The Dictator

2012 movie written by Sacha Baron Cohen.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1645170/

Imagine if America was a dictatorship.

• You could let 1% of the people have all the nation's wealth.
• You could help your rich friends get richer by cutting their taxes and bailing them out when they gamble and lose.
• You could ignore the needs of the poor for health care and education.
• Your media would appear free but would secretly be controlled by one person and his family.
• You could wiretap phones.
• You could torture foreign prisoners.
• You could have rigged elections.
• You could lie about why you go to war.
• You could fill your prisons with one particular racial group, and no one would complain.
• You could use the media to scare the people into supporting policies that are against their interests.

nondualism

The Vedas (1500 - 500 BC) - pre-Hindu spiritual texts.

Orthodox Hindu consider the Vedas authoritative.  Buddhist, Sikh, Jain, and non-Brahmin Hindus, or heterodox Hindus, do NOT accept the authority of the Vedas.

Vedanta - schools of Hindu philosophy which interpret the Vedas non-ritualistically, based on three works of post-Vedic literature:

• the Upanishads (600 - 100 BC), 
• the Bhagavad Gita (part of the epic Mahabharata, 500 BC), and 
• the Brahma Sutras (400 - 450 AD).

advaita = nondualism

Advaita Vedanta - the most dominant sub-school of the Vedanta.

Adi Shankara (AD 800) synthesized and rejuvenated the Advaita Vedanta teachings.  His teacher was Govinda.

There are several ways to divide the world into two or more aspects:

• yin and yang
• good and evil
• subject and object

These are all judgments that have no reality.

How many gods are there?  One.  An easy answer, but the implications are profound, and lead only to the nondualism viewpoint.

extended family

"If ten fourteen-year-olds are grouped together, they will fight with one another.  They will form a Lord of the Flies culture with its competitiveness, social anxiety and meanness.  But if ten people aged two to eighty are grouped together they will fall into a natural age hierarchy that nurtures and teaches all of them.  Because each person has a niche, competition will subside.  Each person will have something unique to contribute.  Values will deepen, and experience will grow richer.  For our own mental and societal health, we need to reconnect the age groups."

                          -  Mary Pipher, Ph.D.: Another Country


Is this true?  I think not.  It is tempting, but this idea that a multi-generational grouping will have a Utopian power structure is not demonstrated in nature.  On the one hand, yes, there are more people around for caring for children and elderly.

On the other hand, problems arise because the elderly are dependent on this family structure, and they must see the young adults stay within this structure and bring home the bacon.  Taken to excess, the children are trapped in the system.  Arranged marriages.  The son does the same work as the father.  Children leave school to work.  The caste system.

Brutally blunt:

Arundhati Roy: The God of Small Things
Aravind Adiga: The White Tiger


More complex and subtle:

Rohinton Mistry: A Fine Balance

Manil Sun: Death of Vishnu

Domination techniques

I own this land.  If you want to live and work on it you must pay me a fee.

I own this street.  If you want to walk down it, you must give me your lunch money.

I am the official representative of this country.  If you want to cross this border, you must pay me for permission.

I own this song.  If you want to listen to it, you must pay me one dollar.

This temple is the dwelling place of your god.  If you want to ask him for favors, you must bring sacrifices of food and money here.

Dark-skinned devil-worshipers hate you and want to eat you.  I am protecting you from them, and you must give me your first-born male for my army.

You are such a dork.  If you don't want to be a complete outcast, you must buy these sunglasses.

Bangkok

30 January - 7 February 2013

I love this city.  So easy it's hard to believe it's in Asia.

I'm so happy with my new phone.  The tethering works great here.  And Google Maps' walking directions and bus directions get me around the city easily.

Many of the buses are air-conditioned, clean and uncrowded.  There's a conductor on the bus so the driver is undistracted.  Some of the buses were not air conditioned; they were free.

The largest shopping centers I've every seen.  Very clean and luxurious.  Saw the movie Les Miserables with Hugh Jackman and Russell Crowe in one.  Down below, out on the streets, the sidewalks are clogged with vendors.

The food from the street vendors is outstanding.

I did one tourist attraction, the Grand Palace, and I think this is the first time I've been moved to tears by architecture.

Amtrak

The Southern Chief runs from Chicago to LA every day.  I got on in Topeka at midnight Sunday morning and arrived in LA at 9 AM Monday morning.  It was clean and comfortable.  The lounge car is lined with windows on the sides and the top - a great way to watch the scenery roll by.  We stopped in Albequerque for about an hour "mechanical break".  I assume this means fuel, water, and provisions.  And they changed the crew.

The seats were way more comfortable than the economy seats on an airplane, but still they need to recline farther for good sleeping.

Kansas

8 November 2012 - 28 January 2013

We buried my father and put my mother in a home.  I stayed for three months in the family home where I grew up.  I visited my mom most every day to assist with her adjustment to her new life.  I also took on two projects: one, to clean the basement, and two, to do the paperwork for a VA pension application.

During my time there, I gained some weight back, all of it around my belt.  Perhaps due to the cold weather. Or perhaps it's true what they say, that American food is so engineered there's no nutrition left in it, and the human body has no idea what to do with it.

I also took the opportunity to gear up.  I got a new phone, a Nexus 4, and a new computer, an Asus 11.4 Win 8 machine - something between a netbook and an ultrabook.  Also replaced my headphones with earbuds, bought a small universal powerstrip, an HDMI cable, and a battery charger.

Also bought some new Ex Officio travel clothes.  Most clothing is cheaper in Asia, but certain specialty items are hard to get.

When buying a phone for Asia, make certain it is unlocked GSM.  Verizon phones won't work.

The nice thing about shopping in America is you can return stuff you don't like.  In Indonesia I found generally once you pay for it, it's yours.  I bought some Dr Dre earbuds in Bali, hated the sound quality, but could not take them back, so I just threw them away.  

Favorite things about America: margaritas and chips and salsa.

Aid and Attendance

Dad was a veteran of WWII, and the VA provides an "Aid and Assistance" pension for a veteran and his spouse, when either of them gets to the point they need ongoing assistance with daily living.  This could be in the form of in-home care, a nursing home, or an assisted-living facility.

The VA makes it very difficult to learn about and apply for this pension.

There are websites and consultants who will help you.  Unfortunately, many of them are borderline scams, taking the opportunity to sell irrevocable trusts or annuities to applicants to help them hide assets and therefore qualify where they would not otherwise.  This can backfire latter on down the road.

I spent weeks doing research and filling out the forms.  I'm told it will take several back-and-forth rounds with the VA over the next six-months to a year before it's finished.

The best website I found is http://www.veteranaid.org/

compassion

“By letting go of your own personal agenda and embracing humility it is possible to be aware of the suffering of the world without interpreting it as injustice and feeling sorrow or pity.”

http://www.pathwaytohappiness.com/writings_compassion.htm

“True compassion involves the recognition that the suffering of others is also our own.”

“Buddha did not pity for the suffering of others but for the ignorance that causes suffering and that is why he set himself on the path of self-realization.”

“...true suffering is caused by ignorance and true help consists of bringing enlightenment.”

http://www.rasas.info/compassion.htm