Thursday, March 14, 2013
Current Affairs ... Religion ... Society ...
So we have a Pope. How did my predictions from this past Tuesday do? The bottom line is, terrible. In the end of my note I concluded that the stodgy old Cardinals would give in to politics and go with a Scola, Oullet or Scherer. They actually had a bit of a surprise in store for most of us. Cardinal Bergoglio had been mentioned in passing by some Vatican analysts, but his odds on the European betting sites never got much better than 25 to 1.
And yet . . . at the beginning of my post, I imagined the Cardinals making some room for an eventual new wind to blow in the Church. I forecast that the new Pope would be old and Italian, and prove to be a transitional figure who would pave the way for a Southern Hemisphere man to follow, a younger and energetic pope who would define a new sense of Catholic mission in the 21st Century.
Too bad that I then cast doubt on my forecast. What actually happened was not terribly far from that scenario. Cardinal Bergoglio’s election certainly does set precedent » continue reading …
Friday, February 22, 2013
Brain / Mind ... Politics ... Society ...
Over the past few decades, America seems to be getting less homophobic and more accepting of gay life-styles. And that’s a good thing, obviously (well, I HOPE this is obvious!). Between 2001 and 2012, Gallup reports that the percentage of Americans who feel that homosexual relationships are moral increased from 40% to 54%. I did not see any data before 2000, but I would have to imagine that this percentage down in the 30’s or upper 20’s back in the 1950’s. Some other gay acceptance factoids: Public acceptance of gays in the military grew from 51% in a 1977 Gallup Poll to 80% in 2003; and approval of gays as elementary school teachers grew from 27% in 1977 to 61% in 2003.
One of the key factors to increasing acceptance of homosexuality appears to be the notion that gayness is more a matter of nature than nurture. Over the past 25 years, there have been many articles citing scientific research showing links between intra-family traits, genes and homosexuality. The Gallup report cited above said that in 1977, 56% of people polled believed that being gay was caused by their upbringing and environment, while 13% said it was something that people are born with. In 2012, those numbers are 35% environment and 40% born-with.
Obviously, there is still some resistance to fully accepting gay people; again, about one-third still feel that gayness is caused » continue reading …
Sunday, February 17, 2013
Current Affairs ... Society ... Zen ...
My Zen sangha (Clear Mountain Zen Center) has a web site where they post recorded mp3 files of the weekly “teisho”, i.e. the 10 minute talks usually given during the second sitting period by Sensei Carl Bachmann, or one of the senior teaching members. Last week, Sensei Bachmann’s talk reflected upon the movie “Zero Dark Thirty” in light of the First Buddhist Precept, i.e. “abstain from causing harm and taking life”. Actually, the Sensei was discussing the overall US effort to find and kill Osama Bin Laden, which is what Zero Dark Thirty fairly accurately portrays. The movie seems to have convinced him that evil truly exists. Some weeks ago he was considering re-writing our Gatha of Repentance as to expunge the term “evil karma”. But since ZDT, he is content with it.
So what did teacher Bachmann find to be the main evil of ZDT? I would have thought it was the September 11, 2001 attacks which killed 2,996 people, and also the other terror attacks carried out before and after that date by Al Qaeda against civilians in London, Madrid and throughout the Middle East. Those attacks appear to me to violate the First Precept in a huge and heinous fashion.
But no. The good Sensei felt that the covert US actions depicted in the movie, including the torture » continue reading …
Friday, February 15, 2013
Personal Reflections ... Science ... Society ...
My last blog entry discussed how important information clearly is. But as to it’s being the core of reality, the most fundamental thing about our universe . . . I myself don’t think that’s right.
Think again about my busy day off (discussed in the previous blog entry), and all the ups and downs that I had based on what information I had and did not have. The reality is that plenty of other information came my way in this time, but did not make much of a difference to me. I listened to the news on the radio, saw various cars and trucks on Route 46, saw the cloudy sky and felt the moderately cold air. Some people were speaking Spanish in K-Mart. Lots of information, but not particularly relevant to me. Despite all the science, it still comes down to the fact that some information means something, and other information doesn’t, relative to the user. Some information “informs”, other info does not. At the heart of the information is the word “form”. Information is abstract and intangible; form happens when things becomes real.
