Babble

Crackle | The 6th Day

2012-02-24T07:08:00.003-08:00

Hm. Crackle has this Schwarzenegger schlock-sci fi flick from about a decade ago up for streaming, free-with-ads. Neat.

SocialistWorker | Egyptian socialists answer the state's attack

2011-12-24T10:46:00.000-08:00

ACCUSATIONS ARE being leveled against the Revolutionary Socialists in certain quarters--chief among them the Ministry of the Interior's website and a number of satellite television channels, which are showing a clip from a video of a meeting which the Center for Socialist Studies organized recently in the wake of the massacre on Mohammad Mahmoud Street, with the title "What is the road to revolution?"

WSWS | US Congress passes two-month extension of jobless benefits and payroll tax cut

2011-12-24T10:41:00.000-08:00

From WSWS.org:

"Under pressure from senior Senate Republicans and sections of the corporate media, Republicans in the House of Representatives on Friday dropped their opposition to a two-month extension of federal jobless benefits and reduced Social Security payroll taxes for employees. After the Senate approved by unanimous consent a slightly altered version of the bipartisan bill on extended benefits and the payroll tax that it had passed on December 18, the House followed suit."

WSWS | US admits partial blame in deaths of Pakistani soldiers, but defends airstrikes

2011-12-24T10:13:00.000-08:00

From WSWS.org:

"In a yet to be released report, the US military has grudgingly conceded its mistakes played a role in the November 25-26 NATO attack that killed 26 Pakistani soldiers stationed in Pakistan’s Mohmand tribal agency. But the Pentagon and Obama administration continue to defend both the violation of Pakistani sovereignty and the deadly airstrikes themselves, claiming that the Pakistani soldiers had previously fired on a US-led special operations force."

WSWS | PNG crisis eases as Australia hints at military intervention

2011-12-17T06:06:00.001-08:00

There should be no doubt that America, and its allies, are indeed imperialist states. If a doctrine of "pre-emptive war" justifies the occupation of Iraq, why not "pre-emptive" military action to maintain "stability" (read: Australia's conservative government interest) in the South Pacific.

From World Socialist Website:

One of Papua New Guinea’s contending prime ministers, Peter O’Neill, yesterday strengthened his control of the key state institutions—the army and the police—after the Australian government let it be known that it had plans to intervene militarily, if necessary, to resolve a week-long constitutional stand-off.

NPR | There's No Going Home For Iraqi Squatters

2011-12-17T05:58:00.000-08:00

This sounds like the same cycle of poverty that allowed the Taliban to rise to power in Afghanistan; will we have a new set of excuses to occupy Iraq if (when) the current regime falls apart?

From NPR:

Nadia Karim Hassan says she stayed in her Baghdad neighborhood as long as she could, but by the height of the sectarian war in 2007, too many fellow Shiites were getting killed, and she had to leave the area and move into an abandoned building.

As American troops prepare to pull out of Iraq, one of the most striking consequences of the war remains unresolved today: the issue of people who were forced out of their homes and still can't go back. Relief organizations estimate there are some 2 million displaced people inside Iraq.

Socialist Worker | Tactics and the port shutdown

2011-12-16T16:23:00.001-08:00

I wondered when Occupy's actions would move out of public sqaures and into directly confronting the mechanisms of capitalism that working class people depend on -- I'm supportive of Occupy, and this kind of push-pull tension in confronting capitalism with direct protest was inevitable. I don't see easy answers, here; I don't think there are any.

From Socialist Worker:

In the aftermath of the West Coast Port Shutdown on December 12, a debate over tactics has emerged in the Occupy movement. The discussion centers on the role of port workers and Occupy activists' relationship to them.

The December 12 actions were an important step for the Occupy movement, especially in connecting to the struggle of workers against some of the richest and most powerful corporations around. But the future of the movement depends on Occupy activists adopting strategies and tactics that treat workers on the docks--and everywhere else in the economy--as allies and potential supporters, not as opponents.

People's World | Republican Extremism Goes Too Far

2011-12-16T16:12:00.000-08:00

The continued attack on the working class in this country simply amazes me. What is it going to take to get people to see that Republicans are merely pandering to their religious biases, and they do not actually serve their interests?

From People's World, today:

With double-digit unemployment, losing more manufacturing jobs than any other state and new jobs almost non-existent, the state legislature passed a retroactive 48-month lifetime limit on welfare cash assistance. Almost 40,000 people, the majority children, have been cut off. In addition, unemployment benefits have been cut from 26 week to 20 weeks. Other legislation will cut the amount jobless workers are eligible to collect.

One of the first acts of Republican Gov. Rick Snyder was to lower the corporate tax rate by almost $2 billion. The loss in revenue was made up by taxing seniors' pensions, slashing the earned income tax credit for low-income workers and cutting funding of public schools.

People's World | Marriage equality activists win victory for all families

2011-12-15T08:41:00.000-08:00

People's World:

ORLANDO, FL - At the Dec. 12 meeting of the Orlando City Commission, leaders voted unanimously to pass a Domestic Partner Registry. The City of Orlando registry will be the first of its kind in the Central Florida area, with supporters hoping the registry will soon be adopted by Orange County.

I'm not sure I agree with PW's headline framing this as a marriage equality win - we've got oodles of evidence on the ground that domestic/civil partnership laws aren't remotely equivalent to marriage, and there's little reason to think they ever will be - I hope this counts as a win.

No, "separate but equal" never really means equal, but at least this will help show people in Florida that the sky won't fall if at least some legal recognition for gay couples happens.

Socialist Worker | The Egyptian revolution continues

2011-12-15T08:31:00.000-08:00

Also on Socialist Worker:

THE FIRST parliamentary elections of the post-Mubarak era have just been staged against a backdrop of deadly clashes between state security forces and protesters in and around Tahrir Square that left at least 42 people dead and over 3,000 injured. What exactly spurred the recent outbreak of violence and how do you think these surrounding circumstances affect the overall legitimacy of the elections?

WHAT TRIGGERED the uprising this time are the same conditions that also triggered the January uprising. There isn't much that has changed over the past months, so the objective conditions for the revolt were there. All we needed was the trigger, something to happen that would basically ignite the whole situation again.

What happens if Egypt doesn't settle down into yet another essentially puppet regime of the West?

Socialist Worker | Persecuted by the national security state

2011-12-15T08:25:00.000-08:00

This morning on SocialistWorker:

AFTER MORE than a year and a half behind bars, Bradley Manning, the 23-year-old U.S. soldier accused of leaking classified information to the muckraking website WikiLeaks, will face a court date on December 16 in Fort Meade, Md. The Article 32 hearing is the military equivalent of a grand jury hearing, where a military judge will determine if there is enough evidence to proceed with a court-martial.

I don't have much hope that Manning will be treated impartially, given the hysteria around the entire WikiLeaks incident; reports of his having been tortured psychologically bode for a very public kangaroo trial, I think.

Dalai Lama | Education of the Heart

2011-12-15T05:28:00.000-08:00

His Holiness, the Dalai Lama:

My hope and wish is that one day, formal education will pay attention to what I call “education of the heart.” Just as we take for granted the need to acquire proficiency in the basic academic subjects, I am hopeful that a time will come when we can take it for granted that children will learn, as part of the curriculum, the indispensability of inner values: love, compassion, justice, and forgiveness.

https://plus.google.com/108551811075711499995/posts/PzysaPAv927

People's World | Despite attack ads, Elizabeth Warren gains steam

2011-12-15T05:26:00.000-08:00

From People's World:

WORCESTER, Mass. - Elizabeth Warren's campaign to defeat tea-party darling Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass., has surged to frontrunner status, even as Karl Rove's shadowy corporate-backed super committee PAC pours millions of dollars into attack aids on behalf of the current senator.

A UMass-Boston Herald poll released Dec. 7 showed Warren opening a hefty seven-point lead against Sen. Brown, the first time her campaign has been ahead. Warren's supporters argue that the numbers went up as more people came to know the candidate.

http://www.peoplesworld.org/despite-attack-ads-elizabeth-warren-gains-steam-with-video/

People's World |Occupiers message to Congress: All we want for Christmas is good jobs

2011-12-14T06:06:00.000-08:00

From People's World:

WASHINGTON-"All I want for Christmas is JOBS!"

That was the message on a placard carried by a Philadelphia Unemployment Project (PUP) member as he marched with about 50 other PUP members to join a "People's Camp" on the Capitol Mall Dec. 6.

PUP brought a busload to join rallies, speak outs and other mass actions during a rainy but mild week in the nation's capital. It included sit-ins outside lawmakers' offices demanding that they extend jobless benefits and create jobs by approving a multi-billion dollar public works program.
A coalition including Rebuild the American Dream movement, Service Employees International Union (SEIU) USAction and many other unions and community organizations are sponsors of the mobilization.

Protesters from Ohio sat down in the corridor outside House Speaker John Boehner's office, "bearding the corporate Grinch in his den." It was one of dozens of impromptu sit-ins at congressional offices to protest Republican obstruction of President Barack Obama's jobs program.

http://www.peoplesworld.org/occupiers-message-to-congress-all-we-want-for-christmas-is-good-jobs/

What I'm Listening To: Above & Beyond

2011-12-09T21:24:00.001-08:00

Every Little Beat - Above & Beyond (from the brilliant new album Group Therapy)

Listen on Spotify.

It's time to be scared of the Republicans again

2011-12-07T10:26:00.001-08:00

This is among the best explanations why I left the two-party, "lesser of two evils" system when I left the Democratic Party in 2001. We're never going to get parties that represent our interests as Leftists if we keep funding the Democrats as the only "realistic" choice.

The message is clear: You might be achingly disappointed by the first three years of the Obama presidency--by the bailout of Wall Street while millions of homeowners face foreclosure, by the failure to push for a real jobs program, by the betrayal of the promise of universal health care, and by the capitulation to the Republicans' deficit hysteria, even while the Bush-era tax cuts for the super-rich were preserved. But it's time to set that aside, and be scared of the Republicans again--and work for Obama and the Democrats in order to stop the "greater evil."

http://socialistworker.org/2011/12/07/republican-creeps-democratic-enablers

Is the 'abolitionist approach' working?

