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Illustration by Eddie Guy
IdeasMagazine | Feature
The Best Possible Life
As the dharma grows in the West, it will be shaped by our deeply rooted ideas about human flourishing.
By Seth Zuiho Segall | Illustrations by Eddie Guy
Attend any English-language dharma talk in almost any Western convert Buddhist community, and you are likely to hear an interpretation of the dharma that differs in significant ways from how it is classically presented in the suttas and sutras. Most talks emphasize being wholeheartedly present; attending to one's embodied experiencing; working skillfully with thoughts, desires, and emotions; cultivating lovingkindness, compassion, and equanimity; not mistaking one's "ego" for one's true nature; radically accepting reality; and—in Mahayana sanghas—emptiness and nonduality. On the other hand, you will probably not hear much talk about rebirth and its various realms and inhabitants, except when presented as metaphors for psychological matters. Neither will you hear much about the three kayas of the Buddha, the ten bhumis of the bodhisattva path, or various magical powers (siddhis). You will also not hear much about leaving one's family, becoming celibate, or guarding the sense doors against all pleasure. These dharma talks reflect the modal form of convert Buddhist practice in the West today, and I want to explore why it has come to be that way.
Two major factors determine which Buddhist themes get emphasized and which get de-emphasized in these dharma talks: congruence and relevance. If certain traditional Buddhist beliefs are too incongruent with deeply held Western cultural assumptions about the nature of reality, it may be too difficult for most Westerners to take them literally. This is why most of us do not believe in the literal existence of the Greek, Roman, and Norse gods, although they can remain meaningful to us as myth and metaphor. Rebirth is too discordant with what most Westerners believe for them to seriously commit to the concept. Also, while most Westerners can entertain rebirth as an interesting hypothesis, putting an end to the cycle of rebirth isn't existentially urgent for them. It does not serve as a prime motivation for practice.
The second factor that determines what gets emphasized in Western dharma talks is relevance. The aspects of a religion that tend to be featured are those that are most relevant to what motivates people in a particular time and place to begin practice. A belief in rebirth, for example, is irrelevant to the kinds of problems that bring Westerners to Buddhism and the kind of answers they hope to find there.
What kinds of issues bring Westerners to Buddhism? Some are our personal litanies of woes, frustrations, anxieties, disappointments, failures, and losses. People want to suffer less and hope to gain instead some sense of ease and equanimity. Other issues reflect ongoing fault lines in our common social heritage. Western culture faces a set of interrelated crises that are the consequences of modernity. The signs of these crises are evident in a number of ways: (1) science's clockwork view of the universe can't account for consciousness, meaning, purpose, and value; (2) the decline of mainstream religions has left a spiritual void; (3) science and technology evolve faster than ethics; (4) hyper-capitalism drives all values—except money—from the workplace, the marketplace, and the public sphere; (5) modernity alienates us from Nature; (6) the relentless pace of technological change destabilizes social structures; (7) hyper-individualism undermines our deep connection to kin and community; and (8) the confluence of these trends puts our survival as a species at risk.
The resolution of these crises requires a change in consciousness that will restore our fundamental sense of connection to ourselves, Nature, and all beings; help us creatively cope with change and impermanence; and reaffirm meaning and value. Buddhist themes that are relevant to such a change in consciousness are the themes that tend to be emphasized.
There is something inevitable about the way sets of ideas from one time and place are adapted to a new time and place. We all inescapably dwell in and are confined to a specific culture and era, just as fish dwell in and are confined to the sea. Most of our cultural beliefs function at the level of tacit assumption and common sense. They don't require conscious thought but are like the way we know in our bones that when we take our next step on solid ground we will neither sink to the center of the Earth nor fly off into the sky. The ways we unreflectively understand selfhood, identity, gender, family, community, ethics, progress, truth, beauty, time, and space: these all function together to form our zeitgeist, our common ecosystem of meanings.
There is something inevitable about the way sets of ideas are adapted to a new time and place. We all inescapably dwell in and are confined to a specific culture and era, just as fish dwell in the sea.
When we are dissatisfied with aspects of our own time and culture and seek out alternatives in the practices and beliefs of another, we find that some fit easily into our native ecosystem of meaning, others are reinterpreted through the prism of our culture's available memes, and some clash irreconcilably. The beliefs of one context cannot be completely assimilated "as is" into another. Some of them must be adapted or reinterpreted if they are to be completely embraced. When we make borrowed practices and beliefs our own, something is gained and something lost: what emerges is both a continuation of the culture borrowed from and a betrayal of it.
Religions thrive, wither, or die according to their ability to address the existential concerns of particular times and places and harmoniously coexist with the wider culture's deeply held beliefs. As religious traditions evolve, traditionalists strive to maintain fundamental ideas and practices that may no longer be relevant or meaningful, while innovators try to adapt them to meet the needs of the moment. Religions that survive over millennia manage to thread the needle between these extremes.
What's true for religions in general is also true for Buddhism. The metaphors for awakening that were well suited to the India of 300 BCE seemed less suited to the India of 200–800 CE, as Buddhism developed alongside other evolving darshanas and forms of yogic practice, and Madhyamaka, Yogacara, and tantric metaphors for awakening appeared. When Buddhism was transmitted to China, awakening was reinterpreted through the lens of Chinese culture, which was already steeped in Daoism and Confucianism. The same is true for Tibetans and Japanese, who interpreted awakening through the lens of their pre-Buddhist religious outlooks. Sometimes it's hard to know if just the metaphors changed or whether awakening itself changed as well. Is the nibbana (Skt., nirvana) of the Pali canon exactly the same kind of awakening as 13th-century Soto Zen master Dogen's "dropping off of body and mind?" How could one possibly tell?
