"God for Harry...

... England, and St. George!" Shakespeare's blood-summoning rallying-cry from his famous depiction of the start of the Battle of Agincourt comes to mind as we hear about our present-day Harry warrioring over there in Afghanistan. To judge from television interviews, he seems like a very decent young man in search of not only of adventure, but also some measure of independence, some sense of himself independent of the heritage of his birth. It must be a weight to have to carry around, along with all the exposure to the public that goes along with it.

I have not explored the political blogs, but I imagine there must be considerable backlash against The Drudge Report for outing Harry. It seems like an ungallant thing to have done, when the young man himself was exhibiting a gallantry of his own. Clearly, the revelation has put both him and his comrades at risk, setting him up as a juicy target for the Taliban, and this morning I hear that he will likely be withdrawn from the fighting lines at the front. More's the pity, if only in the sense that his presence there put the families of our American rich and powerful to shame. There are many things that I have admired about John McCain, and one of them is that he stands apart from virtually every other member of Congress in this respect, allowing his own family to stand in harm's way, as he himself did in his younger years.

(That said, let me quickly add that I oppose everything McCain proposes in the way of policies for the future; and that I note, sadly, that he has turned away from his purported principles on many important issues--even torture.)

Back to Harry and Afghanistan. Obama's right. It's here that the "war on terrorism" should have been pursued from its earliest days. The reported resurgence of the Taliban and its Al Qaeda allies is a frightening reminder that we are very far from winning what, as it's currently conceived, is an unwinnable war. I heard on at least one report that they have regained a full one-tenth of the territory which they once ruled--thanks to our intervention in their struggle with the Soviet Union--with ruthless barbarity and medieval religious fervor.

And once again, I find myself in a distressing moral landscape. I despise war and violence, I despise the imposition of one person's will upon another, one country's will upon another; and yet when I see oppression of the kind once exercised by the Taliban against their own people, when I see the threat of ethnic cleansing and genocide, I find myself unable to embrace the full meaning of pacifism. I have to concede in such cases that armed intervention can become the desirable option.

As a recovering Brit, I take note of some silly remnant of national pride in that our prince Hal is fighting the right war. Even though I can't believe that "God" is for anyone, even Harry, England, and St. George, something in me admires the warrior in him. I could wish his warriorship might be manifest in actions other than the old-world, violent kind; but along with many others, I suspect, I am frankly pissed at Drudge for interposing what I judge to be his own self-importance into matters more weighty than his trivial report.

Slightly confused Metta to all this Friday! May we all find true happiness and peace in our lives.

Love, Love, Love: In Homage to The Beatles

We finally got around to watching "Across the Universe" last night--the Julie Taymor movie based on songs by The Beatles. Since we don't go "out" to the movies very much, we tend to rely on their availability on Netflix, which naturally involves some delay. This, particularly, is not one that's best seen on a television screen--though ours is of adequate, if not excessive size. The play of image, color and movement cries out for the big screen but, well, we made do with what we have...

... and loved it. I generally get nervous when artists in one medium start messing around with art that's generated in another, and part of the reason for the delay mentioned above was frankly my own hesitation about what I feared might be the Hollywoodification of a phenomenon that meant much to me in the Sixties. As I'm sure for many others, The Beatles were in good part responsible for the change in my life from shrink-wrapped British public schoolboy and somewhat snobby intellectual into, well, I suppose kind of a hippie. Or as close as a shrink-wrapped British public schoolboy could get. I flirted with marijuana and LSD. I expanded my mind. So to speak.

It was fun. (It was also quite painful, as I recall!) From my first encounter with The Beatles as a grammar school teacher, shocked by the rebellious length of their hair and the freedom of their ways, to the time of their last concert on that rooftop on Abbey Road, I was a fan--and their progress reflected in many strange ways the course of my personal life.

So I brought a big stake to this movie, and was pleasantly surprised to find myself, after the first few minutes of suspicious reserve, thoroughly engaged. I loved the way the story kept shifting around, refusing conventional linear narrative and yet returning often enough to its theme to be emotionally coherent. I loved the easy movement from real time to dream time, from real life to dance, from speech to song. I loved the bold use of image, color and rhythm which made of the screen a painting in action--as, in one scene, the splash and fury of action painting itself. Even the psychedelic scenes--hard to accomplish without degenerating into cliche--worked well for me.

What also worked well was the casual play with the history of the sixties--from race riots to Vietnam protests, from pop art to the music scene. The movie felt free to evoke characters in new, an-historical contexts--Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix--and mingle them in emotionally and aesthetically satisfying ways. It recaptured the spirit of the times, the joyful excesses along with the real agonies, the two sides of that always elusive coin of the "love" that John Lennon preached.

Clearly based on the Liverpuddlian Lennon himself, the main character manages to be charming and, at times, indignantly childish and provocative. The support characters engage us with their struggle for freedom, their spirit of fun, their sheer energy and verve. The love story blends fantasy with reality in finely-tuned balance, and its outcome satisfies the soul and brings a tear to the eye. Love, appropriately, triumphs over discord and strife. And all in all, the movie provides a delightful and thoroughly entertaining experience.

