a counterproductive spiritual aid?

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If I had to guess (and were drinking beer at the same time), I think I would guess that what passes for religion in the world is based in uncertainty and doubt.

Farmers along the Nile were never certain when the source of their sustenance, the river itself, might flood their fields and leave them hungering. Death was a mystery whose hidden realms needed defining. Life came from the very sun that could fry a man to a crisp. What was strong yesterday became weak today and vice versa. And so on and so forth.

And uncertainty or doubt cried out for an explanation, a plan, a celestial hierarchy, a hole card that would dispel doubt and uncertainty.

But the odd thing about the explanations that religions -- the concoctions aimed at dispelling doubt -- contrived is that almost without exception they required belief. And belief by its very nature does not dispel doubt. It imposes doubt.

And if this is so -- as my beer pitcher tells me it is -- then what religion lays out is a system by which to impose still more doubt ... on top of the doubt that existed before religions attained liftoff.

Check it out. See if it's true. And if it is true, then reconsider the fervent beliefs that offer not so much relief and release as they do an even more uncertain world.

If belief merely aggravates what people sought to escape in the first place, how useful could it be?
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get naked and get over it

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Think about it: All day long we walk around in this body without much thought. If things work, we work 'em and that's the end of it. BUT, if we stand naked in front of a full-length mirror and regard the scenery, the first thing we do is start picking on it. Oh, I wish I were taller or shorter, skinnier or fatter, had a longer nose or a shorter one, were hairier or less hairy .....

And the same thing happens within. All day long we walk around thinking and feeling without much concern, but the moment we begin to investigate the scene, we begin to pick on things. Not loving enough, too impatient, too lazy, too tight-assed, too possessive, too stupid, too smart ....

For all that, there is something to be said for getting undressed and taking a look at the scene. Fifteen minutes ago, things just went their merry way. But now everything is open for business -- a praise and blame festival. Is all that praise and blame and correction and improvement necessary? If so, why wasn't it necessary when we just wandered around doing what needed to be done? There was nothing the matter then, but there sure seems to be something the matter now.

All I can think is that it is important to get undressed, scan the panorama  ...

And get over it!
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Writing: Gone Fishin'

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It is vaguely distressing to find that I have less and less to write about. And when I do write, there is less and less willingness to play the correct notes, find the harmonies of language, hang Christmas decorations on the tree ... make it pretty.

As a matter of habit, of course, I choose to write about it.

Less and less can I find the energy to twist things to my own devices -- often, in the past, taking ordinary events and running them through a Cuisineart of spiritual-endeavor interest... whir and whiz and out comes some milkshake of what I hoped might be a tasty observation.

Writing requires a willingness to put things to my own devices and, perhaps, a hope that someone else will recognize something useful in themselves. But it takes more and more energy these days and it's more and more stick-figure. No longer is there the love and excitement of investing things with something else ... in this case, words.

Because writing has been a lifelong habit, it's somewhat distressing to find the sass and juice has apparently decided to take a vacation in Florida. On the other hand, there is something fitting about it -- sort of like children leaving home. Have a safe trip!

Of course now and then something will cross my bow and I will be drawn back and enthralled with the enjoyment of thinking and shaping and making my point. But, but, but ....

Well, I'm happy to have done it and done it fairly well. Writing suited me and my upbringing and my lifestyle and my neuroses. But lately....

Gone fishin'.

Have a safe trip!
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homework

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A sixteen-year-old high school junior intent on writing a paper for her advanced-placement class at a local college came by the zendo yesterday. Buddhism was her subject, and she had been charged not just with reading up on the topic but also with dipping her toe in one practicing group or another.

It was a lot of fun being a homework topic. Thirty-five or 40 years of interest and practice ... and it all comes down to someone else's homework. Spiritual endeavor, which can be so serious and solemn, deserves to be considerably less serious and solemn ... after you have gone through the serious and solemn bits. Or anyway that's my feeling. Why should spiritual effort be any more serious and solemn than collecting stamps or raking the lawn? I don't know. I'm literally asking.

