from Bruce
Anecdotes
Education
• A ruler came to Rumi and asked for spiritual instruction. Rumi replied, “I have heard that you have committed the Quran to memory. Is this true?” The ruler replied that it was true. Rumi then asked, “I have also heard that you have studied under a great teacher the deeds of God’s great apostle, as reported in the Jami’u-l-Usul. Is this true?” Again, the ruler replied that it was true. Rumi then said, “You know the Word of God, and you know the deeds of God’s great apostle. However, you do not obey the Word of God, and you do not follow the example of God’s great apostle. How then can you expect to learn anything from me?”
• Mulla Nasrudin wore a turban that indicated that he was a scholar. An illiterate man saw Nasrudin’s turban and asked him to read a letter for him. Nasrudin looked at the letter, then told the man, “I cannot read it because the handwriting is so bad.” The man became angry and replied, “But you are wearing a scholar’s turban, so you should be able to read the writing.” Nasrudin removed his turban, then handed it to the man, saying, “You wear the turban and see if you can read the writing.”
• A young, arrogant Zen student named Yamaoka Tesshu visited Zen master Dokuon of Shokoku, hoping to impress him with his wisdom. Yamaoka Tesshu stood in front of Dokuon and began to lecture him, saying that nothing existed and all was emptiness. Dokuon listened for a while, then took his cane and hit Yamaoka Tesshu on top of his head. “Why did you hit me?” angrily screamed Yamaoka Tesshu. Dokuon calmly replied, “If nothing exists, then where did your anger come from?”
• Rabbi Joseph Katz of Polona met the Baal Shem Tov (the founder of Hassidism) in an unusual way. One day, Rabbi Katz waited in the synagogue for the worshippers to arrive. However, no one came. Startled, and worried, Rabbi Katz left to look for the worshippers. He found them in the marketplace, listening to the Baal Shem Tov teach. Rabbi Katz also listened, and he became a Hassid.
• Sometimes, students told meditation teacher Munindra that they wished to leave him in order to study other religious traditions or that they wished to leave him in order to study under another teacher. Munindra always let them go without argument. When asked why he did so, he replied, “The Dharma doesn’t suffer from comparison.”
• The great 19th-century actor Joseph Jefferson believed in the description of the loving God in the New Testament as opposed to the description of the vengeful God in the Old Testament. As he was teaching his children about God, one of his sons said, “You never taught us to be afraid of you, Father.”
• A man went to his rabbi and said, “Please help me, rabbi. I have worked hard to understand and to please God, yet I am still an ordinary and ignorant person.” The rabbi replied, “You have learned that you are ordinary and ignorant. That is no small accomplishment.”
Enlightenment
• King Ming-su was unhappy, although he was very powerful, very rich, and without mercy. He asked the Buddhist priest Si-tien to help him find happiness, so Si-tien put something in his hands, then a short time later, he took it away. As long as King Ming-su had it in his hands, he was happy, but when it was taken away from him, he became unhappy again. He asked, “What was I holding in my hands that made me happy?” Si-tien answered, “The present moment.”
• A man questioned the Buddha, asking, “Are you God?” The Buddha replied, “No.” The man then asked the Buddha if he was the son of God. Again, the Buddha answered, “No.” Next the man asked the Buddha if he was a saint or a holy man. Again, the Buddha answered, “No.” Finally, the man asked, “What are you, then?” The Buddha answered, “I’m awake.”
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© Copyright Bruce D. Bruce; All Rights Reserved
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Presenting
Michael Egan
U.S.A. wrote:
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION
BANDCAMP MUSIC
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION OF BANDCAMP MUSIC
Music: "Terror no Dona Neca"
Album: WEIRDO FERVO#1
Artist: Mary O and The Pink Flamingos
Record Company: Wildstone Records
Record Company Location: Săo Carlos, Brazil
Info: Marky Wildstone´s record label from Brazil.
Price: $7 (USD) for 15-track album; tracks cannot be purchased separately
Genre: Instrumental.
Links:
WEIRDO FERVO #1
Wildstone Records
Mary O and The Pink Flamingos on Bandcamp
Other Links:
David Bruce's Amazon Author Page
David Bruce's Smashwords Page
David Bruce's Blog #1
David Bruce's Blog #2
David Bruce's Blog #3
David Bruce's Apple iBookstore
David Bruce has over 140 Kindle books on Amazon.com.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
New Venture
Michael Egan
Bonus Links
Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
Reader Comment
Current Events
Linda >^..^<
We are all only temporarily able bodied.
Thanks, Linda!
that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
New ice cream truck trundled by - this one plays 'Popeye the Sailor Man'.
That makes 3 (so far) - the others play 'Turkey in The Straw' and 'La Cucaracha'.