Clinton vs. Obama: the Fighter

There can't be too many voters left--Democratic voters in particular--who still need convincing that Senator Hillary Clinton is one tough woman. A fighter, as she said repeatedly last night. Knock her off her feet, she'll be right back up, fighting still. With any and all weapons at her disposal.

Okay, I believe her. It's the pugilism itself that does not sit well with me. We have barely survived seven years--and nearly one to go!--of a pugilist president, a guy who evidently prides himself on being the scrappy in-fighter, the aggressive responder to everything perceived as a threat. And we know where his "leadership" took us.

I'm thinking the time for the kind of fighting we humans have been practicing for centuries is past. Time and again, it has provided us with pyrrhic--or at best temporary--victories. It could be argued, I suppose, that it still worked when it was a purely territorial affair, nation against nation. But it's not that any more. The weaponry and the communications of the twenty-first century world have irrevocably outmoded that kind of fighting. Today, the effects of armed conflict are immediately global. It's not just the field of battle that's at stake, it's the whole planet.

I'm not naive. Well, not entirely. I'm not even a pacifist, in it's purest sense. After last night's debate, I watched a powerful Frontline report on the resurgence of the Taliban in Pakistan. These are people who still adhere to that old notion of the fight, and they must be answered, at least in part, in kind. There are times when power-hungry, evil people run amok, leaving others to be defended. A leader, to deal with them, does need to be tough.

What I see in Obama is a more Eastern, martial arts kind of fighter, one who uses force as the very last resort and, when he does, is skilled in turning his opponent's attack against him. He follows the way of the peaceful warrior, walking softly, always prepared, but never aggressive or provocative. As Obama did last night, he deals with attacks calmly, responding with thoughtfully proportionate effort, and seeking common ground rather than opposition.

I believe that this is the kind of fighter that we need, not the scrappy one, pre-emptively aggressive, fearful of losing or of seeming weak. There are those who mistake Obama's calm exterior for passivity or timidity. I think they're wrong. I think the man carries his strength with quiet self-assurance and modesty. I don't see fear. I see an understanding of what, in these new tumultuous times, might work a whole lot better than the disastrously unsuccessful tactics of the past.

I do believe we have to leave the old world behind, if we are to survive these present crises, and that the change that's required is not to hone the old skills and strategies, but to develop new ones, appropriate to a radically changed world. Here's our chance. Better seize it, or it could prove our last.

A Dream...

... from last night: I fly over to England to visit my parents (both now, in reality, long gone.) I take an old-fashioned steam engine train from London north toward Bedford--a slow train with frequent stops at unfamiliar stations--aware that I'll be arriving late in Bedford and that I'll need to get from there to Sharnbrook, the village where they live. My father, I know, is too old--or perhaps too ill--to ask him to pick me up, so this will be a problem. I get off the train early, thinking obscurely that it will be easier to get to Bedford this way, and notice long lines of people trying to get on board. I start to walk, wondering how I'll get a ride, asking at a major intersection which road leads north, to Bedford. Pointed in the right direction, I find myself riding a child's bike--all chrome with white and mauve trim--and leave it in an open lot where children are playing while I stop off at a wine shop to pick up something to bring home. I buy a very expensive bottle which turns out, after long delays, to be something called "Barbeque Bay Rum"--a small bottle of yellowish liquid that I would normally never buy, still less drink--and return to find the bike has been stolen by one of the children. I get it back, leave it again--and it's stolen again. By this time, I'm getting angry. I chase the children and catch a little girl with the bike. When I scold her, she tells me I'm drunk, and I'm glad to recall that the seal is still unbroken on the bottle of Barbeque Bay Rum that's in my pocket, as proof that she is wrong. Still, I'm thinking about how comforting it would be to take a little nip. Holding her up in the air by her two wrists--I realize I'm in danger of being physically abusive--I warn her not to do such a thing again and ask for her parents' telephone number so that I can let them know if she does. End of dream. Sorry, I can't remember any more. What does it all mean? Hmmm. Beats me.

A movie recommendation: " Les Choristes." Belgian. About a boys' reform school, straight out of Dickens, with a draconian headmaster. Salvation of a kind arrives in the form of a sweet new teacher and his love of music. Sounds weird. Try it. You'll love it, as we did.

In haste....

Ralph Nader: The Don Returns...

Quixote, that is.  I agree with virtually everything he says.  I agree that we need more radical change than that offered by either Clinton or Obama.  I agree with him about the health care system and its cost in human life.  I agree with him about trade agreements and the loss of jobs and the shoddy imports that, again, cost human lives.  I agree with him about the stranglehold of corporations and their lobbyists and the influence of power and money on American politics and policies...

And yet... right intentions and right speech, it seems, do not always go hand in hand with right action.  I disagree profoundly with Nader's declaration of another quixotic run for the presidency.  I am among those who (dis)credit him with Al Gore's loss to the current incumbent of the White House in the 2000 election.  I believe we have Ralph Nader to thank, in part, for seven years (so far!) of the worst administration in the history of America.  Siphoning off precious votes from a serious contender was, in my view, a frivolous and self-indulgent act, and one which produced disastrously different results from those he claimed to intend.

There is some small part of me that is still idealistic in the face of practical reality.  One member of our meditation group yesterday was quietly insistent in his support for Nader.  Realizing, of course, that this old crusader has not the remotest chance of being elected, this friend feels that the time for what he sees to be timid steps is past.  We have reached such a critical state in the world, he believes, that only the most radical change can save us from irreversible disaster, and only Ralph Nader and the Green Party envision such change.

