bodhi tree swaying

My life in bullet points: 2010-09-02

• LOL! "When it's not the greatest experience life has to offer, parenting really sucks." http://bit.ly/9oGZ7D #
• A glowing review of Living as a River! http://fb.me/yTyU9eOq #
• My forthcoming book, Living as a River, was just reviewed on Non-Duality America. Check it out! http://fb.me/GSGr9cRP #
• Time to chill out before my @BuddhistGeeks interview with the mighty @VincentHorn. #
• My @BuddhistGeeks interview is in the can (in a non-lavatorial sense). #
• Just recorded an interview with Buddhist Geeks. It should go out in late September (maybe a bit later)… http://fb.me/IbjNmdsO #
• The human race's first experiment in terraforming: http://bbc.in/a4lDnU #
• Nice article on Aryaloka, my spiritual home… http://fb.me/Gp2sqRsW #
• Hey, only another 2 weeks until the iPhone case I ordered a month ago ships. Those

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My life in bullet points: 2010-09-01

• At Mass Eye and Ear, trying to figure out why my 2yo son can't swallow solid food. The administration is chaotic. #
• Scary stuff: "It’s Witch-Hunt Season" – http://nyti.ms/90w3vd #
• Student Charged With Hate Crimes in Cab Stabbing – http://nyti.ms/dA7FFd #

My life in bullet points: 2010-08-31

• Scary: "Immigrants on Trains Near Northern Border Detained" – http://nyti.ms/bpEzFq #
• New article: Where are our news stories? http://bit.ly/cIfpQB #
• Holy crap! Poll: Majority Of GOP Believes Obama Sympathizes With Islamic Fundamentalism, Wants Worldwide Islamic Law
  http://huff.to/9B0aIr #

My life in bullet points: 2010-08-30

• Fell asleep while putting my daughter to bed, then woke up 4 hours later at midnight. Now my son's awake too. Another wild Saturday night! #
• My feverish boy seems a bit better. Now he's rocking out to Richard Hell and the Voidoids, and other '70's classics. #
• "She's so 20th century, she's so 1970's." #
• 10 bogus language laws http://bit.ly/aHpYVb #
• ah, i have a sleeping boy! hopefully he'll stay that way when i carry him upstairs. 2:10AM — the night is yet young! #
• Hilarious! I love the bit about the waitress spamming customers! "Offline Social Network Sites Don’t Live Up to Hype" http://bit.ly/9AAza0 #
• Wee Malkias is still feverish, so Shrijnana's taken him off to the doctors'. #
• Farnk Rich exposes how the Tea Party is a front for sinister billionaires intent on taking over

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Ron Paul on the so-called mosque near Ground Zero

Ron Paul has taken a brave stance that will make him unpopular with many conservatives.

It is repeatedly said that 64% of the people, after listening to the political demagogues, don’t want the mosque to be built. What would we do if 75% of the people insist that no more Catholic churches be built in New York City? The point being is that majorities can become oppressors of minority rights as well as individual dictators. Statistics of support is irrelevant when it comes to the purpose of government in a free society—protecting liberty.

Via Think Progress

Ron Paul is a man I disagree with on many things, but he’s spot on here. This is where libertarianism and liberalism overlap.

The logical end-point of modern “farming”

An extract from Verlyn Klinkenborg’s editorial notebook in the New York Times:

…this is where the logic of industrial farming gets us. Instead of people on the land, committed to the welfare of the agricultural enterprise and the resources that make it possible, there was this horror — a place where millions of chickens are crowded in tiny cages and hundreds of laborers work in dire conditions.

It takes only a little investigation to learn how bad things have been inside those buildings. The list of offenses for which the DeCosters and their farms have been fined in Iowa and Maine only begins with hiring children and illegal immigrants.

In 2000, Jack DeCoster, the operations’ founder, was named a “habitual violator” of Iowa’s environmental laws. His egg factories have been cited by OSHA for deplorable working conditions. In 2003, Mr. DeCoster paid more than $1.5 million to settle an employment discrimination suit

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My life in bullet points: 2010-08-29

• Nice piece of debunking! RT @Irreverent_B: Metaphysics and the limits of science | Mary Midgley http://bit.ly/9eqmNi #
• Good morning, folks! I hope that today finds you well and happy. #
• Charles M. Blow: Glenn Beck is the anti-King. http://nyti.ms/9l3349 #
• LOL! Gail Collins argues for more illegal immigration as a fix for Social Security (they pay in but never collect). http://nyti.ms/aYX8wy #
• Bob Herbert: America is better than Glenn Beck. http://nyti.ms/dCKnZ4 #
• A hilarious and apposite Beck cartoon: RT @dcagle: Cool cartoon: Glenn Beck meets Honest Abe http://bit.ly/cjQMFn #tcot #p2 #gbdc #
• RT @leslie: Love this: Reading: "E-Z Comparison Chart of Martin Luther King and Glenn Beck: http://j.mp/caK4RL" -@ebertchicago #
• "Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere

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My life in bullet points: 2010-08-28

• The Bush administration's torture policies make it much harder to try and convict accused terrorists – http://nyti.ms/ajsYc3 #
• Oh, and good morning! #
• Sometimes I start my day tweeting articles about torture, and realize it's a weird way to announce myself. So, how are you all? #
• Just leaving on a marathon trip to Connecticut and back. Wish me luck! #
• Made it most of the way to Connecticut with my underwear on backward. Sigh. #
• Brasitos in Norwalk, CT. fantastic food! #
• Driving my mother in law's car back to NH. Good: it's a hybrid. Bad: the license plate says MEMA. #
• NYTimes: Conservative Group Accused of Abusing Tax Status http://nyti.ms/bD3heU #
• First trip in the borrowed Prius: Connecticut to New Hampshire at 61.9mpg (82.5mpg in UK terms). Cool! #
• I was fascinated to learn

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My life in bullet points: 2010-08-27

• Worth reading: Tomothy Egan on Building a Nation of Know-Nothings: http://nyti.ms/9SbhD9 #
• German Law Would Limit Facebook’s Use in Hiring – http://nyti.ms/cLj1t9 #
• My first almost-red tomato. http://twitpic.com/2ibtmm #
• Cool. Just found out that Tami Simon and Adyashanti will also be presenting at the Science & Nonduality conference: http://bit.ly/bUKUcn #
• Yum! RT @marcusod: 100 (Really) Beautiful iPhone Wallpapers @smashingmag http://bit.ly/3w6KOu #
• Great! RT @sarahveale: The pros and cons of working from home: http://bit.ly/c3mKFU #
• RT @mikesdharma: Diaspora– Open Source Facebook alternative coming out Sept 15th http://bit.ly/dvvAO8 /via @kaiguy #
• Altruism can be explained by natural selection http://bit.ly/aWZV5F #
• A new book offers a damning indictment of SSRI's in the treatment of depression:

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My life in bullet points: 2010-08-26

• Bollocks. I just had to pull out of a retreat I was to be attending. The economy is crappy & I just can't afford the $$ (or to miss work). #
• A train wreck indeed. RT @lyricessence: Google's Book Search: A Disaster for Scholars http://bit.ly/buK5NN #
• Welcome to 1984: http://bit.ly/bfKUNa #
• Rain. Rain. Rain. Rain. Rain. Rain. Rain. Rain. Rain. Rain. Rain. Rain. Rain. Rain. Rain. Rain. Rain. Rain. Rain. Rain. And a bit more rain. #
• Pretty obvious, really: "Why won't any Republicans condemn the "Obama is a Muslim" myth?" http://bit.ly/bu6jfy #
• Wow! What a beautiful article about Maitri, the last (and Buddhist-inspired) Aids hospice in San Francisco: http://bit.ly/b6vw8Q #
• Wow! This rain is torrential, with some pretty bad flooding on the roads. Makes up for a hot, dry summer, I

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The miracles of modern technology

Thanks to E. Christopher Clark for bringing this Facebook ad to my attention. I use an adblocker and so I’d never have seen it, otherwise. I wonder if it would have appeared in my sidebar anyway?

Meditation to Go! | Psychology Today

I enjoyed the article in Psychology Today that this extract is taken from.

What do you do every day… maybe many times a day? Open the door of your car? Wash your hands? Turn on your computer? There are a million of them. If you choose even one of those rote, means-to-an-end kind of things and decide to attach an altogether different meaning to it, it will become the repetition that you already do, in service of your own private meditative practice. And you’ll be doing it many times a day. And without having to push away your busy world. And while you are doing something you had to do anyway.What is it you would like to meditate on?

And how would you like to meditate? Whatever form you know or create can be put into a “to go” version. My mantra? I’ll say it once every time I open my

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My life in bullet points: 2010-08-25

• NYTimes: Peeling Away Theories on Gender and the Brain http://nyti.ms/9lXzgE #
• WTH! One in five teenagers suffer from hearing loss! Hearing Loss Grows Among Teenagers http://nyti.ms/cU8PU9 #
• Oh, crap: Earth's Plant Growth Fell Because of Climate Change, Study Finds http://nyti.ms/aAtBj0 #
• Fascinating!: Digital Devices Deprive Brain of Needed Downtime http://nyti.ms/9C8ulK #
• Our ongoing fascination with the death of geniuses: After Mozart’s Death, an Endless Coda http://nyti.ms/crU6hC #

