Tuesday, July 25, 2006

Civil Disobedience Against Inferior Credit and Debit Card Receipts (an Open Trackback Post)

The other night, when I went into a convenience store to pay for my full tank of gas, the store clerk swiped my debit card and quickly offered a two-part carbonless receipt for me to sign. After hastily applying a barely legible Tor Hancock, I handed back the bottom copy and pocketed the top copy.

The clerk quickly protested, "I'm sorry, we get the other copy!"

I replied, "I prefer to keep the legible copy, so I can record the accurate amount in my checkbook tonight."

No further protestation ensued from the clerk.

So there you have it. It's that easy. Next time some convenience store decides to give you a two-part credit or debit card receipt to sign, please join my campaign of civil disobedience and retain the top copy. We are the consumers. We shouldn't be expected to have to call our banks to find out whether those blotchy digits are eights or sixes. If we force the stores, thru our nonviolent civil disobedience, to call their banks to inquire about the correct amounts, we will force the abandonment of two-part receipts in a jiffy. The more progressive stores are already printing out receipts that are just as legible as the ones we're signing; if we all stick together, we can rid the world of the anti-consumer practice of providing inferior receipts to customers.

Then, we can get rid of signatures altogether in favor of the pin pad.

Keep the faith, and keep the top copy!

Peace,

Tor

This is this week's post. Click on the chicklet for an FAQ on open trackbacks. In a nutshell, anyone may send a trackback ping to this post today, provided there is a link to this post in your post. I'll manually put up the links here later today or tomorrow.

Angel of Woman Honor Thyself opined on the U.N., Israel and Hezbollah. Bernie of Planck's Constant rants along a similar vein.

And the Madman Returns, while also getting into the same general topic, rips Eugene Robinson a new one.

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Saturday, July 22, 2006

Minimum Wage in Maine

Here's my one bit of advice for those who are making minimum wage in Maine: don't have two children. You can't afford them. As a matter of fact, even if you're making considerably more than the minimum wage, you still can't afford them. If you've already got them, and suddenly find yourself making minimum wage for the foreseeable future, please consider giving them up for adoption to someone who can afford them.

I won't be holding my breath for an article from the Bangor Daily News that shows people who live from paycheck to paycheck at wages substantially higher than the minimum wage, and who realize they shouldn't have children because they can't afford them. And yet, the rest of society expects them to pay for the education and health care of everyone else's children. Even for children whose parents are quite better off financially.

The bloke profiled in the BDN article particularly should serve as a warning to everyone. If you've been in the same full-time job for ten years or more, and are only pulling in $900 per month from it, maybe you should spend a little less time bellyaching about the minimum wage and a little more time finding another job. It's well past time to move on and find some new employers who value your skills. Even unskilled employees should be able to quickly move up from minimum wage, assuming they show up on time and don't goof off too much.

Peace,

Tor

Linking to the following blogs' open trackback posts: Samantha Burns, Point Five, Seven Deadly Sins, Assorted Babble, Church and State, Case Notes from the Artsy Asylum, Party Blog, Blue Star Chronicles, Leaning Straight Up, Stuck on Stupid, Bullwinkle Blog

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Life Is Fresh

Welcome to this week's tenant in the upper right hand column, Life Is Fresh. Jack is a software engineer for IBM who is currently enlightening us on the best plants for monsoon season. It's seemed like monsoon season in Maine this summer, so that's why Jack gets the spot this week. Please visit his blog and tell him Tor sent you.

I'd also like to thank two others who applied for the space this week. Winsome Gunning Art Walk has appeared here before, and is still worthy of a visit. Scooter McGavin's 9th Green is a multi-topic blog, despite its sports-related title. Go argue with him about one of his top ten lists.

Peace,

Tor

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Tuesday, July 18, 2006

Quick and Dirty Open Trackback Post

Today has suddenly and unexpectedly become very busy for me, but I wanted to make sure there was a post for folks who want to avail themselves of open trackbacks today.

