Engaged 2007 through 2014

Engaged home ----- Engaged 2003 through 2006

DC's Current Events Statement - from 2004 or so

12-23-14 - River Network - connecting people, saving rivers

Go to the online hub of a network of more than 2,000 state, regional and local grassroots organizations whose primary mission is protecting our most vital natural resource – water.

Anything else you're interested in is not going to happen if you can't breathe the air and drink the water. Don't sit this one out. Do something. ~Carl Sagan

Here's their Donate page

- posted in Engaged Buddhism/Current Events

12-18-14 - Back to a Burmese Prison by Choice - to teach meditation - NYTimes - thanks Doug Reville

12-06-14 - Twelve points on the torture report due to US Congress - from Huff Post -

12-01-14 - Obama shops at Independent bookstore on Small Business Saturday.

Indie Store Finder --------------- on Indie Bound dot org

11-29-14 - Pope Francis has called for an interfaith dialogue to counter fanaticism and fundamentalism. Good for the Pope. - dc

11-25-14 - Karen Armstrong on her new book about the history of violence and religion right up to today. - from Salon.com - thanks Brit Pyland

11-24-14 - Harambee Arts - Just got a year end letter from Gloria Simoneaux about how this wonderful project is doing and of course needing more funding. Check it out at the web site or on theirFacebook page

11-18-14 - Go to the Harm Reduction pagefor today's post on the legalization of marijuana with comments from Kamala Harris, Jerry Brown, and DC.

11-13-14 - US to defend solitary confinement use before UN

World Organisation Against Torture

11-09-14 - Here's an article link which sent by Wai Leng in KL to Katrinka via Facebook by a Catholic priest about Japan's us and them mindset and how they're somewhat doomed to fall behind the world of growth and progress because their birth rate is negative and they are not open to immigration. My view on this is the opposite. We can't continue to have a world economy based on non stop growth - and survive or have any good quality of life. Unrestricted development in Bali is sure not pretty. Is it anywhere? Short term profit rules over long term goals. I say cheer the Japanese on and join them in zero population growth and let's figure out how to live on this earth in more of a steady state way or some way that is sustainable. Many knowledgeable observers think that's impossible and that we're doomed. Just look at almost everything said by any politician or economist or pundit on TV and it's growth good, no growth bad, more growth better. To me that's insane. I think we're basically a psycho planet, and that's the dangerous type of homicidal psycho. But I love us and I am grateful to have had this visit. - dc - also posted in Saunters

11-08-14 - “I would like to see every single soldier on every single side, just take off your helmet, unbuckle your kit, lay down your rifle, and set down at the side of some shady lane, and say, nope, I ain’t a gonna kill nobody. Plenty of rich folks wants to fight. Give them the guns." ~ Woody Guthrie

As Juan Cole points out in this brief post,"war is good for the arms industry, which funds a lot of congressional campaigns." (especially those which recently won.)

11-02-14 - On Progress East and West and Why and What - Jeff Broadbent comments quite intelligently on DC's speculations posted 10-30 on Saunters - but now am posting it on Comments with a link to his response here and on What's New and Saunters and onJeff's cuke page.

10-30-14 - No link between tough penalties and drug use - report - BBC from England -

10-22-14 - Ran into a fellow Texan today in Lembongan when Katrinka and I were packing to leave. He has lived on the tiny island of Ceningan that's between Lembongan and Nusa Penida. There's a little bridge that goes over there that's so narrow that when motorbikes come by one has to press against the side and pray. Anyway, he co-founded the Aquatic Alliance - check it out. And here's an article on him and and his co-founder Helen Mitchell and it in the Indonesian Expat called Aquatic Alliance: Research & Conservation of Manta Rays in Nusa Lembongan - but they're concerned with a wider sphere than just Manta Rays. He mentioned that the shark population is way down and listed some types he used to see more when diving - I forget the names but I remember he said they weren't the type that bite. - posted in Saunters as well

10-11-14 - Kailash Satyarthi and Malala Yousafzai Are Awarded Nobel Peace Prize- most deserving. All praise to them. - dc -

10-03-14 - Join Barbara Wenger at the Nov. 5 Greens dinner and event in San Francisco celebrating twenty years of Community Grows.

Explore Community Grows

posted also in Ads and Announcements

10-02-14 - Thinking about ISIS or IS or ISIL in light of having just read Brian Victoria's War on Zen --- (Brian Victoria cuke page).

I have noticed certain unwholesome thoughts arising that I don't think are helpful. So I'm making an effort to replace them with the visualization of all the weapons disappearing. That won't be much help to people who are being massacred but that's the best I can do now. When I was in high school I'd say I'd let someone kill me before I'd fight back. I never have been in a fight. I hit a kid once in the sixth grade just to see what it was like and I still feel bad about it. A dear friend of mine who shared my thoughts that Pres Reagan was causing a lot of suffering said she wished he were dead and I said I don't think that's a good thing to wish for anyone. So I have a history of pacifist leanings but also of thoughts of extinction which I give in to at times but which once again I'm wishing to extinguish. I do think that there is a general world-wide tendency to use violence to solve problems. That seems to keep proving that violence leads to violence. I also think that Gandhi's methods would not have worked so well with ISIS or Sadam Husein or Hitler. We never know what we're going to do until a moment arrives but we do take aim with intentions and thought habits. There have been pilots who reported they tried to shoot down a UFO and that their controls wouldn't work - so see - there's proof positive that such technology can be developed here. That's what I'm visualizing. - DC - posted in dchad misc 4

9-24-14 - Brian Victoria's War on Zen - an article by Brian Victoria in Sweeping Zen.

Brian Victoria cuke page

9-11-14 - Remembering those who died in Manhattan on 9-11-2001 and how our government ignored the sympathy of the world instead deciding to fan the flames of Jihad. - dc

9-06-14 - Birds in trouble

9-05-14 - Alister Crooke on ISIS part one and Part Two

9-03-14 - Tomgram: Engelhardt, The Escalation Follies

8-26-14 - India's Kerala State Plans to Dramatically Increase Organized and Disorganized Crime

8-08-14 -

Population, Sustainability, and Earth's Carrying Capacity:
A framework for estimating population sizes and lifestyles
that could be sustained without undermining future generations
by Gretchen C. Daily and Paul R. Ehrlich (1992)
- posted in Engaged Buddhism/Current Events

8-07-14 - The Meaning of Sustainability - another dose of what seems to me to be sane scientific thinking from Do the Math -Using physics and estimation to assess energy, growth, options—by Tom Murphy - DC -

8-04-14 - Can Economic Growth Last? - from Do the Math - Using physics and estimation to assess energy, growth, options—by Tom Murphy

8-03-14 - An excellent editorial on the War on Drugs and the effect of marijuana on young brains by Ariana Huffington. (Sorry Clay - too late for you) - dc

7-30-14 - Mississippi Eyes Book Event at Book Passage in Marin County, CA this Saturday August 2, 2014 - more in Ads and Info

Wondered what happened to Werner Erhard. - more in dc misc 4

7-25-14 - Earth Dodged Massive Solar Storm In 2012 That Could Have Wiped Out Power Grid

7-24-14 - This sentence from the article in the NY Times linked to yesterday caught my attention:

Indonesia, which, despite being a member of the G-20 group of major economies, has more than 100 million people living on $2 a day or less.

That's so misleading. - more in Saunters

7-23-14 - A Child of the Slum Rises as President of Indonesia - New York Times

Indonesia's final election results confirmed Joko Widodo is president. That's an enormous event here - first new president in ten years. It's like Obama being elected in the US and probably about as helpful as he'll have to deal with a coalition and a country like everywhere controlled by the rich and entrenched power. But he's the first not from the ruling elite or military. The word today is Selamat presiden terpilih baru! Congratulations on the new president elect. People I talk to are happy. He looks a little like Obama too. - posted also in Saunters

7-20-14 - Inglorious Fruits and Vegetables- When I ran the SFZC's Green Gulch Green Grocer with Jim Bockhorst, the buyer. we often purchased fruit and vegetables that had been condemned by the health department. The main seller was papayas. We sold tons of papayas illegally by the box quite cheap. Their crime? They didn't look nice. The health department nixed food for cosmetic reasons. Watch this video about a French food chain's move to sell food that would normally be thrown away.. - thanks Phil Henderson

7-19-14 - The Nigerian Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka discusses Boko Haram, organised religion, and the current state of his country. - from Aljazeera dot com. Good news site and we like the TV news and documentaries too though don't spend too much time on it. Look at some of the posts after the article. Some strong stuff.

7-17-14 - Japan 'vagina artist' woman arrest - from BBC - arrested for sending images of an "obscene object" in a country that worships the penis. Huff Post articlewith phallic toys and suckers. Check out the Kanamuri penis festival.

7-10-14 - For Women Who Saw Combat, a Place to Find Inner Peace - NY Times article on Tassajara retreat

Comment by DC in dc misc 4

6-24-14 - Rusty Schweickart page today featuring No Frames No Boundaries - listen to the talk, read the article. And more.

6-19-14 - World population clock. - to be continued

6-17-14 - Chris Hedges interviews and comments on Noam Chomsky - He calls Chomsky America's Socrates. Reviewed Socrates for an hour and think, ok, but without the emphasis on mind, thought, inspiration, the welfare of ones soul over politics, the divine. Hedges is no stranger to such thinking as he has a Masters in Divinity from Harvard Divinity School. I take it he was referring to Chomsky's use of clear thinking for the benefit of all beings.

6-15-14 - Why is the federal government planning to expand its supermax prison beds at a time when the rest of the nation is waking up to the horrors of solitary confinement? The federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) plans to add new ADX (Administrative Maximum) supermax prison beds, the most extreme form of solitary confinement, along with new Special Management Unit (SMU) cells, where two people are held in 23-hour-a-day lockdown.

NRCAT invites you to join a national call-in day on June 26 to urge Attorney General Eric Holder to build on his recent statements about the harms of solitary confinement by ensuring the BOP makes no increase in isolated confinement in the federal system.

6-12-14 - DRUGS AND THE MEANING OF LIFE - Sam Harris - posted in Engaged Buddhism/Current Events due to his early emphasis on the imorality of the war on drugs.

The “war on drugs” has been lost and should never have been waged. I can think of no right more fundamental than the right to peacefully steward the contents of one’s own consciousness. The fact that we pointlessly ruin the lives of nonviolent drug users by incarcerating them, at enormous expense, constitutes one of the great moral failures of our time. (And the fact that we make room for them in our prisons by paroling murderers, rapists, and child molesters makes one wonder whether civilization isn’t simply doomed.)

6-11-14 - Climate Change Seen Posing Risk to Food Supplies - an article from late last year in NYTimes. It's an interesting corralery to yesterday's post on CO2 increases reducing nutritional value of crops, something that was unexpected.

These articles turn my attention to a cuke link from late last year, 12-29 from an October NYTimes article: And then there's overpopulation - at the root (Thanks Michael Katz). Andrew Main in Santa Fe. Also mentioned that as the primary problem. How could anyone doubt this? Will post more on this.

Also posting in Climate Change

6-05-14 - Here's the best link for Jonathan Watts. It's the home page of the bereavement link posted before. The Wikipedia link posted a few days ago was for another person of the same name. Apologies.

Two books by Jonathan Watts

This Precious Life: Buddhist Tsunami Relief and Anti-Nuclear Activism in Post 3/11 Japan

Amazon link to This Precious Life

Lotus in the Nuclear Sea: Fukushima and the Promise of Buddhism in the Nuclear Age - by Jonathan Watts and David Loy

Lotus in the Nuclear Sea - Kyoto Journal article by Watts

6-03-14 - Jonathan Watts has worked with shut-ins and suicide prevention in Japan.Check out this link on that.

He says he suggested to Larissa MacFarquhar, staff writer for the New Yorker, that she write about Ittetsu Nemoto's work with Japanese shut-ins.

6-02-14 - Mentioned when we first got here had dinner with Jonathan Watts in Kamakura

Video interview on Tricycle

- more later.

