Everywhere

They say that God is everywhere.
I know the Christian one and he's not what I find
everywhere I look.

The one who claims to be love
but in his teenage years ordered genocide
and never said a disapproving word about slavery

He's pretty easy to find
in the words of preachers and books
in church services
in imagination

He's not so easy to find
in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
in the chocolate slave trade
in the famine and ethnic cleansing of the Sudan
in the greed of Wall Street or the drug trade
in the segregation of the churches

What do I find
everywhere I look?
the light of perception, awareness
Lying in bed, awareness is present
Walking down the street, awareness is present
Sitting in front of the computer, awareness is present
Sleeping a dream, awareness is present
Driving the car, awareness is present
Watching the news, awareness is present
Talking to a friend, awareness is present
Lost in a daydream, awareness is present

Wherever I look, awareness is present
Where awareness is not,
I find nothing because
I can't even look.

power corrupts

Reading the following passage in Losing My Religion by William Lobdell, I had the thought that it reflects a truth of all human populations. He's writing about his wife's journey from faithful Catholic to unbeliever.

For years, she said she had been "judged up the gazinga" by priests during confession and counseling sessions, making her feel guilty and worthless. Now she was finding out that these same preiests had been convering up fro their molesting brethren, or that they themselves had unconfessed sins far greater than hers. She came to see Catholic priests as regular people who belonged to an all-male clube that absurdly believed its members held special powers -- like turning bread and wine in to teh literal body and blood of Christ -- that set them apart [from] the rest of humanity.

My insight was that the more any culture or group of humans sets some members apart with special status and powers, the more it creates the opportunity for abusive and fraudulent behavior on the part of the privileged group. That is, power corrupts, etc. And it seems that this effect is proportional to the distance between the classes and the impermeability of the barrier between them. The greater the distance between the privileged and the disenfranchised, the greater the incentive to present oneself as a member of the privileged class, even if such is not the case, the less the incentive for the privileged to treat the disenfranchised fairly, and the greater the opportunity for the privileged to abuse the disenfranchised. The more difficult it is for a disenfranchised to pass the barrier and become a member of the privileged, the greater the resentment and pain of the disenfranchised is likely to be and the less the incentive for the privileged to treat the disenfranchised with respect. Such dynamics are likely to encourage the privileged to make the barriers even higher and the distance even greater, to isolate and protect themselves from the understandable resentment and rage of the disenfranchised.

These considerations are relevant within nations as well as without. As the gap between wealthy and poor continues to increase in the U.S., the greater the pressure for equalization as well as the greater the incentive of the wealthy to keep the poor at a distance and unable to move into the privileged class. Similarly, as the developed nations move farther and farther ahead of less developed nations in terms of technology, energy consumption, per capita pollution, per capita comfort, and so forth, the greater the incentive for the developed nations to maintain the gap and the greater the pressure for social justice.

The System Is Broken

US national labs receive lots of money to research energy production and consumption, how to mitigate the environmental impacts of energy production and consumption (global warming, habitat destruction, etc.), and ways to produce and consume energy with less impact.

Yet those same national labs waste amazing amounts of energy on a daily basis. Here are just a few examples.

• The food served in the cafeterias is consistent with the standard American diet (SAD) -- lots of meat, dairy, and highly processed foods. Food starts out as simple plants. To produce meat and dairy, we feed the plants to cows and chickens, losing a significant portion of the usable calories and emitting significant quantities of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere in the process. To produce processed foods like bread, snack foods, desserts, and highly sweetened beverages, the plants are processed in various ways, again losing a significant portion of the nutrients and emitting greenhouse gases. We could save energy by simply eating the unprocessed plants in the first place.

• Consumption of the highly processed food served in the cafeterias over time leads to chronic disease -- obesity, vascular disease (heart attacks and strokes), cancer, and autoimmune disorders. Eating unprocessed plants instead would save energy by reducing the future per capita healthcare requirements.

• More could be done at relatively low cost to encourage and support staff members getting more exercise and saving gasoline by riding their bicycles to work. Bike paths, lanes, and shoulders cost much less than the full roads required for cars or the fallout from accidents. Safety is a big issue at the labs. Why can't we make it safe to be green?
  

Who am I?

Who am I?

What am I?

Looking for I, nothing is found. There is just the looking. No looker to be found behind the looking.

Where do thoughts come from? They seem to simply appear from nowhere. It seems sometimes as if one thought leads to another, but there doesn't seem to be any way to be sure they are connected. What is seen is this thought, then another, then another, arising from nowhere, returning to nowhere. Or from God. Or from the conditioning. We can attribute the thoughts wherever we like. I still don't know where they come from.

