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Tricycle Daily Dharma January 28, 2014

Attention.

The Zen master Ikkyu was once asked to write a distillation of the highest wisdom. He wrote only one word: Attention. The visitor was displeased. “Is that all?” So Ikkyu obliged him. Two words now. Attention. Attention.

- Jenny Offill, "Bit of Poetry that Stick Like Burrs"

Read the entire article in the Wisdom Collection through January 29, 2014
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JMG Quote Of The Day - Queen Latifah

“I look forward to the day when presiding over a historic wedding ceremony like this is just the norm. To me, it was special to all the couples we married today and I look forward to dashing off to go sign their marriage certificates. It’s awesome. I had to get sworn in as a commissioner for the state of California, so I’m not an ordained minister like I said, but I’m a commissioner. So you can call me to commish – Queen Commish!" - Queen Latifah, telling reporters had her authority to officiate expired at midnight last night. When asked if she would ever get married on national television, she returned to her stock position: "That would probably be something I would keep for me."

Labels: gay weddings, Grammys, pop music, Queen Latifah

Reposted from Joe Jervis

Via JMG: RUSSIA: Gay-Basher In Custody After Being Deported By Cuban Authorities

Infamous gay-basher Maxim Martsinkevich is today in the custody of Russian police after fleeing to Cuba, where local authorities promptly deported him on the basis of fugitive warrants filed with Interpol by Russia and Ukraine. Via LGBTQ Nation:

A spokesperson for the Russian Federal Security services told LGBTQ Nation that Maxim Sergeyevich Martsinkevich, also known by his street nickname “Tesak” (or, the “Cleaver”) arrived at the Russian capital’s Sheremetyevo Airport after a direct flight from Havana, and was immediately detained by Russian law enforcement. Martsinkevich had been formally charged and arrested in absentia on Dec. 13, 2013, by Moscow’s Kuntsevskiy court. He is being held on charges of committing a crime under Art. 282 of the Russian Criminal Code – incitement of hatred or enmity and human dignity with violence – in connection with videos that his anti-gay Russian group “Occupy Pedophilia” had posted online. Martsinkevich fled Russia in November to the Ukraine, where he allegedly attacked and physically abused a former contestant of the Ukrainian franchise of the British talent competition, “The X Factor.” Yuvlena Frolyak, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine in Sevastopol, told LGBTQ Nation that her office had also issued an arrest warrant based on the criminal complaint filed by the victim.

Martsinkevich reportedly faces only three to five years in prison.

Labels: Cuba, gay bashing, Maxim Martsenkevich, Russia

Reposted from Joe Jervis

From my friend Nikos: On The Shortness of Life: An Introduction to Seneca

Samurai and Seneca agreed: comfort with death brings better living. (Photo: Kalandrakas) "We don’t beat the Reaper by living longer. We beat the Reaper 

"There is nothing the busy man is less busied with than living: there is nothing that is harder to learn. Of the other arts there are many teachers everywhere; some of them we have seen that mere boys have mastered so thoroughly that they could even play the master. It takes the whole of life to learn how to live, and—what will perhaps make you wonder more—it takes the whole of life to learn how to die."

 http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2009/04/24/on-the-shortness-of-life-an-introduction-to-seneca/?utm_content=bufferd7a5f&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Via JMG: From Queer Nation

 

Activists are continuing to hijack the social media campaigns of major Sochi Olympics marketing partners. #CheersToSochi is the hashtag.

Labels: activism, advertising, LGBT rights, Procter And Gamble, Queer Nation, Russia, Sochi Olympics, Vladimir Putin

Reposted fom Joe Jervis

Wedding fever at the Grammys: Couples say ‘I do’ to song ‘Same Love’

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Wedding fever at the Grammys: Couples say ‘I do’ to song ‘Same Love’

Associated Press

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Sunday, January 26, 2014

 

LOS ANGELES — Couples exchanged rings in the aisle at the Grammy Awards on Sunday night as Macklemore & Ryan Lewis performed their gay rights anthem “Same Love.”
Watch: http://www.lgbtqnation.com/2014/01/wedding-fever-at-the-grammys-couples-say-i-do-to-song-same-love/

Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, Mary Lambert & Madonna performing "Same Love" at The Grammy's 2014 HD

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Tricycle Daily Dharma January 27, 2014

Reality Itself

Not limited / By language, / It is ceaselessly expressed; / So, too, the way of letters / Can display but not exhaust it.