And what does “real” mean? Just what is real? I tried to get in touch with the answer » continue reading …
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
Personal Reflections ... Science ... Society ...
Yesterday was a good day to think about the concept of “information”, and what roles it plays in our lives. It was Lincoln’s Birthday, and my local government employer is one of the last that still gives this day off. Instead of sleeping in and enjoying a lazy day (where not much information would be required), I decided to get up early and plunge ahead with a to-do list. I was hurling myself into a state of informational need and uncertainty. For starters, I wanted to stop in on the 6:30 am quiet meditation session at my local zendo (Clear Mountain in Montclair). However, I knew that the fellow who usually opens up the place had the flu just a few days ago, and I was unsure if he would be there or if anyone else would show up.
This lack of information broke in a nice way when I arrived to find the zendo door open, a candle lit, and some of my fellow sangha members posed on their zafus in the Buddha hall. By 8am we had re-convened at the usual coffee shop. I got the usual parking spot, ordered the usual large decaf, and paid the usual price. The other people there were talking and acting in just about the same ways that I expected of them. My inner mental information state and outward reality seemed in synch once again.
My next stop was the state motor vehicle inspection station in Wayne, about 10 miles away. My car is due for the bi-annual emissions check, and it seemed like a good time to get that done. But wait a minute — » continue reading …
Friday, February 8, 2013
Economics/Business ... Public Policy ... Society ...
A recent study indicates that Baby Boomers on average have worse health than their parents’ generation did. Being an aging Boomer, this really disappoints me. My generation sold itself on being so hip and enlightened, so ready to change the world and set it free. I thought that we were earthy and close to nature and body conscious, that we exercised and ate healthy (organic even), and thus were going to age gracefully. We despised big-business manipulation and thus would avoid all the salivatory temptations laid before us by Pepsi and Burger King and Kraft foods, i.e. high calorie fast foods and microwave-heated processed meals and high-fat munchies from big plastic bags. But no, on average we are more overweight and sicker and have higher blood pressure than our parents had at this point in life. We might be living longer than they did, but only because of medical science; we will be depending greatly on its expensive nostrums to delay the inevitable end of our confused, contradictory, self-absorbed lives.
And in the process of using so much expensive medical care at the government’s expense (Medicare isn’t going to be touched despite GOP lectures about fiscal responsibility), we are dragging down the nation’s economic growth and making a much more difficult future for today’s kids and young adults. Various Baby Boomer commentators including economist Robert Samuelson
(“There’s a huge redistribution from young to old — a redistribution that will be made worse if retiree programs are largely excluded from deficit reduction . . . taxes will rise steeply or other federal programs will be cut sharply. The young will pay more and get less. . . “) and pundit David Brooks (e.g., “entitlement spending is crowding out spending on investments in our children and on infrastructure . . . the real entitlement problem is Medicare”, and “Seniors vote. . . as a result, seniors are being protected while children are getting pummeled. If you look across the country, you see education financing getting sliced. . .”) repeatedly explain how the federal budget deficits that are being caused by entitlement commitment to the aging Baby Boom generation will suck vitality out of the US economy for the next 25 years or so. Young people just entering the working world today will still be paying off our bills in 2040, through high taxes and reduced economic growth. Their standard of living and opportunities for betterment will clearly be impacted by “my generation”.
I’m really disappointed to hear that we Baby Boomers are acting so irresponsibly. We’re still » continue reading …
Saturday, February 2, 2013
Current Affairs ... Society ...