He may be right.  I hope not, because America is very far, still, from embracing the need for such a change.  I take the practical view, that we must do everything we can to assure the success of the electable candidate, and that to support the unelectable is to court the very opposite of the kind of change on which we certainly agree.  I believe that Barack Obama embodies the greatest possibility for a radical change of course in America and the world, and that his emergence as a political leader is powerful testament to the growing awareness that we cannot persist in the old ways and expect, as a species, to survive our own voracious greed.  

I believe, too, that those people I know who voted for Nader in 2000 are confident enough in the candidacy of Obama not to vote for him again in November.   They came too soon to regret their vote, and have had ample time since then to observe its results.  There is, this time, an option to cast a vote without sacrificing one's ideals.  Ralph Nader, I predict, will attract even less support this time than last.   But we can still ill-afford to lose even a single vote to him in November, and I'm hoping he will stick around only for long enough to make his point before urging his supporters to cast a more practical vote. 

He did not, in any event, make a big splash in the news this morning.  Nothing on the front pages.  A column on page 15 of the New York Times and another on page 10 of the Los Angeles Times.  And not a word, that I've heard, on television news...

The Creative Mind

I did not get around to making an entry yesterday. I was too busy getting ready for my next installment of "The Art of Outrage" for Artscene Visual Radio. I have had the opportunity to interview three noted artists in the past couple of days, and their voices will be heard on my podcast about the show in which they are included at the Orange County Museum of Art, "Disorderly Conduct: Recent Art in Tumultuous Times." It's always a pleasure to be in touch with creative minds, and the material I gathered will create, I know, an interesting montage.

Speaking, though, of the creative mind--and it does seem to have been on my own mind in the past couple of days (see Thursday's entry in The Buddha Diaries)--we spent the evening before renewing old friendships with an artist and a fellow writer who live in our immediate neighborhood but with whom, for all those ridiculous and inexcusable reasons, we had lost touch for a number of years. It was a particular pleasure to discover that we have been following, each in our own way, much the same kind of path in the intervening years. Our artist friend, like myself a man of respectable--but not yet venerable!--years, has been known chiefly for his works of public art, scattered in various locations throughout the country. Recently, though, he has chosen to withdraw from that arena into the intimacy of his studio, making works of much smaller scale in more malleable materials--a choice not unlike moving from the world of publishing into the blogosphere, where I have been able to do my writing without a moment's consideration for what might be expected of me, for reasons disconnected with the simple desire to engage in the art of writing.

My friend--I won't give his name, because I'm unsure whether he's ready to have his new work known through this particular medium--has been doodling, noodling with lengths of simple gray felt, working them into small, exquisitely-wrought spiral towers and quasi-figurative forms and, more recently, into larger, complex abstract compositions whose twists and folds engage the eye in smooth, flowing surfaces and shadows. Like all sensuous forms, they tempt the hand, too, begging for the caress and touch that a personal studio visit allows. I wish I had pictures to share of these delightful, modest objects that carry all the authority of a mature artist who's still willing to venture into the unknown. It's highly personal, hands-on work that emphasizes the process of its making and clearly evokes both the labor and the sheer joy that its making involves.

As much a pleasure as that studio visit was the opportunity to share with friends, at our dinnertime conversation, the sense that the advancing years bring not only the aches and pains, but a growing freedom from all those contingencies of the younger ones--the need to make a living, make a name, outpace the competition in one's field, and so on--and, with that freedom, a kind of wisdom and a growing understanding that what can be done without the material or critical reward is satisfaction in itself. One's needs and expectations diminish appropriately. In the terms of Buddhist teachings, it's action without attachment to the success or failure of the outcome, a permission to find joy where it can only be found--in each passing moment, in each small step along the way.

That, anyway, is what I brought away from our evening. We parted with good intentions to make it happen again before too much time slips past.

"The Realm of Yearning..."

Last night at the meeting of one of the artists' support groups that my wife Ellie and I co-facilitate, we watched a DVD of the artist Elizabeth Murray talking about her work. It was a sad loss for the art world when this wonderful, innovative, always lively painter died last year of cancer at the too-young age of 66, but it was a pleasure for us to have this reminder of her contribution. When she spoke of "the realm of yearning that your art comes out of," the words struck a chord somewhere deep inside. It's a realm with which I felt an immediate and intense familiarity, and I woke this morning wondering what exactly I might find if I chose to explore it a little further. Here are some of the things I found, in no particular order, some of the things the writer in me yearns for:

--to be heard. As I suspect with many creative people, there's a part of me that wants to hide away, and another part that wants to speak out for fear of being nothing and nobody.

--to tell you who I am. I heard once from a wise woman of the Mexican Quichol Indian tribe that the first thing to be done when a new baby arrives in this world is not to give it a name of your own choosing, but instead to ask it: "Tell me who you are." This lovely idea has always stayed with me, as a guiding principle not only of my writing but of my relations with my fellow beings.

--in order to tell you, I must first find out. Another yearning. It's a never-ending process, to explore that inner part of me for which I have been able to find no fitter word than "soul."

