Showing posts with label Berkeley. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Berkeley. Show all posts

Friday, 8 August 2014

"The Kill Team" U.S. in Afghanistan (film)



Why do we as Americans kill around the world? We join "kill teams" and commit atrocities and, rarely, we get prosecuted for it. Why does our government do it to us, leading us to our worst potential as human beings? It is -- as revealed by the high ranking U.S. military man Smedley Butler -- because WAR IS A RACKET!

WARNING: Graphic photos and candid discussion of killing not in warfare but for amusement!

Cover(The Young Turks) Ben Mankiewicz, Wes Clark Jr., and Michael Shure discuss a new report in Rolling Stone magazine about a "rogue" U.S. military Kill Team in Afghanistan that sought out and murdered helpless civilians for fun and terrorist glory. At Minute 2:37 the American soldiers seem to have done more to this child than murdered him: homosexual rape is indicated by removed trousers and blood stains. Do Americans really commit war crimes and crimes against humanity? Do they really chop off fingers (Angulimala- and War on Vietnam-style) and keep them as "trophies" of their murders? Do American soldiers develop PTSD? Moral injuries? Savagery while hypocritically calling innocent Afghans trying to defend themselves and their families against another brutal invasion "barbarians"?

Sunday, 22 June 2014

ZEN: "The Void," "Sex in the Church" (video)


Brad Warner (Hardcore Zen)
British Zen Buddhist, Taoist, Episcopalian teacher Alan Watts is an inspiration to Californians, where his show continues to air on Los Angeles' Pacifica Radio (KPFA.org) thanks to Roy of Hollywood Tuckman (8:00 am Sundays, midnight Thursdays).

This video is the fourth episode of Alan Watts' 1959 KQED TV series "Eastern Wisdom and Modern Life." (DVDs available at alanwatts.com/collections).

Alan Watts was an unabashed lover
A native of England, Watts attended the King's School near Canterbury Cathedral. At 14 he became fascinated with the philosophies of the Far East. By 16 he regularly attended the Buddhist Lodge in London, where he met Zen scholars Christmas Humphries and D.T. Suzuki. As a speaker and contributor to the Lodge's journal, The Middle Way, he wrote a series of philosophical commentaries and published his first book on Eastern thought, The Spirit of Zen, at age 21. In the late thirties he moved to New York, and a few years later he became an Episcopalian priest. In 1942 he moved to Illinois and spent the wartime years as chaplain of Northwestern University.
Square to hippie (ianmack.com)
In 1950 he left the church, and his life took a turn away from organized religion back toward Eastern ways and expanding horizons. After meeting author and mythologist Joseph Campbell and composer John Cage in New York he headed to California and began teaching at the American Academy of Asian Studies in San Francisco.

There his popular lectures spilled over into coffehouse talks and appearances with the well-known beat writers Jack Kerouac, Gary Snyder, and Allen Ginsberg. In late 1953 he began what would become the longest-running series of Sunday morning public radio talks, which continue to this day with programs from the Alan Watts Tape Archives.
In 1957 he published the bestselling The Way of Zen, beginning a prolific ten-year period during which he wrote Nature, Man and Woman; Beat Zen, Square Zen and Zen; This Is It; Psychotherapy East and West; The Two Hands of God; The Joyous Cosmology; and The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are.

By 1960 Watts' radio series "Way Beyond the West" on Berkeley's KPFA.org had an avid following on the West Coast, and NET TV began national broadcasts of the series "Eastern Wisdom in Modern Life." The first season, recorded in the studios of KQED, a San Francisco TV station, focused on the relevance of Buddhism, and the second on Zen and the arts.

Friday, 6 June 2014

Actress Charlize Theron gang-RAPED (video)

Was the gang-rape victim "asking for it"? Or has an intrusive press violated actor Charlize Theron in the worst way as she tries to live a quiet life of obscurity? (hdwallpapers.in)

 
Charlize Theron (celebs101.com)
You know how they say Gwyneth Paltrow is a real jerk? She's a self-absorbed elitist parent trying to outdo all of us, and a wife who never has to face divorce like the rest of us because she "consciously uncouples" instead? (lol) Well, we like her, Goop and all. She got in trouble recently for a bit of hyperbole comparing her life with Internet trolls to "war." Mrs. John McCain got bent out of shape. Anything to hate on a skinny, holier-than-thou Hollywood starlet. 

Oh, Gwyn, you know who's a real gem? Charlize Theron. If Paltrow has gone off the deep end of insensitivity by comparing her life to combat, Theron takes the cake by claiming she is being "raped." By high-caste Indian men with police help? No, it's that intrusive "gotcha" press bumbling Sarah Palin warned us about. Theron compares pushy reporters to rapists. Paltrow is relieved the attention has turned to Madonna's ex (Sean Penn)'s newest girlfriend.

