Cenk Uyghur finally wakes up to fact that 9-11 was an inside job with a pre-planned cover up meant to serve as a pretext for WAR (on Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Yemen, Somalia, and others on a list of at least seven meant to go down like dominos)
(YouTube Movies & TV) "When We Went MAD!" (full film)
Go mad. Enlist. Kill for patriotism and bank profits.
MAD is an American humor magazine that was launched in 1952 and is currently published by DC Comics, a unit of the DC Entertainment subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery.
MAD was founded by editor Harvey Kurtzman and publisher William Gaines [2], launched as a comic book series before it became a magazine. It was widely imitated and influential, affecting satirical American media, as well as the cultural landscape of the late 20th century, with editor Al Feldstein increasing readership to more than two million during its 1973–1974 circulation peak [3].
It is the last surviving title in the EC Comics line, which sold Mad to Premier Industries in 1961 but closed in 1956.
Mad publishes satire on all aspects of American life and popular culture, politics, entertainment, and public figures. Its format includes TV and movie parodies and satire articles about everyday occurrences that are changed to seem humorous.
Mad's mascot, Alfred E. Neuman, is usually on the cover. More: Mad (magazine)
Statistics know all. No one can beat the stats. If the stats say it, that's the way it'll be.
.
(Saturday Night Live) Nov. 1, 2025: Zohran Mamdani [pronounced So Ran Ma'am Donny] (here played by Ramy Youssef), corrupt Andrew Cuomo (Miles Teller), and Curtis Sliwa (Shane Gillis) debate one another in the race to become New York City's next mayor. #SNL #MilesTeller #BrandiCarlile. NYC Mayoral Debate Cold Open - SNL. The election takes place on Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2025, so get out and vote.
See, Kids, sometimes it doesn't work out. If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal. Corrupt Trump pardon's corrupt NY Mayor Eric Adams, who kissed the Orange One's butt and appeased his ego as well as pledging his allegiance to crooked Republicans. He had to to stay out of jail.
Sometimes it does work out, but who would bet on it? Trump keeps winning in court, the court of public opinion, and de facto on the ground.
I should run to be Trump's choice!
Judges may order him to keep ICE in his pants and out of our cities, but does he listen? Judges may order him to fund SNAP or food stamps to keep 1 out of 8 Americans from food insecurity (going hungry, malnourishment, malnutrition, and starvation), but does he listen?
He's got corrupt likely-rapist Justice Kavanaugh and others on the Supreme Court back his Agenda 2025 crimes, which Homan and Bannon must have had a grand time writing.
I run this country, Ghislane, I pick who wins.
Now if Andrew Cuomo can be resuscitated and put to work for Trump and Israel, what was the chance that millennials, youth, idealists, anti-Zionist Jews, and the diverse array of New Yorkers were going to be able to stop him?
What if Trump becomes official U.S. Dictator?
Progressive Democrat self-proclaimed socialist (like successful Kshama Sawant and hopeful candidate Katie Wilson) Mamdani meant well, even though progressive commentator Jimmy Dore points out that he has already caved to the power elite. He's an improvement but far from ideal, far from perfect, far from a real solution.
NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo and his administration come under fire for underreporting COVID deaths in nursing homes after he controversially directed homes to accept infectious elders.
(exurb1a) Help Ex do this full-time if deranged enough (and thanks kindly) ► exurb1r. Anxiety anecdote: This one took about two months to make. A lot of that time was faffing around with a Word document. Not even sure what the point of the script was, but anyhow -- today, very excited to be finally uploading and being rid of the thing.
There I was doing a bit of last-minute polishing in the video editor and suddenly I notice I've deleted half the video in the timeline. Just gone. I reload the old save file, but it's too late. I've written over it already.
I am a cat lady.
About a month of work gone in three seconds of mis-clicking. I'm not sure how far back in the day I made the mistake, and did I mention that the file is so large now that the undo function locks the video editor up almost every time? There's only one option left: tentatively keep hitting undo and just pray this doesn't lock the editor up otherwise ALL GONE. And just pray the buffer remembers far back enough to restore the sequence I deleted otherwise ALL GONE. There I sat for 30 minutes hitting Ctrl-Z as gently as I could, sweat dripping from my furrowed brow.