5-27-14 - Letter on a visit with Shodo Harada Roshi to Sendai soon after the earthquake and tsunami of 2011 by Domyo, a French monk from Sogenji temple in Okayama Japan March 28 – April 5, 2011. The third of three letters.

5-25-14 - TSA site with stuff found.

5-24-14 - S E N D A I R E P O R T on a visit with Shodo Harada Roshi soon after the earthquake and tsunami of 2011 by Ekei Zenji, a German monk from Sogenji temple in Okayama Japan March 28 – April 1, 2011. ( One more letter from Myo, another disciple who accompanied Harada Roshi, will follow)

5-21-14 - Letter From SHODO HARADA ROSHI ABOUT HIS VISIT TO SENDAI - written recently after the March 11, 2011 earthquake, tsunami, and Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster. Two more letters from disciples who accompanied him will follow.

Shodo Harada cuke page

5-20-14 - Privacy - Terms and Conditions my Apply - movie - thanks Katrinka

How Snowden's Revelations Have Strengthened the NSA - thanks Andrew M.

DC opinion - I have long thought that privacy is a lost cause, that whatever we do to stop invasions of privacy may slow it down, but I see a future where everything is known. Whatever I envision will miss the mark completely I'm sure, but what I foresee is everything picked up somehow, maybe by devices everywhere, maybe tiny reproducing antennae that pick up everything including thoughts. I wonder if our only hope is to limit what is illegal as much as possible, to insure a global bill of rights that guarantees we can have any type of thought, opinion, sex, drug, art, music, religion, anti-religion, consciousness, meeting, non violent to others expression, etc, I see crime as we know it disappearing and just hope the puritans and fanatics and evil power trippers don't get hold of the reins as they tend to do. But of course there are infinite ways this sort of scenario would be avoided from future hackers to collapse of civilization. We'll see what happens (as a species). Good luck to us.

5-19-14 - Ralph Nader on C-Span - loved it - DC - thanks Matthew Zawisky

5-15-14 - Barbara Wenger's Community Grows celebrates 20 years in the SFZC City Center neighborhood and beyond.

Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster Site Presents Renewed Threat - thanks Taigen

5-11-14 - Another way of looking at climate change and suggesting other threats loom greater. - thanks Andrew M.

5-07-14 - End The War On Drugs, Say Nobel Prize-Winning Economists - pointing to enourmous suffering it causes, urge harm reduction. - posted in Engaged Buddhism/Current Events

5-06-14 - Stephen Hawking on great boon and dire threat from AI

5-04-14 - Global cooling schemeincreases dangerous seafood toxin that destroys kidney function. - thanks Andrew M who writes "This is what the Hopis call the Crooked Path, wherein every "solution" proposed by human cleverness merely creates new problems. According to the Hopi Prophecy, we are headed for a great Purification (Hopi: Powateoni), and in fact I believe we are already well into it:"

4-25-14 - On Watching the film Zen and War - an evening with Brian Victoria Part Two

4-24-14 - Hiroshima Peace Media Center article on Aimee Tsujimoto,journalist whose mother experienced the atomic bombing, conveys the dangers of radiation. Aimee is the partner of Brian Victoria. - posting also on Recent evening with Aimee and Brian

4-23-14 - Here is a recent video on the ongoing tragedy at Fukushima: It features a powerful interview with the former mayor of Futaba. Brian Victoria sends. - posting also on Brian's cuke page

4-21-14 - Part One - an evening with Amy (sp) and Brian Victoria. Spent yesterday late afternoon and Evening with Zen at War author Brian Victoria and his partner of twenty-seven years, Amy (sp?) who for years has been giving public talks on the imminent threat of radioactivity from Fukushima and other nuclear power plants. Wow. I think I'll write down what I can remember today. In the meantime, check out the Brian Victoria link on cuke. He's controversial - search the web - you won't have time to read it all.

4-20-14 - Abe must act now to seal Fukushima reactors, before it's too late - Julian Gresser - thanks John Steiner

4-19-14 - Updated the John Steiner interview with some links to noble activities he's been involved with. He's been an engaged Buddhist from before he was a Buddhist and since.

4-17-14 - Rankin & Dub Ainu Band "You can't see it, and you can't smell it either"

This is a Japanese song with subtitles about radiation inspired by the disaster at the nuclear power plant at Fukushima. Ainu are descended from the aboriginal people of Japan.

4-14-14 - Michael Shuman's Commentary on Community Economics caught my attention. Especially found this interesting:My Nominee for the Next Nobel Prize in Economics - DC

4-10-14 - Heirs To Ambedkar: The Rebirth of Engaged Buddhism in India - Alan Senauke's new book. More about it.

4-07-14 - Information Clearinghouse - Eric Arnow's favorite news site - posted in Engaged Buddhism/Current Events and Eric's cuke page

3-28-14 - Another note from Taigen Dan Leighton:

This article by Julian Gresser, while highly technical, makes a strong argument for preparing for another catastrophic earthquake affecting Fukushima Daiichi. It explains how earthquake prediction is becoming more accurate with scientific advances, details the horrific possibilities which could follow, and pleads for evacuation planning for the areas close to Fukushima, including Tokyo.

3-27-14 - A note from Taigen Dan Leighton:

Danger from the Fukushima meltdowns continue. Large amounts of Radioactive Water continues to be released into the Pacific Ocean daily, and Fukushima radiation has been detected on the U.S. West Coast. And yet nuclear power somehow continues to be promoted as a solution to the increasingly apparent perils of Climate Damage.

See "Fukushima plant hanging by its fingernails":

Taigen's Peace and Justice Page ---- Taigen cuke page

3-20-14 - National Religious Campaign Against Torture - NRCAT.org - has a lot of campaigns going - just check their website. One is to Take action today to end torture in California prisons. To send a message on that via this link.

2-16-14 - Community Grows is going strong. Here's the Valentines Day Cardthey sent out. Kudos to Barbara Wenger for all the years of effort. Koshland Park for those who don't know is accross the street and up the block from the SFZC City Center.

1-26-14 - Director of National Inst. of Health on the silly Faith vs Science thing the media loves. Still he uses the word god as if it stands for an independent being that does things but that's an ingrained metaphor.

1-22-14 - Bali Recycling dot com

Inspiring Person: Olivier Pouillon - by Janet Nicol

I read the article in Inspired Bali

posted in Saunters

1-21-14 - Trash in Bali.

1-17-14 - Cuke.com calls on the forces for good to back a non profit ISP dedicated to Net Neutrality. Maybe Google, Apple, and Microsoft could help out.

Court deals blow to Net Neutrality

Why You Should Be Freaking Out About The End Of Net Neutrality

12-24-13 - Put all the prior cuke posts on Climate Change on its own page in the Species Threat Section.

There one can scroll down all the relevant past comments and links on this subject and there exciting new pertinent posts will go. Ten years ago I didn't think climate change was a species threat. Now I think it's moved from threat to likelihood and not in the distant future. At lunch with a couple of friends in Stinson Beach last month, asked what I thought about climate change, my response was geared not to spoil the meal. The most positive comment I can come up with, I said, is that everything I believe always turns out to be wrong. - dc

12-23-13 - The Coming ‘Instant Planetary Emergency’ - from the Nation which got it from Tom's Dispatch whichcomes with an intro by Tom. Sorta puts everything else in an interesting perspective. - DC - Thanks Kelly. -

12-21-13 - Who's to Blame for Climate Change?

12-02-03 - Thailand: Uprooting Wall Street's Proxy Regime - Eric Arnow sends this which he says is more accurate than what's coming out of US news media.

11-29-13 - Voices from Solitary Confinement - thanks to NRCAT the National Religious Campaign Against Torture

11-23-13 - As for yesterday -

Chomsky Weighs in on Kennedy Assassination Anniversary
Chomsky on the assassination
Chomsky on the assassination - You Tube

Oliver Stone and American University historian Peter J. Kuznickahave a much more positive take on Kennedy as portrayed in Oliver Stone's Untold History of the United States

- posted in Engaged Buddhism/Current Events

11-14-13 - Emissions of CO2 driving rapid oceans 'acid trip'

11-12-13 - Citizens Reach Out - accounts of the human cost of war on innocent civilian populations. Thanks Ruth Friend, President and Founder

11-05-13 - Net Neutrality in danger

11-04-13 - Doctors aided US torture at military prisons, report says - BBC

CIA made doctors torture suspected terrorists after 9/11, taskforce finds - from the Guardian

Wonder what NRCAT has to say about that.

Torture Doctors of Grenada - a DC song from the 80s

11-03-13 - Climate Change Report Sees Violent, Sicker, Poorer Future - Are we including possible scenarios of climate change in our long term planning? Are we preparing for various eventualities? Or are we marching along with the governments, corporations, masses, ignoring the warnings? That's what we here at cukeville do. What, us worry?

10-27-13 - National Religious Campaign Against Torture is promoting Human Rights Day on Dec. 10.

10-19-13 - With Joanna Macy help the Buddhist Peace Fellowship reach their goal. - 10-18-13 - Wealth Inequality in America - thanks Christina Eppes

Almost anything I see these days about the state of life on this earth is dwarfed in my mind by what I see as looming disaster from climate change. The disparity of wealth shown in this video is still disconcerting and it seems that maybe the forces that are ever concentrating wealth have led to what appears to me to be our mutual demise on planet earth. Maybe I'm wrong though. I've noticed everything I believe eventually turns out to be seen as mistaken. I hope so. - dc

10-12-13 - Petition for a world takeover of dealing with the horrendous problem at Fukushima

10-11-13 - Union of Concerned Scientists on Global Warming Solutions - those who still have hope

It's too late #1

It's too late #2

Almost too late

10-09-13 - Guy McPhearson on near term extincion and seeing all of us as in a global hospice

His site: Nature Bats Last - thanks Brigid Meier

10-07-13 - We're Addicted to Economic Growth and It Will Be the Death of Us - thanks Gregory - posted in Engaged Buddhism/Current Events

10-06-13 - Sim Van der Ryn has a new book: Culture, Architecture and Nature: An Ecological Design Retrospective - Herb Kutchins review in Point Reyes Light

Sim Van der Ryn website

Met Sim when he was a guest at Tassajara. He was then a prof at UC Berkeley. Remember him and his students had a publication called Outlaw Builder's News. He designed the courtyard cabins at Tassajara, the main lodge at Crestone Mt. ZC, was state architect in Jerry Brown's first term as governor. Sim got us into compost privies. Many times I've heard him tell how when he went to Tassajara we met in the baths at night and that he and his friends were shocked when a monk turned them on to wine and pot. Hey - it wasn't mine. I never kept pot or booze there. That all came from outsiders and I could smell it on guests. I just got them to share with you. We've had many good times together and Sim's been an inspiring voice for sanity in building, waste disposal, and living lightly on the earth.

Books by Sim Van der Ryn

10-05-13 - Wendell Berry on his hopes for humanity - with Bill Moyers - thanks Brit Pyland

10-03-13 - Two years ago during a practice period at Tassajara, Soto Zen priest Shodo Cedar Spring began to envision a pilgrimage--a walk along the proposed route of the Keystone XL Pipeline through the heart of North America to express her deep concern for the environment. With encouragement from San Francisco Zen Center CentralAbbot Myogen Steve St�cky (then at Tassajara), she spent the next two years preparing for the journey called theCompassionate Earth Walk, which began this July and is slated to end this month. Abbot Steve St�cky even joined her and her group for a few days last month. Her courageous vision, which she refers to as a spiritual walk rather than a protest, may also happen to reflect ideas about pilgrimage held by Suzuki Roshi more than 50 years ago.

Excerpt from A Long and Compassionate Walk for the Earth: Zen Priest's Pilgrimage Nears Completionan article by Myoki Stewart in the SFZC's Sangha News Weekly

Photos of the Compassionate Earth Walk on Flickr

10-01-13 - Fukishima disaster reaches epic proportions - from Taigen Dan Leighton. Put this on Taigen's Peace and Justice page which we haven't kept up. We'd need a special bureau to keep up with Taigen's activities and devotion to all beings.