- Zen Master Dogen, "Non-lying"

Read the entire article in the Wisdom Collection through January 28, 2014
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Via JMG: Marriage Equality Lawsuits Map

JMG reader Jeff took a stab at creating a map that includes the states with active marriage equality lawsuits. Embiggen the image or see it at his site.

Labels: LGBT rights, maps, marriage equality

Reposted from Joe Jervis

British Headline Of The Day

British Headline Of The Day

 

When Margaret Thatcher died last year, a social media campaign succeeded in pushing Ding Dong, The Witch Is Dead to #2 on the British single charts. This week there's a similar campaign after a now-suspended member of Britain's far-right UKIP party declared that God was sending floods because of gay marriage.

A Facebook campaign has been launched to get 80s classic ‘It’s Raining Men’ to number one in the UK charts after a UKIP councillor claimed the recent floods were a result of legalising same-sex marriage. Thousands of people have joined the social media campaign following UKIP party member David Silvester’s controversial remarks. "We believe that that show of strength to get a song to Number 1 will create a huge spotlight on our campaign for equality as a whole," explains the Facebook group. For decades now, this song has been used as a gay anthem, we thought it fitted all the better based on UKIP’s comments regarding storms and floods being caused by LGBT people and gay marriage. Let’s get It’s Raining Men to Number 1 to show the power and community of gay people pulling together is stronger than his idiotic views of us, as well as also celebrating the new laws being passed on equal marriage in the UK very soon."

According to the Facebook group, online oddsmakers are giving It's Raining Men a 5/1 shot at being number one in Britain next week. Former Weather Girls vocalist Martha Wash finds the flap rather amusing. From an email passed along by JMG reader Wayne:

First of all I don't know anything about David Silvester, but I did read the article about him and his comments and concluded that as a straight woman who supports the LGBT community, he is totally Daft (as the British would say). While he is entitled to his opinion, I feel he is out of touch with reality. To say that "storms and floods were caused by LGBT people and gay marriage".....Really? He sounds like someone living in the 80's when it was said HIV/Aids was caused by "gay people". I think some people need to buy a clue and realize that everything wrong or bad or catastrophic is not caused by gay people. I support same-sex unions or marriages (depending on where you live) and feel it should be equality for ALL!!! BTW I'm a Christian also and the God I serve is ALL LOVE for ALL People. HE knows who he created. In regards to using It's Raining Men to support this campaign, I have no problem with it. I'm flattered that after all these years, the song is still relevant (even if it is for "storms and floods")!! Lol XO Martha Wash

Labels: Britain, crackpots, dance music, marriage equality, Martha Wash, pop music, religion, UKIP

Reposted from Joe Jervis

Chad Griffin of Human Rights Campaign on Goldie Hawn

#CheersToSochi Coca-Cola ad for #LGBT Russians

HRC Head Chad Griffin On Nigeria Human Rights Campaign president Chad Griffin joined HuffPost Live today to talk about the situation in Nigeria and Goldie Hawn, who yesterday issued a mortified apology after posting a photo of Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan with the caption, "Met the wonderful president of Nigeria." In the clip below, Griffin blasts NOM's Brian Brown and other American Christians for exporting their hate around the world.

