My answer to a request for comment on Soka Gakkai

A friend who had been introduced to Soka Gakkai here in L.A. asked me to comment on it, as someone with some familiarity with Buddhism in general. I thought my answer might be of interest to others. Comments and critique welcome.

I will give you a response, and if you want to ask about anything further, feel free. I don't pretend to be an expert in any of this, but this is what I know.

Japanese Buddhism (other than Zen) is primarily of the Pure Land variety, which holds that enlightenment is virtually impossible for human beings to achieve, even with Buddha's help, in this world, and so the only useful practice is to make devotions and requests of the Supreme Buddha, whom they call Amida (in Sanskrit, Amitabha, and in another aspect, Amitayus). Sokagakkai aka Nichiren Shoshu is a school of this Pure Land Buddhism, founded in 1222 by Nichiren Daishonin. The other main branch is Shinran, which is similar, but perhaps a little less aggressive in its recruitment and less single minded in its insistence on a particular form of mantra recitation. Shinran seems to be mostly practiced by the Nissei and Sansei communities, with relatively few Western adherents in the U.S. Nichiren Shoshu (SGI) [http://www.sgi-usa.org/ ] promotes the mantra meditation (recitation) of repeating the Amida mantra nam myoho renge kyo.

Fo Guang Shan, and similar schools in Taiwan, are also Pure Land, they have a beautiful temple in Hacienda Heights, Hsi Lai, which I recommend you visit just for the beauty and blessing of seeing thousands of Buddhas. http://www.hsilai.org/en/index.htm . It's the largest Buddhist Temple in the Western Hemisphere, built in the traditional Chinese style.

To my mind, Pure Land is like Buddhist Lutheranism, salvation through faith alone. By trusting in Amida's promise that if you make sincere requests of him, he will use the all but (not quite) unlimited power of his compassion and wisdom to carry you to a Pure Land at death, where enlightenment is not only possible but certain (although it may take a long time of living in a blissful paradise to achieve).

Having said that, I have no criticism of this practice. Buddhists all promote the four immeasurable qualities of compassion, lovingkindness, sympathetic joy and equanimity, and all believe in the pillars of our founder Shakyamuni's doctrine, the Four Noble Truths: (1) the cycle of birth and death is has the essential nature of suffering; (2) The origin of suffering is delusion, all deriving from the root delusion, self-grasping ignorance; (3) The complete cessation of suffering (and of the cycle of birth and death), enlightenment, is possible; (4) the means of attaining the cessation of suffering is the path, which leads to direct realization of the truth, comprised of following the teachings of the Buddha. Anyone who sincerely tries to practice almost any form of this system will work for world peace, compassion, kindness, and respect for others. What can be said against any of that?

My personal orientation is towards a more activist form of Buddhism, deriving from the Tibetan Kadampa (also called Gelug) tradition founded by "the second Buddha" Atisha and consolidated and promulgated as a complete quick path by Losang Dragpa (usually referred to as Je Tsongkhapa) (1357-1419). I hang around the New Kadampa Tradition (NKT), founded by Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, who will soon be retiring as its spiritual director. Tibetan Buddhism uses not only the so-called Sutra teachings, which are the basis of all Buddhist schools, but also secret mantra, also called tantra, which involves using the power of imagination to become like Buddha, and eventually to become enlightened yourself.

Like all religions, there are unfortunately many controversies and factionalisms in Buddhism, not excepting our school, which has a regrettable and rather bitter schism with the Gelug followers of the Dalai Lama. I refuse to get exercised about that, only praying that everyone will come to see the virtue and necessity of mutual respect and tolerance in time.

NKT is sometimes characterized as a cult by people who don't know a lot about it or who have an axe to grind, as is SGI for more or less the same reasons. Personally, I think you keep your eyes open, and you practice what seems right to you, and you make your own decisions. If you feel pressured, you say so and back off if that's what you want to do; if you disagree with something, you try to understand the other person's point of view or why the teachings maybe have more wisdom than you do (which usually turns out to be the case), or you follow your heart, not what someone else is telling you. But any serious and activist faith will seem like a bit much to those who are doing nothing about improving their spiritual life, so don't be surprised if people think it's a cult.

I don't know if this helps. If you want so see some of the differences between Tibetan style Buddhism and Pure Land, you could check out meditateinla.org (local) and kadampa.org (global). The Dalai Lama's followers have a similar organization called FPMT < fpmt.org >. You might also want to look at Insight Meditation, which is less focused on the religious aspects, less focused on becoming enlightened for the eventual ability to help all others achieve the same state, and more focused on the day to day practice of training the mind through meditation. (Try this, http://www.enabling.org/ia/vipassana/Archive/A/Amaravati/introInsightMeditation.html ... I'm not intimately familiar with them... they have a major center near San Rafael, CA and in Barre, MA.--They are Theravada, not Mahayana, if you want to look up the difference in Wikipedia... all the others I mention are Mahayana). Then there's always Zen. I never could understand why Zen was the main form of Buddhism in the West until recently. To me it's the most difficult, the most uncompromising, and the least user-friendly. But some people find it to be just exactly what they're looking for.

I offer these alternatives more as a way for you to get an idea what's out there... NOT to suggest that you stay away from SGI. SGI teaches meditation, peace, compassion, and wisdom, and it's true Dharma as far as I'm concerned.

Good luck.

I tried in this comment to avoid promoting my own preferred school, which I do believe is the most effective and clear instruction in developing the wonderful qualities and techniques of both sutra and tantra; but I realize that others may have the karma to practice Dharma in other forms, and that's not for me to criticize.

UPDATE: Please see comments for a correction to what's written above. The commenter says that I'm mistaken in lumping Shinran and Soka Gakkai + Nichiren Shoshu together as Amida Buddhism. I do believe, however, that it is correct to refer to all as forms of "Pure Land" Buddhism. This person also notes that there is no longer a direct connection between Soka Gakkai and Nichiren Shoshu.

No more Abu Ghraib photos; Evidence of Torture Interrogations

I am in favor of transparency and truth finding, obviously. But I acknowledge that there is a danger of fomenting retaliation in revealing still more pictures of abuse that happened years ago, and also that nothing really is gained: the facts can and largely have been ascertained without more incendiary images. So, I think Obama called it correctly to order the additional photos from Abu Ghraib withheld.

I say this without consideration of the legal position of the government: it could be that they are obligated to produce them. I just don't know.

Related: I believe that the destruction of the 92 tapes of interrogations, deliberately committed by the CIA as intentional destruction of evidence, is a serious crime for which the perpetrators should be tried, and if convicted, jailed for a good long time. But that doesn't mean I think those tapes should've been made public. A judge could and I think probably would have ruled that they were a national security risk, and had to be held under seal. But there is no justification imaginable for deliberately destroying them. That simply isn't how a free and open republic operates, at all, no exceptions.

Under well-established evidence rules, if anyone is tried who was complicit in the tapes' destruction, and of whose alleged crimes the tapes themselves would have been material evidence (an unlikely combination of events, in truth), the evidence must be conclusively presumed to have been against him. No doubt they thought of that, and kept the actual interrogators out of the loop, so that it would only be the institution itself, and the destroyers of evidence, who would be criminally liable for the destruction of evidence; it will likely have no negative evidentiary consequences for anyone accused of actually carrying out torture, if that ever happens. At this point it seems it may not.

This is why the knowing destruction of evidence of a crime is so insidious. It really does sometimes make it so difficult to prosecute the crime that wrongdoers are not made to face the charge. I've already expressed, and explained, my view that those who carried out torture, orders or no orders, were criminals. Torture is a very serious crime. In some cases, it even carries the death penalty. How people can just say, "oh well, no big deal," is truly beyond me, and very, very disturbing.

Lindsey Graham, nearly as depraved as Cheney

Lindsey Graham, a few cards short of a deck, has shown himself to be almost as depraved as Cheney. First, he cites in his browbeating questioning a debunked news report in which John Kyriakou claimed that Abu Zubaydah was "broken" in "minutes" by waterboarding (Kyriakou has recanted this statement); then he defends torture as "tried and true" because it's been used since the Middle Ages.

Unbelievable that people re-elect such despicable idiots as this, over and over.

Dick Cheney: depraved, proves it again

No mincing of words. Dick Cheney proved once again on Sunday that he is, without a doubt, the most depraved public official of our time.

