"Barbara O’Brien’s wide-ranging account of Zen history is conveyed with a master storyteller’s ability to keep the forest from getting lost in a myriad of trees. Wearing her scholarship lightly, she blends just the right amount of skepticism about her hagiographic sources with a deep appreciation for the Dharma." — Barry Magid, author of
Nothing Is Hidden and
Ending the Pursuit of Happiness Order here!
My computer is not showing the picture/links. Is there a way I can get the address and go straight to them?
Great commentary.
Gotta love this guy…
A great commentary, but he makes the same mistake as the wing-nuts. There is no fucking bill yet so quit whining in anticipation of a bad bill. Let the president get what he can get from the congress (that is how it is supposed to work, we are a constitutional democracy) and then pick a side!
I see that Van Jones has resigned; now that’s a disappointing instance of the Obama administration giving into the wing-nut. Glen BecKKK will be heralded as a great “patriot” I’m sure. I hope Jones really is a member of a radical black gang as BecKKK opines, maybe the radical black gang will pull the trigger on Glen BecKKK, that would be nice!
There is no fucking bill yet so quit whining in anticipation of a bad bill.
I disagree with you on that comment, uncledad.. Now is the time to shape what a healthcare bill will look like. The whining will occur after the insurance and drug companies craft their taxpayer give away and foist it on the American public.
An once of prevention is worth a pound of cure?
Uncledad: Why are you so angry all the time? I am not a fan of Glen Beck but to wish that someone “pull the trigger” on him is not the way to solve the problem and it is inciting violence.
Maha: I am disappointed that you allow uncledad to say things like that on your post since you are always criticizing the radical right wings when they do things like that on town halls.
Uncledad, Please remember civility. I think you might have meant ‘pull the plug’, i.e. take him off the air. But, that is not what you said. What you said is a problem for some of us. I am no fan of Glen Beck’s but would love to stay a fan of yours. I love the comments on Maha ALMOST as much as Maha herself. Love you all!!!! (allmost)
I love Bill Moyers, but even he should know better than to say what’s going to happen. I don’t know what will happen, and can’t wait to see it come to pass.
Our news is no longer about what happened, but speculation about what might come. I’m still satisfied with the election results, though it’s quite possible for Obama to disappoint or to anger me.
For now, I’ll wait and see.
Bill Moyers is a national treasure. He is one of the few real “journalists” still working today. He actually bothers to read about and understand topics he presents on his show. Too bad he is so old.
Mr. President – I’m older than you – I was a young man when the civil rights movement hit full swing. Do, check – was the voting rights act a piece of ‘compromise’ legislation? I don’t recall an act that said if the states allowed more than xxx murders by the KKK, the states would allow federal intervention. I seem to recall that ‘separate but equal’ education was struck down without meeting in the middle. I don’t think equal housing or equal employment was phased in. How can it be that civil rights are more sacred than the right to life – or simply a right to health?
I am opposed to reform without a public option. It’s not putative on my part, though the insurance companies have acted with reckless disregard for the lives and suffering of the people they signed contracts with. Without a public option, the insurance companies will get 100% of the business with restrictions that they resent – features which will require them to cover people who are sick (pre-existing conditions) or whose care will be a perpetual drain.
My prediction – they will retaliate in the one way they can – they will raise premiums. Health Care Reform without a public option will pave the way for the economic gang rape of the entire nation. On the other hand, if there is a public option, the insurance industry will have to innovate, cut their costs and work to find ways to make the medical system more efficient. In the past they have passed along the costs associated with any abuses by doctors and hospitals in the form of higher premiums. The public option conscripts the participation of the insurance industry in cost containment – it’s their only chance of survival.
To be blunt – standing up for ALL the components of reform will take balls. A political ‘vistory’ will not. Are you working for your political career or the health of the nation? It’s time to lay the cards on the table.
As I understand it, uncledad is battling cancer. His level of frustration is understandable.Sometimes we click on the submit button before we think through what we have written, and sometimes the emotions run a bit high, but at least we don’t show up at political functions locked and loaded.
Grannyeagle does have a point, and civility (though difficult at times) is important.
(how’s that for being wishy-washy?)
For the record, Beck is an over animated idiot, but that works FOR our side in the long run.
http://www.lvrj.com/news/57603387.html
Moyers has some great points. Will Obama listen? Let’s hope so.
I’m afraid that Obama is trying to be “The Great Centrist.” In trying to reach out to the right, he’s starting to look like a man reaching out and trying to hold on to the ghost of a lost love whose last earthly whisp is slowly slipping away from him. And the joke will be on him – she hates his gut’s!
