on our sense of well being."


CULTURE/POLITICS
~ The Modern Sorcerer -- "One of the more intriguing accounts of the life of the inimitable Jane Austen emerged in the pages of The Times in 1926 with the publication of a letter which had been carefully guarded and passed on within her family up until then. The document hailed from the time of Austen’s near-fatal illness in the late winter of 1815-16, just after she had finished up Emma and rushed it to the printers."
~ Clinton, Obama Continue to Spar Over Health Care Plans -- "Leading Democratic presidential candidates continued to focus on health care issues and "the question of how 'universal' a coverage plan must be," the Los Angeles Times reports."
~ Everybody needs writers -- "Without expert wordsmiths, our whole culture would be put in jeopardy."
~ The Battle of the Book -- "At last, American society is getting around to the real villain in American culture, the one whose deleterious influence has so far escaped the magical transformation that technology, and its religion of velocity, is visiting upon all of American life: the printed book. Damn the printed book!"
~ A Usable Past for the Spiritual Left -- "The latest book from Princeton University's Leigh Eric Schmidt, newly released in paperback, appeared at a propitious moment in the national conversation about religion and public life in the United States. In Restless Souls: The Making of American Spirituality from Emerson to Oprah, Schmidt writes about--and indeed champions--the Spiritual Left as a counterpoint to the Religious Right, and his book, first published in August 2005, emerged just as the connections between faith and political liberalism enjoyed a period of renewed media interest--interest that has continued into the present."
~ What does a free society require of believers and non-believers alike? -- "Religious diversity won't work without reasserting the liberal essentials. But let's not confuse secularism with atheism."
~ The Golden Compass: The Making of a Fantasy -- "Check out the making of Chris Weitz's film adaptation of The Golden Compass, the first book in Philip Pullman's incredibly popular His Dark Materials trilogy."
~ Why the GOP Won't Get Behind Huckabee -- "Why hasn't this charmer with a perfect record on the right's core social litmus tests not already wrapped up the Republican nomination? Look no further than the uber-conservatives who are spitting mad that he's too nice to poor people and foreigners."


HABITATS/TECHNOLOGY
~ Is the Environmental Movement on the Wrong Track? -- "The new book Breakthrough believes we need hope to counteract environmentalists' dreary pessimism. But is this new "politics of hope" actually hopeful?"
~ "Doomsday Seed Vault" in the Arctic -- "No project is more interesting at the moment than a curious project in one of the world’s most remote spots, Svalbard. Bill Gates is investing millions in a seed bank on the Barents Sea near the Arctic Ocean, some 1,100 kilometers from the North Pole. Svalbard is a barren piece of rock claimed by Norway and ceded in 1925 by international treaty (see map)."
~ Climate Change Predicted To Drive Trees Northward -- "A study based on an extensive data-gathering effort concludes that expected climate change this century could shift the ranges of 130 North American tree species northward by hundreds of kilometers and shrink the ranges by more than half. Ranges may decrease sharply if trees cannot disperse in altered conditions."
~ Toll of climate change on world food supply could be worse than thought -- "Global agriculture, already predicted to be stressed by climate change in coming decades, could go into steep, unanticipated declines in some regions due to complications that scientists have so far inadequately considered, say three new scientific reports."
~ Fossils excavated from Bahamian blue hole may give clues of early life -- "Long before tourists arrived in the Bahamas, ancient visitors took up residence in this archipelago off Florida's coast and left remains offering stark evidence that the arrival of humans can permanently change -- and eliminate -- life on what had been isolated islands, says a University of Florida researcher."
~ Radiation flashes may help crack cosmic mystery -- "Faint, fleeting blue flashes of radiation emitted by particles that travel faster than the speed of light through the atmosphere may help scientists solve one of the oldest mysteries in astrophysics."
~ Whiz Chimps Outsmart College Students -- "Five-year-old chimps consistently beat adult humans in a memory number game."


INTEGRAL/BUDDHIST BLOGS
~ NEW INTEGRAL BLOG -- Shaman Sun -- "What would integral blogging look like? It would include a little of this, a little of that. Creative expression, journalism, spirituality, psychology, shadow; with these I hope to pioneer the daring meaning of integral, and transform a little in the process."
~ Deepak Chopra: The Future of the Body (Part 4) -- "Western medicine has proceeded on the assumption that the mind is intelligent but that the body isn't. In effect the body is a machine made of meat. This machine needs fixing at times, and being deviously complicated, with billions of interconnected parts, it has innumerable ways to break down. Medical research doesn't so much deny the body's intelligence as ignore it."
~ Nameless Dread at the Brink of the Transpersonal... -- "Here is a transcript of a conversation I had with Ken Wilber organized through Integral Spiritual Center to talk about his book Integral Spirituality. This is a transcript of Chapter Six, part 5 (parts 6 and 7 are continuations of our converation; I may write transcripts for those parts eventually as well). I highly recommend joining ISC to enjoy the great material offered there - here is a page of free offerings from ISC to whet your appetite."
~ The Radical Spirituality of Generation X, Part 20: Meditating in Sensurround -- "It would be nice to begin the journey with who we are. But "who we are" is a house of mirrors, a tangled knot, a great and terrible Oz that in the final analysis may consist of nothing more than, well, nothing. The self, I am afraid, may be more of an onion than a fruit, and "who we are" is the skin we shed."
~ Is the ILP Kit too simple? -- "I'd like to respond to the perspective that the Kit is basic or just for beginners. At one level that's certainly true. In fact, we intentionally created the Kit so that anyone can make use of it; even if they don't have any previous experience with integral. (We even call it the Starter Kit for that reason.)"
~ Monasteries as the Conscience of Society - "Buddhist Geeks continue their podcast series with Ven. Thubten Chodron. Interview by Ryan Oelke."
~ D'Souza vs. Dennett: The Aftermath -- "I just finished watching the 15-part video of the D'Souza vs. Dennett debate held at Tufts University. All in all it was a good and entertaining debate. Nothing new with the arguments. But I still recommend watching it from beginning to end. Now here's my take…"
~ Emotions as beauty itself -- "For this post, I’ll include more of my personal journey: that of dealing with emotions. I’ve always been someone who has had had very intense emotions to deal with, especially those related to my past sexual abuse. Because of this, many emotions have come at any and all times, without apparent “reason”: at work, in relationships, light social times, and with family. Without any visible reason or sense, at least in the immediate context, it’s easy to hold judgment about strong emotions in our culture. It can appear to make others uncomfortable."
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From what I can see, many Americans no longer know how to read literature. Sure, they may read a great book and marvel at the story, but they don't know how to really read a book in the sense that most educated people could a century ago. We fail to see the symbolism, the references to other great works, the use of ambiguity, the place of the work within the tradition, and so on.

The National Book Critics Circle blog is asking critics to suggest five books that all critics should read, but I think this is useful for non-critics who simply want to become better readers of literature.

Today's list comes from Michael Dirda, he on the recent Classics for Pleasure.

What does a good book reviewer need? Authority and intimacy. The first can only derive from extensive reading, largely in the great books of the past. How else can you judge what's truly new if you don't know what's already been done? A reviewer of fiction needs to be familiar with more than the novels of the last 40 years; he or she should be acquainted with the sweep of narrative from Petronius and Murasaki Shikibu to Colette and Kafka; he or she should know both the Arthurian romances and Georgette Heyer's regency romances. Confidence comes with knowledge.

An intimate tone is harder to achieve. The besetting fault of many reviewers is a cheap smartness, a desire to brag and show off, sometimes by being snarky and coarse, at other times by sounding superior and condescending, like a caricature of T.S. Eliot lecturing to graduate students. But in the long run reviewers succeed best when they start with love. If you care deeply for a book, author or subject, you will want others to understand and share your passion. If a book fails to live up to its promise or premise, you will point this out more with sorrow than with glee. The correction of taste does matter, yet sympathy, intelligent appreciation and genuine enthusiasm are even more important. That said, a review must also be entertaining, on some level, or nobody will bother to read it.

Or so I believe. The five books below have helped me better to understand what I do and to write, at least occasionally, with the seeming nonchalance, the sprezzatura, that I particularly admire.

Seven Types of Ambiguity, by William Empson. Empson shows you how to be a reader upon whom nothing is lost. No one has ever peered so deeply into poems, and yet his tone is gruff, manly and commonsensical: He assumes you're as smart as he is.

Anatomy of Criticism, by Northrop Frye. Where Empson is microscopic, Frye is panoramic. Step back, he says, from that poem, novel or play and you will gradually perceive the pattern in the carpet. Frye's capacious mind seems to embrace all of literature, myth and religion. Plus, he writes with a clarity that Thomas Aquinas might envy, without ever growing snooty about it.

Kipling, Auden & Co., by Randall Jarrell. Any of Jarrell's collections display his deep love of literature, supported by his unerring judgment, slashing wit, brilliant phrase-making, and occasional corniness. But this posthumous collection focuses on Jarrell's more fugitive pieces--the round-ups, brief notices, lists, casual features, acts of brief homage. These, not long essay-reviews, make up the bread and butter of most reviewers, and Jarrell shows how to make even the least bit of filler something personal, revealing and memorable.
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The Evening Colonnade, by Cyril Connolly. This hefty collection of late Connolly pieces portrays that most epicurean of critics at his most wistful and retrospective. Blessed with a champagne-like prose (clear, delicious and intoxicating), Connolly here recalls the great writers he knew, the books he has collected, the places to which he has traveled. This is delicious, civilized literary entertainment, the table-talk of a connoisseur..

The works of Robert Phelps. All young reviewers need a model, an ideal, and Robert Phelps was mine. An authority on Auden, Colette and Cocteau, he compiled a scrapbook-almanac called The Literary Life, reviewed regularly for the old Herald-Tribune, and lived surrounded by the books he loved. He was also a man of immense generosity and kindness, passionate about literature, fond of Tanqueray martinis and gossip. Everything Robert wrote--even captions to illustrations or college course descriptions--sounded like Robert. What's more, the man was beloved by virtually all who knew him, and these included some of the most interesting writers and literary figures of our time--James Salter, Richard Howard, Ned Rorem, Susan Sontag, Roger Straus. Some of Phelps's letters (to Salter) have been recently edited for publication, but all of his literary journalism and much of his correspondence deserves to be collected and published. His was the finest literary sensibility I have ever known.

