So looks like my local, but giant, electronic store Best Buy has declared October 30th as the National Vampire Awareness Day. According to the best buy, 40 percent of all the electricity used are wasted by electronic devices and appliiances that are just plugged in just for the convenience and nothing more – meaning these gadgets are not being used during these times. About $4 billion could be easily saved if these electricity powered gadgets are not only turned off but also not plugged-in.
The worst energy sucking electronics are plasma tvs, computers, DVRs, and adapters for mp3 players and cell phones.
I thought it is pretty interesting to note that the chargers we use for our cell phones, mp3 players and laptops use only 5 percent of the power they draw for charging; the rest of the 95 percent are just practically for nothing more than for wasting.
A typical US household spends an average of $1300 ever year on energy bills. Experts recommend using power strip so you can easily turn off many devices at the same time. But I wonder if unplugging the power strip entirely would help more.
Pretty often I find myself asking if we believe in karma (the law of cause and effect) and in rebirth?! Do we really believe in it or are we just saying so?
…if we really do believe in it, what makes us better than the stranger? Why do I have the impression that in our society it mostly is the “me” and not the “us”? Why does it seem to be easy to kill “my so called enemy” or a mosquito? Isn’t it right that we have lived so many lives before, and it is our personal and our shared karma that we are experiencing? So this “enemy” or mosquito could have been a dear person before, with whom we share a special karma?!
If we really do understand that there are no such things existing as country boarders, the attachment to something which we call “mine” or “me” and so on – won’t it be easier then to practice loving kindness without questioning it?!
It is getting colder and colder everyday. I just can’t imagine drving in a snow, especially the freeways would suck. Too much traffic along with slippery roads are hazardous.
Before we even start discussing this topic, lets first of all define what socialist is. Socialism is a political system that advocates the members of the community to own the property, resources,means of production, and control the distribution of goods. It basically is opposite to capitalism. United States of America is probably still the largest capitalist nation in the world. But there have been some controversies surrounding the United States 2008 Presidential Candidate Barack Obama.
Barack Obama recent campaign speech has generated some enthusiasm in public about his political and economical viewpoints, especially the one where he mentions the the phrase “redistribution of wealth.” Here is what he said, a transcript, about it in year 2001 in a radio interview:
Radio Host: Good morning and welcome to Odyssey on WBEZ Chicago 91.5 FM and we’re joined by Barack Obama who is Illinois State Senator from the 13th district and senior lecturer in the law school at the University of Chicago.
Barack Obama: If you look at the victories and failures of the civil rights movement and its litigation strategy in the court, I think where it succeeded was to vest formal rights in previously dispossessed peoples. So that I would now have the right to vote, I would now be able to sit at the lunch counter and order and as long as I could pay for it I’d be okay.
But the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth and sort of more basic issues of political and economic justice in this society. And to that extent as radical as people tried to characterize the Warren court, it wasn’t that radical. It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution, at least as it’s been interpreted, and the Warren court interpreted it in the same way that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. It says what the states can’t do to you, it says what the federal government can’t do to you, but it doesn’t say what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf. And that hasn’t shifted. One of the I think tragedies of the civil rights movement was because the civil rights movement became so court focused, I think that there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalitions of power through which you bring about redistributed change and in some ways we still suffer from that.
Radio Host: Let’s talk with Karen. Good morning, Karen, you’re on Chicago Public Radio.
Karen (radio guest): Hi. The gentleman made the point that the Warren court wasn’t terribly radical with economic changes. My question is, is it too late for that kind of reparative work economically and is that that the appropriate place for reparative economic work to take place – the court – or would it be legislation at this point?
Barack Obama: Maybe I’m showing my bias here as a legislator as well as a law professor, but I’m not optimistic about bringing about major redistributive change through the courts. The institution just isn’t structured that way.