Anyway, I had a good time showing this young woman how to do zazen or seated meditation, doing a small sitting, and then talking about whatever she wanted to know. She apologized for having left her homework questions at home (the dog ate my homework), but was a cheerful and attentive as we chatted ... an effort that was about on a par with getting the bicycle out of the shed in preparation for a ride downtown ... been there, done that, and more than willing to tell anyone who asked about getting their own bike.

Easy-peasy stuff.

Like finding cinnamon on the spice rack.

I was pleased that it was she who was doing the homework and not I. As a teenager, I used to hate homework.
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what if the what-if's took a back seat?

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-- It's a little diffuse, but here is a somewhat interesting analysis/speculation of the Occupy Wall Street phenomenon as it plays out around the world.

Am I wrong or is there some basis to the fact that I feel increasingly crabby about the news? Somehow it feels more and more like those ridiculous shows on television that parse the meaning of Nostradamus 'predictions' or gather 'evidence' that suggests aliens helped the Egyptians to build the pyramids... programs filled with "what if" propositions couched in solemn tones that hope to provoke concurrence and belief. And then of course there are the politicians looking into a future and suggesting (with little or no concrete evidence) they could fix whatever needs fixing.

-- And in somewhat the same tasty-but-inconsequential realm, a new book suggests that the painter Vincent Van Gogh did not commit suicide at 37 but was accidentally shot by a boy with a malfunctioning gun. But the authors of "Van Gogh: The Life" make the suggestion as a sidelight rather than a main course and concede that little is known of the particulars. Nevertheless, the article about the book looks for a juicy tidbit to lead with as it scans the book and comes up with this ah-ha moment that dwindles and dissolves on closer inspection.

-- A more satisfying diet can be found in a Danville, Ill., elementary school which is apparently DOING something about the obesity about which others can wring their hands in 'caring' dismay. Exercise, diet and a signed commitment from parents ... and, whaddya know, something gets done.
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a dream remembered

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Somewhere along the line, the hip-pocket dissection of dreams entered my file box: Dreams depict what anyone might long for or anyone might fear. Which is which and how the two enfold themselves in the each other's confines is up for grabs. As I say, it is just a quickie definition, a footnote on some 3 x 5 card in my mind.

This morning as I woke I remembered (as I seldom do) dreaming of being in a large room crowded with people. They were seated on the floor facing in various directions and at the moment I remembered them, everyone stood up. They didn't seem to have any particular purpose, they just stood up and mingled. For some reason, I was still seated on the floor when Eido Shimano, a Zen teacher whose sometimes explosive depredations affected so many, passed by. I did not see him, but I saw the skirt of his tan robes and knew it was he passing to my right. The entire scene was largely without emotional impact -- not scary, not delightful, not pleasant or painful, not inviting or repulsive. It just was. And as Shimano passed me by, I heard him say, again without any particular emphasis, "We (meaning everyone in the room) are finished." And the statement struck me as reasonable.

I suppose I have as many longings and fears as the next fellow, but, once awake, I could not find any longing or fear in the dream, though I admit dreams are pretty sneaky in their abilities and directions and it is entirely possible that something 'deep-seated' was going on. Maybe I wished that what was so emotionally charged (there has been a lot of sturm und drang around Shimano over the past couple of years) would simply fade away into 'reasonableness.' Or maybe something else ... who knows ... maybe this, maybe that. It was just a dream and I was interested to remember it.

One of Shimano's favorite songs used to be  "The Impossible Dream," a paean to longing for the unattainable that was written for the 1965 musical "Man of La Mancha." The implication, as usual with him, was always that his followers should likewise take up such a dream ... which he, of course, had realized.
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baseball

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Some baseball photos of my younger son, Ives.

At bat

On base

Pitching

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Zen Peacemakers closed

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As I stood on the peace picket line yesterday, a young man and his female companion stopped in front of me. The young man bowed, took hold of my raksu and scanned the back of it, and then said, "I have one of these too."

