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Wednesday, July 31, 2024
Via Daily Dharma: Practice Is Love
Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation // Words of Wisdom - July 31, 2024 💌
If you were to take your consciousness and bring it out of your senses and out of your thinking mind and bring it down into awareness, what then? Who would you then be? Well, what you would be at that point is awareness. Just awareness or consciousness. …What I’m saying is that there are ways of subjectively being in the universe so that things are available to you, or in you, that would otherwise only be knowable to you by collecting them through your senses and through your thinking mind.
- Ram Dass
Via White Crane Institute // WALTER ARLEN (né Aptowitzer)
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July 31Born 
1920 -
WALTER ARLEN (né Aptowitzer) ; born on this date, is an Austrian-born American composer, specializing mainly in voice and piano scores, having published around 65 works. He is also a music critic for the Los Angeles Times. Arlen was born in Vienna. His parents ran a department store until it was taken from them by the Germans in 1938. His father was sent to Buchenwald concentration camp and his mother committed suicide after a breakdown. Walter lost his first love, Budapest native Fülöp “Lumpi” Loránt, during the war — the latter starved to death while at a heinous labor camp at the age of 24 or 25. After the war, Walter relocated to Chicago. While living there, Aptowitzer changed his name to Walter Arlen. (He is not related to "Over the Rainbow" composer Harold Arlen.) He staved off depression by writing music. He won a prize in a song cycle contest and became an assistant to the American composer Roy Harris. Because of that, he had a chance encounter with Schubert composer, Otto Erich Deutsch, and having promise was encouraged to compose, he records for Decca Records, with many of his works only discovered recently, having trained at the University of California, Los Angeles under Leo Sowerby and Roy Harris. His assistance and knowledge has been fundamental in tracking down other artists from the period whose works where lost or forgotten due to the Nazi Regime. Whilst working as
a journalist, he founded the music department at Loyola University
Chicago. Arlen established friendships with numerous other German and
Austrian emigrees, including Stravinsky, Milhaud, Villa- Arlen pursued his musical studies at UCLA, worked as a driver for Igor Stravinsky and, before long, was hired as a classical critic for the Los Angeles Times. I also write for the LA Times, but had never heard of Arlen until I was introduced to him by Michael Haas — a musical historian who arranged for Arlen's work to be recorded along with many other Jewish composers. For decades, Arlen's music remained in his desk drawer. Among the recently recorded work is an oratorio, "The Song of Songs," based on the ancient Jewish love poem and composed by Arlen in the early 1950s. Walter Arlen has been happily married to his partner of 65 years Howard Myers since July 2, 2013. They are featured in the 2023 Netflix documentary Eldorado: Everything the Nazis Hate.
|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8 Gay Wisdom for Daily Living from White Crane Institute "With the increasing commodification of gay news, views, and culture by powerful corporate interests, having a strong independent voice in our community is all the more important. White Crane is one of the last brave standouts in this bland new world... a triumph over the looming mediocrity of the mainstream Gay world." - Mark Thompson Exploring Gay Wisdom & Culture since 1989! |8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8 | |||||
Tuesday, July 30, 2024
Dhamma Wheel | Right Intention: Cultivating Equanimity
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Via Daily Dharma: Clear Away Obscurities
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Via White Crane Institute // President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the SOCIAL SECURITY ACT of 1965
1965 -
President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the SOCIAL SECURITY ACT of 1965 into law, establishing Medicare and Medicaid, which Republicans have sought to undermine, sabotage and eventually undo ever since. Claims that the fund is running out of money are a cover for the looting of the fund that Republicans (and Congress in general) have carried out, beginning with Ronald Reagan who with the help of Alan Greenspan, pulled off one of the greatest frauds ever perpetrated against the American people.
The Social Security Amendments of 1983 laid the foundation for 30-years of federal embezzlement of Social Security money to use the money to pay for wars, tax cuts and other government programs. The payroll tax hike of 1983 generated a total of $2.7 trillion in surplus Social Security revenue. This surplus revenue was supposed to be saved and invested in marketable U.S. Treasury bonds that would be held in the trust fund until the baby boomers began to retire in about 2010. But not one dime of that money went to Social Security.
The mechanism, which allowed the government to transfer $2.7 trillion from the Social Security fund to the general fund over a 30-year period, was the brainchild of President Ronald Reagan and his advisers, especially Alan Greenspan. Greenspan played a key role in convincing Congress and the public to support a hike in the payroll tax. A few years later, Reagan appointed Greenspan to become Chairman of the Federal Reserve System. Since Greenspan’s new job was one of the most coveted positions in Washington, many observers have wondered whether or not this appointment represented, at least in part, payback for the role Greenspan had played in making vast sums of new revenue available to the government.