Even the mice who live in the walls of my apartment were coming out to watch and bite their fingernails or claws or whatever it is mice have, their cheese untouched, their traps empty... Anyway, everything was fine even if I almost soiled myself. The undo function worked, and I briefly felt good about living again for the first time in ten years. I am an idiot. Please don't be an idiot like me. Back stuff up, I beg ye.
(BBC Global) Oct. 6, 2025: Over the last 20 years, there has been a decline in the amount time Americans spend at parties, especially among young people.
Derek Thompson and Katty Kay dive into what the effects of decreased socializing are among young people and what can be done about it.
The BBC is a British public broadcast service. Subscribe to BBC Global. For the latest news, analyses, and features visit: bbc.com
#BBC #entertainment #GenZ #Zoomers
(The Katie Halper Show) The "war" between the glorious "state" of Israel and the country of HAMAS finally reaches a Guardian of Peace Trump ceasefire, after his glorious efforts criminally and inexplicably ignored by the Nobel Peace Prize Committee in Norway. Fortunately, his Ig Noble War Prize for 2026 is sure to be on its way to compensate his as is the "Israel Prize," which is only awarded to Zionist Jewish Israeli, which surely he would now qualify as thanks to his Jewish best friend (Jeffrey Epstein) vouching for him, as well as his daughter Ivanka Trump and son-in-law Jared Kushner and their Jewish children, his grandchildren.
The first Friday of October is World Smile Day (Oct. 3, 2025), a relatively new holiday with a fascinating story. Created by a commercial artist named Harvey Ball, this day came about as a response to his creation of the smiley face. Harvey worried that the commercialization of the symbol would lessen its impact. We can hardly blame him for his estimation; the symbol has been used in many different ways including clothing, comic books, coffee mugs, pins, and more. These little yellow faces are more than just a symbol, they’re a statement about the power of smiling.
History of World Smile Day
Has this symbol always existed?
In 1963, Harvey Ball, a graphic artist and ad man from Worcester, Massachusetts, created the smiley face symbol [the yellow emoji icon] we’ve all come to know.
Popularity for this symbol exploded into the world of popular culture. It’s every artists’ dream for their work to be respected and recreated and few symbols have had quite the legacy that Harvey’s creation has had. More: nationaltoday.com
Smiling animals brighten our day
If looking for something to brighten an otherwise dreary winter day, look no further than these adorable animals. Looking at their cheery grins will no doubt put a smile on the face that watches them, too. These smiling animals will brighten the day
Buddhism: There is no way to happiness. Why? Happiness is the way
I let go, surrendered, and blissed out on the mat.
This is a tricky truth no one talks about, at least not in the West. We are forever searching and seeking, scheming and striving to get happy, to FIND a way to happiness. But this message turns that sort of thinking on its head.
When at a Buddhist monastery or on a Buddhist retreat, it's not uncommon to ask, "How do I attain meditative absorption (jhana)?" Another word for it is "zen" or dhyana and dharana on a yoga retreat. But there's no answer. One is taught a technique but no way to achieve the thing one strives for. Why?
It is reached by letting go, dropping the striving, surrendering up the muscling, giving up the go-getter attitude. It just happens. And teachers will say, "There's no way to [scheme and use force to] do it. Meditators just do it."
I went to the room of the greatest jhana teacher in the world, and I pressed him, "What's the secret?"
He didn't know what I meant, he said. He didn't even know what I was talking about, he claimed. Then I thought, he's given me an opening. Here's my chance. I better ask very carefully:
"How does one meditate...successfully? What I mean is, how does one attainabsorption? How does one get to..." He looked at me like I was kidding and when he saw that I was not, as if by rote, he gave me the basic instructions:
Sit up straight, but not too straight, relax, bring your attention under your nose to the breath, remain aware of each and every in-breath and out-breath that is happening. Don't do anything but give your undivided attention to that breath (composed of an in-portion and out-portion). Just that. [Then what? - Then nothing, just that. - No, but there has to be something more; it can't be just that. - Just do that (in addition to keeping silent, following the Eight Precepts, and always keeping the breath in mind except when asleep) and then report to me what happens during the daily interview sessions. Try it. It's very simple, but there's nothing easy about it. So keep at it.]