The history of Chinese Chan and Japanese Zen reveals an unending course of revisions, reinventions, and reinterpretations, including the Song dynasty's mythologization of the earlier Tang dynasty Chan masters; Dogen's masterful reinterpretation of Chan in Japan; the reinvention of Dogen-style Zen during the Tokugawa shogunate; and the radical modernization of Japanese Zen during the Meiji era. The Zen practiced now in the West is not the timeless practice of Zen ancestors but something continuously modified over the centuries.
We should also note that the Buddhism that came to Western non-birthright Buddhists in the 20th century was a Buddhism already transformed by contact with the West. Nineteenth-century Asian Buddhists developed newer interpretations of Buddhism that were more congruent with Protestant understandings of religion and Western secular and scientific beliefs. We see this process clearly at work in Meiji-era Zen, the Southeast Asian Vipassana movement, and the Sinhalese Buddhist revival. These innovations were partly defensive responses to Western colonialism, but they were also a genuine coming to terms with modernity and Western Enlightenment ideas, values, and practices that reverberated throughout Asia. These reenvisioned forms of Buddhism were subsequently transmitted to the West, where Westerners continued the process of adaptation and reinterpretation. It's best to think of Buddhism not as a single unchanging entity but as a conversation over the course of two and a half millennia about what it means to live the best kind of existence.
The great challenge for us as Western practitioners is how to make Buddhist practice authentically our own—how to make it something we can fully endorse without inner division or pretense and without ignoring what we sense deeply in our bones. The modern Western zeitgeist includes a number of beliefs that form significant barriers to the unmodified assimilation of traditional Buddhist teachings. These barriers notably include scientific naturalism and physicalism, and also Abrahamic beliefs concerning the afterlife.
If bodhi, or awakening, is the Buddha's answer to what the best possible life is, Aristotle's answer is eudaimonia, or human flourishing, a well-being derived from the exercise of moral and intellectual virtues.
I want to focus, however, on a barrier that gets comparatively less attention: the prevalent Western notions of human flourishing that have their origin in the Greek tradition but have become intrinsic to Westerners' understanding of what it means to live the best possible kind of life. We don't need to know anything about the Greek tradition to have absorbed these beliefs through a kind of cultural osmosis.
If bodhi, or awakening, is the Buddha's answer to the question of what the best possible life is, eudaimonia is Aristotle's answer. In his Nicomachean Ethics (circa 340 BCE) Aristotle outlined his concept of eudaimonia, or human flourishing, as a well-being and happiness derived from exercising a set of moral and intellectual virtues acquired through practice, contemplating philosophical wisdom, and engaging in one's community to foster social well-being.
Aristotle reasoned that well-being was humanity's highest goal: the one thing people sought for its own sake. People might seek power or wealth because they believed it might give them well-being, but no reasonable person would forgo well-being in order to obtain them. Aristotle thought the best way to achieve well-being was by cultivating a set of moral virtues that included courage, temperance, even-temperedness, truthfulness, friendliness, and a sense of justice. Each of these virtues represents the midpoint between an excess and a deficiency. Courage, for example, represents the midpoint between rashness and cowardice.
In addition to the moral virtues, Aristotle stressed a set of intellectual virtues that included practical wisdom (phronesis) and philosophical wisdom (sophia). Practical wisdom enables people to properly judge which behavior is most appropriate to each occasion: to do the right thing, in the right manner, at the right time. Philosophical wisdom is the direct apprehension of deep metaphysical principles—what Aristotle calls knowing "extraordinary, amazing, difficult, and divine things."
Aristotle's view of human flourishing influenced not only the Greco-Roman world but also the Abrahamic religious traditions through—to give just a few examples—the work of Avicenna and Averroës in Islam, Maimonides in Judaism, and St. Thomas Aquinas in Christianity. It continues to influence modern Western philosophy through the work of such virtue ethicists as Elizabeth Anscombe, Phillipa Foot, and Alasdair MacIntyre, and modern Western psychology through the work of humanistic psychologists such as Abraham Maslow and positive psychologists such as Martin Seligman.
But we don't even need to turn to philosophy, religion, or psychology to discover eudaimonia's pervasive influence on Western culture. We find traces of it in the US Army recruitment motto, "Be All that You Can Be," or when a mother gives primacy to the wish that her children will be happy, wise, and good.
Aristotle tied virtue, wisdom, and happiness together in ways that parallel Buddhism's emphasis on sila (moral conduct) and prajna (wisdom) in fostering well-being. Aristotle's view of character development through practice also resembles Buddhism's emphasis on how repeated thoughts and actions determine one's character and fate. But there are also marked differences between eudaimonia and Buddhist awakening that contribute to the difficulties Westerners face in adopting certain Buddhist teachings.
The first major difference is that eudaimonia is a more modest concept than awakening. While awakening is usually considered a gradual process that unfolds in stages over long periods of time—perhaps many lifetimes—most Buddhist schools believe it has a final destination. That final destination, whether conceived of as arahantship and nibbana or as buddhahood and anuttara-samyak-sambodhi, is deemed to be permanent, perfect, and complete. Once you've attained it, there's no backsliding: you are no longer subject to suffering and have vanquished greed, hatred, and ignorance; your behavior is impeccable; you are liberated from attachment to false views about the self and see things "as they really are"; there is nothing more to be accomplished.
Eudaimonia, on the other hand, has no perfect end point. There are no absolute states of happiness, virtue, or wisdom to be had. However happy we are, we can always be happier. However good we may be, we can always be better. Eudaimonic people are not immune from all suffering. Their happiness, while protected to a degree by their virtue and wisdom, can still be overturned by a series of misfortunes. They are more virtuous than the average person, but their virtue does not issue effortlessly from their character; they still need to deliberate about their actions, using practical wisdom to determine what's skillful in any situation.
