Spelling Bee 100 (Monty Python, Ananda)

Mmm, is it S-U-P-E-R-C-A-L-A-F-R-A-G-E-L-I-S-T-I-C-E-X-P-I-A-L-I-D-O-C-I-O-U-S?

(Scripps National Spelling Bee) 2025: 100 YEARS OF THE BEE

Monty Python's Flying Circus competitive mass spectacle sport of Novel Writing (The Final Rip Off)

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A century of spelling keeps going strong

A field of 243 top young spellers will converge on National Harbor, Maryland, from [today] May 27 to May 29, 2025, to compete in a historic Scripps National Spelling Bee.

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the iconic American competition, which was first held on June 17, 1925, with just nine participants.

• Bee Week starts today (May 27, 2025) | Scripps National Spelling Bee (spellingbee.com)
• L.A., Orange County students to begin competing in National Spelling Bee

“Reaching 100 years is more than a milestone — it’s a testament to the enduring power of words, learning and the human spirit,” said Corrie Loeffler, executive director of the Scripps National Spelling Bee.

Scripps National Spelling Bee declares first-ever group of co-champions

I always knew I'd do it! Yes! Thanks, Saraswati!

“For a century, this competition has brought people together through eras of profound change — from world wars to the digital age — and still, the Bee continues to inspire excellence, curiosity, and connection. It’s a living piece of American history, and we’re honored to celebrate its legacy.”

This year’s 243 national qualifiers advanced through local and regional bees that took place through the end of March. All rounds of this year’s national competition — preliminaries, quarterfinals, semifinals, and finals — will take place at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center, Maryland.

Monty Python's Flying Circus - "Working Class Playwright"

Highlights of 2025 Scripps National Spelling Bee field

Yes, well, it comes as no surprise really. *Yawn*

The spellers range in age from 8 to 14. Only 53 spellers return from the 2024 field, and 178 spellers – 73% – are competing in their first Scripps National Spelling Bee.

Only one 2024 finalist advanced to the 2025 national competition: Faizan Zaki, who finished second last year behind Bruhat Soma, following his record-breaking spell-off.

Tarini Nandakumar is competing in her fifth consecutive Scripps National Spelling Bee. She was a finalist and finished ninth in 2023.

Navtaj Singh, Micah Sterling and Avinav Prem Anand are competing in their fourth straight national competition. Harini Murali is in her fourth Bee overall, as is Zaki.

There are spellers from all 50 states and the [ruling imperial seat of power known as the] District of Columbia [Columbia being the original name of "America," after the titular goddess who was buried and erased from U.S. history, as if Amerigo Vespucci gave the Americas their name].

Texas has the largest representation with 22 national competitors. California is next with 20, followed by Ohio with 15, and Illinois with 13. Florida and New York have 12 each. There are 13 competitors from outside the 50 United States, representing the Bahamas, Canada, Germany, Ghana, Guam, Kuwait, Nigeria, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. More

Celebrating a 100-year tradition...

2025: 100 YEARS OF THE BEE

(Scripps National Spelling Bee) 2025 - For a century, the Scripps National Spelling Bee has been much more than a competition. It has become a symbol of perseverance, intellect, and community. From its humble beginnings to becoming a cornerstone of American culture, the Bee has empowered millions of students, fostered lifelong friendships, and united communities in the love of language and learning. Through the words we spell, we tell stories — stories of personal triumph, academic achievement, and the diverse fabric of the American experience. As we honor this incredible milestone, we celebrate not just 100 years of history but 100 years of making an impact on generations of learners and the communities they inspire. Join us in commemorating this momentous occasion, as we reflect on the past, celebrate the present, and look forward to an even brighter future.

What is spelling but memory? Memory, like most things, is due to karma: Ananda

Ananda recounting all the suttas, beginning each with, "Thus have I heard." (First Council)

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This is the Middle Way avoiding extremes

Among all the disciples of the Buddha, foremost in memorization was his personal assistant [and possibly one of his sons with a dancing girl named Mriga, according to some traditions, which would make him Ven. Rahula's half-brother] Venerable Ananda.