Peace,

Tor

This is this week's post. Click on the chicklet for an FAQ on open trackbacks. I'll manually post the links sometime Wednesday.

Update 7/20: Due to severe thunderstorms that came through our area on Tuesday afternoon, the offices of Tor's Rants and World Domination Ltd. were without power for about 36 hours, so I'm just now able to put up the links of those who trackbacked.

Angel proffers her take on civilian casualties in war, and terrorism's civilian casualties at Woman, Honor Thyself.

Bernie of Planck's Constant muses on the Old Gray Lady's imminent slimming down.

Head over to 123beta to read Butch's message about the current state of Freedom Watch.

And Ferdy, the Conservative Cat, wails about the media portrayal of sectarian violence in Iraq:

The cause of violence is not Shi'ites living side-by-side with Sunnis, it's regular people living side-by-side with evil, murderous scumbags. The Iraqi government needs to find evil, murderous scumbags and put them down. Are any Sunnis living in America or Great Britain killing Shi'ites?


Avi Green of Tel-Chai Nation submits for your consideration a piece that ponders Putinism. Wottheheck, I guess Avi's figured that today's the second Tuesday of the week, so I'll go along with that.

Monday, July 17, 2006

Freedom of Access and Executive Sessions in Millinocket, Maine

The internet is becoming an ever more powerful tool in the hands of Maine citizens who want all governmental bodies in the state to conduct their business ethically and openly. Our good friend Lance Dutson at Maine Web Report has been a virtual David against the Goliath of the Maine Office of Tourism.

I've been following the exploits of the Millinocket Magic City Morning Star, which describes itself as "a collective of volunteer news reporters, editors, columnists, and other independent media, who have come together to bring the news and other information in a timely fashion to an online readership." Lately, they've been championing the right of Maine citizens to know what's going on in their governmental bodies.

For many months now, they've been attempting to shine some light into the arcane workings of the Millinocket Town Council. The whole thing has come to a head with the council's recent decision to go into executive session in order to discuss Maine's Freedom of Access Law with its counsel.

The Freedom of Access Law is pretty specific as to which topics are allowed in executive session. The Millinocket Town Council's purpose in calling for an executive session does not seem to fall within those topics. The attorney for the council seemed to express that the matters could be discussed in public, but it was his preference not to do so:

[Attorney Dean Beaupain] continued, "Certainly as an attorney, I would much prefer to meet with my clients in executive session because we are going to be talking about opinions, we're going to be talking about options and we're going to be talking about the state law that may or may not be the state law. And I always do what my clients tell me to do. If you want to meet in public, we can do that. But I would prefer -- and I think this is certainly subject to executive session...but if you want to discuss it publicly, we can discuss it publicly."


The intent of Freedom of Access is to make everything that any governmental body does a matter of public record, except in a few, narrowly defined exceptions. It is not meant to be a shield for government to hide behind when there are things they "would much prefer" to discuss in private.

I say, more power to the Millinocket Magic City Morning Star. One of their reporters also has many excerpts of town council meetings posted at YouTube. Three real gems: the discussion about the executive session, and Michelle Anderson telling the council off for characterizing her online newspaper as "a threat to the community."

Peace,

Tor

Update: Michelle Anderson gives us some more bizarre updates at the As Maine Goes forums. As one commenter puts it, "The only reason to hold this in executive session is to coach these nitwits on how to hide illegal meetings, and dispose of public records."

Update 7/20: In the category of "It's a small world," it seems that my mention of Lance Dutson above was more than as an example. It seems that one of the main characters in the Millinocket FOAA scandal, Matthew Polstein, is on the periphery of Lance's MOT dealings, since he's a member of the Maine Tourism Commission. And Lance has picked up the story, and gotten more exposure for Michelle and Ken Anderson. And wackiness ensues.

Linked to the following open trackback posts: Bloggin' Outloud, Don Surber, Dumb Ox, Right Wing Nation

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Saturday, July 15, 2006

Progressive Evangelical Christians

Harvard Divinity Professor Harvey Cox has written a stimulating piece about how many evangelical Christians in the U.S. are returning to their socially progressive roots.