This more modest conception accords with Westerners' deepest beliefs about what is genuinely possible for us as human beings. While we all know people we look up to, admire, and hope to emulate, none of us know any perfect people. Those we admire may be better than we are, but not better in some radically different, incalculable way. We've never met anyone who displays the kinds of perfection described in the suttas and sutras. We probably suspect that kind of perfection is impossible, or, even if it is possible, we suspect it will never be so for us. We also suspect that becoming less self-centered is always going to be a work in progress. There is never going to be a time when we can say we are done.
To be fair, other strands of the Buddhist tradition do present the end point of awakening in more modest terms. Dogen, for example, didn't believe in an awakening completely freed from delusion, or a final end to awakening. In Genjokoan, he wrote: "When one side is illumined, the other is dark," and "When a bird flies, no matter how far it flies, it cannot reach the end of the sky." But the fact that different strands of Buddhism believe different things only underscores the importance of interpreting these traditions for ourselves. We need to decide, at least from our current vantage point, which views have the greatest potential to carry us toward where we aspire to be, and which views seem to take us nowhere at all.
Some may argue that it doesn't matter if hardly anyone, or maybe even no one, actually attains an ideal as long as it serves as a kind of north star to orient us in the right direction. But what if the direction the north star points to isn't exactly where we want to go?
Buddhist awakening and eudaimonia also differ in their approach to desire and attachment. Some interpretations of Buddhism suggest that we ought to eliminate desire and abandon our attachments. Dukkha, or suffering, is the result of wanting things to be different from how they are. The suttas do make a distinction between craving (tanha) and desire (chanda), with most texts recommending the elimination of craving. On the other hand, the Vinaya, the monastic code, states that the Buddha was free from desire for any and all sense pleasures.
For modern Westerners, the idea that desire is bad in and of itself requires nuanced interpretation and perhaps some amendment. Surely there are desires that must be wholesome—the desires to hear the Buddha's teachings, meditate, act compassionately, and awaken. There must, then, be criteria to separate good from bad desires: Good desires have some likelihood of being fulfilled, are consonant with our higher-order goals and values, and are likely to lead to enhanced well-being for ourselves and others. Bad desires are the opposite. Similarly, the distinction between craving and desire suggests that there are right and wrong ways to desire things. Cravings possess a rigid, sticky, addictive quality. They are intense and compelling. Desires, on the other hand, have a more flexible, optional quality to them—they are gentler pushes.
As we pursue this line of inquiry, we seem to be moving away from an interpretation of the relationship between desire and dukkha that simply says "eschew desire" and toward one that suggests pursuing right desire—pursuing the right sorts of desires in the right sort of way. Knowing which is which requires not only mindfulness but also a discernment that is indistinguishable from Aristotelian practical wisdom.
Westerners would also probably dissent from the Buddhist argument that because sense pleasures are fleeting and often tinged with an aura of suffering, they're not worth pursuing at all. Even when mixed with sorrow, sense pleasure seems to be an essential part of a good life. As Alfred, Lord Tennyson noted, "'tis better to have loved and lost / than never to have loved at all." There's nothing unwholesome about enjoying the colors of the sunset, the sounds of a symphony, the scent of the sea, or the loving caress of another human being. There are even intense, passionate desires—the stirrings of romantic love, the throes of artistic inspiration, the drive to excel in athletics—that add a zest we would sorely miss if our lives were always rational and well modulated. As long as these desires are consonant with our higher-order goals and values and our abilities to pursue them, they add something important to well-being, and reasonable people allow places for them in their lives. A life where only ethics mattered and aesthetics counted not one whit would be an impoverished life.
However, some aspects of Buddhist traditions are hostile to any and all sense pleasures, and Westerners have a harder time accepting these—for example, the monastic rules forbidding monks and nuns from jumping or swimming for fun, climbing trees, singing, dancing, and playing musical instruments.
The Buddhist idea that we ought to surrender all of our attachments creates similar problems. Buddhist monks and nuns are celibate "home-leavers," withdrawing from their families of origin, eschewing romantic attachments, and bearing no children. The Buddha named his son Rahula, or "fetter," and abandoned his family to seek awakening. According to the Vessantara Jataka, during the Buddha's penultimate lifetime as a bodhisattva he gave his children away to a greedy beggar but became angry when the beggar beat the children. With a mighty effort, however, he overcame his anger and let his children be taken away. One strand of the Buddhist tradition says that all attachments are fetters to awakening and that a bodhisattva learns to let go of all of them.
This stands in marked contrast to Westerners' deeply held belief that rich interpersonal relationships are important constituents of well-being. Once again, our intuitions tell us that there ought to be a concept of right attachment—the right kinds of attachments pursued in the right kind of way. It seems to us that our meaningful, loving relationships might actually be the crucible for our awakening rather than being an obstacle to it.
One traditional argument against romantic and kinship ties is that we are partial to them. We love our spouses and children more than we love insurance salesmen and strangers. Buddhist lovingkindness and compassion, on the other hand, are supposed to be impartial; we ought to love everyone the same. This is part of what Buddhism means by equanimity. To the Aristotelian, however, such behavior reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of human nature. It's not only natural that we love friends and family more than others, but it is also good. We can extend a generalized feeling of benevolence toward all, yet still enjoy special ties to family. There's something that feels profoundly wrong to us about trying to transcend that.
The awakening that modern Western Buddhists really believe in is neither the cessation of rebirth nor the complete and total end to suffering, desire, and attachment, but an amelioration of suffering and the development of discerning wisdom regarding right desire and right attachment.
In my book Buddhism and Human Flourishing, I have proposed a eudaimonic interpretation of awakening that involves mostly gradual (but sometimes abrupt) growth along several semi-separate dimensions, including the following:
1. discerning wisdom regarding desire and aversion,
2. nonattachment to thoughts,
3. inner stability and equanimity,
4. attention to the immediacy of embodied experiencing,
5. radical acceptance that things are as they are,
6. recognition of how our "selves" inadequately reflect our fullness of being,
7. recognition of interdependence and nonduality,
8. making lovingkindness and compassion our default modes, and
9. promoting collective flourishing through civic engagement.