• [It makes sense that Ananda would also be the Buddha's son but that this would have been suppressed or discarded in most traditions. One shining piece of evidence is when Ven. Rahula (whom the Buddha had ordained at age 7) was 18, he was getting very frisky and overwhelmed by sensual craving, presumably due to hormones at that age and the luxurious life he had left behind in the palace in his former kingdom of Kapilavatthu. He was walking with the Buddha and Ananda, if memory serves, making comments about how at that moment there were in the world only three people with the past karma to become "world monarchs" (cakkavati or chakravartin rulers).

• 

  Ven. Rahula, the Buddha, and Ven. Ananda

  Prince Siddhartha had turned his back on that possibility, forecast by soothsayers when he was a child, much to his father King Suddhodana's delight. Ananda was already a monk for a long time. And there was him. If Rahula disrobed, returned to the palace, and let nature take its course, he could become king of this world. Such talk worried the Buddha, who instructed a monk that -- after 11 years in the robe learning the basics -- Ven. Rahula was now ready to intensively put the Teachings into practice. He did and thereby attained arahantship. If the other person there was Ananda, it would be among these three close relatives that the karma existed to attain to the status of a world-monarch.] Was Ananda the Buddha's son?

Ananda lived one kappa = 120 years

It is only because of Ananda that we have "Buddhism" as we do. When the Buddha passed into final nirvana, having established the Sangha (the Buddhist Monastic Community) and left in place the Noble Sangha (the community of enlightened disciples in any of the four stages of awakening), Ven. Maha Kassapa took it upon himself to begin a religion. He did this by calling together the First Buddhist Council of fully enlightened disciples (theras and, presumably, theris). The texts say 500 arahants (fully enlightened beings) attended, but this number simply means "a large number." It was almost 499, as it were, because Ananda was the most important person to be invited, but he did not qualify to attend. He was needed to recount the suttas (sutras, sermons, narrated teachings, the Buddha's "discourses").

Another monk was put in charge of the Vinaya (Monastic Disciplinary Code rules). But Ananda was only a stream enterer at the first stage of awakening. So he made a strenuous effort to put into practice all that he knew, had heard directly from the Buddha, and committed to memory. It was no use. He failed. This path cannot be accomplished simply by a "sense of urgency" (samvega), which is important to recognize the meaning of the Buddha's last words to be a lamp unto oneself and work out one's own salvation with diligence (to mindfully put into practice the theory of the Teaching in so consistent a manner that one makes an end of all suffering in no long time). Because he tried so hard, Ananda failed. He had slacked off for years, so he never attained arahantship, full realization.

Now the opposite problem was impeding him -- to much efforting, too much strain, too much craving and grasping. He needed santosha ("contentment") to ease his mind so it could blossom. The night before the Council was to meet, he practiced intensive meditation deep into the night. Finally, he recognized his failure with frustration and exhaustion, so he gave up and decided to go to sleep.

Laying off the pressure (surrendering, giving up, letting go of craving it and needing it), he began to lie down. He was going from the extreme of too much to the other extreme of too little, at one moment achieving balance between the two, the Middle Way that avoids extremes of austerity and luxury. He became the only disciple to achieve awakening outside of one of the "four bodily positions" (lying down, sitting, standing, or walking). He attained, because he let go, between sitting and lying down.

He sat right up and experienced the paths-and-fruits of self-realization (magga-phala). He was welcomed into the Council by the other fully enlightened beings and recited all the discourses he had heard over the preceding 25 years as the Buddha's chief assistant. This is why all sutras begin not with "once upon a time" but rather "thus have I heard" (Evam me sutam).

• Buddhist tradition maintains that the disciple Ānanda used the formula for the first time, as a form of personal testimony... [to say that he himself was attesting that this is what the Buddha had said]. Scholars may rightly doubt that this could be true for all sutras, certainly not applying to later apocryphal Mahayana inventions, which have become some of the most famous "sutras" [sutured together sermons with a single throughline or thread] of all, namely, The Heart Sutra, The Diamond Sutra, The Lotus Sutra... More

Nevertheless, it is undisputed that Ananda had a tremendous memory like a spelling bee champion. And one is forced to wondered what it is about India (ancient Maha Bharat, Jambudvipa, Asoka's Empire) that produces to many remarkable memory banks in little boys and girls of Indian origin.

