American Buddhist Net

Researchers are again using mind-bending drugs as a means of treating mental disorders.

by Linda Marsa
05.16.2008

...At a handful of sites across the country, after a four-decade hiatus, psychedelic research is undergoing a quiet renaissance, thanks to scientists like Charles Grob who are revisiting the powerful mind-altering drugs of the 1960s in hopes of making them part of our therapeutic arsenal. Hallucinogens such as psilocybin, MDMA (better known as Ecstasy), and the most controversial of them all, LSD, are being tested as treatments for maladies that modern medicine has done little to assuage, such as post-traumatic stress disorder, drug dependency, obsessive-compulsive disorder, cluster headaches, and the emotional suffering of people with a terminal illness.

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Saturday, 17 May 2008
Lionel Wijesiri

Throughout the ages and in myriad cultures, puppets have told us many tales and played many roles. They have been used in everything from ritual to education, myths, social criticism, comedy, abstract poetry, historical epics and urban tales.

A multitude of characters passed through the puppet theatre. Some were drawn from oral tradition or literature, while others were the product of imagination. Puppetry is probably the least restricted in its form, design, colour and movement and the least expensive of all animated visual art forms.

The stories used in our puppetry staging in the olden days were always based on Buddhist Jataka tales and episodes from the history. The main purpose of these stories was to induce religious sentiments and patriotic feelings of the audience.

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May 16, 2008
By Louis Sahagun

ADELANTO -- It doesn't take long to get acquainted with the rhythm of things at a new Buddhist shrine in this high desert community presided over by a monk nicknamed "Tom" and a 24-foot-tall statue of a saint said to have miraculous powers.

Monk Thich Dang "Tom" Phap's routine starts with early morning meditation and yard work. When 11 a.m. rolls around, there he is, sandal-shod and in orange robes, a gold shoulder clasp gleaming in the desert sun as he stands in prayer before the 60-ton white marble statue of Quan yin.

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16 May 2008
By Clara Moskowitz

As gay couples celebrate their newfound right to marry in California and opposition groups rally to fight the ruling, many struggle with this question: Is homosexuality natural?

On this issue, Nature has spoken: Same-sex lovin' is common in hundreds of species, scientists say.

Roy and Silo, two male chinstrap penguins at New York's Central Park Zoo, were a couple for about six years, during which they nurtured a fertilized egg together (given to them by a zookeeper) and raised the young chick that hatched.

According to University of Oslo zoologist Petter Böckman, about 1,500 animal species are known to practice same-sex coupling, including bears, gorillas, flamingos, owls, salmon and many others.

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Species are dying out at a rate not seen since the demise of the dinosaurs, according to a report published today – and human behaviour is to blame. Emily Dugan counts the cost

Friday, 16 May 2008

The world's species are declining at a rate "unprecedented since the extinction of the dinosaurs", a census of the animal kingdom has revealed. The Living Planet Index out today shows the devastating impact of humanity as biodiversity has plummeted by almost a third in the 35 years to 2005.

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May 13, 2008
NASHVILLE, Tenn. - A few former members of a church said they were sexually abused as children and the church did nothing to stop it.

"The man that raped and abused me was the brother of the minister of this church," said Crystal Mears.

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Wow, this must be God-awful stuff if even the redoubtable Jane "Homegrown Terrorism" Harman opposes it. Also, please notice how they keep doing the easy stuff that gives them more power over you (and is always "classified"), while failing to do any of the important stuff. ABN
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New DHS Office Would Share Detailed Surveillance Capabilities of Military Intel Satellites With Local Law Enforcement

By JUSTIN ROOD
May 15, 2008

The Department of Homeland Security wants to set up a new program to illegally spy on Americans, two senior Democratic lawmakers charged Thursday in a letter urging colleagues to deny funds for the program.

In a letter to three colleagues obtained by ABC News, House Homeland Security Chairman Bennie Thompson, Miss., and Rep. Jane Harman, Calif., voiced objections to a new office DHS wants to create that would share the detailed surveillance capabilities of military intelligence satellites and other monitoring technology with state and local law enforcement.

The size of the National Applications Office, as DHS has named it, and its proposed budget, remain classified.

