Brent Rassmussen's Damascus Moment...

link


When you know what they stand for, you realize they are the biggest threat to freedom and democracy in the United States today.

Shokai asks a good question...

link

I wonder if "Jeff Gannon" has anything to do with it...

Logic and Buddhism...

Joe Carter mentions a "new apologetics blog," by one Dr. Thomas A. Howe that among other things, has a rather odd post about "Logic and Buddhism."

It's odd because it's not the usual superficial fundamentalist attack on Buddhism, but rather, a seeming admission that the "popular belief" that "the laws of logic—non-contradiction, excluded middle, identity—do not apply to reality or that they are not always relevant," do not apply to Buddhism, by quoting a "book on Buddhist logic," that affirms that you can't think two contradictory thoughts at the same time.

Now I think I'm going to expand this post a bit and consider the role of Logic and Buddhism without the seeming quote-minnig of Howe. (I mean, he quoted an entire paragraph out of an obscure book "Th. Stcherbatsky. Buddhist Logic. In Bibliotheca Buddhica: XXVI. Leningrad: ЛЕНИНГРАД, 1932," which of course every Buddhist learns by heart when they affirm the precepts, right?) Incidentally, for those of you who can't read Cyrillic, "ЛЕНИНГРАД" means "Leningrad." You can't make up stuff like that...

Now I see this is going to take a bit more than perhaps Howe would like, but here's the basic run-down:

• What logic actually is and isn't, as far as we can find metaphysical agreement.
• The Limiting/Liberating theorems of logic
• They don't call 'em 4 Noble Truths for nothing.
• The guys who wrote the sutras were smarter than fundamentalist give 'em credit
• The Heart Sutra, and Nagarjuna: Dense words, what logic?

So, I will intersperse this over the next few days, and probably the hundreds of readers that have been going to this site (yes, I'm not making that up) because of the "Jeff Gannon" scandals will have something to read that's a bit more, um, highbrow than "Who in the White House might have wanted a male prostitute?")

What the Average Conservative Really Resents about the "MSM"

Atrios merely said "Scalp Moonves," and go to Drudge. I think the following illustrates why there's so much resentment against the "MSM." And it doesn't have to do with "They're lying Libruls!!" Rather, it all boils down to the simple principle: when somebody says it's not about the money, you can be sure it's about the money....

On Jan. 10, when the 224-page report on the investigation into CBS News’ 60 Minutes Wednesday memo scandal arrived, CBS president Leslie Moonves issued a statement dwelling on the failures of the employees involved in producing the disputed segment.

Prominent among the targets was executive producer Josh Howard. Mr. Howard, Mr. Moonves said, "did little to assert his role as the producer ultimately responsible for the broadcast and everything in it. This mistake dealt a tremendous blow to the credibility of 60 Minutes Wednesday and to CBS News in general."

The producer, he wrote, had been asked to resign, and the network was "taking a variety of actions to put this crisis behind us."

Five weeks later, the crisis is not yet behind Mr. Moonves. And far from resolving the problem of the network’s credibility, the independent report commissioned by CBS appears instead to be leading to a confrontation, with defenders of both the ousted CBS staffers involved in the debacle and top CBS management asserting two different truths from the same document.

Mr. Howard and two other ousted CBS staffers—his top deputy, Mary Murphy, and CBS News senior vice president Betsy West—haven’t resigned. And sources close to Mr. Howard said that before any resignation comes, the 23-year CBS News veteran is demanding that the network retract Mr. Moonves’ remarks, correct its official story line and ultimately clear his name.

Mr. Howard, those sources said, has hired a lawyer to develop a breach-of-contract suit against the network. Ms. Murphy and Ms. West have likewise hired litigators, according to associates of theirs, and all three remain CBS employees and collect weekly salaries from the company that asked them to tender their resignations.

None would agree to participate in this article.