9-30-13 - One example of the US and the USSR coming very close to nuclear war - and not the only time - from the BBC - posted in Species Threats #1 - accidental nuclear war.

9-25-13 - EDF - the Environmental Defense Fund - on global warming

According to our spies [more at SPECIES THREATS]

9-22-13 - Photos by Leon Kunstenaar from yesterdays KXL and anti-fracking demo in San Anselmos (part of coordinated national protest) - see DC in top right photo on 2nd page. As you can see, our actions will certainly turn the tide and global warming will be reversed. - dc

9-21-13 - In CA's Marin County today:Climate Action: Draw the Line on the Keystone XL Pipeline in San Anselmo, Saturday, September 21st,1:00 p.m.-2:00 p.m.

9-20-13 - Met a man collecting cans to sell. He used to be in banking. He said he'd been thinking about climate change and how the human race is bringing it on - more in SPECIES THREATS

9-19-13 - Chasing Ice - Posting inSpecies Threats, climate change.

9-16-13 - Bill Maher on US obsession with bombing other countries

9-12-13 - Encourage Jerry Brown to release more elderly, infirm, non violent, minor drug charge prisoners into rehab etc instead of spending a half billion a year to keep them locked up in awful conditions.

9-05-13 - Another study showing LSD etc not harmful, even helpful. Not that I've had any since February of 1967, my point always being to stop the cruel and pointless persecution of those who use and distribute it.

Molly deaths may be caused by other drugs - again, I don't do anything but tea with caffeine, but if MDMA were legal, people would know what they were getting. - dc

8-31-13 - Reading about Jerry Brown's desire to keep as many people in prison as possible. See this article. Reminded me of a song I wrote for him back in 1980.Please Don't Build No More Prisons Governor Brown

8-21-13 - Paul Shippee, one of two friends into Tibetan Buddhism who told me to go hear Anam Thubten in Point Richmond (see 8-19), interviewed:

Crestone Energy Fair will present a Nonviolent Communication Forum at  1:30 pm on Saturday under the tent...see you there.  Meantime, here's a 4-min preview video by Scott Murrish

Thanks Gregory for sending this quotefrom Howard Zinn.

8-16-13 - Seeds with Wings - Sarah Weintraub is bloging about her tiny house and tiny houses in general. She also blogs for the tiny house people at Tumbleweed.

Very cool. Sarah does it again. In Spring of 2007 there were posts on the project she was involved with in Columbia and in March of 2009 cuke posted her writing about the Dar Papaya Project of youth for peace in the US and Columbia where she lived in a village, her presence protecting them from atrocities. For a while she was director of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship.

8-09-13 - Remember Nagasaki

8-06-13 - Remember Hiroshima

7-29-13 - Frank Anderton writes: Illegal Surveillance!

7-26-13 - Nature Bats Last - Guy McPherson sees near term extinction. - thanks Brigid Meier

7-23-13 - Interesting brief article on climate change figuring, the future and future people discounted by economists, most of whom depend on corporate support. An article by Eric Zuesse who wrote They're Not Even Close comparing Republican and Democratic economies and this bookon the birth of Christianity. - posted inEngaged Buddhism/Current Events

7-21-13 - WSJ - Rise of the Warrior Cop

7-16-13 - [from TruthDig] Sea Levels ‘Are Set for Continuing Rise’ - Predictions of possible global temperature rise by the end of this century suggest that sea levels could rise by more than two meters, much further than scientists had thought. (DC's italics. Something I keep pointing out - climate change news frequently has this sort of comment with it - either much further than thought before or much faster or much worse or some new factor that makes it worse or faster.)

7-11-13 - Bodhgaya Mahabodhi temple bombed - thanks Lor

7-04-13 - Happy birthday USA. Thinking of FDR's Four Freedoms for all.

6-23-13 -

Pity the nation whose people are sheep,  and whose shepherds mislead them.  Pity the nation whose leaders are liars, whose sages are silenced,  and whose bigots haunt the airwaves.  Pity the nation that raises not its voice,  except to praise conquerors and acclaim the bully as hero  and aims to rule the world with force and by torture.  Pity the nation that knows no other language but its own  and no other culture but its own.  Pity the nation whose breath is money  and sleeps the sleep of the too well fed.  Pity the nation — oh, pity the people who allow their rights to erode  and their freedoms to be washed away.  My country, tears of thee, sweet land of liberty.       – Lawrence Ferlinghetti, 2007

- thanks A Main in SFe

6-18-13 - Posted this today in Family section: June 1989 Article (in Jp) and photo with Elin Chadwick in Okayama, Japan, protest of what's called the Tiananmin Square massacre.

Then added: I say "what's called theTiananmin Square massacre" because I read a long article in the Nation back then called something like "There Was no Massacre at Tiananmin Square" and if you do an Internet search on that you'll see more on this. But even these articles report that there were deaths outside of the square. Not something I want to get into further. - dc

6-17-13 - Drowning Doesn’t Look Like Drowning - Here’s what to look for. - of all the false impressions that movies and TV give, the worst must be in the area of public safety. Although I just saw the excellent Sci Fi flick Gattaca and its two drowning scenes didn't have the usual misrepresentations. - dc

6-16-13 - Alan Senauke writes Burma Unbound? on the Clear View Blog of theClear View Project.

6-14-13 - Clear View Project - featuring the new film Zen and War and doing other good work.

6-08-13 - Saw that the Stolen Valor law was signed by Obama. You can now get a year in jail for lying about your war record. To me this is one of many many crimes that we will lock people in cages for doing when they are not dangerous. How unimaginative, cruel, and harmful. Why can't they do some sort of public penance, community service. I think I'll make this a cuke cause - take on the prison industry. Incarceration only for the dangerous. More on it later. - dc

6-03-13 - Old Data Reveals Warming Oceans - just another article on climate change. An early sentence in the article is characteristic of reporting on this topic, not just now but way back - it's worse, happening faster than scientists previously thought, or some new factor that accelerates it.

A main finding is that the impact of global warming on the oceans might have been significantly underestimated: the oceans are absorbing far more heat than previously realized.

Assange on Google

6-02-11 - Bill Maher makes a strong pitch for finally legalizing pot.

5-27-13 - Happy Memorial Day - On this day when we honor those who died while serving in the armed forces. We go to war easily, full of enthusiasm, sparing no expense. We glorify the dead. We tend not to honestly question the wisdom of sending them, the wisdom of decisions made during their engagement. We don't ask how many died because of our negligence. We don't do so well with those who lived.

Which link to hit on homeless veterans?

Neglected Veterans - Just one link. Find others.

Much profit is made through war. Should more of it go to neglected veterans? - dc

5-25-13 - A Message mainly to Californians from the National Religious Campaign Against Torture

This holiday weekend, we urge you to take a moment for California's youth. One final hurdle remains for passage of Senate Bill 61, a bill to limit the harmful practice of placing young people in solitary confinement in California. Thanks to your support, S.B. 61 passed through the Senate Appropriations Committee this past week, and the bill goes to the Senate floor on Tuesday for a vote.

Your support is needed in this final push for passage! Please take a moment this holiday weekend to express your support for S.B. 61 to your local Senator using the sample email we have prepared.

5-20-13 - Market Watch - College Grads Scammed

5-18-13 - Here's a better presentation of the last link put up yesterday. Take Action Today to End Solitary Confinement in Immigration Detention - an appeal from NRCAT - the National Religious Campaign Against Torture.

5-09-13 - Congratulations to the human race for reaching the 400 parts per million for the first time in four million years or so.The World Suicide Club salutes you! Also see Species Threats - climate change.

5-06-13 - One way diagnostics, medical costs will come down - thanks Gregory

5-05-13 - RIP dear friend Peter Warshall who helped to save Bolinas, friend to chimpanzies and all living creatures, watershed savant, septic tank guru, Whole Earth editor, brother to Suzuki student Jackie, sweet guy farewell, . Just learned from Rick Levine. - DC

Peter on Wikipedia

Great tribute to Peter from his niece Yoginrose

Tributes to Peter on funeral home site

Ecologist Peter Warshall: Enchanted by the Sun - video - or on Channels.com

5-03-13 - Cheap Canadian electric car - thanks McIver

4-29-13 - Truthdigger of the Week: Jeremy Scahill

4-26-13 - Happy Chernobyl Day - April 26, 1986

Starting a page for Fukushimatoday [a subpage of Engaged Buddhism/Current Events] featuring links and comments fromTaigen Dan Leighton and John Steiner - the situation is much worse than it gets credit for being.

4-25-13 - Southern Poverty Law Center - a noble organization

4-23-13 - Oh darn - Obama's Terror Campaign

4-22-13 - Happy Earth Day

Poll Finds Americans Less Concerned About The Environment Now Than When Earth Day Began

4-12-13 - A Message From a Dying Veteran

Iraq Veterans Against the War

4-01-13 - Dotty Woodson's page - praise to her for her tireless work to educate Texas communities and individuals on sound water management and conservation - one of my best buds here in Fort Worth.

3-30-13 - Japan Journalist: Situation at Fukushima Daiichi “way worse than officially announced”

Petition urging California senators Boxer and Feinstein to investigate and do something about the threat to California from further Fukushima disasters.

3-29-13 - This border checkpoint story was of interest to me because of the police state type experience Katrinka and I had recently coming up from Big Bend.

3-25-13 - Immigrants Held in Solitary Cells, Often for Weeks

Solitary - Torture in Your Backyard

Hot spring by the Rio Grand river, soaking, swimming, waving to Mexican cowboys on the other side. Out of Big Bend on the way to Marathon car searched by Border Patrol officers with dog - and we'd never left the US. This is government spending that could be cut. Reflected on the strong arm of government seeking to crush the harmless while ignoring and creating major harm. US Border Patrol and Immigration for instance. - dc

3-22-13 - Authorities On Alert As Hundreds Of Crazed Sociopaths Enter Congressional Chambers - thanks O'Neil Louchard

3-21-13 - National Religious Campaign Against Torture announces their April hour long webinar: Solitary Confinement in an Age of Mass Incarceration.

3-17-13 - A trailer for a documentary named Midway about birds and plastic 2000 miles from a continent. Disturbing. We haven't had plastic very long. Must learn to deal with it in a less harmful way. We are capable of doing better, adjusting. Good luck to us and the birds. - dc - thanks Edgar Arnold

3-06-13 - It's the Sugar, Folks - New York Times (blog)-by Mark Bittman- Feb 27, 2013 - thanks Ron Browning.

2-27-13 - Ecological Buddhism - a Response to Global Warming

2-25-13 - Haven't checked on Project Censored in a while. Look at their list of 2013 underreported stories.

2-23-13 - Hoshyar Foundation to promote the education of women in Asia.

Think I'll start a section on Empowering Women - for the benefit of the biosphere and to sweeten things at home. - dc

2-21-13 - A note from Taigen Dan Leightonon the importance of stopping the Keystone XL pipeline with a link to a talk he gave on this. He just returned from demonstrating in front of the White House with 50,000 others. - filed on Taigen's Peace and Justice Page.

Related to this, Shudo Spring sends a link to Compassionate Earth Walk

2-20-13 - Debunking the Boston Tea Party Myth - at history net dot com - filed in current events - thanks JR

1-27-12 - First saw this in today's Fort Worth paper from Carolyn Lochhead, the San Francisco Chronicle's Washington correspondent.: Climate change may be irreversible, scientists say

Googled "global warming" and got a string of more encouraging links such as

Norway Data Shows Earth’s Global Warming Less Severe Than Feared

Checked science sites and got more dire results.

