Spiritual (2012-2015)

© 2016 Peter Free

 

Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht — A German Moon’s Christmas Eve Stillness (25 December 2015)

 

 

David Chadwick, Crooked Cucumber: The Life and Zen Teaching of Shunryu Suzuki (1999) — Book Review (01 October 2015)

 

 

Martin Luther King Jr (author) and Cornel West (editor), The Radical King (2015) — Book Review (29 September 2015)

 

 

Americans Think that Religion Is Good — until It Starts Telling the Truth — the Cynically Humorous Result of a Bloomberg Opinion Poll regarding Pope Francis (24 September 2015)

 

 

The Joy of a Fine Mind’s Products — Belen Fernandez Smartly Reviewed — Insightful Greg Grandin’s Book — about Quasi-Nihilist (Former National Security Advisor) Henry Kissinger (26 August 2015)

 

 

Peter Van Buren’s Essay about Guantanamo Prisoner Tariq Ba Odah — Shows Us an Excellent Example of Hannah Arendt’s “Banality of Evil” (12 August 2015)

 

 

Little Boy Blew Up Hiroshima 70 Years ago — and Most People Agree that No One Should Use Nukes again — Yet, We Keep Cultivating the Soils that Spawn the same Levels of Hatred and Inhumanity (06 August 2015)

 

 

Jesse Kellerman, Potboiler (2012) — a Micro Book Review — and an Observation about the Contemptuous Misuse of Talent (05 August 2015)

 

 

Novelist Susan Abulhawa Saw Something True that Everyone Else Missed — “Merkel and the Palestinian Girl” — and My Larger Point that Our Actions and Omissions Have Consequences that We Intentionally Avoid Holding Ourselves Accountable for (21 July 2015)

 

 

Can One Take a Working Measure of Someone Based on Only a Couple of their Sentences? — Consider the Casually Malevolent Mayor of Airway Heights, Washington (16 July 2015)

 

 

Professor Chris Lebron Recently Asked the Only Pertinent Racial Question — Malcolm X Answered It(23 June 2015)

 

 

Twisted Souls, Guns Out the Wazoo, and an Apparently Murder-Loving Society — from Germany, My American Culture Looks beyond Nuts (20 June 2015)

 

 

One Sign of Stupidity Is the Inability to Learn No Matter How Graphic the Lesson — A Comment about William Astore’s Excellent Summation of American Militarism’s Predicament (15 June 2015)

 

 

Today Is the 70th Anniversary of the End of the European Component of World War II — My Comment on the Contrast between Repentant Germany and Morally Recalcitrant Japan — and the Implied Parable for the United States (08 May 2015)

 

 

Morality Compartmentalized Makes Poor Spiritual Instruction — Pope Francis, the Armenian “Whatever” and Turkey (13 April 2015)

 

 

The Occasional Rewards of Reading Escapist Trash — Long Deceased John D. MacDonald’s Interjections of Condensed Rumination — into His Macho Man Dialogs (19 March 2015)

 

 

Attorney General Eric Holder’s Genius for Informative Public Speaking Was on Display Yesterday — Too Bad that He So Rarely Harnessed It to Democracy’s Ideals, when Expressed outside the Civil Rights Arena (05 March 2015)

 

 

American Outrage over ISIS’ Burning of Jordanian Pilot — Lieutenant Muath al-Kasaesbeh — Reflects in Equal Measure Our Own Killing Hypocrisy (04 February 2015)

 

 

A Handful of Paradoxically Deep Words — from SAS Veteran Robin Horsfall — Synopsize the State of the World (13 January 2015)

 

 

A Probably Sadly Unteachable Moment — Recognizing the Emotional Identicality between Our Reaction to the Charlie Hebdo Terrorist Attack — and Islamic Reactions to Our Retaliatory Attacks on Them (08 January 2015)

 

 

Loving Sanity Is so Rare that It Stands Out — Malik Abdul Hakim’s Example in the Hell that Is Afghanistan (06 January 2015)

 

 

Ryan Bell’s Three Sentences about Dropping Theism Demonstrate the Use of Ockham’s Razor — a Comment about the Utility and Occasional Disutility of Clarity (05 January 2015)

 

 

Jesuit James Martin’s “The Not so Social Gospel” — Republished as, “What if Jesus Had Been a Republican?” — Perfectly Satirizes the Foolishness of Compartmentalized Minds (31 December 2014)