Labels: activism, Africa, Chad Griffin, Goodluck Jonathan, HRC, LGBT rights, Nigeria

Reposted from Joe Jervis

Via JMG: VIRGINIA: Olson & Boies Tell Court To Immediately Rule In Favor Of Marriage

Via press release from AFER:

The American Foundation for Equal Rights (AFER), the sole sponsor of Bostic v. Rainey, the federal constitutional challenge to Virginia’s discriminatory Marriage Amendment, issued the following statement regarding U.S. District Court Judge Arenda L. Wright Allen’s order seeking Status Reports from all parties in the case regarding whether oral argument on the issues presented is warranted or whether the Court should rule promptly on the briefs without a hearing: “Every day these discriminatory laws remain in effect is another day gay and lesbian Virginians and their families are harmed and treated as second-class citizens,” said AFER Executive Director Adam Umhoefer. “We urge Judge Allen to proceed immediately to judgment and find Virginia’s laws banning marriage for gay and lesbian couples unconstitutional." The Judge’s order was issued following the compelling Notice from the Office of the Attorney General of Virginia that the Attorney General concluded that Virginia's laws denying the right to marry to same-sex couples violate the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. If a hearing is deemed necessary, oral argument will be heard at the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia at 9 a.m. ET on Thursday, January 30, 2014.

Bolding is mine. Zoom, zoom, zoom?

Labels: AFER, David Boies, lawsuits, LGBT rights, Mark Herring, marriage equality, Ted Olson, Virginia

Reposted from Joe Jervis

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Tricycle Daily Dharma January 26, 2014

The Three Marks

Rather than seeking a sense of peaceful satisfaction with the unfolding of experience, the goal of [preliminary] practice is to produce a state of mind that is highly judgmental, indeed judging this world to be like a prison. This sense of dissatisfaction is regarded as an essential prerequisite for progress on the Buddhist path. Far from seeking to become somehow 'nonjudgmental,' the meditator is instructed to judge all the objects of ordinary experience as scarred by three marks: impermanence, suffering, and no self.

- Donald S. Lopez, "The Scientific Buddha"

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Tricycle Daily Dharma January 25, 2014

Life is Precious

Life is precious, for it is only life—particularly the condition of human life—in which one can attain enlightenment.

- Allan Hunt Badiner, “Is the Buddha Winking at Extinction?”

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Tricycle Daily Dharma January 24, 2014

The Price of Dignity

Poverty still persists today because we have lost the moral perspective as the polestar of public policy. Instead we follow the law of the jungle, content to abandon the poor to their own devices, demanding that they marshal resources they simply do not possess. And the reason we have moved in this direction, drifting away from the high ideals of the Great Society era, is because the vision and values of corporate capitalism have gained ascendency over those of human solidarity and mutual responsibility. To eliminate poverty, this trend must be reversed. The individualistic vision must give way to one that stresses our essential unity; competition must be balanced by mutual assistance and respect.

- Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi, "The Price of Dignity"

Read the entire article in the Wisdom Collection through January 25, 2014
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Via FB:

Via JMG: NIGERIA: Catholic Cardinal Promoted By Pope Francis Praises Anti-Gay Laws

"The church accepts people as they are, we condemn homosexuality, Nigeria is an independent country and we do not beg for food. We have every right to order our social life in any way we think it should go. Our social life should not be organised on the basis of what others think. On this note, I commend our National Assembly and Mr President for resisting all the pressures and enacting a law against homosexuality. Signing the bill into law by President Jonathan in spite of pressures from within and outside the country should be commended by all and sundry. The world is at crossroads and there is nothing new under the sun. `We all know that this is not the first time we have heard about the agitation for gay rights but our position, as a church, has not changed. Even when some sections of society view same sex issues as moral disorder acts, homosexuality has not stopped, it still happens in the open around the world. It doesn’t mean that it should be accepted." - Cardinal John Onaiyekan, speaking to Nigeria's PM News. Onaiyekan got his red hat from Pope Benedict in 2012.  Last July Pope Francis named him the Vatican's Apostolic Administrator (rule enforcer) for the Diocese of Ahaira in southern Nigeria. (Via Bilerico)

Labels: Africa, Catholic Church, Christian Love, gay death penalty, homosexuality, LGBT rights, Nigeria, Pope Francis, religion

Reposted from Joe Jervis

Russian Broadway Shut Down - Government Deems All Theatre Homosexual Propaganda