Experts Agree Global Warming Is Melting the World Rapidly

Have not noticed Buddhist groups including this subject in their projections and plans. Like the government. Like almost every institution and everyone. Individual and local actions are good I think but only massive global action it seems will help. All I do is mention it, link to it, watch and wait. Good luck to us all. - dc

1-21-13 - Remembering the Real Martin Luther King

1-14-13 - So 2012 was the hottest year on record in the US with a one degree spike that was unprecedented, usually it's one tenth this way or that. I recall Dennis Miller on some talk show a few years ago saying he could live with a world that was one degree warmer and I'm sure that's what a lot of people think. But it seems to me that thinking about the significance of the world's average temperature in terms of what it's like outside is not useful. Better to liken it to the temperature of a human, one's child or parent might bring it home better for some. We could look at the world as our mother who is running a bit of a fever with signs that the fever is going to get worse. But that analogy also doesn't quite work. The mother is fine - as George Carlin pointed out - it's her children that will suffer from her running a temperature, not her. She runs a few degrees and catastrophes happen, world order is threatened. Stephen Hawken warned that too many degrees could tip us into a Jurassic type climate not suitable for humans. Mother earth would just have different children. Meanwhile the smartest pundits like Zakaria whom I admire greatly, host conversations with authorities whom speak of the necessity of every country having continued growth, the benefits of all this cheap gas that wasn't figured on. We hear all sorts of interesting ideas and learn important facts but there seems to be a factor or two missing. We don't seem to be able to focus on serious impending problems or prepare for and do everything we can to avert catastrophe. See Jared Diamond's Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. Are our leaders to blame? Again I refer to George Carlin who didn't blame the elected leaders but the electorate.

12-28-12 - Study: booze worse than pot for kids' brains

12-05-12 - David Cay Johnston on NPRabout how big companies rob us blind.

11-27-12 - Author Warns 'Second Nuclear Age' Is Here - NPR

See Species Threat Department.

11-24-12 - UNEP Greenhouse Gas Emissions Report Finds Climate Change Goals Growing More Elusive

11-20-12 - We can learn about education from the Finns - This op ed in our local Marin Independent Journal points out the rewards of living in a society where people take care of each other - all for one, one for all. - dc

See Species Threat Department.

11-14-12 - A message from the National Religious Campaign Against Torture - Sixteen religious leaders will meet with White House staff on Tuesday, November 27 to urge the President to sign the Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture. Please join us by signing this statement.

11-13-12 -Climate Change - it's the Heat and the Humidity

See Species Threat Department

11-12-12 - New pot laws in the face of the feds - John Stewart and Andrew Sullivan have both recently pointed to the giggles that frequently accompany this topic when covered by TV media, not taking it seriously. Obama brushed it off with a joke too when legalization was topic #1 on his Internet ask-the-president thing a few years ago. But surely he knows the suffering these pointless draconian laws cause - to millions, especially to the poor and minorities. Around 750,000 arrested last year in the US followed by jail time, sometimes many years, stigma, loss of jobs, job opportunities, Federal aid to education and housing. If Obama who was a pot head had been by chance he'd not be president. - dc

Legal drugs, deadly outcomes - LA Times

11-11-12 - Veteran's Day - Support the troops - take care of them after they've served, bring them home as soon as possible, don't let politicians send them to fight without extremely good reason. Check out Veterans for Peace

Suggest we pass a law that any politician who votes to send soldiers to fight is then committed for life to work for veterans - in veterans' hospitals or with a veteran's jobs program or veteran's counseling or veteran's something. It's going to effect the people they're sending for the rest of their lives so it would effect theirs' too and they'd take the gravity of their vote more seriously. - dc

11-08-12 - Buddhism/Current Events section topics rolling around in my thought stream: , the plight of disadvantaged poor people and plutocracy, the rise of women, nuclear threat, torture, drones, war on drugs, voter suppression in the US and climate change as something that could make all other issues insignificant,

11-07-12 - For many, today is a day to rejoice. One thing to be grateful for is the rise of the scientists (Nate Sliver, TPM, Huff Post, and Real Clear Politics Poll calculators), the comedians (Stewart, Colbert, Maher), and humanists (Moyers, Hedges).

11-06-12 - VOTE

11-05-12 - A Simpson's animator comments on the election

11-03-12 - Chris Mathews and guests on Climate Change

11-02-12 - Active Non-Violence and More: Turning Wheel Media Interviews Alan Senauke

10-31-12 - Our Words Are Our Weapons by Rebecca Solnit (on Truthdig from Tom's Dispatch)

See Rebecca Solnit in Tom's Dispatch

Rebecca Solnit dot com

10-30-12 - Garbage Warrior - thanks Howie

10-29-12 - Bill Moyers and Company -Plutocracy Rising - thanks Howie and others

10-22-12 - Congratulations to James Fox for miraculously meeting the Kickstart goal to raise $30,000 to finish his movie on the year of the BP oil spill, Pretty Slick.

10-21-12 - Watch: Pastor’s Speech Against Gay Rights Has Surprise Ending

10-16-12 - Only two days to go for Jamie Fox to achieve his Kickstarter goal of $30,000 to fund his documentary film on the BP oil spill. Jamie is already an acclaimed documentary film maker. (made it somehow)

10-15-12 - "We all grew up thinking soda could be part of a healthy diet. It's not. Soda is the No. 1 cause of the health crisis in America," says DR. Ritterman of Richmond, CA.Read more - from SF Chronicle

10-13-12 - Diss Information: Is There a Way to Stop Popular Falsehoods from Morphing into "Facts"? - Scientific American

10-12-12 - The US presidential debates' illusion of political choice - Glen Greenwald in in Guardian - thanks Gregory

More Greenwald in the Guardian

10-08-12 - An article by Noam Chomsky - Mitt Romney and Barack Obama are ignoring two of the gravest threats to humankind: climate change and nuclear war. Article on the article - in Truthdig

10-06-12 - Al Gore suggests Obama was suffering from altitude sicknessWednesday night. He'd arrived four hours earlier. That happens to me. One example: Security guards at Harrah's in Tahoe told me I couldn't sleep in a comfy chair near where son Clay and friends were playing video games. I told them I'd lost all my energy and couldn't stay awake. "Just get here?" one asked. "Yeah." "You've got altitude sickness. Go get a chocolate bar."

10-01-12 - Community Grows - Barbara Wenger continues greening up the Koshland Park and San Francisco and SF youth. Give generously.

9-28-12 - PDA Launches BlogTalk Radio -One Nation Protecting the Vote

9-27-12 - Pundit Sarah Silberman on Voter Suppression - an old topic for cuke's Engaged Buddhism/Current Events section -

Censored Version

Clean Version - failed attempt to bleep

11-24-11 - Robert Scheer's Thanks for What?on Truthdig and I'm grateful on this Thanksgiving that he wrote that.

11-22-11 - National Religious Campaign Against Torture. Like to plug these folks now and then. That way I can feel like I'm doing something to reduce torture and can then spend the rest of the day ignoring the suffering of others. - dc

I like the Keiser Report such as this one sent by Eric Arnow. Don't really know anything about economics but that doesn't stop me from putting up stuff about Buddhism either. - dc

11-19-11 - Ken Kappel'sUseForeclosureLaw is a thorough website and book. Met him at Occupy Santa Rosa. Before he gave younger son Clay a ride back to Sebastopol, he told me all sorts of awful stuff like how when one gets foreclosed on the recent laws make it where the bank gets reimbursed, not the homeowner, and then the bank can also write it off and then they can extract the former homeowner's gold teeth and sell their vital organs and put their children in coal mines to slave away for the 1%. It was maddening. Glad my field is emptiness - I'll have to leave the phenomenal problems to folks like him. - dc

11-14-11 - Kyoto Journal - the great magazine now only on the web. There are plenty of engaged Buddhist type articles.

Marijuana user persecution - arrests skyrocket in CA. Why? Cause it's easy and they're powerless - mainly black.

11-13-11 - Interesting almost effortless way to support Occupy Wall Street sort of thing.

10-23-11 - Believe it or not - the world is becoming, humanity is becoming less violent - say three studies.

10-31-11 - Went with friend artists sculptor blacksmith Andrew A to another Occupy Santa Rosaevent on Saturday for a while and was impressed with the vibes. Not much anger. The media has a tendency to paint the crowd as unclear of purpose unemployed hippies. There is surely that but also there are plenty of employed and concerned about an imbalance that's causing a lot of grief. - dc

Got this graphic from Crooks and Liars.

10-23-11 - Believe it or not - the world is becoming, humanity is becoming less violent - say three studies.

10-21-11 - Global warming 'confirmed' by independent study - BBC article on this trend which could have catastrophic implications for meditation halls everywhere.

10-19-11 -

MK sent this from wherever he was - Nevada City? We had that sign here for Occupy Santa Rosa too. My favorite sign was a kid riding on his father's shoulders holding up a sign that read "My arms are tired."

10-18-11 - Climate change 'grave threat' to security and health - BBC - nothing new but since it poses such a threat to our ability to meditate serenely, it's worth occasional reminders.

10-16-11 - Ken Knabb of the incredible BOP Secrets on The Awakening in America (about the Occupy movement). Also, see Ken's cuke interview.

While in Chicago a young woman approached me with info about the Mercy Home and what they're doing for some young people there with parent or no parent problems. I couldn't give money so I told her I'd mention this on cuke. Check 'em out.

10-16-11 - Joined in on Occupy Santa Rosa yesterday. Check out some photos of son Clay, friends, and me and see links to articles on the local, nationwide, and worldwide event. - dc

10-08-11 - From the MPP (Marijuana Policy Project):

DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE TAKES STEPS TO SUBSIDIZE CALIFORNIA GANGS; THREATENS TO SHUT DOWN MEDICAL MARIJUANA DISPENSARIES

FBI: 750,000 People Arrested for Simple Marijuana Possession in 2010. And for What? - It is time we stop spending billions of dollars ruining people’s lives in a vain attempt to prevent them from using a plant that humans have used safely for thousands of years.

Tell Obama to keep his word on medical marijuana

DC note: Haven't had any pot for years but continue to oppose persecution of those who do.

10-07-11 - On the subject of torture:

Check out National Religious Campaign Against Torture (NRCAT) website.

Support hunger striking prisoners andsend a message to Gov. Jerry Brown from NRCAT.

Join NRCAT on Facebook:www.facebook.com/nrcat and Twitter: www.twitter.com/nrcattweets

End Prolonged Solitary Confinement - an issue NRCAT focuses on.

Read the New Yorker article, Hellhole - The United States holds tens of thousands of inmates in long-term solitary confinement. Is this torture? - thanks Janie Okamura

9-30-11 - Wow. Occupy together. - thanks Howie.

Democracy Now on the Wall St. protests - thanks Taigen

Noah Fischer was there in NYC where they're going to see that Wall Street redistributes the wealth more fairly. Hope they don't forget you.

9-22-11 - Amory Lovins' response to Stewart Brand's new pro nuclear power position.

For earlier links on this subject including a talk by Brand, go back to 4-24-11 through 4-29-11 in Current Events/Engaged Buddhism.

8-10-11 - Lakoff: How to Rescue the American Dream from the GOP's Nightmare

And, for balance, Democrat’s nightmare: ‘Let’s make a deal’ Obama

8-09-11 - Remember Nagasaki, Japan's tradition Christian center. Sixty-six years ago, the year I came from, the nuclear bomb was created and used. Many more people had died in the fire bombings but the potential for these bombs was to waste the biosphere. So far we still haven't done that but people tend to think that the danger has passed. It hasn't. One of the greatest threats, maybe the greatest threat, to the human race and other higher forms of life is the use of nuclear bombs. Accidental nuclear war between Russian and the US is still possible. We still have thousands of missiles armed and ready to launch in an instant. President Obama has indicated an awareness of this and in a first for US presidents made early assertions that we should work toward a world without nuclear weapons in his lifetime but also threatened Iran with "all options are on the table."

Union of Concerned Scientists

Center for Defense Information

Helen Caldicott

See cuke's Species Threat Number 1: Accidental or Otherwise Caused Nuclear War Between the US and Russia

Check out the Nuke Songs section of DC's Defuser Music, featuring World Suicide and Freeze Please.

8-08-11 - ALEC exposed in Taigen's Peace and Justice Page

8-04-11 - Econ Stories TV, featuring Fight of the Century - Keynes vs. Hayek. Wow. Thanks Howie.

Howie also sent this discouraging piece of economic commentary by Michael Hudson. Ouch.

