On Saturday, Jan. 21st, Democracy Now! brings us a special live broadcast from the Women’s March on Washington main stage area. (There are many sister marches across the nation).
Tune in from 10:00 am-3:00 pm ET. Or listen live on KPFK (90.7 FM) in Los Angeles.
This special coverage includes speakers and performers and interviews with people from around the world who are attending the march and rallies in D.C., as well as reports from other actions around the country. Click here for more details. (Use the hashtag #DNlive to join the conversation on Twitter). HOW TO WATCHStream this coverage live here on Saturday, January 21st starting at 10:00 am ET or watch on LinkTV (Dish Network 9410 & DirecTV Ch. 375).
Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi is a Theravada American Buddhist monk born in New York City, educated in Southern California, and monastically trained in Sri Lanka, where he served as editor at the Buddhist Publication Society.
He was born to a Jewish family in 1944. He obtained his Bachelor of Arts in philosophy from Brooklyn College and a Ph.D. in philosophy from Claremont Graduate School, California.
After completing his studies he traveled to Sri Lanka, where he received novice ordination in 1972 and full ordination in 1973, both under the leading Sri Lankan scholar-monk, Ven. Balangoda Ananda Maitreya (1896-1998).
From 1984 to 2002 he served as editor for the Buddhist Publication Society in Kandy, Sri Lanka, where he lived for ten years with the senior German scholar-monk, Ven. Nyanaponika (1901-1994), at the idyllic Forest Hermitage.
Ven. Bodhi returned to the U.S. in 2002 to become abbot of Bodhi Vihara in New Jersey. He currently lives and teaches at Chuang Yen Monastery (Buddhist Association of the United States, BAUS.org) in Carmel, upstate New York.
He has many important publications to his credit as author, Pali translator, and editor. These include
In 2008, together with several of his students, Ven. Bodhi founded the charity Buddhist Global Relief, a nonprofit supporting hunger relief, sustainable agriculture, and education in countries suffering from chronic poverty and malnutrition.
(Women's March) We stand together in solidarity with our partners, friends, and children for the protection of women's rights, safety, health, and families -- recognizing that vibrant and diverse female communities are the strength of our country.
Come out and join Hollywood celebrities in DTLA, downtown Los Angeles. Or there are plenty of sister marches all over the country -- one near you!
The "Los Angeles Sister March" of the Women's March on Washington, D.C. is a rain-free event on Saturday (Jan. 21st) held in the love and light of unity and inclusivity.
Women and men are representing the west coast for everyone marching in Washington, D.C. and across the nation and even the world.
This will be done as only Los Angeles can do it -- putting our unique stamp and positive spirit on a movement that is sweeping across the globe.
The Women's March on Washington in Los Angeles will be an event like no other, providing community, positivity, and inclusion at a time when such values are most needed and more important than ever.
Make the commitment to stand with the LA community. Save the date, share with friends, make plans to be part of this extraordinary once-in-a-lifetime experience. More
The Women’s March LA (with male allies)
Pershing Square, 532 South Olive St., L.A., CA 90013
We the People of the United States now disrespect the Office of the President (AP).
(ABC News) Donald John Trump was sworn in as the 45th president of the United States today, outlining his forceful if bumbling vision of a new national populism and echoing the same "America first" mantra that swept him to electoral college victory.
UPDATEDThe official inaugural balls are underway in Washington DC. The Liberty and Freedom Balls are being held at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, where the president and first lady are expected first.
Guests at the event enjoyed performances from The Rockettes and Erin Boheme. Another gala is being held at the National Building Museum for veterans and their families where singer Tony Orlando kept waiting guests entertained. President D. John Trump and his foreign-born wife Melania will attend all three of the events before spending their first night in the White House.
(Nuart) This haunting and magical tale, told wordlessly but eloquently, is a simple fable of a man shipwrecked on a tropical island, and his efforts to survive, wrestling with nature. The island is populated by birds and crabs, and is one day visited by a large sea turtle that seems to have mysterious intentions. Filled with convincing details of the natural world and told with imagination and heart, The Red Turtle is a spectacularly beautiful film. Its gorgeous hand-drawn animation equals the best of any previous animation classic. Directed and co-written by Michael Dudok de Wit, Academy Award winner for the animated short “Father and Daughter,” The Red Turtle was created by Europeans and is presented by the Japanese Studio Ghibli, makers of Spirited Away and The Wind Rises. Acclaimed at the Cannes Film Festival, where it won a Special Jury Prize, the film is a unique achievement.
