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Language and Prehistory of the Indo-European Peoples A Cross-Disciplinary Perspective
Hyllested Adam, Nielsen Whitehead Benedicte, Olander Thomas, Olsen Birgit Anette
ISBN: HB: 9788763545310, University of Chicago Press, Museum Tusculanum Press, March 2018
350 pp., 24.1x16.1 cm, 4 colour plates, 7 halftones, 2 maps, 3 line drawings
Our knowledge of neolithic and bronze age Europe is growing rapidly, and this book offers a major contribution to our understanding of the language and history of the peoples of that period. The editors have taken a deliberately cross-disciplinary ap...
HB:
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Governor's Residence in Tranquebar The House and the Daily Life of Its People, 1750-1845
Fihl Esther
432 pp., 27.9x22.9 cm
The history of contacts between India and Europe tends to be dominated by the British, but Denmark also played a role on the subcontinent in the colonial era. This book offers insight into that history via a close look at one very specific part of it...
Angmagsalik Eskimo Notes and Corrections to Vol. 39 of Monographs on Greenland
Thomsen Thomas
ISBN: PB: 9788763522694, University of Chicago Press, Museum Tusculanum Press, October 2017
64 pp., 22.9x15.2 cm
This is a facsimile edition of the original 1917 volume, which contains a critical and acerbic reply by Thomas Thomsen of the Ethnographical Department at the National Museum of Denmark to Vol. 39 of Monographs on Greenland, titled Ammassalik Eskimo...
PB:
Eskimo Tribes Their Distribution and Characteristics, Specially in Regard to Language. With a Comparative Vocabulary, and a Sketch-Map
Rink H.
The purpose of the first section of this book is to show what conclusions it is possible to draw from the mode of life, the customs and usages of the Eskimo, so far as regards the migrations by which they have spread over their present territory. But...
Fragmente des Sog".Sothisrituals" von Oxyrhynchos aus Tebtynis
Topfer Susanne
ISBN: HB: 9788763543644, University of Chicago Press, Museum Tusculanum Press, October 2017
The book contains the edition of a hieratic written text from the Tebtunis temple library, dating to the 1st - 2nd century AD. The ritual text is a compilation of fumigation and libation spells for the main deities of the designed ritual place, the P...
Ethnologia Europaea 46:1 Special Issue: Muslim Intimacies
Stark Laura
In every society, individual choice and freedom are shaped at least to some degree by the needs of familial and marital institutions. Currently, negotiations between individuals and families are undergoing transformations due to late modern processes...
Buried Norsemen at Herjolfsnes An Archaeological and Historical Study
Norlund Poul
This is the facsimile version of the fascinating book, originally published in 1924, in which Poul Norlund gives the first gathered, concise description of the old Norse settlement of Herjolfsnes on the south tip of Greenland, presenting the archaeol...
Brattahlid
Norlund Poul, Stenberger Marten
163 pp., 27.9x21 cm
This is the facsimile edition of the original 1934 volume describing the process and findings of the archaeological expedition carried out over three months, from June till September, in 1932 to the old Viking settlement of Brattahlid ("Brattahlio" o...
Ammassalik Eskimo A Rejoinder
Thalbitzer William
This is a facsimile edition of the fifth part of Volume 53 of Monographs on Greenland, originally published in 1917. Penned by William Thalbitzer, it is a rejoinder in self-defense to Thomas Thomsens acerbic "notes and corrections" (available as the...
Ammassalik Eskimo Contributions to the Ethnology of the East Greenland Natives. Second Part. First Half-Volume
This is the facsimile edition of the first half-volume of the second part of William Thalbitzer's seminal and pioneering ethnographic study of the native tribes living in and around the Ammassalik area on the east coast of Greenland around the turn o...
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Negroni Week News
Charity Profile: Project CURE
Every day in hospitals and clinics across America, countless medical supplies and equipment are disposed of and never used. Seeking to turn this opportunity into life-saving support, Colorado-based nonprofit Project C.U.R.E. has worked for over 30 years to outfit under-resourced and vulnerable healthcare communities around the globe.
"Good healthcare in our world is one of the most critical elements of human life," says Jan Mazotti, director of communications for Project C.U.R.E, which stands for Commission on Urgent Relief and Equipment. The sentiment exists at the heart of the nonprofit, which was founded in 1987 by Dr. James Jackson after visiting a clinic near Rio de Janeiro that routinely turned away people seeking care due to lack of basic supplies. Upon returning home to Colorado, Jackson called on medical industry connections who helped him gather $250,000 of medical equipment that was bound for Brazil a month later
Today, large C.U.R.E. distribution warehouses are located in Arizona, Colorado, Texas, Illinois, Pennsylvania and Tennessee, with smaller centers dispersed throughout the country. Thousands of volunteers (this year, around 30,000 volunteers are expected to donate their time) retrieve cast-off equipment weekly from hospitals and clinics, collecting items ranging from beds to tools to wheelchairs. This vast network has allowed the organization to increase the output of its C.U.R.E. Cargo program exponentially: Following an intensive on-site assessment, 145 semi-trailer-size cargo containers packed with high-quality donated medical supplies ranging in total material value between $400,000 to $600,000 were shipped to in-need hospitals, clinics and community health centers worldwide over the past year. An anticipated 200 more will be sent out by mid-2020. "One of our main dictates for the organization is we would never just go into a country or community: we are always invited in with a partner that is in-country," says Karen Rosen, director of events.
The organization has grown to include efforts like C.U.R.E. Clinics, which bolsters health communities through educational programming ranging topically from general wellness to specialty surgical clinics; C.U.R.E. Kits, another way to get medical supplies into the hands that need it most; and Helping Mothers Survive, which trains nurses and midwives on modern techniques with the aim of reducing maternal mortality. "Everything that we do in the community following our cargo containers is to strengthen the community and to strengthen the education of the doctors and nurses working [there]," Rosen says. To date, the organization has worked in 134 countries including 50 last year alone, among them Nigeria, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ghana and Mexico.
Project C.U.R.E. receives project-specific government funding, which means it depends on initiatives like Negroni Week to back the C.U.R.E. Cargo program. "That type of funding is so important for us because it allows us to provide container support," says Rosen. "If we have a church outside of New Jersey who is raising money to send a container to Zambia, and they have worked really hard on raising that money and they are 80 percent of the way there, with our container support program and the funding that we're going to get through Negroni Week, we're going to be able to give them that funding to help reach their goal."
Successes from the C.U.R.E. Cargo program and other initiatives, including reducing maternal mortality rates in Zambia, Uganda and Nigeria by an average of 38 percent during a five-year window, are hopeful milestones that are on track to Project C.U.R.E.'s long-term objective: "Our vision one day is to be told that we don't need to come back because we've built a healthcare infrastructure that supports the people of these countries," Mazotti says.
Story by Emma Mannheimer // Photo courtesy of Project C.U.R.E.
Negroni Week 2019 Raises...
Charity Profile: Restaurant Workers'...
Bols Genever Pledges Support...
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Galway Bay fm newsroom – NUI Galway has officially launched its SEAFUEL project, which aims to use hydrogen as a renewable resource.
It's hoped the element can be used across the Atlantic region to power the local transport fleet of cars, and support the shift towards a low-carbon economy.
The project will be piloted in the Canary Islands, Madeira in Portugal and the Aran Islands.
The €3.5 million three year SEAFUEL project will use the expertise and infrastructure of a group of transnational partners in renewable energy, namely solar and wind.
It aims to demonstrate the viability of hydrogen as a fuel to be used by local transport authorities.
SEAFUEL will focus on enhancing the green growth and blue economy and paving the way for common renewable energy policies to promote clean and sustainable transport systems.
The team behind the project say isolated areas such as islands face the specific challenge of the high cost of electricity and fuel and their dependency on mainland infrastructures.
SEAFUEL will target these regions where 30% of fuel consumption comes from local transportation.


Organised by Michael Wait, one of the team behind Football for Cancer, this is a fun day out for the whole family to enjoy. With all proceeds going to the Rosemary Foundation, there will be three sponsored walks: 5 or 10 miles depending on level of fitness and a 2 mile stroll which will incorporate a treasure hunt for the children.
There will be refreshments including a barbeque to enjoy after your walk, a bouncy castle, face painting, tug-of-war and games for all ages.
All walkers will receive a T-shirt at the start and a medal on completion.
Entry £10 adults and £5 children.


We finally have our look at the first "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story" toy, and it's not a male action figure.
Gwendoline Christie, who plays Captain Phasma in "Star Wars: The Force Awakens," revealed the first action figure from the upcoming movie at the annual "Star Wars Celebration" event and it's of Jyn Erso, the female protagonist of "Rogue One."
Christie presented actress Felicity Jones, who will be playing Erso, with the toy during the "Rogue One" panel Friday afternoon.
That's a big deal since Hasbro was slow to release action figures of Rey, the lead female character from "The Force Awakens." While that very well may have been to keep some of the secrets of the film under wraps until its December 18 release last year, #WheresRey became a big topic of discussion online when parents began having a tough time finding the character in stores.
According to Sweatpants and Coffee, via IndieWire, that wasn't the case. Lucasfilm executives reportedly wanted fewer Rey toys because "no boy wants to given a product with a female character on it."
Hopefully, there will be a lot of Jyn Erso toys out there.
"Rogue One" will take place in between "Star Wars" episodes III and IV as Erso and a group of individuals try and steal plans for the Death Star. The movie will be in theaters December 16, 2016.


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Home / Preg-U / Resources / Videos / VIDEO SERIES: How Does an Olympian Prepare for Labor?
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The WikiLeaks Conspiracy: The Government Prepares to Argue WikiLeaks Has Always Been an Organized Crime Syndicate
December 7, 2019 /60 Comments/in 2016 Presidential Election, emptywheel, WikiLeaks /by emptywheel
Last June, I ran into some folks who remain very close to Julian Assange. One of them scheduled dinner with me solely to scold me for writing honestly about the things that WikiLeaks had done in the past three years rather than focusing exclusively on the EDVA Espionage indictment charging Assange for things he did almost a decade ago.
