Another distraction post while waiting for election results

I'm still ploughing through the abridged version of Journey to the West, and have more thoughts:

*    I really seem to be reading this at just the right point of my life.  For example, I wasn't expecting so much reference (in chapter 11 I think) to the Chinese version of Hell and the kings in charge of it.  But I had a good introduction to this from my visit to Haw Par Villa in Singapore earlier this year, so the names were familiar, as well as the gruesome details.   As another example, I have enough knowledge of Buddhism now to understand the references to Great Vehicle Buddhism (Mahayana Buddhism), the texts of which is actually what the monk Tripitaka is sent to recover.    The book largely assumes knowledge of some of this background, so it's handy to have it!

*   I have been reminded while reading the book that someone I knew in my 20's (not very well, he was more a brief work companion) once told me that his fantasy career would involve bringing a realistic cinematic version of the book to the screen that would show the "true message" of the book.   (He was pretty dismissive of the TV versions that played it more as adventure/comedy.)   I don't know whether he was very religious or not, but I guess I still am not sure that his ambition is in any way possible - and until I get to the end, I'm not sure I understand the true message, anyway.   Well, it's very pro-Buddhist, of course, but I now wish I had engaged him more in that conversation.

*  For a person who has long been interested in comparative religion, it's very interesting.   We have a character dead for 3 days and coming back to life, and as another example, in Chapter 12 the Bodhisattva Guanyin reveals her true form at a "Mass" full of monks, her appearance described as follows:

 

 

OK, sure there are specific Chinese details, and I wasn't expecting a cockatoo!, but still, the description put me much in mind of the Catholic, pale blue robed, standing on a cloud, vision of the Virgin Mary.

More thoughts later....

Update:  Speaking of Bodhisattva Guanyin, here's a good summary of the figure from a website of the British Library.  Some extracts:

As Buddhism spread eastwards from its Indian heartland, Buddhist terminology in Sanskrit was adapted to other languages using either a sense-for-sense translation or a transliteration derived from the original pronunciation. For example, the name of Amitābha Buddha underwent transliteration to become ‘Amituo’ in Chinese. By contrast, Avalokiteśvara’s name was translated into Chinese based on its meaning and certain aspects of the Bodhisattva’s nature. This approach leaves more room for interpretation and, as a result, there are two common versions of the name, Guanshiyin and Guanzizai.

Guanshiyin, also known as Guanyin, is the name for this Boddhisattva that is seen in most sutras, such as the Etiquette of Great Compassion Repentance. This translation comes from the Sanskrit “Avalokita”, which means to observe (觀[guan]), and “svara”, which means sound (音[yin]). In other words, the Bodhisattva is “the sound-perceiver” or the one who hears the sounds (of sentient beings) of the world (世[shi]). This name is also referred to the Universal Gate Chapter of Lotus Sutra, which says: “Avalokiteśvara Bodhisattva will instantly perceive the sound of their cries, and they (the suffering) will all be liberated”....

 

While there are a few different names to refer to this Bodhisattva, there are even more different forms that Guanyin can take when appearing to sentient beings in order to guide them away from suffering.

One interesting development of Guanyin’s form is the way in which gender is represented. In general, the gender of deities in Buddhism are neutral and rarely discussed. Early depictions show Guanyin with a more masculine appearance, creating the impression that the original gender of Guanyin was male. However, the female form becomes more popular later in Mahayana Buddhism, particularly in China. The reasons for this are linked to the historical context. Traditionally, China was a very patriarchal society; a system reinforced by Confucian principles which put pressure on women to obey their husbands and give birth to sons (instead of daughters). As a result, women were generally the ones asking for Guanyin’s help in order to achieve these goals. In addition, it was thought that a woman must commit to one man for her whole life (even after his death), therefore it seemed more appropriate for a woman to worship a deity in female form. In this way, Guanyin starts to take on more feminine qualities such as kindness and grace and, in female form, she is seen as more accessible to women.