Michael Dirda, a weekly columnist for The Washington Post Book World, is the author of the memoir An Open Book and of several collections of essays: Readings, Bound to Please, Book by Book, and, Classics for Pleasure. He conducts an online book discussion each Wednesday at 2 PM for washingtonpost.com.

Of these, I've read the Empson and the Frye, both amazing books. For more on Northrop Frye, you can check out CJ Smith at Indistinct Union, who recently looked at the critical lineage from Frye to Bloom to Paglia.

Today's Daily Dharma from Tricycle:

Our Path to Practice

 

It is essential that our understanding be translated into practice, not with an idealistic vision that we suddenly will become totally loving and compassionate, but with a willingness to be just who we are and to start from there. Then our practice is grounded in the reality of our experience, rather than based on some expectation of how we should be. But we must begin. We work with the precepts as guidelines for harmonizing our actions with the world; we live with contentment and simplicity that does not exploit other people or the planet; we work with restraint in the mind, seeing that it's possible to say no to certain conditioned impulses, or to expand when we feel bound by inhibitions and fear; we reflect on karma and the direction of our lives, where it is leading and what is being developed; we cultivate generosity and love, compassion and service. All of this together becomes our path of practice.

~ Joseph Goldstein, Seeking the Heart of Wisdom; from Everyday Mind, edited by Jean Smith, a Tricycle book.

I have no idea who the guitarist is, but she is awesome.

I've given in and joined the herd. I now have a page at Facebook. The page is still in its developmental stages -- I didn't have the patience last night to dig through all the apps I wanted, so it still is pretty basic.

The interesting thing is that three of my high school classmates are on there, two of whom I knew quite well, one of whom was a good friend (and a highly successful artist as a 7th grader).

Anyway, if you're in the mood, stop by and check it out.
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Quote of the day:

"Last night I stayed up late playing poker with Tarot cards. I got a full house and four people died."
~ Steven Wright

Image of the day (John Craig):


BODY
~ The Prehab Deload -- "No matter your age, it's a safe bet that you're occasionally banged up from lifting huge amounts of weight. That's okay, but you need to to do a "prehab deload" one week out of every four."
~ Another Reason to Exercise: Enhance Your Love Life -- "As if you needed yet another great reason to get moving, it is well known that exercise can lead to a more satisfying love life. In fact, certain types of exercise are more likely to get you in the mood. "
~ How to Squat Safely When You’re Alone -- "The safest way to Squat when you’re alone is using the safety pins inside a Power Rack. When you can’t Squat the weight up, lower yourself until the bar hits the safety pins."
~ Encouraging Baby To Like Fruits And Veggies -- "Moms, want your baby to learn to like fruits and vegetables? According to new research from the Monell Center, if you're breast feeding, you can provide baby with a good start by eating them yourself. And, offer your baby plenty of opportunities to taste fruits and vegetables as s/he makes the transition to solid foods by giving repeated feeding exposures to these healthy foods - regardless of whether you're breast feeding or using formula."
~ Glucose Affects Our Ability To Resist Temptation -- "New research from a lab at Florida State University reveals that self-control takes fuel - literally. When we exercise it, resisting temptations to misbehave, our fuel tank is depleted, making subsequent efforts at self-control more difficult." Explains why the Atkins diet has one of the lowest compliance rates.
~ Calcium level may signal mental decline -- "In elderly people, higher levels of calcium in the blood are associated with poorer mental function and faster decline in cognitive ability, Dutch researchers have shown."
~ Weekly meal planning contributes to overall good health -- "Meal planning is one of the most important steps on the road to a healthy diet. “Just think of how less stressful last-minute meals are when you have dinner planned in advance,” says Carol Dombrow, registered dietitian with the Heart and Stroke Foundation."
~ 7 Festive Ways to Eat Light During Holiday Parties -- "The holidays are fun times for parties and lots of food. However, the downside is many people gain a few stubborn pounds during this time just because there is so much food. If you like the parties, but not the January rush to lose all the December weight, you have to be smart today."


PSYCHE/SELF
~ Resilience can get you through life's trials -- "A growing body of research on those who've survived some of life's toughest trials reveals a handful of traits resilient people share and other people can develop."
~ Visual Brain Glitch Causes Distorted Self-Image, UCLA Research Finds -- "Although they look normal, people suffering from body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) perceive themselves as ugly and disfigured. New imaging research reveals that the brains of people with BDD look normal, but function abnormally when processing visual details."
~ Why High School Seniors Drink -- "Partying isn't the only reason why high school seniors drink. Some drink to get high, relax, or handle emotions, a Penn State study shows." I drank to make the world go away.
~ Do We Know What Makes Us Happy? -- "Happiness is all about everyday, normal activities, psychologists have argued, but do we intuitively understand what strategies increase happiness or not? To find out if students knew, Tkach and Lyubomirsky (2006) asked 500 undergraduates about the strategies they used to increase their happiness."
~ Researchers Link Gene to the Antidepressant Effect of Exercise -- "In a new study, researchers from Yale investigated why exercise can have this positive effect on mental health. They identified genes that are enhanced by exercise, and one gene in particular appears to play a role in the antidepressant qualities of physical activity."
~ The 80/20 Principle: 11 Ways to Boost Your Life -- "We have only limited resources, be it our time, money, or attention. So to get the most out of them, it’s important to invest your resources in only the most profitable places. The 80/20 principle can be very useful here. The principle says that for many events, 80% of the effects comes from 20% of the causes. As such, it’s important to invest your resources in that top 20% causes."
~ The Five Symptoms of Depression -- "Like many mental disorders, depression has a symptom list that can be a little daunting to remember. There are nine general symptoms of depression, amongst other criteria, including those things that are common to other disorders. What if someone could simplify the depression criteria so it would be quicker and easier to diagnose?"
~ 5 Ways to Feel Better in Difficult Times -- "You understand the concept of having a positive attitude — you are not a moron. But the reality is you have another mortgage payment due, and not enough money in the bank. Okay, let’s all agree, this sucks. You have people counting on you—you wife, you son, your ex-wife, your mutt, your IRS agent, your Mom, etc, etc."


CULTURE/POLITICS
~ FDA Puts American Lives at Risk -- "A new report says the FDA is understaffed and underfunded." Yeah, that's scary.
~ Unconventional Wisdom | A bookshelf of wounded manhood -- " Other fear-mongering books echo Doyle. Their titles say it all: The War Against Men, by Richard Hise (Elderberry Press, 2004); The Rantings of a Single Male: Losing Patience With Feminism, Political Correctness . . . and Basically Everything, by Thomas Ellis (Rannenberg Publishing, 2005); Spreading Misandry: The Teaching of Contempt for Men in Popular Culture, by Paul Nathanson (McGill-Queen's University Press, 2006)." Wankers -- the article refutes their arguments.
~ The Plot to Rig the 2008 US Election -- "Today, the Republicans are trying to exploit the discontent with the electoral college among Americans in a way that would rig the system in their favor. At the moment, every state apart from Maine and Nebraska hands out its electoral college votes according to a winner-takes-all system. This means that if 51 per cent of people in California vote Democrat, the Democrats get 100 per cent of California’s electoral votes; if 51 per cent of people in Texas vote Republican, the Republicans get 100 per cent of Texas’ electoral votes." Needless to say, I think the electoral college must go.
~ A high price to pay -- "It has become fashionable to pin America’s political malaise on the growing apathy of the public. But that might be to mistake effect for cause. A more compelling narrative can be found in how America finances its politics and the way in which it elects its representatives, particularly the president. It is as though democracy in America has evolved to shut out the majority."
~ One World, One Market: How Advertising Breaks Down Cultures -- "Blonder hair, faster cars, newer and cooler video games. Why is it that the same things that tantalize a consumer in San Francisco, California are also what those in Sao Paolo or Singapore aspire to? The answer is in advertising: instead of catering to the cultures that it targets, advertisers are shaping the minds of global consumers to think like a North American consumer."
~ Jacob Bernstein: An Interview With "The Kite Runner" Director Marc Forster -- "Most young directors would jump at the chance to direct The Kite Runner, the film adaptation of Khaled Hosseini's best-selling novel. Marc Forster was looking for an excuse not to."
~ Daniel Radosh: Bah, Hitchens -- "Christopher Hitchens spreads a little holiday cheer today with an essay denouncing Hanukkah. Like all Hitchens' work on religion, it's smart, witty and totally frustrating. Hitchens, you see, is at heart a fundamentalist. I don't mean that in the way people usually do: that he is so dogmatic and evangelistic about atheism that he's the equivalent of a religious fundamentalist. Hitchens has countered that attack persuasively -- or mostly persuasively -- in several outlets since the publication of his book God is not Great. Rather what I mean is that Hitchens' ideas about the religious faiths he rejects are based entirely on fundamentalist interpretations of those faiths."
~ The Problem with Christmas -- "It has long since become too busy, too expensive, too centered around acquiring that which we do not need."
~ US Students Lag in Science, Math -- "U.S. students are lagging behind their peers in other countries in science and math, test results out Tuesday show."


