People are WEIRD!

From a post at Mindhacks we can learn a new acronym:

The problems with relying on Western college students as participants in psychology studies is also addressed by a new paper just released by Behavioural and Brain Sciences which you can read online as a pdf.

The article reviews data from psychology experiments and argues that not only are college students a very restricted subset of society, but they are actually wildly atypical in comparison to the rest of the world’s population.

In fact, the authors state that “The findings suggest that members of WEIRD [Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic] societies, including young children, are among the least representative populations one could find for generalizing about humans”.

Cat and mouse

I don’t get it. The cat brings in a mouse out of the thunderstorm. Take the mouse away from the cat. Feed the mouse. Put the cat back out into the rain.

Ohmygawd. Now they’ve made a little box with blueberries and cheese. And tissue paper. Its pouring rain and they’re taking and putting the precious creature out in the garage

The cat is at the window in wide eyed panic.

Original Kids Rent

What an amazing bunch of kids. Powerful voices and wow! have some of them come a long way – from thinking they couldn’t sing – to lead. Great staging. Great blocking. Powerful singing and strong strong dancing. And the book ain’t bad either. Micheal Paylor. Congratulations. And it’s only halftime.

Update 4:34:38 PM I’m only a casual parent of some Original Kids, but I can’t speak enough of how amazing it is to watch kids from this program move and grow and have the strength and talent and confidence to put this on. I am not moved so much by the play itself, but I am moved by seeing these kids pull it off.

Meeting the Ruggieros

Maria Grazia Taggio – my great grandmother, Great Uncle Leonardantonio on the left and Grandpa Giovanni Ruggiero on the right, standing in front of the family farm.

My sister is planning a trip to Italy, not just to, but in part, to meet relatives. She sent this photo just a few moments ago.

My daughter says her name would be so much more exciting as ‘Alanna Katarina Ruggiero’.

Update: Thursday, June 18, 2009:

Correction on the photo caption. The house is in the village, the ‘farm, really a plot of land is down the road outside the collection of buildings.

Cozumel horizon

Not much to see until you get under the surface.

Send Scouts to Madagascar Summer 2009

Members of the 31st Rovers are going to Madagascar this July, 2009 together with other South Western Ontario Rovers and Scouters this summer, to help children living in poverty and conditions that you just cannot imagine. They can’t afford paper and pencils. Living conditions are so bad that even a glass of water can make you ill.

They need our help financially. They are fundraising to help them get there to learn about the culture, to help build a classroom, dig wells, and do what they can to make the lives of the people, especially the children, better. They will return to London and will be able to show how Scouting in Action does make a better world.

Update 03/13/09

Due to the current political situation in Madagascar this trip has been postponed. Fundraising continues:

Madagascar 2009:  Contact <a href=”mailto:llcs@rogers.com”>Scouter Michael Collins of the 31st A Troop</a> by email, or better still <A href=”http://canadianrovers.com/home/index.html”> <b>The Canadian Rovers web site.</b></a> Any amount you want to donate will help.

Dealing with Difficult Politicians

I came upon this video from The Buddhist Society of Western Australia’s YouTube page. This video is Ajahn Brahm’s talk Dealing with Difficult People.

Two stories in this talk, The Anger Eating Demon and The Donkey in the Well, seem, to me, to be relevant to the current political situation in Canada.

Anger Eating Demon begins at  13:00 to 19:24; Donkey in the Well from 53:30 to 58:22

The more you hate and revile your opponents, the more you raise them up.

Colonel Sanders plastic bank

Apparently, and this is as much a surprise to me as anyone, there is a market for these bits of Kentucky Fried Chicken memorabilia. These banks seem to top out at about $50.

Why do I have one?

My father made it.

He worked for a plastic and neon sign company -Acme Neon Sign- as the designer, and staff artist. So, as a child I was exposed to many wondrous things – mechanical pencils, ammonia fumes, thinners, Letraset, wonderful big drawing tables… anyway, he didn’t really ‘make’ it. No, that claim properly belongs to Sterling Plastics of London Ontario, but he did make the plasticine master from which the mold was made.

I know this because I saw it worked up from the basic wood structure with plasticine built up to the final shape. This is cast from the second version. The first was rejected because my father had made him a bit plumper and a bit more cartoony with a larger head… to hold more money. It was after all, a coin bank.

Mt. Sumeru

Another painting released to the wild.