--to affirm my presence in the world, fleeting though it be, and no matter that the world is in constant change; to fix each passing moment. I had a teacher once who believed that the origin of Western lyric poetry is to be found in the Greek "inscription" poems translated famously by Wordsworth and Coleridge in "The Greek Anthology"--poems written in praise of the "genius loci," the spirit of a particular place, and inscribed on a bench, a tree, a wall... In short, a kind of ancient tagging, an early version of "Kilroy was here," but more sophisticated, more beautiful.

--to affirm some purpose and meaning in my life. One of the great lines of poetry that have stayed with me for fifty years and more is one written in a prose poem by the 19th century French poet, Charles Baudelaire, from one of the darker moments of his often dark life: "Et vous, Seigneur mon Dieu..." he starts, and continues in my own inadequate translation, "And you, O Lord my God, grant me the grace to write a few fine lines, to prove to myself that I am not the last of men, that I am not inferior to those that I despise." (I have always been a bit uncomfortable with those last few words. I still am. But to my shame, I confess that I do know what he means.)

--not to have lived in vain, then; to be worthy.

--to be "in touch," to be one with others, to find that one-ness with all beings that gives context to each individual existence.

--to make a contribution, to be able to feel greater than my own small self, to leave this world in some way different, perhaps even a little better, than when I arrived.

These are some of those deep needs that I found in the recesses of my writer's mind. I'm sure there are others I have not yet discovered, milling around in the unconscious part of my "realm of yearning." Do they resonate for you, my fellow writers out there in the world? Or do you, as I suppose, have others, too?

FIDEL! Fidel...

Are you old enough--were you young enough--to have been thrilled by the fiery young Fidel and his spunky sidekick, Che,


and their revolution against the corrupt and oppressive Battista regime in Cuba? I am. I was. A dedicated young European socialist (small "s": remember, it had not yet been granted dirty-word status over there as it had here in America,) I saw in Fidel from that perspective a sign of hope for people across the ocean--the oppressed black people of America (this was the Fifties...) as well as the oppressed brown people to the south.

And then I watched in dismay as bully America--bear with me here, I am still in my early twenties, I am idealistic, I am socialist and European!--tightened its communist-fearing iron fist around the little island and drove Fidel unnecessarily into the welcoming arms of post-Stalinist Soviet communism.

I watched in dismay as the people's hero, the great liberator, turned into his own nemesis, the great dictator, the hectoring autocrat, dispatching those who dared to dissent from him to jail and continuing to cling blindly to his ideology and his power as the nation's economy crumbled about him.

I watched in dismay as the exiles from this Castro regime began to exercise an increasing and unhealthy influence in American politics, with their strident and overbearing demands on American leaders to support their anti-Castro agenda at the expense of American and hemispheric interests.

And I watched in dismay as the once jaunty hero showed up, at last, shriveled with age, a sick old man, gaunt, scraggly-bearded, hollow-cheeked and sallow, still clinging stubbornly to what was left of his power, a "shadow of his former self," the wreck of what had once been a powerful man.

The more I watch of the world and its affairs, the more I'm grateful to the wisdom of the Buddhist teachings. We all grow old and die. Political power is nothing but vanity. It is we ourselves who can be our own worst enemy. Attachment to outcomes brings nothing but further suffering, while equanimity and non--attachment lead to serenity of mind. And yet, and yet... I still continually find myself caught between the two!

"The Story of the Weeping Camel"

Enough of politics for the moment. Let's talk movies. Ellie and I Netflixed "The Story of the Weeping Camel" last week and enjoyed it immensely. What a treat! It's not about camels. Well, on partly. Mostly it's about this extraordinary Mongolian family of sheep- and goat-herders in the Gobi desert, who live in circumstances that we Americans, with our material well-being and our creature comforts, can scarcely imagine. Here's their little nest of yurts...


(is that the right term for these circular dwellings put together out of skins and wooden supports and camel-hair ropes?) in an environment as remote inhospitable as any I could dream of. And yet the interior is rich with carpets, tapestries, and all kinds of beautifully


made utilitarian artifacts and religious objects. Here, as you see, the family gather over tea, four generations of them so far as I could tell, from ancient, hoary great-grandparents to sweet-faced children. I imagine--what else can I do?--that they are not poor by the standards of their own society. They have plenty of livestock and can afford, so it seems at the end, a black and white television set with a satellite dish outside their home. Is this a suggestion, I wonder, at the end of the film, of the dangers inherent in the encroachment of technology on what must be one of the last enclaves of its kind on earth? Their distant neighbors in "town", a long camel's ride from their encampment, have motorcycles, cars, trucks, computer games...