Legally, CBS and the ousted staffers are in an unusual stalemate: The network cannot be sued for breach of contract unless it actually fires them. Theoretically, the network could refuse to offer an apology or correct statements and simply drag its feet, continuing to write paychecks to the trio until their contracts expire. (Neither side would discuss how long the contracts are scheduled to last.)

But Mr. Howard’s complaint about Mr. Moonves’ remarks could pose a serious problem for CBS. Sources close to Mr. Howard said he believes that the report—which was assembled by an outside team of former Attorney General Richard Thornburgh and former Associated Press head Louis Boccardi Jr.—contradicts Mr. Moonves’ statement about Mr. Howard’s share of the blame.

(Emphasis mine.)

Ah, to have that kind of leverage in your day job....just turns you green with envy if you're a "conservative," doesn't it? I mean, that's more leverage than a defined benefit pension!

From Harper's.... a little ....uh... humor?

Harper's Magazine has a regular feature called "Readings," which is text culled from anywhere...This month's featured the exerpt below, which almost caused a nasal ejection of partially chewed up food:

HOLLYWOODN'T

From "Query Letters I Love," a website that publishes proposals received by Hollywood studio executives.

It isn't just the monkey that sets Laughing My Sphincter Off apart from the other cancer memoirs, it's also my skewed sense of humor. The one-two punch of the monkey's low-down physical commentary coupled with my friskiness of mind give the reader a unique look inside the soul of a person battling colorectal cancer.

The Singing Law Student commits suicide in his home. He was rejected by the woman he loved, his psychiatrist, and mistreated in the asylum. A parapsychologist moves into the home to encounter his spirt. Researching the link between manic depression and creativity, she brings a guitar with her for him to play. She encounters his spirit, and he sings his songs to her, which she records. She releases the songs, and the Singing Law Student becomes famous. His psychiatrist, the woman who rejected him, and the doctors at the asylum commit suicide upon hearing his voice and his songs throughout society.

An island community of millionaire super-models must overcome their vanity when giant, ravenous teddy bears threaten their quirky lifestyle on Sparkle Island, a place of grotesque wealth where locals use "cosmetic genetics" to eliminate every flaw in their appearance, celebrate Tickle Festivals to relish the euphoria of hysterical laughter, and thrill their pets with the sport of bungee jumping. Paradise is thrown into a blender when fanged bests of plush mysteriously arrive to show down on the gorgeous elite.

BTW, that issue has an article "Out of Iraq," by Adam Davidson, that should be made into a movie- if such a movie were made, it would be the best war movie since M*A*S*H. The story's not typical Harper's fare on Iraq, but rather the story of the author's attempt to make money by renting out a large house and subletting it to journalists working in Baghdad, the bizarre antics of his Iraqi staff, and the growing paranoia as the situation deteriorates.



(ht: technobbable and law )

Update: Query letters is a blog.

Good bedtime reading for folks in WA ...

Here is the election law from the Revised Code of the State of Washington. If people think that a possible error greater than the difference in votes cast is sufficient to trigger a new election, they can cite something from here.

Otherwise, they can simply admit they don't know or - perhaps even better- if they find that their interpretation doesn't exist, they can admit that... I wasn't able to find that...

Anyway, here's what I did find...read it & weep, righties:

RCW 29A.68.020
Commencement by registered voter -- Causes for.

Any registered voter may contest the right of any person declared elected to an office to be issued a certificate of election for any of the following causes:

(1) For misconduct on the part of any member of any precinct election board involved therein;

(2) Because the person whose right is being contested was not at the time the person was declared elected eligible to that office;

(3) Because the person whose right is being contested was previous to the election convicted of a felony by a court of competent jurisdiction, the conviction not having been reversed nor the person's civil rights restored after the conviction;

(4) Because the person whose right is being contested gave a bribe or reward to a voter or to an inspector or judge of election for the purpose of procuring the election, or offered to do so;

(5) On account of illegal votes.