2011-12-06T06:54:00.001-08:00

Excellent new piece by Roger Yates at On Human-Nonhuman Relations:

My position is clear: animal welfarists do welfare, and what should be much more of a concern for “the abolitionists” is the fact that their arguments do not resonate with the vast majority of animal advocates.

Occupy Xmas?

2011-12-06T06:38:00.001-08:00

So, AdBusters, which served as the original impetus for Occupy Wall Street, is now calling for occupations and demonstrations at major retailers:

You’ve been sleeping on the streets for two months pleading peacefully for a new spirit in economics. And just as your camps are raided, your eyes pepper sprayed and your head’s knocked in, another group of people are preparing to camp-out. Only these people aren’t here to support occupy Wall Street, they’re here to secure their spot in line for a Black Friday bargain at Super Target and Macy’s.

This is in line with AdBusters' usual opposition to commercialism, which I generally support, but I agree with this piece from SocialistWorker dissecting the implications of this, and finding it ultimately counterproductive:

It should also be pointed out that at some of these holiday sales, people may be buying presents, but some may be buying for themselves what they can't afford at any other time of the year.

In no time at all we will enjoy bountiful harvests

2011-12-06T06:26:00.001-08:00

You have associated with a friend in the orchid room and have become as straight as mugwort growing among the hemp. If you will truly give consideration to the troubles I have been describing and put entire faith in these words of mine, then the winds will blow gently, the waves will be calm, and in no time at all we will enjoy bountiful harvests.

The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, page 23
On Establishing the Correct Teaching for the Peace of the Land
Submitted to Hojo Tokiyori on July 16, 1260

Faith is the secret to happiness

2011-12-03T08:04:00.001-08:00

Daily Encouragement by Daisaku Ikeda:

Faith is the secret to happiness for all people. When you truly forge your mind of faith, you will become an eternal victor throughout the three existences of past, present and future. Strong faith enables you to display your wisdom appropriately, so that you can take advantage of change and move forward in the direction of victory and hope.

http://www.sgi-usa.org/encouragement/index.php?m=12&d=3&y=2011

SGI President Ikeda: Compassion is the very soul of Buddhism

2011-11-29T06:13:00.001-08:00

SGI President Ikeda's Daily Encouragement:

Compassion is the very soul of Buddhism. To pray for others, making their problems and anguish our own; to embrace those who are suffering, becoming their greatest ally; to continue giving them our support and encouragement until they become truly happy—it is in such humanistic actions that the Daishonin's Buddhism lives and breathes.

http://www.sgi-usa.org/encouragement/index.php?m=11&d=29&y=2011

SGI President Ikeda: A Life Free of Work?

2011-11-29T06:10:00.001-08:00

SGI President Ikeda's Daily Encouragement:

Nichiren Daishonin discusses the meaning of the Chinese characters for the word benefit (Jpn Kudoku) as follows: "The ku of kudoku means to extinguish evil and doku means to bring forth good" (Gosho Zenshu, p. 762). We fight against those who try to destroy the True Law. That struggle purifies us and brings forth benefits in our lives. Justice or happiness without a battle is just an illusion. Thinking that happiness means a life free of hard work and effort is fantasy.

from SGI-USA
"For Today & Tomorrow"

http://www.sgi-usa.org/encouragement/index.php?m=11&d=28&y=2011

Socialist Worker.org | Occupy's Next Struggle

2011-11-28T16:29:00.001-08:00

If you think the Occupy crackdowns we're seeing across the country are really about keeping order, cleaning up 'unsanitary conditions' or any of the other weak excuses from the empowered elite, think again.

The raids, the arrests and the police violence are about trying to silence a movement that is giving voice to the accumulated discontent of the working-class majority in U.S. society. They're also about showing who's the boss--the political and business establishment.

http://socialistworker.org/2011/11/22/occupys-next-struggle

What we're seeing is as old as the rise of the moneyed elite itself. A working-class, populist movement gives voice to widespread discontent with the status quo, and after a few perfunctory claims to respecting 'free speech,' the reaction from the elite is swift and violent. This is the way the elite maintain power: they do not respect the needs of the working class (that's a given), and any talk of respecting the rights of that class is ultimately for show.

Nichiren Daishonin: The blessings are the same

2011-11-28T16:02:00.001-08:00

On the benefits of chanting all or part of the Lotus Sutra (the Gosho of Nichiren Daishonin):

First of all, when it comes to the Lotus Sutra, you should understand that, whether one recites all eight volumes, or only one volume, one chapter, one verse, one phrase, or simply the daimoku, or title, the blessings are the same. It is like the water of the great ocean, a single drop of which contains water from all the countless streams and rivers...

http://www.sgilibrary.org/view.php?page=69&m=0&q=

The Basic Foundation of Humanity

2011-11-28T15:46:00.000-08:00

His Holiness, the Dalai Lama:

"The basic foundation of humanity is compassion and love. This is why, if even a few individuals simply try to create mental peace and happiness within themselves and act responsibly and kind-heartedly towards others, they will have a positive influence in their community."

https://plus.google.com/108551811075711499995/posts/Go5GWjkGCZ4

More Fundamental Than Religion

2011-11-21T05:30:00.001-08:00

His Holiness, the Dalai Lama:

More fundamental than religion is our basic human spirituality. We have a basic human disposition towards love, kindness and affection, irrespective of whether we have a religious framework or not. When we nurture this most basic human resource – when we set about cultivating those basic inner values which we all appreciate in others, then we start to live spiritually.

https://plus.google.com/108551811075711499995/posts/SThCj7Pbb6d

I'm boycotting a half a dozen products! I'm buying my way out of capitalism!

2011-11-19T04:32:00.001-08:00

There's a meme growing on Twitter that unless Occupy starts calling for boycotts "against the 1%" it will be doomed to failure.

No, it's the idea that a few consumer product boycotts will actually accomplish anything that's a failed idea.

The ridiculously tiny minority that control a majority of the wealth in the US, and most of the rest of the world, do not simply control raw wealth. They also control the means of wealth production. That won't change because you switch to a different brand of toothpaste for the length of a boycott; sure folks would feel like they're "supporting" Occupy, but it ends there; buying brand Z instead of brand X speaks to the 1% in what particular ways? It fundamentally says we're sheep and can be marketed to. The current status quo will only change if the political body - the state - that's empowered to actually redistribute wealth through progressive taxation actually taxes the super-wealthy and funnels that resulting revenue not into yet another series of wars as security theater, but to actual progressive domestic spending. Boycotts may feel good, but in this case, they're just feel-good consumerism.

The folks promoting this idea are well-intentioned, I truly believe, but utterly utterly naive. Do you know which companies Bill Gates is long on? How about Carlos Slim? How much of the rest of the 1% - and every single company they hold stock in - are you willing to boycott? If you're only interested in symbolic boycotts against one or two individuals of the 1%, then my criticism of this strategy is all the more certain. Even if you could get them to disclose every company they hold significant positions in, you're planning on boycotting every single one of those companies? If not (and, be realistic, in the real world, you're not going to be able to do this as a practical matter unless you simply stop buying everything), which 'targeted' boycotts do you suppose will materially affect the 1%?

It's just a meaningless attempt to buy one's way around the flaws of capitalism. You can't undermine and support capitalism at the same time. You might think your boycotts are meaningful, but in this case, this smacks of an awful lot of magical thinking.

Who should Occupy or its supporters boycott? What products? For how long? How will any of this - any of it - materially affect the 1%? If anyone can actually make a case for it, I'd support such a boycott, but thus far, I'm just seeing an awful lot of wishful thinking about the efficacy of boycotts in theory. Occupy's real power - and real opportunity - is not to get the 1% to change in response to some consumer boycotts that won't affect wealth concentration even a whit. The real opportunity at hand is to make the government more afraid of the 99% than they are of the ridiculously wealthy minority they presently serve. That won't come because you switch brands of detergent.

If Occupy and its allies - and I'm an ally, I hope it's clear I want Occupy to succeed - really believe that "Another world is possible," which I hope they do - I hope that's not just a nice, but ultimately meaningless chant - the opportunity here is to really critique capitalism while the general population is listening. Feel-good consumer boycotts aren't going to do that.

On Changing One's Karma

2011-11-18T06:31:00.001-08:00

Folks often confuse the doctrine of karma with fatalism, as if karma is unchangeable and as though folks who accept karma are 'blaming the victim' for their misfortunes. This isn't actually what karma really says. Nichiren is specifically addressing a woman questioner, here (bearing in mind the culture of Japan in the middle ages, this is an amazingly egalitarian perspective), but it applies to everyone.

In this age, it is as natural for a woman to change her fixed karma by practicing the Lotus Sutra as it is for rice to ripen in fall or chrysanthemums to bloom in winter. When I prayed for my mother, not only was her illness cured, but her life was prolonged by four years. Now you too have fallen ill, and as a woman, it is all the more timely for you to establish steadfast faith in the Lotus Sutra and see what it will do for you.

The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, page 955
On Prolonging One's Life Span
Written to the lay nun Myojo in 1279

http://www.sgi-usa.org/encouragement/dw.php?m=11&d=19&y=2011

Gosho | How Long Does a Lifetime Last

2011-11-18T06:17:00.001-08:00

How long does a lifetime last? If one stops to consider, it is like a single night's lodging at a wayside inn. Should one forget that fact and seek some measure of worldly fame and profit? Though you may gain them, they will be mere prosperity in a dream, a delight scarcely to be prized. You would do better simply to leave such matters to the karma formed in your previous existences.

The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, page 63
Questions and Answers about Embracing the Lotus Sutra
Recipient unknown; written in March 1263

http://www.sgi-usa.org/encouragement/dw.php?m=11&d=18

Daily Encouragement | On Human Revolution

2011-11-18T05:19:00.001-08:00

Only if you challenge your human revolution in a manner that is true to yourself will the people around you naturally begin to trust and respect you. That in itself is the greatest way of laying the groundwork for the spread of Nichiren Daishonin's Buddhism.

from SGI-USA
"For Today & Tomorrow"

http://sgi-usa.org/encouragement/index.php?m=11&d=17&y=2011

Vegans are terrorists! They're worse than Obama!