• Is it Goddess Saraswati's doing?
• Is it the clean vegetarian (ahimsa) diet?
• Is it past study of the Vedas (in previous lives) as Brahmins memorizing countless slokas?
• Is it genetically handed down?
• Is it training and the way the Indian system chose to educate its children?
• Is it rich minerals in the soil coming down from the Himalayas nourishing the babies?
• Is it Hinduism (or Islam or Jainism or Sikhism)?
• Is it yogic magic?
• Is it British colonial rule, forcing everyone into a Western model of learning and punishment and stealing Indian and Islamic innovations (in mathematics and sciences, like the invention of "zero" and the Ayurveda or "health sciences") and calling them British?

No, it's not likely this last one, but possibly any of the previous ones.

The Buddha praises Ananda

“The foremost of my monastic disciples who are very learned is Ānanda… with a good memory is Ānanda. ...with an extensive range is Ānanda. ...[foremost] in retention [memory] is Ānanda. ...[foremost] as a personal attendant is Ānanda.” Source: AN 1.219–234: Catuttha Vagga—Ven. Sujato (trans)

• Scripps National Spelling Bee; Monty Python; Ven. Sujata (suttacentral.net); memory and the story of Ananda explained by Dhr. Seven; Ashley Wells, CC Liu (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Wisdom of the East in Haiku (Alan Watts)

What is "zen"? It is jhana (Sanskrit dhyana, Chinese chan) or "meditative absorption" (WQ).

The simplest and most advanced form of art

Alan Watts is a British-American Zen genius

Alan Watts is translating haiku, which is regarded as the more sophisticated for its apparent artlessness, direct and unadorned.

• Haiku is not anything one wants to say in 17 syllables, as we are taught in the US, nor is it a rhyme. It is 17 on (phonetic units in Japanese) with no English equivalent. So, lacking an equivalent (of what linguists might call a phoneme or chunk), we have substituted syllables.

(IntelligenceExplosion) The lectures, books, and teachings of Alan Watts are commemorated at alanwatts.org. (More can also be found at alanwatts.com lovingly run by his son).

Why are haiku good? They are following many rules we are not told in English, where we just count syllables and chase pseudo-depth with something snappy and terse. "Brevity is the heart of wisdom." And of all the great haiku that ever came from the West, I have never heard something to rival the great American gay Jewish NAMBLA member Beat Poet Allen Ginsberg, author of Howl, or was it one-time Buddhist Jack Kerouac, author of The Dharma Bums and On the Road, perhaps Sephardic Jew Lawrence Ferlinghetti or American humorist Kurt Vonnegut.

Someone in the 1960s wrote a genius three-word punchline (copied by droll comedian or reprehensible copycat Michael Lowenberg, who dared submit it as an original thought in 2022) that repeated Internet searches do not find. I am forced to compose a facsimile from memory:

walking down the street

i look up, see a pigeon

then hear a high coo

2022 WINNER:

a cicada’s husk

grandfather in his best suit

hands folded, eyes closed

— Ngo Binh Anh Khoa

• Allen Ginsberg's Mostly Sitting Haiku, Collected Haiku (terebess.hu)
• Those Women Writing Haiku inspired the Beat Poets to try to write it (thehaikufoundation.org)
• How to use Haiku poetry for mindfulness (Rest Less)
• ARTS: How to Haiku: 1: What is not a Haiku (treeleaf.org)
• The 22 Best Haiku of 2022 | Society of Classical Poets

Can anything be a haiku?

Sheron Bellio (left) and Tim Conway Jr. (KFI)

Yoko Sakamoto (channeled by Sheron Bellio): Obstacles do not block the path; they are the path. Life isn't as serious as the mind makes it out to be. A piece of bamboo bends but does not break. Only the hand that erases can write the truth.

Nothing ever exists entirely alone; everything exists in relation to everything else.

A world, a torch, and without, torch drop -- a world of trouble. A haiku a brought to you by Sue Beh'rue. I write, I erase, rewrite, erase again, and then [put a spell on you].

