Can heavy metal save Japanese town?

Heavy metal festival aims to revive Japan 'town of steel'

(NEWSNHK WORLD-JAPAN) Nov. 13, 2025: The western Japanese city of Yasugi is known as a "town of steel" for its centuries-long iron-making tradition. As it faces depopulation [and decline], one man is trying to revitalize the community by linking the "metal" of Yasugi's steel with heavy metal music.

NHK is a Japanese public broadcast service. #japan #music #heavymetal. More stories on Japan: www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/ne... Subscribe: @nhkworldjapan

Was that a growl or roar?

(NBC News) Don't feed the cute, cuddly bears when visiting Japan

Travis 'n Taylor: 'Viva Las Vegas' (Dead Kennedys)

Pfc. Sandoval, Seth Auberon, Ashley Wells (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Wait, is The King paying me directly from Graceland or is Spotify Corporation? Whatever!

Jello has new music coming out

Jello Biafra (fronting punk rock legends the Dead Kennedys) sings Elvis' "Viva Las Vegas" to show artist Trey K (rookie singer, professional footballer Travis Swift-Kelce) how it's done.

Trey, it's not a good idea to outshine Taylor "Nazi Barbie" Swift, stealing her limelight if she thinks she's the shinier one in this PR-relationship. But if that's the way you want to play it.

Why would the couple keep doing everything it can to attract even more eyes for any conspiracy the alphabet agencies may want to run through Team Traylor? Who knows. So go for it. But sing it right!

• Travis Kelce's Super Bowl ‘Viva Las Vegas' scored a payday for the song and Elvis Presley's estate
• Travis Kelce belts out country song before Mahomes pulls microphone away at Chiefs' victory-parade (Man, this guy will just not shut up. Taylor's the singer, not you!)
• Kanye West claims he helped Taylor Swift -- so why did she have him thrown out of the Super Bowl?

Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce sing along to 'Love Story' after Super Bowl win

(Entertainment Tonight) Feb. 13th, 2024: TayTay and Trey K bring their PR "Love Story" [because she has probably banned him from covering DK's "Viva Las Vegas"] to the dance floor for the ubiquitous cameras and live microphones. ET has learned more about the couple's post-Super Bowl LVIII celebration at Wynn Las Vegas’ XS nightclub after the Kansas City Chiefs just barely beat the San Francisco 49ers. An eyewitness tells ET the two were spotted enjoying the night as they danced together in the DJ booth while singing along to Taylor's song "Love Story." Travis and Taylor ("Traylor" as in Trailer Park) were also seen 'exchanging affectionate gestures' throughout the evening, including sharing "celebratory kisses."

Gen Z finding (or rejecting) religion

Austin Cross, AirTalk, 3/3/23 (LAist); Sheldon S., Ashley Wells (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Fail! I'm tired of this bullsh*t church service and that patriarch telling us what to believe.

Say a little prayer for Gen Z: How young folks are finding (or moving away from) religion

How to Know God (Patanjali)

For more than two weeks in February, Christian college Asbury University hosted a round-the-clock [Christian] religious revival, making headlines (washingtonpost.com) across the world and inspiring other colleges to host revivals of their own.

But wait a minute, aren’t Zoomers (Gen Z members) supposed to be less religious? While there is a general trend towards disaffiliation from religion, digging into the data paints a more complicated picture of a generation [an artificial demographic segmentation in the US by age] in flux.

How has living in a time of tremendous social change influenced Gen Z’s attitudes towards religion --organized or otherwise? And within this generation, how does religious feeling differ between certain groups?

What if I tone down the smiting, Sinners?

Joining in to answer these questions and more are Director Daniel A. Cox of the Survey Center on American Life and a senior fellow in polling and public opinion at the American Enterprise Institute, and Executive Director Richard Flory of the USC Center for Religion and Civic Culture.

• LISTEN • 18:53 minutes

American Buddhist Col. Olcott, Theosophist

Pat Macpherson and Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly Wikipedia edit

Theosophy is not Buddhism. It is a newer Western religion based on ancient Eastern philosophies that include Buddhism, a belief system given to Russian writer, clairvoyant, and mystic Madame Blavatsky (1831-1891) by a consortium of unseen beings.

American Buddhist Col. Henry Steel Olcott (1832-1907) was an officer, lawyer, journalist, and co-founder of the Theosophical Society and its first president. He was the first well-known American of European ancestry to make a formal conversion to Buddhism.

Col. Olcott drawn by Blavatsky

His subsequent actions helped create a renaissance in the study of Buddhism. He is considered a Buddhist modernist for his efforts at interpreting Buddhism through a Western lens and was a major revivalist of Buddhism in Sri Lanka, where he is still honored for his efforts.

He was important to the new movement; he is famous for reviving indigenous Theravada Buddhism in Sri Lanka. Moreover, Theosophy helped revitalize the West's interest in spirituality. One interesting aspect of Theosophical study we now take for granted is "color mysticism" in the aura or astral body of a person.

