thelerner

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Everything posted by thelerner

  1. Politics and voting

    I'd like to see election cycles get shorter and less moneyed. Say after $100 million or some such number that if the candidates wanted to spend more then it'd be taxed 50%. Every dollar spent collected over X (say $100 million) meant $1 went to the debt or homeless cats, whatever. Joe Billionaire wants to give a $50 million dollar gift, fine he should know 1/2 of it is going into taxes. Same with corporations and unions, and we'd see how members think about how the money is spent. Volunteering might become more valuable then corporate then.
  2. Net Neutrality

    It's horrible, but if you dig down, that was 17 suicides in 5 years from a pool of one million workers. American college kids have 4 times that suicide rate. There is an excellent article by Wired that looks a little more closely into what is actually happening there. A journalist trying to find truth beyond sensationalist headlines. Here is a link: http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/02/ff_joelinchina/ Here is an excerpt: "...I seem to be witnessing some of those damage-control efforts on this still-warm fall day as two Foxconn executives—along with a liaison from Burson-Marsteller, a PR firm hired to deal with the post-suicide outcry—lead me through the facility. I have spent much of my career blogging about gadgets on sites like Boing Boing Gadgets and Gizmodo, reviewing and often praising many of the products that were made right here at Foxconn’s Shenzhen factory. I ignored the first Foxconn suicides as sad but statistically inevitable. But as the number of jumpers approached double digits, latent self-reproach began to boil over. Out of a million people, 17 suicides isn’t much—indeed, American college students kill themselves at four times that rate. Still, after years of writing what is (at best) buyers’ guidance and (at worst) marching hymns for an army of consumers, I was burdened by what felt like an outsize provision of guilt—an existential buyer’s remorse for civilization itself. I am here because I want to know: Did my iPhone kill 17 people? My hosts are eager to help me answer that question in the negative by pointing out how pleasant life in the factory can be. They are quick with the college analogies: The canteens and mess halls are “like a college food court.” The living quarters, where up to eight workers share rooms about the size of a two-car garage, are “like college dorms.” The avenues and boulevards in the less industrial parts of the campus are “like malls.” For all their defensiveness, my guides are not far off the mark. The avenues certainly look more like a college campus than the dingy design-by-Communism concrete canyons I half expected to find. Sure, everything on the Foxconn campus is a bit shabby—errant woody saplings creep out of sidewalk cracks, and the signage is sometimes rusty or faded—more community college than Ivy League, perhaps. But it’s generally clean." Its a good article and I recommend reading it all. My point is you need to dig to understand and get to the truth. Not that this article is a definitive assessment, but it seems written by a man who goes there to dig up the truth. Too often its a single sensational view that bounces around the media without context by people who are basing all the facts on a single source. If the initial story confirms a bias then its all to easy to dig no further and keep it one sided.
  3. Saving the World & Solar Energy

    Beyond the obvious benefits of turning blight into garden space it will rejuvenate a much larger area by making the surroundings a better place to live near. This is a perfect example of government clearing red tape, getting private and public involved to rejuvenate cities. It doesn't have to be so big either. Anytime there are vacant houses, dropping values and collecting crime and dust the city should have a plans to get the neighborhood involved and clear the way for a public garden. The act of growing a garden and eating together is a powerful one. Many problems can be solved through close knit neighborhoods. We host a block party each year, but there are blocks have monthly get togethers. The woman on our block have a book club and I try to invite the men over whenever I have a newly bottled brew. Saving the world happens when you know, like, work and party with your neighbor. Maybe knowing, liking, working with and partying is the action side of the abstraction- love thy neighbor, and in that lies great power.
  4. Saving the World & Solar Energy

    Much of saving the world may happen one garden at a time. Still there's always room for the big ones: A 140-Acre Forest Is About to Materialize in the Middle of Detroit By Good News Network Tuesday, October 29, 2013 USA - USA An attempt to turn a big chunk of Detroit blight into an urban forest is now underway. The purchase of more than 1,500 vacant city-owned lots on the city's lower east side – a total of more than 140 acres – got final approval from Detroit Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr and Michigan Governor Rick Snyder earlier in October. A wealthy resident, John Hantz, has committed in phase 1 to clearing 50 derelict structures, cleaning up years of trash and overgrown brush, planting 15,000 trees, and maintaining regular mowing. Future plans include a farm growing local food. Hartz Farms president Mike Score, who is leading the for-profit enterprise, says the residents were scared to walk home alone. "The thought of a company willing to come invest in that neighborhood, remove the blight and plant trees in rows…They can't believe that could actually happen, said Score. "They thought they were stuck there." "Ten years from now you're going to look and say, 'Wow, what a nice place to live. I think I would like to live there.'"
  5. how to love someone unconditionally ?