The past has no past. A picture of a rice cake does not fulfill. To seek is to suffer; to seek nothing is bliss.

Tim Conway: I understand that your husband, Vic, is a worldly guy. He traveled the world. He spent a lot of time in Tibet, India, China, Vietnam, [Japan but] he said you met at Dalt's?

Yoko: Dalt's, the Dojo of the Smoothie...together we are One, filling each other up. *Gong*

Tim: You've got a little gong, too?

Yoko: A ding-dong with you, Tim Conway, a ding-dong.

Haiku lessons for American poets

Kokuu, Canterbury, UK (ARTS: How to Haiku, 1: What is not a haiku) edited by Wisdom Quarterly

Kokuu | treeleaf.org

(Treeleaf.org) I can’t speak for other languages, but haiku poetry taught at school in English is almost universally bad.

The basic instruction my 13-year-old daughter recently received was that a haiku is a three-line Japanese poem comprising 17 syllables in lines of five, seven, and five syllables respectively.

If one is lucky, one might be told that it is usually about nature and our relationship with the natural world. Is this correct?

Well, it is not totally incorrect, but it focusses the attention in completely the wrong direction and thereby misses out several important factors.

It is true that in Japanese, a count of 17 sound units (morae) are employed in a three-line sequence.

• Good haiku examples by Matsuo Basho

"Quietly, quietly,/yellow mountain roses fall
–sound of the rapids" (Matsuo Bashō)

However, an English syllable tends to be longer than a Japanese sound unit, so English Language Haiku (ELH) written in 17 syllables often to feel too bloated and long compared to their Japanese equivalents.

Moreover, most people writing haiku with the 5-7-5 structure in mind pay far more attention to getting the right number of syllables than forming a good poem. Few modern day ELH poets write in 5-7-5. Some do.

Most bad haiku (the plural of haiku is haiku) on the internet are written in 5-7-5. The syllable count is often achieved by adding adjectives until the magic 17 is reached.

The three-line structure is also not a good way to think about haiku. It is better understood as a poem composed of two essential parts – a phrase (two lines usually containing a verb) and a fragment (one line). This can either be fragment-phrase or phrase-fragment. More about this later.

Also a haiku isn’t a bunch of ideas and concepts. It is essentially a poetic form based on images, often coming from nature. Concepts can be included as well as images, but just concepts is far too heady and not nearly visual enough. Source: treeleaf.org

• AlanWatts.org, Jan. 17, 2015; KFI racist comedy duo Producer Sheron Bellio (impersonator) as "Yoko Sakamoto," wife of Vic the Brick Jacob, in conversation with suspended radio talk show host Tim Conway Jr.; composed, abbreviated, and edited by Dhr. Seven, Ashley Wells, Seth Auberon (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Prose Bowl: Night of POETRY: Get Lit (9/8)

Get Lit (LAist.com)

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 Seven, Ananda (Dharma Buddhist Meditation), Wisdom Quarterly

"[H]ome is a safe zone/no, bitch face is safe zone,/bitch face is home" ("Ode to My Bitch Face")

Get Lit Host Mason Granger baseball cap and t-shirt (LAist.com design/Get Lit)

Young poet Olivia Gatwood reads for her large YouTube following (nytimes.cf)

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The Prose Bowl: A Night of Spoken Word Poetry with [the youth poets of] Get Lit

It’s a celebration of Los Angeles poetry at LAist with Get Lit - Words Ignite! In this new three-part live event series, Get Lit youth poets, standout local artists, and a nationally renowned featured poet will get together for a night of spoken word performance poetry hosted by Get Lit’s Mason Granger (he/him).

• LAist's The Crawford
• 474 S. Raymond Ave., Pasadena
• 7:00-8:15 PM, Friday, Sept. 8, 2023
• Price: $0-$15 (GET TICKETS)
• RSVP: FREE (PasaDharma Meetup)
• Disclosure Project: The Prose Bowl: Night of Spoken Word Poetry: Get Lit (Pasadena), Fri, Sep 8, 2023, 6:00 PM | Meetup
• Nature Center: The Prose Bowl: Night of Spoken Word Poetry: Get Lit (Pasadena), Fri, Sep 8, 2023, 6:00 PM | Meetup

Come early to enjoy sweet snacks from Day & Night Cereal Bar, sips, a DJ set from Austin Antoine (he/him), and tons of cool people to connect with in the name of poetry.