Meaningless

How long can one enjoy a flat, tasteless life devoid of meaning? Maybe you can do without one of them -- meaning or flavor -- but not both.

Where does meaning come from? What connects signifier to signified?

Not the connection but the process that makes it -- awareness, consciousness -- that who is, what is, all that is.

Where does that process come from? Is it created by the brain or does it contain the brain? A moebius strip -- locally two sided, globally one sided.

Is it enough? Enough, not enough, all a judgement. Make the judgements happy. Be at peace. Or not. What else can you do?

So What?

Reading the coverage on the tazing of Andrew Meyer, I noted that a number of the stories pointed out that Mr. Meyer is a "known prankster" or has "a history of practical jokes."

Are practical jokers exempted from the right to free speech? Or was the point that this was just another of his "pranks"? How is the contents of his website relevant to the story?

The System is Broken: Liquor

The system is broken.

Trying to read your T-shirt

Men are stereotypically accused of looking at women's breasts. This conversation floated through my head earlier today and seemed funny...

Attractive woman wearing T-shirt: "What are you looking at, jerk?"

Me: "Um... I was trying to read your T-shirt."

Attractive woman: "Nice try."

Me: "It's true. Your breasts kind of get in the way. Sorry. Never mind."

Woman: "It says, 'Yanni Live'."

Me (looking away): "Thanks"

The System is Broken: Giving away national secrets is okay as long as you do it anonymously

"An embassy official provided no information about Iraqi casualties
but said no State Department personnel were wounded or killed. He
spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to
speak to media."

So what was he doing speaking to media?! How is this system supposed
to work?

Giving away secrets is against the law, but "officials" do it, and
get away with it, all the time. Sometimes, as in the case of Valerie
Plame, it seems to be the people in charge who *want* information
leaked inappropriately.

The System is Broken: Contradictions

Why are some registered dietitians overweight?

Why do some nurses and doctors smoke? Wouldn't you think that health professionals would exemplify good health? But many of them are overweight and have poor health practices, like smoking and failing to get enough sleep. Why is that?

Why do religious leaders and organizations get involved in lawsuits? Aren't they supposed to be the experts at getting along with others?

Why is a nation ostensibly devoted to individual freedom and choice trying to force its system on other nations?

The Devil in Your Details

Want your privacy invaded? Just take a trip abroad. Despite criticisms, the DHS is standing by most of the measures of their "Automated Targeting System." Even if they decide you're innocent, they'll store your personal information for 15 years.

What really caught my eye was the name of DHS' chief privacy officer. Here's a quote from the AP article:

'"ATS does not replace human decision-making," said Hugo Teufel III, the department's chief privacy officer.'

The guy's name is German for "devil". How ironic is that?

I thought we wanted a democracy in Iraq?

What are US politicians doing "[calling] for the ouster of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki"? Shouldn't that be a matter for the Iraqi parliament and people to decide?

Let's give them their country back and bring our troops home.

What's the Score in Iraq?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/graphic/2007/08/30/GR2007083000168.html

The GAO review is less favorable than the White House's, but even the White House review indicates that fewer than half of the benchmarks were met (8 out of 18)!

Why are we still there?!

In his book, Armed Madhouse, Greg Palast says it's about the oil. Our soldiers are dying for oil?! Bring 'em home!

Split?

"Fossil find pushes human-ape split back millions of years"

Who says there's a "human-ape split"? I would categorize humans as a kind of ape.

Nonduality in the Bible

"Yahweh God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." (WEB)

"At the morning talks recently there has been a musician who plays traditional Indian flute for the group after the talks. The flute does not know music: it does not know 'G' from 'B flat;' it does not know tempo or emphasis, and cannot make music come out of itself: it's just a hollow bamboo stick with holes in it! It is the musician who has the knowledge and the skill and the intention and the dexterity, and whose breath blows through the instrument and whose fingers manipulate the openings so that beautiful music flows out. When the music is ended, no one congratulates the wooden stick on the music it made: it is the musician who is applauded and thanked for this beautiful gift of music.

"It is precisely so with what we think of as our 'selves.' We are instruments, hollow sticks, through which the Breath, the Spirit, the Energy which is Presence, All That Is, Consciousness, flows. Just as it is not the flute making the note, but the Musician making the note through the instrument, so it is the breath which Presence which animates this mind and body and comes out through this mouth to make it seem that this mouth is speaking words." (Perfect Brilliant Stillness, David Carse)

Assumptions

Humans are causing earth's climate to get warmer.

No, they're not. The climate goes through natural cycles over time.

Human activity puts carbon into the atmosphere and that's affecting life on our planet.

