peace-loving Israel strikes again

While world attention was largely directed elsewhere, Israel moved deftly Monday to realize 454 new settlement homes in East Jerusalem that international pressure had successfully put on hold in the past.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has approved the marketing of land for the construction of 454 homes in two settlements in occupied East Jerusalem, a government official said on Tuesday....

The building of 436 of the housing units, in the settlement of Ramat Shlomo on land Israel occupied in a 1967 war, was approved in 2012. But the project was later frozen after criticism from Washington and the European Union....

In a statement, the Palestinian Authority condemned the Israeli plan and settlement-building as a whole as a "flagrant violation of international law" aimed at preventing the establishment of a Palestinian state....

Since Oct. 1, Israeli forces and settlers have killed at least 78 Palestinians, 45 of whom Israel alleges were carrying out or were about to commit attacks. At least 14 Israelis have been killed by Palestinians. 

"In the Heart of the Sea...."

Since it bills itself as "The New York Times Bestseller," I can only suppose that I am late to the party (again) when it comes to reading "In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex." I only began reading it the other day. The book came out in 2000 and a movie is due later this month. Oh well, "au courant" is not my middle name.

With only 25 pages under my belt, you might think I would wait until I finished it before forming an opinion, but the succulence and effect are such that I want to say "yummy" now. The book is like being invited into a fine water color ... how can such delicate, almost diaphanous, hues of time and place be so consuming in overall effect? It's lovely and quiet, and I haven't even gotten to the 'good' part yet.

Nantucket, home to a 19th century whaling industry ... a place and culture so tightly wrapped that you can feel the air being squeezed out of your lungs ... an us-and-them mentality that quietly scorns those who moved in from elsewhere ... a place of almost-savage Quaker businessmen and can-do women who not only brought up the kids, but coped (and even delighted) in the two- or three-year absences of their whaleship husbands... and yes, they had ways of addressing their own sexual needs during such absences.

I get a sense of an author who knows miles more than what he tells and yet what he tells is as juicy and full of flavor as a grape exploding between attacking molars. But delicately, delicately, delicately ... and yet, POW.

more bombing attacks promised

With enemies like the United States and its allies, why should Islamic State ever need a friend?

Islamic State warned in a new video on Monday that countries taking part in air strikes against Syria would suffer the same fate as France, and threatened to attack in Washington.

The video, which appeared on a website used by Islamic State to post its messages, begins with news footage of the aftermath of Friday's Paris shootings in which at least 129 people were killed.

just 100 words

My younger son, who is in the Army National Guard, gave me that young-man's "poor fool" look when I made the suggestion. Old people are weird and, well, old.

A month or so ago, a couple of positions as military security guards opened up in Afghanistan and my son volunteered. My stomach lurched when I heard this, but I tried to keep a straight face. He had signed up for the Guard; the U.S. seems bound and determined to keep various wars and the fears that attend upon them going; so ... whether I hate it or not, my son is likely to go in harm's way.

The best reaction I could come up with was this: "If you're chosen, the first thing you want to do is to learn at least 100 words in the language most frequently spoken where you will work. It could save your life; it could save the life of your buddies; and it could save the lives of people who are not involved in the much-nurtured conflict."

As it happened, my son was not selected, but my reaction stuck in my head: Just 100 words. It's no sure-fire safety net and it may accomplish nothing, but it could provide an edge. And not just in the Army National Guard.

Here we are in a "global economy," if you listen to the TED talkers. My house is increasingly closer to your house. And yet, at least here in the U.S., this small activity of learning a little of my neighbor's lingo goes begging. Besides being stupid, it's a pity. Whether in battle or at the peace table or the economic summit, who would not benefit? If you don't bother to know your enemies -- and friends too -- how could that ignorance NOT cripple your own interests?

I guess what tipped this topic into my mind was an Associated Press article about the paucity of American students studying abroad ... at the same time that foreign students are taking advantage of the education provided in the United States.

Just 100 words.

abortion as murder....

Passed along in email:

dumbed down by music

Background music is the default position. It is no longer silence to which we return when we cease to speak, but the empty chatter of the music-box. Silence must be excluded at all cost, since it awakens you to the emptiness that looms on the edge of modern life, threatening to confront you with the dreadful truth, that you have nothing whatever to say....

I suspect that the increasing inarticulateness of the young, their inability to complete their sentences, to find telling phrases or images, or to say anything at all without calling upon the word "like" to help them out, has something to do with the fact that their ears are constantly stuffed with cotton wool. Round and round in their heads go the chord progressions, the empty lyrics and the impoverished fragments of tune, and boom goes the brain box at the start of every bar....

Just as porn addicts lose the capacity for real sexual love, so do pop addicts lose the capacity for genuine musical experience.

Guantanamo revisited

When he was a young man, Musaab al-Madhwani was arrested in September 2002 by Pakistani authorities in Karachi. Before he was sent to Guantánamo he was “in another prison in Afghanistan, under the ground, [and] it was very dark … It was impossible that I could get out of there alive. I was really beaten and tortured,” he told a prisoner review board.

The U.S. alleges that Madhwani, a Yemeni, is an Al-Qaeda operative. However, in 2010, when U.S. District Judge Thomas F. Hogan reviewed the case, he ruled that Madhwani, “young, unemployed, undereducated,” was, “at best, a low-level al-Qaeda figure” who apparently never “even finished his weapons training,” never “fired a weapon in battle” and never “planned, participated in or even knew of any terrorist plots.”

Madhwani is one of 49 Guantánamo prisoners who are not cleared for release but who are also not charged with crimes — the forever prisoners who may well be transferred to the U.S.