2011-11-16T16:06:00.001-08:00

I really should be used to the sorts of idiotic misrepresentations of veganism and the animal rights movement that mainstream media traffic in, but I ran across THIS today...

Daniel Andreas San Diego, 33, who has ties to animal rights extremist groups, is wanted for his alleged involvement in two bombings in the San Francisco, California, area, according to Special Agent in Charge Richard DesLauriers of the Boston Division. DesLauriers spoke at a press conference Wednesday afternoon.

http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2011/11/fbi_fugitive_terror_suspect_da.html

While conflating property destruction with "terrorism" - in violent actions in which no beings were harmed - is itself a bit of needless hysteria, it's at least an unexceptional part of the conventional thinking; in capitalism, profit and property ownership "rights" trump even concern for human need, more often than not, so it's not unusual that they'd unquestioningly swallow the "terrorism" meme. As usual, the anti-AR, anti-vegan brigade will want to jump on this; no, I'm not advocating property destruction, but no, property destruction in and of itself is not automatically terrorism, either - it depends entirely on what is being destroyed, and why. From MassLive's updated report:

On August 28, 2003, two bombs exploded approximately one hour apart on the campus of Chiron, a biotechnology corporation in Emeryville, according to the FBI. DesLauriers said the second bomb may have targeted first responders.

Then, on September 26, 2003, one bomb strapped with nails exploded at Shaklee, a nutritional and beauty products corporation in Pleasanton. San Diego was indicted in the United States District Court, Northern District of California, in July of 2004.

Sounds scary, right? If bombs are exploding at biotech and cosmetics firms, it must be terrorism, because, well, we can't let the freaky animal rights movement actually interfere with turning a profit on animal exploitation to 'test' cosmetics or animal experimentation, now can we? Even the updated report doesn't claim that the events (now) cited caused harm to any sentient beings, and it's possible that both acts are intentional acts of monkeywrenching. But the second bomb at Chiron targeted the first responders, right?

So says the FBI, and they have no interest in misleading anyone about this, now do they?

Monkeywrenching isn't terrorism. It's not a tactic I advocate or think is useful, but it's lazy, hysterical nonjournalism to blindly accept the state's claims of terrorism without actually digging any deeper.

But, of course, it gets better.

San Diego is known to cook, bake and follow a vegan diet, eating no meat or food containing animal products. In the past, he has worked as a computer network specialist and with the operating system LINUX. DesLauriers said he may make his living with these skills.

If he has continued his vegan lifestyle, San Diego also wouldn’t wear anything made from animals, such as leather.

So, let's unpack, shall we?

If you see somebody from a distance wearing pleather (which you'll be able to distinguish from regular animal skin by magic, or something) and you psychically discern that the veggieburger he's eating contains no meat, dairy or egg, and he announces his Latin sounding name - which will immediately set off alarm bells, since he's light-skinned, and won't have a regular American name... he ... MIGHT ... BE ... A ... VEGAN ... TERRORIST! Maybe just be wary of anyone in hemp shoes with a Latin sounding name, who fits the general description of...

San Diego is white with a light complexion, six feet tall, 160 pounds, wears eyeglasses...

Because, well, you know. PETA. Gives money to the ALF. Or something I heard, somewhere.

Fomenting bullshit hysteria counts as reportage? Really?

My Lonely Valentine | What I'm Listening To

2011-11-16T10:20:00.001-08:00

Another in the "Zomg, stomping house track you must buy now now nows!" series...

Deer are "Public Enemy Number 1"?

2011-11-16T04:55:00.001-08:00

New from FoA (http://www.friendsofanimals.org/news/2011/november/deer-hunt-cancelled-.html)

Since 1997, when Darien’s First Selectman appointed the Darien Deer Management Committee with Kent Haydock as chair, the town has pursued deer “as Public Enemy Number 1,” Priscilla Feral said, president of the Darien-based Friends of Animals.

When, oh when will humans stop arrogating to themselves the excuse to kill animals on the grounds that we have a 'right' or a 'need' to 'manage' their populations?

Humans have massively overpopulated the planet, far beyond the Earth's capacity to sustain our resource usage. Let's manage the human population, please. Leave sentient nonhumans alone.

DJ Ivan Roudyk & Shena - Aphrodisiac | What I'm Listening To

2011-11-14T08:58:00.001-08:00

Amazingly good vocal house track - I haven't been listening to enough diva house lately. hehe.

More PETA idiocy...sigh.

2011-11-13T14:33:00.001-08:00

Not sure how I missed this, but the usual silliness at PETA usually doesn't bear much comment. That said, this does:

Re: Ward Chanley. While Clinton is not a strict vegan, we nonetheless congratulate him on rejecting meat, dairy, and eggs. He has chosen a healthier, more compassionate diet that causes far less suffering than his previous diet had. PETA is thrilled that Clinton, a man of such prominence, has chosen a plant-based diet, and for this, we have named him PETA's 2010 Person of the Year.
http://www.peta.org/features/bill-clinton-named-petas-2010-person-of-the-year.aspx?c=weekly_enews

This in response to my comment on the story, here:

Given that Clinton admits to eating fish on his so-called "plant based diet" (http://www.fitsugar.com/Bill-Clinton-Eats-Plant-Based-Diet-Loses-Weight-Hopes-Healthier-Heart-11150638), PETA's award for "promoting" veganism isn't actually, you know, promoting veganism.

...are PETA's comment moderators really this tone-deaf? From the actual piece, here's the bolded, pullquote:

Because he uses his influence to promote the benefits of following a vegan diet, PETA is pleased to name Bill Clinton its 2010 Person of the Year.

So, let's unpack, shall we?

PETA awards a silly, "Let's get PETA mentioned in another news cyle" nonaward to Clinton because he's high profile, for supposedly "promoting" veganism, which the former President admittedly doesn't even do, since he isn't vegan, and isn't promoting veganism. At most, you might claim that Clinton is "promoting" the health benefits of pescetarianism.

When this obvious disconnect is pointed out, well, of course a PETA response furthers the idiotic claim that the former President has "rejected" meat ... because, you know, fish are vegetables.

This, folks, is why the animal rights movement as promoted by PETA makes zero progress. It doesn't actually mean anything.

FOA | Back from Pasadena.The Struggle for Wolves Continues

2011-11-13T13:17:00.001-08:00

New from Priscilla Feral at Friends of Animals:

Friends of Animals’ brief supported a filing for an injunction submitted and argued by Attorney Jay Tutchton of WildEarth Guardians on behalf of an alliance of non-profits litigating to return federal protection to the wolves of the northern Rocky Mountains. The case asserts that Congress used an unconstitutional method (slipping a rider onto a must-pass budget bill in April) to remove Endangered Species Act protections for wolves in Idaho, Montana, and parts of Oregon, Washington and Utah. http://www.friendsofanimals.org/news/2011/november/back-from-pasadenath.html

Many in Body, One in Mind - Victory Begins with Prayers Based on the Spirit of Harmonious Unity!

2011-11-13T13:10:00.001-08:00

Latest from Nichiren Daishonin's Gosho (excellent blog doing explanations and commentary on the Gosho):

Even an individual at cross purposes with himself is certain to end in failure. Yet a hundred or even a thousand people can definitely attain their goal, it they are of one mind. Though numerous, the Japanese will find it difficult to accomplish anything because they are divided in spirit. In contrast, although Nichiren and his followers are few, because they are different in body but united in mind, they will definitely accomplish their great mission of widely propagating the Lotus Sutra. Though evil may be numerous, they cannot prevail over a single truth, just as many raging fires are quenched by a single shower of rain.

Continues on Nichiren Daishonin's Gosho

...and this makes sense. Sigh. | Edit: Fixed, I think.

2011-11-13T13:07:00.001-08:00

So, the Next Blog link on Blogger is meant to take you to blogs like mine (if you like mine, heh) that should spark your interest. What does the link actually do after parsing my posts? It cycles between an animal shelter (no problem so far), and an anti-animal rights blog (sigh), and nothing else. Really, Google? Why bother parsing my content at all, in this case? Edit: it looks like this is fixed now. Sheesh.

Herself

2011-11-13T13:02:00.001-08:00

Herself... (more on Google Plus)

Haley Gibby's solo debut - what I'm listening to

2011-11-12T09:59:00.001-08:00

I can't get "This Is How It Goes" out of my head - and a preview of the whole album is up on Soundcloud, wooty. Produced by Kaskade, so it's tailor-made for me, heh. Brilliant, brilliant debut.

Buy on iTunes
Buy on Amazon MP3

All This Love (Album Preview) by Haley Official

Great compassion is the root of altruistic action

2011-11-09T16:05:00.001-08:00

His Holiness, the Dalai Lama:

Great compassion is the root of altruistic action. It really is a source of wonder. There is no greater source of help and happiness. The capacity to devote yourself to the welfare of others yields otherwise unobtainable power and potential for good. Generate great compassion and you become a friend of the world and a companion of the warm-hearted.https://plus.google.com/u/0/108551811075711499995/posts/Z6NK94EFqzJ

On Selfishness

2011-11-06T10:07:00.001-08:00

His Holiness, the Dalai Lama:

Human beings are not intrinsically selfish, which isolates us from others. We are essentially social animals who depend on others to meet our needs. We achieve happiness, prosperity and progress through social interaction. Therefore, having a kind and helpful attitude contributes to our own and others' happiness.https://plus.google.com/u/0/108551811075711499995/posts/TxoBJPwzuAc

Peaceful Mind

2011-11-06T10:02:00.000-08:00

His Holiness, the Dalai Lama:

The more adept we become at cultivating an altruistic attitude, the happier we will feel and the more comfortable will be the atmosphere around us. But if our emotions fluctuate wildly and we easily give in to hatred and jealousy, even our friends will avoid us. So even for people with no spiritual beliefs, it is important to have a peaceful mind.
https://plus.google.com/u/0/108551811075711499995/posts/h1CTBMc6t8M

Parallels - City of Stars

2011-11-03T18:15:00.001-07:00

So, SO good. What I'm listening to lately. I couldn't get into Crystal Castles, but this reminds me of every synth act I loved in the 80's; the melody is heartbreakingly sad, paired with poppy synths - the sort of irony I expect from the Pet Shop Boys. You want this.