Well, now, the story concerns the difficult birth of a white calf to one of their camels, who soon rejects his every advance to her, whether for food or affection. She turns him away, sulkily, and refuses the family's patient and loving efforts to bring mother and calf together. A heartless mom, indeed. In desperation, the family finally settle on a remedy and send their two young sons off on camel-back to the big city in search of a skilled musician! Just the thing to cure an an emotionally deficient camel! When he arrives on the scene, he readily grasps the situation and woos the mother camel with his two-stringed instrument,


until she finally weakens and allows her calf to suckle. Her tears at the eventual reunion, we suppose, are of repentance for her earlier intransigeance. A touching scene, for those of us who have soft hearts for other species and tend to humanize them. Here they are, reunited:


The wonderful part about this movie, though, is not the sentimental "story" at the heart of it, but rather the humanity of the people around its edges. They remind us that we are pleased to call our "civilization" has cost us dearly in terms of our relationship with the earth that nurtures us, with our fellow beings--both animal and human--and with that great, mysterious spirit that informs it all. Where we are scattered, individualistic, ego-centric, the people we meet in this film share a powerful bond of common interest: call it survival, call it love. They share everything. And the hardship of their lives serves to give them a strength and wisdom and clarity of purpose that is hard to find in our society, while the paucity of material goods provides little room for selfishness or greed. It's a film that has much to offer in understanding the best about our human species, along with a great deal of sadness that the last of this wisdom is so rapidly giving way to "progress."

On Misreading

I wonder how carefully people read what I write? At the end of last week, I cross-posted my "Dear Senator Clinton" letter and my entry on "Speaking of Guns" on my Huffington Post blog, and have been amazed by the response--82 of them on the former and 65 on the latter--some quite complimentary, others in disagreement, and a number purely hostile. I've also had something of an exchange, over the weekend, with a reader who objected to what he saw to be an unwarranted attack on Hillary Clinton.

Which all interests me because a surprising amount of this comment simply missed the points I was making: that if the next round of primaries confirms the momentum for Obama, Clinton should not resort to "any means necessary" to secure the nomination by manipulating the political machinery, risking the November election in the process; and that the rhetoric around gun ownership is quick to go over the top after incidents like last week's--though I broadened this argument to speculate that the rhetoric on the right is generally more venomous than the rhetoric on the left.

What many of those who read these two pieces seemed to believe I had written was rather different from what I actually wrote--that I somehow despised or disrespected Hillary Clinton or that she should immediately withdraw from the race; and, of course, that I was a knee-jerk opponent of the "right to bear arms," the gun lobby, and gun owners in general. No. In the first case I was talking about listening to the voice of the people, in the second about the way we talk about the issues, not the issues themselves.

I suspect that in our haste to get things done and move on, we tend not to read but to skim through what's written and grab onto a few "keywords" and a general impression of the writer's position. I know I'm often guilty of that myself, when reading a newspaper or a magazine, or even a book. We don't have time for the subtleties of language. We read what we want to believe the author has written rather than his or her actual words, and then treat our own reading as what has been said. When I stand accused of having "lambasted" Hillary Clinton, for example, I know that my carefully chosen and respectful words have not been heard as they were intended.

The same applies, I'm sure, to the attention we pay when we listen to others. Our attention span is short, we want to get our say, we respond too quickly to what we imagine has been said. And here, as always, the Buddhist teaching is useful and wise. Take a breath. Pay attention. Practice equanimity and Right Speech--and for that matter, Right Listening. Take the ego out of the equation... I don't know about you, but I still have much to learn.

Speaking of Guns....

It happened again, that dreadful story: students sitting quietly in a classroom, and in walks this maniac with a clearly deranged mind and the weaponry to give it bloody power over the innocent.  The dead and injured bear witness to the madness.

This time I don't want to talk about guns.  I want to talk about the response I get when I talk about guns.  I know there are those out there who believe, passionately, in what they interpret as the Constitution-given right to bear arms--of all kinds and in all places.   I happen to believe, with equal passion, that their interpretation of the Constitution is mistaken, that those who wrote those contested words could never have imagined the kind of weaponry that would become available, nor the situations in which they would be used.

Here's the problem: when they express their opinion, I am free to disagree with them as strongly as I wish, but I choose not to do so with anything other than reasoned words and language.  Whenever I express mine, however, I am met with an immediate barrage of scorn and vitriol. Even hatred would hardly be too strong a word.  I am treated at best like a witless child, at worst like a pariah and enemy of the United States and all it stands for.

So I'm curious as to why this should be.  What is it about those who disagree with me that they are so easily enraged by what is no more than an argument, a discussion I believe to have some importance for our society to engage?  What is it about the words I chose that inflames them so?  

I believe, too, that this phenomenon has wider implications than the matter of guns.  Am I wrong in thinking that there is quiet reason on the liberal side of things (I'm not talking about left-wing hotheads, just people like me) and often rabid rhetoric on the right?  The scorn with which the word "liberal" is most frequently accompanied on the lips of Republicans is a small indication of what I'm talking about.  I'm almost sure that I don't, myself, use "conservative" with the same intonation--though I do confess to speaking at times with something less than respect for those out on the furthest limb of the conservative tree.

I realize that we all have a tendency to be blinded by our deeply-held opinions to those on the other side of the fence.  That's human.  But am I right about the tone of the respective sides of the dialogue?  Or am I simply prejudiced myself?  Interesting question, and one that I keep needing to ask.  

Dear Senator Clinton...

(I wrote this letter yesterday. Initially, I laid out my request to the Senator to be effective immediately. Subsequent reflection--and a lunchtime conversation--persuaded me that this would be unfair, so I rewrote the letter this morning to include a delay until after Texas and Ohio. I would not go so far as Pennsylvania... )

Dear Senator Clinton,

I write with the greatest respect for your passion, your dedication to service and your significant accomplishments to express my personal—and perhaps presumptuous—conviction that you should withdraw from your quest for the presidency of the United States should the coming primaries in Texas and Ohio not provide significant evidence to the contrary.

