You’re young, fun, and on the run from the law. One kid’s journey across the Deep South leads to a big confrontation with the man who inspired it all… Con Man Daddy.
BIG thanks to Jason Russel Waller as well as his brothers, Randy and Kel, for sharing this story with Snap!
Produced by Bo Walsh, original score by Renzo Gorrio, artwork by Teo Ducot.
The Art of the Con
The LA Weekly busted "Rama"
What if the real story is even better than the fake story they made up? A secret artist, an art world sensation, a family scandal.
Thanks, Ron, for sharing this story with Snap!
Produced by Andrew Stelzer with support from Anna Sussman.
Insidious by Shannon Cason LIVE
This story is about a bank manager who loves to gamble until he gets into trouble.
This story was told live by Shannon Cason at Snap LIVE in Los Angeles, California. Original music by Alex Mandel and Tim Frick.
Snap Classic – Season 15 – Episode 1.
It's funny to ask, "Why do people keep dying?" And why ask funny Fred Willard? Of course they keep dying! We're all about death. That's what life is here in this short lived human plane (manusya loka). But it's not always this way; it lengthens and shortens through an aeon (kalpa).
According to Buddhist lore (as well as that of Hindu, Jain, Christianity, Judaism, and probably Islam, since it's Abrahamic and, some say, dreamt up by the Vatican), human life was previously much longer, and it will be again in the next Golden Age. Average lifespan is cyclical through the ages (yugas) of an aeon (kalpa). How short does it get? As brief as ten years. How long could it get? That's the mind blowing part. It can stretch out as long as 80,000 years.
That's no reason to be happy because it's all relative; compared to the average lifespan of the devas, 80 thousand years is not very long, and the pleasures the devas (the Greek type "gods") enjoy are far superior to human pleasures, and they are all mixed up with the same kind of nonsense we have here. But who believes the ancient sutras anyways?
In one very beautiful one, the Buddha tells of a time in the long gone by when there was a teacher, a kind of guru who taught his students, "Human life is short." Then he gave many beautiful analogies like dropping a sizzling piece of flesh on a red hot griddle or drawing a line on the surface of water with a reed or the morning dew evaporating off the grass. Human life is like that, very brief. Only thing is, that teacher lived long ago.
And at that time that he was teaching this very true fact, life was much longer than it is now. It helped the Buddha's listeners realize a sense of spiritual urgency (samvega) and to practice insight to realized the nature of radical-impermanence (anicca). It seems modern people always think they're so smart. But we constantly miss the point. The Buddha was not saying something so simplistic and banal as, "Things are impermanent.
See that hut over there? It's falling apart, and in a few years it'll be a heap of dust on the ground." Why would he waste anybody's time saying that? He was saying something far deeper that they couldn't fathom, know, or see. He was saying that at every moment things were collapsing, hurtling toward destruction, falling apart.
Now thanks to science we can see or at least intellectually appreciate that this is true: At an atomic level, everything moves so fast and changes, is constantly altering and vibrating and breaking bonds and reforming only to fall apart again that NOW we can see what he was talking about.
Because things are falling apart at that level, rubbing away constantly, on the macro level we eventually see change and transformation. But we do not only cling to the hut, we cling to every moment of this experience, this life, this identity when it's falling apart so fast that we could hardly keep it together to remember what we were in love with before we're onto something else.
The Buddha wasn't wasting time to say, "Don't cling to stuff (i.e., material things)." He was saying what do we really cling to most of all? The Five Aggregates: form (material stuff); feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness, the software, the psychological, the things clung to as "self." That's falling apart, and if we saw that for even an instant, we'd let go and be free.
But instead we cling and laugh at the old time Indian gurus and Central Asian sages, like the Scythian (Shakyian) Shakyamuni. But never mind. Just keep being surprised that people die. Will i die, too? We'll miss Fred Willard. And Lil Dicky. The rapper? No, Little Richard the gay, flamboyant Father of Rock 'n Roll, "Lucille, Tutti Frutti, Good Golly Miss Molly," the guy who taught us all to dance.
(MSNBC) Rachel Maddow looks at the history of Ku Klux Klan in American politics and its quest for power and points out that it was no accident that Donald Trump helped give racists legitimacy with his remarks about the deadly rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
(Basil Fearrington)Rachel Maddow details story about property discrimination regarding Fred Trump, Pres. Trump's racist father who was successfully prosecuted by New York for racial discrimination.
Pro-Palestine protesters crash Pro-Israel rally in Sweden Adva Naftali (1/25/09, Israel News)
Protestors who gathered were pelted with eggs and bottles then dispersed by police.
A pro-Israel rally in Malmo, Sweden was torn apart Sunday by pro-Palestinian residents who arrived on the scene with eggs, bottles, and tear gas grenades which they threw at Israel's supporters. Police dispersed the entire crowd.
Hundreds of people took part in the rally in support of Israel, which was held at the city's main square. Elad Meier, a Bnei Akiva and Jewish Agency envoy to Sweden, said it was organized by a committee of volunteers from the Jewish community... More>>
Buddhism is a relatively small religion in Sweden with a growing number of Swedish practitioners. Originally most practicing Buddhists were from various Asian countries (mostly Thailand, China, and Vietnam). There are current plans to construct a Buddhist temple in Fredrika, a small town in the northern part of Sweden. This Thai-style temple will be the biggest Buddhist temple in Europe when finished. There is already a beautiful Thai pavilion in Jämtland, a region in central Sweden.
Buddhism: a Swedish religion - Information on Swedish Buddhism mostly in Swedish with links to most centers in Sweden.
Buddhism.nu - Information on Buddhism with all traditions represented. Links to Buddhist groups in Sweden. Suggested reading, literature, and teachings. Short news flashes and schedules for events within Sweden.
The Eye of the Storm Sangha - Buddhist meditation and study group in Uppsala open to all. The Sangha is non confessional, but inspired by the teacher Thich Nhat Hanh.
Soka Gakkai International Sweden - A worldwide fringe Buddhist lay organization, promoting peace, culture, education, and the chanting of Om nyamgo renge po.
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