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May 14, 2008
LINDA LOMBARDI

It happens to all of us. You fall in love with someone's looks... but then he's not quite what you expected. Even, sometimes, if he's a cat.

"People come in and say, I had a black and white tuxedo cat before, so that's what I want," says Jim Monsma of the Washington Animal Rescue League in Washington, D.C. "But cats are not all the same. They have widely divergent personalities."

That's why the shelter is now using the Feline-ality program, developed by behaviorist Dr. Emily Weiss of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

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by Tom Burghardt / May 15th, 2008

In the wake of Senator Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) and Susan Collins’ (R-ME) alarmist report, “Violent Islamist Extremism, the Internet, and the Homegrown Terrorism Threat,” the Senate may be moving towards passage of the Orwellian “Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007? (S. 1959).

A companion piece of legislative flotsam to the House bill, “The Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007? (H.R. 1955), the Democrat-controlled Congress seems ready to jettison Constitutional guarantees of free speech and assembly. The bill passed the House by a 404-6 vote in October. Twenty-three congress members abstained, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers.

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May 17, 2008
By Frank G. Anderson

Nakhonratchasima, Thailand — Former American civil rights leader Martin Luther King said, “The Negro’s great stumbling block is not the White Citizen’s Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to “order” than to justice…who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom.”

Today, in 2008, Southeast Asia is witnessing another paternalistic determination of who gets what kind of freedom in the Burmese constitutional draft referendum, as well as with the accommodating Thai government next door. Thailand clearly wishes to please Burma more than it does to promote real democracy. There are several good reasons for doing so, but none of them is conducive to freedom -- and all that it entails -- in the region.

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16 May 2008

Almost five million people have been left homeless by Monday's devastating earthquake in China's south-western Sichuan Province, officials say.

They said the extent of the problem only became clear when communications were restored.

So far, 22,069 deaths have been confirmed and thousands remain missing. It is feared up to 50,000 may be dead.

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by Philip Pullella
5/16/08

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Benedict, speaking a day after a California court ruled in favour of same-sex marriage, firmly restated on Friday the Roman Catholic Church's position that only unions between a man and a woman are moral.

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By FREDRIC U. DICKER and BRENDAN SCOTT

May 16, 2008 -- ALBANY - A former top State Police official slated to be questioned in the political Dirty Tricks probe committed suicide yesterday at his upstate home, officials said last night.

Retired State Police Inspector Gary Berwick, the last head of former Gov. George Pataki's security detail and a one-time key adviser to now-fired acting State Police Superintendent Preston Felton, was found hanging from a rope in his garage in New Windsor, Orange County, by his 12-year-old daughter.

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The Canadian Press
May 16, 2008 at 12:48 AM EDT

ABBOTSFORD, B.C. — A church in Abbotsford, B.C., has been asked to stop feeding a group of homeless people that the city says is frightening residents of a seniors' home.

City council had initially asked churches to help them deal with issues of homelessness in the area.

Peace Lutheran Church has been delivering breakfast items like cereal and juice boxes every Thursday to homeless people in Jubilee Park.

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Friday 16th May 2008

The word Samurai invokes an image of powerful stoic warriors, living and dying by a code of honour and duty.

The Samurai are one of the classic iconic groups for many men, inspiring an ideal of masculinity across generations as they are mythologized in literature and film.

So it may come as a surprise to some that these fearsome warriors also had a long and proud tradition of institutionalized homosexuality.

Much like the men of Ancient Greece, the samurai class were very respectful of the bond, both emotional and sexual, created between an older warrior and a young apprentice. Though the practice has been covered up in modern times, it was said that it was once so common that a daimyo, or lord, would have faced queries if he did not engage in the practice.

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May 15, 2008
Clara Moskowitz

The universe is twice as bright as it appears, astronomers now suggest.

The light bulb went on when they calculated that dust blocks about the half the light emitted from stars and galaxies.

Astronomers have known about interstellar dust for a while, but they haven't been able to quantify just how much light it blocks. Now a team of researchers has studied a catalogue of galaxies and found that dust shields roughly 50 percent of their light.