He turned out to have been a member of the Zen Peacemakers organization, the brainchild of Bernie Glassman, a Zen teacher. We did a bit of Zen gossip before he told me that Zen Peacemakers had closed its doors in Montague, Mass. Bernie had moved to nearby Greenfield to continue his efforts on a less-grandiose scale.

I was at Zen Peacemakers for an opening celebration in 2005 -- an immaculately refurbished farm setting with a polished central hall and a raft of ideas hanging in the air. It struck me at the time as a bit unfocused, but Bernie had a way of dreaming big and getting others to dream with him. And now it's closed. I am not sure when it happened ... perhaps as many as two years ago. Although I had no inclination to visit or involve myself in its efforts, I will miss Zen Peacemakers as a part of my local tapestry of understanding.

The young man said he kept up his practice, but did not visit Bernie any longer. Now, when he wanted to go to sesshin or an extended Zen retreat, he went to Rochester, N.Y.

Time passes.
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out of Iraq at last ... not!

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-- A report yesterday said the United States had decided to get its troops out of Iraq completely by the end of the year. A report today says, "well, that's not exactly right. We're just thinking about it." The American public has been whipsawed like this before -- hopeful reports that turn out to be nothing more than political ploys. Americans want exemption from prosecution in Iraqi courts. The Iraqis, with ample reason, are not willing to grant the exemption. OK, the Americans say, we'll just gather up our toys and go home. The Americans do not want to go home. The strategic location of Iraq coupled with its oil reserves make it an advantageous place to stay. Stay tuned for more whipsawing ... and more bodies arriving in Delaware.

-- Worldwide Occupy-Wall-Street demonstrations were 'infiltrated' by violent rioters in Italy yesterday, but otherwise the protests appear to have been relatively peaceful ... and growing.

-- An article about the 'luckiest' city in the U.S. -- San Diego -- pointed out with some intelligence,

"Luck is basically our modern world's magic," said David Zinczenko, editor in chief of the magazine. "People need to believe in luck because it allows them to give a name to the randomness of life, and when you name something, you have more power over it."

Luck and God seem to have something in common.

-- And a somewhat higglety-pigglety photo/blog essay took a look at a village in India -- Siyani, population 8,000 -- where a village elder estimated 70% of the men were unmarried in a country where marriage is the norm, often at the early age of 15. The implications in a male-dominated society like India's are quite interesting.
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farewell luxury

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There was something heartening about it -- the level, almost droning, voices of the Supreme Court justices who probed the issue at hand on the TV. It was only an audio recording, with head shots of the person speaking appearing as the voice spoke.

The issue at hand -- and I tuned in in the middle -- was a case of church-and-state and the proper divides between them. Specifically, teacher Cheryl Perich had gone on disability leave for narcolepsy and objected when the church school in Redford, Mich., said it would not rehire her in the middle of the school year. She threatened a lawsuit and was fired. Perich applied to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for relief. The Lutheran church said ministers were forbidden to seek outside legal assistance because the church has its own functions for dealing with such matters. Among the issues is whether Perich is or was a minister while performing her teaching functions.

The voices droned on and on -- ever civil, ever probing. I suppose it was on CNN ... who else runs such data without ads? There was something luxurious about it all -- people who could think doing their best to winkle out the nuts and bolts of an issue that, in other hands, might have been given over to one thin-tea bias or another.

It was civilized and spoke well for the need for civility, the need for a forum in which patience and care were applied. It also spoke of the implied alternative of living a life without laws and filled with raucous, rancorous and sometimes violent uproar. Perhaps I was taken with the TV show because, as economic times get worse, the luxury and comfort and caring of such settings comes under pressure.

Human beings live together because they are social creatures. After enough mayhem, enough asserting of egotistical desire, enough belief-prone violence, some agreement is reached: I would rather you didn't kill me, so I guess I'll agree not to kill you. Bit by bit, civility is codified and people announce with satisfaction, "we are a nation of laws." Only the egotistical would claim that those laws are perfect or inviolable. It's a house of cards (codifying the parameters of human behavior is not possible), but it is the best house of cards anyone can come up with.

What a luxury. To think and turn that thinking into a relatively peaceful society. A luxury in the wake of so much bloodshed.