(a) Illegal votes include but are not limited to the following:

(i) More than one vote cast by a single voter;

(ii) A vote cast by a person disqualified under Article VI, section 3 of the state Constitution.

(b) Illegal votes do not include votes cast by improperly registered voters who were not properly challenged under RCW 29A.08.810 and 29A.08.820.

All election contests must proceed under *RCW 29A.68.010.

Next up: Brit Hume...

link

Really, what Hume did is despicable; if the man had any sense of honor, he'd quit.

From a February 14 entry at Olbermann's "Bloggermann" weblog on the MSNBC website:

[Colorado college professor] Ward Churchill says some detestable things about 9/11 victims, so the Governor of Colorado wants to squeeze him out of the University there. Marine Corps Lieutenant General James Mattis tells an audience in San Diego "it's fun to shoot some people," particularly in Afghanistan, and his superior officers ask him to please not say stuff like that again. Eason Jordan makes a remarkable gaffe, implying that the U.S. military is hunting journalists. He backs off within moments of the remark, apologizes, and still gets forced to resign from CNN. Brit Hume and other political commentators twist Franklin Delano Roosevelt's words to make it look like he would've supported President Bush's partial privatization of Social Security, and nobody corrects their journalistic blunders, let alone resigns.

[...]

The Fox News folks, of course, specifically Brit Hume, squeezed the whole FDR thing. 'Media Matters For America' has done much of the legwork on breaking this down, and both on his radio show and at his website, Al Franken has done much of the publicizing. Hume, and others like those bastions of public conduct John Fund and Bill Bennett, have taken a bunch of 70-year old quotes out of context to make it look like Franklin Delano Roosevelt is endorsing President Bush's plan to partially privatize Social Security.

Blog Posts that have to be read together...Gannongate edition...

1. The inimitable Instapundit weighs in - yesterday-on Gannongate...

It seems to me that a genuine effort to pass it off as a nonpartisan news agency would have been slicker, and lacked the obvious GOP connection. Another good question from Bill Press: If this guy was fake, how come none of the mainstream journalists in the press room ever said anything about him?

I also agree with Kurtz that it was the stuff about Gannon's personal life that led to his resignation, and that there's something rather sleazy about that. Backstage or not, targeting parts of people's lives that don't have to do with the story -- like, say, Eason Jordan's love life -- seems inappropriate to me, and likely to lend support to the bloggers-as-lynch-mob caricature.

2. Today's barn-burner in Raw Story...





Is Scottie McClellan damaged goods yet? What did George W. Bush know and when did he know it?

3. The Rigorous Institution piece on Craig Spence and the parallels to today...(Or my blog snippet of it.)


BTW, that last blog is excellent...

Anybody who STILL thinks Guckert doesn't matter

should realize that John Aravosis et al. have just found the Bush administration's Monica Lewinsky- only it seems far more damaging than Lewinsky from what we know right now.

The "family values" and "security" agenda of the Republican Party just went down the toilet.

What appears to have happened is that the Republicans set up a fake news service to spin the news, and they hired a male prostitute to act as a journalist, who, as it turned out may be involved in the outing of a CIA operative, or may have been given access to classified material.

And that's what we know today, without a special prosecutor, without 40 million dollars.

Imagine if we start spending money and issuing subpoenas. Do you honestly think the Bush administration would not come tumbling down? Do you honestly think that Democrats won't agitate for this?

So it turns out that, according to Ameriblog

"Jeff Gannon" provided services...the White House cleared a guy who provided or offered services that James Dobson doesn't like...

This is kind of getting to be like that "Curb Your Enthusiasm" episode where Larry David hires a hooker so he can drive in the HOV lane...it's the Republican-spin machine equivalent of that at least.

Around the blogosphere...

From Ameriblog...a teaser of blow-the-doors-off blowback on Guckert...

And hopefully CNN will explain this obvious hack job... (ht: Atrios)

This excellent diary at Kos shows it's conservatives that favor intrusive government...