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By Daniel Howden, Deputy Foreign Editor
Thursday, 15 May 2008

Brazil has been accused of turning its back on its duty to protect the Amazon after the resignation of its award-winning Environment Minister fuelled fresh fears over the fate of the forest. The departure of Marina Silva, who admitted she was losing the battle to get green voices heard amidst the rush for economic development, has been greeted with dismay by conservationists.

"She was the environment's guardian angel," said Frank Guggenheim, executive director for Greenpeace in Brazil. "Now Brazil's environment is orphaned."

In a letter to President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Ms Silva said that her efforts to protect the rainforest acknowledged as the "lungs of the planet" were being thwarted by powerful business lobbies. "Your Excellency was a witness to the growing resistance found by our team in important sectors of the government and society," she wrote.

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Larisa Alexandrovna
May 15, 2008

Dear Mr. Bush,

Your speech on the Knesset floor today was not only a disgrace; it was nothing short of treachery. Worse still, your exploitation of the Holocaust in a country carved out of the wounds of that very crime, in order to strike a low blow at American citizens whose politics differs from your own is unforgivable and unpardonable. Let me remind you, Mr. Bush, of your words today:

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How Bush's grandfather helped Hitler's rise to power

The coup was aimed at toppling President Franklin D Roosevelt with the help of half-a-million war veterans. The plotters, who were alleged to involve some of the most famous families in America, (owners of Heinz, Birds Eye, Goodtea, Maxwell Hse & George Bush’s Grandfather, Prescott) believed that their country should adopt the policies of Hitler and Mussolini to beat the great depression.

Mike Thomson investigates why so little is known about this biggest ever peacetime threat to American democracy.

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1934 Plot by American Industrialists to Seize the White House Foiled by Marine General

Fri May 16, 2008
By Simon Denyer

BALLA, India (Reuters) - Five armed men burst into the small room and courtyard at dawn, just as 21-year-old, 22-week pregnant, Sunita was drying her face on a towel.

They punched and kicked her stomach as she called out for her sleeping boyfriend "Jassa", 22-year-old Jasbir Singh, witnesses said. When he woke, both were dragged into waiting cars, driven away and strangled.

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Friday May 16, 2008

Pope Benedict thanked consecrated women virgins gathering at the Vatican on Thursday for their "total gift" to Christ, praising a holy rite that he recognised was difficult for some non-Catholics to understand.

"(Live your lives) in such a way that you always irradiate the dignity of being the wife of Christ," the pope said in an address to hundreds of consecrated virgins from dozens of countries meeting in Rome.

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Investigators have 'power of God,' can ruin life with stroke of pen

May 15, 2008

The Illinois Department of Children and Family Services erroneously labeled 3,051 innocent people as child abusers by placing them on the state's official list.

According to a Belleville News-Democrat investigation, 11,473 people have appealed to strike their names from the state record. The list has a 27 percent error rate of parents falsely accused of abuse. Once on the list, people are required to remain there for a minimum of five years.

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By ROSS FREAKE

...Most of our life has been reflex; we react according to the patterns established over a lifetime. We don't need to think because we already know our position, whether it's on religion, politics, science or who will win the Stanley Cup.

We've chiselled our position into the concrete of our souls so thought becomes irrelevant. The grooves are so deep, like the ruts in an unplowed road, that we fall into them easily. It takes a lot of energy and effort to get out, so it's easier just to follow the path forged by other people.

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May 16, 2008
David M. Halbfinger

LOS ANGELES — Anthony Pellicano, the ripped-from-a-pulp-novel private eye who made himself an indispensable fixer for Hollywood stars and moguls, was found guilty in federal court Thursday of racketeering, wiretapping and other charges.

The jury of eight men and four women deliberated nine days before finding Mr. Pellicano, 64, guilty of 76 of the 77 counts against him, mostly in connection with his extensive wiretapping operation, which he used to dig up dirt on business enemies and former spouses of his powerful clients.

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May 16, 2008

BEICHUAN, China (AP) - A strong aftershock sparked landslides near the epicenter of this week's powerful earthquake Friday, burying vehicles and again cutting off ravaged areas of central China.

Elsewhere, rescuers were still finding survivors after being buried in rubble for 96 hours, while public anger grew over the hundreds of children crushed to death in schools that collapsed in Monday's magnitude 7.9 temblor. More than four days since the disaster, the first foreign rescue workers were allowed to the scene.

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