    I was taught the secret to deep abiding love was to put the other persons happiness before your own and focus on their virtues. It works pretty well. An exercise (from Rav. Weinberg) on learning to focus on the beloved's virtue is to write out a list of 30 things you love about them then each day for 3 months you add something new to the list. Doing this should put you a bit in awe of the other and with that the reminders to do little kindnesses and thank you's should come effortlessly. The little kindnesses and thank you's are the kindling that keep the fire of love burning once the lust stage has burnt out.
  6. avaaz petition for Tibet

    signed. which is unusual for me.
  7. Net Neutrality

    I'm keeping my eye on it, but at the moment I'm not too worried. The article talks about ATT in 2005. If ATT did (& they didn't) people would vote with there pocket books and go to another server. I don't see anything in it about imminent shut down, control grab or filtering. Actually it talks about coalitions getting together and successfully fighting it.
  8. TaoMeow on Coffee

    I believe enough to withhold any firm opinion on the matter and enough to keep drinking dark oily brews. Course I would anyway cause its soo good.
  9. I'm willing to give you that they were positive holy men. But they didn't believe in or teach the same things. They had fundamental differences in viewpoints and were, as we all are, products of our era. Certainly there concepts on God were very different. I think we lose there lessons when we remake them in a new age lovey dovey mold. Imo its a stretch to think we could walk up to each and ask 'How do you feel about me?' and expect them to say 'I love you'.
  10. TaoMeow on Coffee

    Not the most complete list. What really gets me is seeing kids at Starbucks ordering complex hi calorie, hi fat $6 drinks. Aargh. I'm generally either cheap or keeping it simple enough to order just a small coffee, though if its hot I like double espresso over ice. Maybe I'm the Suburban Dad, though I've never listened to Leonard Cohen. In the Chicago area our latest hot spot is a tiny place The Coffee Lab famous for its hand made pour overs. Everything tightly controlled with extra coffee poured in science beakers. I've read the same thing as Spotless and that its the oil that floats on top of french press batch that lifts cholesterol. It also gives it so much more taste. I love going to my neighbors who's always quick to plunge a new batch.
  11. In martial arts I've seen a tendency to start out in hard styles and gradually move toward softer with Tai chi and gi gong being the last stops on the journey. Kids appreciate flashy, older people understand subtle. Its not a bad way to move over the decades.
  12. Grace

    The question: 'What brings us closer to God?' is loaded with assumptions. The guy who shouts'"Your already there !, Your already there !, Your already there !" with great excitement." is echoing the masters who proclaim 'You're already enlightened', but it doesn't feel that way. . In both cases, I need to ... feel/know/experience it personally. Which has its share of hubris, yet also circles back to the concept of grace. I can't help but think the path is one with extreme silence and maybe along with the deep silence is a dropping of thought, language, conceptualizing and all the filters I've accumulated. Maybe then I can gain awareness of whats around me. I don't think any intellectualization will do it. Which is again circling closer to your first comments.
  13. Grace

    and thank you for your kind reply to my gruff negative commentary. I'm trying to do better and shouldn't have pointed a finger at Christianity when most olde school religions have similar thoughts at there core. I don't believe in Satan or the Devil, I think people create enough 'evil' on there own without an X factor needed. I'm not against religion either but its only as good as the people who run it. Whether its sermons or dharma talks I think we need reminders to be good, keep an open heart. So I'm willing to accept authority- as long it makes sense and I have the free will to follow it. A good question is 'What brings us closer to God?'. And what are the implications built into that question, and its answer?
  14. TaoMeow on Coffee