Earth to Dick. No one outside the self-justifying clique of the Right in America any longer believes that what Bybee, Yoo and Bradbury described in the Torture Memos was anything other than torture. No one.

Ironically, Cheney is such a true believer, and believes so completely his own twisted view of reality, that he is now the primary promoter of Congressional or other investigation of what actually happened. He thinks the documentary evidence will prove that (what-he-refuses-to-call) torture was effective, and therefore justified (a depraved view even if it were true). So he wants the relevant documentation declassified and promises to "certainly" speak before Congress. Great, bring it on, and under oath, if you please. And when he incriminates himself without taking the 5th, he'll find out that his view of what transpired has no relationship to reality, or the law.

If Dick would keep his yap shut, the whole thing might even eventually wind down, without any real resolution other than an especially dismal chapter in our history. But if he keeps this up, he may testify himself right into a jail cell.

McKiernan out/ WaPo

Check out Washington Post's report, just in. General McKiernan, the Commander in Afghanistan, is being forced out. The recent disastrous civilian casualties must be the impetus, if not the entire reason.

Quid pro quo to get American journalist released in Iran?

I would be willing to bet there was some kind of quid pro quo for this. Which is not a criticism. I see way more upside than downside to trying to improve relations with Iran.

Star Trek

OK. I admit it. I am an unreconstructed Trekkie, although this is a concept I resist. I have never attended a Star Trek convention and never will, but I have seen all the films and a fair number of the TV shows over the years. I almost never buy movie tickets in advance, and rarely go to films on their opening weekends. Nonetheless, I found myself clicking on "Buy" to order advance tickets to a Saturday showing of Star Trek the IMAX Experience. To boldly go, and all that.

UDDATE 11 MAY. The movie is terrific; fast paced, exciting, engaging. If you hate sci-fi adventure, this movie will not change your mind, but if you're open to it, even a little, this is about as good as it gets. My only mild criticism is that there's too much hand to hand combat. I never find that believable in space opera, and it gets too much screen time. Just a bias, I suppose. I don't enjoy watching men fighting each other. Never have.

Feynman's optimism

I do believe this is the most optimistic statement I've come across in a good long while:

We are at the very beginning of time for the human race. It is not unreasonable that we grapple with problems. But there are tens of thousands of years in the future. Our responsibility is to do what we can, learn what we can, improve the solutions, and pass them on.

--Richard Feynman

My letter to Bybee: resign for the good of the country

Hon. Judge Jay Bybee
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals
333 Las Vegas Blvd S.
Las Vegas, NV 89101

Dear Judge Bybee:

I am writing to you to urge you to resign. I will not even attempt to present arguments to you to support my conviction that your actions, in justifying what history will surely judge to have been torture, were reprehensible, at minimum, and legally so questionable as to call your qualification to remain a circuit judge into serious question. History, indeed, will judge.

What I do ask you to do is consider the harm that this controversy is doing to our country. Please, sir, as an American who I do not doubt loves his country, put your own interests second, for once, and resign.

Thank you.

Sincerely,
David Studhalter

UPDATE: Apparently (per TPM) Judge Bybee told the New York Times that he "believed at the time, and continues to believe" that the conclusions of his Torture Memo were correct. The memo speaks for itself. His current defense of it, alone, should get him (1) impeached; (2) convicted by the Senate; (3) disbarred. I doubt more than (1) and just possibly (3) are at all likely, but for the sake of the country, and to save the taxpayers a tidy sum, this sorry excuse for a lawyer should resign immediately. Both from the Ninth Circuit, and from the practice of law.

Amazon to release large screen Kindle

This damn thing is almost $500, which is way, way too much, but I think something that descends from it (possibly a collateral relative) will indeed mostly replace paper for periodicals in the not too distant future. (Not entirely for books, because paper books have advantages no electronic display can match, at least not yet).

For one thing, the experiment newspapers and magazines have tried of putting their content on the web for free and hoping to get enough advertising to support themselves has totally failed. Newspapers and magazines in America are floundering, looking for a new way to pay for the content they provide. Print advertising and subscriptions just aren't keeping up. This could be it, especially if it eventually becomes full color with at least some video capability. The wireless download is a big plus. But they gotta make this thing cheap enough that people will just buy it without giving it a lot of thought, and for most people $500 isn't even close to that. Eventually, there will be no paper versions of transient media at all, so all that cost of production will be gone (along with it the jobs, but that's the way it is). But you still have to pay people to go where stuff is happening and find out what's going on, and report it. And for books, obviously, authors gotta eat. So content will not be free forever.

Brooks right, in part, and dreaming the impossible dream in part

David Brooks is right about the Republican Party having completely misconstrued the concerns of the Middle Class, especially in the more densely settled parts of America, which anymore is most of it. And he's right that they learned the wrong lessons from watching the wrong Westerns. But if he thinks they're going to find their way back to power by appealing to people with platitudes about community and not "intervening in sector after sector," as he accuses President Obama of doing, he's dreaming a pipe dream.

The Democrats could become very unpopular in the relatively near future, if the economy and foreign entanglements both deteriorate further under this administration -- because people always blame the guy in office. If that happens, there's a real danger of the rise of a right wing demagogue; then we'll really see what a mess right wing policies can make of our country, if it even survives in recognizable form. But if the economy recovers, even anemically, and the Obama policies manage to avoid disaster overseas, including avoiding any more major domestic terror attacks, I'd say the Republican party is going to be in the back woods for a good long time. And deservedly so. I believe history will affirm that Tom DeLay was the most extreme right wing congressional leader in modern history, and the administration of George W. Bush was the most destructive right wing government our country ever had... and those will take a long time to live down.

Cokie's just typical of anemic NPR, which needs a major makeover

I admit I used to be fond of Cokie Roberts' radio persona (I have nothing against her, personally). She had a reassuring manner, and mostly knew what she was talking about. This [>Slate], however, is mean, but I have to say, pretty much spot-on, about how shallow and uninteresting her commentary has become. It's really bugged me in recent years how she was mostly an apologist for whoever had power in Washington, and wasted a lot of precious airtime on what's supposed to be a public affairs program on lightweight chitchat. Her appearances on ABC have been even worse. She's regularly engaged in the inexcusable journalistic habit (I've seen it called Broderism after its foremost practitioner), of pontificating about what "the American people" think and how they will likely vote, with no data at all, just her own blowhard opinionated speculations. (Which have mostly been wrong, anyway).

It really is time for her to retire, and, frankly, she's symptomatic of what's wrong with NPR. The network needs a major makeover, clearing the decks of formats and sharpening content considerably. I would have to include in that that it's time for some new personnel, too. There are lots and lots of serious radio people who could do way, way better than what Steve Inskeep and Renee Montagne dish out. Maybe it's not all their fault... the editorial policy seems to be extremely timid in recent years. But in any case, it's high time for them to become something much more incisive, original, and, indeed, controversial, than they've dared to be in a long, long time.

Here's a radical suggestion, and a serious one: NPR should see if they can lure Amy Goodman and Ian Masters away from Pacifica. Pacifica would survive, and eventually produce some new people, and NPR would get a much needed infusion. Amy Goodman is the foremost public radio journalist in America; the tireless and spectacularly talented anchor of Democracy Now! She has turned that program (produced as both a TV and radio show), on a shoestring, into the best news and public affairs daily radio program in the country, period. (It's also broadcast via high bandwidth internet feed in several foreign countries). Imagine if Democracy Now! were broadcast in drivetime on every NPR station (it already is on some of the smaller ones, especially those that are College-affiliated). And how about a tie-in with PBS-TV? Democracy Now! instead of endless juvenile drivel for one hour in the morning on hundreds of PBS stations. To offset the increasingly soporific evening News Hour (snore).

Ian Masters has the best public affairs interview program in the country (Background Briefing/Live from the Left Coast, Sundays on KPFK, 90.7FM, Los Angeles, 11-1). I've tried a lot of them, mostly via podcasts, and believe me, there is none better; download from kpfk.org or podcast from iTunes, delayed a week or so. His show isn't even broadcast on the whole (tiny) Pacifica network, but only here in L.A. This show deserves to be heard on a national network.