You just look at very rare examples during the desegregation era the court was willing to for example order changes that cost money to a local school district. The court was very uncomfortable with it. It was very hard to manage, it was hard to figure out. You start getting into all sorts of separation of powers issues in terms of the court monitoring or engaging in a process that essentially is administrative and takes a lot of time.
The court’s just not very good at it and politically it’s very hard to legitimize opinions from the court in that regard. So I think that although you can craft theoretical justifications for it legally. Any three of us sitting here could come up with a rational for bringing about economic change through the courts.
The concept of redistribution of wealth is very interesting since it has both advantages and disadvantages. In one sentence: socialism will bring economic equality – regardless of who works hard and who doesn’t; who is born wealthy and who is born poor.
So just when we thought Apple’s super cool iPod touch and smart iPhone is like no other and the best one out there, China seemed to have reverse engineered these touch screen mp3 players and phone. Chinese people are typically smart at things like this, it could be because they have so many people (remember billions of people) that at least some of them are born to be good at making fake iPhone and iPod Touch.
The name of the company that makes this fake iPod Touch and iPhone is iorgane. iOrgane sounds like iOrange doesn’t it? And it kinda goes against Apple, the original maker of iPhone and iPod? This fake counterfeited iPod Touch is called Cool Touch and seem to have everything genuine one has to offer.
One thing that is fake iPod seem to be missing is the charger slot that every Apple iPhone and iPod products have at the bottom. It is an irony that this fake iPhone company even describes in detail how to distinguish between the counterfeit and genuine one: “from the phone to control the sensitivity to differentiate genuine and orange. All genuine orange used by the Apple Iphone is the same as the capacitance of the new global multi-point touch-screen technology. Capacitive touch screen is to use the human body to carry out the work of the current sensors. When the fingers touch the metal layer, the electric field due to the human body, and touch-screen user surface of a capacitive coupling, the current points from the four corners of the touch screen on the outflow of electrodes, and flows through the electrodes of the four current and four fingers to the In direct proportion to the distance, the controller through the four current ratio of precision calculated touch points. The use of capacitive screens such as mobile phones Iphone, orange mobile phones have a very high sensitivity, the user only lightly touch on the screen or slide will be able to do the necessary operation.”
Here is the video where you will see this fake iPod Touch demo:
There is this saying called “honesty is the best policy.” But can it always hold up – in any time and type of circumstaces. This is where I think we get to really judge who lives by honesty all the time and who just on different occassions.
Let me briefly elaborate on what I mean by that: let’s say George, Tenzin and I are in a discussion group. We all agree that being honest is a good characteristics that will make others look upto you. But we all talk about honesty bit differently. George says honesty is always the best policy; however, Tenzin claims that there are times and situaions where you can’t be totally honest for one reason or another.
Therefore, from what George and Tenzin said, we can conclude that George tend to be more honest and more often than Tenzin.
Walking on the earth
is a miracle!
Each mindful step
reveals the wondrous Dharmakaya.
This poem can be recited right as we get out of bed and our feet touch the floor.
It can also be used during walking meditation or any time we stand up and walk.
Dharmakaya literally means the “body” (kaya) of the Buddha’s teachings (Dharma), the way of understanding and love. It also is the ground of being manifested as mountains, rivers, stars, moon, and all species. Before passing away, the Buddha told his disciples, “only my physical body will pass away. My Dharma body will remain with you forever.” That statement turns out to be “the essence of all that exists”. All phenomena – the song of a bird, the warm rays of the sun, a cup of hot tea – are manifestations of the Dharmakaya. We, too, are of the same nature as these wonders of the universe.
So remember: walking on earth is a miracle! We do not have to walk in space or on water to experience a miracle. The real miracle is to be awake in the present moment – reach out for those clear moments, cherish them and let them grow in your heart!
Walking on the green earth, we realize the wonder of being alive. When we make steps like this, the sun of the Dharmakaya will shine.