Articles that deserve to be read together...

1. The New York Times restaurant review of Masa, and from the New Yorker, John Kenney's "review" of the same restaurant, sort of. From the former...

Lunch or dinner for two can easily exceed $1,000.

Justifiable? I leave that question to accountants and ethicists. Worth it? The answer depends on your budget and priorities. But in my experience, the silky, melting quality of Masa's toro and uni and sea bream, coupled with the serenity of its ambience, does not exist in New York at a lower price.

2. Hugh Hewitt (and for meme-correctness I add in here "Hank the Angry Drunken Dwarf") whined here about the LA Times review of his "Blog," and "I am Not a Jackass," by A. J. Jacobs, reflecting on Joe Queenan's skewering in the NY Times Book Review of his book ''The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World." Jacobs is far, far wittier than Hewitt...

Reactions came in three varieties:

1. Calls with the soothing death-in-the-family, are-you-O.K.? tone of voice. These people all but offered to come over and remove the shoelaces from my Nikes.

2. The outraged-ally call. A disturbing number of friends claimed to know ''people in Jersey who could take care of things, if you get my meaning.'' One acquaintance lives in the same New York suburb as Queenan. She actually cased his house as a possible egg-throwing target.

3. The look-on-the-bright-side calls. By conveniently leaving out the ''nots'' and ''nos,'' a colleague was able to construct a blurb from the review: ''hilarious . . . entertaining . . . interesting.''

Good intentions, but I preferred to spend my time brooding. Why did it have to be reviewed by Joe Queenan? Couldn't they have picked someone nicer? Like Dale Peck? Or Moktada al-Sadr? Instead, I got this guy who proudly calls himself a hatchet man (it's in the subtitle to one of his books) and who apparently ate some bad chicken tikka masala before writing his review.

I spent weeks fuming over his attack on my sense of humor. He called me ''a poor man's Dave Barry; no, a bag person's Dave Barry.'' That's absurd. I am actually a bag person's David Sedaris. As for Queenan's comedic credentials, well, I don't want to sink to his level. O.K., maybe just dip down. I'd never been a big fan of Queenan's tediously grumpy shtick. I'd always put him alongside Mark Russell -- the bow-tied PBS satirist who sings wacky songs about tort reform -- in a pile of humor professionals I could safely ignore. A real Mencken manque.

Hewitt just comes off as paranoid and egotistical. At least Jacobs can write about the bad review his book got with good-natured humor. Outside of the LA Times, has Hewitt even acknowledged that much of the blogosphere outside of his Amen chorus has thought his work, especially recently, evocative of excrement? (Here's another great take on Hewitt...)

I should say that I think all 4 articles should be read together: they are a nice representation of the vanity and absurdity in the United States today; though the New Yorker piece is most assuredly the most good natured of all of them...although it- like the "Jackass" article, have the subtext that the intended audience would just as much love to be treated to a repast at Masa as they would get a favorable NY Times Book review...

Grotesque Urban Planning Creates the Politics of Red State Rootlessness

Phoenix/Scottsdale Arizona- Phoenix can be comfortable this time of year and it is; there's some strange flower here, though, that makes this place smell like Japan in May or June.

What strikes me as a visitor to this area (thanks to my travel agent neglecting major requests on this trip I lack a rented motor vehicle) is in this area especially- likely because it's a desert, stupid- in this area there are no homegrown enterprises at all, except for a dingy bar.

In a world like this, if one were to move here, one would encounter the familiar- the Red Lobster, the endless fast food, the Borders Books, Target, etc. This place could be anywhere no doubt there's a megachurch just up the road. Like many of these places, it's designed for cars- oh- you're a pedestrian, the travel agent forgot to get you that car and all the cars are rented? Well too bad. Don't cross the street. Besides, it's not as though there's really somewhere to go- despite the peyote-influenced art of the Southwest, this place is anywhere and nowhere; after all, they built this place out of a desert.

