I’m sorry…WHAT…?!

Has anyone seen this?

Its worth the two hours of your life to sit down and watch it. If you don’t like Michael Moore, that’s okay, watch this anyway! Seriously!

Its really very insightful about how bad our healthcare system is here in the US. Put your political biases aside and rent it, or pay for on PPV or Comcast ondemand. I’m so serious about this!

I had no idea it was this bad…and could be that good!

Here’s a couple of links:

The Movie

The Sicko News Website

I can’t even express how serious I am about this. You will laugh, cry, be appalled, be angry and you will want to spur into action to make things better!

Its so easy for us to sit back and just accept what we are told by our politicians…but if other countries can do it and do it well, how come the US can’t do a better job with the health care system?

rachel :: Dec.21.2007 :: Movies :: No Comments »

Pilgrimage is the time-honored journey to places sacred. Of course, the
earnest pilgrim who wisely follows his or her intuitive spiritual
compass always arrives at the most sacred of places: one’s self. The
ultimate pilgrimage, for those willing to leave their personal baggage
behind as they travel, is a rite of passage as much as a passage
through time and space.

Pilgrimages take many forms and many faces. Going home for the holidays
is a pilgrimage. Thoreau took a pilgrimage by the side of a pond. The
Buddha took a pilgrimage by the side of a tree and journeyed into the
back recesses of his mind, where he came upon a path that leads to
happiness.

I took a journey last night in front of my television, watching a
trilogy of documentary films by an old friend, John Bush. John is a
visionary in the truest sense: he uses his visions and images for the
purpose of transformation. In an earlier incarnation, his claim to
cultural fame in the transformational times of the mid-1970s was to
have started a company called Illuminations with his then wife Mirabai
Bush. They silk-screened images of the Buddha and simple Tibetan
mandalas onto transparent plastic that could be stuck onto any surface.
They called them Dharma Seals. Soon those Buddhas and their most
successful product, a rainbow, were ubiquitous — on the rear windows
of VWs, on dormitory billboards, even on the windows of John and Yoko’s
apartment at the Dakota in Manhattan (I saw them). After he and Mirabai
split up, John went on to become a filmmaker.

On an extended pilgrimage throughout Southeast Asia, he traveled with a
Sony digital video camera recording his impressions of the iconic
Buddhist centers in Laos, Thailand, Burma (now Myanmar), Bali,
Cambodia, Java and Central Tibet. He calls the resulting three films he
made Journey into Buddhism: The Yatra Trilogy; yatra is the Sanskrit word for
pilgrimage.

When I came back from my own first spiritual pilgrimage to India in 1974, only one film I found came anywhere near close to evoking the feeling of being there. It was director Louis Malle’s 1968 Phantom India, a black-and-white documentary so realistic you could almost smell the Indian beedie cigarettes in the movie theater. Until seeing John’s Yatra Trilogy, it remained, to my mind and my eyes, the only film that captured the attraction-repulsion, the frustration-exhilaration, the enigma-revelation of India or anywhere
else in Asia.

Last night John took me back, back to Asia, back to my own recent
pilgrimage in the footsteps of the Buddha for my book Buddha or Bust,
back to that place in myself where I know the search for truth, meaning
and happiness gratefully will continue.

With unblinking patience, John draws the viewer into his journey. His slow pans across a landscape such as Angkor Wat in Cambodia test our own patience, conditioned as we are to fast cuts and instant gratification. His use of ambient sounds throughout all the films give a sense of presence, of immediacy, and in such a subtle manner as to go almost unnoticed. Almost. At Borobudur Temple, the 9th century mandala monument in Java, the sounds of birds and flies and chanting in your ears bring to life ancient rumblings of spirituality. I knew this was where a vibrant spiritual community existed. John’s film reminded me this is where it’s still happening for those still enough — or for a camera quiet enough — to witness it.

For John, the six years it took to create The Yatra Trilogy was the
“realization of a long deferred dream.”

“I had always made my living in the more commercial arena,” he said. “Now I had the opportunity to take a risk creatively in a medium that had always drawn me. This project allowed me to stretch as an artist and interestingly the art became my spiritual practice in a way it hadn’t before.”