 

When We Torture, We Stoop into Weakness — Effective Torture Is beside the Point — an Example Demonstrating Why, Using Saddam Hussein as a Hypothetical (10 December 2014)

 

The Masai and Avaricious Dubai — a Short Allegory about Greed (18 November 2014)

 

Dr. Sheik Umar Khan Lost His Life Taking Care of Sierra Leone’s Ebola Virus Patients — Compare the Physical and Spiritual Cowardice of the World’s Warmongering Civilian Leaders (31 July 2014)

 

 

Henry Giroux’s Essay — “Killing Machines and the Madness of Militarism” — Goes to the Heart of the Moral Disease that Afflicts the United States and Israel — Both of which Have Now become the Evil that They Once Professed to Fight (25 July 2014)

 

 

Does Self Loathing Explain Why Poor and Middle Class Americans Vote against their Interests? — Edwin Lyngar’s Autobiographical Essay Implies So (16 July 2014)

 

 

John Oliver — Bless His British Heart — Highlighted a Snippet that Shows the Bottomless Nitwitism of American Culture — Will We Smile in Self-Recognition? (24 June 2014)

 

 

The Feds Can’t even Play with Anthrax Correctly — Is Stupidity America’s Most Deadly Terrorist? (23 June 2014)

 

 

Youthful Adversity Appears to Temper Our Penchant for Narcissism — Perhaps Loosely Suggesting that Great Souls Are Statistically More Likely to Come from Painful Times (13 May 2014)

 

 

Representative Reasoning regarding Our Ability to Picture the Historical Christ Is Consistently Absurd — Wishful Thinking Dominates a Potentially More Useful Ability to Tolerate Ignorance and Ambiguity(21 April 2014)

 

 

Dying Well — in a World Filled with Vicious Maniacs — Father Francis Van Der Lugt Refused to Abandon His Pastoral Duties in the Besieged Syrian City of Homs (08 April 2014)

 

 

An Angry Column from Andre Vltchek Attacks Western Hypocrisy in Regard to Ukraine — by Pointing to the Indefensible Things the West Has Done around the World — If You Can Get Past His Enraged Presentation, Much of What He Says Is True (03 April 2014)

 

 

Derek Hough’s Choreography for Amy Purdy — during 2014 Dancing with the Stars (31 March) — Illustrates what Other-Centered Genius Can Do in Art (01 April 2014)

 

 

Advaita, Neo-Advaita, Non-Duality — Spiritual Philosophy — Leo Hartong, Awakening to the Dream(2001) — Book Review (05 March 2014)

 

 

Wisdom Comes in Asides that We often Do Not Want to Hear — an Admirable Example from Rick Salutin’s Review of Silken Laumann’s Book, Unsinkable (12 February 2014)

 

 

“I wanted him to have dignity as he crossed the finish line” — 2014 Sochi Olympics Canadian Coach Justin Wadsworth Pays Forward Norwegian Bjornar Hakensmoen’s Kindness from the 2006 Torino Olympics — Cathal Kelly’s Toronto Star Story Tells It Best (11 February 2014)

 

 

Slopestyle Snowboarding Women Put on a Display of How to Youthfully “Be” at the 2014 Sochi Olympics (10 February 2014)

 

 

A Contrast in Courage and Spiritual Worth — Young Aitezaz Hassan Died Preventing a Lashkar-e-Jhangvi Suicide Bomber from Entering His Pakistani School — Despair and Hope in the Same Incident (10 January 2014)

 

 

Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard, Killing Jesus: A History — Not What It Purports to Be — a Review (29 December 2013)

 

 

Self-Confessed “White Trash” Phil Robertson of Duck Dynasty Spoke Like Such — So Why Is this News? (27 December 2013)

 

 

Jane Araf’s Short Account of Journalist Yasser Faisal’s Death in Syria’s Civil War — Says Something Profound about Fate and the Frequent Irrelevance of Courage and Human Will — You May Not Agree with Her Implied Conclusion, but Then — You Probably Haven’t Lived It, Have You? (14 December 2013)

 

 

Pema Chodron, Getting Unstuck (2006) — Audiobook — Review (03 December 2013)

 

 

Driving Meditation through Early Cold Season Landscapes (28 November 2013)

 

 