But when hard times come calling, the luxuries are called into question. Those charged with administering the law grow self-important and forget what dedication there might be to the best interests of the whole, the interests of the best-we've-got laws. They need a kick in the pants to remind them, but by that time they are so entrenched in their self-importance that they resist with any weapon at hand -- police, military, spin-doctoring: I've got mine...fuck you!

Hard times and the voices of suffering grow louder and are met with the louder voices of I've-got-mine-and-my-bias-is-more-compelling-than-any-law. In Russia, I read, American businessmen who had swooped in after the demise of communism were pulling out in droves because there were no laws to assure the stability required for their enterprises.

Winston Churchill, the former prime minister of England, once observed that "Democracy is the worst form of government except for all the rest."

In economic hard times, I get the sense that there is a renewed and ill-advised interest in "all the rest."

In economic hard times ... farewell luxury!
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dancing stars optical illusion

Received in email:

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the proper use of the Internet

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My friend Bill, when he was alive, once opined that the sole use of the Internet was to swap jokes. As if to underline his point, the first email I opened today contained the following groan-er:

One morning in South America, a blond and her husband were having breakfast. He looked up from the paper and said,

  "It says here that there was a big explosion at a refinery that killed two Brazilian men"

  

   "Oh, my God" she said. "That's simply horrible! That's the worst disaster I ever heard of! All those people dead!"

   The husband was puzzled by her outburst.

  "But only two Brazilian men died."

   The blond said, "How many is a brazilian?"

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repent! the end is near ... again

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-- If you want to get people's attention, just come up with a disaster that will eclipse whatever disaster they are already suffering. That way, they will pay attention to you and stop paying attention to anything as insignificant as themselves. "Nyah, nyah, hyah! My disaster's bigger and better than yours!"

The poor old Rev. Howard Camping, who blew it with an earlier prediction of doom, now says that the end of the world is scheduled for Oct. 21. There is his smiling face on the internet accompanying the story. Yes, Howard, you are loved and elevated and oh so important... kind of like the god you prefer. Feel better now?

-- The Occupy Wall Street movement is scheduled to go global today, about a month after it started to simmer in the bowels of New York. On the political front, it was just a matter of time before some candidate tried to tap into the surging energy that Occupy Wall Street has evinced and it seems that the U.S. president, Barack Obama, is going to give it a shot. Will he or any other politician be able to co-opt the movement and put it to his own interests? I hope not, but you never know. Occupy Wall Street is between a rock and a hard place: Yes, there is vast agreement and vast energy, but the question that protesters must be asking themselves is, "agreement about what ... and for what?" A statement of discontent deserves to be made and I for one am grateful for that statement, but ... well ... in what action or set of actions will that statement chart a course? I do hope they don't fall prey to such human-imperative questions too soon.

-- Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has characterized U.S. accusations that Iran plotted to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador on American soil as "meaningless." I am inclined to listen to Iran in this matter: The whole plot thing was just too laughably ham-handed to be credible. But I suppose if the Joseph Gobbels apparatus swings into action and pushes hard enough, the U.S. may yet find an excuse to go to war with a country they have been itching to go to war with for a long time.

-- It's only a hundred armed Americans, but the U.S. has decided to send 'support' troops to Uganda, a place of bloody civil war. I can remember when Kennedy sent 'advisers' to Vietnam. If the U.S. decides to mix it up in Africa, maybe they will short-circuit China's desire and willingness to forge ties there... and divert a little attention from their own gloomy home front.
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the pink coffin

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Joe's mother died Thursday. This weekend, he and his wife Pat, who live across the street from me, will go down to New Jersey for the funeral. Joe's mom was 83, died of bladder cancer, and was pleased as punch to have picked out her own coffin -- a pink one, with pink interior and the words "mother" and "grandmother" embroidered together with some flowers in the headboard. "What I will miss is talking to her," Joe said. I passed along some blue orchids to Joe for his mom.