The person complained that my factual reporting on 2016 election and — especially — the Vault 7 leak (I think this was the offending post) would undercut whatever unanimity there was among journalists (unanimity that I joined) that the existing charges against Assange were a dangerous precedent for actual journalists. Reporting true details about shitty things Assange had done in recent years on my humble little blog, it was claimed, would dangerously and singlehandedly undercut Assange's defense.
No, I did not much appreciate the irony of being criticized for accurate reporting by someone purportedly defending journalism.
But I also thought the concerted effort to suppress what Assange had done recently, while perhaps necessary to generate the statements of support from journalists that were forthcoming, was short-sighted, because it misrepresents what Assange is actually facing. The grand jury in EDVA remains (as far as we know) active. The government specifically said, in June, that it needed Chelsea Manning's testimony for subjects or charges not yet charged and said such charges were not time barred (as would be true of any ongoing conspiracy).
As the government's ex parte submissions reflect, Manning's testimony remains relevant and essential to an ongoing investigation into charges or targets that are not included in the superseding indictment. See Gov't's Ex Parte Mem. (May 23, 2019). The offenses that remain under investigation are not time barred, see id., and the submission of the government's extradition request in the Assange case does not preclude future charges based on those offenses, see Gov't's Supplement to Ex Parte Mem. (June 14, 2019).
Since then, Jeremy Hammond has joined Manning in believing he can wait out whatever EDVA has in store.
Most of all, Joshua Schulte's prosecution for the Vault 7 leak — a leak almost no WikiLeaks supporters I know will offer an enthusiastic defense of — kept chugging along. In recent weeks, Schulte has submitted a number of questionable filings claiming the dog ate his homework so he can't be prepared in time for his trial:
The attorney appointed after defense attorneys said they needed one more attorney to prep for trial in time said he couldn't prep for trial in time, but can't talk about why not until he's done with a week-long vacation
The government's (admittedly long) motion in limine repeating details the government disclosed several times before took the defense by surprise
The defense can't make a constitutional challenge to CIPA generally until the judge rules on CIPA specifically (this is the one arguably reasonable request)
The defense had no idea the government wasn't claiming Schulte downloaded a terabyte of data onto a thumb drive that can't hold that terabyte even though the government told the defense that a year ago and then again in November
But as of now, Schulte's trial is due to start on January 13, a month and a half before Assange's first substantive extradition hearing starting on February 25.
And at that trial, the government is preparing to argue that Schulte intended to harm the United States when he leaked these files to WikiLeaks, a stronger level of mens rea than needed to prove guilt under the Espionage Act (normally the government aims to prove someone should have known it could cause harm, relying on their Non-Disclosure Agreements to establish that), and one the government has, in other places, described as the difference between being a leaker and a spy.
To make that argument, the government is preparing to situate Schulte's leaks in the context of prior WikiLeaks releases, in a move that looks conspicuously like the kind of ongoing conspiracy indictment one might expect to come out of the WikiLeaks grand jury, one that builds off some aspects of the existing Assange indictment.
In a motion opposing Schulte's effort to disqualify Paul Rosenzweig as an expert witness (see this post for background), the government lays out some of the things it plans to have Rosenzweig explain to the jury. Some of this is dangerous criminalization of security, most notably tying WikiLeaks' endorsement of Tor and Tails to Schulte's own use of it.
But some of it fleshes out the scope the government laid out when it first requested to call Rosenzweig.
The Government recognizes the need to avoid undue prejudice, and will therefore limit Mr. Rosenzweig's testimony to prior WikiLeaks leaks that have a direct relationship with particular aspects of the conduct relevant to this case, for example by linking specific harms caused by WikiLeaks in the past to Schulte's own statements of his intent to cause similar harms to the United States or conduct. Those leaks include (i) the 2010 disclosure of documents provided to WikiLeaks illegally by Chelsea Manning; (ii) the 2010 disclosure of U.S. diplomatic cables; (iii) the 2012 disclosure of files stolen from the intelligence firm Stratfor; and (iv) the 2016 disclosure of emails stolen from a server operated by the Democratic National Committee.
For example, it will tie WikiLeaks' failure to redact the identities of US sources in Chelsea Manning's leaks — something charged in counts 15 through 17 of Assange's indictment — to Schulte's behavior. It sounds like Rosenzweig will explain something I've alluded to: WikiLeaks apparently left the names of some of Schulte's colleagues unredacted, which given WikiLeaks' big show of redacting the files could only have been intentional and would have required coordination with Schulte to do.
Mr. Rosenzweig will testify that WikiLeaks does not typically redact the information that it publicly discloses (even when that information may reveal confidential sources). The Government will introduce evidence, however, that the Classified Information was purportedly redacted when posted online. Mr. Rosenzweig's testimony will help the jury understand the significance of WikiLeaks' unique claim to have redacted the Classified Information, including, for example, the period of delay between when Schulte disclosed the Classified Information to WikiLeaks (in or about the spring of 2016) and when WikiLeaks first announced that it would begin to disclose the Classified Information (in or about the spring of 2017). [my emphasis]
One reason Assange made a show of redacting the identities was because he was attempting to extort a pardon at the time, so he had to appear willing to negotiate with DOJ. But it seems likely Rosenzweig will explain that that was just a show and that even as WikiLeaks was making that show it was also ensuring that other CIA SysAdmins might be targeted by foreign governments.
Likewise, Rosenzweig will tie the embarrassment caused by Manning's releases to Schulte's own intent to cause damage with his self-described Information War against the US.
The Government intends to introduce evidence (including his statements) of Schulte's knowledge of Manning's leak and the need for the U.S. government to maintain secrecy over certain information. Furthermore, the Government also plans to introduce evidence of how Schulte, from the Metropolitan Correctional Center (the "MCC"), declared an "information war" against the United States, pursuant to which he intended to publicly disclose classified information and misinformation, including through WikiLeaks (such as the Fake FBI Document), for the purpose of destroying the United States' "diplomatic relationships," and encouraged other U.S. government employees to disclose confidential information to WikiLeaks. Mr. Rosenzweig will explain to the jury generally information other leakers have transmitted to WikiLeaks that the organization published and how foreign governments reacted negatively to WikiLeaks' disclosure of that information—leading, for example, to the highly-publicized resignation of the U.S. Ambassador to Mexico.
Effectively, the government will argue that if you want to conduct an Information War on the US, you choose to leak to WikiLeaks and ensure it will be as damaging as possible. Whatever the circumstances of Manning's leaks, this uses Schulte's stated desire to damage the US to retroactively taint what WikiLeaks has claimed in the past was mere journalistic exposure of wrong-doing. That doesn't necessarily change the First Amendment danger in charging Assange. But it surely attempts to undercut WikiLeaks' brand as a journalistic entity.
Most interestingly, the government will point to a claim Schulte made to a journalist while writing from jail (one that is plausible given some of his past public postings, but if true, is an unfathomable indictment of CIA's vetting process) that he once belonged to Anonymous. Rosenzweig will tie this to Anonymous' decisions to leak the Stratfor cables to WikiLeaks in 2012.
As described in the Government Motions in Limine, in encrypted communications from one of the Contraband Cellphones, Schulte (posing as a third person) stated that he had previously been a member of Anonymous, a group of online hacker activists. Mr. Rosenzweig will testify about how, in 2012, Anonymous and WikiLeaks worked together to release information from a private U.S. intelligence firm.
Of course, Anonymous didn't just leak the Stratfor cables to WikiLeaks. They also shared files stolen during the Arab Spring and the Syria files. The latter leak provides one of the earliest indicators where the process by which WikiLeaks obtained files may have involvement of Russia, because somehow a file that would have been very damning for Russia never got published. But both would make the story the US wants to tell more complex (though still potentially consistent).
In any case, the focus on Stratfor may explain why the government is holding Jeremy Hammond in contempt to try to get him to testify in the EDVA grand jury, particularly if the government has reason to believe that Schulte was part of that hack.
Finally, the government will use Rosenzweig to explain how, in the wake of the DNC leak and at a time he was in a huff at his CIA bosses again, Schulte did … something in August 2016.
The Government intends to introduce evidence that Schulte transmitted the Classified Information to WikiLeaks in the spring of 2016, that WikiLeaks did not begin to disclose the Classified Information until March 2017, that Schulte was angry with CIA management in August 2016 over a performance review he received, that Schulte's protective order against Employee-1 was vacated in August 2016, and that, around that same time (i.e., in August 2016), Schulte began to conduct extensive research online about WikiLeaks. The Government intends to offer evidence relating to those searches, including the specific queries Schulte conducted. Schulte has argued in his writings that his August 2016 research was related to WikiLeaks' August 2016 disclosure of information stolen from a Democratic National Committee server (the "DNC Leak"). Mr. Rosenzweig will testify about the DNC Leak, including the type of information that WikiLeaks actually disclosed in connection with that leak, which will demonstrate why Schulte's WikiLeaksrelated searches include queries that had nothing to do with the DNC Leak
Side note: Part of the media blitz Assange did in the wake of the DNC leaks included a claim to Chuck Todd that if WikiLeaks ever received information from US intelligence, they would publish it.
Well, it's a meta story. If you're asking would we accept information from U.S. intelligence that we had verified to be completely accurate, and would we publish that, and would we protect our sources in U.S. intelligence, the answer is yes, of course we would.
No one else would have, but Schulte would presumably have recognized this as a nod to him, reassurance provided on heavily watched TV that WikiLeaks was progressing towards releasing the files Schulte had leaked. Which is why the likelihood that Schulte also stole a single file reflecting CIA collecting information on who might win the 2012 French presidential election, which WikiLeaks subsequently falsely portrayed as proof that CIA had infiltrated political parties in France rather than asked well-placed sources for readily available information, is of particular interest.
The government, however, is going to point to other Google searches by Schulte from August 2016 that lump Edward Snowden and Shadow Brokers in with WikiLeaks.