But it'll never happen. NPR's masters are afraid of being branded "left wing." So, with CBS, NBC, CNBC, ABC, the odious Fox, and CNN all afraid to put on anything left of Center, and even MSNBC drawing the line at a fairly mild level of criticism from Olbermann and Rachel Maddow, what exactly would be wrong with having a few shows with a distinctly progressive slant? They could easily provide a couple of others as counterbalances.

But it ain't gonna happen. They're too scared that even the Democrats in Congress see no upside to continued funding for Public Broadcasting, and would use the usual orchestrated rant-in from the Right Wing as an excuse to kill NPR altogether if they tried anything like that.

Gourevitch in The New Yorker: "Interrogating Torture"

An absolute must-read. We simply cannot leave our heads in the sand.

My Google Profile

My Google Profile.

My last word on torture (maybe)

I will never understand how almost three-quarters of Americans, as a reported survey said today, can say that torture is ever justified. Never, never, never. I don't want to think that people I know and care about believe this, but I guess I have to accept it as true. I don't generally ask people this question, because it's painful to think that people I'm fond of believe torture is OK. Ever. I can't argue with people about this, any more than I could argue with someone who thought it was OK to execute people without due process or murder people on suspicion they did something wrong. Conduct like that is depraved; inherently immoral. So is torture. Always. (Not to mention illegal, always, under all circumstances, under in-force U.S. and International Law). The contrary view, to me, is just beyond the pale.

This is the same survey that found that a majority of those who attend religious services at least once a week think torture of "terror suspects" is "often" or "sometimes" justified. (As opposed to "seldom" or "never.") One third of mainline protestants (Presbyterian, Episcopal, Methodist, etc.) said "never." Only one third. Amazing. Have we truly become so callow? This isn't an intellectual thing. It's hard to see how people can have misunderstood the question.

Well, I say, 'never,' and it appalls me that it's even debatable. I happen to attend religious services once a week, too, but that's immaterial. The thing is, I just can't accept this. It's like a blight on our national soul. Maybe I'm naive, but I don't want to be convinced I'm overreacting. The hell with it. If that's someone's view, I just can't talk to them about it. I really want to believe we're better than this, and that we'll wake up as a nation and come to our senses soon. I hope and pray that this will happen.

If this offends you, good. You should be offended. Yes, I do indeed feel that strongly about this.

§§
Concurring, if somewhat less emotional, views: Froomkin (WaPo) and Greenwald.

Greenwald: Krauthammer, for shame; and the peril to our civilization

The despicable Charles Krauthammer, in today's Washington Post:

Torture is an impermissible evil. Except under two circumstances. The first is the ticking time bomb. . . . The second exception to the no-torture rule is the extraction of information from a high-value enemy in possession of high-value information likely to save lives. . . .

Some people, however, believe you never torture. Ever. They are akin to conscientious objectors who will never fight in any war under any circumstances, and for whom we correctly show respect by exempting them from war duty. But we would never make one of them Centcom commander. Private principles are fine, but you don't entrust such a person with the military decisions upon which hinges the safety of the nation. It is similarly imprudent to have a person who would abjure torture in all circumstances making national security decisions upon which depends the protection of 300 million countrymen.

I say despicable, because these opinions are despicable, in my view. This is just not an acceptable position for a person claiming to be a moral human being to take. Until the past few years, it would quite simply never have occurred to me that anyone could take such a position in a major American newspaper's opinion page.

Glenn Greenwald (salon.com) quotes this passage (the emphases are his), and then quotes the "left-wing ideologue" Ronald Reagan:

Ronald Reagan, May 20, 1988, transmitting the Convention Against Torture to the Senate for ratification:

The United States participated actively and effectively in the negotiation of the Convention. It marks a significant step in the development during this century of international measures against torture and other inhuman treatment or punishment. Ratification of the Convention by the United States will clearly express United States opposition to torture, an abhorrent practice unfortunately still prevalent in the world today.

The core provisions of the Convention establish a regime for international cooperation in the criminal prosecution of torturers relying on so-called "universal jurisdiction." Each State Party is required either to prosecute torturers who are found in its territory or to extradite them to other countries for prosecution.

Convention Against Torture, signed and championed by Ronald Reagan, Article II/IV:

No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat or war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture. . . Each State Party shall ensure that all acts of torture are offences under its criminal law.

(Greenwald's emphases, again).

I do believe that pretty much says it all. I repeat my mantra, this time directed to Charles Krauthammer: For shame. For awful, terrible shame.

What Glenn then quotes says something really terrible about what our country has become:

Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, April 29, 2009:

More than half of people who attend services at least once a week -- 54 percent -- said the use of torture against suspected terrorists is "often" or "sometimes" justified.

I truly hope that we can overcome this blight on our national soul, because if we can't, we are doomed as a civilization. I don't think this is paranoia, or exaggeration. A nation that condones this conduct, at this stage of history, will decline and fall into an abyss of tyranny, sooner or later. I feel this as a certainty, with no doubt at all.

Obama's pick to succeed Justice Souter

I would of course have preferred the retirement of one of the Gang of Four (Thomas, Scalia, Roberts and Alito), none of whom is likely to leave the court during Obama's term, but I feel pretty confident that President Obama will pick someone who will be a credit to the court to replace Mr. Justice Souter (who, amazingly enough, we should remember, is a Republican... or was, when nominated to the court).

Glenn Greenwald and others make the same points on torture prosecution

This is so similar to the points I made below in my long post on torture, that I'll just quote it, from Glenn Greenwald:

.....Obama's answer to [Jake] Tapper on whether he believes the Bush administration "sanctioned torture," what is most significant is that Obama flatly stated that waterboarding -- which Bush officials acknowledged that they ordered -- constitutes "torture." That means that Obama is currently and simultaneously advocating these positions:

* Bush officials ordered torture.

* Torture is a crime.

* Nobody is above the law.

Unless you're David Broder, Fred Hiatt, Peggy Noonan or Tom Friedman, those premises of Obama's, as a matter of logical reasoning, all necessarily lead to one conclusion (hint: it's not: "This is a time for reflection, not retribution"). Greg Sargent has similar thoughts about the significance of Obama's torture answer.

UPDATE: When asking Obama about whether Bush officials sanctioned torture, Tapper explicitly stated that "torture is a violation of international law and the Geneva Conventions" (it is also a violation of clear domestic criminal law). Obama's acknowledgment that Bush officials did indeed sanction "torture" by, at the very least, ordering waterboarding amounts to a clear concession that Bush officials broke the law. When you combine that conclusion with the "nobody-is-above-the-law" mantra they keep embracing, the case for criminal investigations makes itself.

UPDATE II: Rep. Jerry Nadler, commenting to Greg Sargent on Obama's torture remarks, makes the obvious point:

President Obama said, "They used torture, I believe waterboarding is torture." Once you concede that torture was committed, the law requires that there be an investigation, and if warranted, a prosecution . . . . The president stated in so many words: Waterboarding is torture, the previous administration has admitted that it waterboarded, and torture is a violation of international law. Once this is admitted, there must be an investigation. It forces the Justice Department on this path.

I don't see how that can be contested. As Sargent says: "Expect more like this."

Supreme Court Luminaries: Reasons why sweeping torture under the rug is unacceptable

I found these on talkleft.com, but they are hardly the words of raving left wingers. I think they say as well as anyone could why it is totally unacceptable to sweep torture and torturers under the rug, and 'move on.'

Justice Robert Jackson, dissent to Korematsu v. U.S.:

The chief restraint upon those who command the physical forces of the country, in the future as in the past, must be their responsibility to the political judgments of their contemporaries and to the moral judgments of history.

Justice Brandeis:

Decency, security and liberty alike demand that government officials shall be subjected to the same rules of conduct that are commands to the citizen. In a government of laws, existence of the government will be imperiled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously. Our Government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the Government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. To declare that, in the administration of the criminal law, the end justifies the means -- to declare that the Government may commit crimes in order to secure the conviction of a private criminal -- would bring terrible retribution. Against that pernicious doctrine this Court should resolutely set its face.

Inhofe: Specter Defection proof of impending GOP Comeback... say whaa?

I offer this factually devoid nonsense, literally headshakingly nutty, from the ever ridiculous James Inhofe, as Exhibit A in my thesis that the Republicans, taken over by the worst Wingnuts ever, have descended into a revolting blend of humorless lunacy and unbelievable stupidity.

What's up, Minnesota?