Salutes Hollywood Walk O'Fame Recognition
Mark Hamill
Mark Hamill celebrated her Star Wars co-star Carrie Fisher late last night on Twitter for her posthumous induction into the 2022 class of the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Hamill wrote, “I congratulate and salute all 38 new #HollywoodWalkOfFame honorees-Welcome to the neighborhood! Much love and a very special 1-finger salute to the incomparable, hilarious & irreverent force of nature that was my space sis Carrie Fisher. Her star will blaze from here to eternity.” He added photo stills of their in-costume portraits from their Star Wars days and touchingly added a two-shot of them with Fisher flipping the bird.
The late actress is in a star-studded class of other industry honorees. Included in the 2022 class are other stars from the industry such as Francis Ford Coppola, Macaulay Culkin, Willem Dafoe, Salma Hayek, James Hong, Helen Hunt, Michael B. Jordan, Regina King, Ray Liotta, Ewan McGregor, Adam McKay, Jason Momoa, Tessa Thompson, Byron Allen, Greg Berlanti, Ricky Gervais, Peter Krause, Bob Odenkirk, Holly Robinson-Peete, Norman Reedus, Tracee Ellis Ross, Jean Smart, Ming-Na Wen, Kenan Thompson, the Black Eyed Peas, George E. Clinton Jr., Ashanti Douglas, DJ Khaled, Avril Lavigne, Los Huracanes Del Norte, Martha Reeves, Nipsey Hussle, Patti LuPone, Marilyn McCoo & Billy Davis, Jr., Angelica Vale, Richard Blade and Michael Strahan.
Honorees are chosen from among hundreds of nominations to the Hollywood Walk Of Fame committee before being ratified by the Hollywood Chamber’s Board of Directors.
The date for Fisher’s official star ceremony has not been set. Recipients have two years to schedule star ceremonies from the date of selection before they expire. According to the Walk Of Fame website, “Upcoming star ceremonies are usually announced ten days prior to dedication on the official website www.walkoffame.com.”
Mark Hamill
Presidential Portrait Tradition
White House
A modern presidential tradition is poised to return to the White House — at least in part.
President Joe Biden plans to host a White House ceremony this year for the unveiling of former President Barack Obama’s official portrait, according to people familiar with the discussions. And former President Donald Trump (R-Lock Him Up) has already begun participating in the customary process so his official portrait can eventually hang alongside his predecessors, according to an aide and others familiar with the discussions.
It’s unlikely Trump would follow the tradition of having his portrait unveiled at an East Room event hosted by his successor, given his false claims that Biden didn’t legitimately win the 2020 election, people familiar with the matter said. But a formal event with Obama and his wife, Michelle, is expected to take place at the White House — likely this fall — after coronavirus restrictions have been lifted to allow for such a large gathering, these people said.
The unveiling of presidential portraits in the East Room typically include a couple hundred guests. Currently the White House is not holding events of that size, and the person familiar with the process said that, at this point, it’s better to wait because “it would be a shame to do it and have only six or seven people there.”
White House
Challenges Fox "News"
Michael Fanone
Michael Fanone, a DC Metropolitan police officer who responded to the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, said Friday he “would love” to go on Fox News and tell his story. Fox News’ ratings juggernaut Tucker Carlson has been using his primetime program to fan the flames of a conspiracy suggesting the FBI had something to do with the deadly riot, which was carried out by supporters of former president Donald Trump.
“I’ve never been approached about doing any media appearances on Fox News. I would love to do an appearance on any show on Fox News and I would challenge any of the 21 [congressmembers] that voted against the Gold Medal bill acknowledging police officers that have a skewed view or [are] plain lying about January 6 to come on those shows and talk to me and listen to my experience and what hundreds of other officers went through on January 6, at the insurrection,” he said on CNN’s “New Day.”
On Tuesday, 21 House Republicans voted against legislation to award the Congressional Gold Medal to officers who responded to the riot. As CNN reported this week, it’s a sign that congressional representatives still can’t agree on the facts of what happened that day, when Trump supporters breached the Capitol in an effort to stop the certification of then-president elect Joe Biden’s electoral win.
The partisan divide in acceptance of the event is most obvious on cable news. Carlson first brought up the conspiracy theory about the FBI Tuesday night, the same day the 21 Republicans voted against the Gold Medal legislation. He told his millions of “Tucker Carlson Tonight” viewers, “Strangely, some of the key people who participated on Jan. 6 have not been charged. Look at the document. The government calls those people ‘unindicted co-conspirators.’ What does that mean? Well, it means that in potentially every single case, they were FBI operatives.”