The World of Spiritual Parables Has Its Share of Pretentiously Silly Ones — Here, Comparing  Two Such with a Genuinely Meaningful One  — and a Comment about the Mistake of Taking Nonsense More Seriously than It Deserves (15 November 2013)

 

 

Scum People Are Arguably Necessary to Our Spiritual Ecology — Comments on — (a) the Occasional Appreciation We Owe the Low-Lifes among Us — (b) another Way of Looking at the October 2013 Government Shutdown and Debt Ceiling Crisis — and (c) the Spiritual Conundrums that the Mess Raises (18 October 2013)

 

 

The World’s Unreasoned Love Affair with Pope Francis — a Little Butter around the Margins Does Not Make a Bigoted Meal Tastier — Katie McDonough’s Critique Gets It Right (20 September 2013)

 

 

A Wise Perspective on Radical Islam Comes from Two Chris Hedges Paragraphs — both of which May Be Prophetic regarding America’s Own Accelerating Socioeconomic Inequality (15 August 2013)

 

 

When Law Is Designed to Conceal Government Wrongdoing It Loses Moral Legitimacy — a Point Implied by John Glaser’s Short Essay on the Injustice Done Bradley Manning (02 August 2013)

 

 

Measuring Life in Trees (30 June 2013)

 

 

Fat Cats, the Eye of the Needle, and Food Stamps — Wealth’s often Judgmental Lack of Empathy Defeats even Christ’s Admonition (20 June 2013)

 

 

Politically Liberal Law Professor Geoffrey R. Stone’s Harsh Condemnation of Edward Snowden — for Leaking the Government’s Large Scale Telephone Surveillance Program — Demonstrates What Happens When Smart and Ignorant People Get Caught Up in Logically Circular Thinking about Appropriate Government Employee or Contractor Behavior (11 June 2013)

 

 

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Has Detailed the Failure of the War on Marijuana — and Its  Egregious Racial Bias — in a Factually Scathing Indictment of the American Criminal Justice System(05 June 2013)

 

 

Liberals Continue to Demean George W. Bush’s Legacy — while They Ignore the Immensely Greater Trampling of Human Rights and Law that President Obama Revels in Every Day (26 April 2013)

 

60 Minutes’ Television Summaries of the Boston Marathon Bombing  — and the Anticipated Opening of the 911 Museum — Illustrate Our Lack of a National Sense of Moral Proportion — which Sadly Results in Repeatedly Compounding the International Cruelties of the Human Condition (22 April 2013)

 

 

President Obama’s Synopsis of How America Responds to Evil Left Out the Psychologically Most Important Point — Our Indiscriminate Retaliations Create More of the Same (17 April 2013)

 

 

A Nitwit Moment’s Inadvertent Example Explains Why History Repeats Itself — Justin Bieber’s Narcissistic Comment about the Holocaust’s Anne Frank — Says Something about the Human Condition (15 April 2013)

 

 

The American Public’s Willingness to Start Wars — which Only Our Military One Percent Has to Die for —  Parallels Our Moral Complacence in Not Taking on the Socially Insane U.S. Gun Lobby (02 April 2013)

 

 

Bigotry Combines Cowardice with Aggressively Defended Ignorance — take Senator Rob Portman’s Reversal into Favoring Gay Marriage, only after His Son Revealed that He Was Gay — a Comment on Ideology as Stupidity’s Refuge (15 March 2013)

 

 

Nigerian-American Teju Cole’s Haiku-Like Tweets Hint at the Immorality of Drone Murder — but Only to Those Who Still Have Functioning Souls (11 March 2013)

 

 

Psychotherapist Phillippa Perry Linked Lying about Alcohol Intake to Culturally Accepted Narcissism — and My Comment about Narcissism’s Spiritual Self-Destruction (28 February 2013)

 

 

The Unfortunate Futility of Acquainting Religious Hierarchies with Genuine Spiritual Development — Cardinal Roger Mahoney’s Puke-Inspiring Vision of Himself as a Victim of the Children whom His Church Abused (20 February 2013)

 

 

We Can Recognize Immoral Thinking because It Consistently Refuses to Come to Grips with the Real Issues — an Illustration Using Columnist Michael Gerson’s Recent Drone Column — and a Parallel Example from CIA Director Nominee, John Brennan (08 February 2013)

 

 

How Little We Remember — Yesterday’s 70th Anniversary of the End of the Battle of Stalingrad — a Comment about the Inertia of Forgetfulness and Failed Gratitude (03 February 2013)