I suppose, like others, I am afraid of death, but it is harder and harder to find that fear. Gautama was quoted as saying, "All fear dying. All fear death" and I suppose he was right. But where I can get a handle on the "dying" part (the dribbling away of energies, the rising number of aches and pains), it is harder to muster the catcalls and trembling for "death." Fearing death is just another version of fearing life and it takes energy to be afraid; it takes energy to make up fairy tales (if you don't know, you don't know ... why bother pretending you do know what you simply don't?) about this supposedly-spooky divide. Who started this rumor about a "divide" anyway? Believing is a pastime for the young and energetic. OK, knock yourself out.

But wasting energy -- if such a thing exists -- seems unfortunate. Wouldn't it be preferable to use energy on something constructive ... like maybe building a pink casket?
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be fresh

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"Be fresh," this morning's zazen said.

"Just be fresh, with nothing up ahead and nothing behind. Just be fresh and everything will be OK."

"Just be fresh."

What a talker, that zazen!
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another anti-abortion measure?!

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-- Oh shit! Here we go again! The U.S. House of Representatives has passed a bill that would prohibit federal funding for health care plans that cover abortion. Will somebody please go down to Washington and bitch-slap these people?! A 9.3% unemployment rate and these people are gnawing on old bones in an attempt to fuck women yet again??!!

-- Occupy Wall Street appears to have dodged a bullet with the withdrawal of an announcement that the park protesters are occupying would not be subject to a planned cleanup... a cleanup many suspected would be an excuse to remove the protesters altogether. Further, those planning on joining the global rally on Saturday have been advised to dress warmly. I imagine this does not apply to folks 'down under.' Last night I saw a U.S. map on TV that dotted the places in the U.S. where "Occupy Wall Street" had engendered sympathetic rallies. There were a hell of a lot of dots, from east coast to west and points in between. Since Sept. 17, when the protest began, to now ... there must be something in it. However amorphous that 'something' may be, the popularity and agreement suggests it is real. Politicians must be peeing in their pants wishing they could harness that fervor and energy, but to date, they have been left out ... and their relevant irrelevance to the protest is underscored.

-- And researchers have come up with some interesting info about how dolphins (and apparently other deep divers in the ocean) cope with what in human beings can be "the bends" -- the cramping that occurs when too much nitrogen enters the blood stream during ascents from far below.
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everything changes ... so?

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I suppose there will always be someone to whom the scientifically-verifiable suggestion will seem both novel and useful: Everything changes.

I can remember sitting in a college philosophy class when the observation first crossed my bow. And I was blown away. I thought I had found the answer to everything. Everything was explained. I was delighted in the way any uncertain young person might be: I had The Answer. Of course, after the delight had abated a bit, I realized that if everything changed, that meant my relationship with my then-girlfriend would change and it made me nervous. "True love never dies," right? But everything-changes put me on notice that if I wanted to cling to The Answer, I would have to pay the piper and things would not always be a cakewalk.

Yesterday, a friend of mine, a former psychiatrist, sent me a copy of a small talk she had given about accepting uncertainty. I have no doubt that there were some in the audience who may have been as blown away by her observations as I had been in my philosophy class. How about them apples?!

But the wowsers of ingesting The Answer at an emotional and intellectual level does not still the uncertain human heart. The Answer does not, in the end, really answer the question, "So how does anyone find peace within that so-called answer?" My friend pointed out aptly in her talk that creating a god is speculative at best. Nihilism is too easy ... and still the peace is lacking. Everything changes, but where's the peace such an observation might imply?

Everything changes. Woo-hoo! Now what?

Anyway, I felt compelled to write back to my friend and make the observations above. What the fuck good is The Answer if nothing is answered ... though I didn't couch my note in such language. Where would her psychiatric business have been (she's retired now) if The Answer were all anyone needed?

The only action that I can see that makes much sense in the face of such a compelling observation is to exercise the patience and willingness to look into it. If everything changes, then I change ... all the time. And if that is true, who the hell am I? Stories of heaven and hell, gods and demons, philosophies spun to a fare-the-well ... that's all fluff. Really, who am I if who I am is constantly on the move, changing from one thing to another?