The use of space here "atomizes" society- it breaks society up into small fragments- and therefore without the overt brutality of the Soviet System, without developing a system of gulags isolated from each other from which there is no escape but work or death, the modern planned urban area of the red-state creates a society in which people do not readily know and rely on their neighbors, except, perhaps if they live in the same apartment complex or homeowners' association and if they actively participate therein. Another great example of this is the exurbs outside Denver- it is truly strange to see these areas on the edge of the plains, where the rootlessness extends to the very lack of trees itself. For a small-town version of this, Wenatchee WA comes close, except for the fact that it is redeemed by the retro architecture.

Into this Void, religion - especially conservative religion - positions itself as an attempt to counteract this atomization. But to me, it seems this conservative religion- especially in its megachurch metastization- ultimately cannot cure this rootlessness; it is "putting another head on top of that which is already there." The real cure for rootlessness is for people to do what they did in successful older cities. And that's for people to build communities, for people to exploit location rather than simply drive past it.

It'll happen when we run out of oil (is the life-blood of the megachurch petroleum?), I suppose, but the sooner the better.

Clearly in terms of (sub)urban planning, there is, or at least should be, a distinct difference between conservatives and progressives, and it should make itself known at the local level. Walking's good for people, and suburbs as well as urban areas should be designed and zoned so you can actually walk to get whatever you might need, and so that you can meet members of your community nearby, and if you want to go elsewhere, there is an option for mass transit. Regardless, when we run out of oil (or when it gets pretty dear at least) areas with these features are going to have a higher market value.

(Extreme leftists - the Earth Firsters- have grotesque ideas as well in this regard but when they start influencing public policy, then I'll devote more consideration to them.)

Just in case people forget what the details were on the Eason Jordan story

From the NY Times, Feb. 12, 2005:

Eason Jordan, a senior executive at CNN who was responsible for coordinating the cable network's Iraq coverage, resigned abruptly last night, citing a journalistic tempest he touched off during a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, late last month in which he appeared to suggest that United States troops had deliberately aimed at journalists, killing some.

Though no transcript of Mr. Jordan's remarks at Davos on Jan. 27 has been released, the panel's moderator, David Gergen, editor at large of U.S. News & World Report, said in an interview last night that Mr. Jordan had initially spoken of soldiers, "on both sides," who he believed had been "targeting" some of the more than four dozen journalists killed in Iraq.

Almost immediately after making that assertion, Mr. Jordan, whose title at CNN had been executive vice president and chief news executive, "quickly walked that back to make it clear that there was no policy on the part of the U.S. government to target or injure journalists," Mr. Gergen said.

Mr. Jordan was then challenged by Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, who was in the audience. Mr. Jordan then said that he had intended to say only that some journalists had been killed by American troops who did not know they were aiming their weapons at journalists...

In April 2003, he wrote an Op-Ed article in The New York Times saying that CNN had essentially suppressed news of brutalities in Saddam Hussein's Iraq, saying he thought the reports could have jeopardized the lives of Iraqis, particularly those on CNN's Baghdad staff.

"I felt awful having these stories bottled up inside me," he wrote. "Now that Saddam Hussein's regime is gone, I suspect we will hear many, many more gut-wrenching tales from Iraqis about the decades of torment. At last, these stories can be told freely."

I know, it's been published in the paper of record, not the alternate universe, but given this record- and the righties never came up with anything else- it seems clear that in this case, the right wing bloggers have attacked someone merely because they disagree with his political beliefs.

Sick.

Quasi-hiatus coming up....

I will be on business for most of next week, and will only have intermittent posts...

A penetrating glance into the obvious.

link

Yet government has only grown. The Cato Institute, a libertarian research institution, says overall federal spending has increased twice as fast under Mr. Bush as under Mr. Clinton. At the same time, the federal deficit is projected to hit a record high of $427 billion this year.