For example, in addition to searching for information about WikiLeaks and Julian Assange, its primary leader, Schulte also conducted searches using the search terms "narcissist snowden," "wikileaks code," "wikileaks 2017," "shadow brokers," and "shadow broker's auction bitcoin." "Snowden" was presumably a reference to Edward Snowden, the former NSA contractor who disclosed information about a purported NSA surveillance program, and "Shadow Brokers" was a reference to a group of hackers who disclosed online computer code that they purportedly obtained from the NSA, beginning in or about August 2016.
I have long wondered whether Vault 7 was not a free-standing leak but instead part of the Shadow Brokers operation. This seems to suggest the government knows they are. If that's right, it would suggest that in the period when the government was trying to figure out precisely what Russia had done in 2016, both the NSA and CIA's ability to spy on Russia (and other countries) would have been been deliberately burnt to the ground. And if Schulte knowingly participated in that — in an effort to ensure that the US would struggle to even learn what Russia had done in 2016 — it would explain why they're planning on arguing he is more of a spy than a leaker.
Which would, in turn, explain why they took the first steps towards arresting Assange as FBI started putting together the evidence needed to charge Schulte on these leaks in 2017.
Let me be clear: I'm not saying I'm sure they'll fill all these details in a superseding Assange indictment (though the government said it could not provide Assange the underlying evidence even for the 2010 charges until around Christmas — at which point Schulte will have gone through the CIPA process of declassifying classified information for use in his defense, and they could add charges at least until the February 25 hearing). It may still be that the government won't want to get into the level of classified detail they'd need to to flesh out that case, particularly if they can't coerce Manning and Hammond to cooperate.
I'm also not making a normative judgment that this eliminates the very real problems with the way Assange is charged now. Without seeing the government's case, it's too soon to tell.
What I'm trying to do is lay out what the government seems to be preparing to argue about WikiLeaks in the Schulte case. No doubt this will get me invited for another stern scolding at dinner, but it's time to stop pretending Assange is being prosecuted for the understanding of WikiLeaks that existed in 2010. By all means, people can and will still defend Assange for taking on an imperialist America. For much of the world (though presumably not among any Five Eyes governments, including Assange's home country), that still makes him an important dissident taking on a superpower. There is some merit to that stance, but it also requires arguing that superpowers shouldn't have democratic elections.
But the government is preparing to argue that, after helping Russia tamper in America's election, WikiLeaks deliberately burned some of CIA's collection abilities to the ground, making it harder for the US to figure out how Russia did so. The government is preparing to argue that such actions are consistent with what WikiLeaks has been up to since 2010.
I've been expecting we might see an indictment alleging WikiLeaks and its associates were and remain engaged in an ongoing conspiracy (a possibility that, if Manning and Hammond's lawyers haven't warned them about, they are being utterly negligent, because the government could well argue that obstructing this investigation by refusing to provide immunized testimony is an overt act furthering the conspiracy).
The citations the government has used to justify Rosenzweig's testimony are heavily focused on terrorism and mob cases (United States v. Farhane and United States v. Mustafa, which are al Qaeda cases; United States v. El Gammal, which is an ISIL one, and United States v. Rahimi, the self-radicalized Chelsea bomber; United States v. Lombardozzi and United States v. Locascio which are Gambino cases, United States v. Amuso, a Lucchese case), including one RICO case. That's undoubtedly why Schulte's lawyers really want Rosenzweig's testimony excluded, to avoid having WikiLeaks treated like an organized crime syndicate.
But if the government is preparing to claim that WikiLeaks worked with Schulte not only to obtain files it tried to use to extort a pardon but then released them in a way that would hurt America's efforts to respond to Russia's 2016 operation, that's a pretty compelling analogy.
Update: After comments from Stefania Maurizi, I've rephrased how I described what happened with the Syria Files. I want to be clear the statement in the post was not based on what I've been told by reliable sources about the process by which those files got shared with WikiLeaks.
As I disclosed last year, I provided information to the FBI on issues related to the Mueller investigation, so I'm going to include disclosure statements on Mueller investigation posts from here on out. I will include the disclosure whether or not the stuff I shared with the FBI pertains to the subject of the post.
Tags: Anonymous, Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden, Jeremy Hammond, Joshua Schulte, Julian Assange, Paul Rosenzweig, Shadow Brokers, Stratfor, Vault 7
https://www.emptywheel.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Screen-Shot-2017-03-07-at-10.05.25-AM.png 246 487 emptywheel https://www.emptywheel.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Logo-Web.png emptywheel2019-12-07 12:11:212019-12-08 16:07:43The WikiLeaks Conspiracy: The Government Prepares to Argue WikiLeaks Has Always Been an Organized Crime Syndicate
Bob In Portland says:
Will someone actually interview Assange, Murray et al for this "criminal conspiracy"?
Of course not. It would require reality to shine in.
Ruthie says:
So a measure of independence remains in the DOJ on this case, presumably, since it definitely wouldn't suit Trump or Republican claims that there was no coordination between WikiLeaks and Russia. Did Barr have ever have the ability to shut it down, or was the investigation too far advanced by the time he was sworn in?
I would take Schulte's claim to be a part of Anonymous with a large grain of salt. One would think that a member of a semi-imfamous hacker group to already know how to use the Tor network. Not the mention that he used Google from an IP that traced back to him.
Actually, that's utterly consistent with Anonymous' OpSec as exercised in 2012, both parts of it. They didn't get good at OpSec until after that round of arrests.
Rapier says:
It's seems to be a universal tendency for people to choose a side. Their side being the good one, all good, and the other being all bad. You might think that a culture that is informed by Christian teachings, a major one being that humans are inherently sinful, would lead to a widespread cultural rejection of this good guy/bad guy framing. Well I doubt this has occurred to almost anyone but mildly depressive oddballs like me, It doesn't occur to many, devote Christians least of all.
That disparate critics of American power and economic life ranging from Assange to Greenwald to JH Kunster have openly aligned on some levels with anti democratic fascist/racists is to me the wonder and really terror of this time. As someone whose dramatic reading of American political history has it that Liberalism has been an endless rear guard action against fascism since the 1920's, to see so many suppose allies fall away is hard to take.
NorskieFlamethrower says:
"That disparate critics of American power…have openly aligned on some levels with anti-democratic fascist/racists is to me the wonder and really terror of this time."
Absofuckinglutely!!! And this reality is the biggest threat to the very idea of a free press.
Katherine M Williams says:
"You might think that a culture that is informed by Christian teachings-"
Western culture, especially the USA, has very little to do with the actual teachings of Christ. They're more into Old Testament violence (not the law) and New Testament craziness (Apocalypses).
General Sternwood says:
As an example, I was driving the other day listening to KPFA which is a wonderful institution in the Bay Area, and my source for Amy Goodman. It was late afternoon (long after "Democracy Now!" — perhaps "Flashpoints") and there was a rather fawning interview with Ray McGovern. Ray is going on about the wonders of Tulsi Gabbard. The interviewer turns to journalism, and asks Ray whose work is outstanding today. Ray says without a doubt it is John Solomon, one of the few truly independent journalists left. I am sorry but something is rotten in Pacifica if Giulianism is what passes for progressive politics.
timbo says:
KPFA has seen better days for sure…
Alas, Pacifica got drowned in the bath tub shortly after W Bush turned NPR into National Petroleum Radio.
Peterr says:
it's time to stop pretending Assange is being prosecuted for the understanding of WikiLeaks that existed in 2010
In addition, the more recent developments make me wonder how accurate those 2010 understandings were back in 2010. Dumping the entire archive of State Dept cables in unredacted form . . . while Assange claimed it was for full transparency to allow those mentioned within them to better protect themselves from US pressures, the five media outlets with whom he worked immediately condemned this as inicimal to good journalism.
It is, however, something that Vladimir Putin might have enjoyed seeing play out. In 2010 I didn't think this at all, but today it smells more like a trial run for the 2016 Russian cyber attacks on the US election. I'm not saying Putin was behind Assange and Wikileaks, but rather that Putin may have watched this all unfold and say "You know, after seeing all these Westerners attacking one another like this, we could have a lot of fun messing with everyone's heads online as the 2016 US election approaches, by throwing a bunch of information (legit or fabricated) into the mix." Note that, per wiki, the Internet Research Agency was founded in mid-2013 in St. Petersburg, Russia.
Putin may have started trying in 2012, on a small scale.
BobCon says:
The 2012 incident described above where WL withheld info that would have been damaging to Russia suggests one possible pivot point, slightly later than 2010.
That doesn't mean that Assange wasn't already flirting (or more) with Russia in 2010, of course, but it does suggest a significant shift in the mission towards the current beast happened slightly later.
Undercutting journalistic "unity" should be a good thing. Facts survive crowd scrutiny or they do not. An unexamined fact is not worth believing – or publishing.
Thank you, Marcy. This is a very complex topic for me, and your posts are always enlightening.
tvor_22 says:
Is it fair to imply that Wikileaks had knowledge that the Central Bank of Syria email was not included in the original batch of emails given to them? For example, like, if some corrupt ringleader of said hackers (Popov, for example), were responsible for getting them an initial batch of curated emails?
"At some point after March 2012, RevoluSec, or one of its members, passed WikiLeaks a larger batch of backup email files." which *did* contain the offending email, which Wikileaks happily hosted on their website, after all.
In a similar vein, I wonder if Uncle Putin will turn up in an unfavorable light in Phineas' latest release?
Unclear. I've been told details of how those Syria files got to WikiLeaks and as I understand it it was several (at least two) entirely different channels and pretty chaotic.
Areader2019 says:
So… this is a very complicated case. Thank you for explaining these facts in a way no one else attempts.
My personal summary:
"Assange may have started out with good intentions, but he became a tool. First a tool of Russian disinformation. Now the US may use him as a tool to batter the laws that protect journalists."
Am I on track, or missing something?
So, just because some malefactor has, as some point, had a journalistic function, at least nominally, there is nothing he can do that can be a legitimate and prosecutable crime? Not sure I follow.
Oh, I agree. I think Assange may have committed a crime. He started out with good intentions, and entered a world way above his head.
