A comment of mine on Huffpost today

A comment of mine on a Huffington Post story about President George W. Bush appearing on "Deal or No Deal", and making a joke about his own low approval ratings. Maybe not specific to the article and video, but in the same vein as some other who commented about this man's joking while he has fucked up lives and deeply damaged America ----


George W. Bush is a sociopath. Like Ted Bundy and Drew Peterson, he has no feelings for anyone but himself. Literally.

For Bush, words, language, and gestures, have zero emotional impact - so he can say and do whatever he thinks he has to say to get what he wants from people. He can lie, and feel no remorse.

The vast majority of such people are not killers or lying politicians -- They actually tend to be successful: because they have no real empathy for other people (but they know how to make people *think* they do), they see the world as literally a "game", they smoothly manipulate others -- get the beautiful women, win the top salesman awards, say that a 51% electoral win is a "landslide" because that is what they want -- because empathy and sympathy for the other person does not get in in the way of what THEY want.

Thank you, you millions of naive Christians, for not seeing this man for what he really is, and voting for him twice.

Today's thoughts

I cannot remember feeling better than I have since Thursday evening, all this long weekend.

Wonderful weekend

I haven't posted in a couple days -- busy enjoy this wonderful summery weekend on the anniversary of my quadruple bypass operation.

As I had planned, took Friday, the anniversary day, off work -- went on a 2-hour bike rIde. It actually lasted 15 minutes longer; up the Riverwalk to Niawanda Park. The sun warm but the ice packing the river giving off quick sharp breezes. It got up to 87 yesterday, and I went for another 1 hour bike ride and hung out at The Spot for a Protein Power Shake. And another 45 minute ride earlier this afternoon.

And I've had some great convos online this weekend. A dry spell over the last couple hours, but even enjoying hanging in Trivia Lounge Cafe.

a year ago tonight

A year ago tonight, at this time, I was lying in a hospital bed I had been in for seven days, naked, getting my entire front shaved for surgery. I felt old, unmasculine, and I was bloated from a week of IV saline drip to make myself big and bloated for the surgery. The young woman shaving me was bright and young and very attractive; her parents were roadies and stage managers for rock acts -- on her 10th birthday she got a personal birthday call from Ozzy Ozbourne, she calls Jon Bon Jovi, "Uncle Jon".

This world is so wonderful sometimes.

Shakespeare - Henry V

Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made,
And crowns for convoy put into his purse;
We would not die in that man's company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is call'd the feast of Crispian.
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam'd,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian.'
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say 'These wounds I had on Crispian's day.'
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember, with advantages,
What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words-
Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester-
Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb'red.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered-
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

And I sometimes think *I* am in a prison....

While I was working out at the Cardiac rehab unit, on a treadmill with my headphones blasting so I am not sure specifically what transpired, a corrections officer escorted a man in: tall, shaved bald, not unattractive, maybe a few years younger than me: he was wearing matching forest green shirt and slacks, and was wearing black boots but limply holding up a pair of white sneakers in his hands before his chest. The corrections officer handed an envelope to one of the trainers - from what I could tell, I assume the guy couldn't work out because someone wasn't there at that time (maybe it was that Corey, the only man who works there, wasn't in).

And it took me a few moments to register this: the guy was in handcuffs and shackles. He was a prisoner.

We caught each other's eyes, and smiled politely and nodded.

I would have loved to have talked with him. Not just to shakubuku him, but also just to hear his story.

A DCW Monday

Tired today and tonight, but I felt really good and uplifted during my workout. I was so tired I stopped a very enjoyable roleplay in the middle if it.

Today's thoughts

We had a memorial service for Robert Ninham at the Community Center this afteroon.

I wanted to re-tell what I had said at the original gongyo service for him; that knowing he was a local Buddhist who had had and overcame a heart attack made me no feel so all alone with mine, last year. But half the people there had already heard me say that, and I also wanted to bring up the "Crispin's Day" soliloquy from Henry V, that the Garretts bad podcasted for me. But of course I hadn't thought about including the quote before I got there -- and I wasn't sure I would be able to "translate" Shakespeare's words to stir Englishmen to pride, into Robert's own struggle to pass on his own heritage.