Some of the men alluded to in the al-Jazeera article have been held for as long as 14 years. Many have dossiers with evidence provided by dubious sources and bearing the note, "These statements are included without consideration of veracity, accuracy, or reliability.” Many of the informants got rich providing information about the 'terrorists' close at hand.

Held without recourse. Sold based on uncorroborated information. It is a travesty that reflects poorly on the United States ... for anyone who gives a shit about what that might any longer mean.

If they're guilty, then by all means nail their hides to the barnyard door. Prove it. Play the Texas card if you must. But do not smear the flag with patriotic bullshit and politically-expedient scare tactics.

"brennt Paris?"

"If you do not share your wealth with us, we will share our poverty with you."

I guess everyone has his or her own bite-sized summations of the tragedies that blossom in life and the one above is just one I reach for in the wake of the slaughter that took place in Paris last night. Over 125 people in several (five or six or more) locations in and around the French capital died in what were apparently coordinated attacks by Islamic State.

A French government source told Reuters there were 127 dead, 67 in critical condition and 116 wounded. Six attackers blew themselves up and one was shot by police. There may have been an eighth attacker, but this is not confirmed.

The attacks, in which automatic weapons and explosives belts were used, lasted 40 minutes.

The particulars and fallout have not all come to light as yet. Everyone is gasping at a peaceful Friday night so deliberately upended in a largely-well-heeled venue. But the screams and wails are no less heart-rending because of the tender sophistications of the the venues.

An Islamic State video warned, "As long as you keep bombing [Syrian targets] you will not live in peace. You will even fear traveling to the market,"

The Band-Aid quote I fall back on comes from a Somali intelligence officer I once heard on TV. As it relates to the events in Paris, it is probably little better than the superstitious observation that yesterday was Friday the 13th ... a bad luck day. The Somali officer was speaking of the piracy being visited on wealthy ships off his coast. Where he lives, people are poor unto hunger, unto life, unto death. Who would not fight or break laws in an effort to feed mothers and children? Who would not exercise his or her own selfishness when addressing what must feel like an over-arching selfishness? What is the exceptionalism of the West if not selfishness on a grand scale? What is the exceptionalism of Islamic State if not selfishness on a hoped-for grand scale?

I can't pretend to have answers with the application of my preferred Band-Aids. Band-Aids are just an application that seem to allow me to be less confused, less sad, less horror-stricken without edges. I want a bow to put on this horrific present, a conclusion that will allow me to go more easily into the kitchen and make breakfast.

Selfishness does not seem to work very well and yet selfishness is inescapable.

Here in America, it is hard not to wonder what things would be like if Donald Trump, a rich and injudicious Republican candidate, were president.

In 1944, the last Nazi commander of occupied Paris defied a direct order from Adolf Hitler. Hitler insisted that the allies should not be allowed to retake Paris intact. Hitler ordered Dietrich von Choltitz to raze the city and to reinforce his will, Hitler called to ask, "brennt Paris?" ("Is Paris burning?") It was not. Choltitz would say later that he had determined Hitler was off his rocker, not to mention his own affection for the city.

Islamic State seems to have taken a shot at executing a long-delayed order. Perhaps they are sharing what they have already suffered?

Sharing, after all, is caring.

And, as a footnote:

 

self-professed atheist reflects

Passed along in email today was this essay by a self-professed "atheist" willing to consider his own atheism and the atheism of others. I like people who reflect and the essay has a nice tone, even if it is too long by at least a third from where I sit. (What academically-inclined person ever gave up the chance to fill yet another blue book where space was offered. "Stand up. Speak up. And shut up" is not yet an observation worth heeding where the ivy grows.)

Anyway, it's nice enough.

grey skies

Yesterday was a good day, I suppose, but its goodness seemed to contribute to an overall sense of and environment full of small choke-holds. Grey skies this morning and a grey mood.

Yesterday I went and had brunch with a buddy, Michael Erard, and his wife Jeanne. We get together now and then and it's always friendly/companionable ... and, from where I sit, just plain company. Michael and I met over a piece he had written when trying to exorcise the ghosts that haunted him from his days as a medic in the Vietnam conflict. Both Michael and Jeanne are interested in a Christian-leaning approach to spiritual life. Anyway, there are plenty of talking points we all seem able to enjoy.

But after two hours of enjoying them ... I was worn out. Just fried, somehow. I don't seem to have the energy for what was once no energy at all ... a good gab. We were all getting older.

And that theme seemed to reiterate itself in today's overarching, wispy colors. My 92-year-old stepmother went to the hospital last week (partly at my encouragement) and turned out to be dehydrated. Having returned home, she still feels flu-y ... and, well, every sniffle takes on a mortal significance at her age. Another friend spent five or so days in the hospital with heart difficulties. He was home yesterday and we talked. The hospital couldn't do anything, he said vaguely. The veins and arteries were too thin (whatever that meant) and he was given no drugs or regimen with which to elude chest pains and a sense (the body knows stuff about itself) of last-stand. I asked him how he was feeling psychologically and he said he didn't know. We joked peripherally that Woody Allen had it pretty much right: "I don't mind dying. I just don't want to be there when it happens." My wife's body, though she says so only in the most modest ways, hurts pretty badly and I wish I could do something about that -- not least get her doctor to prescribe an effective pain killer. And then there are my own aches and pains and dwindling enthusiasm for doing something for others ... really, the childish wish-list is positively six years old and wants to be served rather than serving. We need a new stove (the old one is really on its last legs) around here, but the price is too steep for the checkbook. And if we had it, would I feel any more like cooking?

Then, on realizing I would have a newspaper column due, I hit on an idea only to find that I had already done that idea about a year ago.