 

 

A Humorously Sad Example of Humanity’s Ability to Distort Basic Spiritual Messages — the United States Air Force’s Well-Intended, but “We Missed the Point” Distortion of Martin Luther King Junior’s Most Basic Message about Peacefulness (24 January 2013)

 

 

An Oath Taken on Two Bibles that Once Belonged to More Honorably Consistent Leaders — and a Speech Containing an Astonishing Hypocrisy — President Obama’s Second Inauguration Mirrored the United States’ Often Self-Defeating Moral Condition (22 January 2013)

 

 

If One Is already a Prominent Person, Why Is Trolling for Angry Responses to Boldly Stated Stupidities so Attractive — Would Not a Quieter Reputation for Thoughtful Intelligence Be Preferable? —on Modernity’s Rampant Narcissism (17 January 2013)

 

 

A Dark, but Amusing Gun Control Essay from Novelist Douglas Anthony Cooper — Examines Our Culture’s Infatuation with Violence — and My Comment about the Not Obvious Spiritual Thinking that the Social Contract Requires (12 January 2013)

 

 

The Tiresome Problem of Generals — Who Speak Out against the Evils of Unnecessary War, only afterThey Have Retired — General Stanley McChrystal Now Agrees that Drone Murder Is Bad — Yet, He apparently Didn’t Do Squat about it, even when He Was the Ranking Commander in Afghanistan — and a Comment about the Moral Implications of True Leadership (08 January 2013)

 

 

Henry Blodget Unerringly Pegged Lance Armstrong — in a Piece Published by Business Insider — and a Question about Redemption (06 January 2013)

 

 

Christian Author Diana Butler Bass Chided Fox News for Emphasizing the Wrong Things about Christmas — Her Essay about the Meaning of Advent — and Fox’s Obtuseness in Disregarding It (12 December 2012)

 

 

An Increasingly Asinine Nation — Has Essentially Eliminated Thanksgiving in Order to Begin Black Friday Consumerism a Few Hours Earlier — Jesus, Yaweh, Mohammed and Buddha Would Ask Us What We Think We’re Doing (24 November 2012)

 

 

Regarding the History Channel’s Documentary of the Allies’ Discovery of the Holocaust — a Reminder of How Evil Builds on Selfish Unconcern — Does America’s Drone Murder Program Hint at the Same Kind of Cultural Immorality? (12 November 2012)

 

 

The Vacuity of American Politics again on Display in the Third 2012 Presidential Campaign Debate — Avoidance regarding Afghanistan and the Bland Acceptance of Indiscriminate Drone Killing — and Joe Klein’s Related Justification for Killing 4-Year Olds in the Name of National Security (23 October 2012)

 

 

A World of Lies — Evidence about Lance Armstrong’s Multi-Year Tour de France Doping Operation Is Saddening — Not So Much because of the Cheating, but because of His Apparent Witness Intimidations (11 October 2012)

 

 

Non-Stop Chatter from a Bottomless Supply of Dishonest Fools — Makes It Difficult to Keep Caring about America’s Dribbling Away Future — and the Moral Contrast Presented by Felix Baumgartner’s Attempt to Plunge Earthward from the Edge of Space (09 October 2012)

 

 

A Lesson in Ethics from German Soccer Playing Great, Miroslav Klose — What a Contrast with How Our Political and Economic Leaders Act (27 September 2012)

 

 

Has American Foreign Policy become Quasi-Religious Crusading under another Name? — It’s Not Just Islamic Fanatics Playing a Deadly Game (26 September 2012)

 

 

Tavis Smiley’s Grandma Said Something Worth Acting on — “Get in the Way!” — and My Comment on the Unspoken Luggage Required to Make Meaningful Use of Even Wisely Chosen Aphorisms  (13 September 2012)

 

 

On the Serendipity of Aggressive Imbecility — the Chain of Causation that Led to the Sad Deaths of American Ambassador Christopher Stevens and Colleagues in Libya (12-13 September 2012)

 

 

Each Anniversary’s Replay of Video of the 11 September (2001) Terrorist Attack Is Psychologically and Spiritually Damaging — The President and First Lady’s Televised Moment of Silence Is a More Healing Way to Commemorate the Losses (11 September 2012)

 

 