So I didn't go up.

I wonder if that, in fact, is the kind if rootful "bad causes" I am making. Or maybe I just think too much.

Like perhaps my decision not to take action, will cause someone not to take action to contact me...

I am the Protagonist

I feel like the hapless unwitting protagonist in a Dean Koontz novel -- THERE IS SOMETHING I HAVE TO DO BEFORE I DIE, BUT I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT IT IS YET.

Yatomi vs. D'Souza

Today after gongyo at the Community Center Joe Murray and I sat in on the Youth Division study meeting.

VERY interesting! Based on a short chapter of one of Shin Yatomi's books, discussing religious freedom, and it's True meaning. The chapter literally began with The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. And he went on to discuss Alex de Touquville's analysis of America's religious freedom being its great and wonderful strength.

Dinesh D'Souza proclaims -- and he is undeniably correct from a pure historical standpoint -- that freedom of religion was developed and allowed in a Christian culture. Interesting...

another day

A year ago this afternoon Joe drove me to the hospital emergency room, and I ended up staying there for two weeks.

Had a very intense conversation with G this afternoon, on top of that -- she got bounced off or dropped off yahoo before I knew we were finished, so I am worried about how we parted today.... Too personal to discuss; I an not even sure I should say this much... I may end up erasing this.

Strange thoughts and feelings today

In a very strange -- no, depressed, moody -- mood today. Woke up this morning from a dream in which I had to deal with irate cats or dogs or vermin, in the place where I lived. Having to not only shoo them, but touch them. Something about the idea of it was very disturbing, more disturbing than the acts I had to do and found myself doing, themselves.

And this was after crawling into bed about 8:00 last night, waking up about 11:30, and up til after 3:00.

Talked with G. this morning, and she was telling she had just gotten season 2 of "Life on Mars" on DVD. From what she was saying the Bowie song is the theme song, and fits the show perfectly, at least for her. I am familiar with the song, or course, but not that familiar: I went to Rhapsody and played it this morning, along with some of Bowie's Space Oddity album with its "An Occassional Dream".

"Life on Mars" has haunted me all day. During lunch - although G. was not online - I listened to it again and again, googled the lyrics -- still don't understand it. It creates a world out of whole cloth, the way Leonard Cohen's "First We Take Manhattan" does. I sent G. an admittedly strange offline, telling her how I wondered - deeply wondered - what it meant to her and made her feel; I wanted to empathize with her so much. The beginning is about a young girl who, chided or encouraged by her mother and father I can't tell which, goes to the movies. Alone apparently. Those words and images of course would mean more to her than to me. She had told me about on of the lines or couplets fitting perfectly with something that happened in the series, I think it was the lawman taking down the wrong man.

I will miss her deeply, I think, until she pops up an IM again, hopefully tomorrow morning.


I also was listening to "An Occasional Dream", the soft song with the lilting, almost too dainty flute. A song I had recorded off the radio onto an 8-track. Even that must have been ten years before G. was born.

Even then, that song reminded me that there would be things that I would miss -- that I would never have my own "occasional dream", never lean back on a soft river bank with a women I loved and would spend my life with. (I think that image is in there - at least that is the image that that song brings to my mind.)

Like a lifetime destined for lost opportunities, never lived as fully as I would want or expect.

Like I have spent my life waiting for someone to say, "Now, you can go, take off, live your life". Maybe that a woman, a lover, a soul mate would say that to me. And she would add that she would stay with me.

This is something that I regrettably have to admit I have not found in Buddhism.

Of course, a Christian would read that and say: what I am missing is my relationship with God. But there is not God; as much as my heart, and my mentality, my emotional make-up, wants, craves there to be one, there just is not.