... Ashes, ashes,
We all fall down.

Not only do I not want to consider the problems others are having, I also don't want to consider the problems I may be having. It's too dreary and self-centered and utterly fruitless.

I think I'll see if I can find a dirty-joke web site and let that carry the weight.

you can't bribe a crocodile

After sparking ridicule with a proposal to build a prison island for drug convicts surrounded by crocodiles, Indonesia's anti-drugs tsar has now gone further — revealing he also wants tigers and piranhas as guards.

In an idea that seemed to come straight out of a James Bond film, Budi Waseso this week unveiled the prison island plan, explaining that crocodiles cannot be bribed by drug traffickers seeking to escape jail.

Given the periodic high-profile escapes by drug lords, will someone please tell me why this idea is crazy? Nobody snickers when a tiger bites them on the ass.

doing bad well

As far as I can figure out, the strictures that most religions impose on their followers (don't lie, kill, steal, etc.) do not mean that anyone could actually become "good." What they encourage is that those inclined try to do "bad" well.

U.S. allegiance to Israel

"Israel is looking to boost the amount of money the United States sends it every year for military aid to as much as $5 billion, a number that would give it not only the largest chunk of U.S. defense aid money, but also more than triple the amount any other country receives in total aid from the U.S....

"If Israel's military funding were $5 billion in 2016, that would equal 14 percent of every dollar the U.S. sends around the globe."

As an example of the "moral high ground" America sometimes likes to assert, this strikes me as iffy, at best. Give me four nanoseconds and I think I can find a better use for my 14 cents.

"Remembrance Day"

I suppose everyone chooses the portals through which to allow their sorrows to enter. For me, music and silence can oil the hinges of what is sometimes edge-less and consuming and, be it said, imaginative.

Across the Atlantic pond, today is "Remembrance Day," the day on which World War I ended in 1918 after an incalculable bloodbath. Nov. 11 touches America too ... as "Veterans Day." When you can't even remember what happened last week, it seems a bit odd to 'remember' a war and peace so long ago. Still, perhaps it is worth the effort, however confected.

A small BBC historical backgrounder on Remembrance Day begins with the observation,

Despite the jubilation, many people felt it was wrong to celebrate because so many people had died during the war.

Some will let the vastness of sorrow in through their portals and some won't.

I choose to feel the stunned silence of sorrow in the bugle call above. The horror and vileness did not end with the end of World War I. It is hugely sad in my mind. Too big to pray or praise ... all I can do is listen.

*********************

In William Shirer's "Berlin Diary," there is a scene I recall but am too lazy to look up. Adolph Hitler, the man who had yet to become a supreme dictator of later years, stood on a balcony (of the Chancery?) in 1933 and addressed a crowd below. He was celebrating (perhaps) his improbable ascendancy to the post of Chancellor. Everyone knew his bellicose agenda and the fact that that agenda would lead to war. In later times, the throngs would swell to thousands of people, but on this occasion, Shirer reported, there were a mere 200 people to applaud. 1933 was close enough to 1918 so that many remembered the raw prices paid for war. Memories fade or are embellished. It is the way of the world.

Of the 535 American congressmen currently serving and tussling with a "war powers act," 97, or less than 18%, served in the military. Given the proven inabilities of those congressmen to come to fruitful agreements, I question the notion of giving Congress the capacity to send my children to what may be their deaths. The road to hell is paved with good intentions and those congressmen may be well-intentioned, but whether they have a basis on which to be prudent, I have my strongest doubts.

it's the money, stupid!

Shot my writing bolt this morning while researching the various news approaches being taken to the racial protest at the University of Missouri. Black football players banded together last weekend and said they would no participate in football-related activities until "Mizzou" President Tim Wolfe stepped down. On Monday, he did.

The focus of the black players' protest lay in an alleged unwillingness of Wolfe to address complaints about racial slurs and other racist activities. In one sense, it was a typical anti-racist banner they unfurled. At the university and across the nation, these eruptions of anguish and anger rise up now and then in the wake of the latest shooting or profiling or other apparent atrocity.

But in this case, there was something new and telling: Money. By refusing to play (Mizzou had a game scheduled against Baylor next weekend), the university stood to sustain a $1 million fine from the football gods. No players, no fans and a fine into the bargain.

That leverage, from where I sit, had everything to do with the attention being paid to what otherwise might have devolved into yet another oh-so-sensitive, impotent liberal whine about racism.

And yet the money angle was mostly buried in the news stories that evolved. Everyone gets so used to breast-beating that doesn't work that they lose track of the meat and potatoes (money) that does.

Anyway ... I got so cranked up that I wrote an uninvited column to the newspaper. I doubt if it will run -- they have a tendency to pass by what is current -- but I felt the need to get it off my growling chest. I suppose I'll stick it here if/when the newspaper passes it by. Haven't got the energy to reprise my namby-pamby research right at the moment.

Here is what I sent in FWIW:

Sent off to the Gazette a couple of days back ... with scant hope of publication:

In the wake of the resignation of University of Missouri President Tim Wolfe, there is a feeding frenzy of talking heads commenting and knicker-twisting about the blow dealt to unaddressed racial bias on campus -- and by extension, in the nation.

Last weekend, black players on the "Mizzou" football team said they would not participate in football activities until and unless Wolfe quit. On Monday, he did. Hours later Chancellor R. Bowen Loftin followed suit.

A comforting huzzah wafted into the halls of wounded and disaffected blacks and whites who have long despaired of the subtle and gross racism attested to in hundreds of different ways on campus and across the land. From wanton shootings to profiling to slurs -- the laundry list is long and those resting their case on decency and equality have repeatedly hit a brick wall when it came to changing hearts and minds. Everyone gets outraged (again); little or nothing happens (again).