This interest in what are often considered "liberal" issues marks the rise of a younger and more moderate leadership among evangelicals. Paradoxically, these new leaders are more "religious" than the old guard of the religious right. The difference, one could argue, is that they are more concerned about actually following Jesus, who had much to say about violence and the poor, but said nothing about gays or a strong military, and who was put to death by torture. The appearance of these new social concerns means that something important is afoot in the vast evangelical community of America. It is simply no longer accurate to identify "evangelical" with "religious right."


Just a little more evidence that that Crunchy Con fella knew what he was talking about.

Peace,

Tor

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Friday, July 14, 2006

Swimming in a Burqa

Here's another bit of evidence one could use to argue that the United States is ripe for takeover by Islamic fundamentalists. Seems a small company in Oregon is selling women's swimwear that hearkens back to the styles of the early twentieth century.



The makers of WholesomeWear swimsuits would like women to cover up their tummies. And their backs. And their arms. And half their legs. The Oregon company, based outside Portland, sells a collection of swimwear online that consists of a wet suit topped by a dress. The spandex underpinning is not sufficient on its own because bystanders would still be able to make out the curves of the woman's body. The nylon overdress takes care of any audacious display of an hourglass shape.


Of course, the fact that consumers have more choices in the free market is always a good thing. But what a loss to men everywhere this summer!



I can see the point of having little girls wear things that are less sexualized, if only because of the extremely creepy men who seem to be lurking everywhere these days. But once you're a grown woman, enough of that! I'd rather live in MacBros' Place, than in a world where you go to the beach and see this:



Peace,

Tor
a.k.a. DOT (Dirty Ol' Tor)

I'm shamelessly taking advantage of the open (dare I say revealing?) trackback posts at the following blogs: Pirate's Cove, Dan Mancini, People Are Idiots, Woman Honor Thyself, Madman Returns
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Frank Gorshin's Pet Lobster Has Been Found

When Frank Gorshin died last year, little did anyone know he had a pet lobster.

Well, it's been caught.

Seems it was the only crustacean suitable for the man who played the protagonist/antagonist (depending on how you look at it) in a memorably none-too-subtle episode of Star Trek.

The rare 1-pound crustacean, caught earlier this week in Steuben, is a genetic mutation with a two-toned shell.

One side is the usual mottled dark green. The other side is the orange-red shade of a lobster that's already spent some time in the hot pot.


Peace,

Tor

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Open Window Yoga

If you have an extra moment, please head over to Open Window Yoga, this week's renter atop the right-hand column. Richard Russeth, a.k.a. asana bear, lives in Evergreen, Colorado, and muses on many topics from closed captioning on yoga dvds to the ramifications of non-violence.

If you have another extra moment, go check out these cute pics of a fox on asana bear's other blog, Wind Horse (Lung Ta). Reminds me of a fox who used to visit me every afternoon when I was stacking wood for a former employer.

Peace,

Tor

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Wednesday, July 12, 2006

The Colonial Theatre in the Republican Journal

Daniel Dunkle has written up a nice piece about one of my workplaces in the Republican Journal. Alas, Edward Young, the projectionist featured in the article, had his last shift on Thursday of last week. As Mike Hurley noted at his send-off, we all hope he gets fired from his new job, so he has to come back and work with us again.

And while I'm on the subject of the Colonial Theatre, I have to point out that Down East Magazine has named our humble movie house Number 36 on its list of "50 Things You Must Do This Summer."

Maine weather is unpredictable ("If you don't like it, wait a minute"), so it's a good idea to have a backup plan in case that August sunshine gives way to rain. The Colonial Theatre in Belfast is a true movie experience. Costumed ushers, themed movie premiere parties, a lobby full of interesting movie information, perhaps the nicest staff in any cinema, and ticket giveaway games make going to the pictures here a real pleasure. And somehow this small independent theater manages to get some of the big blockbusters before they open elsewhere in Maine. From the elephant on the roof to the wacky art-deco decor, the place is hard to miss (or beat). Call 207-338-1930 or visit www.colonialtheatre.com for more information.