Michael Fanone
Get Boost In TV Ratings
Women’s College Sports
Odicci Alexander became an overnight sensation at the Women’s College World Series.
James Madison’s dynamic, endearingly humble pitcher was well known among die-hard softball fans, but she introduced herself to a national audience by throwing a complete game to help her unseeded squad stun tournament favorite Oklahoma in the opening game earlier this month. She threw another complete game the next day in a victory over Oklahoma State and a star was born.
As her team was being eliminated in the semifinals, Alexander drew a standing ovation when she left the field. Fans watching on TV and streaming devices were sorry to see her go — and so was ESPN, which has been broadcasting the WCWS since 2000.
Coverage of Division I women’s sports has been in a particularly bright spotlight in 2021 and the record-setting WCWS was just the latest example of growing interest — and growing demands for a more equitable playing field when compared with men’s events.
ESPN’s has been experimenting in recent years with showing more women’s sports on its various platforms, and good numbers have led the network to become more aggressive. Television viewership was up significantly compared to 2019 in the four most popular women’s college sports -- basketball, softball, gymnastics and volleyball. The network expanded its volleyball coverage this year to include every match of the championship on an ESPN platform.
Women’s College Sports
Legislating Ignorance
Texass
Gov. Greg Abbott (R-Bad Actor) has signed the controversial bill that prescribes how Texas teachers can talk about current events and America’s history of racism in the classroom, according to Texas Legislature Online. His signature makes Texas one of a handful of states across the country that have passed such legislation, which aims to ban the teaching of “critical race theory” in K-12 public school classrooms.
Critical race theory is an academic term that studies how race and racism have impacted social and local structures in the United States. Over the past year, GOP leaders have decried its teaching in public schools, pointing to limited examples in various school districts across the state. In 2020, former President Donald Trump had banned federal employees from training that discusses “critical race theory” or “white privilege,” calling it propaganda.
Several versions of the bill passed back and forth between the two chambers as Texas Democrats raised concerns the bill would have a chilling effect on classroom conversations. An amended version sent back to the House had appeared dead at one point after state Rep. James Talarico, D-Round Rock, tanked it on a procedural violation. But it was revived by the Texas Senate later that evening after senators reverted back to an earlier approved version of the bill and sent it to the governor’s office. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick had signaled support for the legislation since the start of the legislative session.
This law, which goes into effect Sept. 1, includes a list of founding documents that Texas students must be taught. It also includes a list of additional historical documents written by people of color and women that House Democrats had added. It also mandates that students be taught “the history of white supremacy, including but not limited to the institution of slavery, the eugenics movement, and the Ku Klux Klan, and the ways in which it is morally wrong.”
The version signed by the governor also bans the teaching of The New York Times’ 1619 Project, a reporting endeavor that examines U.S. history from the date when enslaved people first arrived on American soil, marking that as the country’s foundational date.
Texass
1st Catholic Prime Minister
Great Britain
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, in the office since 2019, "recently came out as Catholic, to the concern of British Catholics, some parish priests, and parliamentarians," and to the surprise of even some of his closest political allies, Catherine Pepinster reports at Religion News Service. Johnson was baptized Roman Catholic, his mother's religion, but was confirmed in the Church of England at Eton and is not generally known to be a churchgoing man.
On May 29, though, Johnson married his longtime girlfriend Carrie Symonds at Westminster Cathedral, the seat of English Catholicism, and the Catholic Diocese of Westminster then declared that husband and wife were both baptized Catholics and Westminster Cathedral parishioners. (Symonds is Johnson's third wife, but they were allowed to wed in the divorce-hostile Catholic Church because Johnson's first two weddings were civil and thus not recognized as valid under canon law, Pepinster explains.) The couple gave their baby son Wilfred a Catholic baptism in September.
So, Johnson appears to be Britain's first Catholic prime minister. And given the history of Britain since King Henry VIII, that's a very big deal, University of London constitutional expert Peter Hennessy, who is Catholic, tells Religion News Service. After hundreds of years of post-Reformation discrimination, Catholics have slowly moved into positions of authority in recent decades, he said, and Johnson's "appointment as prime minister is the completion of the Catholic stealth minority's rise to influence."
Johnson may not be the ideal Catholic role model, but his newly revealed religion is more than just a curiosity. Britain is culturally secular, but "Roman Catholicism alone still has a contested place in Britain," Pepinster writes. "By law, the monarch cannot be a Roman Catholic," and "under the Roman Catholic Relief Act of 1829, no 'person professing the Roman Catholic religion' is allowed to advise the monarch on the appointment of Church of England bishops," which is in the prime minister's job description. Johnson will likely deputize Lord Chancellor Robert Buckland for that role, RNS reports.