HABITATS/TECHNOLOGY
~ Our shrinking coastlines -- "People living in the western Arctic are already getting a taste of the nightmares to come for coastal communities around the world if temperatures increase, sea levels continue to rise and summer ice disappears."
~ Bus-Sized Sea Reptile Fossil May Be a New Species -- "Scientists examining the skull, teeth and vertabrae of a 40-foot-long sea reptile unearthed in the Arctic think they may have stumbled across a previously undiscovered species of dinosaur."
~ Coral Reefs Living In Sites With Variable Temperatures Better Able To Survive Warm Water -- "Finally, some good news about the prospects of coral reefs in the age of climate change. According to a new study corals may actually survive rising ocean temperatures in 'tough love' seas with wide-ranging temperatures."
~ New Fuel Cell Cleans Up Pollution And Produces Electricity -- "Scientists are reporting development of a fuel cell that uses pollution from coal and metal mines to generate electricity, solving a serious environmental problem while providing a new source of energy. They describe successful tests of a laboratory-scale version of the device."
~ Fate Might Not Be So Unpredictable After All, According To New Mathematical Theory -- "Why does it take so long for soul mates to find each other? How does disease spread through a person's body? When will the next computer virus attack your hard-drive? A new theory on the statistical concept of "First Passage Time," may provide the key to answering at least a few of these questions. And the answers may lead to breakthroughs in medicine, mathematics, the environment, and elsewhere."
~ Did early Southwestern Indians ferment corn and make beer? -- "The belief among some archeologists that Europeans introduced alcohol to the Indians of the American Southwest may be faulty."
~ Daimler expects huge US demand for tiny Smart car -- "German car maker Daimler said Tuesday that next month's launch of its tiny Smart car in the United States will unleash such stiff demand the company will have trouble meeting it."


INTEGRAL/BUDDHIST BLOGS
~ Heart Beat: A Book Review -- "Let's say right off: you don't have to be a Buddhist to read this book. In fact, you don't need to be attached to a religion of any kind. But if you're the least bit interested in some of the more profound mysteries of the life of the mind, you'll find a great deal of guidance and inspiration in its pages." A fine review of Ken McLeod's book on The Heart Sutra.
~ Understanding Fred Thompson’s politics -- "The key is to see him as part of the tradition of classical liberalism. His politics, as well as I think his temperament, are misunderstood by some in the same way that classical liberalism is misunderstood. Certainly some of Thompson’s decidedly mellow demeanor is simply his personality. But when one is a classical liberal (the true base of what it means to be “conservative”), I think one easily takes on a more mellow, more relaxed, more “long-view” temperament — and those terms certainly describe Thompson." I'd be OK with Thompson if we wasn't also a staunch social conservative. Roe v.Wade would be overturned under him, and gay rights would cease to exist -- at least in most states.
~ Beyond Belief 2007: Sam Harris is Not an Atheist -- "He's not only intellectually fluffy but also ballsy. I think people who casually use the label “integral” should also take heed. Having said that, I'll go out on a limb and say that Sam Harris is probably the most integral among the New Atheists. There I said it. If you have doubts or you don't agree with me, go watch the video and let me know. I'm always open for discussions."
~ What Does It Want To Do? -- "The words came into his head. Out of nowhere. Like someone else said them. The voice wasn’t even his, but sounded like someone doing a bad imitation of him; slightly nasal with a raspy piercing deepness." This appears to be flash fiction -- cool.
~ Gangs and the Malleability of Human Ethics -- "Observers of the now decade-long intractable genocides and civil wars in Darfur, Somalia, Chad, Zaire and other African nations describe the same gang phenomena repeated endlessly: Men horrifically tortured and slaughtered, women systematically and repeatedly raped, children kidnapped and forced into slavery and military duty, animals and other resources stolen, and villages burned to the ground. What is it about human nature that so many can perpetrate such atrocities for so long without remorse? Why does this happen?"
~ A Natural Philosophy of Agriculture -- "Masanobu Fukuoka is the author of One-Straw Revolution and The Natural Way of Farming, and has become a towering figure in the revolutionary field of sustainable agriculture. Fukuoka's unconventional farming methods involve no tillage, no fertilizer, no pesticides, no weeding, no pruning, and remarkably little labor!"
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Some things I am grateful for today:

1) A rare weekday off. It was nice to watch some videos, some episodes of 24, and do reading. And I still got some things done around the apartment.

2) My friend Jami turned me on a place called Forever Wild, a wildlife rescue and rehab facility that needs volunteers. She just got back from volunteering out there. They have a talking raven! I can't wait to do some work out there.

3) The life coach I wrote an article for last month liked what I did -- it's always nice to get some positive feedback.

What are you grateful for today?
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Today's Daily Dharma reminds us that not even diamonds are forever.

Everything is Impermanent

 

The goal of vipassana is to cultivate the mindful, non-reactive observation of bodily and mental processes so as to develop an increasing awareness--an awareness undistorted by our usual desires, fears and views of the true nature of these processes, that they are impermanent, that they are without self and therefore involve no suffering on our part until we learn to let go.

It is through mindful observation of what is actually there that the delusion that makes us perceive what is impermanent and transient as permanent and lasting is gradually dispelled. Liberation consists in experiencing and understanding fully and clearly that everything is impermanent and seeing that there is quite literally nothing to worry about.

~ Amadeus Sole-Leris, Tranquility & Insight; from Everyday Mind, edited by Jean Smith, a Tricycle book.

 

Quote of the day:

"Never knock on Death's door: ring the bell and run away! Death really hates that!"
~ Matt Frewer

Image of the day (David Bucknell):


BODY
~ Build and Burn -- "The days of eating mass quantities of food and putting on as much blubber in the off-season as possible are over. The new approach consists of a series of mini-cycles of caloric surplus and caloric deficit."
~ Waistline Growth On High-carb Diets Linked To Liver Gene -- "Experts have been warning for years that foods loaded with high-fructose corn syrup and other processed carbohydrates are making us fatter. Now, a University of Wisconsin-Madison study has uncovered the genetic basis for why this is so.Writing in the December issue of Cell Metabolism, a team led by biochemistry and nutritional sciences professor James Ntambi reports that a gene in the liver, called SCD-1, is what causes mice to gain weight on a diet laden with carbohydrates." The human body is designed to turn fructose into triglycerides and store them as fat, not to burn fructose for energy -- it was an evolutionary protection against leaner times.
~ Fit Over 60s Live Longer Regardless Of Body Fat -- "A new US study suggests that over 60s who are fit live longer, regardless of their level of body fat. The study is published in the 5th December issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) and is the work of Dr Xuemei Sui, of the University of South Carolina, Columbia, and colleagues."
~ The Best Fat-Burning Foods: A List -- "Interested in foods that burn fat? Well, in reality, many foods have the ability to increase fat burning and assist with weight loss. But a few are better than others. Below you'll find a nice list of some of the best fat-burning foods around. One thing not mentioned that I would add to the list is hot peppers/chilies, as these have been shown to help boost the metabolism."
~ Placebo As Good As Common Treatments For Sinus Infections -- "A placebo is likely to be just as effective as common acute sinusitis treatments involving a topical steroid and an antibiotic, according to an article published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), 5th December issue."
~ Beware of Supplements: Steroids Found -- "Pro and amateur athletes and weekend warriors who consume supplements to get in shape or stay there might be getting more than what they paid for — such as small amounts of steroids and illegal stimulants including ephedrine."
~ Transcendental Meditation Effective In Reducing High Blood Pressure, Study Shows -- "People with high blood pressure may find relief from Transcendental Meditation, according to a definitive new meta-analysis of 107 published studies on stress reduction programs and high blood pressure, which will be published in the December issue of Current Hypertension Reports."
~ 4 Easy Steps to Eating Healthy in the Winter Months -- "When winter days are cold, and you want to warm up fast, a bowl of cream soup or stew can certainly be appealing. But there is no excuse to throw all your healthy eating habits out the window just because it's dark and cold outside!"


PSYCHE/SELF
~ Mind Power: Develop It To Achieve True Greatness -- "Greatness can be achieved at any time, by anyone... Not convinced? Discover how to develop the mind power needed to transform your life for the better – Expand your personal development and goals with these comprehensive factors, plans, and more."
~ Optimism Isn't Always Healthy -- "People are generally optimistic, believing they'll do better in the future than they've done in the past. This time around, I'll actually use that gym membership. I'm sticking to the diet this time. Now is the time to start saving for a down payment on a house. However, a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research reveals that this "optimism bias" can lead us to make immediate choices that go against our long-term goals."
~ 10 Tips to Kick Holiday Stress-Management into High Gear -- "Hanukkah began yesterday at sundown. Christmas, Kwanzaa and Boxing Day are three weeks away. The holiday crunch is on us: time for a refresher in slowing it down, regaining our focus and getting re-grounded."
~ Memory, Cognitive Abilities and Executive Functions -- "A misconception we encounter often is that "memory" is the only, or most important, "thing" that our brains do. And the only one we need to care for."
~ Mitochondria Defects Linked To Social Behavior And Spatial Memory -- "Respiration deficiencies in mitochondria, the cell's powerhouses, are associated with changed social behavior and spatial memory in laboratory mice, report scientists at the American Society for Cell Biology 47th Annual Meeting."
~ Ethnic Discrimination Not Only Based On Prejudice -- "Our belief in power hierarchies is important in how we view and treat people. This is shown in a dissertation by Alexandra Snellman from Uppsala University that examines how racist and sexist prejudice creates social hierarchies and ethnic discrimination in various situations. Discrimination and hierarchies are created not only as a result of our prejudices but are affected by other factors as well."
~ Seven Deadly Sentiments -- "Why we are ashamed of our forbidden thoughts."
~ Self-conscious? Get Over It -- "Stop obsessing over your shortcomings."
~ Secret Shame -- "How shame can hurt your health."
~ The Choke Factor: How Stereotypes Affect Performance -- "Every sports fan has vivid memories of key occasions on which a favorite team or player has 'choked' under pressure. And every student who has ever taken a standardized test knows what that kind of pressure feels like. What makes for high-pressure situations, and how do they influence performance?"