To my mind, the wider news media missed or sailed over the obvious at the University of Missouri. Wolfe's resignation had little or nothing to do with a warmer heart or a changed mind. Wolfe's resignation had almost nothing to do with a change in perspective and everything to do with money.

It's the money, stupid! Do the math. By threatening the honey pot of income, the players and their supporters struck at the heart of the matter and, not coincidentally, the heart of the university.

Consider:

1. Tom Wolfe is reported to receive a salary of $459,000 per year.

2. The University of Missouri had an athletic budget of $83.7 million in fiscal year 2014. (http://www.kansascity.com/sports/college/sec/university-of-missouri/article8564105.html). After expenses, there was a profit of $3.5 million of which $2.2 million could be transferred to activities other than athletics.

3. The university faced a $1 million fine if the football team did not play this weekend's game against Baylor. That's close to 50% of the academic gravy realized in the university's athletic computations. How could one half-million-dollar executive hope to compete with that sort of downside math?

4. However graceful and encouraging Wolfe's departure may be, it was the capacity of the board of trustees to add and subtract that reversed Wolfe's fortunes. Is anyone to imagine this group got together and had some about-face epiphany as regards a racial climate that had persisted for years? Don't be ridiculous. $2.2 million provides plenty of reasons for the board to toss Wolfe to the wolves.

Anyone who imagines the protest on the University of Missouri campus would have gained traction without the very real financial threat is invited to strip away that aspect and then consider what sort of reaction would have evolved. Good-hearted and even anguished efforts to revise the racial disparities of the past met with precisely what in the past? Bupkus, that's what.

But add the financial leverage and the argument for racial consideration gains attention that financially-savvy academic executives are constrained to take seriously. Those executives may put an academic twist on their responsibilities at fund-raising cocktail parties, but their job does not rest so much on the "educating of America's youth" as it does on raising money. And the truth is that someone's got to do it.

The question is, at what price?

The leverage brought to bear at the University of Missouri is the kind of leverage that those who implicitly or explicitly condone racism can no longer overlook.

Never mind principle: Just don't mess with my income.

'rendition' case inches towards court hearing

Whether the case is heard or, as in the past, quashed for 'national security reasons,' at least the Brits are having a go at what the U.S. has (at least to my knowledge) not:

One of the most controversial claims of rendition involving the UK is being heard by the Supreme Court.

Ex-Libyan dissident Abdul Hakim Belhaj says MI6 helped to arrange his and his wife's rendition - saying they were covertly taken from Thailand to Libya.

The case, involving allegations against ex-Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and an ex-MI6 chief, prompted an unprecedented battle over whether it can even begin.

The Supreme Court is to decide whether the couple can sue the UK government....

Mr Belhaj, a former Islamist fighter who opposed the Libyan dictator Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, says he was seized by US forces alongside his wife, Fatima Boudchar, in 2004 as they tried to fly from Asia to the UK to seek asylum.

The couple were taken from Thailand to Libya - and they were immediately imprisoned.

Keeping a good name and inviolate status after perpetrating vile acts ... what a lot of energy, personal or political, that takes.

winner looks for a job

Wellington Jighere won the final with words like aah, dacoit and ungifted

Nigerians have been congratulating countryman Wellington Jighere, who has become the first African to win the English-language World Scrabble Championship.

The 32-year-old beat Englishman Lewis MacKay 4-0 in the final in Australia....

Mr Jighere will be coming home with a $10,000 (£6,600) prize but now has to find a job.

He recently finished his national service following his graduation from university, but took a few months off from looking for work in order to prepare for the championship.

one-man protest in Russia

Crazy or sane, perhaps this is what it is like to go out on a limb:

A Russian artist and political activist has been arrested after setting fire to the Moscow headquarters of the country's security service, the FSB.

Pyotr Pavlensky set the door of the Lubyanka building alight and was pictured standing in front of the blaze holding a petrol can.

Nor is this the first of his in-your-face, all-by-himself activities:

 I don't know about anyone else, but such activities, like the Buddhist monks who set themselves on fire as a means of protest, arouse a fidgeting, explanation-riddled chatter in my less-than-courageous mind. And still it is in-my-face.

"silent" fireworks

Parents who went to a silent fireworks display at Birmingham Botanical Gardens have claimed loud bangs frightened their children.

The event was advertised as: "A fireworks display with a little bit of a difference, with no bangers or loud noises ideal for the little ones."

Is anyone else surprised that even moderately mentally-challenged adults would believe this claim in the first place? With their beautifully-accented savoir kool, my estimation of the Brits took a tumble on this one. A bit like someone hawking "dehydrated water ... just open the can, add water and voila!" 

war powers buck and shuffle

WASHINGTON (AP) — In the battle against the Islamic State group, members of Congress talk tough against extremism, but many want to run for cover when it comes to voting on new war powers to fight the militants, preferring to let the president own the battle.

They might not be able to run for long.

The U.S. military intervention in Iraq and Syria is creeping forward, putting more pressure on Congress to vote on a new Authorization for the Use of Military Force. It would be the first war vote in Congress in 13 years.

With Veterans Day in the offing, Congressional talk is big and walk is halting. The hypocrisy, of course, will kill the children of others, but not their own.

usefulness of religion

It is entirely conceivable that I am full of shit, but....