These trends seem likely to continue. The White House estimated last week that the cost of prescription drugs for Medicare beneficiaries, originally projected at $400 billion from 2004 to 2013, would, in fact, be $724 billion from 2006 to 2015. Republicans called for scaling back the benefit, but on Friday, Mr. Bush said no and vowed to veto any changes to the Medicare bill.

"The era of big government being over is over," declared Marshall Wittmann, a senior fellow at the Democratic Leadership Council, a centrist Democratic research organization. That would certainly seem to be borne out in the record of the Republican revolutionaries, known as the "Class of 1994" for the year they were elected. Of the 30 who are still in the House of Representatives, 28 hsponsored bills in the last Congress that would have increased government spending overall, according to the National Taxpayers Union, an antitax group.

Some of the expansion in government was beyond their control. One big reason for the rise in spending is the growth of mandatory entitlements like Medicare and Medicaid. Another is the administration's "war on terror"; the government has added an entire new agency, the Department of Homeland Security, since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and has spent many billions in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Here's what you won't read anywhere else: Low taxes are not often conducive to growth. Government spending is.

Woke up this morning hearing Mike Malloy...

saying there were 52 separate incidents in which there were warnings about 9/11 made to the Bush regime.

If true, then the Bush regime would be either colossally incompetent, or 9/11 is a LIHOP (let it happen on purpose) event.

If the latter, - and nothing surprises me anymore about this regime, though I remain unconvinced- then these people have committed serious crimes.

And the morality of those who support them?

Summed up best by Dr. Dean:

During a brief question period, he was asked why Republicans are seen as the party of values. When the audience asked him to repeat the question for those who could not hear, he said to laughter and applause, "The question was how come the Republicans get to talk about moral values essentially when they don't have any."

Real fats, please!

link

...[Dunkin Donuts'] doughnut specialist, cannot find a way to make one that tastes good without using partially hydrogenated oil, now considered the worst fat in the American diet.

An artificial fat once embraced as a cheap and seemingly healthy alternative to saturated fats like butter or tropical oils, partially hydrogenated oil has been the food industry's favorite cooking medium for decades. It makes French fries crisp and sweets creamy, and keeps packaged pastries fresh for months.

But scientists contend that trans fat, a component of the oil, is more dangerous than the fat it replaced. Studies show trans fat has the same heart-clogging properties as saturated fat, but unlike saturated fat, it reduces the good cholesterol that can clear arteries. A small but growing body of research has connected it to metabolic problems.

So far, only the most health conscious consumers are shopping to avoid trans fat. But food companies are betting that will change when the labeling law takes effect, and they have already spent tens of millions of dollars trying to get rid of trans fat without changing the taste of America's favorite processed and fast foods.

"Whoever's on that list of products with trans fats is going to be sweating bullets," said Harry Balzer, vice president for the NPD Group, a consumer research company based in Port Washington, N.Y.

At least 30,000 and as many as 100,000 cardiac deaths a year in the United States could be prevented if people replaced trans fat with healthier nonhydrogenated polyunsaturated or monounsaturated oils, according to a 1999 joint report by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health and the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.

This and other studies led the government's top medical advisers for the Institute of Medicine at the National Academy of Sciences to declare in 2002 that they could not determine a healthful limit of trans fat, as they had for other dietary fats. The following year the government approved the labeling law.

Give me real butter, real cream, real olive oil, real macadamia nut oil, heck, even real lard...

Art and religion...

Joe Carter has an interesting post today on "Christian art."

He writes "When did art stop being important to evangelical Christians? How did we go from Rembrandt to Kincaid?"

Well Joe, I guess your qualifier is "evangelical."


This church is St. Ignatius of Loyala, at East 84th St. and Park Avenue in New York.




This is the church were Jackie O. had her funeral. Probably John Kennedy Jr., too.

It's a rather wealthy parish. But I digress, except to say I guess they can pay for good arts.