Bare awareness (mindfulness/sati) is a start.
"No," I said, "not how does one sit; how does one succeed? How does one get to that state of one-pointedness, samadhi, stillness, rapture, unbroken focus...?"
"Oh, that," he said. "I don't know that." I thought he was joking, a real effort to make an American-style joke, and I didn't know why he wasn't telling me. He knew I was sincere. He knew I had been striving all month long. Then I applied more pressure than probably anyone would ever dare to apply.
I wasn't leaving without an answer: "What do you mean you don't know? Who better than you? If you don't know, who could possibly know?"
Then he stunned me, as he often did with the directness of his insight and his willingness to share his knowledge with me? "I don't know because I do not read minds. People come to me. I give them the instructions. And some of them come tell me what is happening, and I guide them from there."
You asked him what?! Did he throw you out?
"But WHY do some of them have something start happening since not everyone does?"
"That I do not know. I just know they do. And when they do, I can help them, guide them to go deeper. But how they get to it in the first place, that I do not know." [These aren't exact quotes, just the gist of the conversation, which only lasted a few desperate minutes as I pushed and pushed.]
As he said this, I realized I had asked him this before, after sitting with him in Asia at his massive monastery, where it seemed everyone was succeeding and attaining. I asked him and pushed him a little on the matter with someone sitting by me to catch what I might be missing, two Americans sincerely wanting to experience what Buddhist texts write about, what the Buddha taught, what sutras say happens.
At that time he looked at us and perceiving our sincerity said one strange word, his guess as to what it was distilled down to ONE thing as if it could ever be just one thing distinguishing success from just sitting. That word was parami. She smiled next to me, but I grimaced, perplexed. "'Parami?' The Sanskrit word paramita?"
"Yes," he answered, but he was actually talking about the Pali (and therefore Theravada Buddhist) form of the word parami. In either case, it means "perfection," but the Sanskrit is a diluted Mahayana term of six factors, whereas the historical Buddha always taught TEN intentional actions (deeds, karma).
My teacher clarified. What he imagined (from what he heard from many of his successful students reporting to him) was that they remembered doing skillful deeds in the past, and he concluded that those past skillful deeds were coming to fruition as they sat. And that's why some succeeded and not others.
What kinds of questions are these? You are silly.
(What I was really getting at was, WHAT ACTIONS CAN SOMEONE DO NOW OR WHILE ONE IS SITTING IN MEDITATION, ANXIOUS FOR SOMETHING TO HAPPEN, TO MAKE IT HAPPEN?)
That he didn't know, so I had to undertake a lifelong journey of trying to figure it out. Of course, it will have something to do with the Factors of Absorption (jhananga, "limbs of jhana"). Leigh Brasington figured this much out, having had the insight that happiness is the way:
Right Concentration: Practical Guide to the Jhanas
Brasington teaches a technique of focusing on one of these factors, happiness (piti, joy, pleasure, rapture, bliss) as it arises in the body in serenity meditation. By focusing on it, it increases based on the principle that, "Where attention goes, energy flows." This is true enough, but how does one get the initial happiness/bliss to pay attention to and make increase?
Now it makes sense that what I had always been looking for was a carrot or apple in front of the horse (mule, donkey, jackass). I could only neigh in realizing it: THE GOAL is not this happiness because THIS HAPPINESS is the way to relaxing, letting go, unstriving, surrendering, unclutching, dropping hangups, persisting without grasping or clinging, shikantaza ("just sitting"), not setting up a goal and striving for it. Why? It's because those blissful states of meditation and their attendant stillness, mindfulness, and progress towards insight are NATURAL. They arise. We don't "do" them. We can't do them. We don't know how and do not have that power.