No, it's not a problem. Or to the extent it is a problem, we'll find technological solutions.

The rainforest is being destroyed.

So what? The land that's cleared makes it possible to raise more food for people -- beef cattle, wheat, and so forth.

But that causes species to become extinct.

Spare me the sad music. Yes, some species are becoming extinct. That's a natural process. Species have always come and gone.

... and on it goes.

I wonder if an aspect of the debate and seeming inability of the debaters to find common ground might be different starting assumptions. Here's one: "Growth is always a good thing. We have to grow our economy and culture and value and wealth and worth. More and bigger is always better. More technology, more money, more food, more of the things we want."

Here's another: "Unlimited growth cannot be sustained indefinitely. The well-being of the system as a whole depends upon being in balance. Not too much of this, not too much of that. If we don't limit ourselves, eventually reality will do it for us."

Starting from different assumptions, the same evidence may be interpreted in wildly different ways.

In considering the various on-going debates, it might be most productive for each of the debaters to examine their own assumptions and consider how their assumptions drive them. It seems to me unlikely that this will happen, however. It seems much more in keeping with human nature for each debater to assume certainty and plow ahead, seek to devastate their opposition with clever, compelling arguments. So much for saving the planet and making peace.

Return to the Cold War?

Forbes describes the statements of the man accused in Britain of killing Litvinenko.

A reading based on the idea that Lugovoi is projecting Russian attitudes on Britain would indicate some interesting things about Russia. He calls his target "a haven for criminals," says that her officials indulge in "cynical and impudent lies", that they deliberately provoke confrontations with other nations for political reasons, and other Cold War diplomatic tactics. He implies "imperial aspirations" on the part of his mark.

If all Britain wanted was a scapegoat, seems like it would have been simpler to find one closer to home.

Your Culture Is Killing You

Read about what high fructose corn syrup does to your liver. And how common it is in food.

Find out what animal protein does to your risk of cancer.

Learn how the ocean is dying due to overfishing and global warming.

Find out how the medical system is failing to keep us well.

The system is broken. Better figure out how to protect yourself!

The "All is One" Hypothesis

Here's a hypothesis:

There is one big All which human minds divide into millions of little things.

The one big All can't be a thing itself because it consists of awareness and what appears to awareness. The awareness of All can't perceive All directly, just like an eye can't look at itself directly, although it can look at its reflection in a mirror. In the same way, what appears to awareness is a reflection of itself -- All is one, and every thing is part of it. The awareness and what appears to it is All's way of looking at and knowing itself.

One of the things that human minds divide the All into is persons. There is actually no personhood operating at any level, just awareness and the things that appear to it. There is actually no separation between things, despite the cognizing activity of human minds. All of it is just what is appearing to awareness.

Awareness is what knows the meaning of these words.

The Internet is Weightless

http://discovermagazine.com/2007/jun/how-much-does-the-internet-weigh/article_view?b_start:int=0&-C=

I'm not buying it.

What he measured is not the weight of the information, but the weight
of the medium carrying the information. The same electrons arranged
in a random configuration wouldn't weigh any less would they?

Besides, he just considered the electrons involved in encoding the
information when it's in a memory chip. What about when it's on disk?
How many electrons are involved then? What about when it's on the
wire? I don't know what the numbers are, but I feel confident they're
different. Does that mean the information has different weights
depending on the medium in which it is encoded? It makes no sense to
me to call the measurement the weight of the information if it
changes with the medium.

Suppose the Internet ran on vacuum tubes, which would use many more
electrons to record a bit than solid state capacitors on integrated
chips do. Would that mean that the information weighed more? That
doesn't make sense. If information has weight, it should weigh the
same no matter how it's encoded.

We can also imagine storage devices in the future that will be more
efficient than current capacitors, using fewer electrons to record
each bit. Will that make the information weigh less?

Consider the same information stored in a human brain and in a
computer. Take for example, the word "dog". Based on the argument in
the article, we can compute the weight of the word "dog" when stored
in an electronic memory. I don't know how many electrons would be
involved in storing the same data in my brain, but I bet it wouldn't
be the same number. If it's the same information, it should weigh the
same regardless of medium. The notion of information having weight
seems meaningless to me.

Finally, weight is a function of gravity. If we moved the electrons
from the Earth to the Moon, they would weigh less. Their mass would
remain the same, however. Thus, it would make more sense to measure
the mass of the information (assuming it has some) rather than its
weight. Based on the arguments I've presented above, I would say that
information does not have mass or weight, even though I've read
claims that it does. I'm willing to be convinced if someone can show
me the gap in my thinking.