Dalit victims Murti and Pushpa (news.com.au)
This is much more important an issue than which celebrity said what. It's their job to distract us by calling attention to themselves. What's Justin Bieber up to? He's on tape saying the N word. WTR? Have his ratings gone up? It's all about the ratings in showbiz. It's important because the horror that is the gang rape and murder of two Shakya/Dalit caste girls in India isn't getting the traction and outrage the rape of a young, middle class woman on a New Delhi bus did in 2012. Why? 
 
That was a middle class, high woman, so the rapists went too far. If they want to rape low caste girls and kill them, well, that's apparently more understandable. And middle class Indian women living in the city aren't going to get too bent out of shape and get out in the streets to protest. But eave tease (sexually harass) another worker with Internet access and a toilet, and that they will picket about.
 
Where is our outrage when things happen to our social-inferiors? Because when it's our perceived social-superiors, it's game on! We must have justice! Policeman beats and kills someone, who cares. Someone beats and kills a policeman, stop the city, declare martial law, institute a curfew for everyone, that "savage" must be corralled, captured, and decapitated like an animal. The policeman we can acquit for doing the best he could in a tough job we don't want to do. What a society, what a world to live in.
Charlize Theron says she was [gang] raped
They started to make me feel raped
South African-born ["all-American," Hollywood] actress Charlize Theron has waded into controversy for a recent interview in which she compared intrusive press coverage to rape.
 
Theron told the U.K.’s Sky News that “every aspect” of her life has become fodder for the tabloids:
 
“I don’t (Google myself) -- that’s my saving grace,” she said. “When you start living in that world, and doing that, you start feeling raped.”
  • The perpetrator was not one medium but the media, which is plural. It constitutes a "gang"; if she feels raped, it was by a group of celebrity-crazed individuals.
Asked if she meant to use such strong language, the actress said: “Well, when it comes to your son and your private life -- maybe it’s just me.
 
“Some people might relish in all that stuff, but there are certain things in my life that I think of as very sacred and I am very protective over them,” she told Sky News.
 
“I don’t always win that war, but as long as I don’t have to see that stuff or read that stuff or hear that stuff then I can live with my head in a clear space, which is probably a lot healthier than living in that dark room.”
 
“I can’t be concerned about what some idiot is going to write online about my short skirt; I can only take responsibility for myself,” she added.

Rape jokes on Seth MacFarlane's "Family Guy": Did you hear the one about Peter Griffin?
 
Miss Theron was in London to promote her new film, “A Million Ways to Die in the West,” starring “Family Guy” creator Seth MacFarlane [famous for rape and other risque humor that shows us ourselves as Americans], which opened on Friday.
 
Her comments come after actress Gwyneth Paltrow made headlines last week for comparing negative online attacks to fighting a war. More
Rape of the Shakya caste, India (audio)
Indian police use water cannons against anti-rape protesters: Civilian officers push and shove demonstrators before using water cannons to disperse them.
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FEMEN activists against patriarchy
The Buddha was from the Shakya -- which means "grey earth" and also came to be a goldsmith caste -- clan, from which the caste may claim descent, as it does in Nepal and as it may survive dispersed in Central Asia: Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kalmykia (Europe), and Indo-Pakistan (formerly part of Gandhara, India).
Women of India in US (india-west.com)
Recently in UP, India two girls were gang raped, murdered, and lynched with their own scarves. Why? They were the wrong caste, making it tacitly permissible to mistreat, abuse, and "punish" them as if they were low socioeconomic-status individuals in America. The New Delhi and Mumbai gang rapes caused much more media attention and public outrage. Reaction to this double murder and flagrant sexual assault -- which a police officer participated in -- is dying down. The Dalit caste have no functional rights, even if they have nominal ones. To get rights many Dalits are converting to Buddhism, which does not please the nationalist Hindu majority.

Indian monks on PlayStation (Geolis06/flickr)
But this is a global problem beyond India. The problem is patriarchy, endemic sexism, poverty, and capitalism, and our colonized minds. Santa Barbara murder spree, rampant child sexual trafficking in the U.S., Boko Haram kidnappings, the "honor killing"/public bludgeoning in front of police of a young woman outside the Lahore high court in Pakistan for disobeying her parents and marrying the man she wanted to, U.S. college campus assaults and cover ups... all tie in. Pacifica Radio Berkeley takes a GLOBAL perspective on violence against females by talking to Rafia Zakaria, Dawn newspaper and Al Jazeera-English columnist, and Preeti Shekar, UC Berkeley women rights activist, South Asia specialist, and journalist. What do we do now?