Nicest staff in any cinema, eh? Even the kids we throw out think so, according to Dunkle's quote of Mike Hurley:

Hurley doesn't seem to be bothered by people's behavior in the theater. He said it's part of the job to make sure people aren't making too much noise.

He adds that it's the wrong business for someone who does not enjoy working around kids.

Movie theaters are really the first place kids can go that aren't controlled by authority figures in the way that schools and churches are, Hurley notes.

"Kids we were throwing out of the theater are now coming back as adults and saying 'Can't you quiet those kids down,'" he said with a smile.


Peace,

Tor

Gratefully availing myself of the open trackback posts at the following blogs: Third World County, Diane's Stuff, Cigar Intelligence Agency, Conservative Cat, Don Surber, Dumb Ox

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Tuesday, July 11, 2006

One Red Paperclip's Kyle MacDonald Pulls It Off

If you haven't heard, Kyle MacDonald of One Red Paperclip fame has just made the final trade: a house in Kipling, Saskatchewan. Can't believe I didn't think of it first.

Congratulations, Kyle.

Peace,

Tor


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Shopping in Belfast, Maine (Open Trackback Post)

I'll be waiting for the raw data from this study to see how pertinent it actually is to the questions at hand about shopping in Belfast, Maine and how big-box stores would impact availability of goods.

At the direction of the Belfast Retail Review Commission, which was formed by the City Council to study the shopping issue, a committee of 14 volunteers from Senior College formed to examine whether essential items could be bought in Belfast at affordable prices.

With the help of representatives from agencies that serve the elderly and families with young children, the committee developed a list of 140 "necessary" items, and shopped for them in Belfast.

According to a statement released Monday, the volunteer shoppers found 136 of the 140 items in Belfast stores.


Here's a list of the stores they went to:

The volunteer shoppers each had a list of 10 to 12 items, and visited 26 stores: Renys, Ocean State Job Lot, Rite Aid, Family Dollar, Perry's Furniture, MacLeod's, EBS, Aubuchon Hardware, Home Supply, True Value, Shamrock, Thistle & Rose, Olympia Sports, Belfast Army/Navy, Colburn's, Nancy's Sewing Center, Heavenly Yarn, Green Store, Aunt Judy's, Waltz Pharmacy, Sears, The Good Table, Garden Cottage, Mr. Paperback, Fertile Mind Book Store and Linda Wry.


Right off the bat, I can tell you something's very, very wrong. If you're willing to spend five times as much for a pair of shoes as you would have to at Wal-Mart, and you don't mind if those shoes chafe the backs of your heels into a bloody mess, then by all means shop at Colburn's shoe store. And the Good Table, while it does sell many wonderful kitchen gadgets, does so at a great premium to Wal-Mart prices. Whenever I've checked, the prices have been at least double what Wal-Mart charges.

I love Belfast Army-Navy, but you really have to be willing to dig around to find what you need. Things are a bit jumbled together, but the prices are great.

Mr. Paperback could use some competition. They play their music way too loud in there, and the stench of coffee pervades the shop. If I don't find what I'm looking for within a minute or two, I give up. Wal-Mart doesn't really compete against bookstores to any great extent, other than for an extremely short list of current best-sellers.

It's fortunate for the committee that they waited to attempt this survey till after the advent of Ocean State Job Lots. There's no doubt that that one store has filled much of the vacuum left by the closure of Ames a few years ago.

One of the premises of this survey, and the conceit of all economic planners such as the Retail Review Commission, is that government is better able to discern the shopping needs of consumers than they themselves are. The commission's study seems to be chastising Belfast area shoppers who aren't willing to go to ten stores to pick up eight items. Just this morning, I had to go to three stores to find a simple air filter for my lawnmower. I would have spent less time, wasted less gas, and paid less for the part if I had simply headed for the Wal-Mart in Augusta. If I'd been forced to do this during a lunch break on a day when I'm working in Belfast (as many shoppers must, because most of the stores close so incredibly early), I'd have starved for the rest of the afternoon.