Drinks, music, and snacks start at 6:00 pm, and the show kicks off at 7:00 pm. Join LAist for its series kickoff on Friday, Sept. 8, with feature poet Olivia Gatwood.

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GET LIT YOUTH POETS

• Pluto Saidkarie*
• Jasmine Minchez*
• Jonathan Smith*
• Naomi Farkas*
• Dharma Lemon
• Austin Antoine
• Raul Herrera
• Celia Douglas
• Christian Perfas
• Erica Almond
• *2023-2024 The Get Lit Players (GLPs) are an award-winning performance troupe of youth poets, who’ve performed at the United Nations, Hollywood Bowl, Lincoln Center, and White House — to name only a few. Every year they perform live for over 50,000 of their peers, and their videos have been watched online over 300 million times.

Message from the event organizer: Register for The Prose Bowl: A Night of Spoken Word Poetry with Get Lit. Free seats will be given out on a first-come, first-served basis unless one reserves a Preferred ticket. The doors will open 30 minutes prior to the show. Questions? Reach LAist via email at events@laist.com. The Prose Bowl | LAist.com

• Upcoming Series dates:  Fridays, Oct. 6 and Nov. 17, 2023

ABOUT THE POETS: ...DHARMA LEMON (she/her) is a writer and teaching artist from Los Angeles. Dharma is quirky and passionate. She writes about feminism, body positivity, the environment, and racial injustice. She is inspired by writers such as Allen Ginsberg, Huey P. Newton, Patricia Smith, and Amari Baraka. Dharma has performed and taught workshops at UCLA, CAAM, and The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures. She has performed at Firedrill Fridays with celebrity activists like Jane Fonda, Joaquin Phoenix, Rainn Wilson, and many others. Dharma has also performed in "Artists for Amazonia '' with Kali Uchis, Barbara Streisand, Morgan Freeman, among others. Dharma Lemon has been published in GLAFF’s book titled Bridges, performed in the closing ceremony of GLAFF, and presented a “Tree of Life Award” to Patricia Arquette. Her passion doesn't just register in her writing but also in her love for activism....

• The Get Lit Players will spend the next year honing their skills and enjoying exciting and unique workshops, paid performance and networking opportunities, and a lifetime of support from Get Lit’s community.

ABOUT FEATURED POET:

Yeah, I have resting bitch face (Buttons Poetry)

OLIVIA GATWOOD (she/her) is originally from Albuquerque, New Mexico, and has received international recognition for her poetry, writing workshops, and work as a Title IX Compliant educator in sexual assault prevention and recovery. Her work historically focuses on stories about young womanhood as a site for obsession, intimacy, and hysteria, often pulling from horror and surrealism to depict a coming of age. Gatwood's performances have been featured on HBO, Huffington Post, MTV, VH1, and BBC, among others. Her poems have appeared in The Poetry Foundation, Sundance Film Festival, Lambda Literary, and The Missouri Review, among others. She is the author of two poetry collections, New American Best Friend and Life. She is the co-writer of the film The Governesses alongside Director Joe Talbot (The Last Black Man in San Francisco). Her debut novel, Whoever You Are, Honey, will be released in 2023. She currently lives in Los Angeles.

ABOUT HOST: Mason Granger is the deputy director at Get Lit. Originally from Philadelphia by way of Willingboro, NJ, Granger is a poet with 19+ years of professional experience on stage and in classrooms across 49 states and six countries as part of the performance poetry trio, The Mayhem Poets. In 2014, he created SlamFind, a digital platform to connect fans of poetry videos with the poets and live poetry venues where these videos are born. Connecting the poetry community to itself and the rest of the world continues to be the foundation of his work to this day. Between 2016-2018, Mason was the official videographer for Poetry Slam Inc., producing several iconic poetry videos that continue to garner millions of views across multiple platforms. In the spirit of his mission of always keeping the "live" in "live poetry," he also hosted the weekly PoetNY open mic at Bowery Poetry Club in NYC from 2017-2019 while also serving as executive director of Bowery Arts & Science through 2019. Now as a Los Angeles resident in his fourth year with Get Lit, Granger continues to pursue creative projects, while helping to shape the future of spoken word poetry education in the State of California and beyond.