I confess that I write these words with considerable sadness. I would have wished in any other circumstance to cast my vote for the first woman to make a serious bid for this office. I also believe that you would make an excellent President. I am awed by your command of the issues we face, and am much impressed with the strength and coherence of the solutions you propose. I am persuaded of your passionate belief in this country, as well as your qualifications and experience as the source of a much-needed change of course. I am convinced, too, that your policies are sound.

That said, I believe that the time may very soon come for a truly magnanimous and selfless gesture on your part, to step aside and lend the considerable weight of your personal support, along with your powerful political organization, to your rival, Barack Obama. After so many clear and increasingly resounding victories in recent primaries and caucuses, I think it undeniable that the people of this country are responding overwhelmingly to the vision he represents. And while I admire your persistent optimism and apparent good cheer, I believe it to be in the best interests of the country to allow this phenomenal groundswell to take its course and bring us to an important Democratic victory in the fall.

Rightly or wrongly—and I myself judge it unfair and deeply prejudicial—you bring with you a potential storm of angry rejection by that “vast right wing conspiracy” you so correctly identified a number of years ago. I do not believe it to be insurmountable, but it will certainly be bloody and divisive. Your rival brings no such baggage along with him—though your common opponents will certainly be looking for whatever they can dig up—and his voice is as yet unsullied by such personal animosity, particularly from the right but also, sad to say, from certain disaffected Democrats on the left.

After Texas and Ohio, we will have reached a point in the current election cycle where Democratic unity would give us a huge and very likely unstoppable advantage over Republican dissent and disarray. You, Senator, will be holding the key to that unity. You can achieve it with a single, dramatic decision to sacrifice your personal interests and passion to the common good. You are right: Barack Obama is in many ways unprepared for the heavy responsibilities of the presidency. He will need the wise counsel and guidance of those more experienced and more in command of the know-how of government. But if his success continues through Texas and Ohio, as I believe it well might, there will surely be no further doubt but that he has won not only the ear but also the heart of the American people in a way that no other has done for decades. It’s time to recognize the power of that voice. Further divisiveness will serve only to delay the inevitable, and to alienate potential support from independents and disaffected Republicans.

These words, I assure you, come not from the rash judgment of someone young and easily swayed by overly romantic visions, empty promises, and fine rhetoric. I have lived through more wars than your good self, long enough to recognize the perils of youthful inexperience. Coming from my initial support for John Edwards and his concern for the disadvantaged in our society—I voted early for him, by mail, in California, before he withdrew, as I suspect did many, many others—I have given much thought and discussion to the two remaining candidacies. As I said at the start—and as many others than I have observed—it is painful to be torn between two such excellent prospects. It has taken me many bull-headed years to learn to listen carefully to what others have to say, with the heart as well as the head. And now both my heart and my head concur: unless there’s a radical change in your favor in the coming three weeks, you should no longer stand in the way of this passionate reawakening of the American conscience.

[Obviously I am not the only blogger who thinks this way. Here's another.]

This England….

I’ve been thinking a bit more about my brief, weekend visit to England, the country of my birth. Forget the stereotypes: I ate well, everyone I met was warm and friendly to a fault, and the sun shone happily throughout my visit—though I’ll admit I brought that with me from California.

As those who have been following The Buddha Diaries know, I was in the Cotswolds—ferried there from Heathrow on my arrival by my sister and her generous friend, and returning to the airport four days later on the early morning bus from Cirencester—and saw nothing but this small corner of the country with its rolling hills and its villages of beautiful stone cottages whose exterior, at least, has nobly withstood the test of centuries. Not having been in England in the winter time for many years, I was struck by the pervasive silvery pallor of the light, and by the still green hills contrasting with the wonderful, intricately skeletal outlines of the trees and the pale blue of the sky. Early morning, there was frost on the ground. And everywhere, the birds sang.

How much of this I have in the bloodstream and the long, often all too narrow avenues of memory! The countryside sang to me, like the birds, and its song plucked at responsive chords somewhere deep within—call it heart, call it soul, call it consciousness… And I realized that in America I do live the life of an exile. I have made my life in this adopted country for now nearly half a century, and am grateful for all the fulfillment those forty-plus years have brought my way. And yet… I recognize that I am at heart an exile.

With the current election campaign so much in my thoughts before I left—I flew out on the Wednesday following “Super Tuesday”—I had been hoping to get some perspective on America from across the pond. As it turned out, however, I heard barely a word about Obama, Clinton, McCain or Huckabee, and the enquiries I had planned to make seemed somehow, well… irrelevant. No question but that my former fellow-countrymen—those who ventured any opinion at all—are looking forward to the exeunt omnia of Bush and his gang who couldn’t shoot straight, and to the return of America to the community of nations. But they have, as they say, their own fish to fry. The newspapers I saw, and the television new reports, paid scant attention to the American presidential election. Of far greater interest and concern was the Archbishop of Canterbury’s quickly infamous gaffe about sharia law.

