January 2009
Monthly Archive
January 13, 2009
One plus of living farther North is in the winter you can get some great displays of the Northern Lights. They were a common sight in North Dakota where I grew up. I have seen a glimpse of them here in West Virginia, but it is extremely rare. I imagine most people in the Southern states or the tropics have never seen them.
More pictures like the above can be found at:
Northern Lights Over Yellowknife
“Know that all opulent, beautiful and glorious creations spring from but a spark of My splendor.”
Bg 10.41
January 12, 2009
The material world is a place of constant transition. We are looking at and anticipating a future event, watching it approach us in the river of time, experiencing it, then watching it in the rear view mirror recede into memory.
I got home, blinked a couple of times, and suddenly I am not talking about our trip, I am recollecting a memory. Whatever.
We stayed with friends who live on the Florida Gulf Coast just south of Sarasota. Here are Dave, Laxmi Honest and Vidya catching some morning sun in their pool.
They heat it by pumping the water through solar collectors on their roof.
Laxmi Honest ran the accounting department after I left it. Herapancami succeeded her and now Rupanuga. Here is a picture of her from 1987 when Radhanath and a bunch of devotees visited her home in Meadeville, Pennsylvania.
And yes, for the keen eyed observer, that is Hladini dancing in the background.
She took us to a beach. Since Vidya’s normal routine is to swim a mile and a half a day, naturally she went swimming.
Tulasi went in for a while also.
The beach had a lot of shells on it. Many people were walking up and down the beach collecting them. Tulasi sat in a relatively small area and hand shifted sand and shells. In about 30 minutes he found over 12 fossilized shark’s teeth.
The day we left we went up the coast to Sarasota to a public beach, one of those wide, white sand beaches with no shells but lots of people. We even saw a busload of what were either Mennonites or Amish kids during their “wilding”. It seems odd looking at the classical Amish haircut and beard on a guy wearing really colorful beachwear. The girls were wearing the caps.
The beach was very organized with gift shops, snack bar and showers, unlike the shell beach. There were even beach wheelchairs.
We left there and crossed Florida to Daytona Beach. The tide was coming in so we couldn’t drive on the beach but we did get to watch a lot of surfers. The water was colder and the waves were much bigger than the Gulf Coast.
We drove up A1A which is right on the beach until it got dark then jumped over to 1-95. This was sentimental for me because when I bicycled from Grand Forks, North Dakota to Daytona Beach, Florida in 1971, the last day was from Jacksonville Beach to Daytona Beach so I was retracing part of that journey.
We drove late that night and all day the next day getting home in time to catch the tail end of Advaita’s Christmas Day party. Nice thing about driving on Christmas was the roads weren’t crowded.
One thing that surprised me was when we were crossing Virginia and got that first view of the mountains in the distance I felt a sense of, I don’t know how to describe it, relief, or gratitude that there are mountains or something. Of course, these are the Appalachian Mountains, the oldest in the world, not like those young upstarts the Rockies or the Himalayas.
Our rental car was a Nissan Versa which we got 33 MPG with. Gas was the lowest price it had been all year, and it has gone up since returning so we paid bottom of the market prices for the gas, always a good thing.
Glad we went, glad to be home.
January 11, 2009
Posted by Madhava Gosh under
Jokes Leave a Comment
January 10, 2009
Well, maybe in this day and age. Before the industrial revolution all cities were zero carbon.
I would be a lot more excited about the flagship ISKCON projects if they were more in this vein PLUS Krishna (maybe the planners could take some hints):
Masdar City is the most ambitious sustainable development in the world today – it will be the world’s first zero carbon, zero waste, car-free city powered entirely by renewable energy sources. It is part of the Masdar Initiative; a long-term strategic endeavour by Abu Dhabi to accelerate the development and deployment of clean future energy solutions. By taking sustainable development and living to a new level, Masdar City will lead the world in understanding how all future cities should be built.
The City is a free zone cleantech cluster, which is already attracting the world’s best in all areas of sustainability, from renewable energy to biomass. All types of companies including innovators, incubators, research and development, pioneers and solution providers will be part of the journey to create, work and live in Masdar City.
Masdar City is more than a concept – it is happening. Phase One of Masdar City has now begun – The Masdar Institute of Science and Technology is underway and Masdar City will be home to 100 students and faculty by fall 2009. Masdar is embarking on a global drive to attract industry partners in energy and utilities fields to achieve this important objective.
Your expertise in energy and utilities will contribute to the development of a blueprint for the cities of the future.
To find out how to become a partner please visit us at
http://www.masdaruae.com/home/index.aspx
January 9, 2009
Posted by Madhava Gosh under
Poetry Leave a Comment
for Lurline McGregor
Ah, ah cries the crow arching toward the heavy sky over the marina.
Lands on the crown of the palm tree.
Ah, ah slaps the urgent cove of ocean swimming through the slips.
We carry canoes to the edge of the salt.
Ah, ah groans the crew with the weight, the winds cutting skin.
We claim our seats. Pelicans perch in the draft for fish.
Ah, ah beats our lungs and we are racing into the waves.
Though there are worlds below us and above us, we are straight ahead.
Ah, ah tattoos the engines of your plane against the sky—away from these waters.
Each paddle stroke follows the curve from reach to loss.
Ah, ah calls the sun from a fishing boat with a pale, yellow sail. We fly by
on our return, over the net of eternity thrown out for stars.
Ah, ah scrapes the hull of my soul. Ah, ah.
