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Spring break in Miami, Florida? Not this year

Miami cracks down on spring breakers, Ft. Lauderdale PD sees an opportunity | The Daily Show

(The Daily Show) March 15, 2024: Where are college kids heading to now that Miami is shutting down spring break? Michael Kosta and Desi Lydic report on the hottest new Florida travel destination: Fort Lauderdale, where things are getting so wild, kids are considering careers in law enforcement. #DailyShow #MichaelKosta #DesiLydic

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"Greed is good"? Yes

Wall Street, Gordon Gekko, 12/9/11; Pink Floyd; Dhr. Seven, Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly

Gordon Gekko "Greed is Good" full speech

(Ken Pruitt) Gordon Gekko (Oliver Stone's Wall Street) unknowingly describes the problems facing today's private sector (industry), while blasting the bureaucracy (governance) responsible for said problems in the first place. This is classic speech, both the in film and in economic thought. This is for people who think Saipan is a free market.

This is a famous pro-capitalist speech. Buddhism says the root of all unskillful action (unwholesome karma) and misery is due to three things: greed, hatred (and fear), and delusion.

This, of course, is a rough translation of what the Buddha taught since he used the terms lobha, dosa (bhava), and moha. These technical terms in Pali and Sanskrit have much broader definitions than our translated English words. Better words might have been avarice, aversion (cowardice), and nescience. But who knows what those mean? All the attraction and liking are subsumed in lobha. Dosa refers to all forms of aversion and disliking, which includes fear. And moha is ignorance of all kinds.

We say greed, hatred (fear), and delusion because it makes it more obvious in English that these things are bad. Then Gordon comes around and glorifies "greed." Greed is somewhat good, in a way, at least in the way Gordon is using it. How? Well, consider what we in English mean by "good." It's not always a moral judgment.

But, Buddha, c'mon, it's so much cash money!

Sometimes it's a functional assessment with one test -- getting what we want. If something gets us what we want, we accurately call that "good." I want to kill myself, I say. I tell Dr. Kevorkian that I'm thinking of using a 45. And he says, "That's good," meaning "that will work." He might add, "That's overkill. Why not just use my poison contraption?" Why, I ask him. "Because that's better," he answers. How so, I say. And the Doctor of Death explains that not everyone dies from a shot to the head, which is news to me. Some blow off their jaw, others get brain damage and deafness on one side. Others get a facelift and become paraplegics. He starts making a lot of sense, and his death device IS "good" in that it always works and never fails, and if I really want to kill myself (which is bad and a mistake) his way is "good." That's normal English.

Think about it. You say, "I want to get rich. I'm thinking of going to an Ivy League school, majoring in business, and stealing it from a company I raid by pumping and dumping its stock, screwing over all the other workers and investors there." And I say, That's good. I'm not making a moral judgment, and you know that. All I'm doing is saying, That'll work. Right? There's a better way, but your parents have their heart set on you going to an Ivy, so you and Gordon and Wall Street bankers can all have a great time with other lowlifes in New York. And you say, "What, you have a better idea?"

And I say, Yes. Try Buddhist business. "What in the world is that," and I talk about the Sigala Sutta (DN 31) and the Buddha's business advice to young householder Sigala. I mean, imagine it. What if there were a way to grow rich, enjoy it, experience all the sensuality and worldliness you want, and it wouldn't lead to regret hereafter. And there will be a hereafter, no matter how much you drink and blot out that possibility, sinking yourself in science books and ignoring all the evidence that there's more, much more, to this life than what we see and touch and can remember.