There is a civility, I think, still evident in English life. And by that I mean not just good manners, that dreaded “politeness” that threatens to stifle the kind of intimacy we value—perhaps over-value—this side of the Atlantic. I mean a sense of civic responsibility, a respect for others that is in some way structured into the history and the social life of the country. It’s the kind of civility that takes, for example, universal health care (socialized medicine!) as a given; that provides non-grudging care for the elderly and the destitute and schools for the young and transportation systems that make it relatively easy to get around; that recognizes the importance of a cultural life. All those things, in a word, that we “taxpayers” here in America fight so hard to avoid having to pay for with “our money.”

And of course things are not perfect over there. Of course there are those who get left behind, there are the horror stories about those who slip between the interstices of the safety net. But there is nonetheless a general understanding, I think, and a general consensus that any human society is a complex, constantly changing organism, and that each part of it must bear a certain responsibility for carrying its fair share of the common load.

Such are the thoughts, anyway, that I brought back with me from my lightning visit “home.” I could, of course, be perversely mistaken. I could be immersing myself in a romantic nostalgia for a place that never really was. But I like to think I wasn’t.

A Walk in the Country

Sunday morning, my sister and I took a long walk out into the country, starting from her house. Another beautiful day. Having started out in the cold with my winter voat, I gradually had to shed and carry as the day warmed up. Here's some of our route:







And on the return from our furthest point out, we took the mile-long avenue leading back into the town:






On our return, we stopped to buy a newspaper at W.H.Smith (I noted that he used to have "& Sons") and enjoy a cop of coffee with one of those Garibaldi cookies we used to call, as children, "squashed flies"--because of the dark raisins squashed inside. Then home for a quiet afternoon, a cup of tea, and time to pack before leftover Indian dinner on trays in front of the TV, to watch the BAFTA Awards show (the British version of the Oscars.)

A rather easy journey home, with a very early (5:55AM) start at the bus stop, and a long coach ride through frosty fields and hillsides with a low mist hugging the ground and the icy pools along the way. Heathrow was busy, but I managed a bit of duty-free shopping (a handful of cigars for my Sunday afternoons, a cashmere scarf from Harrods for Ellie) and a good English breakfast. And finally the long flight over the Atlantic and the frozen tundras of northern Canada, with Ellie to greet me at the airport.

The freeways of Los Angeles, I have to say, seemed a very long way from the Cotswolds!

Cirencester (cont'd)

The good citizens of Cirencester had reason to be grateful to me, yesterday, for having brought with me another day of California sunshine. It was a truly gorgeous day, barely a cloud to be seen. But quite nippy, as we say hereabouts.

We started out taking Hugo to his drama class. Here's Hugo:



He's an actor:



No kidding. He performed a couple of pieces for us on my first night in town--including a tricky Shakespeare piece--and there's not doubt about the talent. And even though he's only ten, there's not doubt about the intention and the real dedication. And this is not just grand-avuncular pride! He's off to London today, auditioning for a rare place in a dedicated drama school. Wish him luck!

Then on to the Brewery Arts building, just re-opening after a major remodel with a fine show of Midland crafts and a good number of artists' studios. We paused for coffee at the new restaurant, where the staff were obviously green and underprepared for the large numbers of people who showd up for the occasion. But we managed to accept the delays with relative good nature, and enjoyed a good talk with Charlotte and Richard as we waited.

A pleasant lunch at home, then off to a wonderful farmer's market, just outside of town, where they sell all kinds of home-grown, organic goods--including homegrown lamb and pork from the farm--along with a wide variety of other organic groceries and household wares.

Here's my sister, Flora, by the way:



Good-looking family, no?

Back in town, we took a brief rest before returning for a stroll around the still-crowded shopping streets, stopping here and there for a visit with one of Flora's many friends. Followed by a quiet evening at home, with a delicious take-out Indian meal and an hour of entertaining British TV.

Flora's Birthday

What a wonderful day in the Cotswolds, startimg out with the cold grey-silver light of the English winter, and leading to an afternoon of bright, cool sunshine. Could not have wished for better weather, despite the low temperature--well, low for a Californian. But then it has been unusually cool in California of late.

Hugo had spent the night at his grandmother's, so the first thing--after a good bowl of porridge (with fresh, raw ginger--a surprise! Something I should add to my repertoire!)--was to get him off to school. He chose recently to switch from the big school in town to a local village school way out in the country, in a tiny place called Sapperton. Here are Flora and Hugo on the way to school...



and here is Sapperton, nestled in a lovely valley...



After dropping Hugo off at school, we stopped by the local church, where we admired the wood work of the pews...



and the lichen and snowdrops outside...



... then took a fortuitous wrong turn and drove back through more lovely countryside...



... to Cirencester.

I spent a little while trying to get used to Flora's PC, to get the blog posted and download some pictures, and was rescued with the latter task by Charlotte's (Flora's daughter, Hugo's mother)friend Richard. I can now, as you see, post some pictures with my narrative.

Late morning, Flora and I walked into the town center,




where she did some shopping at the market while I investigated the local antiques fair (sorry, Ellie, nothing caught my eye!) Time for coffee, then. We found a pleasant coffee shop and were surprised, while enjoying our warm drinks and a shared slice of chocolate chip cake, to find Charlotte and Richard peering in through the window next to us. They are researching coffee prices for the arts center, due to open Saturday, so we went on with them to yet another coffee stop



before heading home for a light lunch or soup and cheese. In the afternoon, Flora drove me out to the countryside again for a truly wonderful tour of some Cotswold villages that I'd never visited before, off the beaten tourist track, without the usual ice cream and souvenir shops. Here's some views...