CGI of lunar capsule in earth orbit shows fake curvature of earth (Hidden Figures)
(20th Century Fox) Hidden Figures is based on an incredible true story not previously told. The hit movie stars Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer, Janelle Monáe, and it's in theaters now.
Black U.S. great get little credit.
This is the incredible untold story of Katherine G. Johnson (Taraji P. Henson), Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer), and Mary Jackson (Janelle Monáe).
These brilliant African-American women work as human "computers" doing math at NASA, serving as the brains behind one of the greatest operations in history: the launch of astronaut John Glenn into orbit.
American segregation, prejudice, racism
This stunning achievement restored the nation’s confidence, turned around the Space Race, and galvanized the world. The visionary trio cross all gender and race lines to inspire generations to dream big.
It's true, maybe the moon landing shown on TV was a big fraud, an obvious hoax, but that is not to say we have never really gone. If even the Nazis had been there, we must have gone, and to do it we needed human "computers." What astronauts found and the true proximity of our Moon, these are different issues to be looked into.
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington! He'll clean up that swamp...or will he sell us out? Nah, he would never sell us out the way Obama -- the greatest hope and let down this country ever had -- did.
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I'll line them up on a wall then go like this.
What will the world be like without the USA?* Thanks to Pres. Don John Trump, we may soon find out. If the nation survives, how much worse will get while the 1% grow richer and richer? We'd better do something. Let's protest in DC, LA, and across the country. However bad it gets, it probably will be less bad than the two stolen Bush administrations, and it has to be better than a world under Hillary Clinton's hypocrisy. But it will be nowhere as good as if we could have elected an honest person willing to do the job like Dr. Jill Stein, politician Bernie Sanders, FOX guy Dennis Kucinich, Gov. Jesse Ventura, that guy who always comes on the Connect the Dots with Lila Garrett (KPFK), even moderately racist Dr. Ron Paul might have been an improvement.
Is this lying [blank], who saved us from Hillary, really to be the 45th US president? (AP)
"Post Truth World" Tom Tomorrow's satire in a post-ironic world (thismodernworld.com)
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*The World Without America
Donald Trump ripped, savaged, and eviscerated as he sits there red faced and speechless
Real-life mermaids like Melissa Dawn and friends live out the dream (dailymail.co.uk).
My tail means a lot to me. "I sometimes joke that I wear a prosthetic because I was born with a terrible birth defect -- which is legs," the modern American mermaid Cyanea explains.
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Mermaid Melissa knows the life (dailymail)
Inside America's secret community of MERFOLK where men and women identify as part-human and part-fish -- and some give up their day jobs to could concentrate on this full-time.
Caitlin Nielsen dreamed of being a mermaid from a young age and declared at kindergarten it was what she wanted to be when she grew up.
In 2015 the biology graduate quit her job to focus full-time on following her dream.
She is part of a growing community of people who identify as part-human, part-fish and call themselves merfolk.
When Caitlin Nielsen told her kindergarten teacher she wanted to be a mermaid when she grew up, the kids laughed at her.
Those who in a past life were mermaids (sea nymphs) sometimes have a hard time adjusting to life on land. Note the European folklore of the Silkies (Sealfolk) in Ireland, Iceland, and the area.
The real thing today -- what is it?
But now aged 32, Caitlin is living her dream: She is part of a "secret" American community of people in Seattle who identify as part-human, part-fish and call themselves merfolk.
Caitlin had long dreamed of being a mermaid and watching the Disney movie The Little Mermaid only excited her aspirations.
So in 2015 the biology graduate quit her job so she could focus full-time on her real ambition: being a full-time mermaid. [Suck it, grown up world of monkey-clad business apes in ties and shaved apes in sensible shoes!]
Under her mer name of "Cyanea," she earns a living running mermaid workshops and creates majestic silicone tails. But for her -- and many more of her kind -- it is more than a tail: It is part of her, and she refers to it as a "prosthetic limb." More + PHOTOS + VIDEO
Mermaids were real "Mermaids were real" Dr. Doreen Virtue, Ph.D. (AngelTherapy.com); Ashley Wells, Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly, updated, first published Nov. 20, 2012
Real-life mermaid inspired by Disney wears tail, holds breath (dailymail.co.uk)
(4AngelTherapy) Dr. Virtue, guitarist for Obsidian(with Mark Watson and Tatiana),and her friend Angela Hartfield are mermaids on an adventure to the Obsidian song "Find That Place." Ocean footage in Kona, Hawaii, Fiji. Editing by Jeff Leicher, Jack's Diving Locker, Kona, andMichael Allen.
