A quickie post on upcoming items and random thoughts...

• Getting back from NY, I read this article in the Wall Street Journal on the
  "Conservative Mind." It begs a response, and both that article and my response, IMO deserve to be seen and read juxtaposed against each other. In short, this article exposes why conservativism is intellectually untenable, and why there is such a thing as a progressivism distinct from the straw-man carricature of "liberalism," if not whatever genuine liberalism is.
• From the above issue of the WSJ: economic trends: this year the US was the lousiest place to invest money all other things being equal, with the possible exceptions of the stock market in China taken as a whole (though FXI did well this year) and Venezuela. Pretty much everywhere else was head and shoulders gangbusters over the US. Emerging markets are trading places with energy, but little of it seems to be going to large cap US stocks, which to me says, that US equities will basically on the average remain in the dumpster until there's a change in policy in the US. But of course, you can't blame things like policy on Republicans, can you?
• Aphorism gleaned from an airport bookstore and an airline restroom: People may decry the 60s and hippies and all that, but frankly, Hot Tuna's album entitled "First Pull Up Then Pull Down" has a far better title, in my opinion, than "Seinlanguage." But that's just me...
  
• How can the US deny it tortures people when you can't find a parking space in downtown Flushing, Queens when you have to relieve yourself?
• Tip for relieving yourself in downtown Flushing, Queens: while the churches are invariably closed, the Buddhist temples are open during the day. And their monks and nuns are indeed compassionate.
• Because of all the family I met on this trip, it's clear that it'd be useful to put together a book, based on a series of posts (what else?) on "Why I'm a Buddhist." It amazes me how educated people for example, mistake images of Buddhas for western-like "deities," although they tend to lack things like omniscience, separateness, etc. So some simple explanation is needed. Heck, maybe it'd be an American Buddhist version of "Mere Christianity," which would actually suck; I can't pretend to speak for anyone other than myself, and usually not with a great deal of eloquence or profundity.