I just don't get how the Minnesota Supreme Court can justify not acting with outright alacrity to decide the case already, and declare Franken the winner of the election in November. The legal case on the Coleman side is preposterously flimsy. And if Pawlenty, Franken victory in court in hand, still refuses to certify the election, it will be a very dark day for any notion of orderly electoral politics in the United States. We have tolerated far too many spurious challenges, including, of course, the infamous Bush v. Gore, through which a large fraction of voters will always believe the Bush faction literally hijacked an election and brought us the worst administration in our history. Enough already. Minnesota supremes: expedite the damn case, make your decision, and give your state's citizens the senator they elected.

Nate Silver: Specter Switch May Not be All that Great for Dems

The thoughts of the always trenchant Nate Silver resonate with what I found myself thinking about the Specter Switch today.

Republican Wingnuts think Colbert is serious

Here's the incontrovertible proof: Right Wing Republicans (which, especially with the loss today of Arlen Specter, is most of 'em), are, by and large, (a) stupid; and (b) devoid of any sense of humor whatsoever.

Truthdig and ProPublica

I added truthdig and ProPublica to my links list. If you don't know these sites, I recommend both of them.

Paying for the internet

Off my usual political topics, but it's crossed my mind a number of times recently that the only real salvation for American journalism will be if someone devises a system of micropayment for content rich websites, in order to pay for the content. We all want our internet to be free. Even Wikipedia, which tries to use a paradigm similar to public broadcasting; where they ask you to kick in a little scratch to keep the lights on, doesn't really raise much, compared to the service they provide. Newspaper sites have tried to figure out ways to make money, but they don't sell nearly enough advertising, and things like "Times Select", where the NYT tried to get people to pay $50 a year for access to premium content, haven't worked. I don't know if Slate and Salon are really viable long term, but it's clear that all sources will be in the same basic situation long term as people turn more and more to the online world for what they used to get from print journalism.

What's the solution? I don't pretend to know, but somehow, online 'micro-billing' software, that charges small sums to look at a particular site, is inevitable, I think. Maybe something like 30 or 35cts and then you get access for the whole day; if you want to avoid that, you subscribe, for $2 to $5 a month, depending on what it is, and the cookie tells the website you're a licensee. Alternatively, it could charge really small sums, like 2 to 5 cts, and you just get a license for 10 or 15 min. There would have to be some kind of content-billing clearing house that was set up to keep track of billions of tiny transactions with very small overhead; billing aggregated sums to credit cards or paypal once a month, or direct from bank accounts. I suspect this technology is already perfectly feasible. It's just a question of convincing people that accepting it is inevitable. The alternative is extinction of the journalism we want, because it's really obvious to everyone by now that the old paradigm of newspapers supported mainly by advertising just isn't working anymore, and online advertising isn't generating enough revenue to support the institutions of journalism.

Frank Rich on Torture Memos and their implications; must read

Here.

Pakistani situation really scary

If you're not really, really worried about the deteriorating situation in Pakistan, a country with 100 nuclear missiles, you aren't paying attention.

9/11 and Torture as Terrorism

I commented in my long post on Torture (link) that Torture is Terrorism. By which I meant that when used by smart, but evil, people, it has nothing to do with obtaining intelligence. It is used to terrorize populations or segments thereof. I submit this is a fact, and welcome any discussion. State actors who think they are using torture to obtain useful information are stupid as well as criminals, because it doesn't work for that purpose, as has been well understood by those who have wielded it as a terror weapon for centuries.

Some might say, as Rightists often do, that criticizing, or worse (in their minds), calling for the prosecution of, those who committed potentially illegal actions in defense of our country is part of a "Blame America First" mentality. I say, this is riproaring bullshit, and I'm sick of it. What makes America something other than just another powerful amoral empire is that we have, throughout our history, more often than not, upheld moral values in our laws, and maintained a system of due process of law, checks and balances, humane treatment of those accused, (including foreigners and prisoners of war), and openness. When we fail to uphold these values, we fail to uphold American ideals. Those who have fallen so far short of these values as to actually commit torture in the name of the American people do not defend the fallen of 9/11. They dishonor them.

Further, as I hope I've made abundantly clear, they do not help to secure our country, or ensure that further attacks do not occur. Torture doesn't work.

Worse, Torture is the worst imaginable P.R. for our country. It is an Al Qaeda recruiter's dream. Abu Ghraib, (as an example) has been cited by numerous later detainees as the reason they joined the Islamic extremist movements with which they were associated when captured.

Now there is even evidence that some of the obviously useless, but nonetheless criminal and inhumane, waterboarding that was ordered was done specifically because the top officials had preconceived notions of a (non-existent) connection between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, and were displeased that this connection hadn't emerged from the normal interrogation of Al Zubayda in particular. Egad. How much more depraved can you get than to order torture because the intelligence doesn't fit your false world view, so you want fake, false, torture-obtained 'evidence,' to justify your false views? These people must be held accountable.

This doesn't mean I've prejudged them guilty. I haven't. I believe in due process. But the credible evidence is there. At least, investigation to determine whether charges should be filed must be conducted, and if the evidence is there to infer that conviction is likely, prosecution must follow. This is the way our system works and anyone who says otherwise is advocating a government of men, not of laws, and I say, with no irony and no room for humor, for shame. For dreadful, awful shame.

Why Do Texas Republicans Hate America?

Texas Rebublicans Approve of Gov. Rick Perry's Secession Remarks. Now, I ask you, really, what would King Karl Rove, Big Fat Rush, and Bill-o 'Reilly say if this said

Massachusetts Liberals split on whether to withdraw from U.S. ??

Wingers just love to crow about patriotism, but what can be more unpatriotic than proposing to leave the Union?

Frankly, I'd say let 'em go, if it weren't for the incredible and expensive legal wrangle it'd obviously cause. We'd have 59 out of 98 Democratic Senators, and oil or no oil, Texas is undeniably full of crazy old cusses whom we really could do quite well without. They can have Oklahoma, too, as far as I'm concerned. I'm sure the lunatics in Alaska would want to be next. Oh, hell, it won't work, so let's grow up and forget it. Now, Wingnut Journalists, how about a tiny soupcon of responsibility and calling Perry out on this nuttiness for a change?

America Must Act: Torture cannot be condoned

Let me start out by saying I am very troubled, and that's why I'm taking the time to write a long post. What troubles me is the lack of any real outrage and the now irrefutable evidence that torture has been committed in our name, as Americans. I hope you will find time in your busy life to read it. I am writing, not to confront or antagonize, but because this issue seems to me to be of literally paramount importance. I believe that if a civilization cannot uphold fundamental moral conduct, it will fail. What follows is my attempt to frame this issue in a pair of principles which I hold, like our founding fathers, to be self-evident, as well as supported by unassailable facts. This isn't ideological, or political, except in the broadest sense, of having to do with the polity, our country. The principles I'm talking about aren't liberal or conservative, right or left, Democratic or Republican. They're fundamental moral principles. After setting out two basic principles, I will discuss some irrefutable facts, and some additional possibly debatable facts, and then draw what I consider some unassailable conclusions. I welcome dialog with anyone reading this.

I hold the following tenets to be critical and essential principles of American civilization. By which I mean, if someone doesn't subscribe to them, I just don't see how they can claim to be anything other than an outlaw, someone who does not value or appreciate our country and its values, and who, in fact, doesn't truly care if it survives, as an American civilization, rooted in its Constitution and founding principles. In other words, such a person cannot claim to be a genuine patriot in any sense.

Here, then, are the principles, with some comments:

1. Torture is wrong and illegal, and can never, under any circumstances, be justified.

By torture, I include weasel words like "enhanced interrogation techniques" and "cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment." Whatever you call it, this conduct is not, and can never be, legal, and any twisted interpretation that says it is is flat wrong, morally compromised, hideously cynical, or so far gone into ideological self-justification as to be beyond the pale of rational discourse. Our very constitution prohibits "cruel and unusual punishment" and guarantees due process. These principles are wholly and irrevocably inconsistent with toleration of any form of torture by state actors. Our country has no business tolerating these things, whatever they're called, under color of law. Ever.