Knowing that I was once a serious railroad enthusiast (and still am, to some degree), a friend from my Zen community recently loaned me a photo book relating to railroads, Railroad Voices by Linda Neimann and Lina Bertucci. This was not the usual dry historical tome or railroad photo album aimed at buffs and modelers. Railroad Voices tells a story of two women who encountered modern railroad life in the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s, a time of much change and contraction in the railroad industry. The book speaks to an artistic and intellectually engaged audience; both women have unusual combination of academic achievement (PhD’s) and experience as train crew employees, being among the first women to break the male-only barrier in that job category. Their book does not assume any particular interest in the railroad industry; the railroad serves mostly as a stage for the unfolding of various social vignettes. The railfan can come along for the ride, but shouldn’t expect that hobbiest interests and sensibilities will be catered to.
Thus, from a railfan perspective, I was initially disappointed with Railroad Voices (but not to say that its stories and photographs are entirely devoid of technical interest). Also, as a former switch tower operator, I would have liked some pictures and stories from inside the switch towers (like the ones seen in Ms. Bertucci’s photos from Milwaukee). Ditto for the dispatchers who directed train movements, plus the signal maintainers who kept the switches and signals working.
But no, this is a train crew’s story told in words and photos. A story well told, albeit from a somewhat unusual perspective — i.e., from the eyes and ears of women » continue reading …
Thursday, January 24, 2013
Personal Reflections ... Society ...
If you go on Bing or Ask.com or . . . you know, that web site that starts with the “G” . . . and search on “the cause of desire”, you can find some interesting perspectives from various points of view, including consumerism and, of course, love and sex. But what about “the desire for a cause”? I couldn’t find anything about that.
And yet, many and perhaps most humans hold a desire to be part of a cause of one sort or another. Being part of a “cause” usually creates association and community, an affiliation with others of like mind. However, for a “cause” to happen, that “like mind” first has to happen. Causes are usually about ideas and beliefs. They mix communal experience with some ideology, an ideology that in some fashion challenges something about the world as it is today. The desire and cause for change might be something as momentous as the downfall of western civilization, or as benign as a fundraising effort to buy more books for school children in impoverished areas.
Actually, though, sometimes maintaining or defending the status quo is enough of a cause. Conservative causes are still » continue reading …
Monday, December 3, 2012
Public Policy ... Society ...
There’s an interesting article in the November 2012 Atlantic mag about the inept military leadership provided by today’s Army generals (“General Failure” by Thomas E. Ricks). Mr. Ricks suggests that today’s Army high command should be more aggressive in replacing generals who aren’t getting results on the battlefield — as the Army did quite frequently during WW2. He presents a well-detailed, well-documented argument to support his contentions, with various examples of ineffective military leadership in the recent Iraqi and Afghanistan campaigns. (Interestingly, Ricks does not mention Harry Truman’s dismissal of General MacArthur; but I will do so here, to point out that political leaders also got involved in firing the top-dog soldiers. Arguably, MacArthur’s sins were different, not on the battlefield but in the political arena; but good generals need to know how to play the political game just as effectively as they can calculate artillery positions).
Ironically, this article came out just a few weeks before former General David Petraeus (as CIA Director) was sacked for marital infidelity. In the article, Mr. Ricks cites General Petraeus as one of the few good generals the Army had seen in the Iraq and Afghanistan battles of the past decade. Recall that in WW2, the golden age of general “relief” according to Ricks, it was well known that many of the top brass were having extramarital affairs. But so long as they were winning battles, everyone involved was content to look the other way.
Mr. Ricks does not deal with the fact that the world of political and military leadership is quite different today than it was » continue reading …
Wednesday, November 21, 2012
Science ... Society ...
it turns out that string theory and super-symmetry and dark matter are now on ‘life support’ from Large Hadron Collider results that far (or lack thereof).
Supersymmetry and string theory start from the philosophy that in order to further understand the mysteries of the cosmos and the crazy things happening in the sub-quantum world, and to reconcile them with the theories of relativity and gravitational dynamics developed by Albert Einstein, we need to further extend and develop the body of physics dedicated to sub-atomic particles (currently known as the Standard Particle Model). I.e., our starting place must be the particle and the physics describing the particle.
But if supersymmetry and string theory get ruled out by dogs that don’t bark at the Large Hadron Collider . . . then » continue reading …