So far we have discussed the work of Guanyin in isolation, but this Bodhisattva does not go it alone in the rescue business; Guanyin also works with Amitābha Buddha and Mahāsthāmaprāpta Bodhisattva to guide the dead to the Western Pure Land. This trio is known as the Three Noble Ones of the West. When pictured together, it would be easy to recognise the Amitābha Buddha as he is always in the middle but sometimes it can be a bit difficult to work out which attendant is Guanyin since the basic style of Bodhisattvas is the same. One clue would be the plant they hold in their hand; Mahāsthāmaprāpta holds a lotus and Guanyin holds a willow. The other indication is the item on their head; it is a vase containing his parents’ ashes on Mahāsthāmaprāpta’s head and a statue of seated Amitābha Buddha on Guanyin’s. In this case, when a person approaches death, they can call upon not only Amitābha, but also Guanyin to ask for guidance.

Update 2:  And yes, Guanyin is known as Kannon in Japan, a country which has an unusually large number of giant size statues of her.  I'm been in one - the Sendai Daikannon.  I see that one big statue in Japan gives off particular Mary vibes, with her holding a baby:

David Frum on why he's confident there won't be another attack on the Capitol

 

A reminder that history is made in many different ways, on this US election day...

 Here's the actual story.  (And no, it's not about a bereaved billionaire who couldn't bear to live without his pet ferret.)

A curious apologia for Trump

The New York Times has a column that is a kind of apologia for Trump - arguing that even if he loses the election, he has already "won", due to Democrats (and even some economists) moving towards the Trumpian line on free trade and tariffs (because Biden kept his Chinese tariffs) and immigration (pushing a tougher line on it.)

I think this is a case of a small element of truth being wildly exaggerated for partisan purposes. 

One thing I still don't understand is how rapidly relations with China went downhill - I'm sure I've said this before, but it seemed that as soon the US decided to go with a nutty populist leader who nonetheless made his admiration for China's authoritarian leader obvious, said Chinese leader decided to hype up Chinese nationalism and aggression.   But (and this is where I could well be wrong*), they seemed to do it at the same time - not in a clear series of escalations that made sense.

I'm not convinced that the benefit of free trade has been shown up as inherently wrong headed in any way, even if clearly leads sometimes to difficult periods of adjustment.   And lifting people out of poverty at the global level is something we should consider "a good thing" - I mean, even the Catholic Church had that attitude to it.

So populist takes against it are always suspect - and Trump's loony idea of (more or less) universal tariffs is so mad it surely has to erase any apologia for him being "ahead of the experts" on the original decision to put tariffs on China.

On immigration I think there is even less reason to argue that Trump has swayed public opinion (even amongst Democrats) towards him.   His entire political career has been built on nasty, racist fear mongering about illegal immigration, a problem that the country has grappled with for decades, and surges in arrivals are often due to factors beyond American's direct control anyway.  The surge in arrivals in recent years would have pushed mainstream America to demanding a better response anyway - it didn't need Trump's Nazi level vilification of arrivals to reach that position.

 

*  Ok, so this Wiki article on the US/China trade war does show it as a series of escalations started by Trump - but at the same time, the Chinese tariffs on Australia in the same period seemed over the top aggressive.  It just seemed that China started to decide to punish anyone who criticised them with trade retaliation.  And the renewed Chinese aggressive stance to re-taking Taiwan was taking place at the same time.

Far from encouraging news

The Washington Post says that scientists believe they have identified the cause of an upswing in atmospheric methane - microbial production from warmer fields, wetlands (and also cows' stomachs, apparently.)

 How do they know?:

Different sources of methane give off different carbon signatures. Methane produced by microbes — mostly single-celled organisms known as archaea, which live in cow stomachs, wetlands and agricultural fields — tends to be “lighter,” or have fewer C13 atoms. Methane from fossil fuels, on the other hand, is heavier, with more C13 atoms.

As the amount of methane has risen in the atmosphere over the past 15 years, it’s also gotten lighter and lighter. The scientists used a model to analyze those changes and found that only large increases in microbial emissions could explain both the rising methane and its changing weight.