I can't say that I'm much interested in those who announce their surprise and delight at discovering there is a slippery slope (just as I once did). I am more interested in those who take up the challenge and express the courageous willingness to be mistaken when climbing it.
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the public option in banking

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A friend sent along this opinion piece, which, even if I didn't understand it all completely, sounded intriguing.
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"Master and Commander" music

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Just a jolly tune as the movie comes to an end.

The movie was directed by Peter Weir, who, before he segued into more commercial enterprises, directed one of the most ballsy spiritual movies I ever saw, "The Last Wave."
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trusting the teacher

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Strange to think: I have read it and heard it any number of times in spiritual persuasions -- the student must trust (sometimes "absolutely") the teacher.

But nowhere have I read or heard that the teacher must trust ("absolutely" perhaps) the student.

Students receive the encouragement but teachers do not.  (Yes, I know -- those in teaching positions can spin this one from now until sundown.) But still ... how bizarre... and, I suspect, significantly off-kilter.

How could the one be possible without the other?
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arrest George W. Bush

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Amnesty International has suggested that former U.S. President George W. Bush be arrested when he visits Canada later this month. The human rights organization alleges Bush was privy to and approved torture in the past.

Whether or not it actually comes to pass, still it's nice to think that someone thinks leaders should be held accountable for their decisions and possible depredations.
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the verbalization of piranhas

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-- They're nasty and mean and have been known, in their multitudes, to strip an unwary cow crossing a river to the bone. But now it turns out that the don't-mess-with-me piranha has a verbal side as well. There is a usefulness to diplomacy before the blood-letting begins.

-- And speaking of piranhas, billionaire Warren Buffett has told a super-committee of Congress that he would be willing to release his tax returns if others who are similarly well-heeled will do the same. The offer came in the wake of Buffet's argument that the very wealthy deserved to be taxed at a higher rate. The committee is struggling to find a way "to reduce the mushrooming national debt by at least $1.2 trillion over the coming decade." Whatever Buffet's motives -- and his maverick stance is refreshing -- let's not hold our breath.

-- And, in other news of moribund times,  home foreclosures are on the rise (14% from July to September) and some of those doing the foreclosing find it more economical simply to tear the structures down. I guess it makes some kind of sense -- when more people are homeless, tear down structures in which they might be housed.

-- On a brighter death-and-decline note, scientists have unraveled the genetic coding of The Black Death, a 14th century plague that claimed 50 million lives in Europe. No word on the influenza epidemic that began in the year after the United States decided to join World War I. The war killed 16 million. The flu killed an estimated 50 million worldwide. Officers and politicians tried to keep the troops separated during the shipment of men and materiel to war, but it didn't work ... troops headed for a cauldron of death at the hands of an enemy were killed before they ever set foot on shore...courtesy of Mother Nature and political 'necessities.'  
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welcome to the 'palace'

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Social interaction often strikes me as being like people inviting others into the palaces they have built up over a lifetime. An invitation to root for the Red Sox. An invitation to dislike the Republicans. An invitation to be rich at the expense of others. An invitation to be angry or sad or joyful. Won't you join me in my palace?

But I wonder ... what would it be like to meet someone who didn't live in a palace ... and s/he invited you in? And what if that person were you?

No palace necessary.

Welcome!
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the Dragon King weds

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The "Dragon King" married his 21-year-old girlfriend in Bhutan Thursday.

The story, for reasons I can't fathom, brought on a kind of woo-hoo delight from where I'm sitting. Much more interesting and compelling than the British royal fanfare. Perhaps it grabs my attention because the Dragon King is educated and loves Elvis and mingles with the crowds to the consternation of his security detail.

... The young king never misses the chance to mix with people at public events, playing barefoot soccer with schoolchildren or hugging and comforting an old woman so overcome at seeing him that she burst into tears.

Even if it's contrived and leaves much of the backstory untold, still there is something pleasing about wishing others -- even high-profile 'others' -- well and rooting for some small success.
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zebra stripes

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If asked to describe a zebra, I would probably say it's a horse-shaped animal with black and white stripes.