The church is built in the style of the Jesuits- all Jesuit churches are built more or less on this style. Unlike some churches the acoustics inside this church are awesome.



And that's good, because despite the over-arching Catholic nature of this church, parish, etc. (it is, after all Catholic), it's gotamazing modern liturgical music- unlike any heard elsewhere. It's sacred, solemn, accessible, and not pop-ish.

So within Christianity, even today, there is a tradition of outstanding art. But, like all good art, it's got a subversive, non-conservative element to it. The Jesuits, of course, are the most liberal of Catholic orders.

Within the Buddhist tradition, art has been important since the Buddhists met the Greeks somewhere in or near Transoxiana all those centuries ago.

For example, there's Tiantong (Heaven Child) temple, near Ningbo, in Zhejiang province in China...

Tiantong Temple [Tiantong Si] (The Temple of the Heavenly Child) is one of the most important Chan (Japanese: Zen) Buddhist temples. Originally built during the West Jin Dynasty around 300 AD (some date it precisely from 265-316), it ranks second among the five sacred Chinese Zen Buddhist mountains. A very large complex of buildings, its one time total of 999 rooms has now shrunk to a "mere" 730 today arranged in twenty groups of buildings rising up the mountain slope. As one might imagine it is also one of China's largest Buddhist temples. Located in Zhejiang Province, about fifteen miles east of Ningbo and very near the Ayuwang (Asoka) temple [see on this site], Tiantong Temple is set into the sacred East mountain in the Tiantong Forest Park amidst thick woods and numerous famous scenic spots.

I might add, if you want to see an absolutely stunning example of feng shui (風水) this is the place to go. Trust me (I've been there, and if anyone wants to go at some point my wife and I might arrange a tour), this image doesn't come anywhere near doing the place justice. The whole temple complex is set perfectly among local mountains as though it were the focal point in a convex mirror. It is simply amazing to behold, and the monks are very lucky to have survived the Cultural Revolution with their lives and this treasure intact.

Within the Zen/Chan tradition of Buddhism, the Zen arts are very important- they are a means of practicing Zen, as well as self-expression. While Catholics may say, "To sing is to pray twice," in the Zen tradition, one only plays the instrument once, and plays it as though it is the last time you ever play it. This is true of all Zen arts: writing, tea, archery, etc. Needless to say it makes for high quality art, especially given the continuous practice and cultivation of attention.

Which brings us back to Carter, and, by implication "evidences" for Buddhism: Cultivation of attention and proper breath so as to cultivate attention and tranquility are very important in Buddhism, and give rise to an ability to create art. So does the emphasis on individual self-expression- which is inherently subversive, and the counter to "theologically correct." It's why Sogen Oki can do a scroll that induces curiosity and wonder at existence itself, and Thomas Kincaid makes a painting to try to make you forget a wall is there.

It's also why there's no evangelical Leonard Cohen...

Ye gods- the "Leadership Institute" is like "Juche School" for conservatives!

Here's some nice bellicose rhetoric from KCNA...


And (thanks to hopespring over at Kos ) here's some nice bellicose rhetoric from the "Leadership Institute."

Who are these guys? They claim:

The Leadership Institute, founded in 1979 by Morton C. Blackwell, is the oldest and most-respected training organization for conservative leaders at the local, state and national levels. Over the years, more than 40,000 of today's conservative "movers and shakers" have turned to the Leadership Institute for their training needs.

You have the opportunity to get the same training as many of today's most recognized and respected conservative leaders:

United States Senator Mitch McConnell, Kentucky
Former Governor Jim Gilmore, Virginia
Congressman David McIntosh, Indiana
Congressman Mark Souder, Indiana
Congresswoman JoAnn Davis, Virginia
Congressman Joe Wilson, South Carolina
Grover Norquist, President, Americans for Tax Reform
Ralph Reed, Former Executive Director, Christian Coalition
Rob Anders, Member of Parliament, Canada

Check out their "dorm questions." This place has "cult" written all over it.