Bodhi Tree Swaying

If I hadn’t seen this Microsoft ad on PC Magazine’s website I would have assumed it was a spoof. How could any respectable company produce such an obnoxious advertisement?

c4chaos on Twitter mentioned a post on Daily Kos on Buddhism and healthcare in the US — very apropos given my post of earlier today. It’s a bit "wouldn’t it be great if everyone would just think of the common good" but I think it’s a good start at framing a discussion in Buddhist terms.

You might even want to skip the long intro that covers the four noble truths to get to the section on the eightfold path, which starts:

Right view: bi-partisanship, triggers, co-ops, public options, market competition, socialism, single-payer, profit margins, trillion dollar price tags. In what way do any of these describe a working health care system?Right view would be to start by looking at the problem. What is, are, the problems with health care? Primarily, that some 45 million or more don’t have access to affordable coverage; that the

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The NYT has a sobering — even shocking — article on the perils of health insurance in the US. Makes me long for the good old National Health Service. And yes, I do worry that my health insurance company will leave me in the lurch if anyone in my family incurs major medical expenses.

…an estimated three-quarters of people who are pushed into personal bankruptcy by medical problems actually had insurance when they got sick or were injured.

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Mr. Yurdin learned the hard way.At St. David’s Medical Center in Austin, where he went for two separate heart procedures last year, the hospital’s admitting office looked at Mr. Yurdin’s coverage and talked to Aetna. St. David’s estimated that his share of the payments would be only a few thousand dollars per procedure.He and the hospital say

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From the BBC:

Vegetarians are generally less likely than meat eaters to develop cancer but this does not apply to all forms of the disease, a major study has found.

The study involving 60,000 people found those who followed a vegetarian diet developed notably fewer cancers of the blood, bladder and stomach.

But the apparently protective effect of vegetarian did not seem to stretch to bowel cancer, a major killer.

The study is published in the British Journal of Cancer.

Researchers from universities in the UK and New Zealand followed 61,566 British men and women. They included meat-eaters, those who ate fish but not meat, and those who ate neither meat nor fish.

Overall, their results suggested that while in the general population about 33 people in 100 will develop cancer during their lifetime, for those who do not eat meat that risk is reduced to about 29 in 100.

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I just stumbled across a fascinating article (Oddly, Hypocrisy Rooted in High Morals) from LiveScience, reporting on research showing that when people have

a) a sense of themselves as being “moral people” and
b) a flexible sense of what constitutes right and wrong

they are more likely to cheat. Here’s an extract, but it’s worth reading the whole thing.

Morally upstanding people are the do-gooders of society, right? Actually, a new study finds that a sense of moral superiority can lead to unethical acts, such as cheating. In fact, some of the best do-gooders can become the worst cheats.

Stop us if this sounds familiar.

When asked to describe themselves, most people typically will rattle off a list of physical features and activities (for example, “I do yoga” or “I’m a paralegal”). But some people have what scientists call a moral identity, in which the answer to the question

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MSNBC.com’s science section has an interesting although brief report on some thinking by Jonathan Haidt, whose work I’ve mentioned before:

Dark moralityUniversity of Virginia psychologist Jonathan Haidt blows my mind with his theory of dark morality – which is a social-science parallel to dark energy and dark matter. When it comes to morals, everyone agrees that we should whenever possible avoid harming people and provide care for the needy. The same goes for issues of fairness and reciprocity (”Do unto others…”) Haidt calls these “visible morals,” analogous to the 4 percent of the universe that we can see.

But those represent just the tip of the iceberg: Most of the mechanics of morality have to do with three “dark morals”: in-group loyalty, respect for authority, and issues of purity and sanctity. This is what accounts for qualities such as patriotism, conformism and taboos about food and sex. (Haidt drew

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Salon has the best thing I’ve read in a long time — transcriptions of Glenn Beck, the Fox News Commentator, presented as poetry.

The example below could be said to be satirical, except that Beck’s not intelligent enough to be a satirist.

TIME TO BELIEVE

It’s time to stop playing
Games in this country.
It is time to actually believe
In something. I do.
I know you do as well.
Believe in something.
Even if it’s wrong.

(”Glenn Beck,” Fox News, March 11, 2009)

This excerpt from “Friday’s Show” is genuinely beautiful:

We’ve got time to write tickets, we’ve got time to write tickets,
Have the police officers write tickets, you know why…

The man is clearly an idiot, but he does have a talent for using the rhythm of words very effectively.

