While I have a great deal of sympathy and compassion for people caught in disasters, I'm also often very frustrated because so much of it is often preventable ( Read more... )

surreallis  started a discussion on her LJ about internalized sexism. Because she did not understand the point of view I was trying to express in my comments to her post, she encouraged me to make my own post on the subject. So, here I am, whacking at weeds off in left field. If no one wants to join me out here, that's okay. But I hope to explain why I'm ( Read more... )

When I was in third and fourth grade, I went through a period when I was completely freaked out about death. Of course, my family didn't go to church, so I had not been taught that there was an afterlife in heaven... for me, death was just the complete cessation of being. Nothingness. And, quite honestly, it scared the heck out of me. So, being the ( Read more... )

It's been a week since the election, and I've been following the events in California surrounding Proposition 8.  I confess that I was unable to fully rejoice in Obama's election because of the votes in Florida, Arizona, and California banning gay marriage. If those states, with their thriving gay communities, are faced with such prejudice, what ( Read more... )

We're inundated with a lot of information on how to live well.  But, really, as a society, I don't think we know how to die very well.  It's something we put off thinking about for as long as possible, perhaps to the point of denying it will even happen.

Kate and I lost a friend to cancer last night, and I've been wrestling with mixed emotions, ( Read more... )

As is my habit, I started off my morning yesterday reading the headlines on CNN, only to find (much to my horror) this story: http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/ , wherein one of our presidential candidates, Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo, still stands by his assertion "that bombing holy Muslim sites would serve as a good 'deterrent' to prevent ( Read more... )

Stolen from 
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The closest thing I've ever had to a personal bible is a smallish book entitled, Buddha's Little Instruction Book, by Jack Kornfield.  It was given to me as a gift by someone (I wish I remember whom; but it might have been Puck) probably twelve or thirteen years ago.  Since then, I've kept it beside my computer at work to look at, if not daily, ( Read more... )

I'm rolling on the WMD book, finally. Got chapter 3 organized in a logical fashion (half the battle), pretty much following the DHS's UTL for content. Of course, that means the original outline was tossed out the window, but hopefully the committee won't care too much. At this point, I don't think I'm capable of following an original outline to ( Read more... )