All the kittehs are gone

Something snapped. Downstairs, we heard the vacuum banging about overhead in my 13 year old daughter’s room.
Checking in that evening… well, you could see the floor-and on the walls, kitten posters had been replaced with magazine pages of adolescent pop stars.
Like, random.

The Reals

Inspired by comic books, ordinary citizens put on masks to fight crime

Superheroes in Real Life

I am so proud of these guys.

Yoga ≠ Buddhism

At To Live Is Christ, Angela commits some of the most outrageous fuzzy-headed illiterate thinking I can imagine. It’s people like this who make me aghast at some of the thinking that passes for comparative religion, least of all from evangelical hard-core Christians. A single post like this is enough, in my mind to warrant removal of her Thinking Blogger Award.

 

Is Yoga A Harmless Exercise?

 

You really understand very little. You cannot attribute Vedic sources, Hindu sources, to Buddhism. Hinduism and Buddhism are not the same thing.

Yoga began in the ancient civilization of India where Buddhism is ardently practiced. To understand yoga, one must understand a bit of Buddhism and its history.    

This is simply wrong. Yoga predates Buddhism as a practice. You can study Yoga very deeply and need never touch any Buddhism. There are no Yogis, or Brahman, or God in Buddhism. Brahman is a Hindu concept. The Buddha repudiated Brahman and Atman.

The central theme of Buddhism is the mantra “Atman is Brahman”      

Politely, this is bullshit. This has nothing to do with Buddhism. There is no Atman, there is no Brahman. And as to the site you recommend, I really don’t think you can read. The very first line of text on the page says, “One of the key concepts of Hinduism is the belief in an ultimate reality called Brahman which is the source of all living things in this universe.”

Considering Yoga’s inseparable tie with Buddhism, it is unwise for Christians to practice yoga.       

Buddhism has no “inseparable tie” with Yoga. None. Nada, zip, zilch zero. Siddhartha Gautama studied many esoteric spiritual paths. Yes, Yoga was one of them, one of the many he abandoned before realizing the Middle Path which lead to his enlightenment.

I am asserting that it is impossible to separate yoga from Buddhism and it’s pantheistic beliefs.        

Buddhism holds no panthiestic beliefs. Your argument is not with Buddhism. Yes, there are realms of Gods in the Buddhist cosmology, but they are irrelevant and distractions to Liberation.

Yoga is basically a tool that is used by Buddhist to unite with the Universal Soul (Bramhan).        

Buddhists do not use Yoga as a tool to unite with anything. There is no Universal Soul, there is no Brahman, there is no individual soul – Anatman – there is nothing to unite with. You already are part of it, just get out of the way.

Make some proper arguments.

Kathmandu Culture Shock

Nothing is as exotic as it used to be. I didn’t expect it to be the same, but 20 years makes a huge difference. We  found Pumpernickels Bakery, eventually, but, typically of Kathmandu now, buried behind economics. All of Thamel is overgrown with buildings. What was previously open lot and three or 5 story buildings is now 8 floor hotels.

Libertarians would be immensely happy with the traffic patterns here. Momentum, mass and volume create your right of way. We stopped at one traffic light in a wild whirl of traffic coming in from the airport. When there was a space, someone drove into it. We weaved like threads in a tartan through intersections, straddled potholes large enough to swallow these tiny cars, with the driver blessing himself after every daring move.

And Thamel is like that too. Every space that could possibly be used to produce income is filled with a shop, the building walls a lush jungle of signs. Every tiny alley is display space for goods. Glance at anything and you are invited into the shop. Stop for a confused moment and someone offers a cab, someone hustles a violin or Tiger Balm. A stream of identical, tiny women in saris with a baby on her hip and an empty nipple bottle beg for change. Endless t-shirt shops, but not a single shirt embroidered with the word “No!” which you use constantly.

Internet shops are everywhere. The Kathmandu Guest House has wireless in the courtyard. Many of the little shops have web addresses. Everything is in construction. Everything changes.

We’re going back to Kathmandu

Last post, perhaps, for a month or so. One timed post for next weeks cartoon is set up to go.

 

I hear that Kathmandu and Pokhara have internet cafes. I might indulge – or not – in a post from the other side of the world.

 

We are taking our kids, 12 and 15, for a walk in Nepal. We’ll be back in early November.

How the system actually works

From Comics I don’t understand