I simply cannot think of a greater usefulness to religion than guiding its adherents away from the confines of religion. The intellectually adroit may pose and prance and ask, "Why bother entering in the first place?" but it won't wash: The questions and mysteries are too insistent, too nuanced, too come-hither to elude by intellectually-superior tap-dancing and the question lingers on the tongue like a fart under the covers: "If I'm so smart, how come I'm not happy?"

Nevertheless, the reasons for entering religion's confines, while persuasive, are not persuasive enough to remain and nest and be reassured. The reasons for entering boil down to this: It is time to leave.

Maybe it's a little like marriage, so searing and lovely in its outset and yet evolving out of that excitement into a quiet, ungraspable "OK" that may be warming or perhaps searing with the passage of time. It's another circumstance, another possibility ... and it was a good choice in its time, even if it ended up on the rocks.

After forty-plus years of sometimes scrupulous and sometimes lumpy practice and study -- not very long, I grant -- now I cannot find a greater usefulness in religion than calling it a gentle quits. It may remain a warm memory, but to harry and hoard it, in whatever humble ways, is now too much, too ego trippy, and, in the end, too apostate and cowardly. It's time to cut the crap in much the same way it was once time to cut the crap and dive in and dive deep.

I think of the sheep-herder who speaks a simple line to his Border Collie: "Away to me!" And the dog knows and the dog goes and the sheep are herded expertly by an expert hand ... not perfectly, perhaps, but expertly.

It is time to lay claim to what was always in hand and no religion could hope to touch or improve. Now is the time for religion to do its job without reliance on ... whatever is considered reliable... stuff like religion ... or not.

football called to account

Since what I know about college football could fit on the head of a pin and leave room for myriad angels besides, it was quite by chance that I tuned in and stayed glued yesterday to the game between Arkansas and Ole Miss. I have no clue as to what the colleges are called in civilian speak or where specifically they are located ("Confederacy" sidled through my mind), but the game was a tit-for-tat display of expertise on both sides of the ball. And there was some weird shit thrown in for good measure. Arkansas won, 53-52. If there seemed to me to be a disproportionate number of white players on the field (at least when compared to my occasional watching of professional games), it didn't change the entertainment munchies I chowed down on.

Besides the lullaby wonders of the game, it was also clear how magnificent and rich the whole affair was. The stadium was grand, the bands twinkled in the sun, the fans were enthusiastic and the accouterments of the players left me doing a little idle math ... how much had all this cost; what made it worth putting on the extended stage that television is? Do the math -- football is big-bucks territory.

Well d'oh ... someone's making a buck off  it. But I didn't care about that as I watched the game, which held me in thrall. Such was my ignoramous-ity that on occasion I had to back up to figure out which team was which. I wanted a name on which to pin the praise or blame that caromed around in my mind. Lord, it was a fun game!

But then it was over and the gladiators left the field that Mammon had made possible. Thanks Mammon ... that was fun. If, as I believe I've read, college football coaches are universally the highest-paid employees of the institutions they serve, well ... I could believe it.

And then, as if to re-tint the glasses I had been wearing, there came this story today:

COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) — Missouri football players announced Saturday night on Twitter that they will not participate in team activities until the university president is removed from office.

The statement from the athletes of color was tweeted out Saturday by several members of the football team, including starting running back Russell Hansbrough.

The move aligns the team with campus groups who have been protesting the way university president Tim Wolfe has dealt with issues of racial harassment during the school year. Jonathan Butler, a black graduate student, is in the sixth day of a hunger strike to call attention to the issue.

 I have no sense of the impact such a demonstration is likely to have but I do think that if the stopcock of financing that accrues to any institution with a football team is slowed or shut off, well that is likely to get the undivided attention of administrators who are themselves paid big bucks to bring money TO the institution, not swat it away with anything as distracting as principles.

Without knowing the particulars of the football players' action, I have a sense that they have done something both courageous and right. I suspect the action will harm them ... and that takes balls.

Football players work very hard. They are often treated to a preferential berth that a physics genius would drool for. Some, if not all, have their eye on a professional career in football ... and cutting off the stage on which to display their prowess may have some suicidal elements in it. Frankly, I think their action is likely to have more impact than all the heart-felt columns about racism can or will.

Football is god ... just like Mammon. The ho-hum greeting accorded to the fatal shooting of an unarmed black man or woman recedes further into the shade when the bright lights of football are threatened.

Is racism important? Sure it is.

But is football important? You can bet your black ass on it!

wisps and associations

If there were ever two peas that deserved to nestle in the same pod, the Central Intelligence Agency's extraordinary rendition program and the world of women's shoes must come close to heading the list: Both inflict an unimaginable pain that is generously praised by people who have college educations and should know better.

The black-site prisons maintained 'secretly' under U.S. auspices in foreign countries resound, when the client is not gagged, with screams worthy of the beleaguered female foot whose shape bears little or no resemblance to the haute couture manhandling it receives at an upscale soiree. To use the word "torture" is in itself barbaric to the peddlers: This is the exquisite apogee of agony, an art form, a tiara, a chalice of ... well, let's just say that crucifixion is small potatoes by comparison.

After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, there was a chorus of agreement that "we gotta get those bastards." The planes crashing into the World Trade Towers et al. was horrific. If torture is what it took to winkle out the perpetrators, then so be it. Psychologists, lawyers and a host of others weighed in on the legality and appropriateness of torture. Some 54 countries availed themselves of the waterboarding and tying men's testicles to car batteries. There was agreement. There was truth. There was a righteous vengeance. The word "terror" filled the air and multiplied by implication as time passed. We agree, more or less. It must be true.

Only later, when the equally widely-held view that torture did not necessarily produce useful intelligence were the mangled and tortured bodies tallied. Oh well....