I'm not an apologist for Wal-Mart in general. It is a great abuser of eminent domain. They also tend to keep the volume too high on those TVs that hang from the ceiling. But I am a fan of their pricing, and of their self-check-out stations.

In general, the commissars of Belfast should step aside and let the free market decide "whether essential items could be bought in Belfast at affordable prices."

Peace,

Tor

This is this week's post. Click on the chicklet for an FAQ on how to participate. In a nutshell, you may trackback to this post on any subject matter (at my sole discretion), so long as you've linked to this post. I'll manually put the links up here later today or tomorrow afternoon.

Angel, writing at Woman Honor Thyself, would like you to read her two cents about PFCs Kristian Menchaca and Thomas Lowell Tucker.

Mark Sprengel would like you to "mark his words," as he updates you about the crescent at the Flight 93 memorial.

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Sunday, July 9, 2006

Ron Paul, aka Dr. No

Today's Washington Post has a profile of Ron Paul, a Republican member of the U.S. House of representatives from Texas. He was the Libertarian Party nominee for President in 1988. That being the first year I could vote in a presidential campaign, I, of course, wasted my vote on Dukakis. I wish I had voted for Paul (and I have voted Libertarian ever since), despite his being more of a paleolibertarian than a left-libertarian.

Probably the best thing about him is his inability to be bought off, and his seeming immunity to the culture in D.C. that has the ability to turn sane souls into power-hungry Machiavellis.

"He's just consistent, consistent, consistent," says Debra Medina, the Wharton County Republican chairwoman. "He always talks about the Constitution and what the federal government ought to be doing, and he consistently articulates this basic mistrust of big government, which I think most people have."


Peace,

Tor

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Thursday, July 6, 2006

The Rant Shanty

Welcome to this week's blog tenant in the upper right-hand column, Rant Shanty. RantingDiva will be participating in a charity blogathon on July 29, with pledges going to the American Diabetes Association. Way to go!

Other than that, the rants seem primarily anti-Bush. Do go see what's going on at the Rant Shanty, and tell 'em Tor sent you!

Peace,

Tor

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Saturday, July 1, 2006

Maine, Federal Education Funding, the SAT and No Child Left Behind

There's an educational funding war brewing between the state of Maine and the U.S. Department of Education. The feds say they'll withhold at least a hundred grand or so (actually, they'll bypass the state and give it directly to school districts) because the state adopted the SAT to measure the educational progress of juniors in high school. They'll potentially divert half a million dollars. From the Portland Press Herald:

"This is basic stuff," said Michael Sentance, the regional representative for the U.S. education secretary.

....Maine's use of the SAT and its failure to show how the test measures students' achievement is a particular concern, Sentance said.

Maine started administering the SAT, a standardized college entrance examination, to high school juniors this year instead of the Maine Educational Assessment test. The MEA is now given to students in third through eighth grades.


I'm already on record in a post from nine months ago that the SAT is a sham of a test, and should never have been adopted in Maine. The important thing to reinforce here is that Maine Commissioner of Education Susan Gendron seems to be living in a dream world about this entire process. From the Bangor Daily News:

Gendron has been roundly criticized for replacing the Maine Educational Assessment test with the SAT, or so-called college boards, for 11th-grade students this year. The department has argued that the SATs would inspire more high school students to attend college after graduation. However, the federal government had warned the state in advance that the decision to change to the SAT would be problematic for the state.

"Some will say "I told you so, commissioner," but I absolutely believe this is the right decision for Maine children," Gendron said. "I am still confident we are making the right decision for our young people."


The right decision, in my left-libertarian fantasy, would be to close down all the government schools and allow a free and voluntary educational tableau to develop.