And, it ain’t becoming…
Perhaps Obama will realize if you poop in one hand and hope in he other, one fills up faster. Some times, you gotta pull out that can o’ whoop ass. YEEEHAAA!
Obama is very much a centrist, I think. He falls lefty in his conviction that government can work, but unless all this bipartisan talk is just to demonstrate to all the un-bipartisan nature of the Republicans, he’ll look like a right-leaning blob of Jello. I have been sending him regular e-mails of support and encouragement to take it to the insurance companies and the blue dogs and the lobbyists and the Republicans.
As far as Moyers, of course he’s right. So is Mr. Hughes above. There are many paths to an enlightened policy/practice. The main pitfall would be letting the designers and manipulators of the current system design the new one. That is the real weakness of bipartisanship as we’re seeing it: the criminals get the keys.
The little dramas of the past month have been upsetting, especially to those of us who found Obama’s campaign to be so much better run than the health care run-up has been. Maybe he has an autumnal astonisher in store. I hope so, but we won’t know till we see what’s in the hand behind his back. I hope he heard Moyers.
Erinyes,
Thanks for the concern but I am not battling cancer, I had surgery and am cancer free right now, so I like to think I have won the battle (though all I had to do was go to sleep and let the surgeon do his thing). Lucky me I have good insurance, it would have been a real battle without insurance for sure, those emergency rooms typically do not perform radical prostatectomy!
When I said pull the trigger I am not advocating violence, I just think it would be nice if the people that BecKKK rails against as being so dangerous actually where and he had some consequences for his irresponsible broadcasting! That’s what I meant if that makes any sense?
“Obama is very much a centrist, I think. He falls lefty in his conviction that government can work, but unless all this bipartisan talk is just to demonstrate to all the un-bipartisan nature of the Republicans, he’ll look like a right-leaning blob of Jello. ”
Bill Bush makes a good observation about Obama’s centrist pose. IMO, any president in his first term is ALWAYS in campaign mode for a second term. Whether you are a Democrat or a Republican, once you get past the primaries, you are in a battle for the voter in the center – the independents. You’ve already banked the votes of your party – you’re hunting the voter who MIGHT vote for the other guy.
To win the hearts & votes of the independents, Obama will sell out any ‘liberal’ projects even if it pisses off progressives, because the disaffection of the far left will actually give him credability with independents in 2012. This is pure political cynicism – you don’t have to like it – I sure as hell don’t. But I believe anything far-left in appearance will get thrown under the bus for the next 3 years.
In the SECOND term – Obama can be as liberal as he truly feels (particularly if he has a liberal Congress in 2012). I don’t know how liberal Obama is. Unfortunately, nothing that happens in the first term or in his campaign for a second term will tell me what Obama might do in the second term. But the politics of the first 6 months makes me think I will eat a lot of crap before I can find out what’s possible in the second term.
I hope Obama hears Moyers. I hope he remembers what he promised in his campaign. I know he cannot deliver on results for all his promises, but we will never know if we don’t go for it.
Perhaps Obama will realize if you poop in one hand and hope in the other, one fills up faster.
Ha! I’d like to think he’ll catch on; he’s a very bright guy in many ways, but he sure seems to have a long learning curve on this “bipartisanship” fairytale.
but he sure seems to have a long learning curve on this “bipartisanship†fairytale.
yeah, that’s why I never allowed my children to have a pet Cobra! I explained to them that the danger is in the nature of the beast…the same dynamic as conservative repuglicans… just know from the beginning that they can never be what you would like them to be, they are and always will be what they are…Even if they look or sound friendly.
Van Jones’ resignation is really bad move. It will just embolden the wingnuts to throw any kind of nonsense into the air, hoping to make it stick. When will the Ds grow a spine and stand up to right wing bullying…
moonbat – I like Van Jones. He was the right man for the job he was in BUT – he had to resign. It would have been a distraction that we can’t afford at this moment with health care in the balance. If the MSM had the maturity to stay on target. the manufactured ‘controversy’ over VJ would stay on wingnut radio. It’s not fair – but politics rarely is fair – we have to stay on topic until health care is resolved one way or the other.
Consider how an off-the-cuff remark about how it’s stupid to arrest a man in his own house after you have determined he has NOT committed a crime – took the POTUS off message for a frickin’ WEEK. And Obama was RIGHT! For all the screaming that was going on you would think the CIA had picked up and was waterboarding the cop.
Sorry, but “embolden the wingnuts”? How could they possibly be more emboldened than they already are, then they have been for years?
When you’re cranked up to 11 all the time, the threat of cranking up higher rings kind of hollow…
-me
Thanks for the link Maha!