But if we relax and just watch with vigilance, stillness, steadiness, persistence, we are cultivating the Factors of Absorption and other factors of the 37 Requisites of Enlightenment, which are categorized into seven groupings.
One is reminded of a very important thing the Buddha once explained to someone. When talking about the Bodhisatta, himself at the stage of still being a seeker of enlightenment, he once realized that he could neither strive too hard or be negligent. Doing either, he sank as if in a great ocean (samsara), but not striving and not being negligent, he made progress. What could this mean either than the Middle Way of avoiding extremes, of persisting but not pushing, of cultivating but not disturbing the peace or giving in to apathy, listlessness, or despair?
Thai Forest Tradition arahant Ajahn Maha Boowa seems to be suggesting the same thing here (translated by the American intellect Ven. Thanissaro): "The tactics [techniques] given by each of the Buddhas to the world are called the Dhamma [Truth] of the doctrine. These aren't the genuine Dhamma. They're tactics [methods] — different offshoots — actions and modes displayed by the genuine Dhamma, means for letting go and striving, teaching us to let go, teaching us to strive using various methods, saying that the results will be like this or that. As for the genuine Dhamma of results in the principles of nature, that's something to be known exclusively in the heart of the person who practices. This Dhamma can't really be described correctly in line with its truth. We can only talk around it. And particularly with release [nirvana, liberation, freedom]: This can't be correctly described at all, because it's beyond all conventions and speculations. It can't be described. Even though we may know it with our full heart, we can't describe it. Like describing the flavor [of a soup using only words to someone who has yet to simply taste it]." From Things As They Are.
Smile, be happy. Don't overdo it; just let it be.
So happiness IS the way. Be happy. Right now. Choose it. It's a choice. Smile. After all, it's World Smile Day. Reflect, "Why is the Buddha ALWAYS smiling slightly?" There are no statues of him yelling or throwing things, losing his temper or his poise. Why? It's because once one uproots the defilements, there is nothing more tat can upset. One knows-and-sees directly.
Like that, Lisa, just like that. Hold it.
And to the extent that that knowing-and-seeing is the goal, one has reached it. Things have become clear, and nothing can any longer upset us. What was in the way, aside from the defilements (of which there are many subtle ones) and lack of parami-karma (ten skillful deeds performed with the ambition of nirvana being the result)? What is the direct path to bodhi (enlightenment, awakening, realization, liberating-insight)?
What is the way to bodhi? The Seven Factors of Enlightenment. What is the way to those factors? The preceding factors of the 37 Requisites of Enlightenment. How does one do any factor? It's probably a good idea to be happy. How does one even begin to dream to do that? Smile.
All materials on this site are submitted by editors and readers. All images, unless otherwise noted, were taken from the Internet and are assumed to be in the public domain.
In the event that there is still a problem, issue, or error with copyrighted material, the break of the copyright is unintentional and noncommercial, and the material will be removed immediately upon presented proof.
Contact us by submitting a comment marked "private."
Do not follow this journal if you are under vinaya or parental restrictions. Secure protection by Sucuri.
Wisdom Quarterly: American Buddhist Journal is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at creativecommons.org/about/licenses.
(Saturday Night Live) Nov. 1, 2025: Zohran Mamdani [pronounced So Ran Ma'am Donny] (here played by Ramy Youssef), corrupt Andrew Cuomo (Miles Teller), and Curtis Sliwa (Shane Gillis) debate one another in the race to become New York City's next mayor. #SNL #MilesTeller #BrandiCarlile. NYC Mayoral Debate Cold Open - SNL. The election takes place on Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2025, so get out and vote. 
_(cropped).jpg.webp)
Even the mice who live in the walls of my apartment were coming out to watch and bite their fingernails or claws or whatever it is mice have, their cheese untouched, their traps empty... Anyway, everything was fine even if I almost soiled myself. The undo function worked, and I briefly felt good about living again for the first time in ten years. I am an idiot. Please don't be an idiot like me. Back stuff up, I beg ye.