Please note: I don't hold it to be a principle that torture also does not work, and yields almost entirely useless information, but I do hold that to be true. It's secondary, but true. The literature on the subject is quite extensive, and anyone who seriously disagrees with this is either very ignorant, or willfully so. When torture has been used by intelligent, albeit evil, men in the past, (and is still today by such people) it was not and continues not to be used to obtain useful information. It was and is used to create terror. That is a simple historical fact, with virtually no exceptions. I maintain, in fact, that Torture is terrorism. I trust it need not be elaborated that it is certainly a principle of American civilization that there is no legitimate use for state terror. I will leave that as inarguable and go on.

2. We are a nation of laws, not of men.

2(a). Corollary: No one, no matter what position he holds (including the presidency), no matter what his imagined justification, is above the law, or has the right to just ignore the law, or to deliberately twist and subvert it to suit his ends.

I will leave the conclusions which flow from this alone for the moment: I ask only that you consider this, and decide: is this right? Is this a principle on which our country is essentially based? Is the corollary implicit in the principle?

I submit: yes to all. Of course, I'm not saying there aren't fine points, where law must be balanced against necessity. There are exigencies; there are rare instances where emergency action must be taken, and legal justification sought afterwards. I would include the president committing troops in an emergency without a declaration of war in this category (leaving alone the question of whether more protracted involvement without such a declaration is legal). These things have obviously occurred in our history. But the systematic use of torture, whether in secret or above board, does not fall in this category. It is illegal. Period. Even if it occurs as an isolated instance, it is a crime; and, as such, on many occasions in the past, it has been prosecuted in the U.S. The fact that is has sometimes occurred in a systematic ongoing way is merely to say that we have had instances of systematic and ongoing lawlessness in our history. This can hardly be surprising or debatable, but it is no sense a justification for anything. We cannot rationalize a failure to live by our laws because some in the past have failed to do so.

Here are some irrefutable facts. If anyone disputes any of them, I'd be very much interested in their evidence. The proof of these facts is widely available. Jane Mayer's The Dark Side and recent articles by Mark Danner in The New York Review of Books should suffice.

· Waterboarding has been stated categorically by the current duly appointed chief law enforcement officer of the United States to be torture. Update 4/30: President Obama said the same thing in his Press Conference yesterday.

· On numerous occasions in the past, notably in Occupied Japan after World War II, in Viet Nam, and in the Philippines after the Spanish-American War, tribunals of the United States convicted individuals, including American soldiers, of criminal conduct for waterboarding detainees. At least two Japanese officers convicted of waterboarding were shot, as a result of guilty verdicts before American Military Tribunals.

· Officials operating under color of law in the period roughly 2002-2004, and possibly at other times in the recent past, ordered waterboarding and other forms of torture to be committed, and employees of the U.S. government committed this torture repeatedly.

· Lawyers in the Office of Legal Counsel composed memoranda purporting to justify the use of illegal torture during this period.

· The then President and Vice-President of the United States knowingly participated in executive decisions resulting in the authorization of torture during this period; both have admitted their participation, without admitting the characterization of the conduct authorized as "torture."

· The current president of the United States has stated that employees of the government who acted "within the four corners" of specific authorization to conduct torture (without calling it that) will not be prosecuted.

· The United States, in the Nuremberg Trials, specifically and categorically rejected what has commonly come to be known as the "Nuremberg Defense;" i.e. that someone is not guilty of a crime if he committed it under orders from superiors. Numerous Nazi defendants were found guilty notwithstanding their having presented evidence that they did nothing illegal they were not ordered to do by their superiors.

· The United States participated in promulgating, in the aftermath of World War II, and is now bound by, International Law which recognizes Universal Jurisdiction for crimes against humanity, including torture, when the original jurisdiction fails to act on credible evidence that a crime has been committed.

· At least one prosecutor in a foreign jurisdiction (Spain) has expressed interest or intention to pursue prosecution of officials involved in the United States in authorizing torture during this period.

Here are a few possibly debatable facts.

· Claims of Dick Cheney and others that significant intelligence, resulting in aversion of terror attacks in the United States, as a result of conduct which qualifies as torture (albeit not acknowledged to be such by these people), are false. No useful intelligence was actually developed from the use of torture.

· It is generally acknowledged by experts in psychology that torture is ineffective in producing useful information, because torture victims will say anything at all, including making up confessions, to stop the torture.

· The scenario of the "ticking time bomb," which is a staple of such paranoid fantasies as the television program 24, is totally unrealistic: there has never been a case where a suspect in custody had actual knowledge of impending attacks, which, if known, could be used to prevent them, such that torture was the only way to successfully prevent the attack. This has never happened, and is so incredibly unlikely that it's safe to say it never will.

· Tortured detainees in U.S. custody during the period roughly 2002-2004 did in fact provide their torturers with numerous false leads and much misinformation, which ultimately proved not only useless, but harmful, to U.S. intelligence efforts.

· Even if useful intelligence were gained from torture, such would not constitute any kind of legal defense for those accused of committing it, under existing U.S. law.

Here are a few conclusions, which I regard as virtually unassailable. Again, I welcome any comments.

· Given the evidence, there is no rational basis for not investigating for possible prosecution officials who have acknowledged authorizing conduct which must be considered torture. This must include lawyers in the OLC, and officials in the executive branch at the time, including the Vice President and President himself.

· Given the evidence, there is no rational basis for not investigating for possible prosecution those employees of the U.S. government who actually carried out torture. Following orders is no defense. Such people cannot claim not to have known their actions were illegal, and even if they did, ignorance of the law is no excuse. Perhaps some consideration should be given to circumstances in deciding how to deal with the disposition of these cases, but to simply not consider prosecuting them is unconscionable.

· If the United States fails to prosecute those against whom credible evidence may be presented that they authorized or committed torture, other jurisdictions will, under the principles of Universal Jurisdiction, be empowered to do so.

I draw these conclusions not out of any sense of rancor or desire for retribution or political payback. I am chilled to my bones at the thought that officials of my government, it now appears absolutely undeniable, rationalized, authorized, and committed torture in the name of the people of the United States. This isn't a left/right thing. It is a moral imperative. Committing torture is totally unacceptable at any time. Those who have done this must be held accountable. The failure to do so will be a moral failure which will taint our nation's name and honor forever.

Rove and Noonan on torture memos: disgusting

"All of these techniques have now been ruined."
-- Karl Rove, on torture memos.

"It's hard for me to look at a great nation issuing these documents and sending them out to the world, and thinking, 'oh, much good will come of that.'

"Some things in life need to be mysterious. Sometimes you need to just keep walking."
--Peggy Noonan, ditto

These two quotes rank as among the most disgusting things public figures have ever said, to my knowledge. These two have no concept of what the term 'human rights' even means. That either of them have ever been considered respectable public voices is a blight on our country.

Impeach Bybee

Allow me to add my voice to the chorus calling for the impeachment of Federal Circuit Court Justice Jay Bybee (Ninth Circuit). Anyone who can write a specious rationalization like his torture memo should be disbarred, still less be allowed to continue as a jurist for life.

There are things in law that are close questions, and debatable; i.e., opinion could go either way. This isn't one of them. Bybee, along with John Yoo and Steven Bradbury, have shamed American jurisprudence by writing such twisted concoctions as this and similar memos, designed to please their masters, whose anti-constitutional goals of justifying extrajudicial imprisonment and torture were so obviously illegal (under both U.S. and binding International Law). The illegality of torture, whether acknowledged or rationalized as "merely" "cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment", and the fact that what these memos describe as permissible is torture, are not in any sense close questions. By justifying these actions, these lawyers have undermined the most basic principles of law, which require that it be rational and that it respect the intent of the law being interpreted and applied. These memos attempt to twist and subvert the law so nefariously that they can only be described (ironically) as tortuous. They are so far outside acceptable legal reasoning that their authors should not be permitted to continue as lawyers at all. The inference that they acted out of improper motives is inescapable.

These men have brought dishonor upon our nation--dishonor which it will take quite some time for us to live down. If such is not sufficient to justify impeachment of a judge, I cannot imagine what would be. As Bybee is a justice in the Circuit for my state, I am particularly galled that he continues to sit on the bench.

CNN losing it

I'd subscribed to CNN's breaking news e-mail service for quite some time, but I've noticed a dropoff in the quality and relevance of their postings lately. When I got this hot breaking news notification this morning, I decided to unsubscribe.