This understanding is primarily Buddhist in content, but it is eudaimonic in that it aims toward a superior level of well-being within a single lifetime, a well-being that is neither perfect nor permanent but realistically reflects what we're capable of, given sufficient time, effort, and practice. Most Westerners aren't interested in becoming perfect; they just want to end up someplace better than where they currently are.
I want to emphasize that my argument on behalf of a eudaimonic Buddhism is not based primarily on rational analysis. It's based on the quiet listening any one of us can do whenever we inquire inwardly, "What do I really want from my practice?" I encourage you to sit with this question as if it were a koan, a Zen riddle. If the answers that spontaneously arise are similar to mine—if they reflect not only our common human nature but our common cultural understandings—a eudaimonic interpretation of practice may work better for you than a more traditional interpretation.
By "work better," I mean inform your practice so that your life unfolds in ways that are happier and better, whatever happier and better mean for you. There is no final, perfect stopping place in this unfolding. As we progress along the path, our understanding of happier and better evolves along with it. This ongoing clarification of our aspiration is an essential aspect of the path to awakening.
Seth Zuiho Segall is a Zen priest and psychologist. He writes regularly for The Existential Buddhist (existentialbuddhist.com) and the Mindfulness Research Monthly. He is the author of Buddhism and Human Flourishing: A Modern Western Perspective (Palgrave MacMillan, 2020).
In Defense of "Enlightenment"
Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi in conversation with Matthew Abrahams
Magazine | Letters to the Editor, The Conversation
The Art of Solitude
By Stephen Batchelor


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Founded and inspired by Dr. David Abshire and Dr. Kazuo Inamori in 2002
David M. Abshire
"Ideas and findings must have leaders to implement them."
David M. Abshire (1926-2014) cofounded CSIS in 1962, serving as its chief executive for many years. He then cofounded the Abshire-Inamori Leadership Academy in 2002 with Kazuo Inamori. In addition, he served as vice chairman and counselor of the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress and president of the Richard Lounsbery Foundation of New York. Abshire was a distinguished graduate of Baylor Preparatory School and served as a trustee there for six years. Dr. Abshire graduated from West Point, and received its Distinguished Graduate Award in 1966. He served in the Korean War and was decorated with several honors for his service. He subsequently served as an instructor at the Infantry School in Georgia. Dr. Abshire received a Ph.D., with honors (Gold Key Society), in history from Georgetown University, where he also served as an adjunct professor at its School of Foreign Service. In 2006, he received an honorary doctorate from the university, as well as three additional honorary degrees from other institutions.
Abshire served with distinction in government, including as assistant secretary of state for congressional relations (1970–1973), head of the National Security Group under President Ronald Reagan (1980), U.S. ambassador to NATO (1983–1987), and special counsellor to President Reagan (1987). As ambassador to NATO, he was given the highest Defense Department civilian award, the Distinguished Public Service Medal. Dr. Abshire was also awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal and received numerous other awards, including the John Carroll Award for outstanding service by a Georgetown University alumnus. He served as the first chairman of the Board for International Broadcasting. Dr. Abshire also served as a member of the Murphy Commission on the Organization of the Government, the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, the President's Task Force on U.S. Governmental International Broadcasting, as one of the coconvenors of the 2006 congressionally mandated Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group, the Advisory Board of the Naval War College, the Executive Panel of the Chief of Naval Operations, the congressionally mandated Advisory Group for Public Diplomacy, and chair of a panel for the Homeland Security Advisory Board.
In the corporate world, from 1987 to 1996, he served on the Board of Procter and Gamble Company and was the first chairman of its Public Policy Committee. He also served on the Board of Directors of the Ogden Corporation and on the Advisory Board of BP America. He has been decorated by seven heads of government and was the author of seven books, a contributing editor and primary author of several other works, and a founding editor of The Washington Quarterly. Dr. Abshire was a vice chair of the Council of American Ambassadors and served on the Advisory Board of the School of Public Service at St. Albans School and as a trustee of the George C. Marshall Foundation. He was a member of the Council on Competitiveness, Council on Foreign Relations, Fondation Paul-Henri Spaak (Brussels), International Institute for Strategic Studies (London), Alfalfa Club, Alibi Club, Cosmos Club, Metropolitan Club, and an honorary member of the University Club. He also was the coconvenor and a founding member of the Trinity National Leadership Roundtable.
Kazuo Inamori
"People have no greater calling than to serve the greater good of humankind and society."
Dr. Kazuo Inamori cofounded the Abshire-Inamori Leadership Academy in 2002. He was born in 1932 in Kagoshima, Japan. He graduated from Kagoshima University in 1955 and has received honorary doctorates from several universities in the U.S., the U.K., and Japan. In 1959 he established Kyocera Corporation, which has grown into a well-known international firm supplying a wide range of products from electronic components to consumer products such as cellular phones and cameras. In 1984, quickly responding to deregulation of the telecommunications industry, he founded DDI Corporation (currently called KDDI, the second largest common carrier in Japan). He established The Inamori Foundation in 1984 using his own funds and also the Kyoto Prizes, international awards that honor significant contributors to humanity in the fields of Advanced Technology, Basic Sciences, and Arts and Philosophy. Dr. Inamori is a member of several overseas civic and professional organizations, including the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences and the Board of Trustees of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. His representative books include A Passion for Success and For People and For Profit.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Q: How to iterate over a dictionary to make new for loop for the remaining elements? I am trying to make a new dictionary from the one which I'm having.