CULTURE/POLITICS
~ Modernism: The Lure of Heresy -- "Your question, "Why slight photography?" is well-taken. The truth is that I had written a section on photography, but found it impossible to match it with another Modernist venture (the way dance was to music, or design to architecture), and so, reluctantly, I dropped it."
~ Saving Marriage, Not Just Tradition -- "Conservatives ... argue that “traditional” marriages is the building-block of our society. Right now, they say, that building block is under attack by swelling divorce rates, changing gender roles, and homosexuals."
~ Global Moods - Peter Campbell: Art, Past and Present -- "Julian Bell has written a tremendous history of world art, one that will inevitably be compared with Gombrich's The Story of Art, published nearly sixty years ago."
~ Art, humanity and the ‘fourth hunger’ -- "Half-awakened, humans are constantly engaged in a battle to make sense of the world and our experiences within it. And a great work of art, especially music, helps us to do just that."
~ Apologies All Around -- " Fifty years ago, New American Library published the Mentor Philosophers series, each with a title beginning The Age of . . . Belief, Ideology, Reason, and so on; the 20th-century selections bore the title The Age of Analysis. Had the series continued to the end of that century and into this, the volume should no doubt be The Age of Apology. Our postmodern ethos seems to hold that if anything can be proved to have happened, then surely someone needs to apologize for it."
~ Editors: A Tale of Two Dictators -- "Chávez's defeat should be a lesson for Putin."
~ Bad Faith Awards: Vote for the winner now -- "After months of nominations, the time has finally come to decide who walks away with the coveted 2007 New Humanist Bad Faith Award. To help you decide who will be crowned 2007's most scurrilous enemy of reason we've pulled together a shortlist of 10 runners and riders."
~ Supreme Court Inc. -- "Along with Chief Justice Earl Warren and Associate Justices Hugo Black, William Brennan and Thurgood Marshall--as well as his more cautious brethren, Justices John Marshall Harlan and Felix Frankfurter--Douglas and his colleagues viscerally understood Chief Justice John Marshall's famous 1819 declaration that "it is a Constitution we are expounding." They protected and expanded free speech rights for antiwar and civil rights activists, and drew within the Constitution's protections many groups previously excluded: racial minorities, women, prisoners, probationers and school children. The Bush-Roberts Court rejects this commitment to liberty and equality."
~ Huckabee Now GOP Frontrunner, Giuliani Falling Fast -- "Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, has vaulted over former New York City Mayor Giuliani for the first time in the Rasmussen Reports daily survey. Huckabee earned 20 percent of the likely primary vote compared to Giuliani's 17 percent."


HABITATS/TECHNOLOGY
~ Feeding Cattle Byproduct Of Ethanol Production Causes E. Coli 0157 To Spike -- "Ethanol plants and livestock producers have created a symbiotic relationship. Cattle producers feed their livestock distiller's grains, a byproduct of the ethanol distilling process, giving ethanol producers an added source of income. But recent research at Kansas State University has found that cattle fed distiller's grain have an increased prevalence of E. coli 0157 in their hindgut."
~ Our Hidden Galaxy Neighbor -- "There could be a galaxy, invisible to the naked eye and to telescopes, hidden inside our own interstellar backyard...."
~ Green Turtle Nesting Sites Discovered In Senegal -- "Several marine turtle nesting sites on the beaches of Senegal have been discovered, prompting calls from conservationists to improve protection of the endangered species. The survey discovered nine new green turtle nests on the beaches of Joal-Fadiouth in the Saloum Delta south of the capital, Dakar."
~ Could Hydrogen Sulfide Hold The Key To A Long Life? -- "Hydrogen sulfide, the chemical that gives eggs their sulfurous stench, has been shown to significantly increase life span and heat tolerance in the nematode worm, or C. elegans. In an effort to understand the mechanisms by which hydrogen sulfide induces hibernation in mice, the researchers turned to the tiny nematode, a workhorse of laboratory science because its biology is similar in many respects that of humans."
~ Samsung Develops Fastest GDDR5 Memory at 6 Gb/s - World's Fastest Memory -- "Samsung Electronics announced today that it has developed the world's fastest memory, a GDDR5 (series five, graphics double-data-rate memory) chip that can transfer data at six gigabits per second, which is more than four times faster than that of memories in state-of-the-art game consoles today. Graphics memory is installed in desktop PCs, notebooks, workstations and game consoles to move huge volumes of video or animated images simultaneously."
~ Amazonian dolphins say it with weeds -- "A man may bring flowers to impress women, but male Amazon river dolphins carry weeds to win over the opposite sex, British and Brazilian researchers say."
~ Major physics breakthrough in understanding supersolidity -- "Physicists at the University of Alberta, in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, have made a major advance in the understanding of what appears to be a new state of matter."
~ World's most endangered gorilla fights back -- "In the wake of a study that documented for the first time the use of weaponry by Cross River gorillas to ward off threats by humans, the Wildlife Conservation Society announced today new field surveys to better protect this most endangered great ape."


INTEGRAL/BUDDHIST
~ Re: Some Criticisms of My Understanding of Evolution -- "I’ve seen these types of similar criticisms raised by a few individuals now and then. The following brief response to these critics is by Alexander Astin, one of the foremost scholars on higher education in the world. You may remember the poll of college students that found 75% said that “religion is important or very important in my world,” conducted by UCLA. Alexander (Sandy) was the lead researcher on that study."
~ TRUTH -- Brad Warner -- "As I've said, anyone who goes for Big Mind® gets what they deserve. Think you can get instant Enlightenment for a hundred fifty smackers? Go for it. And those of you who harp on me for harping on it all the time, make sure Gempo pays you for that. OK?"
~ Integral Warriors: Meeting 7, Never Change Your Mind Just To Please Your Woman -- "....Or anyone else, for that matter. Whether your partner, your parents, your kids, your boss..."
~ The Buddha Diaries Recommends -- "Thanks to this article by RJ Eskow in the current Tricycle (I think you have to subscribe to the online magazine if you want to read the whole article, but the magazine itself is a wonderful investment: consider this a plug!), we at The Buddha Diaries have been thinking a bit about Buddhism and blogging, and whether the twain should meet."
~ The New Atheists and Integral Camp Should Talk -- "Paul Salamone (a buddy of mine and the dude behind the hip blog Foreignerd) posted an insightful comment in response to my blog post, The Portable Atheist: A Great Holiday Gift. Below is my response. My response went longer than I originally anticipated so I decided to make a separate blog post. Integral geeks, as well as critics, are invited to add their thoughts on the comment thread."
~ Integral Movement vs Integral Awareness -- "From early 2006 until mid-2007, I was an Integral groupie. I dove into Integral Naked, read a handful of Wilber's books, bought a Stuart Davis CD and had the great fortune of receiving a scholarship to attend an Integral Life Practice 5-day seminar. I was very active in the Integral-Institute Zaadz pod after bailing from the catastrophe that the Integral Multiplex forum presented. I checked Ken Wilber's blog every day. I was fascinated with the whole Kenchilada. Then I woke up. Again."
~ Befriending fear -- "A great list of reasons to thank fear from Debbie Ford, via Mona at Question the Mind."
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[Disclaimer: I am not a biologist, nor do I play one on TV. So anything I say here is purely speculative and open to refutation.]

I have never been a believer in the standard model of evolution. I think natural selection is a part of the process, but I don't buy the random mutation model. Mutations occur, but I don't think most of them are random, and I suspect that the truly random mutations (such as transcription errors) don't often survive.

Here is the definition of evolution provided at Wikipedia:

In biology, evolution is the change in the inherited traits of a population from one generation to the next. These traits are the expression of genes that are copied and passed on to offspring during reproduction. Mutations in these genes can produce new or altered traits, resulting in heritable differences between organisms. New traits can also come from transfer of genes between populations, as in migration, or between species, in horizontal gene transfer. Evolution occurs when these heritable differences become more common or rare in a population, either non-randomly through natural selection or randomly through genetic drift.

Natural selection is a process that causes heritable traits that are helpful for survival and reproduction to become more common, and harmful traits to become more rare. This occurs because organisms with advantageous traits pass on more copies of these heritable traits to the next generation.^[1][2] Over many generations, adaptations occur through a combination of successive, small, random changes in traits, and natural selection of those variants best-suited for their environment.^[3] In contrast, genetic drift produces random changes in the frequency of traits in a population. Genetic drift arises from the role chance plays in whether a given individual will survive and reproduce.

The premise of Intelligent Design, which I also reject, is that evolution is guided by a divine hand -- God. These "theorists" also reject the role chance or randomness might play in evolution. But rather than looking for other mechanisms of action, they simply bail out and designate God as the principle behind evolution. This is just sloppy thinking designed to get creationism into science through the back door.

Ken Wilber has been accused by some of falling into the ID camp, simply because he refers to a self-organizing principle (based on the work of Jantsch) behind evolution, which he refers to as Eros:

This is a huge hole in the mere chance and selection argument. These items are all meant when I use the metaphor of a 100 mutations. I am fully aware that selection carries forth each previous selection (which still has problems in itself—as you point out, why would a half wing make running easier???), but even if you give that to the evolutionists (which I am willing to do), it still has this gaping hole in it.

The alternative is to see some sort of Eros operating in the universe. It doesn’t have to be a metaphysical force, just an intrinsic force of self‑organization. As Jantsch put it, evolution is “self-transcendence through self-organization.” This is exactly the point Prigogine was making with dissipative structures, and exactly the point I am making when referring to wings or eyes: they are metaphors and examples for this extraordinary capacity of creative emergence that is intrinsic to the universe (exactly as Whitehead explained it).

Invoking Eros sets off alarms among the scientifically minded. But Eros, as defined by Socrates, does fairly well stand-in for a self-organizing principle:

Eros, in the Socratic logos, can be defined as the longing for wholeness or completeness, a daemon whose aim is to reach the knowledge without ever owning her and is used to describe fulfillment between man/woman and man/Gods.

Sounds good in a metaphorical sense, but I'm still not buying it. There may be some kind of Kosmic principle at work at the macro level, but for now that can be nothing more than fun speculation.

So at the micro level, which is the only place we can really look for answers, I'm also not buying the random mutation theory. Evolution may look random in some ways, but in others it looks entirely sensible. And in order for it to look sensible, there is no need to invoke any form of outside force or metaphysical principle.

I suspect that in the next 25 years, biology will begin to look to biophotonic communication between DNA strands -- both within an organism and between the organism and other organisms in its environment -- as an explanation for evolution.