• But then in what sense is "greed" good? There is the possibility of translating other Buddhist terms as "greed." It's a stretch, but it is possible in the larger sense. All desire is disappointing, unsatisfactory, suffering. Why, how? When a craving, yearning, pining, desire, inclination, lust arises, immediately with the arising of it, we suffer (are discomfited, are pained, thirst, hunger, pine, long, yearn, agonize) in the absence of it. One way to get rid of this pain is to get the thing we want; another way is to stop wanting it, but that is not nearly as easy to do. Any desire results in this kind of "suffering" (dukkha, which is a very broad term encompassing everything from agitation to agony). But, of course, we desire enlightenment/awakening (bodhi), reality/an end to suffering (nirvana), liberation (moksha), and so on. We want the bliss of the meditative absorptions. We want magical powers (iddhi, abhinna). We want wisdom (prajna, panna), happiness (sukha). We want to meditate and so on. We desire purification (visuddhi). We want deliverance (vimokkha). These kinds of desires are desires -- and they will result in distress as soon as they arise -- but they are not called craving (tanha) to distinguish them from commonplace sensual desires. These are called by other terms -- resolve, determination, zeal, intention, or will. The term used is chanda.
• Chanda: intention, desire, will. 1. As an ethically neutral psychological term, in the sense of "intention," it is a general mental factor (cetasika, q.v. Tab. II) taught in the Abhidhamma, the Dharma in Ultimate Terms, the moral quality of which is determined by the character of the volition (cetanā) associated with it. The Commentary explains chanda as "a wish to do" (kattu-kamyatā-chanda). If intensified, it acts also as a "predominance condition" (see paccaya 3). 2. As an unwholesome quality, it has the meaning of "desire" and is frequently coupled with terms for "sensuality," "greed," etc., for instance: kāma-cchanda, "sensual desire," one of the Five Hindrances (see nīvarana); chanda-rāga, "lustful desire" (see kāma). Chanda is one of the four wrong paths (see agati). 3. As a wholesome quality, it is a righteous will or zeal (dhamma-chanda) and occurs, e.g. in the formula of the Four Right Efforts (see padhāna): "The meditator rouses will (chandam janeti)...." If intensified, it is one of the Four Roads to Power (see iddhippada). (Ven. Nyanatiloka, Buddhist Dictionary: Manual of Buddhist Terms and Doctrines).
• So in that sense "greed" (chanda) is good, but it's terrible and misleading to say so because it is a matter of semantics. "Greed" is always bad as we understand the word in English, but "will" is not necessarily bad in the larger sense while still being bad (if we define "bad" as "whatever leads to suffering"). An apparent paradox arises that good things can lead to suffering, and the resolution is this: Some things lead to suffering now and much happiness later, so they are "good." Some things lead to a little respite from suffering now and much suffering later, so they are bad. For example, striving in meditation can hurt, be boring, be frustrating, be painful, can seem fruitless, and so on, but when successful we will be glad we went through all that for what it yielded. Taking a break and enjoying sensual pleasures can seem a harmless pastime, something we deserve for working so hard, but our never ending addiction to them, the danger inherent in them, the fact that they can never by their nature bring us to satisfaction, fulfillment, satiation but always instead demand more and more, greater and greater diversity (papanca, proliferation), urge us on in samsara, the endless wandering in search of satisfaction, and this is the antithesis of nirvana (release, the highest happiness, the end of all suffering, ultimate reality.

Massive college fraud scheme uncovered

CBS News, March 12, 2019; LAist.com; CC Liu, Ashley Wells (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Hollywood actors Felicity Huffman, Lori Loughlin among 50 charged in college admissions scheme
The Massachusetts U.S. Attorney has announced "Operation Varsity Blues" -- criminal charges today (March 12) against 50 people allegedly involved in a college admissions scam. Authorities allege wealthy parents including actresses Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin paid bribes to falsify their children's records and enable cheating on the SAT and ACT exams.
 
CBS News correspondent Chip Reid has the latest details on CBSN. For further details: cbsnews.com/news/college-admis... CBS News Channel: youtube.com/cbsnews. Watch CBSN live: cbsn.ws/1PlLpZ7. Follow CBS News on instagram.com/cbsnews. CBS News on facebook.com/cbsnews, twitter.com/cbsnews, newsletters cbsn.ws/1RqHw7T. News on the go with mobile apps: cbsn.ws/1Xb1WC8. Try it free at bit.ly/1OQA29B: CBSN is the first digital streaming news network that allows Internet-connected consumers to watch live, anchored news coverage on their connected TV and other devices. At launch, the network is available 24/7 and makes all of the resources of CBS News available directly on digital platforms with live, anchored coverage 15 hours each weekday. CBSN is always On.

• Felicity Huffman college admissions cheating (CNN) 
• Lori Loughlin's daughter caught up in college admissions scandal (nytimes.com) Ms. Giannulli, 19, is the daughter of the actress Lori Loughlin and the designer Mossimo Giannulli, whose fashion brand was sold at Target until...

USC, UCLA officials among 50 charged in alleged college admissions bribery scheme

Tommy Trojan, USC mascot, is frequent target of vandalism by UCLA hooligans (laist)

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Authorities allege that parents -- some of them famous Hollywood celebrities like Felicity Huffman and Target designer Mossimo -- paid about $25 million in bribes to get their kids into elite colleges between 2011 and last month for coaches and administrators to "designate their children as purported recruited athletes," among other corrupt "recruiting" actions. More

Dartmouth ignores sex abuse claims

Associated Press (ap.org via mail.com); Crystal Q., Ashley Wells (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

(Back row) Annemarie Brown, Andrea Courtney, Marissa Evansin, (front row) Sasha Brietzke, Vassiki Chauhan, and Kristina Rapuano pose in NY, women who filed lawsuit against Dartmouth College for allegedly allowing three professors to create a culture in their department that encouraged drunken parties and subjected female graduate students to harassment, groping, and sexual assault. A growing number of former students are demanding answers from the administration and questioning how such an atmosphere apparently flourished for at least 15 years at the Ivy League school in Hanover, N.H.