«Ashton Kutcher is first to reach 1 million followers in Twitter contest with CNN.»

Report: Obama will release Bush administration torture memos

This is certainly good news to anyone who believes in the Rule of Law, and/or that the Constitution and our nation's treaty commitments should mean anything.

UPDATE 4/17: Unfortunately, as Keith Olbermann commented quite cogently yesterday, this announcement was coupled with the troubling announcement that no one who actually implemented these policies during the Bush years will be prosecuted. This is a grave mistake. While judiciousness and selection are always applicable in decisions of whether to prosecute, in cases where people were clearly violating commonly understood standards of U.S. and international law, by committing what any reasonable person would call torture, and merely using these ridiculous and shameful "legal" memos from the corrupted Bush Justice Dept. as cover, prosecution for serious offenses is necessary; otherwise the rule of law means very little. The World is watching, President Obama. Do the right thing.

Texas gov. talks secession... these nuts have gone way too far.

TPM reports on Gov. Perry of Texas hinting at secession over non-existent tax increases. It's bad enough when right wingers rail against all reason about real policies, but when they rave about totally non-existent stuff they just made up, it's too, too much. These people have totally taken leave of whatever senses they may once have had. I think President Obama should remind Perry, as if jokingly, that his role model Lincoln held the Union together with force once before, and if necessary, he (Obama) will do it again. Sheesh.

Even if the proposals of the Obama administration to remove the Bush tax cuts are ultimately successful, as I certainly hope they are, they will do more than restore tax rates to what they were in 1993. Far lower than what they were for most of the Reagan administration. That's tyranny, by cracky! Taxation with Representation! Majority Rule! How terrible.

It never ceases to amaze me that people whose sophistication about matters economic and political appears to be at about a sixth grade level almost reflexively seem to support ideas promulgated by rich and powerful right wingers, in the interests of a tiny fraction of the population, most decidedly not including the idiots who are brainwashed by Fox News into attending "Tea Parties."

Rich right wingers aren't stupid, they know what's in their interests, and it's in their interests to use propaganda to fool masses of undereducated people to support policies directly inimical to their own self-interest. This is legal of course, but that doesn't mean it isn't despicable.

TSA peeping tom machines just too much

Enough is enough. Actually, too much, already. See-all body scans are too much security, driven by obsessive singlemindedness, rather than rational assessment. There is an implicit objective presumption here; i.e. that this kind of thing actually prevents terrorism, and that a reasonable balancing of cost (including inconvenience and invasion of privacy) as against benefit makes these procedures tenable. I challenge this. I doubt seriously that these procedures significantly decrease the risk of terrorism, at all. It is at least in principle possible to assess the effectiveness of these procedures over time, and I would (again, in principle) lay odds that this kind of thing has no real benefit in any reasonably probable situations, or time periods. There's no such thing as perfect safety, and at some point, you have to say, no, this is just too inconvenient, invasive of privacy, and costly for the merely theoretical benefit it might, in the rarest of cases, yield.

Already, unless it's more than a two-hour flight at least, I don't fly. It's just not worth it.

Star Trek (2009)

The new Star Trek movie, titled simply Star Trek (2009) won't be released until May 8. The premiere at Sydney Opera House this week was a special deal. It was mostly filmed in Bakersfield (!). One person who went to the special premiere (see imdb) commented, without revealing any of the story, that it manages to poke fun at some of the silliness of the original series, while still being respectful, fun, action packed, and with very high quality space scenes. What is known from the trailers, etc., is that it is recasting of the original series, with new actors. Chris Pine as Kirk, and Zachary Quinto as Spock. Majel Barrett as the voice of the computer (of course). Nimoy has a cameo, but Shatner doesn't. While it was being shot, it was given the working title Corporate Headquarters to throw off excessively enthusiastic trekkie fans. Should be fun. I intend to avoid reviews and trailers, because I prefer to see these things with as little preconception as possible.

Snippet of dialog:
Kirk: Are you afraid or aren't you?
Spock: I will not allow you to lecture me.
Kirk: Then why don't you stop me?

If you go to imdb, don't look at the additional quotes... they give too many hints.

Ebert disses Bill-O, in style

Roger Ebert does Keith Olbermann's obsession with "Bill-O" one better. Why anyone gives that gasbag five minutes of their time is beyond me.

Seat Al Franken already

No honest person, not motivated by sheer partisanship, can any longer maintain that there's any legitimacy or precedent to keeping Al Franken out of the Senate. Hypocrite Coleman immediately after the election called on Franken to concede before the votes were even final; now that the court has concluded that they are final, and Coleman lost, months after the election, he says he'll file an uprecedented appeal and the Repubicans in Congress are girding for refusing to seat Franken. It's disgusting. The Democrats should boo and hiss, literally, in the Senate Floor if the Republicans try to prevent Franken from taking his seat. This isn't legitimate, to use the courts to wend away the clock on Minnesota's elected Senator's term out of sheer political gamesmanship. For shame.

I hope the Minnesota Supreme Court takes the case on an expedited basis (which I assume they can), and simply dismisses it. Then the standing court decision will be final. If the US Supreme Court takes the case on the "precedent" of Bush v. Gore (which explicitly states that it is not intended to function as a precedent, but was a specific decision in a particular situation only), then we will have clear evidence that the Right Wing majority on that court will do anything at all to help their faction claw back to power, without even the merest pretense of constitutional legitimacy.

Michelle Bachmann: insane

With her downright loony tirades against the non-existent threat of a global currency, and insinuation that the Obama administration intends to make Americans "slaves," I think Michelle Bachmann (R-MN) has finally crossed the line from wingnut to actual nut, as in certifiably insane.

Forget the bonuses, was AIG running a fraud ring?

TPM links to this interesting explanation for why the Credit Default Swaps engaged in by AIG, in particular, were apparently criminally fraudulent, not just unreserved, lacking a basis in actual risk of the insured party, etc. (and thus financially unsound by any sane standard). The point is that the current administration needs to understand that paying off the counterparties in full as if all this was hunky dory and they were victims is just throwing money away, and not really doing anything to move us out of this recession. The damage is done, and these counterparties need to take the hit (to the extent they haven't already been paid off).

Sophocles got this half right, a Buddhist perspective

The keenest sorrow is to recognize ourselves as the sole cause of all our adversities.
- Sophocles

It is not we, however, who are the cause, it is the negativity that our past actions have caused. By making the implicit distinction 'my mind,' 'my body,' we show that in our profound awareness we already know that the sense of "I" is not the same thing as the surface of our mind. On some level we understand that our mind is afflicted with delusions and inappropriate mental factors, which, if we could eliminate them, would leave our mind pure and happy. Thus, the realization that it is our own actions which are the cause of our "adversities" should not be "the keenest sorrow," but rather a cause for joy: the beginning of wisdom, in fact, because if we once realize that it is the afflictions of our mind that cause all our suffering, we are already on the path that leads to the elimination of sorrow for ourselves and others.

Part of this path is the realization that not only is the sense of "I" not the same as our mind, it is not actually a real thing at all. Rather, it itself is a delusion which needs to be overcome. But that's a deep subject for another time.

Report: House GOP Budget: eliminate Medicare

And lowering top marginal tax rate to 25%. Plus, posting numbers predicting Democratic policies for 70 years resulting in the Government owning 90% of the economy. Oh, yeah, that's meaningful.
Just how clueless is it possible for the Great Obstructionist Party to be? The party of No should be thinking about changing their name to the Party of No Brain. No wonder the president's approval rating is at 66%... I suspect this is at least as much because the Republicans are being such incredibly stupid jerks as because of anything the Obama administration has accomplished or even proposed.

Outline of Commentary on Training the Mind in Eight Verses

The commentary to Eight Verses of Training the Mind has five parts.
1. The preeminent qualities of the author, Bodhisattva Langri Tangpa.
2. The preeminent qualities of these instructions.
3. The preliminary practices.
4. The main practice: training in the two bodhichittas.
5. How to integrate the practice of these instructions.

The preliminary practices has six parts.
1. Cleaning the meditation room and setting up a shrine.
2. Arranging beautiful offerings
3. Sitting in the correct meditation posture, going for refuge, and generating bodhichitta.
4. Visualizing the field for accumulating merit.
5. Offering the seven limbs and the mandala
6. Requesting the holy beings to bestow their blessings.