From Wikipedia, one view of biophotons:

Russian, German, and other biophotonics experts, adopting the term "biophotons" from Fritz Albert Popp, have theorized that they may be involved in various cell functions, such as mitosis, or even that they may be produced and detected by the DNA in the cell nucleus. Proponents of the theory of biophotons claim that experiments have been done which support this hypothesis--e.g., an experiment of Gurwitsch in which growth in one plant seemed to stimulate growth in another across a quartz barrier that blocked chemical messengers, indirectly suggesting that biophotons in the ultraviolet range provided the stimulus. However, debate surrounds such evidence and conclusions, and the difficulty of teasing out the effects of any supposed biophotons amid the other numerous chemical interactions between cells makes it difficult to devise a testable hypothesis.

Some groups have further speculated that these emissions may be part of a system of cell-to-cell communication, which may be of greater complexity than the modes of cell communication already known. These ideas would then suggest that biophotons may be important for the development of larger structures, such as organs and organisms.

Proponents additionally claim that studies have shown that injured cells will emit a higher biophoton rate than normal cells, and organisms with illnesses will likewise emit a brighter light, which has been interpreted as implying a sort of distress signal being given off. However, injured cells are under higher amounts of oxidative stress, which ultimately is the source of the light, and whether this constitutes a "distress signal" or simply a background chemical process is yet to be demonstrated.^[1] One hypothesis is this postulated minor form of communication first became common as single-cell organisms began to cooperate to form complex organisms, using biophotons as a less effective neural system. According to another hypothesis,^[2] this form of biophotonic signaling, primarily in the blood, continues to play a role in the reception, transmission, and processing of electromagnetic data.

The thing that makes biophotons unique is that the light is not random and/or disorganized, it is coherent, meaning that it may very well contain some form of information. The acknowledged expert in the field is Popp, referenced above in the Wiki article:

Given this background we understand that two completely opposite interpretations of this phenomenon come up, i.e. the biochemical theory (BCT) and the coherence theory (CT). It is amazing that both the BCT and the opposite "biophysical theory" CT take the rather low intensity as an essential point in their arguments. According to the BCT,^5-6 biophoton emission is some kind of "waste" of the metabolic events taking place permanently within the cells. The BCT indicates some imperfections in chemical reactions which by returning to thermal equilibrium emit overshoot energy of chemically induced optical transitions, mainly linked to radical reactivity of oxidation processes.

The CT, on the other hand, points to the low intensity as an indication of nonclassical light which may display even sub-Poissonian photocount statistics and may provide thus an optimized optical communication channel in biological systems within living matter of "optimized" high optical density².

Popp has been the primary advocate, along with Dr. Mae-Wan Ho, of the coherence theory.

Supposing Popp is correct (and yes, this is a big supposition), then DNA-emitted photons might be a way for cells to communicate with each other -- and for organisms to communicate with their environment. It is possible that DNA decides when a mutation is necessary and triggers the mechanisms through the transcription process based on the current environmental conditions.

A recent study of plants showed that "children" of a plant grow better and faster when in proximity to the "parent" plant.

A University of Virginia study, published in the Nov. 16 issue of the journal Science, demonstrates that plants grown in the same setting as their maternal plant performed almost 3½ times better than those raised in a different environment — indicating that maternal plants give cues to their offspring that help them adapt to their environmental conditions.

Evolutionary biologist Laura Galloway, an associate professor of biology at the University of Virginia, recently completed a study of the American bellflower, a native wildflower that commonly grows in both shaded areas and areas that receive full sunlight for at least part of the day. She focused on the transmission of environmental information between maternal plants and their offspring.

Galloway planted some seeds in light conditions similar to their maternal plants and some in different light. She found that plants growing in the same setting as their maternal plant outperformed those planted in a different environment. The work was conducted in a natural habitat at the University of Virginia’s Mountain Lake Biological Station in Southwest Virginia.

(Emphasis added)

The study offered no mechanism of action for this result. But what if the result is due, at least in part, to biophotonic communication between the "mother" and the "offspring"? This would explain a variety of studies of this type. It might also explain why a bulb planted too shallow in the soil will "push" itself deeper. Somehow the bulb "knows" its environment.

Here is how Mae-Won Ho explains the current reliance on genomic studies and why they are insufficient to explain the complexity of evolutionary biology:

Biology today remains dominated by the genetic paradigm. The genome is seen as the repository of genetic information controlling the development of the organism, but otherwise insulated from the environment, and passed on unchanged to the next generation except for rare random mutations. The much publicized Human Genome Project is being promoted on that basis (Ho, 1995e). The genetic paradigm has already been fatally undermined at least ten years ago, when a plethora of `fluid genome' processes were first discovered, and many more have come to light since. These processes destabilize and alter genes and genomes in the course of development, some of the genetic changes are so well correlated with the environment that they are referred to as "directed mutations". Many of the genetic changes are passed on to the next generation. As I pointed out at the time, heredity can no longer be seen to reside solely in the DNA passed on from one generation to the next. Instead, the stability and repeatability of development -- which we recognize as heredity -- is distributed in the whole gamut of dynamic feedback interrelationships between organism and environment from the socioecological to the genetic. All of these may leave imprints that are passed on to subsequent generations: as cultural traditions or artefacts, maternal or cytoplasmic effects, gene expression states, as well as genetic (DNA sequence) changes (see Ho, 1986; 1996).

Based on the available research, it is no longer possible to assign genetic mutations to random processes. The genome is not a self-contained universe as the randomness paradigm would seem to suggest. Rather, evolution is a complex interaction between DNA strands within the organism, between organisms within the same species, and between those organisms and their environment -- directed mutation.

It seems to me that there is sufficient evidence to begin looking at "intelligent" DNA as the source for an organized and premeditated source of genetic mutation resulting in changes within species and the eventual emergence of new species -- all dictated in large part by the conditions of the environment.

I hope to post a more detailed explanation of how biophotonic evolution might work.

I watched a great little film today, The Secret Life of Words (2006). Here is a synopsis:

THE SECRET LIFE OF WORDS, written and directed by Isabel Coixet, follows Hanna (Sarah Polley), a factory worker who lives alone in a barren apartment, wears a hearing-aid, and keeps to herself with a rigorous daily routine of identical meals, a fresh bar of soap every day, and needlepoint work at night. While on an extended holiday in Northern Ireland, she volunteers as a nurse, tending to a burn victim Josef (Tim Robbins) stationed on an oil rig. While Hanna coaxes him back to health, Josef, who has suffered temporary blindness, reaches out to her urgently, wanting to connect. As his brutish and passionate demeanor contrasts sharply with Hanna’s solemn and quiet manner, Hanna initially refuses to reveal anything about herself, even her real name. But she soon she starts to recognize parallels between her own isolation and that of the others on the oil rig. She eventually grows to care for Josef and shares with him a painfully severe secret from her past that opens wounds, and doors, for the two strangers from different worlds to come together and help heal one another.

With the shaky-camera technique, absence of a film score, and the backdrop of a lone oil rig, writer and director Coixet (who also wrote and directed Polley in the 2003 critically-acclaimed MY LIFE WITHOUT ME), emphasizes the vulnerability and seclusion of the characters. Robbins and Polley turn in compelling performances; and a strong supporting cast that includes Javier Camara (TALK TO HER) and Eddie Marsan (THE ILLUSIONIST).

What I loved about this film is the connection between Hanna and Josef. Through dialogue and sharing, these two very different people grow to care about each other and each helps the other heal in different but complimentary ways.

I'm grateful that there are still small intimate films such as this that rely on the connections between characters rather than the use of action and special effects. Human interaction is much more compelling -- to me -- than big the budget schlock that Hollywood often produces.

I highly recommend this film.

Trailer:

The first major movie awards of the year have been released. From the LA Times:

"No Country for Old Men," Joel and Ethan Coen's visceral crime thriller based on the novel by Cormac McCarthy, was named best film of 2007 Wednesday by the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures.

George Clooney was named best actor for his role as a "fixer" at a high-powered New York law firm in "Michael Clayton" and veteran Julie Christie received best actress honors as a woman suffering from Alzheimer's in "Away From Her." Best director went to Tim Burton for his adaptation of the Stephen Sondheim musical, "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street."

Casey Affleck was named best supporting actor for "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford," and Amy Ryan was selected supporting actress for "Gone Baby Gone."

Julian Schnabel's French-language drama, "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" was NBR's selection for best foreign film. Best documentary honors went to "Body of War."

With the announcement of the honorees, the award season officially kicks into high gear.

In the week ahead, the Los Angeles Film Critics Assn. and the New York Film Critics Circle will announce their winners for the year and the Broadcast Film Critics Assn. and the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn., which gives out the Golden Globes, will announce their nominees.

The National Board of Review of Motion Pictures is traditionally the first high-profile group of the award season to anoint winners, and it has developed a standing as a predictor of statuettes to come.

One of the things strict constructionists misunderstand about the US Constitution is that the founders and authors of that document intended it to be a living and breathing creature, one that would change as needed to represent the values of the soon-to-be rapidly expanding population.

To a certain extent it has. We have added amendments as needed, but we have only once removed an amendment that was no longer working or just plain wrong in the first place (prohibition).

Larry Sabato, writing at AlterNet has some other ideas on ways we need to change the Constitution.

From the separation of powers to the Bill of Rights, the United States Constitution remains brilliant in its overall composition. Since 1787, however, we have seen tremendous growth in our technologies, economy, population and military strength. Our founding document no longer addresses the complicated issues that affect our government and our citizens. If we really want to make progress and achieve greater fairness as a society, it is time for elemental change. And we should start by looking at the Constitution, with the goal of holding a new Constitutional Convention.

Sound radical? If so, then the founders were radicals. They would be amazed and disappointed that after 220 years, the inheritors of their Constitution had not tried to adapt to new developments that the founders could never have anticipated in Philadelphia in 1787.

James Madison, George Washington, George Mason and Thomas Jefferson all insisted that the Constitution should be updated by future generations. Those sentiments were best expressed by Jefferson, who wrote to Madison that "no society can make a perpetual Constitution. ... The Earth belongs always to the living generation. ... Every Constitution ... naturally expires at the end of 19 years" (the length of a generation in Jefferson's time).