8-01-11 - Taigen on the debt deal

7-27-11 - Culture of Empathy

7-23-11 - Love Cenk Uyger - the progressive host with the most mispronounced name.

7-22-11 -

Taigen's Peace and Justice Page

updated

7-19-11 - Public Citizen - founded by Ralph Nader.

7-16-11 - The National Religious Campaign Against Torture (NRCAT) urges us to send an email to California Governor Jerry Brown on behalf of fasting prisoners on the verge of death at Pelican Bay.

Go here to read a brief and disturbing description of the situation and to send an email to the Governor.

7-10-11 - In a monologue the progressives at cuke appreciated, Bill Maher compares recent famous verdict with the thinking of his unfavorite political party, making a point related to that which Thom Hartmann made when he compared the engaged and displeased public reaction to that verdict to their lack of opinion to another batch of crimes from Wall Street in recent history. See two video reports from Hartman:

Trail by media

Who should be in jail?

7-08-11 - Thom Hartmann - progressive talk at its best. IMHO

with Bernie Sanders - thanks Howie

7-05-11 - Come Home America - calling for an end to American militarism

7-04-11 - Happy birthday America and Ron Kovic.

Reminiscing - This posted from the Panama Hotel in San Rafael where Katrinka hosts. I lived a few blocks from there by Gerstle Park 93-96 in a home with a woman renting downstairs who was taking care of George Wheelwright (in total memory loss) who'd sold/donated Green Gulch Farm to the SFZC. She also knew Ron Kovic who lived over the hill in Ross and I had the honor of meeting him there.Taigen Dan Leighton was involved with Kovic at the time in peace work.

6-22-11 - Are you enjoying the summer? Were two days in now. Here in Fort Worth which I'm flying away from later today, it was over 100 all last week, to 106 the day I was in Austin which has forgotten what rain means unless they participated in the thunder and rain of last night. Which reminds me, how is my country dealing with this global warming thing?

The Zen tie in to this is that some of the catastrophic predictions of the results of climate change would interfere with people's spiritual practice as they might be distracted by heat prostration or in some cases extreme cold and neverending snow, drowning, starvation, societal collapse.

Let me check it out. Uh oh.

Al Gore article in Rolling Stone says Obama not doin near nuff

And I remember some UN environmental report was critical of the US. Let's see.Found this on how world lags in trip to cut carbon emissions.

But look at this: Report Debunking UN's Global Warming Alarmism is Backed by 31,478 U.S. Scientists.

Good. Nothing to worry about. Burn baby burn. - dc

6-17-11 - On 40th Anniversary Of War On Drugs, Cops Decry Obama's Drug Policy

6-16-11 - EAST BAY MEDITATION CENTER

24 Hour Dharma-thon 7/2/2011 Oakland, California

I know you care about Dharma and social justice, and how working together, we can improve the world for ourselves and the next generations. That is why I am reaching out to you.

I’m teaching as part of the 24 Hour Dharma-thon to raise money for EAST BAY MEDITATION CENTER - please make a donation by visiting my FirstGiving page

You can donate online with a credit card. All donations are secure and sent directly to EAST BAY MEDITATION CENTER by FirstGiving, who will email you a printable record of your donation.

Please send my page on to anyone who might like to donate!

"Mushim Ikeda" <support@firstgiving.com>

Mushim Ikeda Nash website

6-02-11 - Drug War Has Failed And Governments Should Explore Legalizing Marijuana, Says Reportfrom Huff Post

Global War on Drugs has Failed - BBC

6-01-11 - Paul Shippee has written an article on Lester Brown, WORLD ON THE EDGE in the Crestone Eagle, at this link for now.

5-30-11 - Memorial Day

Keep the Troops at Home

Iraq Veterans against the War (includes Afghan Vets)

Veterans for Common Sense

Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America

5-28-11 - George Carlin on the economy and you

5-24-11 - The Wrath of Shiva - India like the US in dealing with tribal peoples. - thanks Andrew Main

5-16-11 - Willem Malten in Santa Fe urges us to be aware of the work of the Los Alamos Study Group. Willem says please help me destroy the proposed CMRR-NF: the liar of the nuclear beast: visit LASG.org & see what u can do.

5-09-11 - Rejoice Not - thanks John De Smidt (Gene's bro)

4-30-11 - Steve Weintraub sent a rare appeal to join 350 dot org in this global movement to solve the climate crises

4-20-11 - Remember when cops, fire fighters, teachers, other public employees, Planned Parenthood, NPR and PBS crashed the stock market, wiped out half of our 401Ks, took trillions in TARP money, spilled oil in the Gulf of Mexico, gave themselves billions in bonuses, and paid no taxes?

Yeah, me neither. - thanks to Rene Pettit

4-07-11 -

Mexican Standoff - Dan Rather

Mexican Drug War a Lost Cause

Bodies found as Mexicans March Against Drug Violence

3-25-11 - Donate to Japan Reliefthrough Soto Zen in America.

Japan has not stopped giving aid to India, where I am, but I've seen articles in the paper
about ways that India is sending and offering to send help to Japan. - dc

3-22-11 - A message from an American in Sendai, hardest hit by the earthquakes. - thanks Elin

$300 Home - maybe not for you, but then, if you look around, say where I am these days in Tamil Nadu, it seems worth looking into. - thanks MK

A message from an American in Sendai, hardest hit by the earthquakes. - thanks Elin

3-17-11 - Buddhism and Wealth: Defining 'Right Livelihood' - Lew Richmond's Huff Post blog featured on their front page today. My web news habit is to quickly on all - check the BBC RSS feed first, then Huff Post, Talking Points Memo, andCrooks and Liars. So I was most pleased to see Lew's article featured so prominently on Huff today.

See Lew's cuke interview where there are more links.

3-06-11 - Clay's grandpa Rusty op ed in NYT from Planetary Defense Blogspot and an article on the New Yorker,Vermin of the Sky, featuring his concern over preparedness for NEOs, near earth objects. This to add to prior articles and links in the Space section of the Species Threats department of Current Events/Engaged Buddhism theater of cuke.com. The point being that it will be harder to meditate if the planet gets destroyed in a way we could have easily avoided.

2-10-11 - Here's a dated but still relevantvideo from True Majority. (for the CurrentEvents\EngagedBuddhism section).

1-17-11 - Martin Luther King was as much an anti-war activist as one for civil rights.Here's one article on that.,

1-1-11 - Happy New Year to all from the staff at cuke.com. What does this year have in store for us? Who knows. But the climate, the weather, may capture our attention with ever-increasing force. Check out the following from EcoBuddhism:

Ten Major New Findings Made 2010 a Stunning Year in Climate Science -thanks to Taigen

12-27-10 -Portugal's Drug Policy Pays Off

11-29-10 - In praise of … Chalmers Johnson - from the Guardian

RIP to the political prophet who warned eloquently of the perils of empire and the urgent need to dismantle it. - dc

8-28-10 - MLK's emphasis toward the end of his life was to work for peace.This article from WagingPeace states it well and simply.

And speaking of peace, here's a month old piece by Ralph Nader on the War in Afghanistan.

8-05-10 - Hiroshima Day - time to go see Countdown to Zero

7-24-10 - Don't Blame BP - a pinched image short

7-16-10 - Forecast of an EMP destroying solar storm and what to do about it.

7-08-10 - Save Sakineh from Stoning in Iran

Happy to see progressive commentator Cenk Uygur on MSNBC - here bemoaning Obama's economic strategy.

7-05-10 - Thanks to Richard Speel for sending:

Don't be afraid of a flag...Sometimes it blows and other times it waves...    Have a peaceful day of interdependence!

Joseph Campbell was pro flag and I looked for a quote from him on it

but couldn't find one. Cuke is neutral. - dc

7-04-10 - Put Away the Flags

by Howard Zinn

Happy July 4th!

7-01-10 - Join the Peace Team to help us end the occupation of Afghanistan as soon as we can.

Posted in Out of Afghan!

6-12-2010 - Remembering Jacque Cousteau, a timely post.

6-09-2010 - Noam Chomsky and Ralph Nader - I don't think either should run for president, but to me each in his own way sure cuts through the established propaganda and assumptions. - dc

5-28-2010 - Wealth gap grows between black and white Americans. Bad.

Defeat in the war on drugs

5-06-10 - The Fog of World War II: Setting the Record Straight on D.T. Suzuki by Nelson Foster and Gary Snyder [ filed in the Brian Victoria department]

5-02-10 - From the Final Broadcast of the Bill Moyer's Journal: Plutocracy and Democracy Don't Mix

4-29-10 - FAIR article NPR Touts Pro-Nuke 'Environmentalists' including a look at Stewart Brand - see 4-24-10.

Bill Gates TED talk on how we've got to innovate to zero carbon emissions before long and how.

What's the official cuke position on all this? A I wrote to a friend recently: standing with hands in pockets and mouth agape going duhhhhh.

4-26-10 - A response to Stewart Brand's pro nuke energy spiel of 4-24-10

Just to add my two cents: I've thought for some time now that Brand is not primarily an environmentalist. He's a technologist first and foremost. I find his stand on nuclear power reprehensible. But I don't find it nearly as reprehensible as Judy finds it reprehensible. She's really bugged by the renewed interest. If you haven't already read it, read "The Party's Over" by Richard Heinberg. I find it nice and clean and clear and devoid of technophile delusions.

from Mark Bittner and here's a link to his partner Judy Irving.

***

From Transition Culture, a series on Why nuclear power is not the solution (he just sent a link to #4 but I put here the whole series-dc)

Why Nuclear Power is a Non-Response to Peak Oil – Part 3 – because if it Goes Wrong it Goes Really Really Wrong…

There's an element to the lifeaftertheoilcrash site that I don't like. The survivalist bit. But there was some good information about nuclear power, which is why I sent the link.--Mark B

Life After the Oil Crash

Mark writes: An understanding of this is somewhat dependent on an understanding of "Peak Oil," an extremely interesting and way-of-life-changing topic that, so far, has received very little attention. I recommend Richard Heinberg's site as a starting point: http://richardheinberg.com/. And as I mentioned, his book, The Party's Over, is a great primer.

4-25-10 - INTERNATIONAL PETITION TO PROTECT LUMBINI'S ENVIRONMENT - thanks to Ron Browning

4-24-10 - Stewart Brand - rethinking green on FORA-tv. I love to have all my cherished assumptions about something undermined. - dc

The Long Now Foundation's link to rethinking green.

The book: Whole Earth Discipline: An Ecopragmatist Manifesto.

See his annotations to this book at his website.

4-20-10 - Today's the big day for pot. Why?--that's right - kids from around here (Marin County, CA) started it. May people be persecuted for using pot no more. See NORML and Legalization of Marijuana dot com and MPP. I don't use it or anything but caffienated tea - but I don't use persecution either--that most harmful and addictive drug. That's why cuke dot com enthusiastically supports harm reduction - reducing the harm from drugs and the war on drugs (read war on people).

What is harm reduction?

Harm Reduction dot org

Harm reduction on Drug Policy dot org

4-18-10 - Los Alamos Lab's CMRR-NF project would send wrong message to world By Willem Malten in the Santa Fe New Mexican - another posting in the Nuclear (pronounced like "new clear") Threat section4-17-10 - Updating the Species Threats section - nuclear threat department.

Significant movement on nuclear weapons reduction - but not really getting below species threat level, still within psychotic planet definition - featuring Jonathan Schell's April 2010 article Reaching Zero in the Nation with other links and reports.

11-29-09 - Congratulations and may the force be with you to Sarah Weintraub for her position as new director of the BPF. You might be thinking, 'You mean the British Property Federation?' Nope. 'Then it's the British Plastics Federation! How wonderful!' Nope. 'Does it have anything to do with Band Pass Filters to attenuate frequencies?' No no no. I'll give you a hint. It's in Berkeley. 'Oh, she's the new director of the Berkeley Packet Filter used by some Unix systems? But that's not the name of an institution. It's a filter.' That's right and you're wrong. It's the Buddhist Peace Fellowship.