SPECIAL ACCOMMODATIONS LAist is committed to providing access and accommodation for individuals with disabilities at events. To request accommodations, please email events@laist.com or call (626) 585-5222 at least one week (7 days) in advance of the event. Read Values, Commitments, and Code of Conduct on orders on how to behave at nominally leftwing events.

Ticket revenue generated from these programs helps LAist continue to deliver timely and dynamic in-person and virtual experiences that support the public service mission of Pasadena's LAist as a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. Donate today

Alan Watts: Society is a hoax (video)

Alan Watts via TheSpiritualLibrary; Pat Macpherson, Seth Auberon (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Alan Watts: Society is a HOAX; take control of your life

Listening [persistent unbiased attention] is an action [during] which the miracle of understanding takes place. If I may turn aside for a moment, I think it is important to understand what it means to listen. For then, perhaps, what is being said will have a meaning beyond the ]words. It seems to me [Jiddu Krishnamurti] that very few of us ever do listen. We do not know how to listen. I wonder if you have ever really listened to your child, to your wife or husband, or to a bird? I wonder if you have ever listened to the mind as it watches a sunset, or if you have read a poem with an attitude of listening? If we know how to listen, that very listening is an action in which the miracle of understanding takes place. If we know how to listen to what is being said, we shall discover whether it is true or false. And what is true, one does not have to accept: It is so. It is only when there is contention between the false and the false that there is acceptance and rejection, agreement and disagreement.

The Other F Word: Fatherhood (video)

Altern Attic (Wiki text); Seth Auberon, Pat Macpherson (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

"Dad"? What have I done!?!

The Other F Word is an American documentary film directed by independent filmmaker Andrea Blaugrund Nevins.

The film explores the world of maturing punk rock musicians as they transition into parenthood and try to maintain the contrast between their anti-authoritarian lifestyle with the responsibilities of fatherhood, which is the "other F word."

Yay, dads!

In addition to interviewing over 20 musicians from across the spectrum of the punk genre, from Mark Hoppus of wusses Blink 182 to Fat Mike of marginal NOFX, the film also includes other emblematic figures from the subculture such as professional skateboarder Tony Hawk in a chronicle of the struggles and rewards that accompany raising their children. Released in the U.S. by Oscilloscope Laboratories.

PREMISE

So this is the rest of my life, huh?

Primarily rotating around interviews of Pennywise lead singer Jim Lindberg, the documentary switches between musicians as it jumps between their travels on the road doing concert tours and time spent at home with their kids.

In the course of the movie, interviews are interspersed with archived concert footage.

I still rock as hard as I used to.

It shows these punk rockers, from their early years to more recent shows, to depict some of the challenges they face in their roles as parents -- while at the same time maintaining their roles as anti-establishment figures for their punk rock fan following.

Remarking that their adolescence often lacked much in the way of paternal guidance, the interviewees speak of how they are earnestly trying to be the supportive role models for their kids that they themselves never had while growing up.

INTERVIEWS

1. Tony Cadena - The Adolescents (Adz)
2. Art Alexakis - Everclear
3. Rob Chaos - Total Chaos
4. Joe Escalante - The Vandals
5. Josh Freese - session drummer
6. Fat Mike - NOFX
7. Flea - Red Hot Chili Peppers [FEAR]
8. Lars Frederiksen - Rancid
9. Matt Freeman - Rancid
10. Jack Grisham - TSOL
11. Brett Gurewitz - Bad Religion
12. Tony Hawk - pro skater
13. Greg Hetson - Circle Jerks
14. Mark Hoppus - Blink-182
15. Jim Lindberg - Pennywise
16. Mike McDermott - Bouncing Souls 
17. McIlrath - Rise Against
18. Mark Mothersbaugh - Devo
19. Duane Peters - U.S. Bombs
20. Joe Sib - SideOneDummy Records
21. Ron Reyes - Black Flag
22. Rick Thorne - BMX rider

What's in a blood test, huh, Hillary?