I have listened to Simon and Garfunkel's "Bridge Over Troubled Waters" a few times on my iPod while working out... It strikes me that a Christian will hear it, and he will hear God speaking those words, that promise; but a Buddhist will hear HIMSELF speaking those words, that promise, to someone he loves.

What I want to do tonight is go to the new Community Center, and do gongyo and chant for half an hour, to BE someone's Bridge over Troubled Waters.

Tired today

Feeling very tired today. Crawled into bed about 9:30 last night - woke up at 5:30. But exhausted all day -- I am sure it is a combination of the three Valiums I am taking (all with coffee afterwards), and my starting to work out again.

I just feel like crawling into bed again, but it - this place of mine - feels so alone...

Thoughts on D'Souza's "What's So Great About Christianity"

I'm about 120 pages into Dinesh D'Souza's What's So Great About Christianity. At this point he is discussing the old theism deductive argument that there must have been that which from which, or by which, everything else was created. An Original Cause. Which had no causation of its own, which "holds" the universe in its arms, so to speak.

But...

There is a HUGE, unsupportable leap, that this Original Cause, this self-causation, was the Abrahamic God. The only way to make this justification is by referring to the Christian holy texts, the biblical scriptures.

D'Souza also argues Anselm's argument (whom and which I have never heard of before) that defines God as "that than which no greater can be thought". If we can think such a thought - which we can - then unlike many other thoughts we think of that do not necessarily exist (like unicorns), then, uniquely, "that than which no greater can be thought" MUST exist, purely by its self-referencial definintion.

But...

That STILL does not prove that "that than which no greater can be thought" is the Abrahamic God.


There is a distinction that we MUST call upon scriptural Christians to make (unlike, say, very spiritual Christians such as my friend Marty Croese, or songwriter Leonard Cohen), between a god as a Force that can be deduced or induced by reason and even science, and the Abrahamic God.


Also, Fundamentalists, scripturalists both literal and interpretive, lack true spirituality. But that is for another day.

New Community Center Opening; and the first anniversary of my heart attack

This morning we had the official opening of our new Community Center. It is also the first anniversary of my heart attack - if you take my actual heart attack being a week into my sore chest which I though was (or was) the flu or infection, when I had the Good Friday broadcast of "The Sound of Music" on, my chest and left shoulders and arm aching, hunched over sideways, calling Dad asking his advice about going to the hospital, deciding not to, relieved when I actually awoke the next morning (my phone on the bed next to my head, so I coud use it right there if I could).

Anyway, it was a great opening, Danny Nagashima gave an excited great talk, pointing out at the wonderful dragon the children's group had carried into the Gohonzon Room with drums and ribbons: he explained that for a message to yesterday's New York City Lincoln Center(?) meeting from President Ikeda, Sensei told the New York area they should be like "an ascending dragon" -- and Danny was blown away by the truly beautiful dragon a couple of the children's fathers had created and the children pranced through the aisles two times.

Right now it is sunny and light breeze and 60 -- stopped on Elmwood for some salty cheesy fried food from Jim's Steak Out, and Elmwood was SO busy, full of laughing young people. A perfect day for a bike ride, especially now that G. is apparently offline (except for my bloated fullness from my wolfing down the fries and burrito). I've got a couple windows open, even though the breeze when it scoops in is chilled.

Perfect for a bike ride, with a jacket. And a LOT of riders were out on the streets and sidewalks. But, I went for a 55 minute ride late yesterday afternoon -- my usual 40 minute circuit, but of course I am slower just starting out. So I am TIRED. And I don't want to push myself too much even though part of me *craves* working out. I can almost feel the addictiveness of it. And I know my body needs it, just to bre strong and survive. But I am going to lie down now; maybe for just an hour or two, and then talk with G. again or go for a ride.

Saturday morning, no one on Yahoo...

To begin again.

Another story. Another group of people. Another time, another place.

Al the same really. The same way all days are the same, but within them almost infinite possibilities. Should we surrender a day, then? Simply because it is another day, another rolling of the world and another double rolling of the clocks?

