A Wes Anderson Christmas

"We cannot conceive of matter being formed of nothing, since things require a seed to start from... Therefore there is not anything which returns to nothing, but all things return dissolved into their elements." (William Shakespeare)

Winter

Winter in America: the solstice has arrived, y'all, and we're in for some chilly weather.

Gather those you love a little closer around you and wait for the season to pass (it will).  We'll get through this together.

So, in the final analysis, it doesn't really matter.  Nothing really matters.

So what if America just elected a real-estate-mogul-cum-reality-tv-star with absolutely no governing experience to be its president, a man who ran a scorched-earth, smear campaign of divisiveness against Hispanics, women, and Muslims (others, too, but I'm trying to keep it brief here), who is so arrogant that he doesn't feel a need to attend daily intelligence briefings ("I'm really smart"), who China has already accused of acting "impulsively," who Russia already is playing like a pawn and has in their back pocket (there's a theory that Putin is actually developing him as informant), who has nominated climate-science deniers to the EPA, the Department of the Interior and the Energy Department, whose Education nominee is opposed to public schools, whose HUD nominee has already acknowledged that he's spectacularly unqualified for the position, who is likely to place some appallingly inappropriate zealot to the Supreme Court, and who, given all indications about the hawkish generals with whom he's surrounded, his temperament, and his astonishingly bad judgement, is showing every indication that he's going to get us into a nuclear war, there's little we can do about it at this point.

The question the Buddha asked is not whether what happens to us in the world is fair or just or kind, but how we deal with it. Do we increase our own suffering by indulging in anger and hatred, complaining that the world is not fair?  Or do we allow the suffering of those around us to increase by passively doing nothing and allowing the forces of oppression and intolerance to crush those they despise?

The Buddha pointed to a middle way between these two extremes, and left it to us to find our own path on the way.  

"The man that hath no music in himself, nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils." - William Shakespeare

Better a Witty Fool Than a Foolish Wit

Proceed, proceed: we will begin these rites, as we do trust they'll end, in true delights.

Clever Trevor

Trevor Noah takes his first major step forward as Jon Stewart's replacement in your Friday Night Video.

is AI real?

ICYMI, a company controlled by Donald Trump secretly conducted business in Communist Cuba during Fidel Castro’s presidency despite strict American trade bans that made such undertakings illegal, according to interviews with former Trump executives, internal company records and court filings.  Source

"Good riddance to Fidel Castro, that lying authoritarian pro-torture false-populist thug who betrayed his supporters." -Trump fan on Twitter, per John Fugelsang