Salon promises more tomorrow…

(Thanks to bitpakkit on Twitter for pointing me towards this gem).

From today’s Boston Globe comes this interesting snippet about an experiment or experiments (it’s not clear) showing that thinking about one’s own death reinforces faith in the notion of progress. And denying the idea of progress prompts people to think more about their own death. As I mentioned in a comment to Bob the other day, “when people are reminded of their mortality they become emotionally invested in institutions, like religion or nation, that could be thought of as providing a kind of immortality.” The idea of progress would seem to provide a similar function, in that the individual can see his or her life as being part of a larger pattern involving an onward march to a better world.

For many people, faith in a higher power gets them through dark times. But for those

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So it’s possible that your cat could become a vegetarian, but here are some good reasons why you might want to think about doing that. (And although cats live a long time, you might want to consider a less carni-centric companion animal next time). This article’s from the New York Times.

Cat Got Your Fish?
By PAUL GREENBERG
Published: March 21, 2009

My cat Coco died recently. Actually we euthanized him to alleviate his suffering from cancer. And while this was a sad moment, it was made less sad because Coco’s death also alleviated ever so slightly the suffering of the sea.

Coco, like most American cats, ate fish. And a great deal of them — more in a year than the average African human, according to Jason Clay at the World Wildlife Fund. And unlike the chicken or beef Coco also gobbled up, …

If you’ve become a vegetarian you might feel uneasy about keeping a cat and feeding it on dead animals. Cats require essential amino acids, fatty acids, and vitamins that are hard, if not impossible, to obtain from a vegetarian diet. But there are now cat foods specially formulated with vegetarian ingredients, as this Scientific American article points out.

Unlike dogs and other omnivores, cats are true (so-called “obligate”) carnivores: They meet their nutritional needs by consuming other animals and have a higher protein requirement than many other mammals. Cats get certain key nutrients from meat—including taurine, arachidonic acid, vitamin A and vitamin B12—that can’t be sufficiently obtained from plant-based foods. Without a steady supply of these nutrients, cats can suffer from liver and heart problems, not to mention skin irritation and hearing loss.

As such, a cat’s ideal diet is made up mainly of

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The notion of in vitro meat — flesh harvested from a vat rather than a living animal — seems straight from science fiction, which is perhaps not surprising given that NASA, the US space organization, originated the idea as a way to provide better-quality food for astronauts in space.

While the notion may seem far-fetched, some people are taking it very seriously indeed. PETA, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, announced in 2008 a $1 million prize for the “first person to come up with a method to produce commercially viable quantities of in vitro meat at competitive prices by 2012.”

New Harvest, a nonprofit organization formed to promote the adoption of alternatives to meat, points out on its Web site, “Because meat substitutes are produced under controlled conditions impossible to maintain in traditional animal farms, they can be safer, more nutritious, less …

Natalie Angier is my favorite science writer. Often I’ll be a couple of paragraphs into a science story, notice how well written it is, and realize it must be one of hers.

Her latest is a preview of a new book by Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, “Mothers and Others: The Evolutionary Origins of Mutual Understanding,” which will be published by Harvard University Press in April.

The thesis of the book is that we evolved cooperation and social intelligence through learning to love babies. As Angier puts it:

…human babies are so outrageously dependent on their elders for such a long time that humanity would never have made it without a break from the great ape model of child-rearing. Chimpanzee and gorilla mothers are capable of rearing their offspring pretty much through their own powers, but human mothers are not.

Unlike chimps, our closest relatives, we spend …

I have a long-standing interest in science, and in fact I came perilously close at one point to getting into veterinary research after completing my vet degree, and I also have a passionate interest in the relationship between science and religion. So that — combined with the 200th anniversary Darwin’s birth and the 150th anniversary of the publication of “The Origins of Species” gave me the perfect opportunity to post an article entitled, “Four reasons Buddhists can love evolution.”

I caught up on the inaugural speech almost 24 hours late due to a hospital appointment and a lack of television. I’d heard some of it on the radio but missed a chunk in the middle, and so it was only thanks to Bittorrent that I was able to download the video and see, if not the surrounding events, at least the botched swearing-in and the inaugural speech that followed.

