A personal blog by a graying (mostly Anglo with light African-American roots) gay left leaning liberal progressive married college-educated Buddhist Baha'i BBC/NPR-listening Professor Emeritus now following the Dharma in Minas Gerais, Brasil.
Wednesday, March 12, 2014
Via Daily Dharma
Via JMG: Jason Collins Staying With The Nets
The Brooklyn Nets will sign Jason Collins for the remainder of the season.
Sources told ESPN.com on Tuesday that the Nets, who feel they're getting everything they expected from Collins when they signed him for frontcourt depth Feb. 23, are already operating under the premise that the 34-year-old will finish the season with them even though his second 10-day deal doesn't expire until after Friday. Sources say that the internal expectation all along was that Collins would be a Net for the rest of the season, from the moment he signed his first 10-day deal, as long he proved that he could still be an effective defender, which he did immediately. Collins is averaging 9.8 minutes per game off the bench in eight appearances since his historic debut against the Los Angeles Lakers last month, which made him the first openly gay athlete in North America's four recognized major team sports. He most recently provided the Nets with some meaningful minutes defending against DeMarcus Cousins, logging 20 minutes in a 104-89 win over Sacramento last Sunday.
posted by Joe Jervis
Tuesday, March 11, 2014
Via JMG: United Methodist Bishop: No More Trials For Pro-Gay Marriage Pastors
Via press release:
At a joint press conference today, United Methodist Bishop Martin McLee and Rev. Dr. Thomas W. Ogletree announced that the church was dropping the case against Dr. Ogletree for officiating at his son’s wedding. In a huge victory for the Methodist movement that is organizing ministry to all couples on an equal basis in open defiance of church law, the bishop dropped the case without any conditions. Furthermore, Bishop McLee said in his statement “I call for and commit to cessation of trials,” the first time ever a sitting United Methodist bishop has categorically declared he will not prosecute pastors for ministering to LGBTQ people. “I am grateful that Bishop McLee has withdrawn this case and the church is no longer prosecuting me for an act of pastoral faithfulness and fatherly love,” said Dr. Ogletree. “But I am even more grateful that he is vowing not to prosecute others who have been likewise faithful in ministry to LGBTQ people. May our bishop’s commitment to cease such prosecutions be the beginning of the end of the United Methodist Church’s misguided era of discriminating against LGBTQ people.”There's gonna be a big ole pile of sadz about this.
Via JMG: Forbes: 7 Billionaires Are Openly LGBT
Forbes reports that seven of the world's billionaires are openly LGBT.
With a combined net worth of nearly $16 billion, the select group of LGBT ten-figure fortunes includes media mogul David Geffen, PayPal cofounder Peter Thiel and Hyatt hotel beneficiary Jennifer Pritzker, one of the Pritzker family’s 11 billionaires. In August 2013, Jennifer became the first and only transgender billionaire in the world when she announced she would be identifying herself as a woman for all business and personal undertakings. A retired army lieutenant colonel, she is CEO of private wealth management firm Tawani Enterprises in Chicago and has a personal net worth of $1.8 billion. “This change will reflect the beliefs of her true identity that she has held privately and will now share publicly,” a statement in Crain’s Chicago Business explained. Among the openly-gay hyper-wealthy are Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana, the duo behind fashion power house Dolce & Gabbana. The retail-rich pair are joined by Michael Kors, who became a billionaire this year. Some of these businessmen and women have used their fortunes to advocate for gay rights. Jon Stryker, heir to the Stryker Corp. medical equipment family fortune, is one of the world’s most prolific donors to LGBT charities.The seven listed above represent 0.4% of Forbes' list of 1645 billionaires worldwide.
Labels: David Geffen, Dolce and Gabbana, Forbes, Jennifer Pritzker, Jon Stryker, Michael Kors, Peter Thiel
Via JMG: Bill Donohue Is Very Upset About Cosmos
Last night Fox debuted its 13-episode series, Cosmos; A Spacetime Odyssey, which is hosted by noted astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson and is produced by Family Guy creator Seth McFarlane. Catholic League blowhard Bill Donohue is very upset about the first episode, which shamefully depicted the Spanish Inquisition as a bad thing.
The propagandists involved in this show, represented most conspicuously by Seth MacFarlane, told viewers last night that “the Roman Catholic Church maintained a system of courts known as the Inquisition and its sole purpose was to investigate and torment anyone who dared voice views that differed from theirs. And it wasn’t long before [Giordano] Bruno fell into the clutches of the thought police.” The ignorance is appalling. “The Catholic Church as an institution had almost nothing to do with [the Inquisition],” writes Dayton historian Thomas Madden. “One of the most enduring myths of the Inquisition,” he says, “is that it was a tool of oppression imposed on unwilling Europeans by a power-hungry Church. Nothing could be more wrong.” Because the Inquisition brought order and justice where there was none, it actually “saved uncounted thousands of innocent (and even not-so-innocent) people who would otherwise have been roasted by secular lords or mob rule.” (His emphasis.)All that torture and disemboweling? Good thing! Cardinal Fang, fetch the comfy chair for Bill.
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Labels: Bill Donohue, Catholic Church, Catholic League, Cosmos, crackpots, Fox TV, Neil deGrasse Tyson, religion, Seth McFarlane
Reposted from Joe Jervis
Viaq Daily Dharma
Monday, March 10, 2014
Via Daily Dharma
Two Kinds of Suffering | March 10, 2014
The Buddha taught that there are two
kinds of suffering: that which comes from the outside world, and that
which comes from within you. With the latter, only you can do anything
about it. Where does that suffering come from? Emptiness. Examining the
thoughts and feelings that arise from emptiness is one tenet of
Buddhism. Why do we suffer? What is at the root? Where did it begin?
When we see the answers to those questions, our suffering, which has
arisen from emptiness, returns to emptiness.
—Ittetsu Nemoto, “The Counselor”
Sunday, March 9, 2014
Via Tricycle Daily Dharma
Tricycle Daily Dharma March 9, 2014
The World Will Break Your Heart
Grief
might be, in some ways, the long aftermath of love, the internal work
of knowing, holding, more fully valuing what we have lost.
|
- Mark Doty, "Don't They Know?"
Saturday, March 8, 2014
Via Tricycle Daily Dharma
Tricycle Daily Dharma March 8, 2014
A Matter of Misdirection
Buddhist practice pulls both ways. From one perspective, it is a discreet activity, something we do.
From another perspective, one which tends to emerge more clearly with
time, it seems less something we do and more something we are;
less a piece of life and more all of life. The good news may be
precisely that our lives will never 'work out,' no matter how well we
arrange the pieces or play the game, whether of career, relationships,
or indeed practice. Buddhist practice is especially recalcitrant; it
just won’t 'do' what we want, at least not for long, because what we
want is the problem.
|
- Henry Shukman, "A Matter of Misdirection"
Friday, March 7, 2014
Via Pema Chodron / FB:
Could
our minds and our hearts be big enough just to hang out in that space
where we’re not entirely certain about who’s right and who’s wrong?
Could we have no agenda when we walk into a room with another person,
not know what to say, not make that person wrong or right? Could we see,
hear, feel other people as they really are? It is powerful to practice
this way, because we’ll find ourselves continually rushing around to try
to feel secure again—to make ourselves or them either right or wrong.
But true communication can happen only in that open space.
- Pema Chödrön
- Pema Chödrön
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