The GOP's lawlessness and cheating at elections may have had an origin of wanting to strengthen and protect the USA, but their party has been taken over by Oligarchs, including Putin, and is now being used to turn our country into a feudalistic totalitarian state. Lie down with rabid jackals get up with rabies.
It's the GOP that used the Constitutionally protected "freedom of the press" to insist that lies and propaganda = Free Press.
It's the GOP who insist "corporations are people and entitled to Free Speech rights (i.e. legal propaganda and lies) and the GOP (thru Justice Roberts) that money = also equals Free Speech, therefore making bribery legal.
Of course the GOP (now infiltrated by Russian agents, with a Russian Agent, Trump, as its nominal Head) will claim that Wikileaks' publications, be they lies, results of enemy spying, propaganda or truth, is Free Speech as defined in the US Constitution.
Will the DOJ go along with this? Will McConnell-appointed federal judges?
For example, in addition to searching for information about WikiLeaks and Julian Assange, its primary leader, Schulte also conducted searches using the search terms "narcissist snowden," "wikileaks code," "wikileaks 2017," […]
Why, in August 2016, would Schulte search "wikileaks 2017"? [If it was a subsequently-corrected typo'd search, I'd expect the corrected string to have been quoted as well or instead.]
Like, was there some news announcement about WL's 2017 plans he would have looked up?
Hm. The quote is faithful to the source; the next sentence: "Indeed, in contrast to the period before August 4, 2016, between that date and March 2017 (when the first of the Leaks occurred), Schulte conducted searches for Wikileaks and related information on at least 30 separate days."
Maybe it was an announcement he was looking for, part of an arrangement for coordinating the release after a vetting period? Wonder how Schulte's expectations of how this would play out may have changed between Summer 2016 and the period after the election.
I actually think the filing comment was about the entire period from August 2016 to March 2017. So my fault in excepting.
Suggesting that perhaps after the first of the year Schulte may have been limiting some searches to the "new" stuff.
In context though, that particular block quote is used to point to the government's interest in the Snowden & SB queries; @Eureka just has a very acute anomaly-meter. :-)
As I'd said on the prior post, I was ~lightly entertaining any indications and alternatives that his searches could be attempts to communicate. That seems N/A here (especially in light of your comment upthread about his remnant opsec: if he's that crappy at purported basics, how likely is it he'd have been smart enough to exploit it for communicative ends — absent instruction, of course).
But it's interesting that you note Assange effectively communicating with Schulte via the Chuck Todd interview, and Schulte perhaps answering to that and more with the France 2012 stuff.
Still better than my speculation: that an estimated delay may have been communicated as part of the submission of the material, an estimate designed to cover an anticipated vetting period, after which Schulte starts getting antsy and looking for hints about a release date. The Chuck Todd interview (31Jul16) is a more sensible trigger for Schulte's uptick in activity. Way more.
Savage Librarian says:
Yes, the possibility of Assange communicating with Schulte via the Todd interview is notable. It brings to mind other players and the potential scenarios that may or may not have happened. For example, Assange and Stone. And, as we know, Trump and Tucker Carlson and/or Hannity, with Manafort somewhere in the mix, have stirred the pot.
Using, in plain sight, a commonly employed medium or service as a coded communication tool opens other avenues, as well. Back in February I wondered whether amazon might be used this way. I came across some recordings by Mikhail Morgulis (a Belarusian, but born in Kiev, I think. He secured the Russian-American vote for DT in FL, and maybe elsewhere.) He is a friend of Millian. But, since I first mentioned this, I can no longer locate those recordings (which I believe were in Russian.)
Mitch Neher says:
Off topic and Fouled Up Beyond All Recognition, anyway:
https://www.politico.com/news/2019/12/07/trump-giuliani-ukraine-trip-077725
9 hours ago … President Donald Trump on Saturday said his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani wants to testify before congressional impeachment investigators …
Excerpted from the article linked above:
President Donald Trump on Saturday said his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani wants to testify before congressional impeachment investigators about his most recent trip to Ukraine.
"He has not told me what he found, but I think he wants to go before Congress," Trump said to reporters at the White House before a trip to Florida. "I hear he has found plenty."
[End excerpt]
So . . . The Demagogue, Trump, intends to ratfuck his own impeachment. Or use his own impeachment to ratfuck the 2020 election. Or turn his own impeachment into the pre-impeachment of his political opponent(s).
You know what? We're going to need a better word than "ratfucking" for this latest . . . "ratfuck?"
The buggering of our Constitutional government by its Constitutional officers, for its Chief Constitutional officer is a buggerment of the people???
And then there's this buggerment from The Great Garbling Gun of the Trump campaign:
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-campaign-runs-misleading-anti-impeachment-facebook-ads/story?id=67553451
15 hours ago … The Trump campaign is flooding Facebook with anti-impeachment ads that misleadingly imply House Democrats are pushing "treason" …
More details on Giuliani's latest contribution to the shadow buggerment.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/06/politics/rudy-giuliani-new-ukraine-conspiracies-fact-check/index.html
18 hours ago … Fact-checking Rudy Giuliani's newest allegations from his Ukraine trip . . .
Interesting. Some outlet actually stated, as if it had been under consideration, that Dems weren't considering it. I wonder if it was a response to that?
I don't know. I'm too busy losing my marbles all over again.
And I apologize for cramming this thread with off topic posts–some of which were discussed on other, older threads.
Somebody please make it stop!!!
Wait. I think I see it now. Disinformation is also provocation.
When I over-react to the provocation, I risk amplifying the disinformation.
But you can't ignore it, either. So what is the proper response?
To relate your honest thought out opinion, and you are doing fine in that regard.
Thanks. Sometimes I worry too much. Other times, not enough.
An alarming survey result on its face (I haven't vetted out its quality), relevant perhaps to this topic as both cause and consequence in re elements of Assange cult and pro-RU (or hybridized ~ anti-American) propaganda:
Eric Brewer: ""The second annual Reagan National Defense Survey…found nearly half of armed services households questioned, 46%, said they viewed Russia as ally." [link to voanews]"
https://twitter.com/BrewerEricM/status/1203453888776589314
The linked article, by Jeff Seldin, VOA News's National Security Correspondent, is really thoughtful, worth a read:
Pentagon Concerned Russia Cultivating Sympathy Among US Troops
Updated December 08, 2019 03:30 AM
https://www.voanews.com/usa/pentagon-concerned-russia-cultivating-sympathy-among-us-troops
[VOA excerpt]
U.S. defense and security officials have told VOA that Russia has been targeting U.S. military personnel, specifically, with a ramped-up influence campaign, as far back as 2017 in preparation for the November 2018 midterm elections.
Russia's goal, they said, was not so much to swing the result of the elections but to seed U.S. military personnel with the right type of disinformation so that they would be predisposed to view Russia and its actions in a more favorable way in the future.
Such as in time for their absentee ballots in 2020? Hmmm.
Desider says:
While it doesn't make the DoJ's case as far back as 2010, Assange's misuse and lies about Seth Rich's death to smear Hillary, along with his cute little readers poll re: "What's causing Hillary's collapse & coughing & strange movements?" rather put them outside of journalism and into the realm of paid propaganda – along with its previous abandonment of redactions once they'd screwed up with doc archive passwords (blaming it on the reporter, rather than their own dumbness or intentionally not changing passwords).
Bmaz retweeted an essential piece of humor for Sunday morning, from @tjlong63:
"4 dumps and 7 flushes ago, Trump wrote the constipation proclamation."
I would add that he later wrote a new Preamble for the Constitution:
We the President of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Me, establish inJustice, insure My Tranquility, provide for My defence, promote My Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to Myself and Ivanka, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of Me.
For music fans, @samgreis has this vignette from a State Department dinner honoring Kennedy Center nominees, including Linda Ronstadt.
Mike Pompeo, as Mini-Trump, thought he coined a cute one when he asked, "When will I be loved?" When Linda Ronstadt stood up to receive her laurels, she answered him, "maybe when you stop enabling Donald Trump." As @samgreis says, an Icon.
Gawd I love Linda.
Yep. Politically active forever, her fame did not get in the way of her humanity. Mikey's lucky she didn't quote him the lyrics from, "You're No Good,"
Sweet, sweet voice. Her Greatest Hits came out when she was 30 and went platinum seven times. One of many laurels. She and the Eagles got me through many a long night. She stopped performing in 2009, apparently owing to Parkinson's.
mass interest says:
12/3 WaPo article. Don't know how to properly post links, so I'll leave it to the emptywheel experts to fix this:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/music/linda-ronstadt-never-stopped-singing/2019/12/02/57d6ad7c-0f9d-11ea-b0fc-62cc38411ebb_story.html
I'm grateful to have experienced both her phenomenal voice and music choices.
That dinner was after Mikey had spent the day telling his troops to enforce his ban on critics of el Presidente from being sponsored to attend any State Department-supported event. That support is important for global audiences to hear the voices of those without independent means.
Mikey had just yanked support from Stanley R. Sloan to speak at an event in Denmark. https://twitter.com/srs2_/status/1203421746667380738 An academic, Sloan's topic was his recent book, Defense of the West: NATO, the European Union and the Transatlantic Bargain. [A topic Trump opposes anyway.]
The Danish foreign ministry canceled the conference rather than allow American censorship to control the debate. Three cheers, sort of. https://twitter.com/LarsBStruwe/status/1203611848551084032
Sort of. Still, the censorship worked, the Trump cartel not only cancelled Sloan, they cancelled the whole conference.
I do not endorse the "praise Trump" or else crap that the Trump regime is pushing down everyone's throats but that doesn't mean that basic state-craft should be out the door just because. Yeah, so I read Sloane's prepared speech (he has publicly posted rev 5 of such). Reading this, it's not surprising the US DoS removed him from the invite. In his prepared remarks Sloane gets into US politics directly and explicitly. He also is very negative about the current state of NATO, etc. While he may be correct in his observations, analysis, and speculations about Trump and NATO, etc, that doesn't make what he wanted to say at the 70th Anniv Con NATO appropriate at all. (Plus, the Danes do not want to sell Greenland… so the whole thing is complicated yet further. Etc.)