My life in bullet points: 2010-08-24

• RT @terabyte240: Someone has been watching too much "Mad Men". This guy's balls on a skewer, please. kthx. http://ow.ly/2toy0 | ditto #
• A fine "do it yourself" retreat kit from Sharon Salzberg… http://fb.me/DpbXjJ74 #
• A lovely Tiger Eye wrist mala from "Buddha Bob." http://fb.me/EtvU1S0I #
• We have one full-size Tiger Eye mala as well. I wish the photos could do these justice… http://fb.me/FewpKhNT #
• Final mala for today: Olive New Jade… http://fb.me/sXvDIs9C #
• Someone emailed me with these lovely words the other day: "I've been meditating for only just more than a month…. http://fb.me/zJnxHeRb #

My life in bullet points: 2010-08-23

• Frank Rich, brilliant as usual, on the GOP's hypocrisy over Park51 http://nyti.ms/ck15wE #
• New article: "When In Doubt, Make Belief," by Jeff Bell http://bit.ly/biZjeA #
• This book on OCD has a lot to offer all of us… http://fb.me/EZWOohsx #
• I'm looking for a reviewer for "Other-Centered Therapy: Buddhist Psychology in Action" by Caroline Brazier, for wildmind.org. Interested? #
• I'm looking for a reviewer for "The Mindful Investor" by Maria Gonzalez & Graham Byron. Some expertise in finance would be ideal. #
• I managed to read a whole chapter of Wynne's "The Origin of Buddhist Meditation" with two kids crawling over me. Go, me! #
• Enjoying reading "E-Books Make Readers Less Isolated" http://nyti.ms/de24Qo (and longing for an iPad). #

My life in bullet points: 2010-08-22

• I'm looking for someone to review Allan Lokos' "Pocket Peace: Effective Practices for Enlightened Living." ~220 pages, easy reading. #
• If you update the Twitter Tools plugin for Wordpress, prepare to have to jump through hoops. Twitter is jerking us around for some reason. #
• Why consultants are bad for business (and disastrous for workers) http://bit.ly/cfKdMz #
• Sean Connery at (I don't believe it!) 80 http://bit.ly/cweZwc #

Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue with His Century

I just came across (and I’m sorry if this sounds circuitous) Cory Doctorow’s account of a review of a biography of the science fiction writer, Robert Heinlein. The biography sounds worth reading, especially if you are (or have been) a fan of Heinlein’s writing.

The first volume of William H Patterson’s enormous Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue with His Century is out. It’s the first authorized biography of the sf writer who popularized at least three important motifs of the 20th century (polyamory, private space travel and libertarianism) and redefined the field of science fiction with a series of novels, stories and essays that are usually brilliant but sometimes self-indulgent, sometimes offensive in their treatment of race and gender, and always provocative and generally sneaky.

The best review I’ve read of this book so far comes from John Clute, one of the field’s

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My life in bullet points: 2010-08-21

• A nice wee article about my local Dharma center, Aryaloka, which is 25 this year! http://fb.me/EKpT5dRK #
• I need a reviewer for Vidyamala's book, "Living Well With Pain and Illness" (on mindfulness and pain). Any interest? #
• I've just spent half a day chasing up book reviewers. I guess that's what I get for not paying people #
• I'm looking for someone to review Allan Lokos' "Pocket Peace: Effective Practices for Enlightened Living." ~220 pages, easy reading. #
• My favorite headline of today: "Lost’s DHARMA Fish Biscuit Machine Inconsistencies Explained" http://bit.ly/9TchD7 #
• RT @hokaisobol: Ultraviolet light reveals how ancient Greek statues really looked http://bit.ly/c7S6QZ #
• An NPR story on some recent research showing the beneficial effects of meditation on the brain… http://fb.me/Csg444MB #
• The loveliest part of a sand mandala is

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My life in bullet points: 2010-08-20

• We got back from Acadia National Park last night. 3/4 of us were ill and we had a trip to the ER, but we had a good time & Malkias turned 2! #
• What is it about teaching meditation that attracts this kind of hate mail? http://bit.ly/afc09L #
• Chronic pain can be treated with tai chi (sitting meditation has been shown to work too)… http://fb.me/FwttD2UL #
• It looks like I'll be running a workshop next spring at the Omega Institute in Rheinbeck, NY. http://fb.me/HiB8gN5G #
• More research confirming that meditation changes the brain in good ways… http://fb.me/FtUOJkFP #
• Hey, @pt35mm, how are you doing? #

My life in bullet points: 2010-08-19

• On our way back from Maine. Acadia is lovely, and AT&T sucks even worse than I thought it did. Malkias is two today! #