To All Occupy Wall Street Participants

2011-09-30T04:58:00.000-07:00

This. This. A thousand times, this. Read the whole thing over on Reddit. Go. Now. Seriously. Then show up tomorrow in cop camouflage.

To all Occupy Wall Street participants, here is the key to your victory... (for serious)
submitted 8 hours ago by HotKarlMarx

Guys, listen. Here's the deal.
I love you guys with every shred of my hard-left leaning heart. But I think you might be doing something wrong. Here is one thing that can help you.
Tomorrow, wear a polo and khakis
Seriously. polos and khakis. Every time you guys DO finally get some fucking press, it's a scrawny dude with dreads in a ratty t-shirt. You're going big here, dress it. Tomorrow, Polo shirt and Khakis. (more...)

(via @wilw)

Prayer Gohonzon

2011-08-16T15:59:00.001-07:00

Independent Nichiren Gohonzon

Prayer Gohonzon (PDF)

2011-07-27T06:50:00.000-07:00

New from Gilly yesterday - this lovely shot of the Plymouth bay.

New photos from Gilly

2011-06-23T14:57:00.000-07:00

See more (slideshow on Picasa)

Nathan Winograd: It's Deja Vu All Over Again

2011-06-21T08:06:00.000-07:00

Nathan Winograd, on the lies used to receive grant funding (requiring that no healthy, adoptable animals be killed, the Maddie's Fund grant) for kill shelters, that still kill roughly half of the animals they take in:

We know it is a lie because as the number of animals killed who are claimed to be healthy dropped to zero, the number of so-called “untreatable” animals killed has increased. For example, the number of animals killed deemed “untreatable” increased from 576 to a whopping 3,486. Likewise, the number of “treatable” animals killed also spiked, from 31,568 to 37,888. Maricopa County officials also excluded 4,107 animals who they claim were killed at the request of the people surrendering them. Their lives were not counted in reporting results, the statistics—and the animals—swept under the rug. I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating: pounds and “shelters” do not create No Kill by killing as they always have, but simply recategorizing animals as “unadoptable” or “untreatable” and then killing them. We achieve No Kill by actually saving their lives. In fact, the latest report is an analysis in failure.
http://www.nathanwinograd.com/?p=6254

"Shelters" that take in grants from the no-kill movement that haven't bothered to change their kill rates one bit? This is the very essence of our myopic approach to animal "welfare." Donate to no-kills. Adopt from traditional "shelters." Do not buy from breeders. Ever.

Friends of Animals | In My View | Spring 2011

2011-06-20T20:12:00.000-07:00

Priscilla Feral, President of Friends of Animals, writes a quarterly column in FOA's magazine, Actionline. The Spring 2011 column is especially worth a read. Feral draws apt connections between the fetishism of guns and violence endemic in our culture and our culture's use/oppression of nonhumans.

Link: Friends of Animals | In My View | Spring 2011

Boycott Namibia over seal culling, South Africa?

2011-06-19T16:36:00.000-07:00

As is usually the case with single-species animal campaigns, this profoundly misses the point. While most South Africans are eating animal flesh from animals that have been treated no better, animal advocates in South Africa are calling for a tourism boycott against Namibia over seal culling. When, oh when, will we make the connection, and expand our moral concern to all animals, including so-called "food" animals.

Johannesburg - South Africans should boycott Namibian tourism and products because of the country's seal culling practices, three animal rights groups said on Wednesday.
http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Animal-rights-groups-Boycott-Namibia-20110615

Dharma, nonviolence and vegansim

2011-06-19T09:35:00.000-07:00

In a not-unexpected turn of events, I ended up in a back-and-forth with one of the many Gary Francione citing vegan advocates on twitter who seem hell bent on misappropriating every eastern religion they can find in order to claim that faith traditions thousands of years older than the modern animal rights movement inherently require veganism. I'd love it if it were true, but, of course, it isn't, and all of the cherry-picking of the dharma in the world to try and make this claim won't make it true. Things started here:

@wchanley There's no moral justification for anyone, particularly Buddhists, to continue the violence of animal use. Veganism is the answer
http://twitter.com/#!/LiveVegan/status/82433912810385408

While I obviously have no issue with vegan advocacy, as an animal rights, social justice issue, I did take exception to LiveVegan's characterization that there was some special vegan onus on Buddhists. I tried explaining that the monastic rules required that animals not be killed specifically for the consumption of monks and nuns, and that working as a butcher would be wrong livelihood, and that taken to its conclusion, dharma tradition could create a vegan future, as a result.

This seemed to fall on predictably deaf ears, as LiveVegan apparently googled for a few passages from some cherry-picked sutras that suited his/her taste and decided I was unaware that the Lankatavara Sutra among some other mahayana sutras criticize meat eating. But that's the very point he/she was missing. Some mahayana sutras criticize meat eating; they do not imply or require veganism, and these sutras have not traditionally been used as a foundation for ethical veganism within Buddhist communities.

The problem, here, and it's especially galling among GLF followers, is that folks don't ever seem to know enough about the faith traditions they're citing; some mahayana traditions encourage vegetarianism on some canon grounds, but they do not - as of yet - require veganism, no matter how much I'd like it if more people went vegan.

LiveVegan then decided to chuck his/her religious justification altogether, claiming that it was irrelevant what any religion had to say on the matter (which rather begs the question why single Buddhism out for special criticism in the first place). Trying to have it both ways instead of admitting you don't actually know what you're talking about is annoying, to be sure, but alas, unsurprising.

The whole exchange is on my Twitter feed if you're interested, but the basic point is this: vegan advocates, do you really need to misappropriate Buddhism, Jainism or some other faith tradition in order to advocate veganism and animal rights? Are your arguments for animal rights not strong enough to stand on their own, without trying to claim that some religion you (very likely) don't actually practice says things you want it to say (regardless of the facts) about veganism? Why eastern traditions in particular? Because Western religious chauvinism paints them as incense-waving, "exotic" pacifists?

Veganism as a moral position, and animal rights, as a social justice issue, are worthy enough to stand on their own merits. They don't need your flawed claims about the dharma in order to be valid on their own.

Talk about a pointless "scientific" exercise...

2011-06-19T06:05:00.000-07:00

In what is likely the very essence of needless duplication of effort, Iran's fledgling space program plans to send primates into space to...what? Utterly duplicate the efforts of the US and Soviet space program more than a generation ago?

DUBAI: The reports that Iran is planning to send a monkey into space have left animal rights groups frustrated and angry. According to state television, the country’s top space official said after the launch of the Rassad-1 satellite that it would send the monkey in the near future.
http://bikyamasr.com/wordpress/?p=34961

Am I seriously missing something? "Activists march against overseas abattoir cruelty"

2011-06-19T05:48:00.000-07:00

What am I missing? Why are animal activists in Sydney protesting abattoir practices overseas, while most folks in Australia eat flesh? Killing any animal for "food" is inherently a cruel act.

Up to 1000 animal rights activists have marched from Sydney's Hyde Park to Parliament House, to protest against cruel slaughter practices at overseas abattoirs.

http://www.smh.com.au/environment/animals/activists-march-against-overseas-abattoir-cruelty-20110618-1g8q1.html#ixzz1Pj39sMla

If slaughterhouses had glass walls...

2011-03-09T14:31:00.001-08:00

University of Utah agrees to stop using shelter animals for experimentation.

2011-03-09T14:03:00.001-08:00

Good job PETA! I'm often critical of PETA's "stupid human tricks" that trivialize animal rights using nearly naked women or celebrities in many of their campaigns. It's good to give them some credit where it's due - and it's good that the University of Utah is at least modifying some of its animal experimentation procedures (via The Peta Files):

"According to The Salt Lake Tribune, some U experiments have "completely halted" now that faculty members can no longer exploit animal shelters as a cheap and easy source of test subjects. The inability to obtain animals from shelters may have also helped prompt the U and the Primary Children's Medical Center to end the use of cats for intubation training (which PETA had also vigorously protested) and to switch to infant-patient simulators."

http://www.peta.org/b/thepetafiles/archive/2011/03/09/victory-at-the-u-reaps-bigger-gains.aspx?c=pfs#comments

Um. Utah? Why? UT HB210 Back before the Utah Senate

2011-03-09T10:17:00.001-08:00

So, Utah's back with their "humane" feral cat bill, now headed to the Utah Senate. Really? The Utah legislature hasn't ever considered funding actually humane trap-neuter-release programs instead (via Friends of Animals)?

"Utah HB210, allowing the shooting of suspected feral animals with legal impunity, has been restored in full, and it has made it past the House and into the Senate. If it isn’t stopped, this odious piece of legislation will allow cat, dog, and pigeon shooting in any area of Utah where firearms can be discharged."

http://www.friendsofanimals.org/news/2011/march/return-of-the-feral-.html

Can we move past the Bush-era construction about Aljazeera, please?

2011-02-23T23:41:00.001-08:00

I'm continually impressed by the scope of Aljazeera English reporting on the spreading pro-democracy/revolutionary uprisings throughout the Middle East (and now, with Lybia, Northern Africa).

Perhaps somewhat ironically, as I was listening to Macbreak Weekly today, Alex Lindsay made the cogent point that the news organization we bombed at the start of the Iraq war has been chiefly responsible for making the spreading populist uprising even possible, by continuing to report on it.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/02/201122445420412325.html

The Week in Sharia: Mama Grizzly Edition | Mother Jones

2011-01-28T19:05:00.000-08:00

Um. Really? Banning Sharia law from United States courts? What's next? Banning consideration of the Vulcan High Command?

No state court in the United States of America is bound by Sharia law. That being said, that so many conservatives seem to think that (theocratic) Sharia law is in some magical danger of bearing on court decisions here really should tell you something about what these same folks think about the separation of church and state here at home.

