Zen Quote

This is the quote from Daily Zen today (link at right)

Those who awaken never rest in one place.
Like swans, they rise and leave the lake.
On the air they rise and fly an invisible course.
Their food is knowledge.
They live on emptiness.
They have seen how to break free.
Who can follow them?

- Buddha in the Dhammapada

Changes

I might add a few more details to the blog soon. Zen sites with wallpaper.. or maybe links pointing to Kuan Yin.

We;ll see!

Currently, I'm wrestling with my PC to get it to do the things I want it to do. A couple of weeks ago I had to totally replace my motherboard and processor after a catastrophic crash that was the result of a motherboard componant shorting out.

American Economics

American Economics
or
How Stupid Are We?

Our congress people just helped the rich get even richer today.

So corporations get more lovely tax breaks while the rest of us have to do with less. Let's face it, if there's more tax cuts there's less money the government has to ...umm...say - fix the economy with!

EDIT:

Good old Krugman. At least HE reported on the new "stimulus package" today. I haven't heard much about it anywhere else but Reuters.

Sexual Economic Stimulation

OK. I'm puerile.. i admit it... I giggled a little bit after reading the first paragraph. But, i do agree with her message here

All this is true, but it is also a form of economy fetishism, or should I say worship? If we have learned anything in the last few years, it is that the economy is no longer an effective measure of human well-being. We've seen the economy grow without wage gains; we've seen productivity grow without wage gains. We've even seen unemployment fall without wage gains. In fact, when economists want to talk about life "on the ground," where jobs and wages and the price of Special K are paramount, they've taken to talking about "the real economy." If there's a "real economy," then what in the hell is "the economy"?

Agnosticism

On one of the forums I like to troll someone lambasted agnosticism for being a "tired and worn out claim."

Ignoring such ideas as "strong" and "weak" agnosticism here are my thought's on what agnosticism is in my life.

_________________________

I consider myself an agnostic.

I don't know if God exists, but I'm actively trying to find out if God does or does not..( and if he does exist how and it what form He/She/It / all the above, exists)

My mind is open. I just don't know and I'm trying to do the necessary things in order to know.


I don't see how that makes agnosticism a tired and worn out claim.

EDIT: agnosticism is not a claim, btw, it's an admission that I don't have enough information one way or the other to even have a claim in the first place.

The Good

Don't we all consider murder to be wrong?

If that is wrong... and it holds true across all cultures .. then there must be an absolute good.

Maybe we could claim that in some cases it's appropriate to murder, it might even be an act of good (like killing Hitler as a child if you KNEW what he was to grow up to become ). In that case the good is contextual.

My own opinion is that murder is always wrong, but often people must do wrong things to prevent even greater wrongs from happening. However, when we do wrong things they are always wrong and immoral to do them.

So, really there is an absolute Good (in my view) but there is life ... full of conflict and complicated. The Good is really a set of guidelines that we all live by.... but can't always keep up.

Aristotle sums up my views,really. Aristotle maintains in the Nichomachean Ethics that the good is found by maintaining a balance (of virtues). His Absolute Good was found in "The Golden Mean." Too much bravery was recklessness... to little was cowardliness.. etc. and so forth. So, we must always strive to find that balance in life and use our reason to find out what is moral and what isn't. That's the absolute Good.

Harry Potter

I'm finally going to finish Harry Potter tonight. I've been putting it off and puttign it off. Well, no more!

Beyond that there's not a lot to add. I need to get back to reading philosophy.

The holidays have not been kind to me vis a vie the motivation.

Has The World Fallen Apart?

Can William Buckley possibly be in favor of..

GASP.... Wheeeeeeeze

Government regulation??

After 30 years of feeding us dreams of rosey free market miracles? OK. Now we all know somethings hitting the fan.

Just Cleaning

I'm marveling at how much a difference in me the simple act of cleaning works. One moment I'm scatterbrained and a complete ditz and the next moment I'm sharp as a Gilette and internally well ordered.

PC Issues

Last week my motherboard got fried. So, I'm rebuilding my system on a brand new Asus mother board and dual pentium processor.

I have to admit it's nice.

This is the first Intel processor I've ever owned, personally. The last time i played aroung with one was as a child on my father's PC.. when PCs were first coming out.

Lately it's made no difference, price-wise, whether I went with AMD or Intel, so why not?

So far so good. Eep.

Three Great Quotes

I saw these three great quotes, back to back, on Google's quotes add-on

Character is what you have left when you've lost everything you can lose.
- Evan Esar
Laughter is the closest distance between two people.
- Victor Borge
Nobody outside of a baby carriage or a judge's chamber believes in an unprejudiced point of view.
- Lillian Hellman

Thoreau and The Technological Age

I'm starting to read Thoreau with modern technology in mind. We can be fairly sure that he would not have approved of cell phones,laptops, DVD players, and all those other little doo dads we try to accumulate in the modern world.

It's quickly getting to the point where our consumer electronics are consuming us. They are using us and not the other way around. People will walk right by children, men, woman, birds, and bees, and just life in general, while chatting busily away or texting on their cell phones.

There's a point past which we just have to unplug and simply be human. Technology is fine, but i'm pretty sure it needs to supplement and improve our daily lives, not supplant them.

A Month

Well, gosh, almost a month passing and no entries from me. That's no good!

Lately I've been reading and diving into Faerie lore. Pierre Dubouis has some art books out that I enjoy. I would enjoy writing a fantasy that could bring a serious philosophical exploration to bear.