Ajahn Chah: Training the Mind (video)

AjahnChah.org via The Noble Path; Amber Larson (ed.), Wisdom Quarterly

Translucent blue Thai Buddha statue (buddhagroove.com)

Ajahn Chah: Training the Mind (English reading audio)

Training the mind with Ven. Ajahn Chah Subhaddo's book, as read by one of his Western disciples. Ajahn Chah is the founder and the teacher at Wat Nong Pah Pong and the international meditation center known as Wat Pah Nanachat (WPN) in Ubon Ratchathani, Northeast Thailand. Ajahn Chah passed into final nirvana in 1993, after establishing many forest tradition meditation monasteries in Thailand and the West. For more information: ajahnchah.org, Wat Pah Nanachat (WPN) the International Forest Monastery watpahnanachat.org, Wat Nong Pah Pong watnongpahpong.org. Playlist: youtube.com/playlist...

"Buddhist Radio" in L.A. (KPFK 90.7 FM)

Roy of Hollywood (Something's Happening), KPFK; Dhr. Seven, S. Auberon, Wisdom Quarterly

It's amazing but little known that Los Angeles gets Buddhism over its airwaves [and online at archives.kpfk.org, (800) 735-4230]

The amazing Pacifica Free Speech Radio station KPFK.org (90.7 FM) is the ultimate source of independent programming in a town littered with bad commercial radio.

White Sun (Sikh music) plays benefit show

This is thanks to Roy of Hollywood, whose main show, "Something's Happening," plays overnight and is available free for 90 days in the archives.

Zen Teacher/"Spiritual Entertainer" Alan Watts is played on Sunday mornings at 8:00 am and Thursday nights. This week also featured Jack Kornfield, Pema Chodron, and others.

Buddhism thrives as China relaxes policy

Robert J. Saiget (AFP)

WUTAISHAN, China — Temples thrive, monks travel far and wide in search of enlightenment, the faithful fill the halls of veneration -- after decades of official atheist policies, Buddhism is making a huge comeback in China.

Nowhere is this revival more apparent than at Wutaishan, the most important of China's four "holy mountains" and home to a sprawling complex of temples, 180 miles (300 kms) southwest of the capital, Beijing.

"I have come to study at Wutaishan because Zen Buddhism, Han Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhism, all the different schools from different places, are represented here and mixed together," itinerant monk Master Shi told AFP. "This is the Buddhist holy land. Buddhist monks and nuns from all over China want to come here to study."

Shi, with a shaved head and wearing a grey robe, has visited temples throughout China in search of Buddhist knowledge, repeating a pilgrimage undertaken by generations of monks before him. Besides studying Tibetan Buddhism in Lhasa (Tibet), he has visited the Hongfa Temple in Guangdong, south China, and been to the White Horse Temple -- China's oldest Buddhist temple -- in Henan province in the center of the country.

Interest in Buddhism has grown dramatically since the 1966-1976 Cultural Revolution, a period of communist zeal when religion was largely banned, the clergy persecuted, and many temples and monasteries destroyed. In stark contrast to this era -- during the opening and reform era of the last 30 years -- the totalitarian state has largely allowed religion to develop, albeit within strict parameters.

For decades, the communist-run State Administration for Religious Affairs has said there were "only" about 100 million religious believers in China. But state press reports have recently said that number has grown to 300 million.

In late June, Wutaishan was named a World Heritage Site by the United Nation's cultural arm UNESCO, a move expected to bring more visitors to this holy shrine that houses some of China's oldest Buddhist manuscripts. Currently 53 temples house monks and nuns, while the ruins of more than 150 temples are scattered around hillside terraces or isolated on remote mountain tops. The earliest temples date back to the first century when Buddhism first arrived to China from India.

"Twenty years ago, as we started recovering from the Cultural Revolution, the total number of monks here was just a few hundred," said Yi Bo, spokesman for the Wutaishan Buddhist Association. "Since then Buddhism has not stopped developing. More and more monks have come. The numbers hit 1,000, then 2,000, then 3,000. Three years ago we hit 5,000." At that time the government stepped in and began restricting the number of monks who could study here, he said.

Meanwhile, 2.8 million visitors came to Wutaishan in 2008, bringing in 1.4 billion yuan (roughly 206 million U.S. dollars) in tourist revenues, according to government figures. This year more than 3.1 million visitors are expected.

"The government supports us mainly with policy, but funding for our growth mainly comes from donations from the Buddhist faithful," said Miao Yi, a nun at the Buddhist Institute at the Pushou Temple, China's largest convent.

More than 600 nuns are studying in the Buddhist Institute, which has received generous funding from Buddhists in Hong Kong and Taiwan [prosperious semi-autonomous regions that have seen extraordinary rises in Buddhist affiliation and practice], she said. Still the government remains wary over religion and monks here refused to discuss Tibetan Buddhism or its spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, who once asked communist leaders if he could make a pilgrimage to Wutaishan's ten Lama temples.

"We must work to support patriotism and national unity. We must embrace the leaders of the Communist Party and the socialist system," Gen Tong, a senior Buddhist leader said on the occasion of 50th anniversary of the Wutaishan Buddhist Association in late 2007. "In the past, [the rulers] of different dynasties were all impressive emperors and were all devout Buddhists," said association spokesman Yi Bo.

If Chinese communist leaders were allowed to publicly adhere to Buddhism, he said, "for sure it would bring a huge benefit to us," he said.

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Additional editing by WQ