Tricycle | Awake in the World

The government has begun fighting back. Two monks and a civilian reported killed. Clubs, tear gas, shots into the crowd, and hundreds of arrests. Update: More, worse. More »

There's so much on these Burma protests and I can't add much new information or insight, so here are some links: Buddhists fear ‘white head’ monks will give junta excuse for violence - 'White head' is slang for new monks whose newly shaven heads are still white, or more specifically, undercover policemen posing as monks. Bush Announces Tighter Sanctions on Myanmar - Cheney had to point it out on the map and tell W it's "not far from China." British PM Calls for Harder EU Stance on Burma and the best headline of all, from the LA Times: The Buddhism Bomb (which could blow More »

Things are really happening in Burma. More »

Ruth King, author of the excellent new book Healing Rage, will be speaking at the New York Insight Meditation Center this Friday, September 28 (7–9:30pm, fee: $20) and Saturday, September 29 (10am–5pm, $40.) Register online for the Friday or Saturday session. Also, check out Ask the Next President -- You can submit questions and rate other people's questions, then the "winning" questions will be sent to our fine presidential aspirants. More »

Did you know that Ayn Rand was Buddhist? (Or that Alan Greenspan was an Objectivist? Yeesh.) Rand’s idea of “the virtue of selfishness,” Ms. Moore said, “is a harsh phrase for the Buddhist idea that you have to take care of yourself.” Ms. Moore is "Darla Moore, vice president of the private investment firm Rainwater Inc." People keep buying Ayn Rand's books and, according to this article, she keeps winning the hearts and minds of CEO's and corporate climbers to this day. More »

Monks in Burma are continuing to stir the pot. Now they're demanding an apology from the junta running the country for continued violence during the democratic protests, and demanding the release of political prisoners, including the most famous, Aung San Suu Kyi. The junta generally treads lightly around the monks in this very Buddhist country (despite violence against demonstrating monks last week, which lead to the monks' taking hostages for a day,) but have cut off phone service in their opposition's headquarters. More »

Just saw a great documentary on PBS, The Camden 28, about activism, Vietnam, and the draft, all against the sad backdrop of Camden, New Jersey, where some of the worst race riots in American history took place in the summer of 1971. (Also interesting stuff about the Catholic Left.) The draft really did a lot to mobilize anti-war feeling. Government jackbootism was much more blatant in that era -- now we have subtler means of control, and the current conflicts are designed to be more palatable and easier to bear / ignore for the American people as a whole. More »

Painter Gregg Chadwick -- see his painting "The Sound of Bells" (40" x 30" oil on linen 2005) at right -- has a show at the Arts Club of Washington (DC) running until September 29th. Press release here. Chadwick is a friend of our friend The Worst Horse. More »

The Atlantic Monthly has a web-only slideshow of photos from Bhutan. These pictures accompany an article that seems to be only available to subscribers. The pictures are very cool and beautiful, but the whenever a country and culture is presented as so exotic, as such a spectacle, it gets a little condescending and weird. But this is interesting to people like me and probably you who have never been to Bhutan, and of course most of us will never get all the way to the valley of the Blue Moon. People with the time and money can go and gawk if they want, and bore us with their photos and stories when they get back. More »