• 50th Anniversary Woodstock Festival: Hippie Fest 2016? ...have been to a Hippie Fest in 2008 at the amphitheater which was a blast....A 50th anniversary concert needs to be held, but as I said the bands should be chosen with the original peace... 
• Monterey Pop 50th anniversary concert lineup (SFGate)
• "The Summer of Love" (Wiki explaination) ...a social phenomenon that occurred during the summer of 1967... Although hippies also gathered in many other places in the U.S., Canada...Pink Floyd performed....2017, San Francisco plans to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Summer of Love...

What would I do for love? (video)

Ven. Nyanasobhano (Leonard Price, BPS.lk/AccessToInsight.org); Ashley Wells, Seth Auberon, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly; Associated Press (AP.org); Lana Del Rey, "Video Games"

Encouraging or praising suicide, war, abortion...is the karma of "killing." Ask Carter.

Nothing Higher to Live For:
A Buddhist View of Romantic Love

Ven. Nyanasobhano (formerly Leonard Price)

Wisdom Quarterly tackles tough topics.

Practically nobody questions the supremacy of romantic love, which is good enough reason to do a little poking around the foundations of its pedestal. Who is entirely satisfied with the romance in his or her life?

Who has found the sublime rapture previously imagined? And if one has actually found such a thing, does it last, or does it not rather change and decline from the peak of ecstasy? And if it declines what becomes of one's purpose in life? If a purpose is achieved it is no longer a purpose; it can no longer guide or sustain us. Does one taste of nectar satisfy us forever?

A world gone mad (thismodernworld.com)

When we tire of crass, material goals we may go searching for love instead of, say, religious insight, because love seems both more accessible and more urgent and because so much of institutional religion in our time has degenerated into insipid humanism.

 

Some claim refuge here but many more, longing for authentic and moving experience, turn to the vision of the "lover," that source of wonder, joy, and transcendence, who it is thought must be pursued and if captured perfected and if perfected then enjoyed forever -- or until some other lover lights up the horizon.

 

If you loved him/her you'd "prove" it?

Love is its own justification, especially for the young who have no other inspiration or no career or responsibilities to dull themselves with as their plodding elders do. Longing bursts through this one channel that seems open, dizzily insisting that the life of unreflecting passion is the highest they can aspire to. They do not reason, but fall.

Their elders do reason -- obsessively -- but fall all the same, thereby admitting that, with all their thought and experience, they find, when driven to extremity, they have nothing but love to live for.

Who should you date, a cub or a cougar?

This is not to say that such a surrender must be bad, only that it happens out of instinct and uninformed passion. Love is sweet and it is our nature to give way. But why do we worship it so ardently, and why do we break off our search for fulfillment here? Perhaps because we see no other gods [Kama Deva, "Cupid," Lucifer as Tempter figure in Christianity, slick Mara in Buddhism].

 

Yet, if love is the highest thing to live for then this is a hopeless universe, because we should see in a calm hour that Cupid's arrows not only thrill us but make us bleed.

Gays on morning drive L.A. radio, KROQ

"Man Kills Estranged Lover Then Self." "Wife Stabs Husband in Domestic Quarrel." "Love Triangle Leads To Shooting." So read the headlines with depressing regularity. The stories behind these are only the most shocking of countless tales of passion, but they do forcefully suggest that romantic love is not always a blessing.

 

One might object that hate, not love, spawns such tragedies, but where has such hate come from if not from a prior attachment now broken? We should know from experience how easily what we call love can turn to bitterness, jealousy, and malice, and though we protest that this is not the fault of love, we ought to notice that where one passion arises another is likely to follow. Passions are unreliable, volatile, dangerous, and a poor foundation for happiness.

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Beauty and supreme songstress Lana Del Rey obsessed withdysfunctional relationships.

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Divorces, suicides, dissipation, violence, depravity, fanaticism, and other miseries great and small follow from passion, and yet passion is still, in the public mind, considered commendable, a mark of vigor and liveliness.