Imelda Marcos, widow of Philippines dictator Fernando Marcos and sometimes called the Jacqueline Kennedy of the Philippines, was once said to have owned over 1,000 pairs of shoes. Whether this vast collection ever led her to reconsider the distorted and torture-prone match between foot its adornments is unknown. As an odds on bet, I imagine that Imelda just recognized the pain as part of the price for being social, for gaining attention from the chic and powerful. And nor was she alone -- women's shoe stores are far from out of common-sense business. There will always be some campy shoe designer to point out the 'beauty' and, more important, the kinship among women who seek out that beauty... or at any rate the agreement as to what that beauty might be.

Everything so pretty, but at what price?

Yesterday, on an Internet Buddhist bulletin board I wrote:

I wonder how many of the frictions and kerfuffles of this life would fall flat on their face if there weren't an on-going, seldom-spoken premise that agreement assures truth. How often do I feel relieved and vindicated that a lot of people agree with me? "Compassion," "clarity," "enlightenment," "love" "God" and on and on.... Pretty often is the unfortunate answer. It is unfortunate because that agreement allows me to skip over the highly-annoying necessity of finding out for myself if something is true,
There is a difference between the applause-o-meter (or catcall-o-meter) and whatever it is that has some true meat on the bone.
An ex-Jesuit shrink friend of mine once observed mildly, "Life is a smorgasbord." And that strikes me as about right: Make your choice, shoulder the responsibility, be thankful for what proves nourishing ... and puke out the rest.

What a confounding balancing act -- to sacrifice truth, which is a lonely business, for the kinship of great agreements and applause. This is not to say that far-reaching social agreements are, of necessity, somehow false. Perhaps they are true. But so long as the comfort such agreement provides is the main reason for asserting the truth, to that extent there will always be doubt. Human beings are social critters, so, which would you rather have, a great circle of friends or a nailed-down, hard-won sense of the truth ... the kind that involves reflection and effort?

While waiting for my sandwich in a D'Angelo fast-food shop the other day, an elderly guy ahead of me was doing the same. "And how are you today, young fellow?" he asked me idly to pass the time away. "I'm fine, young fellow, " I replied playfully ... the two of us were clearly over 70. "You're right," he continued. "I am a young fellow...." and there were some more playful words to fill the space. "Yup," I agreed. "you lie to me and I'll lie to you...." and in between we can assert a warming kinship and encouragement.

Nothing wrong with all this, I suppose, but it did strike me as a small example of some tomfoolery that fooled no one and set itself up for a defeat in later times. When you're young, you're young; when you're old, you're old: What precisely is wrong about acknowledging the bareass evidence seen in whitening hair, too-straight-and-probably-false teeth, and the advance of wrinkles and Jell-O jowls?

I guess that after a certain age, the question might be asked, "Who cares if it's fact or fiction?" Maybe kinship is worth the sacrifice of truth; maybe truth is worth the sacrifice of kindhip. I do know it becomes harder and harder to walk into a personal outback that holds the keys to the truth ... it really is lonely and, when you get down to it, what the hell would anyone do with the truth if they had it?

fear of bombs closes Main Street

The main street of downtown Northampton (appropriately called "Main Street") was closed to both pedestrian and vehicular traffic yesterday evening while police and bomb squad units investigated "several" suspicious packages that were subsequently deemed to be harmless.

The investigation as reported raised as many questions as it answered, but news outlets are no longer equipped/staffed to cover breaking news. Four or five packages were found; all were said by police to be related to an unspecified "school project;" no one was reported hurt. Closed after 7 p.m., Main Street reopened shortly after 9.

My wife said that if the boxes related to a school project, perhaps the teachers and students involved should foot the bill for state and municipal services assigned to the investigation. I'll vote for that: Don't do the crime if you can't do the time.

And, given the current national love affair with "terror" and the misdirection fear it has engendered in the nation, I would love to hear two or three reasons why this experiment should not be characterized as stupid.

PS. In Saturday's follow-up story, it seems the whole thing was part of a (possibly) Smith College photography project. 

more on Eido Shimano's resurrection

In the wake of a Nov. 2 letter from Eido Shimano, now comes a follow-up from Shinge, the abbot of Dai Bosatsu Zendo and a woman whose designation as "roshi" hangs on the approbation of Eido Shimano, a man whose own lineage as "roshi" is no where attested to. The meeting Eido Shimano proposes is to be formatted and the latest letter offers that format.

In the 1980's, 90's and following, Eido Shimano was under attack for his womanizing and financial hi-jinks. This history goes back to the 1960's and is largely documented in the overwhelming amount of data collected in the waterboarding detail of the Shimano Archive.

It is all pretty exhausting for me. And it occurs to me that that exhaustion is precisely the element that Eido Shimano is counting on in proposing this meeting. The sense of been-there-done-that hangs like a fart in the air ... dwindling, dwindling, dwindling ... and in that dwindling, bringing Eido Shimano that much closer to a redemption and power that has been whittled away.

Exhaustion -- I simply have not got the energy to do all the homework that, if the past is any example, mediators won't do either. The meeting will be premised in good will -- a phrase whose translation is a kind of yuppified gathering in which salient background is kept at bay because it is so gnarly. Instead a "deep listening" and caring demeanor will hold the spotlight and ... and ... and nothing.

What ever happened to the forensic audit that was to be done at Zen Studies Society? Where did all that money go? What ever happened in the wake of similar meetings held in the past ... so caring and hugging and factually selective? To what extent is the upcoming meeting the latest maneuver in the multi-million-dollar suit and countersuit between Shimano and Zen Studies Society? Why, when those most directly affected by Shimano suggested a public forum in the past, was his caring voice not heard? Layer upon unresolved layer mounts up until serious appreciations are relegated to the darkness and only the 'light' can shine.