But is it a white animal with black stripes or a black animal with white stripes? Somehow the mind longs to say one or the other.

Not that it matters.

I'm just curious.
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permission slips

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There is no need to give or receive permission.

The only requirement is kindness.
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my false religion

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I was chewing my cud a little more about Baptist Pastor Robert Jeffress' recent remark from his Texas pulpit:

Part of a pastor's job is to warn his people and others about false religions.  Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and Mormonism are all false religions.  And I stand by those statements.

Jeffress walked into the media limelight recently by introducing GOP presidential candidate Rick Perry and simultaneously taking a swipe a fellow candidate Mitt Romney, a Mormon, by declaring Mormonism to be a "cult." Naturally, everyone jumped on his case for that, but, well, any publicity is good publicity.

His subsequent remark from the pulpit included a discipline (some call it a religion) that I happen to find useful -- Buddhism. But the more I thought about his simultaneously broad-brush and narrow-gauge remark from the pulpit, the more I had to agree with him: I do indeed belong to a false religion.

The difference between Jeffress and me is that where I am willing to admit religion -- in whatever format -- is false, he insists that there are a bunch of false religions AND there is one true one. This is childish, but common enough ... if sad.

How can anyone expect to enter the gates of heaven if they are unwilling to pass through the gates of hell? It simply does not compute in any practical way. As a story line, OK. But when separating fact from fiction, not-so-OK. Religion is limited. Clarity and compassion are not. It's quite simple, but without the willingness to sweat your ass off, without the willingness to examine a beloved hope or belief, you can pass your whole life in a state of fiction.
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my daughter's birthday

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Heralded by a full moon, today is my daughter's birthday.

She is 24.

And what I want to know is ... how the hell did that happen?!

And think, "Life is what happens while you were busy making other plans."
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assassination plot

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The news is led, today, by an alleged plot by Iran to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the U.S. on American soil. The U.S. has directly accused Iran of orchestrating the plot. Everyone is dithering, but what strikes me in the midst of it all is, "How convenient."

Iran has characterized the matter as "fabricated," "vulgar," and a "childish, amateur game."
 
One former CIA case officer reacted to the suggestion that a faction within Iran planned the assassination without the knowledge of those in power this way:

“Maybe things have really fallen apart in Tehran, or maybe there’s a radical group that wants to stir up the pot,” Baer said. “But the Quds are better than this. If they wanted to come after you, you’d be dead already.”

What follows is solely my conspiracy-minded and probably ill-educated observations.

1. With the economy tanking, how convenient to find an enemy worth going to war with. World War II saved the U.S. from the Depression and FDR came out smelling like a rose. The trouble is that the FDR model was based on a credible, empirical threat. The current threat is based on a house of cards whose cornerstone is 'terrorism,' a word whose policies imply that something might happen, not on something that has. Iran's U-boats are not sinking American ships, for example.

2. Finding a bad-ass enemy and instilling a politically-useful uncertainty in the American electorate dovetails nicely with the Bush-administration (Cheney spear-headed) notion that the U.S. needs to plant the flag in strategically-useful (military bases; oil production) countries ... all under the cover of patriotism and a wish to spread 'democracy.'

Even the wisest Iran-watchers seem to be baffled by the uncharacteristic nature of the alleged plot.

Said Reuters:

The motive for the alleged plot was not clear. Iran has in the past assassinated its own dissidents abroad, but an attempt to kill an ambassador would be a highly unusual departure.

3. With the election of 2012 gearing up, how useful might it be for the American president to beat the Republicans as their own plant-the-flag game, outflanking them by putting America back to work by putting our boys in uniform and producing war toys. No Republican these days could resist that bait ... damn the spending a full speed ahead.

The assassination plot was so inept. True, there's a fool born every minute and even the most elaborate plans can be concocted by fools, but this was off-the-charts inept. It's just hard to believe it is what the U.S. is saying it is.

End of inept theorizing.
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"Anarchobodhi is watching"

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Too good not to post ...  passed along by a Zen Buddhist friend under the title "Anarchobodhi is watching."

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