Water-devi Doreen Virtue (angeltherapy.com)
If dogs are "man's best friend," dolphins are women's. And it's okay. According to geneticists and other scientists examining fossilized structures, dogs and dolphinsevolved from one to the other.
They are both mammals breathing atmospheric air rather than strictly depending on air pulled from water through gills.
Aquatic Ape theorists may be onto something. There is a sutra with a strange echo of mermaid lore. The Buddha's chief male disciple Maha Moggallana, who was "foremost in psychic powers," mentioned mermaids [Middle Length Discourses, Bhikkhu Bodhi(trans.), MN 50.25]:
Dr. Doreen Virtue dazzled millions by talking about the reality of mermaids on Coast to Coast. They really used to exist on Earth, the surface of which was 70% covered by water. The water was brought here. Our bodies are also 70% water.
Mer-persons (mer meaning mar, maritime, marine, "ocean") were once as common as dolphins. But they were killed off. They came to exist only as earthbound-devas, subtle light beings, fairies delighting in water. Seamen have been spotting them for millennia.
The mermaid archetype is powerful in our collective consciousness. We all recognize them. And many of us are drawn to them. Dr. Virtue makes becoming one possible with the help of modern technology and a variety of unifin/monofin models. More
A Sutra with Mermaids
Dhr. Seven (ed.) based on MN 50, Hellmuth Hecker's life of Venerable Maha Moggallana
Maritime lore: golden sea nymph or waterbound deva on Prince Frederick's barge (wiki)
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Mara even bothers enlightened disciples.
Soon after the final nirvana of Sariputra, the Buddha's chief male disciple "foremost in wisdom" (counterpart of the Buddhist nun Khema), Mara (the Buddhist Tempter figure, the Evil One, the personification of Death), did something strange.
He entered Maha Moggallana's belly and traveled into his bowels. Maha Moggallana was the Buddha's chief male disciple "foremost in magical powers" (counterpart of the Buddhist nun Uppalavana).
Mara could not make him possessed by entering his head because Mara had access only to the lowest chakra on the fully enlightened chief disciple. Maha Moggallana, however, quickly discerned what was happening and calmly told Mara to get out. Go away; you have been recognized.
Mara was perplexed and could not believe this, surprised he had been found out so soon. He thought, in his delusion, that even the Buddha would not have discerned his presence so quickly.
But even as these things occurred to Mara, Maha Moggallana read his thoughts and again ordered him out. Mara escaped from his hiding place through Maha Moggallana's mouth and stood at the meditation hut's door post.
Great Moggallana told him that he knew him not only from today but was aware of Mara's karmic past and his line of descent. In this way, Great Moggallana manifested three supernormal faculties: the divine or third eye, telepathy, and recollection of past lives.
It was only on this occasion, reported in the Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha (Majjhima Nikaya 50), that Great Moggallana spoke of his recollection of his own distant past lives.
He began by declaring this in verse:
"In the middle of the ocean
There are mansions aeon-lasting,
Sapphire-shining, fiery-gleaming
With a clear translucent luster,
Where iridescent sea-nymphs dance
In complex, intricate rhythms."
Ariel and that funny little lobster guy in Disney Corporation's The Little Mermaid
Mermaid (killmydaynow.com)
The following is the gist of what he then told Mara the Evil One.
The first buddha appearing in this our "fortunate aeon" (bhadda-kalpa) with its five buddhas was the Buddha Kakusanda. He lived when the human lifespan was 40,000 years and when the first darkening of the Golden Age became evident because of a ruler's lack of concern and the occurrence of the first theft among people.
Because of that, the vital energy of humans was reduced to half. At that time, Great Moggallana was Mara, chief of demons, lord of the lower worlds, and his name was Mara Dusi or "Mara the Corrupter." He had a sister named Kali, whose son at that time was to become the Mara Namuci of our age.