January 8, 2009
Source
1. Do not overstate the power of your argument. One’s sense of conviction should be in proportion to the level of clear evidence assessable by most. If someone portrays their opponents as being either stupid or dishonest for disagreeing, intellectual dishonesty is probably in play. Intellectual honesty is most often associated with humility, not arrogance.
2. Show a willingness to publicly acknowledge that reasonable alternative viewpoints exist. The alternative views do not have to be treated as equally valid or powerful, but rarely is it the case that one and only one viewpoint has a complete monopoly on reason and evidence.
3. Be willing to publicly acknowledge and question one’s own assumptions and biases. All of us rely on assumptions when applying our world view to make sense of the data about the world. And all of us bring various biases to the table.
4. Be willing to publicly acknowledge where your argument is weak. Almost all arguments have weak spots, but those who are trying to sell an ideology will have great difficulty with this point and would rather obscure or downplay any weak points.
5. Be willing to publicly acknowledge when you are wrong. Those selling an ideology likewise have great difficulty admitting to being wrong, as this undercuts the rhetoric and image that is being sold. You get small points for admitting to being wrong on trivial matters and big points for admitting to being wrong on substantive points. You lose big points for failing to admit being wrong on something trivial.
6. Demonstrate consistency. A clear sign of intellectual dishonesty is when someone extensively relies on double standards. Typically, an excessively high standard is applied to the perceived opponent(s), while a very low standard is applied to the ideologues’ allies.
7. Address the argument instead of attacking the person making the argument. Ad hominem arguments are a clear sign of intellectual dishonesty. However, often times, the dishonesty is more subtle. For example, someone might make a token effort at debunking an argument and then turn significant attention to the person making the argument, relying on stereotypes, guilt-by-association, and innocent-sounding gotcha questions.
8. When addressing an argument, do not misrepresent it. A common tactic of the intellectually dishonest is to portray their opponent’s argument in straw man terms. In politics, this is called spin. Typically, such tactics eschew quoting the person in context, but instead rely heavily on out-of-context quotes, paraphrasing and impression. When addressing an argument, one should shows signs of having made a serious effort to first understand the argument and then accurately represent it in its strongest form.
9. Show a commitment to critical thinking. ‘Nuff said.
10. Be willing to publicly acknowledge when a point or criticism is good. If someone is unable or unwilling to admit when their opponent raises a good point or makes a good criticism, it demonstrates an unwillingness to participate in the give-and-take that characterizes an honest exchange.
While no one is perfect, and even those who strive for intellectual honesty can have a bad day, simply be on the look out for how many and how often these criteria apply to someone. In the arena of public discourse, it is not intelligence or knowledge that matters most – it is whether you can trust the intelligence or knowledge of another. After all, intelligence and knowledge can sometimes be the best tools of an intellectually dishonest approach.
January 6, 2009
Posted by Madhava Gosh under
Thomas Merton Leave a Comment
“He requires a second birth, by samskara, reforming. Just like we give second birth, initiation. The second birth, the father is the spiritual master and the mother is the Vedas. As the first birth is taken by the material father and mother, similarly, second birth, dvija is possible by the spiritual master, the father and Vedic knowledge, mother. This father, mother. So that is required. That is possible in the human form of life.
“A cat is born by father and mother; you are also born by father… But the cat is not, dog is not eligible to take the second father and mother. That is not possible.
“So if we do not take the privilege of accepting the second father and mother, then what is the difference between your birth and dog’s birth? That is stated: janma-labhah parah pumsam. You have got this human form of body, the best body. That is the instruction of all Vedic literature, simply stressing.
‘But what is this material civilization? Simply working like cats and dogs. The same eating, sleeping, sex intercourse and defending. There are so many buildings in your city, Paris. Where is the culture to make the human life perfect? You have got very nice building. There is intelligence. So many nice buildings. People come to see the building. But that is not all. Simply if you utilize your intelligence… Certainly there is intelligence. But if you use your intelligence for the simply material activities, then you are not intelligent. You are a fool.”
Srimad-Bhagavatam 2.1.6 — Paris, June 14, 1974
“Spiritual rebirth is the key to the aspirations of all the higher religions. By “higher religions” I mean those which, like Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Islam, and Christianity, are not content with the ritual tribal cults rooted in the cycle of the seasons and harvests.
“These “higher religions” answer a deeper need in [humankind]: a need that cannot be satisfied merely by the ritual celebration of [our] oneness with nature-[our] joy in the return of spring! [Humankind] seeks to be liberated from mere natural necessity, from servitude to fertility and seasons, from the round of birth, growth, and death.
‘[Humankind] is not content with slavery to need: making a living, raising a family, and leaving a good name to posterity. There is in the depths of [our] hearts a voice which says: “You must be born again.” It is the obscure but insistent demand of [our] own nature to transcend itself in the freedom of a fully integrated, autonomous, personal identity.”
Thomas Merton. Love and Living (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1979): 194.
January 4, 2009
“Doctor Atomic” is an opera in cycle on PBS these days. It is an English language contemporary one. I had it on and wasn’t paying a lot of attention doing something else at the same time, mostly listening to the music. It was a little modern and used too much brass for my taste but had some good dark passages that suited me enough to continue listening.
All of a sudden I heard “Senses… objects of the senses…temporary” which sounded like a verse from the Bhagavad -Gita. As it turned out it was. The opera is about developing the atomic bomb and the first test blast. Robert Oppenheimer is the lead character. It is well known he quoted Gita when the bomb went off.
Turns out the libretto was based in part on the Bhagavad Gits and it shows in several places. Read about how the libretto was made here.
For another take on “Doctor Atomic” click here.
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