Along with the personal reward simply of taking the journey, he now is
enjoying sharing it with others. It had its American premiere in 2005 at
the Rubin Museum of Art in Manhattan. It has since shown in more than
50 cities, including coinciding with His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s
American itinerary in the fall of 2006. The films are currently
screening at the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena and at the Museum of
Asian Civilizations in Singapore. In February the trilogy will have its
Australian premiere at the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra and
screenings at the Seattle Art Museum. And just recently John teamed up
with WGBH Boston, the premiere producer of programming for PBS, which is
distributing nationally a special boxed 3-DVD collection, entitled
Journey Into Buddhism : The Yatra Trilogy, available for $34.95 (a 10
percent holiday discount).

John next sets his sights on a visual pilgrimage of another sort. He is
currently in post-production on a dance art film entitled Shimmer,
shot entirely outdoors throughout New York City in collaboration with
his partner, the French-born choreographer and dancer Nadine
Helstroffer.

If The Yatra Trilogy is a Buddhist video pilgrimage, I am sure
Shimmer will be an equally revelatory journey into the heart of a
city and a woman he loves. More

admin :: Dec.21.2007 :: Seriously from huffpuff :: No Comments »

The Times of London has picked up on the issue that Senator Obama has not convened a policy related hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Subcommittee on Europe and added to this something I reported yesterday — which was that Europe does not figure into Obama’s travel profile.Many people are wondering why any of this travel experience matters — particularly a bunch of my Obama-supporting friends.

This debate started with the Boston Globe’s endorsement of Obama in which it proffered a strange line:

America needs a president with an intuitive sense of the wider world, with all its perils and opportunities. Senator Barack Obama of Illinois has this understanding at his core.

My friend and New America Foundation board member Fareed Zakaria furthered this debate in a direction I don’t agree with — by suggesting that identity trumps experience and expertise.

We’ve had a president who rules from the gut — and it was a huge mistake for the nation to go with someone who lacked the experience and facility with global affairs that George W. Bush came to office with.

I want to be clear to friends on all sides of this political campaign that I know Barack Obama has international experience, but it is not wrong to note that there are deficits in the profiles of the people we are considering to live in the White House.

If I’m being asked to support Obama because of innate instinct, I refuse. I would say the same about Hillary Clinton if asked. What we need to know about all of these potential candidates is not only how they operate and work but what the basis of their experience is. Then, for me, I want to see some evidence that the candidate is thinking creatively about how to leapfrog out of today’s national security and foreign policy morass into some more stable order that propels American and global interests back in a positive direction.

At the beginning of the John Bolton battle in which I played a substantial part, Barack Obama and Russ Feingold were two early holdouts in our uniting the Democratic caucus on the Foreign Relations Committee against him. After watching a video tape of John Bolton “losing it” on the subject of the UN, when Bolton said that one could take some ten floors out of the UN and no one would notice (in an angry, frustrated voice), Obama changed course and opposed Bolton. This impressed me — but there was nothing innate in Obama’s thinking.

Hillary Clinton, in contrast, might have leaned more toward a minority constituency in New York that was supportive of Bolton, and allowed the “identity” of the situation trump sensible policy. Clinton’s people listened to many — and just knew that when it came to shouldering responsibilities for the American people in the world’s most important international institution, Bolton was the wrong person for the job.

I hate this debate about experience vs. identity in making this choice. Both candidates have strengths and weaknesses.

But with me, experience — or demonstrating bold capacity to requisition that experience — is the primary driver of my political support. Obama supporters, I hope, will drop this cult-ish promulgation of identity politics and will get back on the experience track.

Then, we can have a sensible discussion about the differences between Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards, Joe Biden — and the rest.

It still bothers me that Mike Huckabee has been to Europe and Obama hasn’t.

– Steve Clemons publishes the popular political blog, The Washington Note

P.S. I want to make one note about Senator Obama and European travel. According to the Times of London story, Barack Obama stopped in London for a quick stopover on the way back from Moscow. I was not given this information by Senator Obama’s office, so I am not adding it as of yet. The official material from the Obama office did not include this trip and thus may need to be amended at some point. Steve Clemons  More

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Electronics retailer Circuit City Stores Inc. on Friday reported a wider-than-expected loss for the third quarter, driven by lower extended warranty sales and restructuring costs.

Shares of the nation’s second biggest consumer electronics retailer tumbled 29 percent in premarket trading.