Cleaning the meditation room and setting up a shrine has two parts.
1. Cleaning practice
2. Setting up a shrine

Sitting in the correct meditation posture, going for refuge, and generating bodhichitta has three parts
1. Sitting in the correct meditation posture
2. Going for refuge
3. Generating bodhichitta.

Offering the seven limbs and the mandala has eight parts
1. Prostration
2. Offering
3. Confession
4. Rejoicing
5. Beseeching the holy beings to remain
6. Requesting the turning of the wheel of dharma
7. Dedication
8. Offering the mandala

Requesting the holy beings to bestow their blessings has two parts
1. Requesting blessings
2. Receiving blessings

The main practice: training in the two bodhichittas has two parts
1. Training in Conventional Bodhichitta
2. Training in Ultimate Bodhichitta

Training in Conventional Bodhichitta has Eight parts
1. Learning to Cherish others
2. Enhancing cherishing love
3. Exchanging Self with others
4. Great Compassion
5. Wishing Love
6. Accepting Defeat and Offering the Victory
7. Taking and Giving
8. The precious mind of Bodhichitta


Learning to Cherish others has two parts
1. The kindness of others
2. The benefits of cherishing others

Enhancing cherishing love has four parts
1. Recognizing our faults in the mirror of Dharma
2. Viewing all living beings as supreme
3. Living Beings have no faults
4. Developing humility

Exchanging Self with others has five parts
1. What is self-cherishing?
2. The faults of self-cherishing
3. How to destroy self-cherishing
4. How is it possible to exchange self with others?
5. The actual practice of exchanging self with others.

Great Compassion has three parts
1. What is compassion?
2. How to develop compassion
3. The inner wealth of compassion.

Wishing Love has two parts
1. How to develop wishing love
2. Transforming adverse conditions

Taking and giving has three parts
1. Taking by means of compassion
2. Giving by means of love
3. Mounting taking and giving upon the breath

Taking by means of compassion has three parts
1. Taking on our own future suffering
2. The benefits of taking on the suffering of others
3. The actual meditation on taking

The precious mind of Bodhichitta has two parts
1. Developing Bodhichitta
2. Enhancing Bodhichitta

[omits ultimate bodhichitta, the teaching on emptiness]

Training the Mind in Eight Verses

To celebrate having finally managed to memorize Eight Verses for Training the Mind, a beautiful summary of the Buddhist path by Bodhisattva Langri Tangpa (see upper left corner), here it is:


With the intention to attain the ultimate supreme goal that surpasses even the wishgranting jewel, may I constantly cherish all living beings.

Whenever I associate with others, may I view myself as the lowest of all, and with a perfect intention, may I cherish others as supreme.

Examining my mental continuum throughout all my actions, whenever a delusion develops whereby I or others would act inappropriately, may I firmly face it and avert it.

Whenever I see unfortunate beings, oppressed by evil and violent suffering, May I cherish them as if I had found a rare and precious treasure.

Even if someone I have helped, and of whom I had great hopes, nevertheless harms me without any reason, may I see him as my holy spiritual guide.

When others out of jealousy harm me or insult me, may I take defeat upon myself and offer them the victory.

In short, may I directly and indirectly offer help and happiness to all my mothers, and secretly take upon myself all their harm and suffering.

Furthermore, through all these method practices, together with a mind undefiled by stains of conceptions of th eight extremes, and that sees all phenomena as illusory, may I be released from the bondage of mistaken appearance and conception.

My e-mail to Senator Feinstein

Dear Senator Feinstein:

I am writing as a Democrat and supporter of the President's agenda to STRONGLY URGE you to support the Employee Free Choice Act. As you know, this bill does little more than restore the rights of workers to organize work locations that was guaranteed under the 1935 Wagner Act, and which has gradually been eroded by changes in legislation and regulation over the years. A similar bill failed by only one vote during the Carter administration. It is HIGH time to pass EFCA and finally restore the most basic equilibrium to America's Labor Laws.

Thank you.

D S
California Constituent

Condoleeza Rice also deserves some credit

And now Condoleeza Rice, appearing on Leno, also said, "We owe them [the Obama administration] our loyalty and our silence.... I'll give them my advice privately, and keep it to myself." Compared to Darth Cheney, you have to admit, that's classy.

What 'the exception proves the rule' really means

Here.

Freeman Dyson, World Class Physicist and Cussed old Coot, Global Warming Heretic

This (from NYT) is pretty interesting, but I'd venture that, not for the first time, Dyson's contrarian nature has gotten away from him. Sometimes consensus arises because the conclusion is true.

Urge Feinstein, Specter, Nelson, Salazar to suport Employee Free Choice

If you care about the preservation of the Middle Class in this country and valuing work over speculative financial activity, PLEASE e-mail or write to Senator Dianne Feinstein and strongly urge her to support the Employee Free Choice Act. She has so far stayed on the fence, further discrediting her shaky claim to even be a Democrat. This bill essentially does no more than restore the Wagner Act of 1935, to permit orderly organization of workers who decide to unionize. Over the decades one regulatory and statutory change after another has eviscerated further and further this once simply stated right. This isn't ultimately an ideological question... it's a question of valuing work, which in the end benefits everyone by making our economy stronger.

Especially if you know any like-minded folks in Pennsylvania, but even if you don't, please also urge Arlen Specter to reverse position and vote for the bill, which he supported in 2007.

Likewise Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Nebraska) and Sen. Ken Salazar (D-Colo.)

Visit Warehouse Workers United website. In the badly depressed Inland Empire of California, 14% of the workforce is warehouse workers, and most of these people are forced into phony "temporary agency" employment, with depressed wages and no benefits at all. This isn't the way our country developed the most productive economy in the world in the wake of WWII... it's the harbinger of a third world future none of us want, if we would only look beyond the short term. It's time to wake up, because this negative transformation is already well underway.

Core Tenets of the Mahayana Paraphrased

I think it's fair to say that the core tenets of Mahayana Buddhist View are something like this:

1. The real meaning of human life is twofold: (1) to develop and apply method, principally love and compassion, for overcoming harmful delusions, motivated by a desire to help others to do the same. (2) To develop wisdom, which sees clearly the way things really are.

2. All harmful delusions are forms of anger, attachment and ignorance, and are derived from the core delusion of belief in the inherent existence of self. Living with these delusions is samsara, whose essential nature is suffering.

3. The way things really are is that the things we ordinarily see do not actually exist, and the true nature of all phenomena is empty of inherent existence.

4. Anyone completely realizing these tenets, through method and wisdom practices taught by Buddha, and with the whole being, including having the essential altruistic motivation to do so for the sake of others and out of love and compassion for them, can realize his or her true nature, enlightenment. Enlightenment is ultimate happiness, beyond conceptual fabrication, free from all suffering, possessed of total universal love and compassion, with the actual ability to help others directly.

Causality and Locality

There's an article in the current issue of Scientific American (unfortunately not free online) by David Z. Albert which discusses how Einstein's objections to spooky action at a distance were indeed wrong, but not for the reasons Niels Bohr thought at the time. Turns out, from research by John Bell, who's a modern day Einstein in smarts, that nonlocality is actually real. (As opposed to a mere appearance with an underlying explanation that doesn't require nonlocality, comparable to the fact that it's always night in Sydney when it's day in London. That doesn't involve a connection between them; the underlying phenomenon is their location on a spinning globe and day and night being secondary phenomena resulting from the light of the same sun).

In other words, entangled quantum phenomena remain entangled until quantum states change (for example an electron and a positron emitted from the same quantum event, with opposite spins). The distance between them (in conventional space) is irrelevant. As are considerations like the speed of light. It's not information that passes between them, it's just that, despite distance, they are part of the same thing, and its state is co-determined-- if one part changes, so does the other, instantaneously. This is so even if they are separated by millions or billions of light years, which is quite possible.

Unfortunately, the logic that dictates the impossibility of science fiction author Ursula LeGuin's ansible (subspace FTL radio) is undisturbed by these findings. There is an ironclad chain of logical reasoning as to why it is impossible to use this phenomenon to convey information. It boils down to the fact that information can act as a cause of physical events, and if it were possible to communicate FTL, it would be possible to undo causes of events that had already occurred. Causation would be violable; and in physics if it can happen, it does (sometimes); so if it doesn't happen, it can't.