Among the 23 proposals for Constitutional reform suggested in my new book, A More Perfect Constitution, here are six to start the debate.

Here are the six changes he'd like to see -- you'll have to go to the site to read his reasoning.

* Restoring the war powers balance.
* Creating a more representative Senate.
* Transforming presidential elections.
* Ending second-class citizenship.
* Instituting Judiciary Term Limits.
* Universal National Service Requirement.

These are interesting propositions -- many of them seem to appeal to both sides of the political aisle. But I have no doubt that these will never happen.
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Today's Daily Om offers some wise advice on the decision making process.

Marinating
Making Our Best Decisions

Sometimes when we need to make a decision, we can become overwhelmed or feel pressured into coming to a conclusion immediately. Often, a decision isn’t required right away, and the sense of urgency we feel is merely a limitation that we’ve placed upon ourselves. Once we’ve determined that we do have the time to make a wise choice for ourselves, we can release the pressure with a deep breath, like steam from a pressure cooker, and proceed to make the best use of our time.

The best first step may be to gather all the facts we can find. Once we have all the logical information we need, we can allow ourselves to sit with it and soak it up. Like a good recipe, we can allow ourselves to marinate in the juices of intellectual understanding while also adding our own spices made up of our feelings, our intuition, and any other considerations. We can taste the recipe for readiness as we go in order to decide if more time or ingredients are needed. We might want to take time to visualize ourselves playing out the various scenarios to see which feels the best, remind ourselves of our goals, or merely sit silently in meditation, listening for guidance. Any of these techniques can add depth and flavor to the recipe of our decisions.

We can allow ourselves to sit with our choices for whatever length of time is needed, whether it is a day, a week, a month or longer. Doing so gives our hearts, minds and spirits the chance to align, allowing us to make a decision that is right for us. Other times, we may need to let the wisdom of the universe unfold for us at its own rate, allowing our growth and realizations to sync up with the universe’s secret and essential ingredients so that all of the flavors are ready at the same time. When we allow ourselves the time to sit and allow understanding to sink in, we can co-create the best decision possible for ourselves and for everyone involved.

Quote of the day:

"Every man, wherever he goes, is encompassed by a cloud of comforting convictions, which move with him like flies on a summer day."
~ Bertrand Russell

Image of the day (Mark Simms):


BODY
~ Discoveries -- "Short snappy synopses of scientific studies for the synaptically short-changed. Don't want to read lengthy, boring, studies? We've distilled them down to one or two lines. Get up to date on the latest science, quick!"
~ I’m Addicted To Overeating, NOT Food -- "This article by Rudd Sound Bites was about Thanksgiving, but it gave me a moment of revelation that I have never imagined before."
~ Overweight Teenagers More Likely To Die Of Heart Attack As Young Adults -- "A new US study has projected that overweight adolescents face alarming increases in the risk of heart disease and premature death as young adults."
~ Groundbreaking Fertility Diet Boosts Pregnancy Chances -- "You know that diet and lifestyle choices affect your health and lifespan. But no credible science (only old wives' tales) has ever shown that diet affects the chances of getting pregnant - until now."
~ Pine Bark Naturally Reduces Osteoarthritis Knee Pain -- "Affecting more than 10 million Americans, Osteoarthritis of the knee (OA) is one of the five leading causes of disability among the elderly. While OA mainly affects most people over 45, it can occur at any age."
~ Scientists Strike Blow In Superbugs Struggle -- "Scientists from The University of Manchester have pioneered new ways of tweaking the molecular structure of antibiotics - an innovation that could be crucial in the fight against powerful super bugs."
~ One Day Miracle Diet -- "The biggest advantage with one day cholesterol lowering diet programs is that the person undergoing dieting will not suffer any muscle loss. This is partially because of the high protein and low calorie content of the wafers, and partially due to the fact that the dieting person actually in fact is not completely severed from his/her eating habits. He/she can have any food he/she wants the every next day." I've said it a thousand times -- the only way to get healthy is to make healthy eating a lifestyle. Diets are only short-term solutions that seldom last.
~ Increased Longevity From Herbal Extract -- "The herbal extract of a yellow-flowered mountain plant indigenous to the Arctic regions of Europe and Asia increased the lifespan of fruit fly populations, according to a University of California, Irvine study. Flies that ate a diet rich with Rhodiola rosea, an herbal supplement long used for its purported stress-relief effects, lived on an average of 10 percent longer than fly groups that didn't eat the herb." I'll believe it when I see human studies.


PSYCHE/SELF
~ New Years Resolutions: The Only Three Things That Matter -- "There are three things, and three things only that determine a persons success or failure in terms of their fat loss goals this New Years."
~ The Hidden Workings of Our Minds -- "What is true of great scientific and artistic leaps of imagination is also true in everyday life. When people are asked why they chose one career over another, one partner over another or one flavour of ice-cream over another, the same problems emerge. Often, people's answers are unconvincing or they just don't know."
~ Child and Adolescent Clinical Psychopharmacology, 4th ed. -- "Each edition of this book, beginning with the first in 1991, has received much use while sitting on my office shelf. The editions have spanned the modern era of child psychopharmacology and, along with the works of S. P. Kutcher, have offered practical clinical guidance in choosing and monitoring medications in children and teenagers while also providing an overview of the literature that supports child psychopharmacology."
~ Increase in Bipolar Diagnosis in Youth Prompts Debates and Calls for Research -- "A recent analysis that found a 40-fold increase in the diagnosis of bipolar disorder in youth has highlighted diagnostic dilemmas and prompted calls for more research studies."
~ Everything Has a Reason: Live Your Life with Confidence -- "Life would be difficult if we think that things just happen at random. If we have such mindset, when something goes wrong we may lose heart and do not know what to do. It won’t be easy either to stay grateful and positive when something bad happens. Things will be much easier if we believe that there is a reason behind it and that it’s a part of our life’s picture." I make this argument with friends, but the reality, I think, is that we need to make meaning and will find a way to do so -- and it's crucial that we do.
~ Is Sadness Good for Us? -- "If you never feel sad, it is because you have never become attached to someone, and that is a very lonely way to be.
~ How to Move Forward Once You Achieve a Big Goal -- "What do you do once you achieve your big goal and make it to the top? This can become a big problem if it looks like the only way you can go is down. Professional athletes and aging celebrities all face this issue. The problem can be one of maintaining the position if this is what you want or figuring out where to go next while avoiding a big let down."
~ Meditation Techniques for the Busy or Impatient -- "If you are reading this then you probably recognize some value in meditation, in slowing down, and reducing stress. At the same time you probably struggle with fitting meditation into your daily routine. The good news is that establishing a daily meditation practice is easier than you may have thought."
~ Almost perfect -- "The New York Times has a short article on mental health and perfectionism, the tendency to measure success and self-worth by the completion of often unrealistic goals."
~ Review - Freud: Inventor of the Modern Mind by Peter D. Kramer -- "I did not expect Kramer to pull it off, and, when a friend wrote me that this book was full of new and intriguing material about how Freud had not really been what he has seemed to be -- my first reaction was that it could not really be new material, or perhaps it was only new to those who had not read the work of those honest critics of Freud, who belatedly (decades after Freud's death) but not too recently (the honest critique of Freud began in the 1960s) had revealed what there was to know."


CULTURE/POLITICS
~ Aristotle and Beyond -- "The question is not: how do we know that thinking about something, or wanting it, does not affect it and that melting it does do so? – as though perhaps we cannot be sure of this. I am going to assume that we are able to distinguish correctly between affective and non-affective operations. The inquiry is simply into the formal features that constitute them one or the other."
~ The Shakespeared Brain -- "I have always been very interested in how literature affects us. But I don't really like it when people say, "This book changed my life!" Struggling with ourselves and our seemingly inextricable mixture of strengths and weaknesses, surely we know that change is much more difficult and much less instant than that. It does scant justice to the deep nature of a life to suppose that a book can simply "change" it. Literature is not a one-off remedy. And actually it is the reading of books itself, amongst other things, that has helped me appreciate that deep complex nature."
~ Going Down -- "Democracy once seemed ascendant in many East and Central Asian countries. Not so much anymore."
~ The original political vision: sex, art and transformation -- "Dissent and emancipation were holy for William Blake. He could teach our prime minister so much about how to be radical." Obviously a UK article, but a good look at Blake.
~ Civilisation is safe -- "The American nationalist right - and now an obscure Tory MP - would have us believe that Christian traditions are under threat. I don't think so."
~ Jon Soltz: Three Days, Three Changing Stories on NIE from the White House -- "Another day, another explanation of what the President knew and when he knew it with the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran."
~ Two Views: Editors: Mormon in America -- "We suspect that most people who watched the speech were impressed, sympathetic, and sometimes moved." OR -- Peter Montgomery: The Speech: Romney Still No JFK -- "Mitt Romney's speech on religious liberty and the role his faith would play in his presidency - the long-discussed "JFK speech" -- included some Kennedy-esque rhetoric about the fundamental importance of religious liberty, but it was a far cry from JFK's ringing endorsement of church-state separation."
~ Grammy's Winners and Losers -- "Kanye West leads the pack of nominees in a year when the Grammy committee was even more clueless than usual."
~ House passes energy bill but Bush set to veto -- "The U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday passed an energy bill that would boost vehicle fuel economy requirements by 40 percent by 2020, raise ethanol use by five-fold by 2022 and impose $13 billion in new taxes on big energy companies." Of course he'll veto it -- it would cost his buddies a lot of money.