//excerpts taken from Thich Nhat Hanh’s book “Present Moment Wonderful Life” – since ever I bougt that book it is with me, as it helps me to open up my eyes and cherish the things we tend to take for granted. I’m trying to be more tentative and if I have the sun smiling into my face, I enjoy happiness at least for a short while – until it is time to move on… Thanks for taking those first steps with me.
So believe me this story is real, but it happened centuries and centuries ago. There was a highly spiritual teacher who once performed a weird thing to prove his point to an ignorant person who didn’t believe in spirituality, of course in this case it was Buddhism.
This teacher was washing the outer part of a basin that has feces inside, so this ignorant guys goes onto make fun and laugh at him for just washing the outside and not the inside, which was more important. The teacher was doing this to prove a point that physical rituals such as cleaning your body or being nice verbally or nworshipping Gods isn’t really as important as keeping our inner self clean and following Buddha’s teachings such as compassion and concept of interdependence.
This could be one of the reason why I don’t greet as often as other people do, but this should be actually totally irrelevant to the above story since it doesn’t ask you to stop being nice or remain positive outside; I think the purpose of the story is to acknowledge that our inner mindset and emotions are of more importance. We are drawing a comparison, in a sense.
So tonight I have been wondering how could I make sure I achieve one of my most important dream – yeah let’s call it a secret dream. I think I am capable of reaching that goal after seeing the potentials I have that haven’t been used, actually they have been misplaced literally.
Anyways, the question remains loud and clear: do we need to set up a goal in order to self motivate? I personally think it would completely depend on how we really define the words goal setting and self motivation. I m sure there atleast small group of people who will put self-motivation and goal-setting in the same category, while some others will not.
Then there are people like me, who atleast at this moment, thinks self motivation doesn’t necessarily have to include goal setting. Self motivation in my opinion should be understood as Do the Best You Can. This motto is far more helpful than setting up a too specific goal, because goals can be too easy or too hard to achive; either way, which will eventually result in the death of self motivation. On the other hand, the “self motivation of do the best you can” will never die out but instead it will motivate you further and prompt you to keep going and work hard. That might be the best motivation after all.
In a way, just the way smart rich people use their money to make more money (investing in stocks, money market, real estate,etc), intelligent motivated people can use their motivation to strengthen their self motivation.
Oct 18, 2008 | Categorized Under: Tibet | | Comments
It is pretty amazing sometimes you miss important stories that you would think are inescapable when you are a savvy news reader. Now I ain’t claiming to be one – but my circumstances and other factors – enable me notice important news stories like crown winner of Miss Tibet every year. But this wasn’t the case this year.
Miss Tibet pageant crowned Ms Sonam Choedon, 25 years old, originally from eastern Tibet Lithuang county, on October 12, 2008. She now lives in India since December 2007. The prize was a scholarship money for her education, worth Rs. 100,000. The pageant is organized, directed and produced by Mr Lobsang Wangyal.
It is worth noting that this year there were only two contestants, unlike previous competitions; maybe Tibetan girls are shying away from this beauty pageant. I personally didn’t expected it to be that way; I was thinking there will be more contestants than before. BTW, if you are interested in learning about the only other contestant who participated in Miss Tibet 2008, her name is Jamyang Chentso, who is 22-year old from Bir Shejak, Himachal Pradesh in India.
Here are some interesting things Miss Tibet 2008 has to say, “As became a Miss Tibet, I would be speaking on behalf of the Tibetan people, particularly Tibetan women, telling their story and making people more aware of the Tibetan situation. I believe that awareness is the key issue, and hope that by sharing my story it will empower others to do the same.”
She also added, “I believe that our goal will be achieve soon, without any doubt if we, all Tibetans follow the middle-way that approached by our leader, His Holiness the Dalai Lama.”
Miss Tibet pageant crowned Ms Sonam Choedon, 25 years old, originally from eastern Tibet Lithuang county, on October 12, 2008. She now lives in India since December 2007. The prize was a scholarship money for her education, worth Rs. 100,000. The pageant is organized, directed and produced by Mr Lobsang Wangyal. 