Barry Graham's Blog, page 63

A note on what is

Image: Ryan McGuire

I read accounts of people meditating who notice a bird, butterfly, moth, or other pleasant creature (not a rat or cockroach) and decide that it’s a deceased loved one visiting in another form. This kind of magical thinking seems to me to deny the suchness of both the dead person and the living creature. When we project a personal, self-centered story onto life as it is, we miss the birdness of the bird, bird-nature, butterfly-nature, moth-nature, the Buddha nature of...

Sport is the modern bread and circuses

"Then ye returned to your trinkets; then ye contented your souls

With the flannelled fools at the wicket or the muddied oafs at the goals.”
- Kipling

Late last night, there was (I’m not kidding) whooping, singing and dancing in the streets of Portland. At first I thought it was just a particularly loud party near my apartment, but as it continued I took a look on Twitter and saw that there was a prestigious basketball game which Portland’s Trailblazers had won.

I’ll confes...

criminalwisdom:HOW TO IDENTIFY FAKE NEWS STORIES IN FIVE...

criminalwisdom:

HOW TO IDENTIFY FAKE NEWS STORIES IN FIVE SIMPLE STEPS»

Or, as used to be said in journalism, “If your mother tells you she loves you, verify it via independent witnesses and public records.”

For May Day, here’s the great Florence Reece singing her song...

For May Day, here’s the great Florence Reece singing her song “Which Side Are You On?”

Happy International Workers’ Day (which is really every...

Happy International Workers’ Day (which is really every day).

Fear of rejection - the most irrational fear of all?

I’ve never understood the fear of rejection, a fear which seems to me to be 100% irrational because the worst thing that can happen if you risk rejection - that you don’t get the relationship, the job, whatever it is that you’re hoping for - is what will definitely happen if you don’t offer yourself.

Little Caesar

I was awake till the early hours of this morning reading W.R. Burnett’s novel Little Caesar. I had no idea that the great film of the same name was based on a novel, until Daishin found the book in the library.

I’m baffled that I was so ignorant, because the novel (which is strikingly different from the film) is a masterpiece. First published in 1929, it foreshadows the best work of George V. Higgins (I think it must have been an influence on The Friends of Eddie Coyle, my favorite...

Have you ever known someone who successfully killed their ego and maintained an executive-level job?

Yes. Enlightenment, “killing” the self by seeing through the illusion of ego, isn’t dependent upon, or even related to, a person’s position in the hierarchy of their profession.

However, I think awakening may be more difficult for people in positions of absolute power, or absolute powerlessness, both of which corrupt absolutely.

Steve Shadow sent me this picture of him and me, taken at the...

Steve Shadow sent me this picture of him and me, taken at the launch of The Wrong Thing at The Poisoned Pen in Scottsdale, AZ, in 2011.(This, of course, was before I, and my books, were banned from The Poisoned Pen as retaliation for my baiting the racist Brad Thor.)

The sinister-looking femme fatale sitting behind us is Daishin Stephenson.

In Policy Shift, F.C.C. Will Allow a Web Fast Lane

In Policy Shift, F.C.C. Will Allow a Web Fast Lane:

ruckawriter:

Edward Wyatt, writing at the New York Times.

WASHINGTON — The principle that all Internet content should be treated equally as it flows through cables and pipes to consumers looks all but dead.