HABITATS/TECHNOLOGY
~ How our ancestors were like gorillas -- "Research published in this week’s Science journal shows that some of our closest extinct relatives had more in common with gorillas than previously thought. Dr Charles Lockwood, UCL Department of Anthropology and lead author of the study, said: “When we examined fossils from 1.5 to 2 million years ago we found that in one of our close relatives the males continued to grow well into adulthood, just as they do in gorillas. This resulted in a much bigger size difference between males and females than we see today."
~ Whatever Happened To... the Aquatic Ape Hypothesis? -- "Human beings and nonhuman apes inhabit neighboring branches on the tree of life, but there are differences. Humans have less hair and perpetually enlarged mammary glands, and unlike other apes, we sweat a lot. In 1960, to explain these differences, marine biologist Sir Alister Hardy posited a water-dependent species that preceded human beings. Hardy pointed out that only aquatic mammals like walruses and hippopotamuses have naked skin and subcutaneous fat—human traits not shared by other apes."
~ Environment: Internet Behemoth Google Throws Down Green Energy Gauntlet -- "More corporate green-washing, or is Google ahead of the curve?"
~ Images of Saturn's Small Moons Tell the Story of Their Origins -- "Imaging scientists on NASA's Cassini mission are telling a tale of how the small moons orbiting near the outer rings of Saturn came to be. The moons began as leftover shards from larger bodies that broke apart and filled out their "figures" with the debris that made the rings."
~ Team to chemically transform carbon dioxide into carbon-neutral liquid fuels -- "Using concentrated solar energy to reverse combustion, a research team from Sandia National Laboratories is building a prototype device intended to chemically “reenergize” carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide using concentrated solar power. The carbon monoxide could then be used to make hydrogen or serve as a building block to synthesize a liquid combustible fuel, such as methanol or even gasoline, diesel and jet fuel."
~ Online Library Gives Readers Access To 1.5 Million Books -- "The Million Book Project has completed the digitization of more than 1.5 million books, which are now available online. For the first time since the project was initiated in 2002, all of the books, which range from Mark Twain's "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" to "The Analects of Confucius," are available through a single Web portal of the Universal Library, said Gloriana St. Clair, Carnegie Mellon's dean of libraries."
~ IBM using light instead of wires for building supercomputers-on-a-chip -- "Supercomputers that consist of thousands of individual processor "brains" connected by miles of copper wires could one day fit into a laptop PC, thanks in part to a breakthrough by IBM scientists announced today."


INTEGRAL/BUDDHIST BLOGS
~ The Hero's Journey -- "Are humans a failed species? Is it what some Natives Americans have said, "very shrewd but no wisdom?" When we look around the biosphere we see that most other species devote much of their life energies to birthing, raising and protecting their progeny. In this respect, civilized humans are a failed species."
~ Ripple effects -- "We usually have an idea of some effects of some of our actions, mostly on those in our daily life. But we rarely know the ripple effects, including the indirect ones on people we have never met. To be honest, I probably don’t know most of the effects on people in my daily life."
~ Ken Wilber on Evolution (Reloaded) -- "Ken Wilber explains his understanding of evolution on his blog. Check it out. Below are some key quotes and my commentary."
~ Warner vs Genpo: The One-Sided Fight -- "If you cruise the same sites and blogs I do, you are aware of the ranting Brad Warner, Zen punk extraordinaire. I find the whole "controversy" about Big Mind so sticky that I am compelled to jump into the fray. Silly me." I like Warner, but he has repeatedly made his point about Genpo Roshi -- it's getting tiresome.
~ Search for Origins of Buddhism -- "The land of Pakistan is blessed with the vast treasure troves of the world and one of the most important treasures is the glorious civilization of Buddhism flourishing in the North Western areas of Pakistan. The mountains of these areas are witness to one of the highly creative ideology springing fromBuddha, taking refuge in the mountains from Karakurums in Chilas to Pir Panjal Mountains near Taxila."
~ This Journey Has No Gaps -- "In many ways, I feel right now like I'm marinating in life. This long-held desire I've had to "do" something noteworthy with my brief existence on our shared Pale Blue Dot hasn't gone away. But that pressing, throbbing feeling that often accompanies it has."
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Today is Pearl Harbor Day. While many will remember this day as one of the worst in American history, especially if they lived through it, few will consider how America has changed since then.

What follows is a very interesting take on our collective sense of justice, and how our leaders are expected to respond to national crises. One only need to recall how Roosevelt responded to Pearl Harbor and then compare that to how Bush responded to 9/11 to see how much things have changed -- and for the worse.

From OUP Blog:

David Domke is Professor of Communication and Head of Journalism at the University of Washington. Kevin Coe is a doctoral candidate in Speech Communication at the University of Illinois. They are authors of the The God Strategy: How Religion Became a Political Weapon in America. To learn more about the book check out their handy website here. In the article below Domke and Coe commemorate the bombing of Pearl Harbor (12-7-1941) by comparing it to our modern tragedy, 9/11.

Sixty-six years ago today America was attacked at Pearl Harbor. In responding, President Franklin Roosevelt did the expected: he addressed the nation to explain what had happened, to describe plans for retaliation and, of course, to comfort the American people.

But Roosevelt did one thing that, by today’s standards, was entirely unexpected: he didn’t say much about God. In fact, Roosevelt addressed the nation only once in the immediate aftermath of Pearl Harbor—a fireside chat on the evening of December 9—and mentioned God only one time. That reference was the concluding word of the speech:

We are going to win the war and we are going to win the peace that follows. And in the difficult hours of this day—through dark days that be yet to come—we will know that the vast majority of the members of the human race are on our side. Many of them are fighting with us. All of them are praying for us. For in representing our cause, we represent theirs as well—our hope and their hope for liberty under God.

The attack on Pearl Harbor was the worst by a foreign entity in America’s history, and in comforting and rallying the nation Roosevelt overtly invoked God one time. FDR did not formally address the nation again until his annual State of the Union in early January 1942.

Today we face an entirely different era of religious politics. Politicians look for any opportunity to talk about God and faith, and crises present just such an opportunity.

Consider that in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of 2001, George W. Bush formally addressed the nation via live television three times in the space of nine days: from the Oval Office on the evening of September 11, at the National Cathedral as part of a memorial service on September 14, and before a joint session of Congress on September 20. In these three addresses Bush invoked God more than 20 times.

Bush concluded the September 20 address—which was watched by 82 million Americans, the largest audience for a political event in U.S. history—with these words: “The course of this conflict is not known, yet its outcome is certain. Freedom and fear, justice and cruelty have always been at war, and we know that God is not neutral between them.” He then added, “Fellow citizens, we’ll meet violence with patient justice, assured of the rightness of our cause and confident of the victories to come. In all that lies before us, may God grant us wisdom, and may He watch over the United States of America.”

The striking contrast between Bush’s and Roosevelt’s approaches provides two useful reminders.

The first is that the extent to which religion infuses American politics today is historically uncommon. Those who say there is nothing new under the sun with respect to religion and politics are flat wrong.

The second reminder is that presidents can do the job of comforting the nation in times of crisis without saturating their language with religious references. No one would argue that FDR failed in this important task where Bush succeeded. Roosevelt simply took a different approach. And, given the serious dangers that arise when politics and religion become too intertwined, Roosevelt’s approach might be just what we need today.

 

Today's Daily Dharma from Tricycle:

Doctor Buddha

 

Buddhism is neither pessimistic nor optimistic. If anything at all, it is realistic, for it takes a realistic view of life and of the world. It looks at things objectively. It does not falsely lull you into living in a fool's paradise, nor does it frighten and agonize you with all kinds of imaginary fears and sins. It tells you exactly and objectively what you are and what the world around you is, and shows you the way to perfect freedom, peace, tranquility and happiness.

One physician may gravely exaggerate an illness and give up hope altogether. Another may ignorantly declare that there is no illness and that no treatment is necessary, thus deceiving the patient with false consolation. You may call the first one pessimistic and the second optimistic. Both are equally dangerous. But a third physician diagnoses the symptoms correctly, understands the cause and the nature of the illness, sees clearly that it can be cured and courageously administers a course of treatment, thus saving his patient. The Buddha is like the last physician. He is the wise and scientific doctor for the ills of the world.

~ Walpola Rahula, What the Buddha Taught; from Everyday Mind, a Tricycle book edited by Jean Smith

 

Quote of the day:

"Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less."
~ Marie Curie

Image of the day (David Winston):


BODY
~ National Body Challenge 2008 -- "Discovery Health's 2008 National Body Challenge is coming up soon; you can sign up starting on December 27 and I think it's a great idea for anyone looking to really get moving next year. Can you say "New Year's Resolution"?" Bally Total Fitness is a sponsor of this event -- you can get a free 8 week membership if you sign up.
~ Green Tea, Fruit Extracts Touted as Potential Cancer Fighters (HealthDay) -- "A gel derived from black raspberries, a fruit beverage and old-fashioned green tea all hold potential promise as ways to treat or prevent different types of cancer, preliminary research suggests."
~ Obesity, Diabetes Linked to Cancers (HealthDay) -- "Obesity and diabetes -- risk factors so often linked to heart disease -- can also affect the incidence and severity of cancer, a collection of four new studies suggests."
~ Stem Cells Make Sick Mouse Mighty Again -- "Stem cell treatment cures mice of sickle cell anemia."
~ 90 seconds to amazing health -- "What if you could cut your risk of heart disease, get fitter, and slow aging — not to mention protect your smile — in less time than it takes to watch a couple of commercials?"
~ Catching flu doubles the risk of heart attacks and strokes -- "Winter infections like flu can double the risk of heart attacks and strokes, an extensive study has found. Sufferers are twice as likely to be affected in the week after catching a range of common respiratory infections."
~ Nationwide trial to test omega-3 oils vs. Alzheimer's disease -- "A consortium of researchers, supported by the National Institutes of Health's National Institutes on Aging and coordinated by the University of California-San Diego, will be conducting a nationwide clinical trial to study the effects of an omega-3 fatty acid on the progression of Alzheimer's disease."
~ Overview of Varicose Veins and Spider Veins -- "There are many treatment options for varicose veins and spider veins. Learn more here."