Rape in India?
Candlelight vigil (independent.co.uk)
(W) In 2011 number of brutal assaults on women were reported in Uttar Pradesh state in India. And according to the People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), the majority of those assaulted were poor women from remote areas and Dalits ["untouchable caste"]. PUCL Vice President S.R. Darapuri says, "I analysed the rape figures for 2007, and I found that 90% of victims were Dalits, and 85% of Dalit rape victims were underage girls" (BBC, "Rape and murder in Uttar Pradesh," July 18, 2011). More

Thursday, 22 May 2014

White Sugar is the new Cocaine (audio)

Amber Larson, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly; Mitch Jeserich (KPFA.org, Berkeley, 5-21-14)
I snort my sugar, take the candy straight to my head, which is where it ends up anyway.
 
Live from Berkeley, Pacifica's Letters and Politics (KPFA FM) focuses in on the effects of carbohydrates and white sugar. Professor of Pediatrics Dr. Robert Lustig, M.D. (UC San Francisco School of Medicine), author of Fat Chance: Beating the Odds Against Sugar, Processed Foods, Obesity, and Disease. They also mention the pioneering work of Dr. Perlmutter, author of Grain Brain. Diabetes? Brain damage? Lack of energy? Heart disease? Obesity? The results will surprise listeners:
Neuroscience of carbs: Grain Brain, Dr. David Perlmutter, MD (drperlmutter.com)

Monday, 14 April 2014

The Revolution MAY be televised (video)

CC Liu, Seth Auberon, Wisdom Quarterly; KPFK; KPFA (support free speech)
What is important enough to protest about: peace, war, student loans, taxes, pot, jobs?
(UprisingRadio) Join Uprising TV's exciting new campaign to televise Uprising for Free Speech TV. Contribute, get involved, join the revolution...or at least watch it from your couch. We have only until April 30th 2014 to raise the funds to make it possible!

UC Berkeley artist Favianna Rodriguez joins Sonali Kohlhatkar on Uprising Radio

It all began in Berkeley as Lewis Hill and others protested U.S. wars in Asia (KPFK)
 
Democracy Now's Amy Goodman agrees: we need Uprising TV

As Pacifica Radio's flagship station in Berkeley (KPFA FM), across from San Francisco, turns 65 on April 15, 2014, a revolutionary thing is happening in Los Angeles (KPFK FM). UPRISING has a crowdfunding campaign on Indie Go Go to televise the show and other Pacifica programming.

Radio host and Wisdom Quarterly friend in Pasadena Sonali Kohlhatkar has been active in bringing attention to the liberation of women in Afghanistan (RAWA) as well as covering the most gripping social justice issues of our day. More

kpfk.org
Zen teacher Alan Watts called Pacifica the only truly "free speech" outlet in the world.

Monday, 17 March 2014

Pacifica Radio on TV (coming soon)

Seven, Amber Larson, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly; Sonali Kohlhatkar (UprisingRadio.org)
Watts was transformed by Asia
Uprising may be coming to a TV near all of us. Today host Sonali Kohlhatkar announced that a cable station wants to carry the show turning a radio program into an audio-visual odyssey. 
 
The best part is that this would mean the entire Los Angeles branch of Pacifica, second only to the flagship station in Berkeley (KPFA FM), would be televised. And here all this time we were told THE REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE TELEVISED. Of course, it may not be. A crowd funding campaign is being launched to make it a reality:
Who cares? What's so special about Pacifica?

Buddhist TV?
1. Suffering, 2. Thirsting, 3. Cooling
Zen philosopher/entertainer Alan Watts -- who is still played weekly only in L.A. (in what we call "Buddhist Radio," thanks to Roy of Hollywood Tuckman's Thursday-midnight and Sunday-morning broadcasts) -- called Pacifica "the only truly free radio station" anywhere.
 
It's radical, it sticks it to The Man, and even though it could be bolder and more forceful, it touches on topics no one in mainstream media dares to touch.

Buddhism has already come to television but has never been quite what it could be -- although we can't find the BuddhistChannel.TV on our sets yet.

Friday, 21 February 2014

Alan Watts: "Why Not Now" (video)

Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly; Mitch Jeserich (KPFA.org); TragedyandHope (youtube.com) 
"Why Not Now" and "Dhyana: The Art of Meditation" by Alan Watts (redtelephone66.com)
 
Alan Watts in Buddhist robes, California
January, 2014 - There is a new documentary film (two DVD set) on the life and works of British-American Buddhist broadcaster Alan Watts. Each film comes with "The Animated Alan Watts" and "The Essential Alan Watts," a bonus disc of video materials that did not fit into the film.
One 23-minute DVD includes extracts from the 1972 series "The Fine Art of Goofing Off" as well as a couple of animations produced by SouthPark creators and animators. The reel has met with joyous laughter and standing ovations at recent film showings and is not to be missed.

"Why Not Now" follows the life of one of the most inspiring philosophers of our time -- Alan Watts -- as told though none other than Alan Watts himself accessing a wealth of material and lectures that were left behind after his passing.

"Why Not Now?" was created by Alan Watts' son, Mark Watts, who has given TragedyandHope exclusive rights to create the trailer for the documentary. More (alanwatts.org)