The Week in Sharia: Mama Grizzly Edition | Mother Jones: Legislators in Wyoming, South Carolina, and Arkansas introduced proposals to ban Islamic Law from state courts, bringing the total number of states that have moved on the issue to 11. Of note: State rep. Gerald Gay, who introduced the Wyoming measure, ran for office last fall on a platform of shooting abstract theories with high-powered weaponry; the Arkansas bill, meanwhile, was sponsored by state senator Cecile Bledsoe, who you may remember as one of Sarah Palin's 'Mama Grizzlies.'

Off to the vet | EDIT: All good!

2011-01-28T08:39:00.000-08:00

I'm off to a vet appointment this morning to have the beast seen to. Fell apart a bit on the phone with Mom last night. If she's seriously ill (she doesn't seem it, but this cough hasn't gone) I don't think I'll be able to deal with it. Anyway. Cross your toes.

EDIT: She's fine! The vet says she has feline asthma and gave her a steroid injection. I'm very - VERY - relieved.

Friends of Animals | Urgent Alert: Help the Bison Get Home

2011-01-26T19:17:00.000-08:00

Please take action on this:

Friends of Animals | Urgent Alert: Help the Bison Get Home: "As you read this, a group of formerly free-living bison are trapped and await their fate at the hands of ranchers’ protectors in the U.S. government. Al Nash, spokesperson for Yellowstone National Park, has just told the Bozeman Daily Chronicle that the park will announce what will be done with some of these bison by the end of this week. [ See article. ]"

"Weekday Vegan" as a commitment to animal rights?

2011-01-26T13:34:00.000-08:00

Over on www.thisdishisvegetarian.com I ran across a new-ish pseudo-vegan rationalization in this (I'm sure) well-intentioned piece by Elizah Leigh, in which she purports to show all she's learned being a "weekday vegan." This makes about as much sense as Mark Bittman's "vegan before six" construct, which is to say none at all, but the thing that jumped out at me were Leigh's stated reasons for her "vegan" transition:

My motivation for test driving weekday veganism involves so much more than a concern for my own personal health and well-being. The first issue that weighs heavily on my mind is the factory farming industry’s utter lack of regard for the countless living creatures that are perceived as ‘here today, gone tomorrow’ commodities.

http://www.thisdishisvegetarian.com/2011/01/10-things-ive-learned-about-being.html

How this squares with being non-vegan on the weekends is anyone's guess, but it still makes no sense at all. As Leigh herself allows, she's only "test-driving" her own version of semi-veganism. This totally ignores the ethical position that underlies veganism itself. We have to oppose this if we're ever to have any chance of communicating that ethical position itself. If veganism can be "test driven" (and part-time, at that) then it's just another diet. The ethics don't much matter, here.

Think it through: would we applaud this construction on any other sort of social justice claim? Can one claim to be opposed to racism or sexism "part-time?" Can one claim that the treatment of animals weighs heavily on one's conscience and then that moral concern can be discarded on a whim, when the almighty tastebuds win out, but hey, we're limiting it to the weekends, so let's all join hands and call this progress for animal rights...and make no mistake, Leigh would like folks to think at least part of her concern is, indeed, animal rights.

I know that I am not presenting a model view of veganism, but as someone who is incredibly moved by health, environmental and animal rights issues, I want to make a sincere effort to change my lifestyle habits.

Then why not make a sincere effort? Does your need for milk chocolate or whatever your trigger food really is justify animal consumption so long as you tell yourself you're making "progress" by limiting your consumption to Saturdays and Sundays? Are you really committed to the RIGHTS of nonhumans you exploit for your trivial tastes? Can you really rationally make this claim?

Of course not.

Now then: if the folks at This Dish had called the piece "Weekend Vegetarianism" or something similar, there wouldn't be much point in objecting. Given that "vegetarian" has become so diluted as to be meaningless, I'd have (regretfully, perhaps) left it be. But words matter. Meaning matters. An ethical consideration that animals are not ours to eat or wear was why Donald Watson coined the term vegan in the first place. Veganism is not a diet. It's not about eating healthier, or living in a smaller ecological footprint or even reducing factory farming. It may incidentally include those things, but ultimately, veganism is a moral commitment that animals do not exist for us to exploit for food, clothing and trivial, easily avoidable human conveniences. Any claim to "part time" veganism removes this ethical consideration and makes veganism just another fad diet that one can try on for size when one wishes to lose some weight or "get healthy" or "live green" or other such ego-fulfilling cliches...but ultimately it simply means that the folks promoting this notion haven't fully considered animal rights ethics, no matter how much they may claim to support those ethics.

Ex-SeaWorld Trainers Expose Orca Abuse | PETA.org

2011-01-25T12:55:00.000-08:00

Isn't it about time we stopped pretending that Sea World and similar animal entertainment ventures were doing something good for "conservation" or "education?"

Ex-SeaWorld Trainers Expose Orca Abuse | PETA.org: Two former trainers at SeaWorld have released a report that includes firsthand information about the stress that killer whales endure in captivity—stress that the ex-trainers feel led to the deaths of at least two SeaWorld employees.

We see this time and time again. Animals in circuses turn and attack their "trainers." Animals in marine "parks" like Sea World attack theirs. We are torturing these animals and depriving them of their natural lives for our entertainment - nothing more.

Sometimes Larry And Sergey Don't Tell Eric Schmidt About Google's Acquisitions Till Later

2011-01-23T14:31:00.000-08:00

This probably goes a long way to explaining why Schmidt is out as Google's CEO.

Sometimes Larry And Sergey Don't Tell Eric Schmidt About Google's Acquisitions Till Later: "Google CEO Eric Schmidt confessed at a press conference in New York today that he didn't know his company acquired Keyhole -- now known as Google Earth -- until after the fact. The same goes for Android."

Invisible Campaign | Talking Points Memo

2011-01-23T14:29:00.000-08:00

Gingrich has announced for 2012? Newt Gingrich? Surely the right has more sense than this.

Invisible Campaign | Talking Points Memo

TPM: Mitt Romney Wins New Hampshire GOP Straw Poll

2011-01-23T10:35:00.000-08:00

Of course it's far too early to read much into this, but Romney wins the New Hampshire straw poll...I can't help but wonder what this means for the 2012 Republican field.

The leaders of the New Hampshire Republican Party have spoken, and they have given Mitt Romney the early presidential lead in the Granite State. In the first-of-its-kind straw poll of members of the New Hampshire Republican State Committee, Romney drew 35% of the total vote. Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) came in second with 11%.

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/01/mitt-romney-wins-new-hampshire-gop-straw-poll.php?ref=fpa

Does this mean Romney's more moderate positions he held as Governor of Massachusetts will get pushed even further to the side? Can we hope that he'll tack more toward the center to try and win swing democratic votes?

Mother Jones Mojoblog on the administration's gun control efforts

2011-01-22T00:15:00.000-08:00

From Mojo:

The Tucson massacre has prompted gun-control advocates to promote several measures to regulate certain firearms or ammo. But it has not moved the Obama White House to propose any such initiatives. And the White House appears to have no plans to do so.

Well, not to ask the obvious question, but why not?

As Rachel Maddow's (Jan 13th show, MP3) been saying since the shootings happened, what the NRA has to say on gun control isn't the last word in anything.

Coping With Depression

2011-01-21T21:28:00.000-08:00

by Bhakti Tirtha Swami

Reposted from Krishna.com

Mental Illness on the Rise

In their 2001 World Health Report, the World Health Organization reported on the condition of mental health around the world, estimating that 450 million people on the planet have a mental or behavioral disorder. Furthermore, depression is now a leading cause of disability around the world, and, among the ten leading causes of the global burden of disease, it ranks fourth. The World Health Organization estimates that, in the next twenty years, depression will move up the list to become the second leading cause of disease. They also report that one million people commit suicide every year and between ten and twenty million make an attempt.

Considering these points, it is very important for us as spiritualists to understand mental illness so that we can help people who suffer from some of these problems. By understanding the effects of these mental disturbances on the consciousness, we will increase our effectiveness. This knowledge is a way that individuals with a higher level of consciousness can assist in many environments and bring in God consciousness. The spiritual warrior must protect the healthy and serve the wounded. In order to equip ourselves, we will examine mental illness and specifically depression from a psychological, physiological, and of course spiritual perspective.

Causes of Depression

Psychosomatic Diseases

Psychosomatic diseases distinctly develop from the mind, and, in certain instances, a person's mind literally causes them to experience a disease or repress the symptoms of a particular type of sickness, even to the degree of paralysis. Psychoneuroimmunology is a medical and psychological science, which studies the influence of the mind on the body. What does this topic have to do with depression? Psychosomatic diseases illustrate the power of the mind and are important for us as we try to understand depression. Just by recognizing the process of thinking, feeling, and willing, we understand how thoughts lead to actions. If we repeatedly maintain certain thoughts in our minds, they will eventually turn into words and then actions.

Furthermore, when a person feels alienated or unloved, it affects the mind. More specifically, it activates the neurotransmitters, which then send messages throughout the whole body and consequently cause an attack on the cells and organs in our own bodies. Many diseases actually develop due to the mind?s frequent attacks on the cells and organs in the body. The mind has just that kind of power. Conversely, when a person feels cared for and loved, their physical and psychological immune system actually gets stronger. Love literally heals, protects, and gives longevity, and a lack of love literally kills.

Biological Factors

Some types of mental illness as well as depression actually have a biological origin or counterpart. There are many different types of ailments, diseases, or problems that can cause a mental disturbance. Sometimes a physical imbalance such as sugar diabetes or low blood sugar can lead to an imbalanced mental state. A lack of certain vitamins or nutrients can create problems, even a thyroid problem. Some studies suggest that many people in mental institutions actually have a biological problem.

The Dark Night of the Soul

Christian theology has a term called “the dark night of the soul” or a period of serious testing which applies to all serious spiritual seekers. At certain times during our spiritual progression, we may go through periods of rapid advancement and growth although we may find it hard to perceive the situation in this positive way. We might reach a point in our lives when we begin to think, “I am chanting; meditating; praying; fasting; reading the scriptures; visiting the temple, church, synagogue, or mosque; and following the spiritual laws and principles, but I am miserable! Where is God?” At this point, one even begins to seriously doubt Krishna’s mercy and attentiveness. Such a person might feel that even God has forsaken them.