Therefore, Great Moggallana's own nephew was now standing in front of him at the door post. While being the mara of that distant time, Great Moggallana had attacked a chief disciple of the previous Buddha by taking possession of a boy and making him throw a shard of pottery at the enlightened disciple's head so that it broke his skin and blood came forth.
When the Buddha Kakusandha saw this, he said: "Truly, Mara knows no moderation here" -- because even in diabolical actions there might be moderation.
Under the glance of the Perfectly Enlightened One, the astral body of Mara Dusi (Great Moggallana in that previous life) dissolved on the spot and reappeared in the deepest hell known as the "Waveless" or Avici.
Just a moment before he had been the overlord of all the hellish worlds, and now he himself was one of hell's victims. A moment before he had been the greatest torturer, and now he himself was undergoing one of those terrible torments.
Such is the rapid change in situations in the Wheel of Rebirth (samsara). For many thousands of years Mara Dusi/Great Moggallana had to suffer in the lowest hell as a natural consequence of his frivolity towards a saintly enlightened being.
Ten thousand years he had to spend alone in a hellish pool, with a human body and the head of a fish, just as Pieter Breughel painted such beings in his pictures of the hells.
Whenever two slowly penetrating lances of his torturers crossed in his heart, he would know that a thousand years of his torment had passed (MN 50).
After this encounter with Mara, which once more brought to his mind the terrors of samsara from which he now was free forever, fully enlightened Great Moggallana felt that the time of his last birth was running out.
Being fully enlightened, a Buddhist "saint," he saw no reason for making use of his ability to extend, by an act of will, his life span up to the end of this kalpa (Pali kappa, which really means "the normal lifespan" for the time rather than its usual meaning of "aeon").
So he calmly allowed impermanence to take its lawful course. As many great sages of the East and many arhats (enlightened beings, saints) following the Buddha did, he left behind a kind of autobiography in verses (gathas) that summarize how he, as a liberated one, had since becoming fully enlightened passed through all of the situations of his life unperturbed and unshaken.
Events that completely overwhelm others left him calm. These verses, found in the Psalms of the Brethren or Verses of the Elders (Theragatha) could be summed up by saying that none of samsara's upheavals appeared to him extraordinary, nor could anything disturb the equipoise of his enlightenment.
The disappointment (ill, woe, suffering, dukkha) of the world no longer touched him as he lived in a peace that transcended all of the pain, perplexity, and restlessness of existence: The verses begin with events of his life in the world:
Wherever others craved for possessions, as a forest hermit he was content with an austere life of few wants (Theragatha 1146-1149).
Once when a harlot tried to seduce him, he rejected her just as the Buddha had rejected Mara's daughters (Thag. 1150-1157).
When his best friend Sariputra -- the Buddha's other chief male disciple -- had died, he was not agitated by sorrow as was Ananda, who had not yet become an arhat, but instead remained serene and unshaken, full of understanding and compassion (1158-1163).
Then the verses turn to events of a supernormal nature such as his shaking a monastery building with his toe (1164) and his undisturbed meditation in a mountain cleft in the midst of thunder and lightning (1167)... More
Shmuley Boteach, an American Orthodox rabbi, is author of Kosher Lust: Love is Not the Answer.
Let me tell you why.
Why Men Cheat is explained by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach. How would a rabbi know? He counsels a lot of couples and a lot of distressed men. Boteach argues that men have affairs not so much for the sex itself -- it goes much deeper. It's because their low self-esteem requires constant affirmation. The sex in the equation doesn't hurt, but it also doesn't explain the behavior. They would resort to prostitutes if it did. It would certainly be a lot easier, if much more skanky and dangerous and disgusting to your partner. Do what you want to, but how will you ignore karma?
WARNING: Profanity! "10 Reasons Why" with funny British
Emily Hart
When is sex "sexual misconduct"?
NOTE: Wisdom Quarterly affirms sex work as an occupation if it does not exploit, demean, or otherwise bring about harm to the parties involved. That's a tall order because harm is almost certainly, though not necessarily, going to be involved. It is not a great choice, but it is a choice. For often sexist US society does not provide viable options to females who find that they desperately need money. Adults may make their own choices, legal or not, whereas all children involved in sex work are being trafficked in modern slavery. But a prostitute with a married man is still herself a cheater, along with the man, by Buddhism's definition of "sexual misconduct" or kamesu micchacara. So is it really worth it.
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Michael Moore addresses 25,000 protesters in NYC: "There's more of us than there are of them!"
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