The BPF just sent me an email stating, "We are happy to endorse the World March for Peace and Nonviolence, coming to San Francisco on December 2!"

And this notice proudly goes to cuke's CurrentEvents\EngagedBuddhism section - as does the next one.

11-30-09 - European Parliament passes resolution: Vietnam must curb human rights violations

12-05-09 - Best of luck to:

Buddhist Climate Project

May your venture succeed.

11-27-09 -

Quick! Go out and buy nothing!

filed in CurrentEvents\EngagedBuddhism

11-26-09 - Common Dreams, for the discriminating cuke-EngagedBuddhist.

11-25-09 - The Regressive Antidote.This guy would have been fun to have as a political science teacher. Boy does he trash Obama. But I know he wishes Obama and all of us well.

11-19-09 - Guilty until proven innocent? Where? Most places if the government really wants to get you. We hear about China, but one place that's overlooked is Japan. It's pretty extreme there. I remember a young woman teacher who got arrested by accident but still had to sign a confession before they'd let her go. Read this.

11-07-09 - Roots of Peace dot org - Founder Heidi K�hn and her hubby Gary (I think) are on their way to Afghanistan to do their mine-removing thing. We wish them a safe and successful journey.

Let me take a moment to stick in a link to the Huff Post's post on Gorbachev saying the US should learn from Russia's experience and get out of Afghanistan and US National Security Adviser James Jones Skeptical about Troop Request. - in Out of Afghan!

Afghanistan: Groundhog day - Guardian UK - in Out of Afghan!

11-06-09 - May the US Invasion of Afghanistan Come to an End ASAP - in Out of Afghan!- a new page in theCurrentEvents\EngagedBuddhism section.

10-28-09 - Keeping up with the Clear View Project and their present fundraising drive.

10-27-09 - Eric Arnow - Letter to Barak Obama

10-22-09 - Shunryu Suzuki and the war. What did he do? It's a question that keeps popping up so here's the latest exchange on the subject. - DC

10-17-09 - Vietnam: Sharp Backsliding on Religious Freedom - Harsh Crackdown on Followers of Buddhist Peace Activist Thich Nhat Hanh

10-16-09 - Food day praise for Brazil and China, New Zealand and the US on the bottom - of action to meet the cry of world hunger. - Think of this fellow USAers... [more by dc in dchadmisc]

10-15-09 - American Drug War dot com

Ron Paul strikes again - this time on the war on drugs, especially pot.

11-10-09 - Time-lapse proof of extreme ice loss - thanks Steiner

BBC - 'Scary' climate message from past

10-09-09 - Obama wins Nobel Peace prize. Wow. Rather than receiving this award for what he's done, it's obviously encouragement for the direction he's turned to - to eliminate nuclear weapons being the most significant, but for more than that. They mentioned global warming attitude shift as well. Maybe this is a proper approach in these times of serious threats to the survival of our species. By this I mean that it's not unreasonable to think there's not much time for action and why not use the award to applaud promising intentions. Now I hope there's more movement toward holding his feet to the fire to reduce the damage of our foreign policy and other threats to world peace and species survival. - dc

10-04-09 - Comparing health care to fire care - thanks

10-03-09 - Frank Rich on Obama at the Precipice as Kennedy was with a pointless, futile, massively deadly, destructive war.

10-02-09 - On the peaceful use of space

10-01-09 - Happy October - In Germany anyway. It's yesterday evening in America still but I don't know when I'll be able to post next so it's going up now.

And now for a statement of personal conviction. I think there is a dangerous amount of hysteria in the US of A at the present - I guess it could be called political hysteria. I think that it is important for each of us, at least me, to do what we can to help to cool it off, to counter it or redirect it, to stand up and be counted, write letters to the editor, talk to neighbors, encourage media not to stir it up, pray, meditate, visualize, practice loving kindness, crack jokes, etc. Or maybe you think that doing nothing is best cause whatever one tries to do will just add to the problem - sort of a Taoist approach I guess. I'm packing to go on a trip right now (see yesterday's entry) but will get back to this as soon as I can. In the meantime, I'll remember the helpful mantra from my childhood (as mentioned in Thank You and OK!):

When in trouble
When in doubt
Run in circles
Scream and shout

Peace,

9-23-09 - Bija: the Seeds of Freedomfrom Willem Malten's blog.

9-22-09 - The 2010 Project Censored book is out.

9-09-09 - Sane (to DC) comments and links on the current health care debate going on in the US.

9-02-09 - Krugman's article on where economists went wrong remind me of the importance of not taking our assumptions too seriously in other fields as well - like Buddhism etc.

9-01-09 - Willem Malten sends thoughts on food and climate change.

8-27-09 - US Campaign for Burma - don't forget.

8-19-09 - Buddhist Peace Fellowship - lot's of new stuff to keep up with.

1-23-09 - A message from Green Gulch

We are celebrating the cease fire and the hope that our new President will increase the chances for peace. Obama’s first phone call was to Mahmud Abbas. The article in Time acknowledges Eric’s unflagging intention….. and here again his blog link.

With gratitude and love, emila

Article in Time Magazine

Link to Eric’s blog

8-10-09 - The Wrong Diagnosis

Andrew Weil on the current health care debate.

8-02-09 - Sri Lanka in a bad state. Thanks John Steiner

7-31-09 - Crooks and Liars is not only a great site for short videos of and links to what's happening in the news like this cool move from the house floor and this clip from my fave, Thom Hartmann, there's an occasional far out flick like this. it's also got a great selection of music videos usually put on at the end of the day. And there's the Late Night Music Club with a wonderful array of music at the end of the day - like this great piece by Cab Calloway and two great dancers.

7-29-09 - Sarah Robinson writes on our future.

7-25-09 - The Ubiquitous Matrix of Lies

6-30-09 - Congratulations Al Franken! and condolences to Buddhists and Other Spiritual Seekers Opposed to Progressive Comedian Politicians.

6-28-09 - Clear View Project & Adopt a Monk - Clear View has taken responsibility for BPF's (Buddhist Peace Fellowship) Burma Project

6-26-09 - UN INTERNATIONAL DAY IN SUPPORT OF VICTIMS OF TORTURE

The Center for Victims of Torture
works to heal the wounds of torture on individuals, their families and their communities and to stop torture worldwide.

5-30-09 - Why torture has failed.

3-19-09 - Homelahttp://www.homelandgitmo.com/nd Guantanamos - immigrant detention in the US

3-10-09 - Maine Town Passes OrdinanceAsserting Local Self-Governance and Stripping Corporate Personhood

3-06-09 - Sarah Weintraub writes about
The Dar Papaya Project - Documenting Youth for Peace

2-05-09 - ClubOrlov: Social Collapse, Best Practices - a talk to the Long Now Foundation by Dmitry Orlov - thanks Willem Malten

1-22-09 - From this article in UK Guardian- it's all off the new White House website.Filed in Species Threat/nuclear war

The other notable shift in US foreign policy announced today was a strategic decision to move towards a "nuclear free world", through bilateral and multilateral disarmament. "Obama and [Vice President Joe] Biden will set a goal of a world without nuclear weapons, and pursue it," according to the agenda. It is a long term goal. The US will maintain a "strong deterrent as long as nuclear weapons exist", but begin to take steps on the "long road towards eliminating nuclear weapons".

The development of new nuclear weapons will be stopped, a sharp change from the Bush administration that pushed for a new generation of warheads, and the new administration will work with Moscow to take US and Russian missiles off their current hair trigger alert, while seeking "dramatic reductions in US and Russian stockpiles of nuclear weapons and material".

1-21-09 - Check out WhiteHouse.gov - stuff worth looking at. Read A National Day of Renewal and Reconciliation - Obama's first proclamation. It's a bizarre twist of events in ourCurrentEvents\EngagedBuddhism section.

Snopes in direct contradiction of fervent anti-Obama cuke readers' assertion that Obama is the anti-christ.

1-20-09 - The whole staff at cuke.com welcomes our new president. We look forward to opposing his policies when they promote the continuation of war, imperialism, corporatism, and the destruction of the planet, and hope our hope proves true - that he will do much less harm and encourage our higher angles a bit. Saw the inaugural with son Clay and fellow students and teachers and parents on wide screen TV followed by pancakes. What a day. Now enjoy Obama Girl and Obama Duet and Li'l Yani rapping Obama Made Me Proud(thanks Gene DS).

1-19-09 - One of the great liabilities of history is that all too many people fail to remain awake through great periods of social change. Every society has its protectors of the status quo and its fraternities of the indifferent who are notorious for sleeping through revolutions. But today our very survival depends on our ability to stay awake, to adjust to new ideas, to remain vigilant and to face the challenge of change." -Martin Luther King Jr. (thanks Barry Vesser)

And let us remember today what the mainstream tends to conveniently ignore about Martin Luther King - that toward the end of his life he was marginalized for his emphasis on, his passion for peace, for ending the war in Vietnam. - dc

1-17-09 - The National Religious Campaign Against Torture reminds us that torture is a moral issue, enlists religious organizations to join in opposing torture and works toward a change of policy by the US government.

1-15-09 - The informative Free Speech TV

12-14-08 - Thom Hartmann on Countdown - a great commentator on the political, social scene - and he goes deeper. See his website.

11-22-08 - Massive imprisonments underway in Burma and what to do

11-05-08 - hallelujah!

Barak Obama speaks to a crowd of over 100,000 on October 18th

If you look in the distance there, you can see a building with a greenish-copper

dome. That's the Old St. Louis Courthouse. For years and years, slaves were

auctioned on the steps of that courthouse. The Old Courthouse used to be called

the St. Louis State and Federal Courthouse.

Back in 1850, two escaped slaves named Dred and Harriett Scott had their petition

for freedom overturned in a case there. Montgomery Blair took the case to the US

Supreme Court on Scott's behalf and had Chief Justice Roger Taney throw it out

because, as he wrote, the Scotts were 'beings of an inferior order, and altogether

unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations, and

so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.

Text from unknown source - thanks to Jane Bay for passing it on and for a hallelujah email as well.

On Obama's Victory Speech, a note from elder son:

This is one of those moments I was born too late to experience………..until now, 35 years in. The delivery of sincerity, hope, vision, depth, transformation and eloquence is so powerful it transcends whether or not our species’ terminal direction can be changed. It speaks to our soul, to the higher elements of existence. It reminds us of the divine in humanity.

Love to you all,

Kelly Chadwick

The whole cuke.com staff sends its condolences to Buddhists for McCain Palin, Zennists for Nader, and Mahayanists for Barr.

11-04-08 - It's a big day in the USA. How's the betting going?

The Most Accurate Election Forecast? Hardcore Gamblers

11-03-08 - Cuke picks Talking Points Memo as the best site to follow polling and election results. Bill Moyers says he starts his day with TPM.

Huffington Post's Voting Problemssection is excellent.

10-30-08 - Republican voter suppression guide from tpm - posted in election fraud.

10-27-08 - Seven things that can go wrong on election day - a pretty good job of summarizing the American voting mess by mainstream media - Time/CNN - posted in election fraud

10-25-05 - Obama or McCain? Cuke.com presents both sides - you decide.

Zennies for Obama submit these videos:

Ron Howard's dynamite Obama ad (with Andy Griffith and Henry Winkler)

"Oui, on peut -- Yes we can!" OBAMA ZYDECO FROM LOUISIANA 2008

Yes We Can - traditional version

Kelly Chadwick's email to his conservative friends

Buddhists for McCain present their case:

Why women should vote for McCain/Palin

Comparing Obama with McCain

Why I'm Voting Republican - reasons from many sources

10-24-08 - Doctor Laments Brush-off of Iraqi War Dead - Tom Paulson of Hearst Newspapers on the research of Dr. Les Roberts. Here's another articleby Paulson on Roberts from last year.

10-17-08 - Thanks to Shunryu Suzuki disciple Ron Browning for sending the latest on election fraud.

Block the Vote by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. & Greg Palast in the current issue (#1064) of Rolling Stone.