Great Britain
Secret Queen Of Canada
Romana Didulo
A conspiracy theorist who claims to be the queen of Canada has reportedly gained thousands of followers online, many of whom are trying to stop the proliferation of Covid vaccinations.
According to Vice, Romana Didulo – a British-Colombian woman who is reportedly in her 50s – is followed by 20,000 users of Telegram, a messaging platform favoured by the far-right and QAnon figures.
In an introductory video on Telegram, Ms Didulo reportedly called herself “the founder and leader of Canada1st”, a fringe political party and “the head of state and commander in chief of Canada, the Republic”.
Ms Didulo added that she was appointed as Queen by “the same group of people who have helped president Trump”, in an apparent reference to the Capitol riot in January.
Because Romana Didulo is an anagram for “I Am Our Donald”, many of her followers believe her allegations are true, reported Vice.
Romana Didulo
Theory confirmed
Stephen Hawking
One of Stephen Hawking's most famous theorems has been proven right, using ripples in space-time caused by the merging of two distant black holes.
The black hole area theorem, which Hawking derived in 1971 from Einstein's theory of general relativity, states that it is impossible for the surface area of a black hole to decrease over time. This rule interests physicists because it is closely related to another rule that appears to set time to run in a particular direction: the second law of thermodynamics, which states that the entropy, or disorder, of a closed system must always increase. Because a black hole's entropy is proportional to its surface area, both must always increase.
According to the new study, the researchers' confirmation of the area law seems to imply that the properties of black holes are significant clues to the hidden laws that govern the universe. Oddly, the area law seems to contradict another of the famous physicist's proven theorems: that black holes should evaporate over extremely long time scale, so figuring out the source of the contradiction between the two theories could reveal new physics.
"A black hole's surface area can't be decreased, which is like the second law of thermodynamics. It also has a conservation of mass, as you can't reduce its mass, so that's analogous to the conservation of energy," lead author Maximiliano Isi, an astrophysicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told Live Science. "Initially people were like 'Wow, that's a cool parallel,' but we soon realized that this was fundamental. Black holes have an entropy, and it's proportional to their area. It's not just a funny coincidence, it's a deep fact about the world that they reveal."
A black hole's surface area is set out by a spherical boundary known as the event horizon — beyond this point nothing, not even light, can escape its powerful gravitational pull. According to Hawking's interpretation of general relativity, as a black hole's surface area increases with its mass, and because no object thrown inside can exit, its surface area cannot decrease. But a black hole's surface area also shrinks the more it spins, so researchers wondered whether it would be possible to throw an object inside hard enough to make the black hole spin enough to decrease its area.
Stephen Hawking
Three Common Kinds
Paleolithic Cave Lighting
In 1993, a media studies professor at Fordham University named Edward Wachtel visited several famous caves in southern France, including Lascaux, Font-de-Gaume, Les Combarelles, and La Mouthe. His purpose: to study the cave art that has justly made these caves famous. Wachtel was puzzled by what he called "spaghetti lines" on the drawings, partially obscuring them. There were also images of, say, an ibex with two heads, a mammal with three trunks, or a bull drawing superimposed over the drawing of a deer.
His guide for the La Mouthe tour was a local farmer, and since there were no electric lights in this cave, the farmer brought along a gas lantern. When the farmer swung the lantern inside the cave, the color schemes shifted, and the engraved lines seemed to animate. "Suddenly, the head of one creature stood out clearly," Wachtel recalled. "It lived for a second, then faded as another appeared." As for those mysterious spaghetti lines, "they became a forest or a bramble patch that concealed and then reveled the animals within."
Wachtel subsequently published a paper entitled, "The First Picture Show: Cinematic Aspects of Cave Art," in which he concluded that the cave drawings were meant to be perceived in three dimensions—one of them being time. These could have been the first "protomovies," he thought.
It's an intriguing take, although it must be said that Wachtel's ideas are speculative. There is no way to definitively prove what those prehistoric cave artists intended, and therefore it's unwise to draw strong inferences about these being cinematic in nature, or to assume that this tells us anything about prehistoric artists' conception of time. But his point about the importance of viewing cave paintings under the lighting conditions in which they were created and viewed in prehistoric times is sound.
There are nearly 350 such prehistoric caves in France and Spain alone, including the oldest cave painting yet known: a red hand stencil in Maltravieso cave in Caceres, Spain, likely drawn by a Neanderthal some 64,000 years ago. (The oldest known depiction of an animal was discovered in 2018 on the island of Borneo in Indonesia, dating back 40,000 years.) The Spanish team chose to conduct their experiments at the Isuntza 1 Cave in Spain's Basque country, and selected two distinct spaces in particular.
Paleolithic Cave Lighting
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