Returning to reality, and assuming the likely continuation of our socialized educational system, a good step for its improvement would be to remove Gendron from her post. She believes that it is a good thing for high school students who can barely count change or read the newspaper to have collegiate aspirations. That's just insane. It's even more insane to think that a test will inspire more students to seek out a college education when even intelligent students who have been attentive to their coursework earn poor scores.

When you throw in the well-documented gender, racial and ethnic biases of the scoring of the SAT, which exaggerate differences among demographic groups in regards to their actual collegiate achievements, or -- even worse -- contradict them, it seems only a very demented soul could support the use of this test. That's not the sort of soul that should be running a state educational department.

The state's education department no longer exists to educate children, if it ever did. It's now just like any other government bureaucracy, focused on its own growth and welfare.

Peace,

Tor

I am grateful that this post is being featured at the following open trackback posts: The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns, Point Five, Assorted Babble, The Dumb Ox, Right Wing Nation, Blue Star Chronicles, The Right Nation, The Uncooperative Blogger, Stuck on Stupid, The Bullwinkle Blog, 123beta, TMH's Bacon Bits, third world county, Big Dog's Weblog, Jo's Cafe

Update 7/6/06: This wasn't meant to be my Open Trackback post for the week, but since I've taken the last few days off from blogging, and Planck's Constant trackbacked to me anyway, I guess it was. I promise there'll be a genuine OTA post next week.

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Friday, June 30, 2006

Maine Guys Putting Mentos into Diet Coke

Well, I'm not sure if this is what Governor Baldacci means when he says we need to increase our Creative Economy, but you have to admit, these guys are making a splash. Watch the video, if you didn't already catch them on Letterman or Today. They say Moxie works really well, too.



Peace,

Tor
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Immigration, Democrats and Republicans

Check out this new column by Doug Hufnagel (aka Pole Star) on the subject of immigration. It's a good synopsis of why neither the Ds nor the Rs can really come to unity on the issue.

Peace,

Tor

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Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Will the Real Jeremiah Please Stand Up?

William J. Murphy, a teacher of English and history at Belfast Area High School in Belfast, Maine, has an op-ed in today's Bangor Daily News. He's responding to a column that the BDN ran more than a week ago, written by Dan Lips of the Heritage Foundation.

I haven't read Lips's column, but it must have been good, since Murphy twice referred to it as a "jeremiad." I wish I could find it online. If anyone knows where it can be found, please shoot me a link! I guess the BDN doesn't have online repro rights.

When he gets past his socialist hatred of the liberal President Bush (and much of Murphy's rant is anti-Bush), he makes a statement that truly inspires guffaws.

And finally, let me add that I work as a teacher in a public school that has failed to attain the Adequate Yearly Progress mandated by NCLB, and I see little or no evidence of actual educational failure. What I do see, day after day, is an indefatigable staff encouraging and guiding the intellectual and social development of each and every child who comes its way.


As an English teacher at the high school, Murphy must know that BAHS students will read -- or try and read -- his essay. So it seems funny to me that he feels the need to define the word jeremiad each time he uses it. And it seems pitiful to me that most of the students at BAHS will have never encountered the word in their English instruction. Guess the staff isn't totally indefatigable.

The most painful irony is that Murphy's own writing qualifies as a jeremiad, in that it paints a doom-and-gloom picture of the dismantling of public schools. If only there were a true intent from the Bushies to do so. Left-libertarians like me just want all the government-run schools to shut down post-haste. I wonder what Murphy would think of that.

As a fellow who occasionally talks with some BAHS high school students, and some recent graduates, I have to wonder about the extent of the history instruction there, too. One day I referred to Magna Carta in the presence of some high schoolers, and soon found that none of them had ever heard of this extremely important and influential document in the history of freedom and democracy. I would have understood if they couldn't offer up the year in which it was produced, or exactly what it did, but by the time someone is in eighth grade, they should recognize the term and its antecedence to modern constitutional law.

O tempora! O mores!