PSYCHE/SELF
~ A Metaphysics for Scientific Realism -- "Traditionally and especially in the early twentieth century, around the time of the birth of modern analytic philosophy, realist positions were contrasted with idealism, according to which there is no world external to and thus independent of the mental. The classic statement of this position is credited to Bishop George Berkeley, for whom reality is constituted by thoughts and ultimately sustained by the mind of God. Idealism need not invoke a deity, though. A phenomenalist, for instance, might be an idealist without appealing to the divine. Given an idealist ontology, it is no surprise that scientific claims cannot be construed literally, since they are not about what they seem to describe at face value, but this of course does not preclude knowledge of a mind-dependent reality."
~ Unlocking the secrets of self-sabotage -- "A new study suggests that if you believe you're mediocre, chances are you'll keep shooting yourself in the foot to prove it."
~ Wake Up: A Guide to Living Your Life Consciously -- "Do you ever have a feeling that you’re drifting through life, and not going where you want to go? Or that you don’t know how you got where you are today? Living consciously is about taking control of your life, about thinking about your decisions rather than making them without thought, about having a life that we want rather than settling for the one that befalls us."
~ Our Secret Attitude Changes -- "When you change your attitude about something, do you know why? Psychologists have argued that the inner workings of our minds are largely hidden away from us. One aspect of this is the surprising finding that people are often unaware when they have changed their attitudes."
~ What Do You REALLY Want? -- "Most of us don’t know what we want. We think we do, but we really don’t. We only know what we don’t want. We don’t want a boring job. We don’t want to be poor. We don’t want to disappoint our loved ones."
~ Subliminal Smells Bias Perception About A Person's Likeability -- "Anyone who has bonded with a puppy madly sniffing with affection gets an idea of how scents, most not apparent to humans, are critical to a dog's appreciation of her two-legged friends. Now new research from Northwestern University suggests that humans also pick up infinitesimal scents that affect whether or not we like somebody."
~ How emotions colour our perception of time -- "Our sense of time is altered by our emotions to such an extent that time seems to fly when we are having fun and drags when we are bored. Recent studies using standardized emotional material provide a unique opportunity for understanding the neurocognitive mechanisms that underlie the effects of emotion on timing and time perception."
~ 8 Powerful Ways to Rediscover Your Passion -- "You were born with a passion to do something unique with your life. As a divine being it was given you from the infinite supply of the universe. As an unborn child in your mother’s womb, you had it swirling all around you, and it lived and breathed inside of you, even before your little lungs developed." Ignore the New Age-y opening, it's a good article.
~ Domestic Violence -- "Verbal abuse is just as damaging as physical or sexual violence–the American Psychological Association classifies all three as wartime torture methods. In their daily wars women come to view themselves as worthless and powerless and internalize the loathing. They may develop serious medical problems like depression, anorexia/bulimia, post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, substance abuse and more, all while afraid to leave the abuser." Emphasis added.


CULTURE/POLITICS
~ Poetry is not a tool for teaching other things -- "It should be taught for its own sake - and the more challenging it is, the better."
~ Studying Those Who Studied the Bible -- "While reading Karen Armstrong's new book, "The Bible: A Biography," a volume in the Atlantic Monthly's Books That Changed the World series, I fancied I could hear the sound of recently qualified Ph.D.s in the Bible sharpening their pencils for comment."
~ ‘Irritable Centrism’ -- "Irritable centrism has shown itself in different guises, all of them consequential, several times in the past several years. It emerged very clearly in the spring of 2004, after the supreme court in Massachusetts essentially forced the state to recognize marriages between gay partners. For millions of people with unshakable convictions on this issue, the decision was either an overdue recognition of an important civil right or a disgraceful repudiation of conventional moral standards."
~ Atheism's Wrong Turn -- "Journalists have dubbed this combative style of challenging religious belief "the new atheism." To the extent that the appellation is meant to highlight the novelty of virulently anti-religious ideas finding a mass audience in the United States, it is certainly fitting. But, as a description of the style of unbelief itself, it demonstrates a striking lack of historical awareness. That's because "the new atheism" is not particularly new."
~ Huckster -- "Mike Huckabee has been scaring the bejesus out of the Republican establishment with his scorching populist invective. In one recent interview, the former Arkansas governor declared, 'I am like a lot of folks who are tired of thinking the Republican Party is a wholly owned subsidiary of Wall Street.' He has denounced "immoral" CEO salaries, and warned, 'People will only endure this for so many years before there is a revolt.' The terrified anti-tax Club for Growth is waging jihad against Huckabee, and Robert Novak has called him an advocate of 'class struggle.'"
~ Holy Nonsense: Mitt Romney's windy, worthless speech -- Christopher Hitchens -- "Composed chiefly of boilerplate, the windy speech raised the vexed question of the candidate's religious affiliation—and thus broke the taboo on mentioning it—without setting to rest any of the difficulties that make it legitimate to raise the issue in the first place."
~ Joseph A. Palermo: Congress Must Find Out: Who Destroyed the Tapes? -- "The Democratic Congress might have taken impeachment "off the table" but it cannot ignore the Central Intelligence Agency's obstruction of justice. Destroying videotaped evidence of CIA personnel torturing Al Qaeda suspects in violation of U.S. law is no small matter."
~ Deepak Chopra: Religion's Greatest Enemy? -- "Decades after Monty Python came to an end, John Cleese is dapper, intelligent, freethinking, and still funny. I heard him give an impromptu talk and came away with one of his best lines: "The biggest enemy of religion is spirituality." The talk was in California among people who immediately applauded. On a certain level it's only a quip, because spirituality, in its truest sense, has no enemies. The same can't be said of religion."


HABITATS/TECHNOLOGY
~ TED Talk -- Robert Full: Secrets of movement, from geckos and roaches -- "UC Berkeley biologist Robert Full shares his fascination with spiny cockroach legs that allow them to scuttle at full speed across loose mesh and gecko feet that have billions of nano-bristles to run straight up walls. His talk, complete with wonderful slow-mo video of cockroach, crab and gecko gaits, explains his goal of creating the perfect robotic 'distributed foot.'"
~ Life's Complexity Began With Poop -- "Every now and then, science puts forth a theory that -- at least on a bitterly cold December day, with a flu infection stirring fatigue in a certain science journalist -- resonates with grand poetic truth. The theory: the incredible complexity of life on Earth, the myriad of forms and forms and functions, owes its existence to poop."
~ Really Big Planets: When Do Gas Giants Reach The Point Of No Return? -- "Astronomers have identified the point at which a star causes the atmosphere of an orbiting gas giant to become critically unstable. Depending upon their proximity to a host star, giant Jupiter-like planets have atmospheres which are either stable and thin, or unstable and rapidly expanding. The research enables us to work out whether planets in other systems are stable or unstable by using a 3-D model to characterize their atmospheres."
~ Methanol Shows Increasing Promise As An Alternative Fuel -- "After grabbing headlines for years as the ultimate solution to world energy problems, the "hydrogen economy" has an emerging but lesser-known competitor called the "methanol economy," according to a new article. Methanol, an alcohol like ethanol, shows increasing promise as an alternative energy source with advantages over both ethanol and hydrogen."
~ New research may lead to better climate models for global warming, El Nino -- "One hundred fifty scientists from more than 40 universities in nine countries are starting a coordinated program aimed at gaining new insights about the Earth's climate and the complex, interconnected system involving the oceans, the atmosphere and the land."
~ Astronomer detects atmosphere of extra-solar planet -- "University of Texas at Austin astronomer and Hubble Fellow Seth Redfield has used the Hobby-Eberly Telescope (HET) at McDonald Observatory to make the first ground-based detection of the atmosphere of a planet outside our solar system."
~ Bioprospectors Identify Hot New Biofuel-producing Bacteria -- "A bioprospecting expedition to Iceland's famed hot springs has yielded new strains of bacteria with potential of producing hydrogen and ethanol fuels from wastewater now discharged from factories that process sugar beets, potatoes and other plant material. The microbes hold potential for combining energy production with wastewater treatment."


INTEGRAL/BUDDHIST BLOGS
~ 4 Questions That Will Bring Balance to Your Life -- "If you focus on one aspect of your life to the exclusion of the others then no matter how much you improve in that one area, neglecting those other areas will only lead to overall digression. To ensure a more balanced approach, each key area of your life must be addressed."
~ Where Politics and Buddhism Intersect -- "TAP talks to Ethan Nichtern, author of the new Buddhist political treatise One City, about faith, youth, 9-11, consumption, and powerlessness."
~ Obama, Thompson, and “the fray” -- "If the general election is Fred Thompson versus Barack Obama, not only will they (based upon their current campaigns) largely stay “above the fray” (something Thompson as well has been commended for during the GOP debates), but by virtue of both’s commitment to depth, they will do something more. They will raise the level of debate in this country to the level of high intelligence and deep mutual respect perhaps not seen in this country at the presidential level for at least a generation." Agreed.
~ One City Blog -- "Ethan Nichtern is rapidly becoming my favourite Buddhist blogger. I’ve been a huge fan of his InterDependence Project Podcast for a long while now. His new book One City has been touted as “A trenchant and engaging call to an expanded awareness.” by Daniel Goleman, author Social Intelligence. And now… his new blog totally rocks too."
~ Mitt Romney On Faith in America -- "Now, just to be clear, I don't know enough about Romney to cast a judgment on his values. For all I know he could be playing a religious facade to get the sympathy of the religious voters (e.g. Christian evangelicals) to garner votes (ala G.W. Bush), but deep inside his values could be different from what he publicly profess (of course, this applies to all candidates). However, based on what I've seen so far, Romney is indeed a man of faith (see this debate video). His professed faith is mythic to the core. And his speech stretches the gap between believers, not-so believers (moderates, those with no religious affiliation, agnostics), and non-believers (seculars, atheists). It elevates the believers (faithful) above the non-believers (faithless). Romney's preference of belief over non-belief is more divisive than unitive--a reflection of his (predominantly) mythic faith."
~ Theory and Practice of Integral Sustainable Development: Part 1 – Quadrants and the Practitioner -- "This is part one of a two-part paper that offers an overview of Integral Sustainable Development. The paper explains the rudiments of a practical framework that integrates the crowded conceptual and operational landscape of sustainable development and enables practitioners to ...."
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