Fox News Will Kill You Yet

“A new study finds that Fox News peddled misinformation about the coronavirus pandemic 253 times in only five days…

“The documented instances included claims which undermined science and faith in experts, as well as demands that schools and businesses reopen at the risk of public health. Primetime host Laura Ingraham, who has no medical or scientific background whatsoever, led the pack with about a quarter of the claims — 63 total, or just more than 12 per show. Additionally, the network’s ‘straight news’ programs contributed about 35 percent of the misinformation.”

And Now American Secret Police

Trump has sent secret police into Portland to kidnap citizens off the street. But the problem is really “both sides,” isn’t it? So say the blind conformist cowards who, by refusing to confront GOP fascism, have permitted this.

The USA: Demented and Dickensian

Kleptocapitalism: The philosophy promoted by American corporate billionaires who insist the working class and the middle class pull themselves up by Daniel Boone's bootstraps while the wealthy help themselves to tax cuts, trillion-dollar taxpayer-funded bailouts, fat no-bid government contracts and hostage-citizens who are forced to buy their shoddy products.

Sagan Foresees the Century

Margaret Atwood said, “Stupidity is the same as evil if you judge by the results.” And Republicans always think that because they are ignorant of something, that makes it untrue.

Portrait of a Real Murkan

I keep hoping we might someday achieve something that we could refer to as “civilization” without laughing in derision.

Beyond Fame and Disgrace

E·qua·nim·i·ty: noun; mental calmness,
composure, and evenness of temper,
especially in a difficult situation.

“Equanimity is bigger than our usual limited perspective,” wrote Pema Chödrön in The Places That Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times.

“That we hope to get what we want and fear losing what we have — this describes our habitual predicament. The Buddhist teachings identify eight variations on this tendency to hope and fear: pleasure and pain, praise and blame, gain and loss, fame and disgrace. As long as we’re caught at one of these extremes, the potential for the other is always there. They just chase each other around.

“No lasting happiness comes from being caught in this cycle of attraction and aversion. We can never get life to work out so that we eliminate everything we fear and end up with all the goodies. Therefore the warrior-bodhisattva cultivates equanimity, the vast mind that doesn’t narrow reality into for and against, liking and disliking.

“To cultivate equanimity, we practice catching ourselves when we feel attraction or aversion, before it hardens into grasping or negativity. We train in staying with the soft spot and use our biases as stepping-stones for connecting with the confusion of others. Strong emotions are useful in this regard. Whatever arises, no matter how bad it feels, can be used to extend our kinship to others who suffer the same kind of aggression or craving — who just like us, get hooked by hope or fear. This is how we come to appreciate that everyone’s in the same boat. We all desperately need more insight into what leads to happiness and what leads to pain.”

Why So Furious?

Let's not discount the appeal of pure racism to knuckle-draggers. Some can be happy being miserable as long as they are told they are superior to "the Others" whom they're planning to make MORE miserable.