Is it like the roll of the dice?

The big question is, if I am a 45 year old man, why do I sound like a 17-year-old trying to be profound?


There is more in heaven and earth, Lorenzio, than is dreamt of of your 'philosophy'...


Why don't I just write about the thinmgs I want to write about? Or even just write stories that I think wil sell, that people eould enjoy reading?

Is it some fear of my parents? Some fear, some hypnosis, that my father inculcated in me, to bescared of what I desired?

I desire to create. To write. To be sitting in a cafe in Boston or Orange, CA, or Paris, at my laptop, not here in my room in my apartment with my window curtain drawn shut from the cold.

But here I am.

I also want to create a dialectic of Buddhism-nontheism, with which I can debate and discuss religion and the world with Christians and atheists, and even Moslems, from the *Buddhist* perspective, to grapple the language away from the Christian angle that pervades our language, and even our intellectual discouse.

The questions are almost always framed from the Chrisitian assumptive: "Why *don't* you believe in God?" The language of the question, which is non-presumptive, which is just the way we *talk*, assumes a God. Or "the" God.

Shakubuku is about the heart. I - we - have been told that again and again. About touching the heart. Cutting through the clutter and the baggage. Ethan has told me - twice, in two different occasions - that *all* a Christian has is a book (and here he hold up his hand as if holding the Bible up in front of my face, shaking it in mock fear and rage). In the Christian PalTalk chatroom it is *all about* -- only about -- The Bible. Take that book away, and Christians are left with nothing. Not as profoundly as a Moslem would be, who beleive The Quran, those words, is the very breath if God.

But then again, we as Buddhists have our practice centered around "words", "breaths", as well, with our daimoku. And our daily personal recitation of Gongyo.

But our case is totally, 180-degrees different -- with "The Word" it is WE who create. Daily. And in the case when we are chanting daimoku, moment to moment.

President Ikeda has said (and I apologize, I do not know the source), that some anthropoogists believe that primitive men and women were praying *before* they had thought up something to pray to. Prayer came first. Prayer in it's pure form is hope. Buddhist prayer - the prayer that is daimoku, the prayer that is really called "kudoku" in Japanese -- to supress darkness and weakness and bring out stength and goodness -- is the *essence* of prayer in its true form. "I want to be better today, than I was yesterday. I want to be better tomorrow than I will be today" Or rather "I *will* be..."; "I *will to be*..."; "I *will myself to be* better..."

THAT is true prayer. The essence of what Emerson meant by our (human) drive being to challenge ourselves to greatness. Lincoln's admonition that we call forth our "better angels".

Maureen's blatant and blunt frustration with me at our session yesterday, that; 1) I know I don't want to work in an office 8 hours a day, but I do; 2) I don't want to live in Buffalo, but I do; 3) for some reason I feel tied down, even though I am not in a marriage or even a relationship.


This is the question of my life. That I have some seemingly insurmountable barrier, wall, keeping me from my true self.

Friday evening

Not sure what to say tonight -- was full of thoughts and things earlier, all day, but now, at 8:40, after having stuffed myself with dinner more than I know I should have, and playing PalTalk trivia now, just don't feel like doing anything but sitting here and pretending that the voices from my computer are keeping me warm.

Quote from Carl Sagan

"Better by far to embrace the hard truth than a reassuring fable."

a Wednesday

After taking yesterday off rehab, I went in to work out today -- my body feels that wonderful but slightly tiring metabolic "hum". Jane didn't show up til I was leaving, but she she did touch my shoulder as we said "hello."

A Tuesday

Wrote an email to L. this morning opening up about my current concern with my fidgetiness and almost need for over-stimulation -- like TV, radio, IM convo, and trivia chatroom all going at the same time sometimes.

She listened to my long email, even thanked me for being so open with her, and gave me the name and number of a therapist nearby who specializes in trauma, which Lynn thinks this might be.

And she even thanked me for including the Mamet quote on Tolstoy's explanation of "midlife crisis". So cool to have her in my life!!