White House Vegetable Garden

I can't get the White House vegetable garden out of my mind. It makes me too happy to think about. You mean the White House NEVER ACTUALLY HAD a vegetable garden?

It feels as if the fundamental thing that may be wrong with our society has just been discovered.

No question, these will be very expensive vegetables, but no different from the expensive Christmas tree. Although to many a sweet religious symbol, it also very much symbolizes wealth and heartless consumption. To me it always comes with the images of freezing little hands lighting last matches while peeking through frozen glass into homes with cooked geese on the table and velveted children receiving their colorful dolls and trains.

A vegetable garden on the other hand, and a first lady and her children digging in the dirt, is a symbol of gratitude, humility, and appreciation for where all of our wealth and happiness ultimately comes from - the food from the ground and the work it takes to grow it.

When the food runs out - or a few steps further down the line, when the money runs out, as it has and still is - thanks to all the thieves and charlatans out there - it is time to turn the soil, fertilize and replant, and not to sell rotten vegetables or even stones for food, as some of our bailout plans seem to do. I hope the First Gardener knows this and can get rid of the slugs.

What A Country

Congratulations!!! President Obama and family, and US of A!

This video captures both the spirit of the US as well as the historical swearing-in moment of President Obama's inauguration today. This is the moment I will remember that had all the elements.

As former President George Bush takes his leave in a Government Helicopter shortly after compassionate good luck hugs between the Bushes and the Obamas, Juan Williams, a conservative African American news analyst on Fox News who often criticized Senator Obama during the election campaign, defines the moment by commenting with deep emotion on Martin Luther King's friend, 87-year-old Rev. Joseph Lowery who delivered the benediction speech during the inauguration. With even Republicans on Fox News in tears and overjoyed...

Here You Are...wondering...about friends and enemies...

until suddenly...
you remember...

Today we all remember the deepest, the highest, and the most profound and precious in all of us. May we continue to do so with the help of our new, inspiring, young President as we embark anew on solving the problems in the world.

All Wars End Like This, Too

The lamp is empty; the oil is used up.
The Tambourine is dead, the dancer lies down,
The fire is out, and no smoke rises from it.
The soul is absorbed in the Unique, and there is no longer a duality. (Kabir)

Senators McCain and Obama - At Their Best - Post Election Reflections

The Alfred E. Smith Foundation Memorial Dinner is an annual white tie fundraiser dinner event for Catholic Charities, held at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City, in honor of former New York Governor Al Smith, the first Catholic presidential candidate. The first dinner was in 1945, the year after Al Smith's death.

What many people outside of the US may not know is that as far as stereotypes are concerned - "Catholic" in America used to be equated with "low class Irish drunk". The Klu Klux Klan was after "Catholics" as much as it was after "Blacks" because of competition for jobs and resources. African American and Irish women shared a strong history as servants to the upper classes who looked down on both groups. "First Catholic presidential candidate" - Governor Alfred E. Smith, therefore is a historical figure in the US, much like JFK as the first Irish Catholic President. Of course, by now, we know the historical outcome of this year's election. The US keeps growing and rewarding heroes from its lower social ranks who end up elevating all of us.

At this traditional dinner during our campaigns, the candidates make fun of themselves and each other. The event is shortly before the actual election and tensions are high. We get to see the candidates at their best, and are reminded - that if we can keep laughing together, and especially - at ourselves - there is hope for all of us.

Here are the two speeches in the order given.

Saturday Night Live Moment Of Zen

Here is - as Jon Steward would put it - our Moment of Zen. In regards to the feminist movement, Sarah Palin is nothing short of a Buddhist koan - a feminist who doesn't hate, but loves men, is pro-life, and enthusiastically for marriage and motherhood. What to do about feminists who are crazily in love with their decades long husband dudes, keep having babies and dare to become President - I mean, nominees for Vice President? This is akin to the revenge of the nerds - the many pale and out of shape men in the computer industry who are today's billionaires and are getting all the good-looking girls.

Sarah Palin is making all of us look bad, of course - stereotypical feminists and stereotypical stay-at-home Moms alike. But - for us husband-and-baby-loving Moms, who also believe in equal rights for women, as well as a woman's right to chose, even if we wouldn't considering abortion as a solution for ourselves - the present phenomenon of Sarah Palin is indeed sweet revenge even if we don't agree with all of her political positions. Feminists are the ones who have made staying at home with children and taking good care of a hard working husband harder on women in many cases than it ever was for our mothers.

Is she ready to lead the nation - just in case? Be that as it may. The problem is that - rightfully or not - most mothers - just like most actors and cab drivers and other folks - think that they could run the country just fine - and better than the sitting president. As far as "only" being Vice President is concerned - maybe it would even be boringly non-challenging. Another Zen Moment for campaign planners. As with most koans - and certainly in the case of Sarah Palin - silence would have been best. Of course that moment has long past.

Leave it to our royal jesters to point out the situation to us. Here as well as below, is Saturday Night Live with our yin and yang female political archetypes for us.

(I don't know what the rules are about posting videos. I first found this on YouTube where it was pulled suddenly, and then found it again on NBC - now with several adds which makes sense, but also with the embedding code, which makes me think it is OK to post it here for your enjoyment)

The Marines And Indian Gurus

I will need to go to Berkeley to see my graphic designer in a few days. His office is right next to the Marines' recruitment office that the aging ladies of Coalition Pink have been parking themselves in front of, under the protection of the City of Berkeley. They were, or still are, protesting the existence of the recruiting office in this famous City of Peace and Harmony. Peace and Harmony seemed to exist inside the Marine Office who just waited it all out, but not outside their office, where people dressed in pink and anti-pink clothing, were yelling and screaming at each other.

The last time I had to see Kish, several weeks ago, I had passed a skinny old man who had been protesting in front of the military office for weeks, holding up his poster, thinking to myself - "Another one of the old hippies with nostalgia for the old protest days of my youth." I wondered why I didn't feel like putting on blue eye shadow, changing into my old embroidered jeans, throwing my bra into the wind, watching the sunset on a beach somewhere, and knowing with great happiness, that I, too, was "just like Gandhi". Those were wonderful days.

After this short moment of my own nostalgia, I snapped myself back into the present, which is after all what I teach when I teach meditation. In the Present this all looked a little different.

In the Present this was an old man thinking he was doing something heroic and self-sacrificing. His Ego though, seemed as big as his poster. His superiority and self-righteousness spilling all over the sidewalk. He and his pink girlfriends, who showed up later that month, almost ended up costing the City of Berkeley millions of dollars in public service support for the people who live and work there. In the end, he only managed to embarrass the holier than thou, City of Peace and Integrity, as they caved under the threat of losing money. Such an understandable weakness, after all. Didn't Junior who hated his "Old Man" for everything he stood for, also gladly cash Daddy's check of hard earned money for the rent and his girlfriend's daily wheat grass juice? And isn't even Mr Obama who one simply cannot not love also breaking promises now that big money is part of all the considerations?

Many of the pink protesters are Moms who have lost their sons to war. My heart does break for them as losing a child is the worst nightmare any parent could ever face. Anger balances sadness and therefore protesting is good medicine for depression according to Chinese Medicine. But, they feel their sons would not have joined the military if it weren't for recruiting offices and I am just not so sure about that from what I have seen.

If you were a hippie when you raised your children - your children may very well decide to rebel by joining the Marines, and if you were a Marine when you raised your children, they may very well end up flying off to Goa, live on the beach, or follow an India Guru around. That is why some parents hate the Marines, and some hate Indian Gurus, whichever the case may be.