Many times we fall into a state of depression because we have been acting in the right way and our level of consciousness has become more elevated, but we fail to understand the seemingly negative circumstances and challenges in our lives. However, the Supreme lets us burn up that karma so that we can move into another chapter. If you look back through your lives, you may even recall times when you have in fact experienced such a period and began to question God’s existence or His fairness. However, when you look back now, you realize the purpose of such events in your life because they have helped you to increase or elevate your consciousness. Often, the result of intense suffering is elevation in consciousness. Such suffering gives us the intensity to break through the last layers of mundane consciousness.

The Influence of Subtle Entities

In some cases, different subtle entities actually affect the body. Some people’s thoughts, desires, and activities are so degraded and low that they invite or allow very negative and sinister entities to enter into their bodies and influence them to partake in extremely negative activities. Therefore, individuals who are not becoming more spiritual are gradually losing some of their freewill and their creative expression of consciousness. The bombardments of different types of influences and propaganda intrusion will have a greater affect on them. These increasing phenomena also can cause mental illness.

Women More Prone to Depression

Women usually suffer from depression more than men and have a greater susceptibility to fall into states of depression. One reason is that they usually have less control of their environments and tend to be more emotional. When a person has issues such as economic, political, social, or religious problems, it will affect them a little less if they have some control of the situation. However, when a person finds him or herself in the middle of a problem and must simply remain at the mercy of the situation, it causes so much more stress on the consciousness.

The World Health Organization reports that 20% of the world’s female population has been physically or sexually abused by a man at some time in their life. If a woman has repressed certain aspects of her past, these memories may begin to surface between her late thirties and forties which can lead to some disturbances in the mind or consciousness. A man may not understand the woman’s struggles during this period since some of her problems stem from issues of abuse during her childhood.

Misuse of Vedic and ancient cultures is another serious area that leads to problems and facilitates depression. A culture, which adheres to the idea that the man provides and dominates in a monarchial or autocratic arrangement, can become very destructive if the people abuse this philosophy. Instead of caretaking and facilitating the women, the men can create a completely opposite situation, which then leads to various types of abuse. When this happens, it of course produces great depression among the women. In many cases, the men just accept the arrangement as traditional culture without thinking deeply on the matter or feeling at fault.

Healthy Ways to Cope with Depression

Spiritually Minded Therapists

We now want to spend some time looking at solutions or at least ways of dealing with depression in a healthy manner. First of all, we have a need for spiritually minded therapists, or therapists who are appreciative of the spiritual culture, and most importantly, who are actually following such a culture. Although some of these mental challenges are physiological or biological, other mental disturbances stem from the mind, which means that talk therapy can help a person work through them. However, it can be dangerous to go to a therapist who does not understand or appreciate the spiritual dimension because they can even make one’s situation worse.

For instance, when a saintly person starts speaking in a spirit of humility, the average therapist will categorize this as low self-esteem and begin to treat the problem as low self-esteem. They do not understand that humility is a part of the wealth of a saintly person. The saint’s gratitude and closeness to God ultimately make him or her humble. The aspiring spiritualist may be fixed in simplicity and renunciation, but the therapist may see this as anti-social behavior. The saint may be pursuing chastity or celibacy, but the therapist may see this as unhealthy sexual repression. The list goes on and on. For these reasons, there is a need to have godly devotees with special expertise so that they can service their own communities and keep the devotional focus.

Maintaining Both the Body and Soul

We sometimes think that we can solve all of our problems simply through the execution of the rituals, and actually such practices can provide the essential help if we perform them with sufficient depth and purity. However, since such depth is very rare, additional help is needed to assist the practitioner in the removal of various blocks. As spiritual institutions and communities expand all around the world, we need to maintain body and soul together. The Vaishnava saint, Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura, explained that, in order to develop a healthy community, we need to balance the following four needs:

We need to take care of the body.
We need to properly stimulate the mind.
We need to have a sense of social well-being.
We need to study the sastra.

As we embark on the devotional path and experience certain types of challenges that go along with normal association, we should also seek out help, and if possible, search for those in the community who have a little more understanding of the physical and psychological needs as well as the spiritual aspects.

The Enemies of the Mind

Imagine a situation in which six enemies constantly surround you and incessantly wait for the opportune moment to attack when you put your guard down. The six enemies are lust, anger, greed, bewilderment, intoxication, and envy. These are some of the ways in which depression, anxiety, gloom, and frustration affect the mind. As soon as you become lackadaisical, they will swiftly approach. However, we can try to sufficiently reinforce ourselves and strengthen our weak spots if we know that maya will attack us in these weak areas. If we know the enemy’s hiding place—the mind, we can keep our distance instead of remaining in an insecure position or allowing the enemy to constantly attack from an ambush.

Many mental breakdowns deal with the mindset of lust because unsatisfied lust turns into anger and then turns into great illusion and confusion. We can also understand depression as anger turned toward oneself. Enviousness also creates an imbalance within us. We should be param-duhkha-duhkhi-kripam-buddhi which means that we should feel the misery of others as well as their happiness. We should feel happy for another person when we see something positive happen in their life. Actually, we should feel the same happiness for them that we would feel for our own selves in that same situation. This type of mindset can help prevent depression and mental disturbance. If we learn how to weed out these negative tendencies, we will find that it will lead to some wonderful solutions.

Relinquish Selfishness

If we find ourselves in a state of depression, we can also examine our degree of self-centeredness. There are two ways to play God. We play God when we see ourselves as superior and as the most important person. We also play God when we place ourselves in the center by thinking of ourselves as the most inferior or most unfortunate person. Other times people play God by considering that everything revolves around their problems. If you ask them, “How are you?” they will respond, “I am so glad you asked! I have a headache, stomachache, and a pain in my leg. I need a raise and my son is giving me such problems.” By focusing too much on our misfortunes, it will reinforce our problems rather than eliminate them. On the other hand, if we try to help someone else or try to go beyond our own immediate situation, we will see that Krishna will give us the help we need and even take away our own particular issues. Depression means that we are focusing too much on our own problems and withholding our love from others.

Faith is Most Important

We will not have the ability to persevere without faith but we cannot fake faith. When certain aspects of a person’s life are not going so well, his or her faith does get weaker. Our faith relates to what has happened in the past, what is happening in the present, and more directly with what we are anticipating in the future. If our past has been rough and our present is incoherent, our faith in the future will be weak. However, if we see positive events around us that we feel good about, we will have strong faith. Only a rare person can maintain strong faith when they have had a difficult past and a rocky present. In our communities, we want to create environments that will energize us and help increase our faith.

Gratitude as a Way of Life

Sometimes our mental challenges become very stagnant because we do not move through them. We do not appreciate the past, but the more we have gratitude, the more we create auspiciousness in the future. Sometimes the Supreme Personality of Godhead gives to us and sometimes He takes away. As devotees, we want to have such a grateful mindset that when God gives us so much wealth, we say thank you. When God takes it away and puts us into a state of impoverishment, we thank Him for protecting us from false pride. We thank Him for any situation that allows us to keep a simple life.

If we can just develop this consciousness and constantly thank the Supreme in any situation, we will be able to learn and grow from any circumstance. We will make the auspicious situations more auspicious and we will turn any inauspicious situations into auspicious ones. It will become a learning experience, and as we honor it with gratitude, Krishna will naturally make arrangements for us.

Conclusion

The mind is the greatest enemy although we can make it our greatest friend. It all depends on attitude. Setbacks happen in institutions, families, and to us individually but we want to avoid getting too depressed, discouraged, and disappointed. We should try to thank the Lord and try to learn from our circumstances. We wait for the Supreme to do more than we could have done for ourselves. This means that we need steady faith and perseverance. We can all encourage each other by first trying to have that faith and that faith will spill over and help someone else. In this way, we all inherit the Kingdom of God.

Isn't it about time you reconsidered eating animal flesh?

2011-01-21T21:13:00.000-08:00

From the PETA Files:

A meat processing plant in British Columbia found itself in deep doo-doo after a whistleblower let it slip that the company had covered up test results that found dangerous E. coli in a product sample. E. coli resides in animals' intestinal tracts and ends up in meat when—and there's no nice way to put this—their guts are ripped open during slaughter and their feces spill out onto their flesh, contaminating it.

Isn't it about time? Go vegan.

NPR Says "Vegans Take America"

2011-01-21T12:22:00.000-08:00

NPR affiliate OnPointRadio just posted a show on veganism. Looks like a great panel:

Kim O’Donnel, journalist, chef and author of The Meat Lover’s Meatless Cookbook. Her food column for USA Today is Family Kitchen.

Isa Chandra Moskowitz, author of the “Post Punk Kitchen” blog and author of the new book Appetite for Reduction: 125 Fast and Filling Low-Fat Vegan Recipes. You can read an excerpt.

Mollie Katzen, best-selling cookbook author. Her books include Moosewood Cookbook and The Enchanted Broccoli Forest.

Susan Nitzke, chair of the department of nutritional sciences at the University of Wisconsin, where she also is a researcher in diet and nutrition. For nutritional information on vegan diets, she recommends going to the Vegetarian Nutrition Dietetic Practice Group.

See the show page: http://www.onpointradio.org/2011/01/vegans-america

(Via Vegan Soapbox)

Chris & Kerri's Christmas

2011-01-21T09:36:00.000-08:00

My lovely friends Chris & Kerri spent Christmas at Kerri's Aunt Sue. Sue's posted gallery looks loverly.

View Sue's gallery on Picasa.

New AR Podcast! Woot!

2011-01-21T09:14:00.000-08:00

Michael Tiedeman's new podcast was just added to iTunes. The first episode is definitely worth a listen.

http://avoice4animals.blogspot.com/2011/01/voice-4-animals-podcast-episode-1.html

(His blog is worth a follow, as well. Hehe)

It's what they say, not how they say it

2011-01-21T08:22:00.000-08:00

Spot on analysis of calls for the "new civility" in the political landscape in the wake of the Arizona shootings.

