Tannishblog

I would share two quotes from The Little Zen Companion that dovetail nicely. Both intimate the importance of awareness - a key activity in all Buddhist traditions:

A monk asked master Haryo, "What is the way?" Haryo said, "An open-eyed man falling into a well."

Zen Koan      

[…]

If a man wishes to be sure of the road he treads on, he must close his eyes and walk in the dark.

St. John of the Cross     

None of us have the discipline of mindfulness to the point where we can recall every detail of our day. For most, much of our day is lost to the mundane business of our modern lives. In the Zen tradition, a state of sharp awareness comes from the clarity of mind found after a strong meditative practice, like the crisp scent of the air after an Autumn rain: all the contaminants are gone and the clarity is exquisite.

 Quick: what color are the clouds right now? If you have to go to the window to look, your practice of mindful awareness needs work.

Greenpeace, that quasi-infamous bastion of eco-consciousness, is after Apple Corporation for lagging behind the rest of the computer industry in recycling efforts. Their take?

We love Apple. Apple knows more about "clean" design than anybody, right? So why do Macs, iPods, iBooks and the rest of their product range contain hazardous substances that other companies have agreed to abandon? A cutting edge company shouldn't be cutting lives short by exposing children in China and India to dangerous chemicals. That's why we Apple fans need to demand a new, cool product: a greener Apple.

Way to go! Finally, Greenpeace is finding a way to generate news that doesn't involve a harpoon. Dell and HP have stepped up to recycle old machines. IBM is getting subtle pressure from some shareholders, via a group called Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition, to join the effort. Together, according to Computer Take-Back Campaign, the three companies have recycled over 116,600 tons of obsolete electronics since 2002. Apple, however, only managed to gather 1,500 tons.

As a hardware geek and a computer hobbyist, I have gathered my share of old parts that I loathe to chuck in the trash. (Anyone want a working Compaq 400 MHz box running Win95?) Monitors are especially troublesome to get rid of for me. Case in point: I just finished building my latest home-grown Frankenstein box and, in goofing about with the old troublesome machine managed to fry (D'oh!) both the power supply and the mainboard. What's a circuit nerd to do?

I'm sure there are a few others who cringe at the idea of landfilling their old components. Perhaps necessity finds them squeezing their eyes shut while hefting them in an unwatched dumpster behind the strip mall. Maybe by tossing the pieces away a small bit at a time will ease the conscious. There's a better way. Many states are waking up to the problem of mounds of toxic chemicals leeching from buried circuit boards to offer programs where the components can be recycled adequately.

Besides the option of trashing your machine, there are several organizations that would refurbish and redistribute a used computer for charities. People like myself may forget that many people, even in the US, are still without a computer.

Here's a partial list of resources in no particular order:

• eRecycle.org
• National Recycling Coalition
• Earth911.org
• Give A Computer.org
• Share the Technology

While big-time eco-orgs like Greenpeace can work the large picture, we small fries can and should do what we can to ensure a safer world for the future. And the next time you ponder new hardware, ask yourself if you want a iMac case made out of PVC sitting on your desk. Not all apples are green, it seems.

…Why isn’t America doing stuff like this? From Washington Post:

MERIGNAC, France – Braving queasy stomachs, a five-man team of French physicians took to the skies for the first surgical procedure on a human in zero-gravity conditions, as the aircraft soared and dived to create weightlessness.

The operation, more than three years in the making and part of a three-phase exploration of weightless surgery, is a step toward one day having surgery performed in space, either by a surgeon or a remotely controlled robot. It also is an experiment that may be instructive for a future medical emergency on the international space station.

The flight lasted three hours, but the operation to remove a cyst from a patient’s arm took just about the same amount of time it would have taken in a hospital, physicians said.

While America is concerned with small thinking concepts like Global Hegemony, Europe is quietly eyeing the solar system. One must ask: What is the future of mankind? Where can we go after all the wars resolve themselves into a single global powerhouse? What then?

Humans are curious beasts, ever pondering the unknown. We are explorers, conquerors who have run out of places to annex in the name of "God and Country." When the dust of looming global warfare settles, the remnants will find themselves with a damaged, nearly depleted planet. Small prize for all the bloodshed and sorrow. Meanwhile forward-thinking institutions are planning long term toward what may be the inevitable expansion of the human race. It is, at least, a hope in dark times, one that should be explored until evidence piles up on the futility of hope itself.

What have we, as a nation, to lose that we don’t already risk in global conflict? More importantly: What do we have to gain? To pursue space science, to give the average grunt a vision and hope for future generations (something that is slipping from us,) is to breath life into what is rapidly becoming an untenable condition - the combined effect of climate change, global ideological strife, depleted resources and the consolidation of wealth.

It may seem wacky, now, but our future is up.

The problem I see with Microsoft as a monopoly is that the consumer is hurt by it in small, irritating ways. For example, I have a tiny shareware program called BigFix that is unfortunately necessary precisely because Microsoft has has no viable competition for most of its existence. Bigfix tracks upgrades to major software suites like windows, Office, Symantec anti-virus and others, lets me know via a popup message that a patch is available, then facilitates the upload and installation of the patch.

It’s a nice service, especially since its free to home users (corporations need to pay for a licence for large-scale versions.) What I find irritating is the fact we need this at all. Windows has been a staple of the desktop since 1989 (or so.) All that time, the product remains broken despite all the years of "development" since. Reports I see of Windows Vista lends me to believe that the gaping security holes will not be addressed in the forthcoming version. Vista will be nothing more than a cosmetic upgrade to keep up with Mac OS X, as noted at PC Magazine:

It’s too early to see how Vista measures up against competitive operating systems, but a lot of the more visible features are familiar. Apple’s Mac OS X "Tiger" already has many 3D visual effects and a search interface, Spotlight. Unix has had usable limited-rights accounts for years.

Okay: Anti-virus software is a billion dollar industry.  Some would argue that if Microsoft cleaned up its act, a good many people would be out of work. These same people would just use their talent on something else - that’s what technology is all about: innovation. Symantec, for one, could still reap a bundle on its suite of  backup and recovery tools, or its pcAnywhere communications program. They’ll recover just fine, thank you.

The consumer, who has as little time for cleaning digital windows as he has for cleaning real ones, is inconvenienced by all the squeegee work needed to keep a safe and working computer functioning. It is a disservice to everyone, and it is irresponsible of the richest man in the nation to ignore the issue. To me, more than any other reason, that is why competition against monopolies should be encouraged.

Crossposted at Democrats.org:

I did something for the first time today: I listened to talk radio. I’ve always been put off by the genre, dismissing it with a "I have enough opinions, I don’t need somebody else’s." This sentiment is rings truer because the opines I heard most were anathema to mine. For the longest time, that was all one could hear.

My attitude is reinforced by the billboard ads I see on the highways: "Liberals Hate US," touting a conservative AM station in town.  In Chicago, no less, home of Mayor Daley II and the Democratic "machine" politics of the "city that works." So, I muse, making others hate is a selling point? (Given that the current Republican war chest is being squandered on attack ads during this election instead of, say, applauding incumbent victories, I can only conclude that hatred really does sell votes in Red Amerika.) Morally reprehensible doesn’t begin to cover it…

In my blogging time, I hear many liberal-with-a-capitol "L" names tossed into the furnace of conservative hatred, unable to connect the dots because I shun force-fed news medium as the brainwashing it is. But today another roadside billboard caught my eye: "Liberals Love Us," with Al Frankin’s grin peering out. It seems the progressives are fighting back, but whom is responsible? I lean over to scan for the station in the delivery truck I sometimes drive to find out. Air America, no less.

So for about three hours, I listen to Al’s mid-day show. I found it rather bland. Even the obligatory barbs, delivered perfunctorily, lacked sting. Preaching to the choir, yes, but no lathering of the horses, no rallying of the troops. No  venomous diatribes and invented hate-labels like "Feminazi" or "Islamofascist."

Maybe that’s what is needed to win. As much as I dislike negative politics, it seems to work. Perhaps something in human nature demands us to become angry before we affect a change - even if all reasonable evidence requires change. Or maybe its the overweight complacency of the American lifestyle with its plethora of entertaining distractions that work against progress. Whatever it is, the Democrats don’t have it.

Even Howard Dean has toned down the rage he became famous for. We need him and a few others willing to stick their necks out and shake things up, all the while advancing more reasonable-sounding options to compare against the loud-mouth tree-shakers. In such a scenario, even a very progressive candidate would sound downright centrist. It worked against us in 2000 and again in 2004, and it would maybe grab the swing voters in this season of political discontent.

It won’t happen, though. progressives are proud to style themselves "rational" and "thoughtful." What I’ve learned watching the Republican butchery of our great nation’s electoral system is this: Voting is not rational; it’s emotional.

(Below, an existential description of my state of mind - an attempt at poetic art. A failed meditation session is not always a failure, if one is aware of it. Whenever my mind travels back into my unpleasant  past, whenever I lose the present moment, equilibrium escapes me. Sometimes that is the lesson for the day.)

Darkened room slowly lightening.
Another gray dawn.
I stumble into a favorite chair,
clinging to a vapor of leftover dreams.
Night dreams turn to day dreams,
turning into memories:
Ancient angers, lost loves,
missed opportunities.

It’s the weather. Three days of rain,
flooding, hail, wind.
Autumn rushes back in force
losing no time.
I breathe, knowing I cannot focus.
Don’t fight, acknowledge,
this is today’s practice.
Tomorrow, the sun.

Tonight is Rosh Hashanah. This week also marks the beginning of the celebration of Ramadan. These things I remained ignorant of until recently.  Zen, of course, was unheard of. Having been a recipient of the typical white, Christian upbringing in the sixties and seventies, knowledge of other peoples and their cultures was ignored. I feel the loss.

There is much in life denied those who keep to their own set of ideals. Insular communities lose much in their solitude by not sharing in the joys of others, the wider expressions of humanity available through intimacy with other cultures. Sometimes, even individuals, focused on their aspirations or troubles miss the bounty of earthly life, as is depicted in this Zen parable:

A man walking across a field encountered a tiger. He fled, the tiger chasing him. coming to a cliff, he caught hold of a wild vine and swung himself over the edge. The tiger sniffed at him from above. Terrified, the man looked down to where, far below, another tiger had come, waiting to eat him. Two mice, one white and one black, began little by little to nibble away at the vine. The man was a luscious strawberry near him. Grasping the vine with one hand, he plucked the strawberry with the other. How sweet it tasted!

Zen reminds us of the necessity of tasting that strawberry in every moment, to savor life no matter what it brings. One way we can do this is to open our houses and our hearts to people of differing cultures, learning about differences and sharing similarities. As hatred and fear are bourn of ignorance, so love and acceptance are bourn of knowledge. Celebrate the holidays of others, maybe they’ll help you celebrate yours with you.

Happy Rosh Hashanah to all those inclined that way. Happy equinox for everyone, whether you care or not. For all others, TGIF.

Children have always amazed me. Contrary to my upbringing of "be seen and not heard," today’s version of parenthood is more inclusive. Maybe I speak only of myself, but it seems to me that if a child is encouraged to excel, reinforced with positive rewards for positive behavior, then that child will succeed. If a parent also allows the child to chose what to excel at, neither pushing nor resisting, then that child will exceed expectations in many areas. There is no limit on human capacity that a child cannot surmount - if allowed. Limits are enforced. The natural response is to first become defiant, then to give in. Thus many of my generation have learned to cave in to the status quo because humans like to take the path of least resistance.

In our current hyper-connected world, our teenagers are putting themselves on display through the Internet. Much has been pondered as the the relative safety of social networking sites like My Space, Xanga, and Faces. That’s because the establishment (read: old people who make rules) cannot understand them. Concerns abound regarding predators without the acknowledgement of how these agents of ill-will are from the very same group of old folks who cannot fathom the new technology. What we are afraid of, essentially, is our own generation’s hangups.

Parents should know their children’s web presence as they would any other aspect of their offspring. Your children’s blog or My Space profile page should be bookmarked and visited often. That said; I sometimes forget to check my daughter’s blog for weeks on end. Bad Papa! When I do visit, however, I’m always amazed. Unlike many, she chooses (wisely, I think) not to publish personal episodes of her life, but instead showcase her vivid imagination and her love of words: hers is a fiction site wherein she experiments with prose, and other forms of verbosity. Here’s a recent example that blew my socks off.

Enough of the proud parental boasting, already! Do you know what your kids are blogging? Do you encourage them to explore themselves through the medium that defines their lifestyles as much as television defines ours? Or, are you taken in by the scare tactics of media know-nothings and hold your children back? Their involvement in Internet culture cannot be held back; they will do so with or without permission. That is the world they live in, the world we made that they will inherit. Know who they are online. Embrace them, guide them without force as you would do with any other aspect of their upbringing. Let them shine.

Do all this and your children will amaze you, too.

To hell with International Talk Like a Pirate Day, which occurred last Tuesday. We need something more substantial to celebrate. While many people lose themselves in trivialities, thereby absolving themselves of any lasting contribution to world society, others are fighting the good fight of - well, not fighting at all!

Today is International Peace Day!

This holiday-we’ve-never-heard-of has been with us since 1981, when the United Nations dedicated a day to promote world peace. You won’t hear this on Fox News (or any Murdoch media outlet.) Bloodhawks and Warhounds don’t want us to know about this Unamerican holiday. As the UN created it, it must be FRENCH!

At noon today, I plan on taking a minute of silence to commemorate the remote possibility that humanity can come to its senses before it annihilates itself. Imagine:

September 21, the International Day of Peace, is a day on which
we reaffirm our commitment to this quest… It is meant to be a day of global cease-fire, when all countries and all people stop all hostilities for the entire day.

And it is a day on which people around the world observe a minute of silence at 12 noon local time. Twenty-four hours is not a long time.
But it is… long enough to look over the barricades, or through the barbed wire, to see if there is another path.

MESSAGE ON THE INTERNATIONAL DAY OF PEACE
Secretary-General Kofi Annan
New York, 21 September 2005

For all people’s talk about God lately, one would think also that God might want us to live together peacefully. Yet we can’t seem to manage this… We are truly pathetic as a species.

"All we are saying is Give Peace a Chance."

Crossposted at Democrats.org:

To Mr. Maher Arar:

On behalf of the American People, I apologize for the actions of our government. Also. I applaud efforts by the Canadian government to acknowledge wrongful actions against you -

A government commission on Monday exonerated a Canadian computer engineer of any ties to terrorism and issued a scathing report that faulted Canada and the United States for his deportation four years ago to Syria, where he was imprisoned and tortured.

- something the US government is side-stepping:

“I am able to say categorically that there is no evidence to indicate that Mr. Arar has committed any offense or that his activities constituted a threat to the security of Canada,” Justice Dennis R. O’Connor, head of the commission, said at a news conference.

As a US citizen, I am shocked and sickened by our heinous actions, causing you suffering and the loss of years of your like to incarceration. Time is perhaps the worst thing anyone can lose. These years cannot be regained, years you lost contact with your loves ones, years they prayed for you and wept for you powerless to do anything to ease your burden.

Perhaps some good will come from your pain. As the world comes to grip with a rouge nation's runaway policies, may your story minimize the suffering of the many still in foreign prisons at the behest of the American government. It is safe to assume others have stories similar to yours:

“The American authorities who handled Mr. Arar’s case treated Mr. Arar in a most regrettable fashion,” Justice O’Connor wrote in a three-volume report, not all of which was made public. “They removed him to Syria against his wishes and in the face of his statements that he would be tortured if sent there. Moreover, they dealt with Canadian officials involved with Mr. Arar’s case in a less than forthcoming manner.”

As there is justice in the world and in the hearts of humanity, so the persons responsible for crimes against you and others will face their rewards. In this most serious time for the world, take heart that you are a hero for persevering, that you will be remembered when the history books are written. Your sacrifice will not be in vain.

Signed with love,

A concerned American citizen.