President Reagan and his advisors knew, from the very beginning, that the government would soon face a severe cash shortage. Budget Director, David Stockman, had deliberately rigged the computer at the Office of Management and Budget to generate bogus revenue forecasts in an effort to convince Congress to enact Reagan’s unaffordable proposed tax cuts. When Stockman first fed the data from Reagan’s economic proposals into the computer, he was shocked. The computer forecast that, if Reagan’s proposals were enacted into law, massive budget deficits would loom ahead for as far as the eye could see.
Social Security was definitely not “teetering on the edge of bankruptcy” in 1981 as Reagan claimed in his letter to Congressional leaders. The 1983 National Commission on Social Security Reform, headed by Alan Greenspan, issued its “findings and recommendations” in January 1983. The Commission accurately foresaw major problems for Social Security when the baby boomers began to retire in about 2010. But that was nearly two decades down the road. In addition to the long-term problem of the baby boomers, the Commission found a possible short-term problem for the years 1983-89. Nevertheless, Reagan set out to convince a gullible public that Social Security was his chief focus.
There is no way that anyone who knew Reagan’s record would accept his claim that Social Security was his highest priority. He had always wanted the program eliminated, or at least privatized.
Reagan’s scare tactics worked. Congress passed the Social Security Amendments of 1983, which included a hefty increase in the payroll tax rate. The tax increase was designed to generate large Social Security surpluses for the next 30 years. The public was led to believe that the surplus money would be saved and invested in marketable U.S. Treasury Bonds, which could later be resold to raise cash with which to pay benefits to the boomers. But that didn’t happen. The money was all deposited directly into the general fund and used for non-Social Security purposes. Reagan spent every dime of the surplus Social Security revenue, which came in during his presidency, on general government operations. His successor, George H.W. Bush, used the surplus money as a giant slush fund, and both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush looted and spent all of the Social Security surplus revenue that flowed in during their presidencies. So we can’t blame the whole problem on Reagan. Reagan was the one who figured out a way to use Social Security money as general revenue, and his successors just followed his example.
The most recent tax cuts under the Trump Administration continues this subterfuge. If republicans can create enough of a deficit they can lie that "the only way to make up for the deficit" is to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
Keep your eye out for this kind of lie. And keep your hand on your wallet.
|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8
Gay Wisdom for Daily Living from White Crane Institute
"With the increasing commodification of gay news, views, and culture by powerful corporate interests, having a strong independent voice in our community is all the more important. White Crane is one of the last brave standouts in this bland new world... a triumph over the looming mediocrity of the mainstream Gay world." - Mark Thompson
Exploring Gay Wisdom & Culture since 1989!
www.whitecraneinstitute.org
|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8
Monday, July 29, 2024
Via GBF // "The Brahma Vihāras" with Walt Opie
The divine abodes, also known as the Brahma Vihāras in
Sanskrit, are four supreme emotions or mental states that are
emphasized because of the Buddha's teaching that "whatever one
frequently ponders on, that will become the inclination of their mind."
In this talk, Walt Opie examines these four and offers the "near and far enemy" of each one.
The commentaries on the Brahma Viharas explain that each of the four qualities has two "enemies." The far enemy represents the opposite mental state, which can pose a challenge to our practice. However, the near enemy, while appearing similar enough to be mistaken for the desired quality, is an imposter that is ultimately detrimental. These are:
1. Metta (Loving-kindness)
Near Enemy: Sentimentality (a superficial or insincere affection).
Far Enemy: Hatred or ill will.
2. Karuna (Compassion)
Near Enemy: Pity (a condescending form of compassion).
Far Enemy: Cruelty or indifference.
3. Mudita (Sympathetic joy)
Near Enemy: Comparison (feeling joy only when others are less successful).
Far Enemy: Jealousy or envy.
4. Upekkha (Equanimity)
Near Enemy: Indifference (a lack of care or engagement).
Far Enemy: Attachment or aversion.
Walt also recounts the impact of loving-kindness practice on inmates in his prison outreach program and describes Metta as a good antidote to ill will and anger.
He concludes by offering stories of loving-kindness as examples.
In this talk, Walt Opie examines these four and offers the "near and far enemy" of each one.
The commentaries on the Brahma Viharas explain that each of the four qualities has two "enemies." The far enemy represents the opposite mental state, which can pose a challenge to our practice. However, the near enemy, while appearing similar enough to be mistaken for the desired quality, is an imposter that is ultimately detrimental. These are:
1. Metta (Loving-kindness)
Near Enemy: Sentimentality (a superficial or insincere affection).
Far Enemy: Hatred or ill will.
2. Karuna (Compassion)
Near Enemy: Pity (a condescending form of compassion).
Far Enemy: Cruelty or indifference.
3. Mudita (Sympathetic joy)
Near Enemy: Comparison (feeling joy only when others are less successful).
Far Enemy: Jealousy or envy.
4. Upekkha (Equanimity)
Near Enemy: Indifference (a lack of care or engagement).
Far Enemy: Attachment or aversion.
Walt also recounts the impact of loving-kindness practice on inmates in his prison outreach program and describes Metta as a good antidote to ill will and anger.
He concludes by offering stories of loving-kindness as examples.
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