Alwin on Death
Late in winter
My heart is still a rose in bloom.
Late in summer
I still have snow-covered peaks upon my back
Where we can all play and slide.
At night I need no candle or lamp,
For my soul has forever awakened
To there being just the reality
Of Light
And the wonderful Lawlessness of God.
Late in winter I need no heat,
For I have entered the Infinite Fire.
Come,
Build a sled,
Find a grand hill within my verse –
You and I and God
Should play there more often
Upon a peak such as Hafiz
That the Beloved has carved
So well.
(The Subject Tonight is Love - versions of Hafiz by Daniel Ladinsky)
Alwin Hawkins - Try Not To Breathe - a good discussion of death. [eden]
Life is not a matter of will and it is not fair. No amount of focused mental power will force blood past an occluded cornary or cerebral artery. No prayer will stop the massive hemmorage from a 9mm slug through the carotid artery. There is no spell to reverse the damage that a speeding automobile can do to that soft bag of protoplasm that you are riding around in. Death will come for you whether you are ready or not. We don't get a choice. Many times, we get no warning, either. Death happens.
Lew Rockwell at LewRockwell.com - The Klan and the Flag - an amusing take on one of the arguments against the Confederate battle flag. Opponents are claiming that since the k.k.k. has tainted this once proud symbol of freedom, associating it with hatred, we must now eliminate it. Well, the klan has carried another flag as well, as evidenced by pictures in Mr. Rockwell's article. Should we ban that flag, too? Hehe. [lew]
Charley Reese at the Orlando Sentinel - I'm glad Bush won't cater to environmental fanatics - congratulates GW on refusing to pander to radical environmental crazies. [lew]
[Many urban environmentalists] do not seem to see the connection between farmers and ranchers, packinghouses and transportation and the food they casually toss into their baskets at the supermarket. They do not seem to understand that if they, with their regulations, put the farmers, ranchers, truckers and fishermen out of business, those supermarket shelves will be empty.
Pierre Lemieux at Laissez Faire City Times - Perfume of Prometheus - Exploring the hoax of the dangers of second-hand smoking. Even if it were dangerous, private property owners, not the tyranny of the majority, should decide which activities are allowed on their property. This includes stores, restaurants, airplanes, etc. If you don't like the rules set by the property owner about which activities are allowed on his property, don't go there.
Risks inherent in social interaction can be limited by private property owners imposing rules on the use of their space. No public regulation is needed, as every property owner can choose to bear the cost of excluding people or behaviors he does not like, or to maximize his profits by catering to the preferences of the clienteles most willing to pay him. This approach justifies private discrimination against smokers, perfume wearers, or sneezing individuals (even if I, for one, do not agree with the values underlying such discrimination); but it also allows the liberty to accommodate them.
Jim Peron at Laissez Faire City Times - Hating Speech - speech is hate speech only when used to express a politically incorrect opinion about a politically protected group. All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others. Warning, begins with some "words that offend".
A student at the University of Florida publicly read, before the Student Government Association, what he claimed was the manifesto of the White Students Union which he represented. He was shouted down by angry audience participants and called a racist. His hate speech, in fact, was a word for word reading of a official document of the Black Student Union. He only substituted the word white where the document said black. But this document was only branded hate speech when read by a white student. It was fine when it was published by blacks.
...
...Fascism is not some separate and isolated phenomenon, which can magically be brought into existence by appealing to people's reason or playing on their prejudices: it is the logical development of certain traits that are in the human nature of us all. If you strengthen these traits you make fascism more probable: if you strengthen the opposing ones you make it less so. The strongest of all the antifascists traits is the passion for spiritual and intellectual freedom; and by so much as you restrict its play, by so much as you nourish instead the sado-masochistic elements in our nature, by so much as you introduce the first thin wedge of authoritarianism, by just so much do you bring a little nearer the very peril you are anxious to avoid.
Wes Vernon at NewsMax Medical Evidence: Gun Control Won't Solve Crime: An article in the spring issue of the Medical Sentinel claims that many conclusions drawn by earlier researchers were a result of bias, not facts. The findings include:
- Women in particular are NOT in more danger if they carry or own guns.
- The ease of access to or availability of guns is NOT the cause of crime.
- Mass killings would NOT be avoided if guns were not available.
- And finally, gun violence is NOT the leading accidental cause of death in children.
Alan I. Leshner at World Health News - Addiction Is a Brain Disease - I believe that you can find brain changes in addicts. I don't believe that this makes it impossible for them to beat the addiction by force of will alone. I also think that it's possible to help addicts out of their addictions, but not until they decide they want to do it. Incarceration is the absolute worst thing you can do, however. Coercion doesn't work. ["vfth"]
Many people also erroneously still believe that drug addiction is simply a failure of will or of strength of character. Research contradicts that position. However, the recognition that addiction is a brain disease does not mean that the addict is simply a hapless victim. Addiction begins with the voluntary behavior of using drugs, and addicts must participate in and take some significant responsibility for their recovery. Thus, having this brain disease does not absolve the addict of responsibility for his or her behavior, but it does explain why an addict cannot simply stop using drugs by sheer force of will alone. It also dictates a much more sophisticated approach to dealing with the array of problems surrounding drug abuse and addiction in our society.
...
The message from the now very broad and deep array of scientific evidence is absolutely clear. If we as a society ever hope to make any real progress in dealing with our drug problems, we are going to have to rise above moral outrage that addicts have "done it to themselves" and develop strategies that are as sophisticated and as complex as the problem itself. Whether addicts are "victims" or not, once addicted they must be seen as "brain disease patients."
Gary North at LewRockwell.com - My Preferred Weapon of Mass Destruction - cruise missiles for peace. [lew]
Everybody's talking about Bill Joy's new Project JXTA, short for Juxtapose, a new open source P2P framework. I have only skimmed some of the docs.