Hence, the sort of. Organizers would have sent a stronger message had they picked up the slack and paid for Sloan's attendance. Leaving in a huff, however satisfying in the short term, ain't gonna cut it. Even if Trump loses in 2020, the movement will continue.
Trump – heir to Truman, Ike, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon – is actively working to destroy alliances harmful to Vladimir Putin. Putinism, a combination of neoliberalism, authoritarianism, and criminal oligarchy, appears to be a growing worldwide phenomenon.
Correction, the conference was organized by a Danish think tank, the Danish Atlantic Council, not directly by the FM.
Sloan's invitation was with withdrawn thanks to the American ambassador, Carla Sands, a wealthy Breitbart fan, former (?) actress, chiropractor, investment banker, and friend of Trump's friend, Eliott Broidy. A tall blond and Trump political appointee, natch.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/miriamelder/carla-sands-denmark-stanley-sloan-trump
Pithy. I yield to Linda.
From a September 2019 New Yorker piece on Ronstadt.
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-new-yorker-interview/linda-ronstadt-has-found-another-voice
"Q: What are you reading right now?
"A: I'm reading Thomas Mann, "The Magic Mountain." I somehow got to be this age without having read Thomas Mann, and I'm trying to make up for it. I read "Buddenbrooks," and I fell in love with his writing. His books are nice and long, so it takes a couple of days to get through them."
His books are nice and long. What a lovely understatement. Buddenbrooks, Mann's first novel, and the Magic Mountain, written twenty years later, won Mann the Nobel Prize in 1929. Both are ambitious, dense, complex novels. Mr. Trump, with his genius brain, German ancestry, and bourgeois outlook would never have gotten past the title page.
Another comment from that same New Yorker piece, about current events:
I wish there was a little bit more political activism. I'm waiting for the Reichstag to burn down, you know? Because I was interested in the Weimar Republic, I've always been aware that culture can be overwhelmed and subverted in a very short time. All of German intellectual history—Goethe and Beethoven—was subverted by the Nazis. It happened in a thirty-year span and brought German culture to its knees. And it's happening here. There's a real conspiracy of international fascism that wants to defeat democracy. They want all the power for themselves, and I think that suits Donald Trump right now. He'd like to be a dictator.
Trump probably thinks Weimar is a brand of Kosher hotdog. Ronstadt, the same age as Trump but battling Parkinson's for ten years, speaks more clearly than his Greatness. He would like to be a dictator, and he's one reason Putinism is becoming a global phenomenon. Thank you, Linda, for everything.
This is the dawning of the Age of Big Buggerment.
Crime syndicate or drug cartels being branded as terrorist organizations, its about all the same, in my opinion. Reporters as fake news, enemies of the state, etc. Its all part of what ever dtrump, putin and others are up to. You change the name and create something worse in the public's mind. Then you can send the military after them and kill them or send them to prison for longer terms
Thank you for writing this article. We need to pay attention.
greengiant says:
The feud between Clinton and Putin, Assange and some Anonymous members accelerated with the cutting off the Wikileaks revenue stream and Assange's "honeypot hookups" and charges in Sweden. The Trump media and social media operatives were and continue to be hand in glove with the anti Clinton feuders.
Too bad the possible ongoing conspiracy charges are not likely to include conspiracy to defraud the U.S.
The article linked below is very long, but it makes a pretty good case that Andriy Telizhenko is both the Alpha and the Omega of Giuliani's descent into madness. Also, the entire cast of GOP-T characters have cameos in the story.
(On the odd chance that everybody already knows about Telizhenko, be advised that I remain firmly committed to catching on all the time.)
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanhatesthis/ukraine-whistleblower-politico-story-dnc-telizhenko
Nov 4, 2019 … Andriy Telizhenko has propelled himself from a minor functionary at the Ukrainian Embassy to a bespoke purveyor of conspiracy theories to …
vvv on OpSec Shaming Misses the Terrorists for the Forest of Bozos They Hid Behind
NCAA Conference Championship Weekend Trash Talk Snowden Needs a Better Public Interest Defense: Disposing of the Journalist...


Hi I'm new at translating and spotted your sight last night. It was so helpful to me just reading past threads. Thank you for this site.
My problem is a form question on a birth certificate from Guatemala that asks for a "Confronto:" and then appears a persons name. This is just below the Civil Registrars name. Is this just a second witness of sorts? How do I translate it...?
"Confronto" quiere decir cuando una persona compara documentos y da fe de que lo que consta en esos documentos esta bien.
Muchas gracias. I think 'verified by' would be a good equivalent then. I appreciate your input.
Need Help With A Birth Certificate Pls!!


text:
Callboard 2021-22
SDA at Center Stage
A look at the School of Dramatic Arts' last 75 years of dramatic arts education and where it's headed into the future of theatrical excellence.
By Stacey Wang Rizzo December 27, 2021
Meet Dean Emily Roxworthy
Callboard magazine sits down with the new dean, Emily Roxworthy, for a question and answer interview about SDA's special qualities, the next five years, her work as a scholar and more.
By Allison Engel December 27, 2021
Callboard magazine sits down with the new dean, Emily Roxworthy, for a question and answer interview about SDA's special qualities, the next five years, her work as a scholar and more.
Extraordinary Trojans: Forest Whitaker '82
Multi-award-winning actor and activist is distinguished with the Robert Redford for Engaged Artists Award.
By Phillip Jordan December 27, 2021
Multi-award-winning actor and activist is distinguished with the Robert Redford Award for Engaged Artists.
Extraordinary Trojans: Michele Dedeaux Engemann BA '68
One singular sensation, the artist and SDA champion is honored with the Alumni Service Award.
Extraordinary Trojans: Donald Webber Jr. BFA '08
The Broadway and 'Hamilton' actor finds himself in the room where it happens, earns the Broadway Spotlight Award.
By Celine Kiner December 27, 2021
The Broadway and 'Hamilton' actor finds himself in the room where it happens, earns the Broadway Spotlight Award.
Extraordinary Trojans: Greg Holford BA '80, MFA '82
The longtime creative director and design of grand live events and spectaculars receives the Production Innovation Award.
Extraordinary Trojans: Grant Heslov BFA '86
An artist who does it all, the award-winning producer and his company Smokehouse Pictures are recipients of the Corporate Leadership Award.
The School of Dramatic Arts finds a new building at the center of USC's arts corridor.
By Delphine Vasko December 27, 2021
Success in Post
Award-winning artist and alumna Jameelah Nuriddin BFA '06 shares about her fulfilling career giving voice to marginalized communities.
Award-winning artist and alumna Jameelah Nuriddin BFA '06 shares about her fulfilling career giving voice to marginalized communities.
Representing USC at the Largest Arts Festival in the World
Professor John Blankenchip led the School of Dramatic Arts for 23 seasons at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.


Trying to start looking after your finances better? These three resolutions will help to keep you on track.
You can start taking control of your money without spending a penny less, so there's no excuse. Start making a note of how much you spend, and what you spend it on. You can do this with a pen and paper and add it up at the end of the week, or you can use smartphone apps like Coinkeeper or Toshl.
You might be surprised by where your money's going, and when it comes to your finances, knowledge is power. You'll be able to see where you can cut back and set yourself budgets you know you can stick to. Even just being more aware of what you're spending can be enough to make you spend less.
And if making a note whenever you get your wallet out sounds like too much hassle - that might be a sign you're spending too much.
The last one of these makes it a resolution you can't help but keep, since once you've set it up it takes no effort to keep it going.
If you've been relying on credit cards and not paying off the full balance, you're throwing money away. Worse still, you can put yourself in a downward spiral, since the more money you're using to pay off credit card bills the less money you have to keep you from needing your credit card again.
Resolving to stop using credit cards can motivate you to spend less than you have coming in - which is the only way to keep your finances healthy. And because credit cards can be so expensive, once you succeed you'll find the rest of your resolutions get easier.
If you've been struggling to live without credit cards, clearing your balance can be a great goal to set for your other financial resolutions: not only is it a great feeling when you get there, you'll suddenly find yourself with more money in your pocket once you're not paying card bills every month.


text:
<!-- Please describe the PR purpose, with references to the issues -->

## Requirements

* Documentation updates
  - [ ] Reference
  - [ ] Cookbooks
  - [ ] Changelog
* [ ] Unit tests

## Breaking changes

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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
WBA Interim Super Middleweight Champion David O. Morrell Jr. stops Mike Gavronski in 3 Rounds
Fort Lauderdale, FL (December 29, 2020) -WBA Interim Super Middleweight champion David O. Morrell Jr. beat up Mike Gavronski on his way to a 3rd round stoppage in a scheduled 10-round bout at The Shrine Auditorium and Expo Hall in Los Angeles.
The fight was the main event of card that was seen live on FOX.
Morrell is promoted by Warriors Boxing Promotions and Ural Promotions.
At the end of round one, Morrell landed a big combination that was punctuated by a straight left that sent Gavronski down to the canvas. Morrell continued to batter Gavronski with some hard uppercuts and straight lefts. Finally in round three, Morrell landed another blasting left uppercut that forced referee Jack Reiss to stop the bout at 2:45.
Morrell, 170 lbs of Minneapolis, MN is 4-0 with three knockouts. Gavronski, 167.4 lbs of Bellevue, WA is 26-4-1.
"The first time I saw a video of David Morrell fighting, he was 17 years old
and competing against the 2 time gold medal winner De La Cruz. Having worked
with 23 worlds champions including Roberto Duran, I knew David was going to
be a great one. He continues to show why he is already capable of competing
with the very best in the world." Quote from Warriors COO Luis DeCubas, Sr.
Even though the fight took place at 170 lbs., Morrell Jr. will remain the WBA Interim Super Middleweight World champion.
Morrell, who only accepted the fight on December 4th, did not want to pass up an opportunity to headline on a major network. Morell – Gavronski was scheduled as the main event. Morrell and his team had informed event organizers that there was a possibility that the fight would need to take place above the 168-pound limit, as he was not in training camp, and had only three weeks to prepare. A new agreement for an 170-pound bout was consented to by all sides.
Morrell will continue to campaign in the hotly contested super middleweight division, he will look to fight any of the top contenders.
David O. Morrell Jr
Warriors Boxing Promotions


93Queen follows a group of tenacious Hasidic women who are shattering the glass ceiling in their Hasidic Brooklyn neighborhood by creating the first all-female volunteer ambulance corps in NYC.
Presently, the Teaneck International Film Festival draws over 3,000 filmgoers each year. Films and talkbacks illustrate what TIFF is about making untouchable topics part of everyday conversation by addressing racism, oppression, the environment, the LGBTQ community, womens concerns, immigration -- stories of the little guy whose story is not often heard. With the theme, Activism: Making Change, the festival is an excellent starting point for fostering appreciation of differences, understanding all that we share, and encouraging efforts to help make the world a better place.


text:
Burn The Buddha???
Now that one part of the world has calmed down a bit and another part is breathing a sigh of relief, I thought it might be appropriate to say something about the Dhammic response to criticisms or insults to Buddhism or the desecration of objects of special significance to Buddhists. In the Digha Nikaya the Buddha said, 'Should anyone speak disparagingly of me, the Dhamma or the Sangha you should not get angry, resentful or upset because of that. For if you did you would not be able to recognize if what they said was true or not. Therefore, if others speak disparagingly of me the Dhamma or the Sangha you should explain whatever is incorrect saying, "This is not correct", "That is not true", "We do not do this", "That is not our way"'. (D.I,1-3). And the saintly Santideva had this advice on how to respond to even stronger attacks on Buddhism. 'Hatred towards those who speak insulting about or damage sacred images or stupas in inappropriate. The Buddha did not get angry at such things.' And a quick tour through Google Image turns up plenty of thoughtless, insensitive and insulting uses of the Buddha's name and image. Nonetheless, the Buddha's instructions and Santideva's advice still holds good.
Posted by Shravasti Dhammika at 9:14 PM 1 comment:
Yasodhara, The Invisible Woman
Everyone knows the story about Yasodhara, the Buddha's wife - you know, the beautiful young maid, the competition to win her hand, her happy life with Prince Siddhattha, her slumbering with Rahula as her husband left the palace at night and, when the Buddha returned to Kapilavatthu, her telling Rahula to approach the Buddha and ask for his inheritance. What most people don't know that Yasodhara is not mentioned by name anywhere in the Tipitaka and that none of these stories, except the last one, appear there either. And even this last story, 'Rahula's mother' as she is called there, makes only the briefest appearance (Vin.I,82). All the rest comes from the later Buddhist tradition; a bit from the Pali commentaries and much more from other 'Hinayana' literature. And while Yasodhara is literally a non-person in the Pali Tipitaka and little more than that in the commentaries, there are many legends about her, some of them quite interesting, in later Sanskrit literature.
The great Buddhist scholar Andre Bareau has written a most fascinating article on the Yasodhara legends which is now available at http://www.buddha-kyra.com/wife.htm Kyra Pahlen, who translated this article from French did a rather poor job - Kathmandu instead of Kapilavatthu, Mahavasti instead of Mahavastu and even Solomon instead of Suddhodana!!! But don't let these and a few other clangers put you off this most interesting bit of research.
The top picture is a sculptural representation of the Kapilavastu incident from Amaravati (4th cent.). The Buddha is represented as an empty throne. The next picture is of a painting of the same story from Ajanta (7th cent.) while the last one is a 19th century Thai painting.
Posted by Shravasti Dhammika at 8:30 PM 9 comments:
A Few More Books
On Sunday the 5th of September our group, the Buddha Dhamma Mandala Society, held a book launching ceremony for my new publication To Eat or Not to Eat Meat. In it I argue that while the Buddha did not advocate vegetarianism, avoiding eating meat is more in harmony with the Buddha's teachings of care and compassion for others. A large crowd turned up and after my usual Sunday morning sermon I spent time signing copies of the book for people. Already someone has offered to reprint 2000 of the book.
Then on the afternoon of the next Sunday (i.e. the 12th) some friends and students accompanied me down to Peninsular Plaza to distribute 100 copies of the Burmese translation of my book Good Question Good Answer. Peninsular Plaza is the main meeting place for Burmese working and studying in Singapore and large crowds gather there on weekends. Several shops in the Plaza have small lending libraries and one Buddhist group has a small drop-in centre with a lending library. It also distributes books for free and occasionally organizes weekend talks. This is the third time we have distributed the Burmese Good Question Good Answer amongst Burmese expatriates and apparently it is proving to be very popular.
Posted by Shravasti Dhammika at 1:21 AM 9 comments:
India!
India! Accommodating, nourishing, welcoming, confusing, spiritual India.
A road sign in Himachal Pradesh.
Posted by Shravasti Dhammika at 5:04 AM 1 comment:
Panikkar Passes
On the 26th of last month Raimon Panikkar passed away at the ripe old age of 92. Panikkar was probably Catholicism's most well-known, most learned and most articulate proponent of 'dialogue between men of living faiths'. Over the decades he wrote dozens of books and countless articles urging Catholics to dialogue with and learns from Eastern religions, mainly Hinduism and Buddhism. In some ways he was uniquely placed for this endeavor having had a Hindu father and a Catholic mother and being educated at Benares Hindu University. Some of his more notable works are The Silence of God: The Answer of the Buddha (1989), The Unknown Christ Of Hinduism: Towards An Ecumenical Christophany (1981) and Espiritualidad Hindu: Sanatana Dharma (2006). One of his oft quoted sayings is, 'I left Europe (for India) as a Christian, I discovered I was a Hindu and returned as a Buddhist, without ever having ceased to be a Christian'. I can't say I ever read anything by him that suggested that he was a Buddhist, although many of his ideas did sound like Christian (or perhaps better 'theistic') concepts wrapped up in Buddhist terminology. Inter-religious dialogue is a good thing if it takes place in an atmosphere of mutual respect and if the benefits are shared by all parties. But myself, I sometimes have trouble shaking off the impression that another strategy lies behind dialogue, at least for some people. In her obituary of Raimon Panikkar published in Time (20,9,2010) Amy Sullivan writes, 'Some Catholics saw (Panikkar's) work as dangerously radical. But to his students and many admirers, Panikkar was a prophet whose teachings helped Christianity spread like wildfire throughout the non-Western world'. Now I'm not sure I would agree that Christianity is growing that fast, but it certainly is in the ascendant in Asia, including in traditional Buddhist countries. Could this be the unspoken rationale behind some dialogue?
Whatever the case, Panikkar was a deeply spiritual man and a very warm, open one as well. And he could be most interesting to listen to. Here is parts of a dialogue he engaged in on the subject of love.
http://www.fetzer.org/resources/resource-detail/?resource_id=300
'Animal Release'
'Animal release' (fang sheng) is a term used by Chinese Buddhists to refer to the practice of purchasing animals that are due to be slaughtered and letting them go. While the rationale for this practice is the Buddha's teaching of kindness and compassion to all creatures, even the most humble, the earliest evidence of the practice actually comes from the Pali Tipitaka. According to the Vinaya, a monk once came across a pig caught in a hunter's trap and feeling compassion for its plight he released it. By the convention of the time he was guilty of theft. When the matter was brought to the Buddha's intention he said that from the perspective of the Dhamma the monk had committed no offence because he had acted 'out of compassion' (karunnena, Vin.III,62).
The Chinese Buddhist tradition of animal release has its origins in the Suvarnabhasottama Sutra (Chinese Jin guang ming), composed in the early centuries of the Common Era. According to this work, a merchant's son named Jalavahana, while traveling through a forest wilderness during summer, came across a pond in which the fish were struggling to survive in the rapidly evaporating water. All around the pond crows, cranes and jackals had gathered waiting to snap up the unfortunate fish. Moved by compassion and determined to save the fish Jalavahana cut some foliage and placed it in the pool hoping to shield the water from the sun and prevent its evaporation. When this proved ineffective, he traced the empty stream bed that had provided water to the pool and found that the water had been diverted from it by a great hole that appeared in the bed of the stream. Unable to block this hole himself he approached the king, told him of the situation and asked for some elephants, which the king gave him. Jalavhana's ingenuity and efforts eventually paid off and he was able to fill the pond with water and save the fish.
When the Suvarnabhasottama Sutra was translated into Chinese the story of Jalavahana in particular had a powerful influence on people's attitude towards animals. Soon, rather than releasing animals on an individual basis the custom developed of releasing large numbers animals in elaborate public ceremonies. The first person to organize such events was the monk Chih-I (538-97). In time, many temples came to provided ponds where people could release fish and tortoises, lofts for pigeons and pastures for goats, cows and horses.
Sadly, today 'animal release' practice frequently takes the form of a mere ritual more destructive to life than life-saving. In countries with significant Chinese communities a whole industry of capturing wild birds simply so they can be released has developed. The birds are taken from their natural environment, shipped to the cities and set free in the 'concrete jungle' where they often soon die. Temple ponds are commonly so crowded that the fish and tortoises lead diseased and miserable lives. According to environmentalists the two leading threats to the Asian Temple Turtle (Heosemys annandalii, so-called because it is favored by Chinese Buddhists for 'release') are the restaurant market and the temple trade. Several of the more progressive temples here in Singapore now try to educate the Buddhist public about the proper way to practice animal release or even prohibit the practice within their premises.
A Hole In The Heart
Please read this and see what you do think you can do to help.
http://records.photodharma.net/?p=1448
Guess Who's Meditating?
The following is part of the transcript of the interview Seth Mydans had with the former long-time prime minister of Singapore Lee Kuan Yew, for the New York Times and the International Herald Tribune on 1 September 2010.
Mr Lee: "Thank you. When you are coming to 87, you are not very happy.."
Q: "Not. Well you should be glad that you've gotten way past where most of us will get."
Mr Lee: "That is my trouble. So, when is the last leaf falling?"
Q: "Do you feel like that, do you feel like the leaves are coming off?"
Mr Lee: "Well, yes. I mean I can feel the gradual decline of energy and vitality and I mean generally every year when you know you are not on the same level as last year. But that is life."
Q: "My mother used to say never get old."
Mr Lee: "Well, there you will try never to think yourself old. I mean I keep fit, I swim, I cycle."
Q: "And yoga, is that right? Meditation?"
Mr Lee: "Yes."
Q: "Tell me about meditation?"
Mr Lee: "Well, I started it about two, three years ago when Ng Kok Song, the Chief Investment Officer of the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation, I knew he was doing meditation. His wife had died but he was completely serene. So, I said, how do you achieve this? He said I meditate everyday and so did my wife and when she was dying of cancer, she was totally serene because she meditated everyday and he gave me a vi deo of her in her last few weeks completely composed completely relaxed and she and him had been meditating for years. Well, I said to him, you teach me. He is a devout Christian. He was taught by a man called Laurence Freeman, a Catholic. His guru was John Main, a devout Catholic. When I was in London, Ng Kok Song introduced me to Laurence Freeman. In fact, he is coming on Saturday to visit Singapore, and we will do a meditation session. The problem is to keep the monkey mind from running off into all kinds of thoughts. It is most difficult to stay focused on the mantra. The discipline is to have a mantra which you keep repeating in your innermost heart, no need to voice it over and over again throughout the whole period of meditation. The mantra they recommended was a religious one. Ma Ra Na Ta, four syllables. Come To Me Oh Lord Jesus. So I said Okay, I am not a Catholic but I will try. He said you can take any other mantra, Buddhist Om Mi Tuo Fo, and keep repeating it. To me Ma Ran Na Ta is more soothing. So I used Ma Ra Na Ta. You must be disciplined. I find it helps me go to sleep after that. A certain tranquility settles over you. The day's pressures and worries are pushed out. Then there's less problem sleeping. I miss it sometimes when I am tired, or have gone out to a dinner and had wine. Then I cannot concentrate. Otherwise I stick to it."
Q: "So…"
Mr Lee: ".. for a good meditator will do it for half-an-hour. I do it for 20 minutes."
Q: "So, would you say like your friend who taught you, would you say you are serene?"
Mr Lee: "Well, not as serene as he is. He has done it for many years and he is a devout Catholic. That makes a difference. He believes in Jesus. He believes in the teachings of the Bible. He has lost his wife, a great calamity. But the wife was serene. He gave me this video to show how meditation helped her in her last few months. I do not think I can achieve his level of serenity. But I do achieve some composure."
Q: "And do you find that at this time in your life you do find yourself getting closer to religion of one sort or another?"
Mr Lee: "I am an agnostic. I was brought up in a traditional Chinese family with ancestor worship. I would go to my grandfather's grave on All Soul's Day which is called "Qingming". My father would bring me along, lay out food and candles and burn some paper money and kowtow three times over his tombstone. At home on specific days outside the kitchen he would put up two candles with my grandfather's picture. But as I grew up, I questioned this because I think this is superstition. You are gone, you burn paper money, how can he collect the paper money where he is? After my father died, I dropped the practice. My youngest brother baptised my father as a Christian. He did not have the right to. He was a doctor and for the last weeks before my father's life, he took my father to his house because he was a doctor and was able to keep my father comforted. I do not know if my father was fully aware when he was converted into Christianity."
Q: "Converted your father?"
Q: "Well this happens when you get close to the end."
Mr Lee: "Well, but I do not know whether my father agreed. At that time he may have been beyond making a rational decision. My brother assumed that he agreed and converted him."
Q: "But…"
Mr Lee: "I am not converted."
Q: "But when you reach that stage, you may wonder more than ever what is next?"
Mr Lee: "Well, what is next, I do not know. Nobody has ever come back. The Muslims say that there are seventy houris, beautiful women up there. But nobody has come back to confirm this."
Q: "And you haven't converted to Islam, knowing that?"
Mr Lee: "Most unlikely. The Buddhist believes in transmigration of the soul. If you live a good life, the reward is in your next migration, you will be a good being, not an ugly animal. It is a comforting thought, but my wife and I do not believe in it. She has been for two years bed-ridden, unable to speak after a series of strokes. I am not going to convert her. I am not going to allow anybody to convert her because I know it will be against what she believed in all her life. How do I comfort myself? Well, I say life is just like that. You can't choose how you go unless you are going to take an overdose of sleeping pills, like sodium amytal. For just over two years, she has been inert in bed, but still cognitive. She understands when I talk to her, which I do every night. She keeps awake for me; I tell her about my day's work, read her favourite poems."
For those who may not know, Father Laurence Freeman is head of The World Community for Christian Meditation, which teaches a meditation adapted from Hindu and Buddhist techniques and the teachings of the Desert Fathers.
A Visit To Vikramasila
From about the 8th or 9th centuries onwards a new type of Buddhism began to develop which later became known as the Tantrayana, the last of the three great 'vehicles' of Indian Buddhism. In the beginning this new interpretation met with disapproval amongst the more traditional monks and nuns, so King Dharmapala (775-812) founded a monastery named Vikramasila especially for its study. One Tibetan source gives us this description of the monastery. 'Sri Vikramasila was built on the bank of the Ganges in the north of Magadha on the top of a hill. At its centre was built a temple housing a life-size copy of the Mahabodhi image. Around this were fifty three small temples for the study of the Guhyasamaja Tantra and another fifty four ordinary ones, all being surrounded by a wall. Thus the number of temples was one hundred and eight. He (Dharmapala) also provided requisites for one hundred and eight pundits.' From other sources we also know that there was a huge courtyard big enough to hold 8,000 monks, that at the entrance to the main temple were two statues, one of Najarjuna and another of Atisa, and that the monastery's perimeter wall had six gates. At the main entrance there was a dharmasala to accommodate those who arrived after the gates had been locked at night. What the monastic universities at Valabhi and Bodh Gaya were to early Buddhism and Nalanda was to Mahayana, Vikramasila was to Tantra. Some of the monasteries 'gate keeper scholars' were amongst the greatest names of this twilight period of Indian Buddhism. They included Santipa, Jetari, Ratnavajira, Jnanasrimitra and the great Naropa. Vikramasila's first abbot, Buddhajnanapada, was the author of some 14 works and was described as 'a great pundit learned in many fields of knowledge.' The monastery's greatest son however was the Bengali monk Atisa (982-1054). Apart from being a brilliant scholar and prolific writer, he also developed a new curriculum for the university, built more rooms for its monks and invited some of the best pundits of the time to come and teach there. The colophons on several of Atisa's works state that he wrote then 'while residing at Sri Vikramasila Mahavihara.' At its height during the reign of King Ramapala at the beginning of the 11th century there were 160 teachers and 1,000 students. They are known to have come from all over north India as well as from Kashmir, Java, Nepal and Tibet. Vikramasila's connection with Tibet is of course well known, its connection with Sri Lanka less so. However, Tantra flourished in Sri Lanka for about 300 years and teachers from Vikramasila were sometimes invited to the island. The Caturasitisiddhapravritti says that Santipa, one of the greatest of the legendary 84 siddhas and a teacher at Vikramasila, visited Sri Lanka at the invitation of the country's king and stayed for three years. Nor was the movement one way, Lankajayabadhra, famous for his expositions of the Guhayasamaja Tantra was one of the great Sri Lankan Tantric scholars who taught at the monastery. Some Tantric practitioners had a bad reputation for unconventional behaviour, but such things were not tolerated at Vikramasila. It is recorded that a monk named Maitrigupta was expelled for bringing wine into the monastery. As was the custom, he was ejected over the wall rather than being allowed to leave through the main gate.
At the beginning of the 13th century Vikramasila met the same fate as all Buddhist centres in India. One Tibetan source says that the monk Prajnarakshita prayed to a Tantric deity and the Muslim soldiers who were about to attack Vikramasila were scattered by a great rain storm. The reality was rather different. As the invading armies pushed further east, the king hastily fortified several of the larger monasteries including Vikramasila and stationed soldiers in them. But it did no good. In about 1206 Vikramasila was sacked, its inmates were killed or driven away and its foundation stone was tossed into the Ganges.
Towards the end of the 19th century European and Indian scholars began speculating about where Vikramasila might be. Silao, just south of Nalanda, Sultanganj near Bhagalpur and Hisla south of Patna were all suggested as possibilities. In 1901 Nundalal Dey suggested that it might be at Patharaghat where there were several huge mounds and fragments of Buddhist statuary near a hill overlooking the Ganges. One ancient Tibetan source says that the monastery was situated 'where the holy river flows northward' and indeed the Ganges does turn north at Patharaghat. Although Dey's suggestion is now widely accepted as correct, excavations at Patharaghat have so far failed to find a single inscription or seal actually mentioning the name Vikramasila.
Today Patharaghat is one of the most interesting Buddhist sites in north India and yet at the same time one of the least known and least visited. At first it seems to be somewhat out of the ancient heartland of Buddhism but in actual fact this is not so. Nearby is Champanagar, the Campa of old, visited by the Buddha and the scene of several of his discourses. Abhayadatta, who wrote the biographies of the 84 siddhas was a native of Campa and so were several of his subjects. To the west is Munger, a town that is believed to derive its name from Moggallana, one of the Buddha's two chief disciples. The Chinese pilgrim Huien Tsiang spent a year in this town studying with Tathagatagupta and Kshantisimha. At Sultanganj there are the ruins of another huge Buddhist monastery. A magnificent bronze Buddha statue recovered from these ruins is now one of the great treasures of the Birmingham Museum. The fact that a few local village temples have ancient Buddhist statues in them now serving as Hindu gods, also attests to the fact that Buddhism once flourished in this region. But that was long ago. Today Bhagalpur district where Patharagahat is situated is perhaps the most poverty stricken and lawless areas in India.
Getting to Vikramasila promised to be a long and grueling trip but our visits to Don, Hajipur and Kesariya had all been tiring but also worthwhile so we decided to go nonetheless. We hired a four wheel drive in Bodh Gaya and set off. After hours bumping over dusty pot-holed roads we got to the Ganges and began to follow it towards the east. We arrived in Bhagalpur around sunset, booked into the town's only hotel, a truly seedy and rundown establishment, and fell into bed exhausted after the long drive. The next morning when I went into the bathroom to wash I found that a rat had eaten half my soap. Leaving Bhagalpur early we arrived at Patharaghat in about two hours. Patharaghat itself is a hill with its rocky north side washed by the Ganges and its top offering a commanding view over the river. The first thing we noticed were a series of caverns dug out of the side of a rocky water-filled depression. Local lore says that these mysterious cavern were the result of mining in ancient times but their real origin and purpose are unknown. At the foot of the nearby banyan tree is a beautiful statue of the Mahayana bodhisattva Tara, some votive stupas and other pieces of sculpture. The Tara is now being worshipped by locals as a Hindu goddess. A little further on along on the side of the hill is the Bodhesvaranath Temple. Just inside the main gate are a collection of ancient statues of the Buddha, Tara, Avalokitesvara and other bodhisattvas. The first shrine has another statue of Tara at its entrance. Right next to this is a cave with two chambers cut out of the side of the hill and outside the temple's back gate is a similar one. About a hundred yards beyond the temple is yet another cave, large, finely cut and with a paneled ceiling. Another Hindu temple is situated right besides the water and all the rocks nearby have ancient carvings on them. Patharaghat is a very picturesque place and the many caves and Buddhist statues in the area suggested that it used to be a popular meditation retreat with monks and siddhas from Vikramasila. I once read an old text mentioning that Naropa used to stay in a cave near Vikramasila and it made me wonder if one of the caves we had seen might have been sanctified by his presence. The Chinese pilgrim Hiuen Tsiang came to Patharaghai in the 7th century and wrote of it. 'By cutting the rock, houses have been made; by leading the streams through each there is a continuous stream of water. There are wonderful trees and flowering woods; the largest rocks and dangerous precipices are the resort of men of wisdom and virtue. Those who go there to see the place are reluctant to return.' Nor has the place lost its appeal. We met half a dozen wandering swamis staying in the temple and under the banyan tree.
After seeing everything we took the road about 3 kilometers south-east to the ruins now identified as Vikramasila. A broad processional path leads up to the monastery's main entrance. The remains of the huge stone pillars that once supported the roof of the gatehouse can be seen on the left and right. One of these pillars is nearly 4 feet square. Passing through the gate we entered a vast quadrangle surrounded by monks cells. The thickness of the walls suggest that there may have been in two or even three tiers of these cells. According to the archaeological report, up to 6 inches of ash was discovered in some of these cells, proof of the monastery's fiery end. In the middle of the quadrangle is the immense main temple, built on a cross plan, rising in three terraces and with shrine on each of the four sides. Circumambulating the temple we noticed numerous terracotta figures decorating the sides of the terraces but most were now badly weather worn. When Dey came here he found Buddhist sculptures scattered all over the place. In the home of an Englishman living nearby he saw '...some votive stupas, a big statue of Avalokitesvara, a large seated figures of Buddha... and some broken statues. These statues were exquisitely sculptured.' He was also told that some years before his visit another Englishman digging in the ruins had found 'a beautiful lotus made of silver, containing eight petals, which could be opened and closed by means of a spring.'
I didn't see a single piece of sculpture so I asked the watcher who was hovering around hoping to get some baksheesh. 'Are there any statues?' 'Yes', he said. 'In the museum.' 'Museum!' I exclaimed with excitement. 'You mean there is a museum here?' He nodded his head and we followed him through a grove of mango trees to a rundown building, its rusty iron door firmly fastened with a huge padlock. My face fell. I already knew the answer to my question but I asked him anyway, 'Do you have the key?' 'Oh no', he said cheerfully, 'That's kept in Patna.' I gave him his baksheesh and we walked back to examine the other ruins scattered around the main complex, most of them still unexcavated.
The archaeological report on Vikramasila makes it clear that the ruins are very large but even this did not prepare me for the sheer massiveness of the main temple and its cloisters. In its heyday it must have been the most magnificent Buddhist monastery in all India. In one ancient account of Vikramasila it says that as a delegation from Tibet approached the great monastery they were 'greatly thrilled to have the first distant glimpse of its golden spire shining in the sun.' The golden spire is long gone but anyone interested in the later history of Indian Buddhism will still find Vikramasila a fascinating place to visit.
I wrote this article in 2000 and it was published in Sri Lanka's Daily News 17th, 10, 2001. Later, a slightly different version of the same article was published on Mandala, the magazine of the FPMT, http://www.mandalamagazine.org/archives/mandala-issues-for-2001/december/vikramashila-ancient-seat-of-tantric-buddhism/ Of late the AIS has gone a bit of gardening around Vickramasila and tidied it up a bit. To see some views of what it looks like today go to
http://www.bhpromo.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=75&Itemid=80
A 911 Contemplation
You might like to have a look at this contemplation on the victims of the attack of New York's Twin Towers on this, its 9th anniversary.
http://records.photodharma.net/video/metta-for-the-victims-of-9-11
Posted by Shravasti Dhammika at 12:50 AM 4 comments:
Hillel And Buddhism
I first became acquainted with Rabbi Hillel through the writings of Walter Kaufmann and took a shine to him straight away. In the years since then I have occasionally 'bumped into him' again and just recently found this article about him at Dhammawiki and thought I'd share it with you.
Rabbi Hillel (1st century BCE) was a famous Jewish religious leader, one of the most important figures in Jewish history. He is associated with the development of the Mishnah and the Talmud. Renowned within Judaism as a sage and scholar, he was the founder of the House of Hillel school for Tannaim (Sages of the Mishnah) and the founder of a dynasty of Sages who stood at the head of the Jews living in the land of Israel until roughly the fifth century of the Common Era. Like the Buddha and Greek philosophers, Hillel taught the Golden Rule well before the time of Jesus. When asked to recite the Torah while standing on one foot, Hillel stood on one foot and said, "That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the whole Torah; the rest is commentary; go and learn." He is also known as the author of two popular sayings: "If I am not for myself, who will be for me? And when I am for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?" Although not a Buddhist, Hillel had teachings (such as the above) and a calm demeanor that was very Dhamma-like. The exhortation to love peace emanated from Hillel's most characteristic traits - from that meekness and mildness which had become proverbial, as is seen from the saying: "Let a man be always humble and patient like Hillel, and not passionate like Shammai" (Shab. 31a; Ab.R.N.xv). Hille's gentleness and patience are illustrated in an anecdote which relates how two men made a wager on the question whether Hillel could be made angry. Though they questioned him and made insulting allusions to his Babylonian origin, they were unsuccessful in their attempt. Hillel often debated with Shammai and on several issues, Hillel demonstrated a more open and compassionate mind: Admission to Torah study. The House of Shammai believed only worthy students should be admitted to study Torah. The House Hillel believed that Torah may be taught to anyone, in the expectation that they will repent and become worthy. Hillel wanted Judaism to be open to converts and Shammai wanted the faith open only to those born into the ethnicity and religion. Judaism tended to be more accepting of Shammai on this issue. In general, the House of Shammai's positions were stricter than those of the House of Hillel. On the few occasions when the opposite was true, the House of Hillel would sometimes later recant their position; similarly, though there are no records of the House of Shammai as a whole changing its stance, a few individuals from it are recorded as deserting a small number of the more stringent opinions of their school, in favour of the viewpoint of the House of Hillel. http://www.dhammawiki.com/
Homage To Kwan-yin
This exceptionally fine essay was written by Francis Story and published in a Buddhist magazine here in Singapore years ago. I reproduce parts of it here hoping that it moves you as much as it does me.
IT is said that when Avalokitesvara who is supremely compassionate, wanted to reveal the divine nature of mercy to mankind he took birth as a woman. So it comes about that in Chinese are we have one of the most beautiful concepts of art East or West, the figure of Kwan-yin
Even those who do not know her, the gracious figure of Kwan-yin, in painting, sculpture, metal work or delicate porcelain, conveys something of the spiritual meaning that like an aura of infinite love surrounds her name. It is present in every flowing line of the robe that clothes her, in the graceful shape of her hands, the serene yet tender expression of the oval face, even in the slender, naked feet, one of which rests on the open lotus that is her throne. The whole figure is serene and full of repose, yet at the same time instinct with life, and a soft light seems to spread all about it, as though the rays of compassion are kindled within, to suffuse the world of living beings.
Generations of artists have found inspiration for their noblest work in the figure of Kwan-yin; generations of craftsmen have expended their patient skill on the loving creation of her form; and for centuries men and women have turned to her image as the embodiment of their longing for a better, purer life. Lovely and gracious as her figure is, there is nothing in it of sensuality; it seems to be pure spirit, radiant with an ethereal beauty, its form and substance a transmutation into something finer than the gross materials on earth.
She, who is mercy incarnate, shed no tears. Her compassion is not that of an emotion or a passing mood; it has its being in the profound stillness of the heart, where dwells knowledge and understanding. The tranquil face of Kwan-yin reflects the nature of infinite peace, of she who has no desire but to remove the distress of others must herself be undistracted. She lives in the world, suffers with the world, but does not depart from the eternal Void.
Yet there is something awe-inspiring in the thought of a compassion that is completely undiscriminating, a compassion that looks upon all alike – the judge and the criminal, the executioner and the executed, the torturer and the man undergoing torture – and sees them all in a clear and equal light as victims of a self-created situation. Can that godlike dispassion in compassion be likened in any way to the pity that we know, the human pity mixed with hatred of the cause of the suffering? Or is it that we, who have never looked upon injustice without anger, have never known what true compassion is?
Ah, All-merciful One, teach us the love that does not hate! Teach us the pity that does not destroy! Teach us the wisdom that does not scorn! And if man, infatuated by the Ten Thousand Things, cannot learn, let us look upon your image and know that there is hope for the world.