The concern is that it may be a dangerous climate feedback happening all by itself, but they can't say for sure:

Michel says it’s too early to say whether this is the beginning of a vicious cycle. “Are these coming from human-caused changes in freshwater systems, or are they a kind of scary climate feedback?” she said. “I want to be careful about what we can and cannot say with this data.”

Researchers say it doesn’t mean that the world can just keep burning natural gas. If wetlands are releasing methane faster than ever, they argue, there should be an even greater push to curb methane from the sources humans can control, such as cows, agriculture and fossil fuels.

 

A short piece against nihilism

Seems an odd piece for the New York Times to publish when everyone is concentrating on the election.  But a cosmologist argues against nihilism in the face of a mostly empty universe:

Artists and philosophers have long understood the power of the void. The 12th-century Buddhist monk and poet Saigyo reflected on the gaps between falling raindrops, noting that the pauses between their sounds were just as important as the drops themselves, if not more so. The composer John Cage challenged us with “4ʹ33ʺ,” a performance consisting entirely of silence, creating a manifestation of the void that audiences sought to fill with awkward coughs and nervous laughter, which became its own music. The famed Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas celebrated the utility of negative spaces, proclaiming, “Where there is nothing, everything is possible.” For the psychoanalyst Carl Jung, the void was a psychological space that we must enter to realize our full potential and forge a new life.

Billions of years from now the sun will engorge and Earth will turn to dust. The cosmic voids, guardians of great nothingness, will remain. That bare fact, at first uncomfortable, gives us the ability to treasure what we’re given.

Tell a joke to your friends. Fight for what you believe in. Call your mother. Create something the cosmos hasn’t seen before. The implacability of the cosmic voids calls us to action. The universe won’t do anything for us except give us the freedom to exist. What we do with that existence is entirely up to us. It is our responsibility to imbue the cosmos with meaning and purpose.

Some days this sounds an attractive approach; other days, not so much.

The problem comes down to the issue that talking about "meaning and purpose" seems to presume  that there is something by which to judge between competing ideas of what makes for a valid meaning and purpose, but the purely materialist universe says there isn't.

Watching corn grow

I went to the Mulgowie markets last month, and returned again on the weekend. This is the same (enormous) cornfield that featured in my last post, so you can see how much it has grown.  

What an absolute, 100% rolled gold, MAGA moron

Update:  Of course, he is also going to swallow entirely the line, when Trump loses, that it must have been due to cheating, because (he will claim) the polls and betting market showed a Trump landslide.   The New York Times discusses the obvious:

The torrent of polls began arriving just a few weeks ago, one after the other, most showing a victory for Donald J. Trump.

They stood out amid the hundreds of others indicating a dead heat in the presidential election. But they had something in common: They were commissioned by right-leaning groups with a vested interest in promoting Republican strength.

These surveys have had marginal, if any, impact on polling averages, which either do not include the partisan polls or give them little weight. Yet some argue that the real purpose of partisan polls, along with other expectation-setting metrics such as political betting markets, is directed at a different goal entirely: building a narrative of unstoppable momentum for Mr. Trump.

The partisan polls appear focused on lifting Republican enthusiasm before the election and — perhaps more important — cementing the idea that the only way Mr. Trump can lose to Vice President Kamala Harris is if the election is rigged. Polls promising a Republican victory, the theory runs, could be held up as evidence of cheating if that victory does not come to pass.

The importance of the bargaining God?

This is just an idle thought that came to me after watching a video by that secular Buddhist guy on Youtube (Doug's Dharma) that discussed the question "Is forgiveness not Buddhist?" 

The video is about an article by Ken McLeod that appeared in Tricycle, the glossy Buddhist magazine, which argued that forgiveness only makes sense in the context of a transactional religious view, such as in the Abrahamic religions, where the idea of God engaging in agreement (covenants) leads to the idea of debt and forgiveness too - as part of putting broken deals right.   I don't think he mentioned it specifically, but a "transactional" God in the Jewish sense includes the idea of divine bargaining.  God engaged in a negotiation with Abraham as to how many righteous men it would take for Sodom to be spared is the great example.  The idea of deals or transactions being done at the divine level continues into Christianity - with the ransom theory of atonement, for example.   

As to how unique the Jewish origin of the idea of a transactional God is, I suppose you could argue that any religion that practices sacrifice or offerings as a placation to a god or the gods has an element of "bargaining" too; but then again, the Old Testament portrays a very direct and personal involvement of God being prepared to "do deals".   I mean, there were temples all through ancient Greece and Rome (and over in the Americas) at which sacrificial offerings were routine;  but as far as I know, you don't have traditions of (say) Zeus coming down and having lengthy negotiations with religious figures about the exact details of a bargain.

And this led me to think - is the Jewish reputation for success at capitalism traceable to a cultural attraction to the idea of bargaining that was there from the very start? 

The topic of Jews and success at capitalist enterprises is not exactly a new topic, and this book sounds interesting:

...in his slim essay collection “Capitalism and the Jews,” Jerry Z. Muller presents a provocative and accessible survey of how Jewish culture and historical accident ripened Jews for commercial success and why that success has earned them so much misfortune.

As Muller, a history professor at the Catholic University of America, explains it, much anti-Semitism can be attributed to a misunderstanding of basic economics. From Aristotle through the Renaissance (and then again in the 19th century, thanks to that Jew-baiting former Jew Karl Marx), thinkers believed that money should be considered sterile, a mere means of exchange incapable of producing additional value. Only labor could be truly productive, it was thought, and anyone who extracted money from money alone — that is, through interest — must surely be a parasite, or at the very least a fraud. The Bible also contended that charging interest was sinful, inspiring Dante to consign usurers to the seventh circle of hell (alongside sodomites and murderers). In other words, 500 years ago, the phrase “predatory lending” would have been considered redundant.

Lending at interest was thus forbidden across Christian Europe — for Christians. Jews, however, were permitted by the Roman Catholic Church to charge interest; since they were going to hell anyway, why not let them help growing economies function more efficiently? (According to Halakha, or Jewish law, Jews were not allowed to charge interest to one another, just to gentiles.) And so it was, Muller explains, that Judaism became forever fused in the popular mind with finance. In fact, Christian moneylenders were sometimes legally designated as temporary Jews when they lent money to English and French kings. 

As Europe’s official money­lenders, Jews became both necessary and despised. The exorbitant interest rates they charged — sometimes as high as 60 percent — only fed the fury. But considering the economic climate, such rates probably made good business sense: capital was scarce, and lenders frequently risked having their debtors’ obligations canceled or their own assets arbitrarily seized by the crown.

This early, semi-exclusive exposure to finance, coupled with a culture that valued literacy, abstract thinking, trade and specialization (the Babylonian Talmud amazingly presaged Adam Smith’s paradigmatic pin factory), gave Jews the human capital necessary to succeed in modern capitalism. It also helped that Judaism, unlike many strains of Christianity, did not consider poverty particularly ennobling.

Most of Muller’s strongest arguments are in his first essay, which draws on everyone from Voltaire to Osama bin Laden to illustrate how the world came to conflate the negative stereotypes of Jews with those of capitalism’s excesses. The book’s remaining three essays deal somewhat unevenly with the fallout of the Jews’ economic success, and in particular the resentment it inspired among history’s economic also-rans. Muller explores, for example, how Jews improbably became associated with both abhorred poles of political economy: hypercapitalism and ­Communism.

I'm not sure that he covers "because they always thought a deal could be cut - even with God" - but it seems worthy of consideration!

A remarkable photo from the Spanish floods

Once again, we are watching the consequences of a remarkable flash flood, this one in Spain, with at least 95 people killed: yet the Washington Post puts its story about it way, way down the website:

 

This short clip shows some of the flood in action:  

The best role

It seems I have spent years bemoaning the general lack of likeability I find amongst younger Australian comedians.   The latest season of Question Everything confirms it again - I do quite like Wil Anderson and his material, co-host Jan Fran is OK-ish, but I routinely do not care at all for the panelists and their over-rehearsed "bits".   (And really, why does lesbianism seem to be so overly represented - or referenced - amongst Australian female comedians these days?)   

I was somewhat amused, though, that a new episode of Fisk last night (a show which is likeable and gives me some laughs, but it also doesn't exactly set the world on fire) featured another young-ish comedian who made me grind my teeth when he had his own shows years ago - Tom Ballard - playing an intensely dislikeable character.  Given that I have never liked him, I find this a perfect match and can say he's pretty good in the role!

And once again, I feel a tad self conscious whenever I talk about this topic and realise that most of the young comedians I complain about are gay or lesbian.  In my defence, and while I'm not sure because I could never watch him for very long, I don't think Ballard's comedy has ever been strongly gay themed -  I would dislike him as a comedian even if he was as straight as a ...[add your own witty simile, I'm having trouble coming up with one.]    And I found that very campy gay (and rather odd looking) Rhys Nicholson can be pretty funny on The Weekly with Charlie Pickering. [Update: I just read his Wiki entry, and he apparently identifies as "non binary" and uses "they".  Let me just roll my eyes about that for a a couple of minutes.]

I've also been finding the Asian gay guy (Bowen Yang) on Saturday Night Live can be pretty funny too.  This segment made me laugh:

 

As far as non campy gay personalities are concerned, I guess I can put Graham Norton in that category, and surely everyone thinks he is witty and pretty smart? So, no, it's not about the gay, honest!

Not sure what is going on at Twitter

I've noticed that, despite Musk's grubby fingers on the algorithm, the content on the "For You" side of Twitter ever since Trump's "definitely not a Nazi rally" rally (the fact he even has to emphasise this is telling) has been chock full of negative commentary of the event and (in particular) about the Peurto Rico and Latino "jokes".    This seems kind of odd, given how MAGA friendly Musk made it.   Perhaps a sign that even the MAGA crowd knows it's hard to convince anyone with the "it's just comedy, guys" line, or something else?  

Musk is also in the news for muttering approvingly after a guy pointed out that Trump policies would initially destroy the economy, but that would be a good thing as it would allow something better to arise from the ashes.

Overall, I agree with those saying it feels as if momentum has switched to Harris in the home stretch.   (And I still suspect polling has not been catching the registered Republicans who are secretly voting against Trump.)  

Tracking down a science meme source

I don't often watch this channel, but this video about their (eventually) successful effort to track down the source of an improbable sounding, but much repeated, science meme was pretty interesting.  (And yes, the meme has a figure exaggerated by a factor of about 10 - although it still feels hard to believe, really!)

 

Goodbye Teri

Yeah, I always had a bit of a soft spot for Teri Garr, who didn't have that big of a career, but I think she had a kind of vulnerability about her screen presence that was appealing:

Teri Garr, comic actress in ‘Young Frankenstein’ and ‘Tootsie,’ dies at 79

A tricky time for those who follow American mainstream newspapers

I have mentioned before that I subscribe to both the Washington Post and New York Times, and that I share the common disdain expressed for years by people on Twitter for the New York Times repeatedly 'sanewashing' Trump and his speeches.   In fact, I thought of unsubscribing for this reason, but never got around to it.  I generally prefer reading the Washington Post anyway.

But now that WAPO has been told by its billionaire owner to not endorse Harris (or Trump), and is reported to have lost 8% of its digital subscribers over this, I feel the temptation to join the former subscribers, because (who knows) such customer outcry might make a difference?   (Well, I doubt it. But still...)

And then, for quite a while now, I have noticed that the Los Angeles Times has a remarkably good subscription deal of $60 per year, or $120 for two years (true, that is US dollars, but still great value.)   But it is also in the "rich owner intervenes to keep a fascist on side" club.  

The New York Times has at least endorsed Harris, and seems to be suddenly being braver in its headlines, at least:

The Misogynistic, Bigoted and Crude Rally Remarks Trump Hasn’t Disavowed

A range of speakers at Madison Square Garden on Sunday disparaged Latinos, Black people, Palestinians and Jews, and made vulgar references to Kamala Harris. The Trump campaign has distanced itself from only one of these statements.

So, I don't really know what to do about my subscriptions right now... 

Update:   So, Bezos is trying to sell his decision as a principled one about trying to get the public to trust the mainstream media more.  He claims that the chief executive of his rocket company meeting Trump the same day of the announcement was a pure co-incidence that he was not aware of.

Many people in comments (more than 6,000 of them) do not believe him.

About that rally

About the Queensland election

I generally don't pay too much attention to State politics, but my reaction to Labor losing at the weekend is one that I reckon is pretty widely shared:

a.   It was definitely due to a combination of the "it's time" factor and a huge amount of media attention give to crime and youth justice over the last couple of years.

b.   To be honest, the media attention to crime has been deserved, despite it also obviously playing into the hands of conservative politics.   Part of the reason I say that is because the type of crime that attracts a lot of attention (stolen cars for joy rides, often causing huge danger on roads) is one that is exasperatingly pointless and stupid.   It's not like we're dealing with the starving stealing food to live on.  

c.   If you are going to have a Liberal/National Party leader in Queensland, you could do much, much worse than David Crisafulli.  He is striking me as pretty moderate in tone, and somewhat similar to Labor's Chris Mins in New South Wales in that he claims to be more into pragmatic approaches and not too ideologically driven? 

d.  This will be a real test of how difficult it can be governments to quickly get on top of a wave of pointless and stupid crime in a hurry, and whether criminologists will get any real input and/or be proved right or wrong with their forecasts.   Interestingly, the ABC is today running a story about the inability of the tough talking Northern Territory government to handle the existing number of prisoners, let alone any increase the approach of the new conservative government may get.

 

Future reference pie

 

I haven't checked the date of the very thin cookbook that I got this recipe from, but I reckon it would be from the 1990's. The Real Man's Cookbook, or something, I think it's called. Kind of looks like a bit of a vanity project by a minor (very minor) celebrity, except I have no idea who the guy on the cover is. 

Anyhow, this pie has always seem a pretty nice and economical meal - a $5.50 can of salmon is extended out to at least 4 big serves.  

You can also add additional stuff - like a small can of corn, or some peas.  You can double the amount of mushrooms too.

Very true...

Headline of an opinion piece on Washington Post:

The double standard for Harris and Trump has reached a breaking point

One candidate can rant about gibberish while the other has to be perfect. 

Some extracts:

Something is wrong with this split-screen picture. On one side, former president Donald Trump rants about mass deportations and claims to have stopped “wars with France,” after being described by his longest-serving White House chief of staff as a literal fascist. On the other side, commentators debate whether Vice President Kamala Harris performed well enough at a CNN town hall to “close the deal.”

Seriously? Much of a double standard here?

Somehow, it is apparently baked into this campaign that Trump is allowed to talk and act like a complete lunatic while Harris has to be perfect in every way. I don’t know the answer to the chicken-or-egg question — whether media coverage is leading public perception or vice versa — but the disparate treatment is glaring.

This week, it became simply ridiculous.

Further down:

Let’s review: First, Harris was criticized for not doing enough interviews — so she did multiple interviews, including with nontraditional media. She was criticized for not doing hostile interviews — so she went toe to toe with Bret Baier of Fox News. She was criticized as being comfortable only at scripted rallies — so she did unscripted events, such as the town hall on Wednesday. Along the way, she wiped the floor with Trump during their one televised debate.

Trump, meanwhile, stands before his MAGA crowds and spews nonstop lies, ominous threats, impossible promises and utter gibberish. His rhetoric is dismissed, or looked past, without first being interrogated.

Imagine if Harris were promising to end the war in Gaza on her first day in office but wouldn’t say how. Imagine if she were proposing a tariffs-based economic plan that economists say would destabilize the world economy and cost the average family $4,000 a year in higher prices. Imagine if she were promising a “bloody” campaign to uproot and deport millions of undocumented migrants who are gainfully employed and paying taxes. And imagine if Harris were vowing to use the military to go after her political opponents, as Trump repeatedly pledges.

 The article has more than 3,600 comments (virtually all in support), showing it has really resonated.

 

A decent Stewart piece

I don't always like his shtick, but I thought this Jon Stewart segment was pretty good - swinging from funny to serious and exasperation, which is how about 90% of the rest of the world feel when watching America at the moment: