Void bless 'em

This type of story used to be the kind to get blood boiling. Now I think it inspires envy more than anything else:

To understand what it’s like to work on the railroad — the Long Island Rail Road — a good place to start is the Sunken Meadow golf course, a rolling stretch of state-owned land on Long Island Sound.

During the workweek, it is not uncommon to find retired L.I.R.R. employees, sometimes dozens of them, golfing there. A few even walk the course. Yet this is not your typical retiree outing.

These golfers are considered disabled. At an age when most people still work, they get a pension and tens of thousands of dollars in annual disability payments — a sum roughly equal to the base salary of their old jobs. Even the golf is free, courtesy of New York State taxpayers.

With incentives like these, occupational disabilities at the L.I.R.R. have become a full-blown epidemic.

Virtually every career employee — as many as 97 percent in one recent year — applies for and gets disability payments soon after retirement, a computer analysis of federal records by The New York Times has found. Since 2000, those records show, about a quarter of a billion dollars in federal disability money has gone to former L.I.R.R. employees, including about 2,000 who retired during that time...

“Short of the gulag, I can’t imagine any work force that would have a so-to-speak 90 percent disability attrition rate,” said Glenn Scammel, long one of Capitol Hill’s top experts on railroads. “That defies both logic and experience.”

Why should Carly Fiorina be the only one to _____?

Seriously, yeah, yeah, yeah, but public sector employees aren't the ones ripping me off.

Incidentally:

Regarding this comment on this other article: My work - intellectual property created by me - appears in more cell phones than either Brad Warner or Gempo roshi have sold books by about a factor of geez, I dunno, somewhere between 100 X and 1000X.

It doesn't mean much, Buddhism-wise, of course. On the other hand, if you want your cell phone to work...

I too have quibbles about "Big Mind"

If you can find this spot in Chiba prefecture:






You will come to a temple complex founded by Tetsuo Sokatsu Zenji Daiosho:



He was a Dharma heir of Shaku Soen, and a Dharma brother of D. T. Suzuki, and it is in this lineage of Rinzai Zen in which I train. Not well, mind you, but it is my lineage.

And in this lineage in which I train we don't do any kind of mind-games. We definitely don't have instant enlightenment, but when things are going it's



just.




無。

And now for something completely different...

I used to think Brad Warner was a bit gimmicky for my taste, but I'm changing my opinion.

I'm Mumon and I approve this ad...

It's so nice to see a campaign being fought hard

John McCain: Anti-child.

What else can I glean from his new ad? (See E. J. Dionne, I'm not going to link to it.)

The Republicans are so greedy and drunk with power that they will risk even more kids be molested by lying about progressives who propose such legislation in order to keep their stranglehold on power.

Oh, and Sarah Palin?

Child abuser.

You learn something new every day... and today

it's about the works of Suzuki Shosan (鈴木正三), samurai Zen priest who lived 1579- 1655.

Turns out he was highly critical of Christianity, publishing a book (evidently the government liked it enough to publish it), called Ha Kirishitan (破切支丹), which has the nice passive title "Crush Christianity."

From the tiny snippet I've been able to read online, though, it's as harmless as Dawkins in its arguments.

Except for that "Southern Barbarian" thing. But evidently we were all barbarians to them.

Oh.

Wait.

Anyhow, evidently he's buried near Takao-san, near Hachiohji, which happens to be a suburb of Tokyo.

And he's noted at that website for his publication of 破切支丹.

They don't make 'em like they used to...

The Groove Tube, c. 1974.

In case you forgot they were bad guys...

Amy, Friggin' Goodman?

C'mon do they want to be stereotyped as thugs?

Daily Kos McCain’s Abramoff Problem: CliffNotes Edition...

If you missed this Kos diary, you might still think McCain's some kind of "reformer."

Yakchun-sa Temple Jeju Island, Korea...

Because I'm there. I'm a bit concerned about the "Zen Temple in the Faux Tropics" thing, but goddamit, it's certainly more authentic than the Teddy Bear Museum, and I'm here on business, and one thing I've learned in life is don't mess with the locals...

Update: I changed the title because it seems to be the spelling they use. Here's the temple's website.

You can stay there, too.

Putin's not a nice guy, and Russia isn't all huggy kissy...

Read this article on him in the NY Times.

This man is the guy in which our guy, Bush, found a soulmate.

I tried to find a place on the Russian embassy website where I could lodge a protest.

Couldn't find one.

But if you want a hoot - a real Bush hoot, and real insight into Russian culture as it really exists, look at the visa application for US citizens, and compare it with the one for non-US citizens.

They want to know, for us Americans, a) if you've ever been arrested (sorry, Arlo Guthrie, that trip to the dacha is out), b) all professional, civil and charity organizations which you are (were) a member of, or contribute (contributed) to, or work (worked) with (I don't remember that!), c) information about your last two places of work, excluding the current one (But, I think one ex-boss is dead!), and d) all countries you've been to in the past 10 years, and the year of visit (I lost count at 12 countries, and the space is roughly 4 postage stamp sizes).

I think none of that crap is on the non-US citizen visa.

I have a theory: you can tell a lot about an organization by its forms.

I submit as evidence the visa application for the Russian Federation.

Oh, one more thing on the US application I'd almost left out: look at the first question on the form:

Present citizenship (if you formerly had USSR or Russian

citizenship, please indicate when and why you lost it)

Did someone in, say, Armenia or Moldova "lose" USSR citizenship?

The fact that the 2 citizenships are implicitly equivalent here raises all kinds of questions...do they think all those USSR countries are really part of the Russian Federation?

Yet another reason we shouldn't be playing with stuff like this...

From Jonathan Taplin at TPMcafe...

In September of 2001, Bruce Ivins was just an unappreciated bio terror researcher in a lab at Fort Detrick, Maryland. He lived just off the base and many days walked to work. Though we now know he was probably suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, he had access to the most dangerous toxins in the U.S. Army's unrivaled storehouse. Ebola, Anthrax, smallpox, you name it, Bruce could get his hands on it. And then Bruce probably realized he didn't have to be the mousy nerd any more. And he carefully sent out some anthrax letters...

Two take-aways for me.

1. How the fuck did this nut case get access to these labs? And what did we do in reaction?

   We added 10 times as many University and corporate labs that have access to this deadly stuff. This is insane.
   

2. The lures to get in on the Homeland Security Gravy Train, a major topic of The Cost Of Empire, might move a truly mentally ill patient like Ivins, to kill people to get his patent taken seriously. It's like a Batman villian. But for every truly crazy guy who made big money in the Military Industrial Complex(MIC) in the last 30 years, there are 100 Jack Abramoffs--just short of being institutionalized--we'd call them ambitious, who've made far more than Bruce Ivens, as readers of this blog well know.

I can't but agree; it seems kind of crazy keeping stuff like this around folks who might be crazy...

Why do certain people get on television???

Really; why does J. Z. Knight get to be on Larry King, and dozens of folks I know from the blogosphere don't get to be on Larry King?

Call me a bigot, call me whatever you will

But I find the dust-up between P.Z. Myers and the Catholic Wingnuttium quite amusing. Maybe it's because of the abuse these "religious" people subjected me to in Catholic school.

Here's the latest bit.

And here's the post that started it all.

And here's the post where the "Great Desecration" is described.

BTW, Seung Sahn, no saint he, had a koan on what happened if someone came into a temple with a lit cigarette and flicked ashes onto the Buddha statue. Acting like Bill Donahue was not the answer to the koan.

Yes, Fox News really is nothing but right-wing propaganda

What I did on my summer vacation...

In which I clink tea-glasses with Taiwan's former defense minister Chen Li-an, and then watch one of his guests at this banquet partially consume a fluorescent tube. I'm not sure why he did this; the meal was superb...

A new cult in town..

A new cult has moved into the middle school near my house. It appears to be related to this "church planting" organization.

The middle school had been occupied by this cult., but eventually they got their own space.

So of course, what we need in our middle school is for another cult to move in.

Anyhow, I thought it was time to make sure, given the recent spate of burglaries in the neighborhood, that the last thing I needed was more fliers telling me about their wonderful "church which isn't really a church." So I contacted 'em...

To Whom It May Concern:

Please do NOT distribute leaflets in the Westridge Place neighborhood, which surrounds ________. In particular please do not leaflet or come to my house (______). Please have no people come and call for us or proselytize. Do not phone us. You are not welcome on our property. We have no wish to join your cult.

_________ has had a rash of burglaries lately, and your organization would not want to be liable if your leaflets left in doors or elsewhere advertised to criminals that some house's occupants are not home. If that were to happen to my house, and your leaflets were left in our door or elsewhere, I would contact a lawyer to initiate legal action against your organization. Do not take this personally, I have the same policy towards other cults, pizza joints, cleaning services, and so forth. Please enjoy the facilities you have rented, but please be respectful of our neighborhood.

The last cult that was in ________ leafleted the neighborhood continuously, despite admonitions to do otherwise. I would hope that you would be a better and more conscientious tenant, and I would humbly hope that you show greater respect than they did.

You are on notice.

In addition, I would note that I personally interpret the idea that yet another cult's church needs to be "planted" in our neighborhood smacks of arrogance and pride. Pride, being a form of greed, is a serious poison to humanity. It is also clear that in the past few decades, with the explosion of fundamentalist and literalist cult churches such as yours, America has experienced a decline in morality, and an upsurge in greed, hatred and ignorance. This, to me, seems to naturally stem from the very premises of biblical literalism. I harbor no illusions that I have any chance of dissuading you from acting on your cult's beliefs, but I still am compelled to ask you to reconsider your cult's belief system. Regardless, even if you do not, I would ask that you treat your neighbors who do not follow your cult with respect. While I have no problem in principle with your cult meeting at our local middle school, I would ask that you try to remember your are, as we are, guests who are only temporarily here. Let's not be nuisances.


Finally, perhaps you have taken umbrage at my use of the term "cult." According to yourdictionary.com, your stated beliefs do indeed qualify for the use of that term, since they are clearly extremist. Again, if you take umbrage at the use of that term as applied to your organization, perhaps you might want to reconsider your belief system and practices.

Cordially,

Very funny...very Obama

JibJab - Time for Some Campaignin'

The Serenity Prayer versus the Boddhisattva Vows

In a recent discussion with my sister, who has had more than a little exposure to the 12 Step variation of the Buchmanism cult, the issue of rather hateful, resentful relatives, and their racism, came up.

My sister opined that it's a "serenity prayer moment" - one of the things that can't be changed and therefore not in need of attention (almost said, "mindshare.")

I replied that even though that particular relative may never change, and indeed may stay in fear and suffering for eternity, we are still saddled with the responsibility to respond to hatred, even if that response is within ourselves. And that responsibility must be towards quenching the hatred.

That's why I don't have much use for the serenity prayer type thinking; it's not a question of separating one's self from that which cannot be changed - that's a sad illusion anyway. We. Are. Stuck.

It is however a question of how the lotus will bloom in the mud; how will we save sentient beings who are not only innumerable but don't give a damn about how much suffering is produced in the world. The way is unattainable, but we vow to attain it. Because we have suffering in need of quenching.

A "serenity prayer" is, to me, a highly unsatisfying and inadequate response to the wonderful opportunity to practice a koan.