The Kennedy-Palast revelations go far beyond the sum of questionably purged voters recently reported by the New York Times. Read more about this and how to get the comic book in the cuke.com Election Fraud department.

10-12-08 - Love Naomi Wolf, warning about America's slide into fascism

End of America - the movie from Wolf's book

10-11-08 - Why the GOP Is Nuts About ACORN

ACORN home page

Here's the CBS report on registration purging

Ten ways the McCain/Palin GOP is now stealing the Ohio vote

These reports filed in the Election Frauddepartment

10-10-08 - BBC-TV: "Set up to steal it again."
Is 2008 already fixed? - Greg Palast

"A lot of Europeans wonder: Why are Americans so crazy, they keep reelecting this guy?” Well the answer is, we don’t! They keep stealing these elections! And they stole it in 2000, they stole it in 2004, and they’re all set up to steal it again!" - Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on BBC Television Newsnight

Read about ACORN which registers voters and the phony voter fraud case against them so their registrations can be thrown out. Here's a follow up on how the media is buying into it.

Deregulation sank the Titanic.

10-09-08 - New York Times - States’ Actions to Block Voters Appear Illegal(and they're talking swing states) - Filed in the Election Fraud section.

10-03-08 - Some links to articles on lose your house lose your vote and other election fraud

10-01-08 - the conspiracy worth your time - election fraud. Tonight's CBS evening news covers this under-reported subject that most Democrats have been shying away from even though it is costing them elections, like for instance the last two presidential elections. Take a look at:

New Study Details Massive Voter Roll Purges Underway in At Least 19 States

Brennan Center for Justice Report on Voter Purges (released today).

Look at past links in the cuke election fraud section.

tomorrow - something Buddhist I promise - dc

9-23-08 - A new book on the sham of political polls by an insider.

9-20-08 - An Open Letter From a Former Religious Right Activist

9-16-08 - NRCAT - Torture is a Moral Issue - a reminder

9-15-08 - Greg Palast on voter suppression

Listen to the report on the Air America Radio's Thom Hartmann

filed under election fraud

8-06-08 - Hiroshima Day - ICAN - International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. One article on the threat of accidental nuclear war with Russia, possibly the #1 threat to the human race even today. Filed in Species Threats under #!.

6-26-08 - Thanks to John Cusack and Keith Olbermann for doing their bit to remind us that we're in a war, a war we forget and which networks are neglecting - check out 2 minutes a week. Remember - it's not just those bad crooks running the US, it's all of us allowing this to happen - forgetting thehuman toll of Iraq and, oh yes, that other war.

6-13-08 - If you haven't seen this slide show on Dubai you might be interested - filed inCurrentEvents\EngagedBuddhism(thanks Kelly).

Compare the Green Mega City of the future - if we survive (thanks JR).

5-07-08 - UN - Myanmar a Major, Major Disaster

Campaign for Burma BBC - aid arriving

5-03-08 - Free-floating Mainstream Madness. Thinking about Steve Tipton's new book and reflecting on the confused state of awareness in our country these days, I get carried away with anotherpinched image short, this one political. - dc

4-30-08 - Cenk Uygur is a bright and humorous commentator on today's political scene. Here he reframes the debate on patriotism.

4-24-08- From Truthout --- Bomb Bomb Iran by summer's end? - thanks Taigen - added to the Iran attack department.

4-23-08 - The Story of Stuff - thanks Ron Browning

4-22-08 - Happy Earth Day!

4-20-08 - End the war on people called the war on drugs, stop our addiction to filling our jails and prisons this way - bring on harm reduction and sanity.

Today we feature Drug War Facts -marijuana on the new Harm Reduction Page

Also, see in today's dchad misc -Shunryu Suzuki on drugs and alcohol

4-14-08 - Who Hijacked the Justice Department to Swing Elections? See Election Fraud.

4-13-08 - Are We Ready For a Minority Report Made Real? - more on this later.

4-10-08 - National Religious Campaign Against Torture has a new Banners Across America Campaign.

The Torture Drawings the Pentagon Doesn't Want You to See

A Torture Debate Among Healers byAmy Goodman

A conversation with the director of new documentary on torture, Taxi to the Dark Side

4-09-08 - Nothing posted today because Clay and some of his fellow students and I went to SF to see the torch go by which we didn't see and which we didn't think we were going to see because we already knew the route was being changed but we did have a great time watching pro Tibet protesters chanting "Free Tibet!" in the face of pro China protesters chanting "One China!" in their faces and people arguing but all in a rather civilized tone. I thought that the plight of persecuted Tibetans in China was not going to be addressed this way but I just watched.

4-08-08 - Al Gore: New thinking on the climate crisis

4-06-08 - View the BPF (Buddhist Peace Fellowship) page on Tibet and statements on Tibet, Burma, and Darfur.

The Dhamma Brothers (from Freedom Behind Bars Producutions) - thanks to dharma bro Ron Browning

4-05-08 - Say no to a new generation of nuclear weapons.

4-04-08 - Martin Luther King Is Still Silenced - In his last year of life King condemned American militarism and was taunted not by racist whites but by the MSM (mainstream media). But we don't see that in retrospectives. - in AlterNet

3-28-08 - A news item I find interestingbecause I was affected by so many older Japanese telling me their experiences and thoughts about WWII, memories many would deny. Sort of like in the US. - dc

3-27-08 - Meditative Peace Walk Across the Golden Gate Bridge in support of the monks in Burma - Wednesday, April 9, 2008

3-26-08 - Andrew Main writes on the current issue concerning China and Tibet.

3-25-08 - Free Countries Must Defy Chinese Blackmail and Greet the Dalai Lama

3-24-08 - Comment on the Current Tibetan/Chinese Conflict- Excerpted from Gelek Rimpoche’s Sunday Talk, March 16, 2008 - thanks Howie

It Is Happening Here

3-21-08 - Petition to end violence in Tibet - thanks to a few of you.

An additional request concerning the violence in Tibet from Barrie Mason - I am asking my friends and aquaintences to take a minute and speak up in behalf of Tibet. Since the 1950's China has been repressing the Tibetan culture which had flourished undisdisturbed for hundreds of years. The Dalai Lama's incredible patience and wisdom in dealing with his people's situation is testament to the teaching that the Tibetan culture could share with all of us. There are many ways to take action, saying a prayer might be one. You can call the San Francisco Chinese Consulate at 415-674-2900 and ask that China refrain from violence against the Tibetans. Take care, Barrie

A request concerning the violence in Israel from Emila Palmers at Green Gulch Farm - My son, Eric and three grandchildren live in Sderot, the border town to Gaza which gets all the rockets. He and a Palestinian friend from Gaza have a website. Please look at it. They write about their daily life in the war zone. They are circulating a petition they initiated and I am trying to get as many people to sign it.

3-20-08 - Diebold Accidentally Leaks Results Of 2008 Election Early -(added to election fraud) thanks Lane Olson

3-19-08 - Washington Monthly - No More, No Torture, No Exceptionsincludes links to many other statements on torture. Also see: National Religious Campaign Against Torture

3-17-08 - Statement of Senator Barack Obama on the situation in Tibet - Chicago, IL | March 14, 2008

3-16-08 - So much now in the crazy dream-realm of social/political historical space-time happening. Don't know what to say. Here, this is what I'll suggest:

AlterNet and Salon.com and Bill Moyer's Journal and Talking Points Memo and The Huffington Post and Crooks and Liars and Media Matters and Common Dreams and Truthout and Truthdig.comand Thom Hartmann and Joe Conason and Air America Radio and Daily Kosand Eschaton and James Wolcott andJuan Cole and Max Blumenthal andTapped and Greg Palast and Buddhist Peace Fellowship and is there any site you'd like to add?

3-13-08 - Spitzer & America's Perverse Ethics by Rabbi Michael Lerner known for Tikkun Magazine. Check out Tikkun dot org. He's also a co-founder of The Network of Spiritual Progressives. Anyway, this brief article by him on the recent Eliot Spritzer scandal states my thoughts more eloquently than I did to Clay last night when I said that if Spritzer had just supported corporate pilfering, mass murder, and mayhem he'd not be in trouble. Our leaders with our permission through war and pollution born of individual and corporate greed are causing millions to die, millions more to suffer disease and homelessness, brutalizing and torturing many more - the most extreme stuff on and on. We barely pay attention. But if they get caught kissing and hugging the wrong person then they must be banished! Clay said I was guilty of hyperbole. "How so?" I asked. "They do more than kiss and hug," he said. -dc - (thanks Gregory) filed inCurrentEvents\EngagedBuddhism

Greg Palast on the Spritzer mess

2-12-07 - The Folly of Attacking Iran - from Just Foreign Policy dot org

See their brief and informative video on the folly of attacking Iran

2-10-08 - Global Warming: Nine Things that Will Put us Over the Edge

2-08-08 - A World Without Armies
Report on the international conference
“Remembering Nanjing (Nanking)”
70th anniversary of the Nanjing Tragedy
See the PDF of the report with photos
Read more
thanks Kaz Tanahashi, a participant, for alerting cuke of this

2-06-08 - The Tenacity of American Militarism
What Progressives and Other Critics Don't Get about the U.S. Military By William J. Astore

2-05-08 - National Popular Vote - States join forces against electoral college: A piecemeal approach may be the only way to kill the anachronistic institution - Los Angeles Times Editorial.- from last June but appropriate for this election day. Thanks to MK - dc

Two recent articles sent by Taigen (see Taigens' Peace and Justice Page:

The Gulag Comes To The USA: A Political Prisoner: The Don Siegelman Case By Ernest Partridge

Creeping Fascism: History's Lessons By Ray McGovern

1-23-08 - James Carroll on the nonsense and danger of the term Islamo-fascism -

1-18-08 - National Religious Campaign Against Torture - Sign the Statement of Conscience, check on pending legislation in the News About Torture and What You Can Do About It box.

See Countdown: Torturers Like Us

1-16-07 - Arnie Kotler's Koa Booksstrikes again with:

Oakland • Santa Rosa • Santa Cruz •Berkeley
January 17 - 21, 2008 - SCHEDULE-times

Colonel (Ret.) Ann Wright -- Joined by Daniel Ellsberg in Oakland and Berkeley --
Will Read from her new book,
Dissent: Voices of Conscience - read more about it on the Koa Books web site.

1-13-08 - More on THE CONSPIRACY WORTH PAYING ATTENTION TO in the Election Fraud section.

1-11-08 - Burma Witness: Journey to a Land Cloaked in Fear by Hozan Alan Senauke - sent in by Taigen Dan Leighton. Found links to it in Atrocity News, Urban Travelers, Russian Girls CQ (really), Berkeley Zen Center for a PDF, among others.

1-01-08 - What will be the big story this year?

Is this the big story? Creeping Fascism - Ray McGovern interview or Naomi Wolf's interview on The End of America- thanks Taigen

How about election fraud? It's incredibly under-reported.

On the other hand, maybe GLOBAL WARMING will render the loss of our democracy insignificant. There's info everywhere on that. How about Al Gore's site, especially his speech accepting the Nobel Peace Prize. - thanks Kelly
But I'd better link to these contrasting views to save myself the trouble later.

And let's not forget Burma.

12-18-07 - Comparing Climate Change Policy Networks by Jeffrey Broadbent, University of Minnesota - what one Suzuki student is doing to save our collective ass.

11-08-07 - Here's a neat quick video that explains the writer's strike - please support it if there's any way you can. Check out Huffington Postfor more on this. The writers have a little problem in that they're striking against the folks who control the news, media in America becoming more and more controlled by a few jumbo corporations.

11-06-07 - Block Burmese JADE(Junta's Anti-Democratic Efforts) Act of 2007:
Get Your Representative to Co-Sponsor! - in the Burma Crisis info and action page

A "Paper Coup," and Blackwater Eyes Midtown Manhattan By Naomi Wolf

Silence is Complicity - Address by Mayor Ross C. "Rocky" Anderson on October 27, 2007

both those from Taigen.