It's what they say, not how they say it | SocialistWorker.org http://bit.ly/frmpqh

The central point is important:

Obama didn't refer directly to Palin or the controversy about the extent to which the right wing's hate-filled rhetoric should be held responsible for what happened. He didn't have to--most people who heard Obama's call for " a more civil and honest public discourse" would have filled in that blank for themselves.

But what he did say directly was telling – that Americans should rise above their differences and unite around "all the ways our hopes and dreams are bound together."

That begs the question: How are Sarah Palin's "hopes and dreams" for the world bound together with those of the targets of her bigotry? Why should people whose lives are being ruined by the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression "rise above their differences" with Republicans like Palin – or with Democrats like Obama?

This is the whole issue. Civility is nice, but not if it's an excuse for inaction. Bipartisanship, the administration's mantra-like refrain, is a tool for getting policy done, not a goal of being in office.

I'm not sure I'm thrilled with Valleywag outing Tim Cook

2011-01-21T08:13:00.000-08:00

Um. Hmm.

I'm not sure I'm entirely thrilled with Valleywag essentially outing Tim Cook. He isn't in a position to legislate against LGBT folks. Much as I think he'd be happier if he were publicly out, and much as I'm not thrilled with the double standard that suggests gayness is something that ought to be kept secret, it is still Cook's decision.

Meet Apple's New Boss, The Most Powerful Gay Man in Silicon Valley http://gaw.kr/gT20Cu

I think Gilly may be attempting to kill me.

2011-01-21T08:08:00.001-08:00

Gilly keeps sending me Ivor Biggun vids. I think he's trying to kill me (I'm falling out of bed, on to the floor with giggles).

Gilly's luvly photos

2011-01-21T07:33:00.000-08:00

My friend Gilly's amazing shots near his home. He's got such an amazing eye.

See gallery on Picasa

Boy - Amazing Grace

2011-01-21T03:25:00.000-08:00

I can't believe this has been out for months and I haven't talked about it yet. Such a return to form for Boy, and his voice is sounding better than it has in ages. The radio edit is a bit throbby, but it's such a lovely track, I don't care.

Klaus Nomi - Lightning Strikes

2011-01-21T03:21:00.000-08:00

I only had the barest idea who Nomi was before The Nomi Song (which is eminently worth Netflixing).

Oola is fierce. Yes. She is fierce.

2011-01-21T03:10:00.000-08:00

OMG. So good. Jen's Potato Noodles

2011-01-21T02:41:00.001-08:00

I keep making these. They're fantastic and Jen rocks. You need to make them, too. Now. Go. Now. Stop reading this and go read the recipe. Make them. You will thank me. (You should thank Jen, but I'm needy. Thank me. Hehe.)

http://veganised.wordpress.com/2010/09/28/potato-noodles/

Meet In The Middle

2011-01-21T01:41:00.000-08:00

View gallery on Picasa

Michael Steele on Rachel

2011-01-21T01:27:00.000-08:00

It's late, I can't sleep and I'm re-watching tonight's Rachel Maddow show. The interview with outgoing RNC chairman Michael Steele is interesting, but Steele seems to be as blind as ever about his mismanagement of the RNC the last two years. Maddow, god love her, is essentially softballing on the finance irregularities the show's been reporting on for more than a year. Here's a bit of the interview itself:

I suppose it's asking too much for a reflective Steele to allow that it wasn't just the power brokers in the party with an agenda against him: some of what went wrong were choices he made. Maddow is usually less willing to let that kind of evasiveness slide.

So, rather than asking Steele on the show to discuss issues that - as Maddow's own reporting points out really beg some explanation - instead we get half the interview on the fact that Steele didn't appear on the show. Steele laid the blame at unnamed folks within the party who - Steele says - also forbade him from appearing on his "buddy" Bill Maher's show.

See? Pretend the last two years of red meat tossed at the party's base didn't really happen; Steele's been a closet moderate all along. No, really. He watches Rachel and everything.

Pretend the incredible disappearing chairman didn't really happen. Did the same minders forbid Steele from being in front of a camera for the whole election cycle? There's a ton left just barely unsaid that begs a followup, which, atypically we just didn't get.

Maddow is usually so spot on with this kind of interview. A bit of a disappointment, this, I'm sorry to say.

Emma! Chris & Kerri's Furperson

2011-01-20T21:51:00.001-08:00

View gallery on Picasa

Deities and Deity Worship

2011-01-20T21:37:00.000-08:00

Reposted from Krishna.com
http://www.krishna.com/deities-and-deity-worship
No copyright infringement is intended.

Deities play an important part in most temples of Krishna. But what is the significance of Deities and Deity worship? One thing to understand is that all the images or Deities in the Vedic pantheon, as found in the temples, are made according to explicit details and instructions found in the Vedic texts. Then they are installed in the temple in an elaborate ceremony wherein the Divine personalities are called to appear in the form of the Deity. Some of the Deities are demigods, while others, such as Krishna, Vishnu, or Ramachandra, are forms displaying various pastimes of the Supreme Being.

Some people, however, do not believe that God has a form. But many verses in the Puranas and particularly the Brahma-samhita establish that the Supreme Being does have specific forms according to His pastimes. These texts also describe His variegated features, which include His spiritual shape, characteristics, beauty, strength, intelligence, activities, etc. Therefore, it is considered that the authorized Deities of the Supreme that are shaped according to these descriptions provide a view of the personal form of God.

Those who have no knowledge of God or His form will certainly consider the temple Deities as idols. But this is because they think that the Deities are simply the products of someone’s imagination. Of course, there are those who say that God has no form, spiritual or material, or that there is no Supreme Being. Others think that since God must be formless, they can imagine or worship any material form as God, or they regard any image as merely an external representation of the Supreme. But images such as those of the demigods are not additional forms of an impersonal God, nor are they equal to God. All such people who think in the above mentioned ways have resorted to their own imagination to reach such conclusions and are, therefore, idolaters. The imaginary images and opinions of God that are formed by those who have not properly learned about, seen, or realized God are indeed idols, and those who accept such images or opinions are certainly idolaters. This is because these images or opinions are based on ignorance and are not a true likeness of the Supreme Being’s personal form.

Nonetheless, God is described in the Vedic literature, which explains that God is sat-chit-ananda vigraha, or the form of complete spiritual essence, full of eternity, knowledge, and bliss, and is not material in any way. His body, soul, form, qualities, names, pastimes, etc., are all nondifferent and are of the same spiritual quality. This form of God is not an idol designed from someone’s imagination, but is the true form, even if He should descend into this material creation. And since the spiritual nature of God is absolute, He is nondifferent from His name. Thus, the name Krishna is an avatara or incarnation of Krishna in the form of sound. Similarly, His form in the temple is not merely a representation, but is also qualitatively the same as Krishna as the archa-vigraha, or the worshipable form.

Some people may question that if the Deity is made from material elements, such as stone, marble, metal, wood, or paint, how can it be the spiritual form of God? The answer is given that since God is the source of all material and spiritual energies, material elements are also a form of God. Therefore, God can manifest as the Deity in the temple, though made of stone or other elements, since He can transform what is spiritual into material energy, and material energy back into spiritual energy. Thus, the Deity can easily be accepted as the Supreme since He can appear in any element as He chooses. In this way, even though we may be unqualified to see God, who is beyond the perceptibility of our material senses, the living beings in this material creation are allowed to see and approach the Supreme through His archa-vigraha form as the worshipable Deity in the temple. This is considered His causeless mercy on the materially conditioned living beings.

In this manner, the Supreme Being gives Himself to His devotees so they can become absorbed in serving, remembering and meditating on Him. Thus, the Supreme comes to dwell in the temple, and the temple becomes the spiritual abode on earth. In time, the body, mind and senses of the devotee become spiritualized by serving the Deity, and the Supreme becomes fully manifest to him or her. Worshiping the Deity of the Supreme and using one’s senses in the process of bhakti-yoga, devotional service to the Supreme, provides a means for one’s true essential spiritual nature to unfold. The devotee becomes spiritually realized and the Deities reveal Their spiritual nature to the sincere souls according to their spiritual development. This can continue up to the level in which the Supreme Being in the form of the Deity engages in a personal relationship and performs reciprocal, loving pastimes with the devotee, as has previously taken place with other advanced individuals.

At this stage, having darshan or seeing the Deity is not simply a matter of looking at the Deity in the temple, but to one who is spiritually realized it is a matter of experiencing the Deity and entering into a personal, reciprocal relationship with the Supreme Personality in the form of the Deity. At that stage, you may view the Deity, but the Deity also gazes at you, and then there is a spiritual exchange wherein the Deity begins to reveal His personality to you. This is what separates those who are experienced from those who are not, or those who can delve into this spiritual exchange and those who may still be trying to figure it out. For those who have experienced such an exchange with the Supreme or His Deity, at this stage the worship of the Supreme Being in the Deity moves up to a whole different level, with no limits as to the spiritual love that can be shared between the devotee and the Deity.

Rainfall Just Outside

2011-01-20T19:03:00.000-08:00

Download: http://web.me.com/wardly/podcast/Rainfall_Just_Outside.mp3

Go Deeper

2011-01-20T18:58:00.000-08:00

Download: http://web.me.com/wardly/podcast/Go_Deeper.mp3

Untitled II

2011-01-20T18:56:00.000-08:00

Untitled II.

This uses a Garageband drum loop. Everything else is me.

© 2009 Ward Chanley. Free for non-commercial use.

Download: http://web.me.com/wardly/podcast/Untitled_2.mp3

Adding some oldies but goodies...

2011-01-20T18:36:00.001-08:00

In my ongoing efforts to consolidate the 219 blogging/social media platforms I've tried out and abandoned over the last three or four years (sigh), I'm reposting some oldies but goodies from elsewhere that ought to be kept around now that I'm safely back in the comfy chair that is my old Blogger account. Hehe.

Gun control...please? Please, people...

2011-01-20T18:33:00.000-08:00

I've listened to right-wing bloviation blaming the victims. (Check Salon. I'm not willing to give these idiots a click through). With that, I don't feel it's out of place to speak up.