“We are very dissatisfied with our third-quarter results,” said Philip J. Schoonover, chairman, president and chief executive, in a statement. Schoonover said he believes the issues are “primarily self-induced” and within the company’s control to improve. More

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The audience claps at the very beginning of the 4 minute overture and throughout as the orchestra does selections of “TheTrolly Song,” “The Man That Got Away” and of course “Over The Rainbow.” Then the audience roars as Rufus Wainwright takes the stage. I was lucky enough to be there that June night last summer as Rufus re-created Judy Garland’s famous 1961 concert. Now with the release of RUFUS DOES JUDY I can go back and listen to it all over again. Re-creating a classic concert by a cultural icon is a daunting task to say the least, but it worked and this CD captures all of it. What comes across is ultimately devotion from one artist to another.

I remember listening to my copy of Judy Live At Carnegie Hall the week up until that night just so I could be prepared and I was not alone. The audience had done their homework too. I had gotten it when Capitol released a 40th anniversary edition a few years ago. I remember listening to it then and noting how passionate and fervent the audience was when she took the stage and throughout. She sang every hit and kept them begging for more. Rufus does the same. He talks when Judy talks and even messes up “You Go To My Head” just as Judy had done. The best thing about that night that comes across on this two CD set is the passion of the audience. We were all so happy to be there. I felt like I was taking part in some kind of cultural event and I know I wasn’t alone.

There are some really terrific classic songs here from “Come Rain And Come Shine”, “I Can’t Buy You Anything But Love,” to “Zing! Went The Strings Of My Heart”, “That’s Entertainment” and of course “Somewhere Over The Rainbow”. It was quite a night and it’s all here. It was also pointed out in a photo inside the playbill (and in the CD) that his parents–Loudan Wainwright III and Kate McGarrigle–were in the audience in 1961. You can tell that family is so important to him as his mother and his sister Martha joined him on stage. Martha Wainwright does an amazing version of “Stormy Weather”. I remember being completely blown away by her that night and that same goose-bump inducing performance is captured here.

I’m so happy to have a copy of this right now as it takes me back to that summer night on these cold days. These songs also seem completely perfect for this time of year. As I’ve said before, nostalgia is a powerful thing that can take you away. Whether it’s from 1961 or from the summer of 2006, it’s a wonderful trip to take. More

admin :: Dec.21.2007 :: Seriously from huffpuff :: No Comments »

A few years ago, in my last album, right after the Abu Ghraib scandal broke, I talked about how furious Senators and congressmen were, looking at such photos as a prisoner forced to wear women’s panties on his head and a naked prisoner with a dog collar attached to a leash held by a woman who is pointing at the man’s penis and laughing. Why were those legislators sputtering with such rage? Because THEY have to pay EXTRA for those services.

Now, I asked Sam Leff–given his background as an anthropologist studying and writing about the hidden rituals of American sadomasochism–for his take on the CIA’s cover-up of torture videos.

“I have been watching with fascinated horror,” he said, “as America’s S/M patterns of culture have emerged into the open in the Abu Ghraib/Gitmo Bush administration. I’ve been flashing on some clear images of the fratboy reality underlying the White House torture tape controversy.
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“Picture this. Bush and Karl Rove sitting around a big plasma screen (drinking beer?) and laughing their asses off watching helpless prisoners drowning under a waterboard, or naked getting cigarette burns, or maybe having analgesic balm applied to their genitals.
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“Once the existence of the tapes became known, their cover story is that they were having a big discussion about whether or not to keep or destroy the torture tapes. Like that old pervert, J. Edgar Hoover, the reality is they were getting off looking at them as sadistic porn–over and over. Perhaps sharing them with the ‘frat brothers’ of their inner circle.”

Indeed, in November 2005, Garry Trudeau was queried by Editor & Publisher about his Doonesbury strip the previous Sunday which had George Bush defending the branding of Yale University fraternity initiates with a red-hot coat-hanger in 1967, and Trudeau replied that it was “Totally fact based. Bush’s commen in panel seven is a direct quote.” He was referring to the collegiate Bush saying, “Insignificant! There’s no scarring mark physically or mentally!”

Some pledges told the Yale Daily News that their branding was preceded by a physical beating. Said one: “By that time, my body was so numb [from the beatings] that the iron felt good, like a match was being held close to my body.” Bush, who was president of the fraternity, said that the resulting wound was “only a cigarette burn.” Or maybe enhanced pledging technique. More

admin :: Dec.21.2007 :: Seriously from huffpuff :: No Comments »