Peace,

Tor

Linking to: Freedom Watch, Common Folk Using Common Sense, Stingray, Dumb Ox, ImagineKitty

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Language, Math and the Buddhist Brain

Anyone who is interested in the inner workings of the mind should read the AP's report on a study of how Chinese and English speakers' brains attack simple math problems.

Researchers used brain imaging to see which parts of the brain were active while people did simple addition problems, such as 3 plus 4 equals 7. All participants were working with Arabic numerals which are used in both cultures.

Both groups engaged a portion of the brain called the inferior parietal cortex, which is involved in quantity representation and reading.

But native English speakers also showed activity in a language processing area of the brain, while native Chinese speakers used a brain region involved in the processing of visual information, according to the report in Tuesday's issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The difference "may mean that Chinese speakers perform problems in a different manner than do English speakers," said lead author Yiyuan Tang of Dalian University of Technology in Dalian, China.

"In part that might represent the difference in language. It could be that the difference in language encourages different styles of computation and this may be enhanced by different methods of learning to deal with numbers," Tang said in an interview via e-mail.


Later, the article refers to an earlier, unrelated study of observational differences between Americans and Chinese.

Nisbett last year reported on differences in the way Asians and North Americans view pictures. He tracked eye movements and determined that, when shown a photograph, North American students of European background paid more attention to the object in the foreground of a scene, while students from China spent more time studying the background and taking in the whole scene.


Students of foreign languages don't need to be too advanced to recognize the ways that languages shape the world views of their native speakers. The way things in the world get categorized, or are seen to relate to one another, are often dramatically different from language to language. And some things just can't be said in some languages.

I personally found the study of foreign languages to be similar to the study of Buddhist philosophy insofar as it forced me to see the assumptions that are inherent in my native English-speaking, American worldview. In even so simple a matter as the verb tenses, for example, German and English don't exactly match up. Nor do Latin nor Attic Greek. The ability of a German speaker to utter a sentence that is grammatically correct, and yet lacking what an English speaker would recognize as a subject, profoundly shocked me when I first encountered it.

One advantage that students of foreign languages will have in studying Buddhism, apart from learning any highfalutin' Sanskrit or Pali or Tibetan terms, is the ability to grasp (tho grasping is generally a no-no in Buddhism) the warnings of Nagarjuna not to mistake the words of a scripture for the ultimate truth.

Scriptures are likened to a finger pointing at the moon. W hen we recognise the moon and its brightness and beauty, the finger is of no more use. As the finger itself has no brightness whatever, so the scriptures have no holiness. The scripture is to be thought of as religious currency representing spiritual wealth. What it stands for is of paramount importance, not whether it is made of gold or sea shells


Peace,

Tor

This is this week's post. Click on the chicklet for an FAQ on the subject. In a nutshell, trackbacks on any subject are allowed to this post till midnight my time, so long as you link to this post. I'll manually transfer the links below as I'm able.

Samantha Burns, Open Trackback Alliance headmistress and authoress of The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns, has trackbacked with The Gangs of New Orleans. Be sure to also read her update.

And it's just not Tuesday without a ping from Planck's Constant. Today, the subject is Aksa Martyrs Brigades Pulling a Saddam.

And now a pair of trackbacks that almost fell through the cracks:

Angel at Woman Honor Thyself would like us to read about Gilad Shalit. No relation to Gene, apparently.

And here's one that was posted on 20 June from Conservative Cat: Confused Americans For Truth: Kerry Needs A Date With The Iraqi Government. Sorry, Ferdinand. The trackback ping didn't come through, but it just showed up on Technorati four hours ago! I'll put the link on this post, so it will show up on T'rati.

If anyone doesn't see a ping come through on my trackback, do what Angel did and leave a comment, or shoot me an email!

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Monday, June 26, 2006

Deals On eBay

Welcome to this week's tenant at Tor's Rants, Deals On eBay. It's what the title would suggest, "a large group of eBay sellers who will be posting their most recent listings. In addition, look for posts of special sales, useful articles, and much more!" Do click through the thumbnail at the top of the right-hand column and see what they're about!

Peace,

Tor

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