10-24-07 - Don't Let the World Forget About the Saffron Revolution - This Wednesday, October 24th, is an important day for Burma. It is: 1) United Nations Day, 2) The day when Aung San Suu Kyi will have been under house arrest for a total of 12 years, and 3) One month since the uprisings in Burma were at their peak. The US Campaign for Burma will be marking this day with a host of actions around the world.
Burma Crisis info and action page.

10-18-07 - 16 things we can all do to help the Burmese monks and citizens

10-17-07 - Don't forget Burma!

10-14-07 - Andrew Main sends A Grand Misjudgment, another side of the Al Gore getting the Noble Prize story. And look beyond that to the site it's on, Counterpunch.

And here's more comment on Gore's prize - Of Spoils and Spoilsports - with lots of links to even more commentary and opinion on what it's Al about.

And to add yet a third link to today's CurrentEvents\EngagedBuddhism offering, readThe 'Good Germans' Among Us By FRANK RICH in The New York Times, October 14, 2007 in which he contends: "BUSH lies" doesn't cut it anymore. It's time to confront the darker reality that we are lying to ourselves. It's about torture and how we know it's happening and can't say we don't.

10-13-07 - Hurray for Al Gore winning the Noble Peace Prize! It could turn out that through a bizarre twist of events, Ralph Nader saved the world. Nah - it's probably too late anyway, but good try Al and all! (Idea stolen from Josh at Talking Points Memo) - DC

Read what Scott Ritter has to sayabout stopping the rush to war with Iran in Robert Scheer's Truthdig.com.

See Iran Attack page.

10-08-07 - Two views on why doesn't the government do anything about Burma.

10-06-07 - TARA - A poem by Philip Whalen we recite for the Burmese today (and for all others).

10-04-07 - More on Burma - to read and to do

10-02-07 - Burma update - and it's not good

9-30-07 - Our rosy future, according to Freeman Dyson - thanks to jr. And thank goodness there's no more reason to worry.

9-28-07 - Myanmar soldiers attack Buddhist Monks. The latest from the US Campaign for Burma. Reuven passes on this link to Avaaz with their efforts to stand with the Burmese protesters. And, thanks to, swallowing, President Bush for focusing on these events.

Taigen's report has more links plus an unconfirmed report of the brutal slaughter of monks.

9-25-07 - Read Taigen Dan Leighton's brief comments and suggestions on the events in Burma(which include the following).

On the Buddhist Peace Fellowship site: Two Actions You Can Take to Support the Monks and Nuns of Burma

People link hands as they accompany monks marching in a protest against the government in Yangon, September 24, 2007. Tens of thousands of people joined streams of Buddhist monks on marches through Myanmar's capital on Monday in the biggest demonstration against the ruling generals since they crushed student-led protests nearly 20 years ago. REUTERS/Democratic Voice of Burma

May we not see a repeat of the slaughter of monks and laypeople in '88. Pray for peace. - DC

9-11-07 - Remembering the day six years agowhen the whole world mourned with us and now mourning how we as a nation have turned that universal sympathy into antipathy. Since then hysteria fueled by greed, hate, and delusion have led the way, not the way pointed to by Jesus or Buddha or any of the great wise ones. We've poured gasoline on the fire and wander around choking and blinded by the smoke. We seem to be determined to join with forces of world suicide. Shiva, the destroyer, dances his eternal dance. - DC

click thumbnail to enlarge

9-10-07 - Listen to Scott Ritter at a book event for his new book, Waging Peace: The Art of War for the Antiwar Movement. See Iran Attack page.

8-31-07 - Sexy Senators and suggested consequences

8-16-07 - There is no center in politics by George Lakoff
Look at this interesting grid -Progressivism is not dead - on Blast Off.
This is one for the It IS Happening Here page.

Friday August 10 - Welcome to the Bush Blog. It's time to stop attacking him and let him speak for himself so that we here at cuke can continue to uphold our commitment to be fair and balanced (great how that phrase has become a cause for ridicule).

Thursday, August 9, 2007 - Remembering Nagasaki from the website of the Exploratorium, a great institution in a great building in San Francisco.

8-08-07 - Saw this last night. Horrors. - DC - Orwell Rolls in His Grave - "About the manipulation of the media by America's ruling elites solemnly stokes the resulting flames of angry discontent... Exploding the myth of the American media's liberal bias." - BBC -CurrentEvents\EngagedBuddhism

Also in the same section - President Bush Vows To Protect Us [Crooks and Liars link] from the Evil Zombiefascists [my.break link]

Tuesday, August 7, 2007 - Tearing what's left of my hair about the Protect America Act - -vomit, scream, retch, bang head on wall. Distraught DC email to Senator Dianne Feinstein about her voting for this despicable bill - the beginning of a new page called It Is Happening Here. Also links to articles and video.

Monday, August 6, 2007 - It is most appropriate on this day to have received A World Without Armies report from Kaz Tanahashi. It is a good day to remember and be thankful for those who are working for peace, or, negatively, working at turning back the doomsday clock. Like the BPF. Go to Space War dot com for Current Nuclear Threat Worse Than During Cold War. Check outPSR who brought us the Nuclear Freeze Movement 25 years ago. Lot of people think that ended the problem. Ha ha ha laughs theWSC. See Species Threats #1 here on cuke for past posts on this. - DC

Sunday, August 5 - all is lost

Saturday, July 28 - WHY DO THEY HATE US?
U.S. has chance to lessen Muslim resentment
By Mohsin Hamid

July 27, '07 - Jimmy Breslin on Impeachmentand various links on the case for impeachment.

July 26, '07 - More Impeachment Links

7-24-07 - Learn more about The Yes Men, featured recently on Bill Moyer's Journal. Here's The Yes Men's website. They are naughty, throwing monkey-wrenches into globalization and mega-corporate profiteering.

7-23-07 - Swami Beyondananda Calls for Impeachment

7-20-07 -IMPEACH 'EM BOTH NOW

7-17-07 - Saw Maxed Out: Hard Times, Easy Credit and the Era of Predatory Lenders, a documentary film, one of many I've seen in the last few years exposing various evils of how our society functions, or should that be - of our dysfunctional society?

7-09-07 - 'Supporting the troops' means withdrawing them By William E. Odom [former head of the National Security Agency]from Nieman Watchdog.

Lieutenant General William E. Odom, U.S. Army (Ret.), is a Senior Fellow with Hudson Institute and a professor at Yale University. He was Director of the National Security Agency from 1985 to 1988. From 1981 to 1985, he served as Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence, the Army's senior intelligence officer. From 1977 to 1981, he was Military Assistant to the President's Assistant for National Security Affairs, Zbigniew Brzezinski.7-08-07 - The New York Times finally states in today's powerful lead editorial, The Road Home, that, "It is time for the United States to leave Iraq, without any more delay than the Pentagon needs to organize an orderly exit."

7-05-07 - LIFE SENTENCES: COLLATERAL SANCTIONS ASSOCIATED WITH MARIJUANA OFFENSES on the CCLE website (Center for Cognitive Liberty and Ethics) sent by theMarijuana Policy Project.

cuke.com supports Harm Reduction and an end to the war on people called the war on drugs. See this entry from earlier this year.
click on thumbnail to see ACLU decriminalization ad

7-04-07 - Happy Fourth of July from cuke.com!

Read Howard Zinn's Put away the flags from the Progressive.

And check out Josh Marshall's video editorial,Happy Fourth of July from everyone at TPM! - Talking Points Memo.

And what the heck, why not Keith Olbermann's request.

Now here's a true patriot - to the country of all people! - thanks to David Cohen for this and Zinn and Keith links.

And I wish I could link to yesterday's column on the easily solved for 50 cents a person worldwide health problem of worms by NYTimes's unique Nicolas Kristof but it's subscription only. He's into big picture third world stuff that's mostly forgotten - like the world's biggest war since WWII - in the Congo and still going. See his Wikipedia page.

6-13-07 - Go to Colbert Nation to see Liz Wolf's son Josh Wolf on the Colbert Report - June 12. Way to go Josh.

click on thumbnail to enlarge
5-31-07 - Much more juicy light shed on the real conspiracy to rig US elections.

Left: cuke.com staff at work

Where cuke.com staff goes for our current events news. Some old, some new - not necessarily in this order: Bill Moyers Journal. Bill says he starts his day with Joshua Marshall's Talking Points Memo and ends it with Jon Stewart's Daily Show. That's TV of course, but they do have their web site as does another cuke favorite, Stewart's prot�g�, Steven Colbert in hisColbert Report. While we're on TV, must plug the recently truly unleashed fanatic, Keith Olbermann with his MSNBC show,Countdown. Here's Keith's blog. I don't have TV but get clips off these shows from the first site I go to on the Internet, the excellent Huffington Post and the next one, Crooks and Liars with its pithy daily video feeds and news updates plus some neat music videos. Let us not forget to mention David Brock's Media Matters - great analysis of daily mass media mush, Robert Scheer's Truthdig.com, Truthout.org., and for some old-fashioned info - BBC News - International Version (online pull-down menu comes w/Firefox). I also find Taigen's almost daily e-mailed articles to be an excellent addition to what I get off the Internet. Get on Taigen Dan Leighton's social/political forwarded article email list by emailing him at taigen108@gmail.com. Check out Taigen's Peace and Justice Page on this site. In the car, I have XM satellite radio and, when I'm not listening to jazz, blues, comedy, or 50's music, I tune in to Air America Radio, channel 167. My favorite talk show host there is Thom Hartmann. His new book (of 20 or so) is Screwed: The Undeclared War Against The Middle Class. This guy is very level-headed.

There are many other excellent web sites and blogs for news and commentary and the links for them can be found on these sites. Go forth and inform oh great beings of planet earth and may we all benefit. - DC

4-24-07 - Election Fraud vs Voter Fraud - Brief email chat between Taigen and DC, links to various reports and articles on one of the key and mainly disregarded stories behind the firing of the attorneys by Gonzales. The conspiracy most worth bringing to light - that of Republican or Roovian election stealing and voter suppression. Just another day's addition to the growing section in Current Events onrigged elections (previous posts).

4-17-07 - Save Small and Independent Publishers threatened by new postal rate hikes that will give them huge increases, reversing traditional rates that helped them to survive. Go towww.stoppostalratehikes.com. Time Warner seems to be behind this. If so, shame.

4-05-07 - Anyone who's following the news knows that it's no longer "Free Josh Wolf!" Now it's Josh Wolf's Free! Go here to see the last post with many links herein on the plight of America's longest jailed journalist as he's been called. It's all over the news and the web. Here's a LA Times article - Blogger freed after 226 days in prison. Here's the First Amendment Center's article, Now-freed Josh Wolf went to jail ... why? And here is the SF Bay Guardian's summation of the whole thing which, from his mom, Suzuki student Liz Wolf (see cuke.com interview), who worked non stop on his case - getting people to sign petitions, write judges, newspapers, legislators, sending out constant links to articles, and so forth. I don't know his father, Len Harrison, but he too was on the case, maintaining a daily vigil in front of the federal building at Larkin and Golden Gate in San Francisco. Anyway, welcome back to the outside Josh!

3-03-07 - Free Josh Wolf! Go to Josh Wolf in Jail page.

2-22-07 - See Thoughts on the DVD of An Inconvenient Truth in DC Misc.

2-17-07 - A link to a slide show with pictures of Tehran, Iran, and a song by Cat Stevens.In Iran Attack.

2-10-07 - More on the US coming ever closer to acting on the long held Bush administration plan to attack Iran. See the new Iran Attack page, a special section in the Current Events section of theDigressions section of cuke.com. The inclusion of this section is vehemently opposed by our dharma siblings, Buddhists in favor of Neocon Wet Dreams. They are working up a position paper as I type. - DC

Iran Attack

2-9-07 And now, since it's my birthday, some more treasonous links sent to me by fellow traitor Taigen Dan Leighton who's now in Chicago.

But first read Chalmers Johnson on Robbing the Cradle of Civilization sent by Gregory Johnson.

The rest of these links were moved to Iran Attack page.

cuke staff current events news picks

For what it's worth - Shunryu Suzuki on War and Peace

DC comments on this page

Cost of the War in Iraq

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