Though everybody will admit that passion gone awry is dangerous, few realize that passion is by its nature likely to go awry. Romantic love is a chancy passion that may result in the opposite of what is desired. It may have happy consequences, too -- else it would not have so many votaries -- but it raises the stakes in the gamble of life and makes us more vulnerable both to our own weaknesses and to unpredictable fortune.

As most of us count the joys of successful love (however we define success) worth the pain involved in its pursuit, we must learn to step lightly and with intelligence.

No demonstrators gather for dumb b/f killer.

We believe, with some reason, that love can ennoble and redeem us and call forth our purest energies, but we are slower to see that when the lamp of love flickers out, as it tragically tends to do, we might lose our way in a fearful labyrinth of suffering.

Granted that few will shun the pursuit of romance out of fear of unhappy consequences...More

Cartoon violence, "The Other F Word" (video)

Pat Macpherson, Pfc. Sandoval, Seth Auberon, Seven, Wisdom Quarterly; The Other F

A mighty devil (mara) says to a lesser demon (rakshasa, asura, or yaksha): "For all this talk of innate Buddha-nature, business is still humming right along." (buddhisthumor.org)

Go to your room, Lisa. Feelin' lucky, punk?

(FOX, Rated X for extreme) Cartoons precede our feature presentation. Isn't it funny living in a society that thinks nothing of showing violence on TV, but slip in some side boob? Oh 'ell no, the U.S. will not stand for it! "Think of the children!" Marge Simpson and a million MADD busybodies are heard to say. Then you become a father and, suddenly, hypocrisy sets in. Not my daughter's cleavage! Not my wife's amateur movie appearance. Have a son. Maybe he'll be partially gay, and will the same worries apply? Maybe. Maybe a whole set of new ones.

You're a good monkey. Stay out of Chris' closet.

"Men love porn," Quagmire and a million S.A.D. lazybodies are overheard to whisper. We need a spurt of dopamine, androgens, epinephrine, and maybe even a drop of oxytocin. Self soothing. Women can worry. Men can choke something. Look at that "Brass Monkey," the Buddhist band the Beastie Boys likes to say. He's a funky monkey. Sooner or later, punk rock boys become punk rock dads and discover the meaning of the other F word:

The Simpsons (Matt Groening) meet Family Guy (Seth Macfarlane); Gustavo Macana (mash up)

"The Other F Word"

A movie of quotable quotes: "A little ANARCHY can be a life-changing experience"

The Other F Word (with Spanish subtitles). Watch it without all the subtitulados.

"The Other F Word" is a doc directed by Andrea Blaugrund Nevins, executive produced by Morgan Spurlock of "Supersize Me" fame (Rolling Stone). The film explores the world of punk musicians getting older and becoming parents. How can they maintain the contrast between an anti-authoritarian ethos and the responsibilities of F?

Other F-word? Fatherhood

It features interviews with more than 20 dads running the gamut of "punk" styles from Mark Hoppus of Blink 182 to Fat Mike of NOFX. It also includes professional skater Tony Hawk, who was part of a related subculture. Punks like skateboards. Other fathers featured: Jim Lindberg (Pennywise), Tony Adolescent (The Adolescents), Art Alexakis (Everclear), Rob Chaos (Total Chaos), Joe Escalante (The Vandals), Josh Freese (session drummer), Flea (Red Hot Chili Peppers), Lars Frederiksen (Rancid), Matt Freeman (Operation Ivy), Jack Grisham (TSOL), Brett Gurewitz (Bad Religion), Greg Hetson (Circle Jerks), Mike McDermott (Bouncing Souls), Tim McIlrath (Rise Against), Mark Mothersbaugh (Devo), Duane Peters (U.S. Bombs), Joe Sib, Ron Chavo Reyes (Black Flag), and Rick Thorne (BMX biker). Additional music by FEAR, Dead Kennedys, Against Me!, Good Guys in Black, and the Black Pacific.
 

D'oh, I'll rip your head off and spit down your neck! - I'll tear ya limb from limb, fat chicken!

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