Locality, as an inviolable universal principle, is defunct, but causality remains. Causality, in fact, appears to be really quite fundamental. Everything in the universe bends to its preservation.

This touches on a topic for another physics post: why any conveyance of matter or information faster than light violates causality, and whether there might be exceptions. For now, I will merely comment that, at least for ordinary distances like the distances between stars or galaxies visible from Earth, (or anything smaller than that), conveyance, including of information, faster than light, is the logical equivalent of time travel or communication backwards in time. These conjectural phenomena, which do not exist in nature, would, if they did, create causal paradoxes that are not logically resolvable. An example of how the universe bends to enforce causality: conveyance of any mass faster than light, of even so much as an electron, requires not just vast, but rather infinite, energy, according to the reliable and proven principles of general relativity, and is therefore not possible. Communication (as opposed to conveyance of matter), which can be accomplished using light or other photons themselves, can be accomplished at, but not faster than, the speed of light, without violating causality.

If none of this means anything to you, I apologize. It assumes a bit of familiarity with these ideas, which many people tend to conclude have nothing to do with them, so they take no interest. A reasonable point of view, I suppose, but not one I share.

My last word on AIG

I feel sorry for people who work for AIG, not the hedge fund in London, but the real company... they've been left holding the bag of a failed company ruined by gambling gangsters. These guys played a game where they had incentives to gamble someone else's money with the rules being heads I win, tails you lose. I.e., prices up, I get a lot of money, no one loses. Prices down, all hell breaks loose, but I've taken no risk... YOU have as a taxpayer after the government has to step in to prevent global meltdown... and I make a lot of money anyway.

Investment banks used to be partnerships, where if serious risk taking went wrong, the partners had to bear the costs. But since they all went public and the regulatory environment was changed to not only allow but incentivize the most destructive kind of double-dealing and leveraging, there has been total irresponsibility and havoc. Bear Stearns and Lehmann did the same thing, and the real pisser is that people like Phil Gramm deliberately changed the law precisely to make this possible. Heads must roll. Maybe RICO can be used to prosecute some people, as Josh Marshall suggests. And Congress just HAS to change these rules so that this kind of thing never, ever happens again.

AIG CEO: give back ½? Incompetent fool, or sick joke?

First, he sends Geithner a polite screw-you letter, and pays the bonuses even knowing a shitstorm is brewing, then has the gall to go before Congress and plead he's gonna wheedle with the recipients to give half the money back. Either this Liddy guy is a complete incompetent and fool, or this is some kind of very, very sick joke. Remember, this guy was put in there supposedly to clean up the mess, not carry on with what caused it in the first place.

Barney, you listnin'? This guy needs to get his posterior fired by us taxpayer owners of AIG, and pronto. Let's say it all together: "No Confidence."

Bush: no critique of Obama

Credit where credit is due. George W. Bush yesterday on President Obama:

"I'm not going to spend my time criticizing him. There are plenty of critics in the arena," Bush said. "He deserves my silence."

Bush said he wants Obama to succeed and said it's important that he has that support. Talk-show host Rush Limbaugh has said he hoped Obama would fail.

"I love my country a lot more than I love politics," Bush said. "I think it is essential that he be helped in office."

My comment to TPM: AIGFP Fallout

I wrote this to talk@talkingpointsmemo.com:

One thing I don't understand... if AIG's Liddy, who's supposed to be a sort of bank examiner director, gave Pasciucco, the new head of AIGFP he brought in from Morgan Stanley, instructions to 'wind down' the unit, what the hell is that about? "Wind down!!" How about, "fire all their asses and shut the door!" I just don't get how people who basically committed what would have been gross fraud but for the fact that special interests had persuaded Congress to legalize their criminal conduct (if it wasn't fraud anyway, which remains to be seen)... and whose fraud was a key element of the worst financial meltdown in more than a generation, should have jobs the next morning, much less be receiving bonuses nearly a year later. Please explain, someone! Like in front of a Congressional committee.

Also, if most of these people were employed in London, how can Congress pass legislation to specially tax them (as may be in the works)? Isn't their income subject only to UK law? It sure looks to me like the US taxpayers have been snookered but good, AGAIN.

Stuff like this keeps happening, people are going to wonder why the Obama administration isn't succeeding in putting a stop to it.

AIG Bonus Debacle

Josh Marshall's comments on the AIG Bonus debacle are pithy, pointed, and dead-on right.

Comment on Conservative Democrats' objections to Climate Change legislation/Obama role

I wrote this comment to TPM, after seeing reporting that 8 Conservative Democrats in the Senate have signed a letter objecting to using the budget process to circumvent filibuster on climate change legislation:

OK, I get it that there are limits to the power of a president to impose his will on Legislators, especially if the latter are Democrats. (Bush never seemed to have too much trouble in this department, outside of his attempts to repeal Social Security). But I think Obama needs to lean heavily on conservative Democrats in the Senate on climate change. He needs to meet with the Gang of 8 personally, and emphasize to them how critical for our nation's future it is for us to get serious about climate factor management NOW. And how whatever legislative strategy that can be made to WORK needs to be the one pursued.

Preposterous Meme: Obama taking on too much

I think this new G[reat]O[bstructionist]P[arty] meme that President Obama is taking on too much, has too much on his plate, isn't concentrating enough on the economic crisis, etc. is just preposterous. Were it not for these very obstructionists, I feel quite sure that the Obama administration could do a great deal more, and if anything I'm concerned that their efforts to date to cope with the myriad crises facing us are not enough, rather than too little.

The Stars, So Far Away

Interesting facts about astronomical scales.

• If the moon were a ping pong ball, the Earth would be a softball, and the ping pong ball moon would be a shade under ten feet away.
• If the Earth were a pea, the Sun would be a sphere about a yard in diameter, about 3/4 length of a football field distant (75 yards).
• Skipping the next scale up (best for last): If the model Sun is an infinitesimal mote one inch from the next nearest star (the distance to which is very roughly the typical distance between stars in the disk of the Galaxy), then the model Galaxy will be about four tenths of a mile in diameter.
• If the model Galaxy is a 12 inch dinner plate, the next comparable big spriral galaxy (M31 in Andromeda) is another plate, at a tilted angle, floating about 18 feet away.

All of these are within an easily grasped proportion of the size of the celestial object in relation to its distance from the next similar such object. But take the one I skipped: the average distance between stars. Let's take the Sun and the nearest comparable star, Alpha Centauri A, which is roughly similar in size to the Sun (it has companion stars, as do roughly half of all star systems, but we'll ignore that). This distance is about 4.3 light years, or 26 trillion miles.

If a model Sun (actually about 1 million miles in diameter), is a 1 foot sphere, a little bigger than a basketball, Alpha Centauri A will be a just slightly smaller sphere, but its distance would be about 4800 miles, roughly the distance from Denver to Paris.

All of which shows that in the various scales of the universe, the real 'hole,' where a (proportionally) huge void separates one thing from its like, is the distance between the stars.

This has all kinds of interesting implications for the origin of life, the formation and stability of planets and their orbits, the prospects for direct exploration of other star systems, etc. But for now, I leave it as an interesting factoid.

Nancy Reagan praises Obama on stem cells

Newser reports that Nancy Reagan issued a statement praising President Obama for lifting the Bush stem-cell research ban.

Controversy over Dorje Shugden: a prayer

I don't want to go into a controversy that is tearing up Buddhist communities that follow Tibetan traditions, particularly followers of the tradition of Je Tsongkhapa. If you're interested, look up Dorje Shugden in wikipedia; at least for the moment that article is relatively unbiased.

I only want to offer a prayer:

May the conflicting views of sincere Dharma practitioners be resolved amicably; may tolerance and respect prevail; may the tradition of Je Tsongkhapa flourish forevermore.

Seeing the Kindness of Others

I try to remember that others' kindness is everywhere, and to look with wisdom eyes to see it. If we could really do that, all the time, we'd live in a Pure Land of Bliss.

3 good quotes today

I subscribe to a daily quote service. Here are 3 from today.

Love is the difficult realization that something other than oneself is real.
- Iris Murdoch

I find that a great part of the information I have was acquired by looking up something and finding something else on the way.
- Franklin P. Adams

Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.
- Leo Tolstoy

The second one strikes me as a pretty good description of the curious mind engaging in this new activity we've invented: web browsing.