I found the event itself very moving — the visuals definitely added to the sense of this being a momentous occasion — but wasn’t much impressed with Obama’s speech. Paul Krugman hits the spot in today’s NYT in describing one of the things I noticed as I was listening:

…in his speech Mr. Obama attributed the economic crisis in part to “our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age” — but I have no

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Marc Randazza, A First Amendment attorney based in Florida, has a pertinent comment about Roberts flubbing the oath of office:

The news outlets are buzzing with criticism of Chief Justice John Roberts for flubbing Obama’s Oath of Office — but the critiques seem to be all about him nervously reversing a few words. These critiques miss the issue.

After he painfully, and tortuously, slogged his way through the Oath of Office, Roberts appeared to add his own little bit to it as he asked the President, “So help you God?”

Article II, Section I of the US Constitution reads, in pertinent part (with “he” referring to the President-elect):

Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation:

“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States,

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At first sight I was a bit perplexed to see that a state law in Illinois requiring a moment of silence in public schools had been nullified by a judge’s ruling. After all, children are so bombarded with stimuli these days that some silence seems just what they need.

But continuing to read the article it turns out that the law is another poorly-disguised attempt to get prayer into schools. According to the judge, the “teacher is required to instruct her pupils, especially in the lower grades, about prayer and its meaning as well as the limitations on their ‘reflection’.”

A state senator commented, “I strongly feel and I still believe that children should have a moment of silence at the beginning of the school day.” The answer then is easy — remove the language requiring teachers to give instruction in prayer, and ensure that …

A conversation on Twitter about spurious “Buddha” quotes (”The Buddha said…” followed by something the Buddha probably never said) reminded me of coming across a quote attributed to the Buddha that was apparently something that Elvis Presley said.

And that reminded me of an interesting page which has all but vanished from the internet, but which was thankfully preserved by Archive.org. The original page vanished in 2002. Actually, I exaggerate: the page merely moved. I dunno, the whole thing could be made up, as far as I know. Maybe there is no “Larry Geller.” Maybe he never wrote a biography of Elvis.

Anyway, it’s delightfully wacky.

Enjoy:

In perusing Elvis’ biography “If I Can Dream” by his hairdresser-cum-spiritual adviser Larry Geller, I stumbled across the following conversation:

Elvis begins: “Think back when I had that experience in the desert. I didn’t only see Jesus’ picture in the clouds — Jesus Christ

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I believe that the state I live in — New Hampshire — is currently debating once again whether to make it illegal to use a cellphone or to text while driving. From what I understand it’s unlikely they’ll being a ban into effect, and in fact I think it’s legal to use a laptop while driving here. They say this is the “Live Free Or Die” state but I think it would be better known as the “Live Free And Die” state.

Anyway, there’s plenty of ammunition in this NYT article supporting a ban, not just on hand-helds but on hands-free devices. I appreciated the following quote: “It’s not that your hands aren’t on the wheel, it’s that your mind is not on the road.”

In half a dozen states and many cities and counties, it is illegal to use a hand-held cellphone while driving — but perfectly all right to

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A U.S. researcher suggests people, despite cultural background or religion, experience the same neuropsychological functions during spiritual experiences.

Brick Johnstone, a neuropsychologist at the University of Missouri, said that transcendence — feelings of universal unity and decreased sense of self — is a core tenet of all major religions. Meditation and prayer are the primary vehicles by which such spiritual transcendence is achieved.

“The brain functions in a certain way during spiritual experiences,” Johnstone said in a statement. “We studied people with brain injury and found that people with injuries to the right parietal lobe of the brain reported higher levels of spiritual experiences, such as transcendence.”

Johnstone explained that the link is important because it means selflessness can be learned by decreasing activity in that part of the brain. He suggests this can be done through conscious effort, such as meditation or prayer. People with these selfless …

Integral Options Cafe reposted an interesting article from The Guardian, titled “Love thy neighbour: why have we become so suspicious of kindness.”

I think the “death of kindness” argument is overstated, but there’s a lot of interesting food for thought provided. Here’s the start of the article. I’d recommend reading the whole thing.

Kindness was mankind’s “greatest delight”, the Roman philosopher-emperor Marcus Aurelius declared, and thinkers and writers have echoed him down the centuries. But today many people find these pleasures literally incredible, or at least highly suspect. An image of the self has been created that is utterly lacking in natural generosity. Most people appear to believe that deep down they (and other people) are mad, bad and dangerous to know; that as a species – apparently unlike other species of animal – we are deeply and fundamentally antagonistic to each

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