Two Skillful Paragraphs about Meanness and Blind Self-Justification in Politics — from Writer-Philosopher Cheryl Mendelson — and My Comment about the Utility of Self-Awareness, Attention and Reason (25 August 2012)

 

 

America’s Bad Behavior Spawning Machine Took it on the Chin this Week — though I Doubt that Anyone Noticed — and That’s the Spiritual and Social Point (07 August 2012)

 

 

To Boycott or Not? — Chick-fil-A and the Salvation Army — on Prejudice and Getting Along, even When It Hurts a Bit (02 August 2012)

 

 

The Spiritual Importance of Mountains — Ben Horne and Gil Weiss Died Climbing Palcaraju Oeste  — Had We Had Asked Them Beforehand, They Might Well Have Said that Such an End Would Be Okay(30 July 2012)

 

Has Lost (though Often Bigoted) Leadership Morality Put Us in the Toilet? — New York TimesColumnist David Brooks and Salon Editor Andrew Leonard Vehemently Butt Heads on the Answer — They Are Both Right, which Makes My Larger Point (13 July 2012)

 

 

Chris Hedges’ Essay about Radical Jesuit Priest, Daniel Berrigan — Encourages Us to Take to the Streets in Accord with Spiritual Teachings — even before We Attain the Personal Equanimity that Some Think Should Be a Higher Priority (11 June 2012)

 

 

Hail Storms as Meditative Practice — Time’s Inevitable Blast of Change (08 June 2012)

 

 

Life’s Small Perversities Remind Us that We Are Not in Charge — Mariachis, Acoustic Guitar, and Sticky Fingers (26 May 2012)

 

 

For Older Folk — on the Mental Health Wisdom of Avoiding or Suppressing Regret — a Small Study Published in Science (20 April 2012)

 

 

What Should Be Common Sense regarding the Evil of War Seems Not to Be Accepted by Many Americans — on a Comment from Professor/Colonel Andrew Bacevich (25 March 2012)

 

 

Owen Flanagan, The Bodhisattva’s Brain: Buddhism Naturalized (2011) — Book Review (23 March 2012)

 

 

Two Quotable Sentences from Paul Rosenberg — and an Insight from Qais Azimy — about Misbegotten Wars and Denial’s Devilish Trumpet (21 March 2012)

 

 

Courageous Sacrifice in Afghanistan — Two Simple Stories that Highlight the Cynically Calculated Cowardice Displayed by America’s Political Leadership (16 March 2012)

 

 

Gordon Livingston, How to Love (2009) — Book Review (14 March 2012)

 

 

J. Krishnamurti, Krishnamurti to Himself: His Last Journal — Book Review (12 March 2012)

 

 

Zen Points to the Reality-Defying Prison that Conceptual Thinking often Traps Us in — an Illustration of this Spiritual Perspective via Debra Ollivier’s Outstanding Essay, “The French Philosophy On Love And Sex” (15 February 2012)

 

 

An Underappreciated Aspect of Joint Surgery Is the Likelihood that Post-Surgery Performance Will Be Permanently Decreased (Compared to Pre-Injury Levels) in a Significant Proportion of Athletes — an Essay on the Utility of Avoiding Injury and the Psychological Helpfulness of Gratitude in Coping with Reduced Function Afterwards (14 February 2012)

 

 

The Constitutional Problem with Putting Theocrats like Rick Santorum into the Presidency? — Their Moral Certitudes Refuse to Admit the Ethical Ambiguities that More Thoughtful People See at First Glance — Example: His Political Position that a Rapist’s Child Is God’s “Gift” to the Rapee (25 January 2012)

 

 

Is a Moderate and Civil Temperament the Kiss of Death in American Politics? — Conservative Jon Huntsman withdraws from the Republican Party’s 2012 Presidential Nominating Process — a Spiritual Twist that Will Go Unnoticed, even on Martin Luther King Jr. Day (16 January 2012)

 

 

Does Genuine Spirituality Require Private Intimacy? — Pastor Skye Jethani Thinks So and Makes a Strong Argument against Too-Public Displays of Religiosity as Being Hypocritical almost by Definition — His Subtle Argument Merits Consideration because Authentic Soulfulness Is a Nuanced Condition(10 January 2012)

 

 

With Age, We Have to Say Goodbye to Friends We Never Met — Reflection on the Roots of Wide-Ranging Embrace (09 January 2012)