It is not length of life, but depth of life.Ralph Waldo Emerson

November 2009

  • Been There?

    The Swiss just banned mosque minarets. It seems a small thing but it isn’t. One could say it’s like banning church steeples, but it’s much more than that. The minaret is the tower through which the faithful are called to prayers and praying 5 times a day is central to being a good Muslim. The measure banning minarets passed with about 57% of the vote. Some 2.7 million people voted, in a country of 7.5 million. While Switzerland has traditionally been politically neutral, its citizens tend to be bound by tradition and slow to warm to change, so the vote from that standpoint is not a surprise. Polls taken just 10 days prior indicated only 37% support for the measure, so the result was unexpected. The real problem, however, is that when a group, or a country starts this kind of religious discrimination, it is much too reminiscent of Nazi Germany. Even now in Paris many synagogues are hidden. What is troublesome to the point of being scary is that this vote invites a sense of having been there before. Hopefully the Swiss people will realize that and find a way to rectify what could otherwise be a slippery slope.

  • There’s Something Sad

    Michael’s Jackson glove sold at auction for $350,000, way above what the auction house thought. The pre-auction estimate was around $50,000. The bidding opened at $10,000, went immediately to $120,000 and then eventually to $350,000. With fees and taxes the winning bidder, a Hong Kong businessman, will pay $420,000. The glove is to be exhibited at a resort on Macao. Whatever the explanation, investment, uniqueness or a die-hard fan’s last bravo, there’s something sad about a human being paying that much for a memento, even if it was called by the chief executive of the auction house, “the Holy Grail of Michael Jackson.” There’s something sad about someone with means not knowing the real value of money, of how much good that sum could have done, in food programs, HIV meds, schools, art programs… There’s something sad about a wanton and blatant exercise of material values.

  • Competitive Yoga–an Oxymoron

    There’s a new trend. It’s called competitive yoga. Rajashree and Bikram Choudhury who are the owners of the Bikram yoga studios are also behind the movement, although the couple do not want the two confused and have begun heir own non-profit to promote the idea. Though right now there is a series of competitions which will hopefully go from local to regional to national, the goal is to make it to the Olympics, maybe by 2020.
    I must admit that I am among those who doubt the whole idea, not because it isn’t doable, or that the Choudhurys will succeed, just that competitive yoga is an oxymoron. Yoga is an old Sanskrit word meaning union, union with the divine. That implies partaking of a world where cooperation reigns and competition does not. It speaks of values unifying the two aspects of who we are, the outer and the inner. It addresses how to bring the inner into the outer. For any one with knowledge of the inner-self, of the inner world of which it is a part, it is difficult to see how yoga can be made competitive without making it devoid of its spiritual underpinning.

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