Can we please, please dispassionately and intelligently re-examine the Second Amendment? Is it possible – just POSSIBLE, mind – that a provision that made sense to the framers more than two centuries ago might not have the same relevance in our modern democracy? While we're at it, can the NRA ratchet down the hypocrisy and stop pretending that gun ownership is under some kind of organized assault at the hands of the evil, nasty left? The NRA is one of the most massively funded, and widely successful lobbying organizations in history. But their default position - even as Glorious Leader feels like the most appropriate first response to the Virginia Tech shootings is to throw some red meat action their way - is to act like this will be the end of guns for all those law-abiding members of the citizenry who really, REALLY need an assault rifle. For hunting.

The Right in this country goes into heat threatening a new Constitutional amendment to ban abortion, prohibit gay marriage and make flag burning a crime punishable by death just about every 14 seconds these days.

Can those of us on the Left get over our fear of upsetting these idiots and start calling for a serious re-examination of the right to bear arms?

Who let them trannies into the club?

2011-01-20T18:32:00.000-08:00

To start, see the John Avarosis piece here...

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2007/10/08/lgbt/index.html

John Avarosis gets in a rant over on Salon about passage of the Employment Nondiscrimination Act and transgender inclusion. You may want to go read the piece yourself, because I don't plan to do a comprehensive summary here, but apparently his sticking point seems to be thus:

While he says he "supports" transgender rights -- just, you now, not right now, or anytime in the near future -- dropping gender identity from the version of ENDA now working its way through the House was precisely the right move, because we've got the votes for an LGB-protecting bill, but not an LGBT-protecting bill.

From there, we scurry down the rabbit hole. He uses that bit -- which has some serious critical errors I'll get to -- to meander around the whole "problem" of including transpeople in the LGBT alphabet soup in the first place...because, as everyone knows, transfolk really have nothing in common with gay people.

Where by "gay people," I suppose we really should say, "Gay men like John Avarosis."

Avarosis supposes that trans-inclusion was something that was "forced" on the gay community from the outside ("outside" here meaning the evil, nasty politically correct queens running national LGB-rights groups. Since we've got to scapegoat someone in this, it may as well be folks running national lobbying and activist organizations; that or any transgendered or transsexual person you happen to have handy will do, thanks).

The fundamental problem in Avarosis' line of thinking, of course, isn't that transfolk have been somehow magically added to the queer community -- they've been part of it all along. Including the T in LGBT is merely a recognition of the facts on the ground, no matter how hard gay men like Avarosis may want to pretend otherwise, or pretend that such recognition is being "forced" on us from above.

What do I have in common with a transgendered MTF? We're both gender variant. We both get an awful lot of shit for that fact from the culture at large, and truth be told, from lots of gay men who really ought to know better, but don't, as the continued promotion of this line of thinking indicates. Avarosis isn't saying anything really new, here; he's just trying to have it both ways - exclude trannies, but really "support" them, whatever that really means. If we're willing to excise transsexuals and transgendered folks from the queer community on supposedly pragmatic grounds, really, who's next? The queeny boy or the butch dyke? At what point does it become immoral or wrong to do something just for the sake of theoretical expedience?

Make no mistake, it is entirely theoretical. While the ENDA - in its current trans-excluding form - may have some chance of passing the House, its chances in the Senate are by no means assured, and there's always the strong possibility of a Bush veto. That Bush hasn't yet said anything about the bill doesn't mean he'll automatically sign it (that Bush hasn't yet threatened a veto of the bill somehow makes it just a slam dunk for passage in Avarosis' estimation). Bush isn't the idiot Democrats like to think he is. He's more than aware of who's funding the Republicans in the next election cycle.

What this fundamentally boils down to is this: do we want a queer community that can throw its some of its members under the wheel for the sake of expedience, or the slim possibility of passage of one bill? What does that bill really do for us, if it specifically excludes legal protections for gender-variant folks who arguably need its protections most?

Avarosis tries to make hay out of the notion that black people fought for civil rights just as incrementally, but frankly, that argument really holds no water. Black people fought for - and won - antidiscrimination laws that protected everybody, including white people, by being race-neutral in their language. An antidiscrimination law that outlaws discrimination based on race doesn't make exceptions for Latinos or Asians, which is really what Avarosis' defense amounts to.

Finally, for those Democrats who can't wrap their brains around supporting a trans-inclusive gay rights bill: you're doing us no favors. Stop taking our money and pretending you support us.

Avarosis can suck it (though he's probably too much of a man to admit that he'd actually like to)

2011-01-20T18:30:00.001-08:00

Susan Striker wrote a well-thought rebuttal to the crap Avarosis Salon piece I wrote about a couple of days ago, that makes several of the points I was trying to make much more coherently:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2007/10/11/transgender/

Striker corrects Avarosis bullshit view of queer history, for one thing, and rightly calls him on the claim that trans-inclusiveness isn't something being forced on the queer community "from above" as Avarosis has repeatedly tried to claim (apparently he's really on a roll over on his own blog; I'm loathe to give the idiot the clicks, but some of the comments to Stryker's piece on Salon are fairly telling).

I suspect, though, that what's really going on here is that Avarosis is one of a long line of "straight-acting" gays who really wish the gay movement would get back to providing him with fuckable nuggets of appropriately butch, straight-acting man candy instead of peskily bothering with equality for queers Avarosis has no particular interest in sleeping with.

Fundamentally, this comes back around to the question of just what we really mean by equality. Straight acting fags assume that conditional tolerance is good enough, but that comes at the cost of genuinely supporting gender variant people (gay, bi, straight or otherwise) who can't or won't conform to social expectations of gender. You simply cannot claim to "support" the rights of transgendered and transsexual persons while simultaneously claiming that they're expendable in your quest for "pragmatic" political action. There's no such thing as a scarcity of justice (to steal and rephrase an excellent point from one of the Salon commenters). Justice for all means absolutely everybody, which is an idea that even conservative gays like Avarosis ought to get behind, but he (and they) won't...because the dirty little truth here is that he simply doesn't believe in justice for everybody.

Hmm. Maybe it's time.

2011-01-20T18:28:00.001-08:00

I hate to say this, but maybe the trans community needs to organize itself, separate and apart from the gay (and here, I think I very specifically mean gay-as-in-gay male) community.

I've been debating the pragmatic vs. idealistic argument with regard to the ENDA with several people, and I'm slowly coming to the realization that relying on the gay community for anything at all is probably going to end only in frustration for transfolks. The ironic thing is that gay people themselves have been told the same thing for decades. This exact argument - precisely the same - has been used by supposedly progressive Democrats in the past with specific regard to nearly any gay positive state or federal legislation. For more than two decades - or, nearly the entire time the US has had a visible lesbian and gay civil rights movement - gay people were told by (supposedly) well meaning straight folks in positions of power that we'd just have to wait for our time to come, and that now just wasn't the time to try and pass a hate crimes bill or add "sexual orientation" to a nondiscrimination law. We'd have to wait until society caught up. We swallowed this until we simply refused to keep swallowing it. A generation of people my age and younger, who grew up in a post-Stonewall world, radicalized by AIDS activism were simply unwilling to wait for society to catch up.

What painfully short memories we have.

Or maybe there are just more folks like John Avarosis out there in the world and I've been giving the gay community credit it doesn't actually deserve. Maybe most gay people really only care about protecting against sexual orientation discrimination and nothing else. Folks have made this claim, publicly, before - Somewhat famously, Roseanne did, not long ago, and was excoriated for it in gay circles.

Maybe it's true.

Maybe it's time for the trans community to stop asking for acceptance from a GLB community that from appearances doesn't understand T* folks, and actively resists trying to. I'm ashamed of us queers for even coming to this place, but I've been beating my head against a wall with gay people who (I've said) really ought to know better.

You know what? We ought to know better.

But we don't.

We don't want to. Or, at least, we sure as hell seem not to.

I wish this wasn't where my head was at around these issues, but for better or worse this is where I'm at.

But I'll tell you this: the first pissed-off tranny who gets radicalized around ENDA - or whatever the next signal event happens to be - and starts a separate movement will have a few queer supporters throwing dollars his or her way. Because, ultimately, if it really does take a separate trans* movement to pry open the brains of the queer community at large, the organized GLB money machine won't be getting any more of mine.

Untitled 2

2011-01-19T20:09:00.000-08:00

Drums are a Garageband loop. Keys are me.

© 2009 Ward Chanley. Free for non-commercial use.

Download: http://web.me.com/wardly/podcast/Untitled_2.mp3

Untitled I

2011-01-19T20:07:00.000-08:00

The start of a whole slew of pieces named "untitled," since I can't manage song titles. Hehe.

© 2009 Ward Chanley. Free for non-commercial use.

Download: http://web.me.com/wardly/podcast/Untitled.m4a

Taltos

2011-01-19T20:04:00.000-08:00

Drum loops are Garageband. Everything else is me. © 2009 Ward Chanley. Free for non-commercial use.

Download: http://web.me.com/wardly/podcast/Taltos.mp3

Synthex I

2011-01-19T20:03:00.000-08:00

Kind of a new-age piece.

© 2009 Ward Chanley. Free for non-commercial use. Player and a download link after the jump.

Download: http://web.me.com/wardly/podcast/Synthex_1.m4a

Stratos III

2011-01-19T20:02:00.000-08:00

Stratos II

2011-01-19T20:00:00.000-08:00

Download: http://web.me.com/wardly/podcast/Stratos_2.mp3

Inspired by Overture

2011-01-19T19:55:00.000-08:00

Latest podcast track. Loosely inspired by the Tron Soundtrack (Daft Punk roolz! hehe), but the finished track sounds nothing like DP or the themes from Tron. My usual hot mess, I suppose.

Download: http://homepage.mac.com/wardly/.Music/Inspired_by_Overture.mp3

Synth Groove

2011-01-19T19:28:00.000-08:00

© 2009 Ward Chanley. Free for non-commercial use.

One of the first pieces I finished before I got a MIDI controller (no, I can't believe I did this one note at a time in GB, either). I love the Oberheim soundfont this uses.

Download: http://web.me.com/wardly/podcast/Synth_Groove_Oberheim_Lead_.mp3