    Thought this was humorous. To see full article go: http://www.thrillist.com/drink/nation/coffee-snobs-29-types-of-coffee-drinkers?utm_content=feature&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_term=Thrillist%20Weekender&utm_campaign=11.3.13%20WKNDR:%20There%20are%2029%20types%20of%20coffee%20drinkers.%20You%20are%20definitely%20one%20of%20them. There are 29 types of coffee drinkers. You are definitely one of them. By Dan Gentile Coffee's a very personal thing. Some people will only drink at certain chains (whose caffeine counts are listed here!), others demand a bubble bath's worth of cappuccino foam, and then there are the aficionados who swear by sophisticated gadgetry like the "Aeropress" or the "drip coffee machine in the break room". Here's a comprehensive list of 29 of the most common coffee-drinker stereotypes, ranging from people you wish would die to people who will probably face an early death thanks to their choice of sweetener. The gas station coffee evangelist He just loves being one of the common people. And watching them buy their Skoal Bandits. The unapologetic Starbucks patron There's gotta be a reason there's 21,000 locations, right? Right? Impatient businessman at Starbucks Obviously on his way to an important meeting and has no time to tip. Cool Jawbone, bro. Cool suburban dad at Starbucks He also gets all of his Leonard Cohen CDs there. The almond/rice milk guy Congrats on finding a new and exciting way to ruin the taste of coffee. Sugar In The Raw snob The Ol' Dirty Bastard of coffee-drinkers. The late-night sipper Who cares if it's 10 at night? Caffeine doesn't affect him like it does everyone else. Rightseedoesn'taffecthmeatallI'mgonnajustwatchninehoursofTurnerClassicMoviesandmakeaquiltnow. The guy who only drinks coffee because he has a crush on the barista She doesn't care how your day was, and neither do the 10 people in line behind you. And now you've got acid reflux from all these "dates". The guy who insists that Dunkin' Donuts is the best coffee ever He takes it with milk and 400 eclairs' worth of sugar. The McDonald's guy He thinks the lawsuit over the coffee being too hot was ridiculous, because that's the main reason he goes here. The Stevia addict This person deserves your sympathy because they'll soon have cancer. Thought we were gonna do the Breaking Bad spoiler? We're not gonna do the Breaking Bad spoiler! Wait, did we just do a Breaking Bad spoiler? The Chemex snob Yes, the glass Chemex brewer makes a great cup of coffee, but no, it does not belong in a contemporary art museum. French press hard-on guy Just choke down those grounds and tell people about how you stayed in a hostel in Nice that one time.
  15. Grace

    Not really justice for the guys family and friends if a judge lets the murderer go free. Nor would I think the answer to 'Would you commit another crime being 'Of course not', it'd be maybe. You can have tons of gratitude and still commit another crime. They got away with the first murder, maybe they'd be get lucky and not get caught or get the same super lenient judge for there second crime. I take this as a <edit> paradigm that we're all evil (due to Eve?) and every man woman and babe deserves horrible degrading suffering because of it. And all humanity did or over 95%, until Christ came along, and the litmus test for eternal suffering or heaven <edt. Literally I'd rather see a system based on simple standards of morality, admittedly with the spirit of the law and forgiveness included, then see a system where belief in a particular man god as the top decider.
  16. Turning into a tree - need advice

    Turning into a tree, hmnnn. You'll have to leaf your beliefs behind. Root out negative thoughts. Make your bark worse then your bite. and do lots of zhan zhang.
  17. 10 Amazing Things Kids Have Said About Past Lives

    Very cool, there are good books on the subject. One I read found some kids had birthmarks that corresponded to past life wounds. It's considered strange/impossible in the states but in India it'd be considered common place. My oldest stopped eating meat at 7 and would only wear orange t-shirts for years. Old soul indeed.
  18. TTBs meetup! :)