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The Ivy League school is rich and famous.

Dartmouth College alumni have heard the allegations of misconduct in one department where professors are accused of hosting drunken parties, groping, and sexually harassing their students and, in two cases, sexually assaulting them.

Now a growing number of former students are demanding answers from the administration and questioning how such an atmosphere apparently flourished for at least 15 years at the Ivy League school in Hanover, New Hampshire.

 

Gathering in Facebook groups and other networks, alumni led by several women are pushing for withholding donations until they see changes at the school — or the ouster of President Philip Hanlon. Others want department chairs and other administrators responsible for handling the sexual misconduct allegations held accountable.

In October 2017, Dartmouth launched an investigation into the three professors. It never released the findings. But Todd Heatherton retired this summer after being told he would be fired and denied tenure. Paul Whalen and William Kelley resigned soon thereafter.

The growing anger comes in the wake of a federal lawsuit filed this month by seven female graduate and undergraduate students who were in the Department of Psychological and Brain Science, where the professors worked. They accused the three of sexual misconduct and said the college ignored their complaints.

"There is a whole of lot of alums, women in particular, out there who have had experiences that are similar enough to what these students have experienced and are horrified to know this is still going on," said Giavanna Munafo, a lecturer in the Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies program who has counseled two of the seven women who made abuse claims.

"It's like a wake-up call to them," she said. "Our college is still as bad as it was or worse." More

Amazing U.S. racism and Ivy League (audio)

Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly; Michael Slate (KPFK, Fri., 9-26-14, 10:00 am), Craig Steven Wilder, Ebony and Ivy; Eric Shapiro (flatironhotnews.com), Revolution Books, NY

Race did not come out of science and theology, but came to science and theology.

Americans from the USA (as distinct from the rest of continental America) went to England not so much to study medicine but as experts on race because they live with African, as they are the rich children of slave owners from the South.

• AUDIO: KPFK Archives, Friday, Sept. 26, 2014 10:00 am

Burn all the books before the truth gets out!

They are bent on wiping out Native Americans, dehumanizing them, planning for their genocide, and considering African Americans as little better than primates. They raid corpses from graveyards to establish medicine and science in our America. The records show this, but no one before the author of Ebony and Ivy seems to have read the records in detail. Who would defend slavery, science or theology? They competed, and science won.

The mythologies of theology became the "empirical, verifiable" facts of science. The affluent American families that established the universities in this country -- during the "Enlightenment" -- were rooted in racism, slavery, genocide, and an imperial war mentality that still haunts us today.
 

U.S. Slavery and U.S. Universities

Eric Shapiro

Author Craig Steven Wilder will speak at Revolution Books on [Sunday, Sept. 28th] at 7:00 PM. A leading historian of race and African American culture, Wilder will discuss his latest book, Ebony & Ivy, released September 17th, 2013.

Ebony & Ivy (insightnews.com)

Ebony & Ivy examines the role racism played in the history of some of America’s most prestigious universities. Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and others exploited slaves to build and sustain themselves, while simultaneously serving as laboratories of racist thought. Slavery and racism, Wilder demonstrates, tarnish the legacy of even those institutions Americans perceive as bastions of liberalism.

 

Revolution Books, located at 146 West 26th Street, is one of the foremost independently-owned book stores in New York City. Dedicated to the cause of peaceful revolution developed by Bob Avakian, Revolution Books seeks to foster a clear understanding of the historical oppression that makes change so necessary. It is the ideal venue for a scholar like Wilder.

Wilder’s book has received considerable acclaim and publicity. The Allegra di Bonaventura of the Wall Street Journal writes:

 

“It is Mr. Wilder’s vast and often seemingly banal catalog of mercantile transactions, charitable bequests, and academic and administrative appointments -- all links in the chain that joins universities to slavery -- that lends the book its disturbing power... a passionate recounting of the collective dehumanization of African-Americans coincident with the rise in power and prestige of the Atlantic college, particularly the Ivy League.”

Oct. 2, 2014 (BA at RB)

A brief excerpt from Ebony and Ivory provides a tantalizing glimpse of its tone and subject matter:

 

“1830: Harvard was approaching its two hundredth anniversary, which meant that it was also nearing the bicentennial of its intimate engagement with Atlantic slavery. Beginning with the first graduating class, boys from Cambridge had been seeking fortunes in the plantations. By the time Henry Watson matriculated, Harvard’s history was inseparable from the history of slavery and the slave trade…”

Finally, here’s a little bit of information on Craig Steven Wilder himself:

 

Craig Steven Wilder is professor of American history at MIT, and has taught at Williams College and Dartmouth College. Wilder grew up in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood is the author of A Covenant with Color and In the Company of Black Men.

 

Excerpts and bio courtesy of Revolution Books. Check out their website for more info on this and other upcoming events.

• LIVE at Revolution Books