Everyone's getting old now and the reasons for doing the necessary homework ... well, let's make nice and move on. "Mediation" sounds so good... much as it has in the past. Skimming the coffers is ... well, it's water over the dam, much as the psychological wounds are long past ... even as they may linger.

It's a pestilential realm, but ... cui bono in the midst of this latest 'caring' realm? Shimano for sure; Zen Studies Society most likely; and the pure-as-the-driven-snow shawl worn by something alleged to be Zen Buddhism.

No one was ashamed then. Why should they be ashamed now?

 

Subject: FW: Facilitation for Nov. 21 Meeting

Date: November 5, 2015 at 4:53AM

From the zen studies society

Dear Sangha and Dharma Friends,

As many of you are aware, Eido Roshi wrote a letter to our Zen community wishing to create an opportunity to speak from the heart and to offer his sincere regret.

This meeting is an important step toward the possibility of healing for those who have

experienced harm and for the community as a whole.

Recognizing the sensitivity of the issues, the need for candor, and the need for creating an

emotionally safe environment to have these conversations, the Zen Studies Society has engaged a professional facilitator for the meeting, Christine Hickey, who has taught mediation and conflict resolution for 10 years at Syracuse University College of Law, and has given seminars for a variety of professional organizations in the area of conflict resolution and associated topics. Chris is not a member of the Zen Studies Society or a student of Zen Buddhism, and has no connection to either Eido Roshi or to any current or former members, other than being invited to participate as a facilitator.

You will have an opportunity to speak to Eido Roshi in the presence of supportive friends and members.

Eido Roshi will also have opportunities to express his thoughts and feelings both by way of addressing the topic and in response to those who attend.

Chris will help everyone listen deeply to one another by paraphrasing or clarifying when

necessary, and by maintaining a respectful structure throughout the afternoon.

You are invited to participate to the extent that you are comfortable. You may wish to attend and simply listen and witness the conversations, or you may wish to speak.

Chris has kindly offered to speak with you before the meeting to answer questions about the process, to help you identify and articulate the key points that you may wish to share at the meeting, and to discuss your fears, hesitations, perceptions, anger, and other emotions. I strongly encourage you to contact Chris soon by email or phone if you are thinking about or planning to attend the meeting. Your conversations with her will be entirely confidential.

Speaking with her beforehand will help increase the chances for healing and closure. Chris may be contacted at mchickey_@a-znet.com or 315-422-9756. She is looking forward to hearing from you.

This meeting is scheduled for Saturday, November 21, 2015, from 2:00 to 5:00pm at All Souls Unitarian Church, 1157 Lexington Avenue (at 80th St.), New York City.

Shinge

do-over lifestyle

A brisk and burnished morning, one just shy of biting cold, one that says "come play with me" rather than "get your ass out of bed."

Idly, I wonder how much of what is done is done as a do-over -- connecting the dots that were never disconnected, as for example welding together day and night when day and night were never separated except in some delusional ego trip.

Two a.m. and two p.m. -- relax and it is all much more relaxing. And yet the do-over insists that each in his or her own time re-plow the plowed earth, search and discover and wonder that s/he ever put a hand to the plow: Recreating the universe in my own image, I learn that my own image really is a bit pushy, never mind foolish.

And yet, without the effort and investigation, things can seem a bit whopper-jawed. It may sound sensible -- "night" and "day" -- but where the one leaves off and the other begins doesn't compute very well. It can leave anyone edgy and seems to require a do-over to re-prove the proven axiom that could give a shit about all the proofs and smarmy lingo.

A do-over. Some seek to outflank or elude the effort, but it's no good. So, what the hell, you weren't doing anything anyway. Might as well straighten out the straightened bookshelf.

A crispy, brisky day. Come play with me.

the $2-million bra

True statement or false? --

There are tits and then there are tits.

Of course the $2-million bra from Victoria's Secret isn't a guarantee that anyone's breasts will be bigger, smaller, better, more inviting or sexy ... this feat of engineering is, in the end, what my then-sixth-grade daughter once described as an "over-the-shoulder-boulder-holder."

As your average hormone-laced male, I can drool with the best of them, but how much a brassiere cost or how glittery it may be plays a minor roll in my fantasy life. So, what does $2 million get you that $40 won't? Is it and therefore the person wearing it more alluring? Is there a bigger bang, so to speak, for the buck? Will it straighten crooked teeth? Does price improve performance?

I guess it's all a bit like the $43-million fueling station the U.S. Department of Defense built in Afghanistan and whose price tag was described by an investigative report as "gratuitous and extreme." Of course someone was obviously drooling in that instance as well: Some tits are just too inviting.

October column

For some reason, perhaps because I had several reservations about style and substance, I neglected to tack last month's newspaper column here. I still don't care for it much, but have a small rule that says to print it here as well, whether good, bad or indifferent.

By ADAM FISHER

Monday, October 26, 2015
(Published in print: Tuesday, October 27, 2015)

NORTHAMPTON — At $35,000 per weapon and $55 per round, the XM25 “smart grenade launcher” is scheduled for renewed testing by the U.S. Army early next year. And the BBC article detailing the capacities and wonders of this weapon caught my eye recently because it seemed to offer a small window on what my tax dollars buy.

Some 8-year-old macho male hormone just knew I’d want one of these babies if I were in combat.

Called “revolutionary” by one of its proponents, the XM25 allows combatants to program their ammunition to explode at a predetermined distance. This means a grenade can be set to go off just after it passes through a window or over a trench: No need to hit the target directly — an airburst near-miss is close enough to be fatal.