    If family schedule allows it, I'd love to go. In the past we were able to get some bums together by means of going to interesting seminars. Like Max's Kunlun or Ya Mu's Stillness Movement. While it'd be great to have a large get together especially in a place as beautiful as California. We should also let people know what seminars we're going to and see if we can't get smaller groups together there.
  19. Great faces, I like looking at close ups of deep meditators.
  20. I understand your reasoning. The Patriot act was anything but. American popular will, forces on both sides of the aisle, and the media are lining up against the over reaches. There's a well deserved back lash in motion. It won't do away with the NSA, but will constrain it and finally repair the excesses of the Patriot act. We're only now seeing how big, the beast has grown. Its got to be stopped before the growth becomes institutionalized. Historically we've had worse; the blacklistings and witch hunts in the 50's and 60's. They were reigned in. This will be too, imo.
  21. Anarchy - A Way of Living

    I hit Burning Man this year. Its a good anarchistic setting, but also short term and propped up by the other 358 days of hum drum making a living. Plus because of a law suits with Land Management there were sting operations going on at an unprecedented rate. Still, it was time of wild dress, drinking & sharing of artistic visions and passions, largely unconstrained by outside governance beyond the 10 Principles. Ten Principles of Burning Man Burning Man Founder Larry Harvey wrote the Ten Principles in 2004 as guidelines for the newly-formed Regionals Network. They were crafted not as a dictate of how people should be and act, but as a reflection of the community's ethos and culture as it had organically developed since the event's inception. Radical Inclusion Anyone may be a part of Burning Man. We welcome and respect the stranger. No prerequisites exist for participation in our community. Gifting Burning Man is devoted to acts of gift giving. The value of a gift is unconditional. Gifting does not contemplate a return or an exchange for something of equal value. Decommodification In order to preserve the spirit of gifting, our community seeks to create social environments that are unmediated by commercial sponsorships, transactions, or advertising. We stand ready to protect our culture from such exploitation. We resist the substitution of consumption for participatory experience. Radical Self-reliance Burning Man encourages the individual to discover, exercise and rely on his or her inner resources. Radical Self-expression Radical self-expression arises from the unique gifts of the individual. No one other than the individual or a collaborating group can determine its content. It is offered as a gift to others. In this spirit, the giver should respect the rights and liberties of the recipient. Communal Effort Our community values creative cooperation and collaboration. We strive to produce, promote and protect social networks, public spaces, works of art, and methods of communication that support such interaction. Civic Responsibility We value civil society. Community members who organize events should assume responsibility for public welfare and endeavor to communicate civic responsibilities to participants. They must also assume responsibility for conducting events in accordance with local, state and federal laws. Leaving No Trace Our community respects the environment. We are committed to leaving no physical trace of our activities wherever we gather. We clean up after ourselves and endeavor, whenever possible, to leave such places in a better state than when we found them. Participation Our community is committed to a radically participatory ethic. We believe that transformative change, whether in the individual or in society, can occur only through the medium of deeply personal participation. We achieve being through doing. Everyone is invited to work. Everyone is invited to play. We make the world real through actions that open the heart. Immediacy Immediate experience is, in many ways, the most important touchstone of value in our culture. We seek to overcome barriers that stand between us and a recognition of our inner selves, the reality of those around us, participation in society, and contact with a natural world exceeding human powers. No idea can substitute for this experience.
  22. Rename thread please

    The 30 Day 30 Minute Mentorship thread hasn't been pulling in many people lately. I'd like to expand its mission to include '30 Day Yin Yan Self Improvement Promise'. I just added a post to the thread and was hoping you could change add & 30 Day Yin Yan Self Improvement Promise to the name. Let me know what you think. Thanks Michael
  23. Rename thread please

    Yeah, but us fancy pants like yin/yan better. . Actually its an idea I got off of Steve Paulina's blog. Creating dual goals each month that are complimentary in a addition and subtraction sense so they somewhat reinforce themselves.
  24. Saving the World & Solar Energy

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24730361 Glasses for 80 cents each. A micro intensive, partly solar, aquaculture fish farm that can raise 2-4 tonnes of Tilapia. Solar ovens, cheap transportation for carrying natural gas. These things can make a difference.
  25. Rename thread please

    You might be right. Not about yang practice, but that it shifts the original intent of the thread from mentorship / partnership to solo one month promise making. A different beast in a similar flock. My intent was by making it dual purpose there'd be more life brought to it but that's not happening. In any case my yin/yan promise starts tomorrow.