`dict1 = {'A':{}, 'B':{}, 'C':{}, 'D':{}, 'E':{}}
 for key, val in dict1.iteritems():
    mytest = key
    newConditionFlag = getSummary(mytest)
    if newConditionFlag == 1:
        make dict2`

where getSummary function is as follows:
`def getSummary(mytest):
    newConditionFlag==0
    bVal = mytest.CanClose()
    if bVal == True:
        pass
    else:
        newConditionFlag=1
    return newConditionFlag`

If newConditionFlag == 1 for B, then my dict2 should be
dict2 = 'C':{}, 'D':{}, 'E':{}}.
In the same way if newConditionFlag == 1 for C,
dict2 = 'D':{}, 'E':{}}.
How should I do this?
I know for a simple condition if we want to access remaining values what we do is
`l = [1,2,3,4,5]
for i,j in zip(l, l[2:]):
    print j`

But what should be done in case of dictionary? If we try it the same way it gives TypeError: unhashable type

A: The only way this could possibly make sense is to convert the dictionary to a list first. Do your processing on the list, then convert back to a dictionary.
l = sorted(dict1.items())
# do your thing
dict1 = dict(l)

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


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Trump Claims He Called Off Iran Strike After Learning How Many People Would Die
"We were cocked & loaded to retaliate…10 minutes before the strike I stopped it."
Senior News and Engagement EditorBio | Follow
Jim Loscalzo/ZUMA
President Donald Trump reported that he called off overnight military strikes against Iran, claiming in a series of Friday morning tweets that the decision came after he, at the last-minute, questioned how many casualties were expected in the planned attack.
"150 people, sir, was the answer from a General," Trump wrote. "10 minutes before the strike I stopped it, not proportionate to shooting down an unmanned drone."
His claim that the US had been "cocked and loaded" to launch confirmed stunning media reports that planes had already been in place to strike when the president issued his order to back down. Trump did not explain why he had been unaware of the estimated number of fatalities—a key factor in any military operation—so late into the operation's planning.
In his tweets Friday, Trump appeared to almost revel in recounting the gripping details leading up to his sudden reversal.
….proportionate to shooting down an unmanned drone. I am in no hurry, our Military is rebuilt, new, and ready to go, by far the best in the world. Sanctions are biting & more added last night. Iran can NEVER have Nuclear Weapons, not against the USA, and not against the WORLD!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 21, 2019
While the tweets appeared to signal a deescalation in tensions, Trump also claimed that additional sanctions were added overnight—a move that, if true, is likely to further antagonize Tehran. The Treasury Department has yet to make such an announcement.
"I Don't Care If It Costs Me the Next Election. I'm Going to Do What's Right."
Exposing the Financial Costs of Climate Change—and Denial of the Climate Crisis
Mark Schapiro


Line a 9 x 9 inch pan with non-stick foil. Set aside.
Place semi-sweet chocolate chips and food coloring in a heat safe bowl and set aside.
In a large, heavy saucepan, combine, sugar, butter and half and half. Cook to 234º, stirring occasionally. Immediately add white chocolate chips, marshmallow cream and vanilla. Mix to combine.
When well mixed, scrape half of the white chocolate fudge into the bowl with the semi-sweet chocolate chips and mix till melted and smooth.
Using two medium cookie scoops or tablespoons, place scoops of red and white fudge in the prepared pan, alternating flavors.
Drop pan from a few inches above counter a couple times to remove any air pockets. With a knife, swirl though the fudge to give a marbelize appearance.
Allow to cool at room temperature. When cool, remove from pan using foil and cut into squares.


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Leadership Regulation Rising Leaders
Khushboo Sharma: Improving Regulatory Science, From Industry To FDA And Back
Ben Comer Ben.Comer@informa.com
From pre-med to pharma lab rat to deputy director of operations at the FDA, Khushboo Sharma, a 2021 In Vivo Rising Leader and current VP of science and regulatory affairs at BIO, has spent her career pursuing a goal she says the FDA and biopharma industry have in common: ensuring that innovative drugs get to patients.
Source: Alamy
Back To Rising Leaders Gallery
When Khushboo Sharma left the FDA to join the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO) in April 2021, as VP of science and regulatory affairs, she ended an 11-year stint at the agency with several notable accomplishments. "One of the things that I really wanted to do at FDA was be a part of the user fee negotiations," said Sharma, who worked most recently as deputy director for operations at the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research's (CDER) Office of New Drugs (OND).
Sharma's participation in 2020 and early 2021 as one of the lead negotiators on the FDA's negotiation steering committee – a group tasked with hammering out the details of the seventh Prescription Drug User Fee Act (PDUFA) reauthorization, alongside drug industry representatives – capped off a five-year period Sharma described as her most exciting time at the agency.
In 2018, CDER director Janet Woodcock outlined the FDA's plans to modernize the OND. (Also see "Office Of New Drugs Reorg Is Bigger Than Expected: US FDA Adds 11 Review Divisions " - Pink Sheet, 4 Jun, 2018.) Sharma helped to lead the modernization initiative, overseeing changes to OND's regulatory review and business processes. While not a highly visible aspect of the agency's inner workings, the merging of regulatory policy with regulatory operations under the OND reorganization dealt fundamentally with making the drug regulatory process run as efficiently as possible, said Sharma. "My last five years at FDA really helped shape my career, and was probably the most exciting time being there," she said.
Khushboo Sharma
In addition to working on the OND's reorganization and helping to negotiate PDUFA VII – which Congress will need to authorize by the end of September 2022 – Sharma also managed CDER's formal dispute resolution program, as well as the expanded access program. CDER's dispute resolution program allows drug sponsors to appeal FDA decision making related to drug development, new drug or generic drug review, and postmarketing oversight. The expanded access program, also known as compassionate use, helps patients with life threatening or serious diseases get access to unapproved, investigational products outside of clinical trials.