With an effective airburst range of about 700 meters (that’s 2,296.59 feet), there are obvious advantages for the shooter who is not forced into close proximity with his or her target. Still, even proponents concede drawbacks.

As one analyst put it, “[The XM25] is by nature quite indiscriminate — you can’t see behind the cover of what you are trying to shoot behind. Yes, you can shoot the grenades behind windows, for example, but you’d have to be very, very sure that [the target aside] there was no-one else in the room.” 

Oops.

The BBC article does not detail how anyone can be “very, very sure” at a distance of something more than a third of a mile. But I have a hunch that if bullets were emanating from a particular window or doorway or trench and if those bullets were aimed at me, the imperative to be “very, very sure” might diminish rapidly. Women, children and other noncombatant bystanders? 

Oops.

And it is at this juncture, with the XM25 as with other matters in life, that policy-wonk double-speak kicks in.

I’m like anyone else: In my life, I’d like to be credited for the “good” stuff I do and be absolved of the “bad” stuff. I too would like to look in the bathroom mirror and be pleased: “What a handsome, thoughtful, compassionate dude!”

Enter “collateral damage,” a phrase devoid of personal responsibility. No one is at fault. “Collateral damage” is the price of doing the business of war, sexless and without a face. Perhaps it is “patriotism” or perhaps just “war,” but where the negative fallout kicks in, applause is notably absent.

It is under the “collateral damage” umbrella that my 8-year-old can take refuge and claim the medals for the “good” stuff while eluding criticism for the “bad.”

On Oct. 1, a 26-year-old gunman shot and killed nine people at Umpqua Community College near Roseburg, Oregon. Nine others were wounded. It was just the latest in a litany of school shootings that have “shocked the nation” ... or at least shocked the nation until the shock wore off and the nation prepared for the next school shooting to “shock the nation.”

In each instance, hanky-twisting solutions are offered and forgotten. In each instance “mental health” or “background check” cards are played and everyone cares. Sort of.

In the United States 319 million people own a guesstimated 270 million to 310 million guns. Gun ownership has an enthusiastic fan base and none is more enthusiastic than the National Rifle Association. Gun ownership has been ruled a constitutional right and while other nations may be shocked by America’s principles, America is not.

And with the principle of gun ownership as deeply entrenched as the blasé willingness to pay taxes for the likes of the XM25, I wonder if it is not a good time to revisit the double-speak of “collateral damage.”

Perhaps instead of “collateral damage” and its ability to mute the screams of those not immediately targeted, some thought should be given to calling “collateral damage” what it is, namely, “collateral responsibility.” If the NRA and fellow enthusiasts are willing to assert the universal principle of gun ownership, isn’t it time to shoulder the “collateral responsibility” of slaughter on the Umpqua campus?

If I pay my taxes with the regularity of a good American, how long can I hide behind the double-speak notion that I am not complicit in the impossibility of being “very, very sure” that innocents are harmed? Is there a philosophy or religion that does not deserve equal scrutiny and responsibility?

How long, in short, can I go on claiming like some third grader that “the dog ate my homework” and that I get a free pass because my intentions are pure or my flag is more brilliant than yours?

Roughly speaking a belief is something that benefits the believer. Principles — as for example the principles of the Constitution — benefit a wider range of individuals and demand a self-examination that is not always pleasant. Believers are a dime a dozen. Principled people do not have it so easy, since collateral responsibility does not always shine brightly from the bathroom mirror.

At 75 years old, I am no longer 8. Perhaps it is time to stop insisting the dog ate the homework I didn’t do.

Adam Fisher lives in Northampton and writes a monthly column. He can be reached at genkakukigen@aol.com.

Eido Shimano letter

Wait long enough and the same stuff will come around again, as, for example, this letter by Eido Tai Shimano, a wealthy man who once played at Zen Buddhism and left considerable wreckage in his sociopathic wake:

November 2, 2015

Dear Dharma Brothers and Sisters,

We never know when our departure day will come. Now, at the age of 83, I am more aware than ever of the transiency of life. In addition, Aiho has been seriously ill for over a year.

I would like to meet with you face-to-face on Saturday, November 21, to speak openly from the heart. I know that many of you discontinued your practice at the Zen Studies Society, but I hope you will participate in the meeting from 2 to 5 p.m.

Judy Chang, minister at All Souls Unitarian Church, is kindly making her chapel available to us for this. The address is 1157 Lexington Avenue (at 80th St.), New York City.

My wish is to express my ignorance and sincere regret for hurting the hearts of the Sangha. It is my hope that through this face-to-face meeting, our heavy burden can be laid to rest, for you and for us all.

Gempo Roshi said again and again, "Human beings are emotional beings." I now understand this golden teaching at last.

Gassho,

Eido Tai Shimano

Eido Shimano, for those who hardly remember or don't know at all, is a Japanese fellow who came to the U.S. in the 1960's and was instrumental in helping to create two Zen centers -- Zen Studies Society in New York City and Dai Bosatsu Monastery in upstate New York. In the 1980's, his womanizing and financial shenanigans came to light. What followed was, to put it politely, a shit storm. At this late date, who will remember? Not many, I think ... which may be one reason he wrote his letter: Even a villain likes his publicity.

For those wanting to touch base with old and dusty and once-painful matters, resources include the Shimano Archive and a variety of segments of this blog
(1,
2,
3
and so forth and so on.)

It's all old, now -- old, old, old. Many a spiritual aspirant's heart was broken. Shimano may get his ginned-up resurrection, but I, for one, will not be there to agree with such fantasies.

Christmas spirit

Passed along in email: