How about this for a lede.
http://t.co/WvDvR9uyLm via @chubailiang pic.twitter.com/NTwCJ5IRry
— Peter Thal Larsen (@peter_tl) March 12, 2015
Oddly enough, political cults are not necessarily well equipped to understand how religion works. From the NYTimes article:
… Tensions over what will happen when the 14th Dalai Lama, who is 79, dies, and particularly over who decides who will succeed him as the most prominent leader in Tibetan Buddhism, have ignited at the annual gathering of China’s legislators in Beijing.
Officials have amplified their argument that the Communist government is the proper guardian of the Dalai Lama’s succession through an intricate process of reincarnation that has involved lamas, or senior monks, visiting a sacred lake and divining dreams.
Party functionaries were incensed by the exiled Dalai Lama’s recent speculation that he might end his spiritual lineage and not reincarnate. That would confound the Chinese government’s plans to engineer a succession that would produce a putative 15th Dalai Lama who accepts China’s presence and policies in Tibet. Their anger welled up on Wednesday, as it had a day earlier…
Party leaders would prefer to insert themselves surreptitiously into a succession process that carries the full weight of Tibetan tradition than to install a new Dalai Lama by fiat, which would almost certainly undermine the new religious leader’s credibility inside Tibet.
So if the incumbent Dalai Lama, who remains revered in Tibet more than half a century after he fled into exile in 1959, uses his clout to nullify the historic selection process, China faces the prospect of continuing discontent there after his death. It would in essence be a last act of defiance by the Dalai Lama…
And that, American evangelicals, is why it’s best for both religion and politics when the two systems are kept separated!
***********
Apart from ruing the general ineducability of the human animal, what’s on the agenda for the evening?
raven
When I saw him at Emory he said “I feel as if I am preaching to the choir”! Of course a pizza place on Peachtree had “Hello Dali” on their kiosk.
Renie
Wow, hardly post and here I am at the beginning. Has there been a thread already on HBO’s The Jinx? I’m really enjoying it and can’t wait for the finale. Robert Durst is such a strange guy. Anyone else watching.
Major Major Major Major
Just catching up on my Pratchett backlog…
Karen in GA
My living room, hallways and entry are finally painted. Unfortunately, the new paint in those areas is making the old paint in the kitchen and dining room look particularly dingy, so I’ve got the contractors coming back on Saturday to do the kitchen and dining room.
Next up: flooring.
I want this over with.
raven
@Karen in GA: Our street and sewer work is done and we start out addition in mid-April, two years after we broke ground!
Linda Featheringill
Tibetan Buddhism has been around a loooooong time and the present government of China is a mere newcomer.
I don’t know: Can Tibetan Buddhism continue to thrive without a sitting lama?
schrodinger's cat
MSM Punditubbies have a new target in their cross hairs, higher education.
ETA: Bonus kitteh!
yodecat
@Karen in GA: One of the most horrid first world problems is living in a place that’s being re-modeled. Even worse is living where you’re the one doing the re-modeling. I spent thirty years of my life doing just that. Good thing I was young and strong! And a good wife didn’t hurt; I don’t think that I’d have finished without her.
jw
Mike in NC
@Renie: New shows we like:
The Jinx
Battle Creek
Black-ish
Last Man On Earth
Man Seeking Woman
American Crime
New shows we hated:
Backstrom
The Slap
yodecat
@Linda Featheringill: I’m sure that Tibetan Buddhism would survive. Those monks would hie their asses out and find another Dali Lama.
The current Dali would only frustrate the Chinese government. Also too I think that Buddhism of any flavor is younger than Chinese culture.
Violet
Re-post from end of previous thread:
There was discussion of Howard Dean and the 50 State Strategy earlier today. Found this interesting:
Also interesting:
Would love to see Rahm lose.
Tommy
@Linda Featheringill: That is a good question. I think yes. I am not remotely a religious person. Atheist. But if asked to pick a religion I’d be a Buddhist. They seem or have most of what I think in my head going on.
raven
@yodecat: 15 years ago we bought this old house and we did the bulk of the renovation ourselves. I’m 65 now and we have a contractor that is going to put on a master suite addition plus.
raven
@Tommy: Good idea since it’s not really a religion.
TaMara (BHF)
I’m just gonna drop this here. I love this guy.
Most photogenic cat ever?
raven
@TaMara (BHF): Buddy of mine in high school owned Morris.
Tommy
@raven: My father is a little older than you. He comes over and helps me build stuff. I don’t often tell him I love him. All the hardwood floors in my house. All he title on another. He did it. If that isn’t love I don’t know what the word means.
raven
@Tommy: Did he use a drum sander? I’ve done all of ours with one, it’s a bitch but they look good.
jomike
Hands are wringing in the Dreher household in the wake of poor Rod’s discovery that h̶o̶m̶o̶p̶h̶o̶b̶e̶s social conservatives are no longer driving the GOP bus:
raven
A Canadian woman died after a grey whale crashed into the tourist boat she was on off Mexico’s Pacific coast.
The woman had been snorkelling off the north-western resort of Cabo San Lucas.
The exact circumstances of the incident are unclear. Firefighters say the whale jumped up and landed on the boat, throwing the victim into the water.
Corner Stone
@Tommy:
I just can’t fucking even anymore.
gogol's wife
@schrodinger’s cat:
These people make me sick. If they dismantle the research university, where do they think the genius teachers of the online courses are going to come from?
VidaLoca
Um … wut?
It seems to me that Tibetan Buddhism as a spiritual project is completely tied up with Tibetan Buddhism as an anti-imperialist and anti-colonialist project. One feeds into the other. I may be misunderstanding your point but you seem to be saying that it would be better for the Buddhist tradition if it were purely apolitical, if it gave up on being a resistance movement. To me, that seems like a terrible idea — if the Tibetan people’s resistance is nourished by their faith, why would you think it better for the faith or the people to take that away?
Villago Delenda Est
They are frankly too fucking stupid to get this.
Give the lions something to chew on.
Mary G
@raven: Congratulations! You’ve had a long, long haul there.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
OT – anybody like raven or Karen have any ideas for Nala, from the early morning thread?
@raven: Happy very very belated groundbreaking follow up.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@VidaLoca:
I’m pretty sure she’s saying the opposite, namely that politicians shouldn’t be making religious decisions, like China trying to appoint the next Dalai Lama themselves.
aimai
@Linda Featheringill: He’s just kidding. He can decide to reincarnate in the US, or Great Britain, or France. A very famous one told his followers that is what he would do one lifetime ago.
Villago Delenda Est
@jomike: ZOMG, people are allowed to think for themselves! We (meaning Dreher and the rest of the broomstick up the ass crowd) can’t tolerate THAT. It’s not enough that they can believe whatever the fuck it is that they want to believe without the state intervening in that…they want to use the state to impose then enforce their fucked up belief system on everyone.
Hal
Finally read the letter the 47 idiots, I mean Senators, sent to Iran. Definitely not what I was expecting.
http://kateoplis.tumblr.com/post/113384530864/i-should-bring-one-important-point-to-the
raven
@Mary G: Yea, the sewer project was really interesting to watch and the guys were great. We know the contractor and many of his crew so, hopefully, it will go as smoothly as possible. They had said April 1 but, when I contacted him, he said he was a couple of weeks behind. It’s also a bit of a concern that our contractor is building his own house right now as well. It’s a tiny little thing so we hope it won’t interfere much.
Baud
It’s almost like the Republican hunt for the next reincarnation of Reagan.
Chris
@jomike:
Reading this kind of stuff seriously sends my schadenfreude into overdrive.
raven
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): No, I saw it but we’ve got our hands full in Athens. This effort just got underway.
Donate to the Athenspets Medical Fund via Paypal (link below), check or money order:
The Athenspets Medical Fund is the only source of money for veterinary treatment and disease testing for sick and injured dogs and cats at the Athens Animal Control shelter. We pay for such things as vet exams, xrays, antibiotics, antiseptics and surgeries. If an especially expensive operation or treatment is required we issue a special donation appeal on our homepage and on Facebook. Treating the dogs and cats not only relieves their suffering, but greatly increases their chances of adoption or rescue.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@raven: I’ll ask again, does your bride rent you out for household projects?
ETA: Thanks for the great link for critter medical funding.
SiubhanDuinne
Just got back from the hospital (to be with my cousin — I’m fine) and in the car on the way home heard the first 20 minutes of Rachel on the MSNBC audio feed. She was saying that not only were those two senior Secret Service agents driving drunk onto the White House grounds (we discussed at some length last night on one of the threads) but (1) there was an active possible bomb investigation going on at the time, and the agents drove through the tape around the package and almost over the package itself; and (2) officers on site wanted to breathalyze the two SS agents, but the supervisor said, Naah, let ’em go on home or words to that effect.
Assuming this is at all true — WHAT THE EVERLOVING BLUE-EYED FUCK????
Baud
Congrats, Raven.
raven
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): Ha, she wishes we didn’t have someone in our rental so she could send me over there!
Mary G
@raven: I know a couple of contractor’s wives who say their home projects come last – first is the paying clients, second, good surf, and so on.
Cervantes
@VidaLoca:
How about Tibetan Buddhism as a historically violent and feudalistic project built on the bent-over backs of serfs?
(Just asking.)
Mike E
@raven: My niece totally gutted her dad’s house which I helped him rehab back when she was 3 years old, stripped it down to the studs and replaced just about everything except the living room oak floor and the main stairs up to the 2nd floor… that drum sander is the bomb! After 25 years, all that floor needed was a fresh coat of polyurethane.
Apart from the original 140 year old joists, that oak floor might outlast the rest of the house.
raven
@Mary G: Yea, these folks are not your run of the mill contractors. He was a pretty successful potter and she’s quite a chef. They have college age twins and a couple of years ago they turned off their power for a month to see what it was like! They had this big, wonderful house but the twins were gone and someone offered them a bunch of dough so they sold it and planned the feng sui thing (or something). He always has multiple projects and they obviously know how long we’ve waited so I guess we’ll continue to think the best of everyone involved. When we saw the reality of the $300k sewer project as it unfolded we realized how lucky we are.
PIGL
Re: Succession to the priestly kingdom.
Commsymp though I may be, I think the Central Committee of the CPC should stay out of this. I can’t see any pressing need to stick a hoof into this affair, nor how it could go well for them were they to do so.
I would suggest those who are too-much fans of the Priest King to take a look at a map of Tibet, and maybe google earth it in some detail, then look at those palaces and lamaseries, and ask themselves, how did that economic base produces and maintain such splendour? and what kind of feudal society it must have been.
Chris
@Baud:
The funny thing about that hunt is their imagining that Reagan would have any special magic solution to their current problems. Between demographic changes and the economic disaster of the Great Recession, a Ronald Reagan candidate in 2008 would’ve gone down in flames just like John McCain, and they’d now be excoriating him as a liberal RINO who lost because he couldn’t inspire the base. Nor would Reagan have governed any differently from W. Bush in the first place – they were both the same kind of lazy distracted space cadets who left most of the actual governing to their cabinets.
raven
@Mike E: We went with oil instead of poly but besides that it is really nice. We do have a couple of rooms that are still paint so we’ll see what happens with them.
raven
@PIGL: Or watch Lost Horizon.
Gex
@Chris: Also the guy isn’t keeping up with the party. Sure they are signing on to marriage. But that’s because there are 60 laws going through state legislatures that are designed to nullify marriage equality or otherwise deny gays rights at the hands of anyone willing to say “I’m agin it!!!”
60. Which makes me think some states are trying to get extra credit from God.
chopper
@Corner Stone:
can’t even what, friend?
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Corner Stone: I hear ya.
Baud
@Chris: Reagan was a man for his time, and that time was a long time ago.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Baud: Oh yeah? I”ll bet you $10,000 Romneybucks Reagan wins every graveyard in Macomb County Michigan in 2016.
Chris
@Gex:
Apparently the state level bigotry is too subtle.
@Baud:
Aye, that be true.
JPL
@Baud: He forever changed the tax code though and that’s the gift that keeps on giving .
Gin & Tonic
@Corner Stone: Just go with the flow, dude.
kindness
Just imagine if Christians thought Jesus would continue to reincarnate. Not to say there haven’t been wars fought over religion but if Jesus said he was reincarnating there would (and always would) be huge wars of succession.
Gin & Tonic
@raven: Had the dining room redone by a pro last fall, and he swears by what he said was a water-based varnish. Didn’t smell at all, and it looks great. The advantage for him is he can get two coats down in one day.
SiubhanDuinne
@efgoldman:
I love some of the excuses they’re coming up with for having signed the letter. “It seemed fine to me.” “I sign lots of letters.” “It was snowing that day and we all really wanted to get out of town.”
Somehow, “it was snowing” seems like a kind of Megan McArdle-ish excuse.
Mike E
@raven: Carpentry tech has come up leaps and bounds in the last decade or so…as has the finishing material chemistry, much less caustic. Still grunt work, but less taxing without having to swing a mallet to set floor boards now that air pressure pretty much drives everything.
Don’t know about you (sure I do ;-) but my back couldn’t hack it otherwise, if I had to do it again!
Baud
@SiubhanDuinne: Gastritis!
Baud
@efgoldman: There’s something about newly fallen snow that makes me feel all seditiony.
jomike
@Villago Delenda Est: Aight, I just aspirated some Rio Blanco Pale Ale. Burns, but in a good way.
Violet
@SiubhanDuinne: How did the trip to the hospital go?
Fair Economist
@Chris:
Reagan might well have lost against Obama, but depressingly, even with the demographic shifts, he’d still have beaten Carter.
wasabi gasp
Tommy rocks socks. Kinda wish John would toss him a BJ Staff robe.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Howard Dean after again comparing the 47 letter-signers to Jane Fonda, said he agrees with a lot of what Tom Cotton said in the letter, there are no moderates in Iran.
Steve Clemons: “Wow”
Mary G
Well, it is with some slight trepidation that I have agreed to rent the living room Higgs vacated to my caregiver and her husband.
They rent a studio in Buena Park, which when they got married a year and a half ago, was $800 a month, but has already gone up to $930.
She is trying to buy a house on the island off Guatemala where she was born for 50,000 quetzales (about $6,500 US). It has been a tourist destination for Europeans for some years and recently a big resort opened with amenities aimed at Americans. The house is a couple of blocks from the beach and she plans to rent out Jet Skis. Most of the town is at least distantly related to her and will do the work for her. I hope it works out the way she thinks it will. Her mother rents the top floor of her house there to tourists for $100/night, so I guess there is potential.
I asked her about all the violence we hear about in Guatemala, and she said “We don’t have that in our town. My grandfather would never allow it.”
The slight trepidation is that, as much as I love her, she talks constantly. She originally worked for my mom, and about a minute after she’d get her, my mom would start making the sign for duck quacking noises behind her back, and I would have to cut off the flow and steer her away. She works like a dog, though. I think her record is cleaning the whole house, doing four loads of laundry, washing my car and half the windows in one half-day shift.
Her husband is caregiving now, but his true love is construction. When he saw HBM’s workshop in my garage, his eyes lit up and I had to say yes.
Speaking of HBM, he says he isn’t commenting much on blogs lately, but he did write something on LGF today and it got frontpaged!
NotMax
Remember reading essentially the same article the last time the Dalai Lama died. Nothing much new to see here.
@Tommy
From the general tenor of your comments, you might find greater amenability among the Jainists.
SiubhanDuinne
@Violet:
It was long, boring, frustrating, annoying, and dispiriting. I can only imagine how it must have been for my cousin, the actual patient.
We arrived at 1:00 and she was checked right in to the ER. All the vitals, X-rays, EKG, CT Scan, all very pleasant and efficient.
Then around 2:30 they came and said they wantd to keep her at least overnight to observe and do more tests, and they would move her to a room very soon. She was furious about that but was overruled.
At that point her daughter went home and I stayed with Martha thinking I might be on my way by 3:30 or 4:00 at the latest. But no, they left us uninformed and just waiting until nearly 8:30. She hadn’t eaten since early morning and was ravenous, but of course couldn’t have even so much as a glass of water, let alone food, without orders from the doctor, who was busy with a critical admission. She kept asking me “When is the room going to be ready?” “Why can’t I go home?” “Can’t they bring me some dinner?” “It’s past my time to take my evening pills,” etc. etc. like a three-year-old child.
As for physical condition, her BP was very high, I mean REALLY high, most of the day, but some of that I attribute to the stress and anger she was having. They put her on oxygen early on and that seemed to help the wheezing a lot. And the CT scan didn’t show any contusions or brain damage from all her falls. So there’s a fair amount of encouraging news. But I think she is pretty depressed and that, along with all your other suggestions, is one of the things I’ll be discussing with her daughter as soon as we can have a private conversation.
Much too long an answer to your kind inquiry. Ranting and venting over for now.
schrodinger's cat
@NotMax: Correction, they call themselves, Jains.
Peale
@jomike:it’s funny, because I don’t feel like I’ve won anything much at all. I guess I’ll do a victory dance.
It’s fun, I guess, to note that the social concervatives have basically reduced tgemselves to homophobes…lose that and they disappear. Although, I remember them as being racist, xenophobic and misogynist, too.
NotMax
@SiubhanDuinne
“It was snowing” is awfully reminiscent of Hillary’s “it was more convenient.”
trollhattan
I await Bob in Vancouver, B.C.‘s post telling us the current Dalai Lama is a CIA plant.
NotMax
Link fail fix. Moderators, feel free to delete bad one.
@schrodinger’s cat
That was what originally had typed, but spell check didn’t like it and did not flag Jainists. The latter is also an acceptable alternative when referring to adherents of Jainism. (Jains certainly wouldn’t pick a fight over it. ;) )
SiubhanDuinne
@NotMax:
Jain, you ignorant slut.
Mary G
@SiubhanDuinne: Ugh. I hate those ER people. When my leg swelled up and I thought I might have a clot, I called 911 and they came right away and got me to the hospital at 2:30 p.m. I kept asking for food and water and being put off. I finally was told I’d be admitted and I could have something in my room. At MIDNIGHT they finally wheeled me out of the ER to the room, where the nurse told me it was too late to get me anything to eat. After I pitched a fit, a stale turkey sandwich was located.
ETA: you are a good friend and cousin to go with them. It helps to have another person along for support.
Eric U.
if the talibangelicals that make up the base of the republican party get their way and wipe out secular society in this country, I imagine that the movie Idiocracy will look prescient.
SiubhanDuinne
@Mary G:
I found there was a huge difference between triage (really great) and whatever-comes-after-triage (not great, described above). And as the day went on, we got to experience the growing stress of staffers who were nearing the end of their own long shifts and were probably tired and cranky themselves. There has to be a better way.
schrodinger's cat
@NotMax: They may not hit you, but they can be quite argumentative, especially about the merits of vegetarianism.
yodecat
@Tommy: Buddhism isn’t a religion. Most Buddhists say so.
NotMax
@Siubhan Duinnne
Useless but true trivia: Dan Aykroyd has webbed toes.
Little Boots
@Villago Delenda Est:
I’m sure he’s in his own little heaven. martyrdom without the lions and crucifixions is delicious.
SiubhanDuinne
@NotMax:
I hope, and truly believe, that I will have occasion to win a trivia contest with that information someday.
Omnes Omnibus
@NotMax: Lots of perfectly decent people have webbed toes.
yodecat
@raven: Whew!
We moved big time. From N. Texas to S. Oregon. Bought a house. Guess what? Whel, we'[re back in the remodeling thing.
It never ends.
jw
NotMax
@schrodinger’s cat
A joke Steven wright didn’t make but should have:
Just my luck. I scored exclusive rights to a foreign Burger King franchise.
In India.
GregB
Does anyone know if Pastor John Hagee is over in Israel campaigning for Netanyahu with this message?
Mary G
@SiubhanDuinne: Yes, I had had all the tests, which turned out negative, and was to be admitted just for observation, and that’s when I became a very low priority.
A huge mob of sheriffs brought a guy in, and I originally thought he might be a brown person unjustly treated by the Man, but after about half an hour I wanted to get up and beat him up myself. He kept screaming incoherently and escaping whatever restraints they put him in. The cops had to come back after the security guards were both bowled over. So that probably added to my delay. Still not fun.
schrodinger's cat
@NotMax: Jains are to vegetarians what tea-party types are to Republicans.
True story, this year when I was in India, I found out that one store owner did not stock Tandoori masala because the photo of the chicken on spice box was offensive to his Jain customers.
ETA: The spice mix itself was 100% vegetarian.
yodecat
@Baud: With luck, there’ll be no incarniation of Reagan. Or perhaps their will be, somewhere in the Dark Continent and he’ll contract something fatal really young.
jw
SiubhanDuinne
@Mary G:
Oh yeah, I didn’t even go into things like getting unceremoniously turned out of our ER room for somebody critical — those doctors and nurses and orderlies can move very damned fast when they want to! — unhooked from all the monitors and left to shiver on a gurney in the corridor for an hour. Lots of little, independently insignificant insults and offenses that coalesce into a huge constellation of fury and resentment. As I say, there really has to be a better way, even if it’s only (!) improved communications.
Kay
@Violet:
This was one of his events today:
Probably bad timing on that visit, but why wouldn’t the mayor know that was bad timing? Maybe he is, in fact, “out of touch”.
SiubhanDuinne
@efgoldman:
I guess I feel a bit better, at least knowing that there was nothing personal today. But there are probably enough of these anecdotal accounts (you, Mary G, and me, just now) to compile a fairly strong case that there is a systemic problem. Unless the solution can be monetized, though, I doubt it will ever be fixed.
NotMax
@SiubhanDuinne
Mom, 87, had a severe episode in January (diagnosed as probable diverticulitis) and used her medical alert device. Ambulance took her to the ER and she was left in a hallway, alone, for six hours before being admitted.
sm*t cl*de
It was a fluke accident.
KG
Historically speaking, the separation of church and state is a fairly recent development, and particularly a Western development that hasn’t taken hold in all places just yet.
NotMax
@sm*t cl*de
Sounding like it was.
cckids
@TaMara (BHF):
Looks a little like my guys: Gryffindor: https://www.flickr.com/photos/14698865@N04/16611647048/in/photostream/
and Olivander
Little Boots
@KG:
like half the U.S.
burnspbesq
@Chris:
The worst part of the Dreher piece, for me, was this quote from Charles Cooke (whoever he is):
Seriously, Mr. Cooke? Fuck you, the horse you rode in on, and all of the horse’s ancestors and descendants, unto the fifth generation..
Violet
@SiubhanDuinne: I’m so sorry you had to deal with that. You’re so kind to step in and help. Hospitals work on their own schedule and give little thought to the needs of the patients, at least as far as I can tell. At least she’s being looked after, so hopefully that will help things along.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@Kay:
Why do I think that was an “accidental” wrong turn and the driver knew what he was doing?
burnspbesq
@trollhattan:
I await his explanation of why it is a good thing for the fine people of Dnipropetrovsk that their football club had to play its Europa League “home” match 400 km down the road.
Violet
@Kay:
I think that’s a good assessment of the situation.
@Mnemosyne (tablet):
Yes!
Little Boots
@Mnemosyne (tablet):
wasn’t there something like that in the original house of cards?
srv
We need to think strategically here, perhaps Obama should order a drone strike on the Dalai Lama.
Then he would be a Chinese Communist and not a Kenyan Marxist.
I remember my favorite all night ER visit. Softball to the eye socket at 1st Base, Friday night game. Cracked my face/nose, burst blood vein inside the eye. Later, when I threw up, I looked like a puffer fish/quasimodo. Couldn’t drive blind, but hospital was like 4 blocks away. Guard at ER thought I was a walk-in from a nearby interstate collision. Ah, good times, as they brought the drunk kids in at 1am. Parents arrived around 3am. Sadness in the Troopers voice as he explained to mom that the Taurus would not be coming home (seriously! they cared more about the car than the kids).
Finally let me out at 6am, told me I had a 7am with my regular doctor across the street. Got a donut on the way. She looked at demi-quasimodo, asked why there was no MRI stuff in my folder (like, duh, head injury, vomiting, orbital bone…) and then said “can you walk across the parking lot back to the ER?” Sure, doc.
By the time I got back, the resident was waiting for me and looked like someone had stuck a plunger up his ass. Whole MRI series, never saw a bill.
Mary G
Much as I complain about the ER, I am upset they are planning to close our little local hospital. It’s a poky 1960s building that even major remodeling has failed to make very attractive or functional, according to my rheumatologist.
The giant hospital chain that bought it wants to tear it down and put up a three-story urgent care center. The town is in an uproar over it and lawsuits are flying. The nearest other hospitals are only 10.6 and 14.1 miles away, but that can take a long time when there is traffic on Pacific Coast Highway or I-5. First world problems!
Little Boots
the Dreher article actually despite himself shows why the separation of church and state is more vital than he imagines. yeah, i will admit it’s problematic for the navy to fire a christian navy chaplain for supporting traditional christian homophobia. but that’s really because it’s problematic to have navy chaplains. suddenly there is an issue in which the government and the pentagon have to define what is “acceptable” christian doctrine in a military context. it’s why the more radical founders were right: no chaplains. let the churches do what they do. let the military do what it does.
TaMara (BHF)
@cckids: Cousins!
SiubhanDuinne
@NotMax:
@efgoldman:
Well, I guess nobody’s actually going to die directly from these kinds of experiences. OTOH, if you take somebody who is already stressed (i.e., pretty much anyone admitted to the ER for pretty much any reason) and ladle on all this humiliation and uncertainty, you may well be slicing minutes, hours, or days off of that person’s allotted span.
(Block that metaphor: I know one doesn’t slice with a ladle. Humor me. It’s late and I’m still cranky.)
Yatsuno
@burnspbesq: @efgoldman:
Wait…what did the horse do?
Little Boots
@Yatsuno:
sinned against the 15th amendment, apparently.
Little Boots
so, next dalai lama? dreher? the republicans could do worse than build their entire 2016 campaign around this question.
burnspbesq
@Yatsuno:
Chose its rider badly.
jibeaux
Big hitter, the lama.
C’mon, somebody had to say it.
Violet
@burnspbesq: Just like a poor kid that chooses the wrong uterus.
Little Boots
@efgoldman:
and I get that, and i imagine most are fine as therapists, but it does raise these impossible issues. some general now has to decide if somebody is being “too” christian, or “too” evangelical, or “too” fundamentalist. if the churches want to open chapels near barracks or even in war zones, great. maybe even noble. but this system of official, governmental chaplains just seems untenable from both sides.
it’s like when an IRS bureaucrat has to decide what a “real” religion is. there’s something wrong with the whole question.
burnspbesq
@Violet:
Not exactly. A horse always has the option of throwing its rider.
burnspbesq
@efgoldman:
Gutting the Voting Rights Act is not even remotely the same thing as gutting the Fifteenth Amendment. Congress still has the power to enforce the Fifteenth Amendment by “appropriate legislation.” If the Democratic Congress had taken the hint after Northwest Austin and updated the coverage formula, Shelby County would never have happened. It was an own goal, plain and simple.
Bmaccnm
@efgoldman: Late to the thread, but patients under observation (ER patients, some psych patients, rule out labor patients) are charged by the hour. Admitted patients are charged by the capitated-cost day. Much more revenue friendly to keep you in the ER.
JGabriel
NYT:
To which the Dalai Lama elegantly replied: “Or what?”
At least I hope so, because, really, what else is there to say to a demand that dumb?
Ruckus
@efgoldman:
Once went to the ER in Sheboygan, WI after having gone blind for about 15 min. 2 people in the waiting room, took 1 1/2 hr to be taken to a room. Nurse came in took my BP, left. 1 1/2 hr later stuck my head outside to see if I was the only person left on the planet. It was busy, gurneys being wheeled around and all so I went back in the room. An hr later stuck my head out to see how things were going and the Dr and nurses were sitting around a table having a break. Stated that my going blind must not be that big a deal as no one seemed to be giving it any notice and that I was leaving. The told me I’d have to sign a form, and my answer was you fucking sign it. Got a bill from the hospital about 2 weeks later. Called billing and told them that as I had not been examined I was not paying a dime and in any event I had insurance. Then stated that I was calling the insurance co and telling them not to pay as no services were rendered. And if I hear any more the next call will be to a lawyer. A week later I got a letter stating there will be no charges. I will say the looks on the staff’s faces was priceless as I walked out.
Little Boots
@efgoldman:
yeah, I could see that, I really could. I imagine that worked in practice in many ways.
but sooner or later you wind up with just the dilemma that dreher was talking about. who decides what is too religious? and how?
Tree With Water
@Linda Featheringill: My guess is Tibetan Buddhists will do just fine. There are few things quite as simple as conjuring up an imaginary solution to an imaginary problem.
Ruckus
@SiubhanDuinne:
None of this is new. Won’t go too deep into the story but decades ago a friend/employee got in a bad accident on the way to work and ended up at USC Medical Center, which is a county hospital and is associated with USC medical school. He had an almost completely severed leg and other injuries. They had him on a gurney in the hall waiting his turn for an OR for several hrs. Which turned out to be a good thing as a staffer told his wife to get him out of there and to another hospital if he wanted to save the leg. Which they did. He spent a couple of months in intensive then another several in the hospital.
J R in WV
@schrodinger’s cat:
We hired a young man from India on his first job in the U.S who turned out to be one of the smartest guys I ever worked with. Last name Jain, turns out all of the Jains have the same last name, like the Sikhs. Named Singh I think.
Jains are more peaceful than Sikhs, also supposed to be vegetarians. He did the whole moved to America, gonna get a cheeseburger things, terrible for his digestion!
Was a terrible driver, tho. One day he got a package from home, it was resumes of potential wives. With portraits, transcripts from Uni, the works.
Learned a lot about Indian culture. Saw pics of whoe town in giant wedding, great wife, beautiful kids, probably smarter than whips.
Tommy, you may have been a Jain in another life!
Or not.
WE have a huge hardwood floor, mostly hickory with walnut trim around the edges. It came out great, but the walnut trim turned it from a carpentry exercise to a cabinetmaking exercise. Shoe trim didn’t cover the edge allowing you to trim the last piece to the nearest quarter inch. The walnet trim needed a hickory edge to the nearest 64th or so to look good, took for frickin ever to finish a room – but the floor looks great. Before air powered floor nailers, probably part of why my shoulders gave out at 63.
sm*t cl*de
Reincarnate him against his will. Drag him back out of Nirvana. Hey, it happened in “Lord of Light”.
chopper
@SiubhanDuinne:
ironically, you could end up in the ER trying that.
Cervantes
@J R in WV:
Not at all. There is one sub-sect, the Digambara Jains, who mostly use that last name. But never mind nomenclature: you can more easily tell their monks apart from all the others because they are nudists.
Craig
The Dalai Lama is a Bodhisattva, after all, and he’s probably not going to give up on this world as long as there are souls still suffering in it. But he might just keep the next few incarnations on the down low.
Original Lee
@Mary G: I really wonder about the staff when I hear stuff like this. Don’t they understand that even if someone is not diabetic, low blood sugar makes people more aggressive and harder to deal with?
MCA1
@jibeaux: China : “and he’s gonna stiff me, and I say, ‘Hey Lama’ how about a little something, you know, for letting you live in India all these years, and not just committing genocide in Tibet, you know?’ And the Lama, he says, ‘There will be no reincarnation, but you’ll receive the total breakdown of functional government in your sole rival for world hegemony.’ So, I got that goin’ for me. Which is nice.”
Seriously, though, what a through the lookingglass article. A government asserting that its power trumps that of the cosmos! All I could think of when reading it was “Did Joseph Heller write this?”
sm*t cl*de
A group of Chinese atheists is Comsplaining to the leader of Tibetan Buddhism how his religious traditions are supposed to work. It is as if as if American pundits and polticians got grumpy with the Pope for not preaching a sufficiently authoritarian version of Catholicism.