Mar. 14th, 2009

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Spring cleaning, I found two clippings from Discover which, put together, made me smile. The first: scientists theorise that human beings lost most of our body hair in order to get rid of pests like fleas and ticks. The second: other scientists use the appearance of the body louse to work out when human beings first wore clothing. lol
dreamer_easy: (science)
You may remember my posting about the local rag owned by a climate sceptic and misused to promote his ill-informed views. From a different local rag (The Northern District Times, 4/3/09), another sceptic's letter, betraying much the same ignorance:
I am distressed that the blame is placed on excessive carbon dioxide. How ridiculous. Carbon dioxide is used to promote plant growth naturally and artificially. Nurseries with glasshouses inject the gas to promote plant growth.
Great, mate. Water is also used to promote plant growth - in the right amounts. Try flooding your garden and see what happens. Come to think of it, carbon dioxide is crucial to human respiration, triggering our breathing reflex. That must mean high levels of CO2 are harmless! And of course we need oxygen to survive, so high levels of that must be harmless too! It's kind of boggling that both random members of the public and actual scientists make the same silly statement. (The letter writer goes on to expound a theory about mulch upon which I am not qualified to comment.)
dreamer_easy: (Default)
Biography by Vicki Mackenzie of a remarkable Buddhist nun. Some of the bits I stuck a fluorescent green post-it note on:
"... was motherhood a disadvantage to spiritual progress? 'We do different things in different lifetimes,' Tenzin Palmo answered. 'We should look and see what in this lifetime we are called to do. It's ridiculous to become a nun or a hermit because of some ideal when all the time we would be leaning more within a close relationship or a family situation. You can develop all sorts of qualities through motherhood which you could not by leading a monastic life. It's not that by being a mother one is cutting off the path. Far from it! There are many approaches, many ways." (p 197)
Cf my recent realisation that writing, and passing on information, are valid ways of worshipping the Goddess.
Quoting Kalu Rinpoche: "There is no such thing as the intrinsic nature of one person's mind being better than someone else's, on the ultimate level the empty clear and unimpeded nature of mind exhibits no limiting qualities such as maleness or femaleness, superiority or inferiority." (p 137)
The lama was talking about whether women could become enlightened, but it was those last words that struck me. I'm aware I spend a lot of my time comparing my intelligence to other peoples', assuring myself of how smart I am. It's part of that mental game with yourself - am I clever enough, am I virtuous enough, am I better - that you can never win.

MOAR

Mar. 14th, 2009 01:13 pm
dreamer_easy: (Default)
Tenzin Palmo on St Thérèse of Lisieux, a nineteenth century nun:
"She sometimes slept through the church services and it did not worry her that she slept. God would have to accept her as she was! She never worried about her faults so long as her aspiration was right! She had this thing that she was like a small bird scratching around looking for seeds, glancing at the sun but not flying near it. She reasoned that she didn't have to because the sun was shining on even a small being like a bird... She described herself as 'a little flower' by the wayside which nobody sees but in its own self is very perfect as it is. And to me that is her primary message - that in evenin small, little ways we can be fulfilling our purpose and that in little things we can accomplish much." (p 122)
dreamer_easy: (BOOKS)
"Then there were the martens, which look a bit like weasels only prettier. They were grey with a white front, huge eyes and a big bushy tail. There was one that used to slide open the window, get inside my storeroom and head for the saucepan which had my bread inside wrapped up in a cloth. This marten would take off the saucepan lid, unwrap the cloth and then eat the bread. It wasn't like a rat, which would just gnaw through the cloth. Then it would proceed to unscrew the plastics lids of the containers holding the fat, pull off the zinc covering then eat it. It was amazing. Everything I had it would undo. I tried putting food outside for it but this would often get frozen and the marten would look so let down."

And a stoat: "It came trotting all the way up to me, stood there and looked up. I must have been enormous to it. It just stood there looking at me. Then it suddenly became excited. It ran back to the fence and began swinging on it, hanging upside down and looking at me all the time to see if I was still watching - like a child." (pp 90-91)
dreamer_easy: (BRIC A BRAC)
A business show inadvertently broadcast a photo of a cat on a bike in the middle of a report. "A cryptic anti-capitalistic message?" pondered Mediawatch. However, as there was no caption, we have to assume the message was "Your argument is invalid".

There's liquid water on Mars. Ergo, IMHO, there's life. We just have to find the little green buggers.

World's fittest Deaf man tells the funny story of Mountain Dew man. Watch this even if you don't know ASL - you'll be able to follow much of it even without subtitles.

Did I link this already? The Daily Show 22 January 2009. "If you don't stick to your values when they're being tested, they're not values. They're hobbies. You know, one of the genius moves of the Founding Fathers was not writing the Bill of Rights on the back window of a dusty van. 'The British are coming!' 'Huh?' *mimes rubbing off the writing with his elbow, squeaky squeaky squeak*

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