Expanding Access
Beginning in 2012, Sharma moved from her initial FDA position as a project manager in Chemistry, Manufacturing and Controls (CMC) Regulatory Affairs, and took on roles of increasing responsibility at the OND. She went from senior regulatory health project manager, to associate director for regulatory affairs, followed by OND team lead and then OND chief of staff, before becoming deputy director of operations at OND in May 2019.
The federal Right to Try Act was signed into law by former President Donald Trump in May 2018, and Sharma got to work on how Right to Try would be implemented alongside the preexisting expanded access program. The Right to Try Act essentially allows patients to bypass the FDA, by allowing patients, via physician consent, to request access to an investigational drug directly from the drug manufacturer or sponsor. Importantly, Right to Try does not mandate access to a drug for qualifying patients; drug sponsors are ultimately responsible for granting a patient access to an unapproved drug. The same is true for the FDA's expanded access program.
Despite not playing a formal role in the Right to Try process, the FDA does provide information about the law on its website. The agency has also worked to streamline expanded access requests, through pilot programs such as Project Facilitate, and by making it easier for physicians to request access to a drug on behalf of a patient.
Sharma worked on making the application process easier, she said, so it was less "burdensome for a doctor to submit the information for a patient." That work was where Sharma felt "most connected to patients … There are a lot of times when you make regulatory decisions at the FDA, but you are dealing with companies," she said. With expanded access, "you can see that direct line to the patient, so it was very rewarding."
Early Industry Exposure
Sharma began her undergraduate degree at Pennsylvania State University with the intention of following a pre-med track into medical school, but realized "very quickly, after one summer," that she did not want to be a doctor. "But I still wanted to do something in science … I wanted to be involved in cutting edge science to help patients, just not as a doctor," she said.
Penn State had a newly established undergraduate biotechnology program, one of the few available in the early aughts. Sharma decided to major in biotechnology, with a minor in microbiology. It was a new and emerging subject area, which appealed to Sharma's sensibilities. "I've always been the type of person that, if there's a traditional pathway, I don't want to do it." The biotechnology program "piqued my interest in how science can change and innovate, and how drugs are made," she said.
At one of Penn State's career fairs, Sharma landed an internship with Janssen Biotech Inc., a division of Johnson & Johnson. For a junior in college, it was "a great step into the field," remembered Sharma. "I made pH buffers and ran HPLCs [high performance liquid chromatography machines] for an entire summer, just soaking in everything I could as part of a small biotech company."
Janssen hired Sharma as a full-time employee upon completion of her undergraduate degree, and she worked at the company "as a lab rat for the first few years," and got experience "doing early and late-stage drug development on therapeutic biologics," including Remicade (infliximab). "That experience really drew my interest in biotechnology as a field."
Working in the lab, however, was not Sharma's end goal, and she began to toy with the idea of going to business school or enrolling in a PhD program. "I remember my boss [at Janssen] telling me, 'If you want to run a lab, go get a PhD. If you want to run a company one day, get an MBA.' So, I decided to get my MBA," said Sharma. Janssen was supportive of that decision and "helped me go back to school." Sharma continued to work at Janssen full-time and worked on her MBA part time.
Sharma's role at Janssen changed as well, and she moved from the lab to working in a "regulatory project management-type role, helping to write the CMC sections for INDs and NDAs." She was involved in the process of preparing the BLA for Janssen's Stelara (ustekinumab), which reaffirmed her interest in regulatory science. And then she got engaged to be married.
With her fiancé living in the Washington DC area, Sharma made plans to relocate, and realized "there are not that many pharmaceutical companies" in the DC area. But she wanted to stay in pharmaceuticals and regulatory science, and decided that a job with the nation's top regulatory agency would be an excellent way to learn regulatory policy. "I applied on [USAJobs.gov] for every FDA project manager position that I could find," said Sharma. "It took me a while, but luckily enough, I got a job in 2010 as regulatory health project manager, in the CMS division," now called the Office of Pharmaceutical Quality. In managing the quality sections of the applications submitted to the FDA for review, "I got to see things from the other side," she said. Two years later, she moved to the OND, and steadily climbed the ladder over the next eight years, culminating in the position of OND deputy director of operations.
FDA During COVID-19
Sharma was deputy director when COVID-19 hit. The OND was tasked with overseeing all the regulatory operations for the FDA's COVID-19 therapeutics response, and Sharma needed to ensure that a functioning, streamlined process existed for evaluating the "thousands of new INDs and pre-INDs coming in, and to make sure they were getting reviewed … We needed to be on top of that, and not be the bottleneck when the applications came in." It was a 24-hour, seven days a week job, for over a year, she said.
In addition to streamlining existing processes within the agency, new capabilities needed to be established as well, such as virtual advisory committee meetings. "I was involved in guidances that came out for how to conduct [COVID-19] clinical trials, and how FDA would run meetings," said Sharma. "There was a lot of regulatory guidance that companies and investigators and other people were looking for, so FDA needed to work around the clock."
Sharma offered kudos to "every single review person and every single project manager and to the administrative staff at FDA, who rolled up their sleeves, even if they weren't directly involved, and asked how they could help." Now that Sharma has left the FDA and joined BIO, she still checks in on her friends, to see how they are holding up. FDA staffers are "doing such great work, and the good press and the bad press sometimes gets to people, and you just want to make sure they are okay," said Sharma. "To this day, they are going above and beyond."
Asked what she will miss most about working at the FDA, Sharma said the people and leadership were "just phenomenal." She also said that she will miss "being in the know, and being at the center of all the new things coming at you." The biggest difference between working in the private sector, and working for the government at the FDA, said Sharma, was speed. "There are people doing the review work and trying to get things done, but the administrative burden of being in the public sector does sometimes slows things down," she said.
Potential For Califf's Second US FDA Commissioner Term Surprises, Excites Stakeholders
By Derrick Gingery 14 Oct 2021
Many supporters believe Robert Califf checks all the boxes, but if nominated he would also face many familiar confirmation challenges.
During her time at the agency, Sharma worked under four different FDA commissioners: Stephen Hahn, Scott Gottlieb, Robert Califf and Margaret Hamburg; she also worked closely with Janet Woodcock, currently the FDA's acting commissioner. All the commissioners had their pros and cons, said Sharma, who (reluctantly) named Scott Gottlieb as her favorite. Gottlieb "made the most impact for the agency … He helped get the resources we needed and really helped to cast FDA in a positive light," she said.
As the FDA negotiation team's work on PDUFA VII was wrapping up, Sharma was thinking about her next move, and feeling like she had "done everything that I wanted to do at FDA." When BIO reached out with a job opportunity, it was unexpected, but it "made me think that it was the right time." Sharma was not sure that she wanted to join a drug company right away, but she liked the idea of influencing policy from an industry perspective.
Sharma's experience working at the FDA during the COVID-19 pandemic "really brought a number of pressing issues to the forefront, and there's just so much more work that needs to be done." Issues such as advancing remote clinical trials and the use of digital health technology, using real world data to change the clinical paradigm, and increasing diversity in clinical trials, are all "core areas" Sharma is working on in her role at BIO.
Her perspective is valuable, as someone who worked initially in the biotech industry, spent over a decade at the one of the world's top drug regulators, and is now advocating for policy change on behalf of the pharma and biotech industries. Asked about the one piece of advice she would give to biopharma executives about working with the FDA, Sharma said: "Be patient and listen." Just because FDA declined a meeting, or appears to be "taking forever," does not mean they are not working on an issue.
"FDA wants to make sure that they come up with the right policy that helps the industry at large. And they are doing their best," she said. "FDA has the same goal as industry, which is public health, and making sure that innovative drugs get to patients. The pharmaceutical executives, at least the people I have talked to at BIO, understand that very well, and it is encouraging to see."
Office Of New Drugs Reorg Is Bigger Than Expected: US FDA Adds 11 Review Divisions
Janssen Biotech Inc.
Subject: Khushboo Sharma: Improving Regulatory Science, From Industry To FDA And Back


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Home News Hammond shifts recycling to Republic Services
Hammond shifts recycling to Republic Services
CATEGORY: Mayor's Office, News
May 04, 2014 6:20 pm • Matt Mikus
HAMMOND | Hammond is moving its recycling program from a division of the Department of Public Works to a private contractor.
The city entered a 10-year agreement with Republic Services of Indiana, and will change the recycling program to a one-bin system starting July 1.
The one bin will allow residents to use a wheeled trash tote left in the alley for all recyclables, eliminating the need for sorting. Any bins from the old recycling program can be returned to the city, or residents may keep them.
Robert Lendi, former works board president, said the contract, "will save Hammond more than $400,000 per year. The new approach will dramatically increase the amount of participation, which may result in even larger savings."
Board member Stan Dostatni said the new contract will cost the city about $1.1 million annually, but if it increases recycling participation, the amount the city pays could go down.
If the city can send additional tons through recycling instead of the dump, it can receive additional discounts.
"Right now, we have about 27 percent participation in the recycling program," Dostatni said. "We're hoping to get to about 50 percent of residents using the new recycling program."
The city employees currently working in recycling will be reassigned to other positions within public works.
Mayor Thomas McDermott Jr. said he's not in favor of contracting services to the private sector, but the recycling program was a unique opportunity.
"Our present approach is not efficient, and participation is poor," McDermott said. "The open bins are cumbersome to use, especially for our senior citizens, and create problems during wet or windy weather.
"With the onset of high-speed sorting facilities, the private sector is able to handle recycling in a dramatically more efficient and cost-effective manner than we can do in-house."
McDermott added the decision to privatize recycling has been discussed for more than year, since the city consolidated the parks, streets, sanitation and recycling programs into one department.
The city will partner with Lake County Solid Waste Management District to start an education campaign within the coming weeks.
"We want this program to be a success from the moment it begins," McDermott said, "and to do so we need to make sure that our residents are aware of the change."


It is with great pleasure that I share with Friends of the Lampidis Cancer Foundation the Lab of the Year Award Dr. Lampidis received this week. A rigorous assessment was conducted by the Office of Environmental Health & Safety at the University of Miami, and the award was made in recognition of outstanding performance in compliance and safety practices. Not only does Dr. Lampidis' lab come up with life-saving discoveries, it is conducted at a safety and environmental level which is worthy of their outstanding work!
Dr. Theodore Lampidis Laboratory located at Pap 124 receiving the award.
Dr. Lampidis and Lizzeth Meza from EHS.
At the Foundation, we are doubling our efforts to ensure that Dr. Lampidis' Lab and his groundbreaking cancer research are adequately funded for the remainder of the current fiscal year. We are still some way from our goal of funding 2-DG through Phase 2 clinical trials. Your support and contributions are now needed more than ever.


We are flying a private plane to Germany in May for a few weeks and returning back to the USA. We would like to take our dog. I know that I need an EU Passport & Microchip, but is there anything else that I need for her? What do they require for returning to the USA?
Thanks for your question! Here are the pet import requirements for Germany as well as pet import requirements for the United States. Feel free to explore our site to find answers to your other pet travel questions, and don't hesitate to contact us if you'd like to speak to a Pet Relocation Specialist. Good luck and have a great trip!


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Home Celebrity Gossips TenSura Chapter 92: Release Date, Delay, Discussion
TenSura Chapter 92: Release Date, Delay, Discussion
That Time I Got Reincarnated As A Slime Chapter 91 titled "Reminiscing One's Hometown" was once the manga's newest bankruptcy.
In this bankruptcy, Hinata has after all arrived to fulfill Rimuru. Despite her non-violent dispositions, a struggle may just ensue as a result of her underlings and imaginable misunderstandings.
However, it kind of feels like Hinata and her birthday party have calmed down somewhat somewhat after having scrumptious ramen from an area store.
As their assembly inches nearer, will Hinata and Rimuru come to a peace treaty? We'll in finding out within the subsequent bankruptcy of TenSura.
In the following bankruptcy, Rimuru will after all come head to head with Hinata. Although it kind of feels like none of them intend to dive straightway right into a struggle, neither of them is mindful of one another's motives.
The risk of a struggle could be very actual, although, as a result of Hinata's lackeys appear to offer off a odd vibe.
Also, the truth that Reyheim was once killed even if he labored without delay below Diabolo makes me assume that the killer holds immense energy and may have ties with the Western Church.
Chapter 92 of the That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime manga can be launched on Wednesday, Jan 26, 2022. The bankruptcy name has now not been leaked but.
I. Is That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime on a brake this month?
No, bankruptcy 92 of That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime manga isn't on destroy, and no lengthen has been introduced in publishing the following bankruptcy of the collection.
Raw scans for Chapter 92 of That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime manga collection have now not been launched but.
These scans are generally observed on the net two to 3 days earlier than the per month unlock. The scans would most likely be launched via January 24, 2022.
Unfortunately, no professional resources are recently to be had to learn That Time I Got Reincarnated As A Slime manga on-line.
The bankruptcy opens with Reyhiem questioning why Rimuru challenged Hinata to a struggle. He thinks that Rimuru sought after to make peace with Hinata and comes to a decision to discover the chance that the message was once tampered with.
Just then, an unsettling shadow creeps upon him, and we minimize to Nikolaus Spertus chatting with Hinata concerning the duel.
She tells him to not fear about her as a result of she has no goal of shedding. After all, she has a similar weapon to the Dragon Buster of the Seven Luminaries.
A couple of days earlier than Hinata's departure, Rimuru and his allies read about a blueprint of Milim's fort. He explains how he was once entrusted with the relocation of the capital, and they will do it without spending a dime, so this may well be identical to an funding to them.
One of the High Orcs, Gled, asks Rimuru if he may just accumulate extra of his species to paintings below him. Rimuru addresses his issues however tells him how he strives to create a various paradise and rebuke discrimination of race.
Rimuru consoles him and tells him that he may just command people identical to he used to command his personal folks. There isn't any wish to panic, as Gled wishes to make use of the entire revel in he has received to steer new comrades.
After receiving the file that Hinata had left, Rimuru won any other file that famous the departure of the Four Holy Knights who adopted her. They are coming in a small crew, which is perhaps an indication that they may well be open for a pleasant dialogue.
This could be too excellent to be true as a result of, since earlier period, it's been established that those who defeat the Demon Lord are a birthday party consisting of a Hero and their comrades.
Since they did not have sufficient knowledge at the Western Saint's Church to make any prediction, they made up our minds to hunt solutions from Adelman, who was once the priest of Luminism.
Adelman tells them that the Western Church only sought after to unfold Luminism and therefore bore no armies up to now. When the Seven Luminaries started their reforms, issues took a flip for the more severe, and a large number of blood was once shed.
As the assembly proceeds, Diabolo arrives and informs Rimuru that Reyhiem have been murdered via an unknown individual.
According to a file via Razen, rumors are being unfold about his loss of life that claims that demons had been scheming his loss of life.
Meanwhile, Hinata and her birthday party have arrived at Rimuru's the city. They fill their stomachs with native cuisine, and upon surveying town, it kind of feels just like the individuals are residing in prosperity.
Hinata expresses how she can not wait to fulfill and communicate to Rimuru regardless of the unnatural message from his aspect.
That Time I Got Reincarnated as Slime is a Japanese manga collection written via Fuse and illustrated via Mitz Vah. It was once serialized on-line in 2013 however was once later shifted to Micro Magazine as a gentle novel in 2014. It recently has 16 volumes.
The tale of Tensei Shitara Slime follows the adventure of Satoru Mikami after he died and reincarnated as a slime in delusion land. A slime is a creature that reproduces the shape and powers of anything else that it absorbs or eats.
Satoru begins consuming the entire magical herbs and crystals within the cave he aroused from sleep in and stumbles upon a dragon who have been captured and could not transfer because of a barrier. Since either one of them had not anything else to do, they befriend every different. The dragon by accident makes Satoru a named monster, and Satoru guarantees him that he'd have the option to damage the barrier. Hence, an unknown adventure starts with this abnormal friendship.
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Well, the shawl is almost finished. It is off the needles and photographed.
The fringe is now in progress. Yes, I did have plenty of yarn and will have some left over after the fringe – so it has taken 250 g of the Artesano 4 ply alpaca for the shawl and about another 50 g ball for the fringe.
Being alpaca (a heavy fibre) it doesn't need the fringe to weight the bottom edge, but it is looking nice! Final pix and details at a later date – I haven't weighed and measured it yet.
I am now working on a full sized shawl using the Artesano 4 ply alpaca I bought on Papay. I have the main Faroese book on the subject (and the English translation) but I also have photocopies of an earlier book, long out of print. These were given me by a friend who lives in Thorshavn, the capital of the Faroes. Unfortunately I don't have a note of the title of the book.
It then gives page after page of charts (215 of them) written in the usual Faroese manner – ie a x in the square where the yarn over will be. These are called 'eyelets' and the chart only gives these, leaving you to put in the decreases which go with each eyelet. I only have a few pages and am using one of them as the basis for my full sized shawl.
The big shawl hasn't got that far yet… I am currently at the stage where my head KNOWS I have enough yarn to finish it, but my heart doesn't believe it! If I knit fast enough I will have enough…. If the worst comes to the worst I can ring Papay for more….