Lovely villages with lovely names... Winstone, Duntisbourne Abbots, Middle Duntisbourne, Duntisbourne Rouse, Elkstone. And lovely churches, some dating from Saxon times, others Norman and Gothic, amazing, beautiful testimony to the history of this part of the world. Here are some of them...










Oh, here's one where Charles was there before us. Prince Charles, that is...



And back to Cirencester through these gorgeous lanes...





That's all I have time for at the moment. We went out for a birthday dinner at a Chinese restaurant with the improbable name of Mayflower, where we ate well and enjoyed a very pleasant bottle of New Zealand sauvignon blanc. You'll be relieved to hear that I forgot my camera. Collapsed on the soaf before ten o'clock, and went up to bed shortly thereafter.

In Cirencester

Well, here I am, waking up at five in the morning at my sister Flora's house in Cirencester, England. It never fails to seem somewhat miraculous to me, to start in one part of the globe one morning and wake up thousands of miles elsewhere the next. It's a small planet, these days, and increasingly fragile, as we all now know. Cna't help wondering, can you, how much your jaunt across the globe contributed to its pollution.

But this time it was worth it. Today is my sister's birthday--an occasion we have not celebrated together since we were very small children. Flora was always away at school for her birthday after those first few birthdays, and boarding school lasted for both of us until we were eighteen, when we started to go our separate ways. It does feel like a sad reflection on the way we were brought up, brother and sister scarcely knowing each other because our parents deemed that kind of education (I think we both thought of it as torture) to be more important than our family life. We came together three times a year: two weeks at Christmas, two weeks at Easter, and a month in August. That was it. Then Flora, one and a half years my senior, went off to Africa for a while, and took a job on the high seas, traveling on the Queen Mary and other cunard liners to New York and back... then lived in London; all while I was at Cambridge, and soon after off to Germany, first, then over the Atlantic, where I have spent all my years since my early twenties.

So there has not been much brother and sister time, and now that we're getting on (just a bit) in years, it seemed like the best gift I could give us both was a few short days together. The flight was relatively easy. I had managed to upgrade my ticket to business class, which made it that much easier. The bigger seats made it it possible to grab at least a couple of hours of slumber--though I was annoyed that, having specifically requested and in fact booked an aisle seat, I had been moved to the window--making it virtually impossible to get out to the "lavatory," as they like to call it, or to stretch one's legs. It was also a good decision to carry on my bag: getting through immigration and customs was that much easier, ahead of the crowd.

Flora picked me up at Heathrow with her friend, Marigold, who graciously drove us back to Cirencester from the airport. Very easy, very comfortable. And Flora had cooked up a wonderful, warming soup for lunch, along with a bite of cheese. After a quick nap, I felt refreshed and ready to go when my ten-year-old great-nephew Hugo (have I got that right, my sister's daughter's son?) arrived, and we ventured out into the town to buy shoes (for Hugo) before wandering on, he and I, to a bookshop, where I wanted to catch up with my delinquent gift-giving (he found three books by authors who arrived long after my departure from these hallowed shores.) And on, we guys, leaving my sister behind, to Boots to find some corn plasters (for me) and a coffee shop, where we indulged in a hot chocolate (Hugo) and a cup of English tea (me) and a very sweet hour of guy talk.

Dinner at home, at Flora's--a delicious lamb roast with various mashed potatoes, vegetables and mint sauce, with a nice bottle of Beaujolais, and for dessert, delicious pears prepared with wine, ginger, and citrus zest. After which I pretty much collapsed and went to sleep three times in front of the TV before having the good sense to get myself up to bed.

Let's Get to Work...

... said Obama, at the end of his great Super Tuesday speech last night. I'm ready.

Did I mention that I'm leaving for England today? Friday is my sister Flora's birthday, and I'm popping across the pond to help her celebrate. So I'll be gone until Tuesday of next week, and maybe posting from the Cotswolds, maybe not. I'm usually able to get some posting done when I travel, so please keep checking in. I'll maybe have some insights from those Brits about our political theater. Or, as they like to say, theatre. Meantime, may we all find happiness in our lives.

Vote Obama

This morning during the metta portion of my meditation I sent out thoughts of goodwill to each of the candidates running for president--including the Republicans. May they find true happiness and wisdom in their lives. And to voters throughout the country, Democrat and Republican. May they find true happiness and wisdom in their lives.

For myself, had I not voted early before John Edwards withdrew, I would be voting for Barack Obama.

For your listening pleasure on Super Tuesday, here's " Yes we can ." Thanks to my friend Bob for forwarding this delightful link. Enjoy. And may all of us find true happiness and wisdom in our lives

A Politic for the Future

The old model of power is dead. Long live the new one. After a couple of millennia on planet Earth, the old one looks tired and superannuated, that notion of rule whereby power rested in the hands of a single person or some kind of an elite, to be exercised in order to govern the rest. It managed to eke out its remaining years through the twentieth century, but its survival into the twenty-first has brought with it nothing but disaster.

It’s time for a change—and not the skin-deep, rhetorical change that has been much touted by politicians of all stripes and colors in recent months. The change I’m talking about is nothing less than a radical paradigm shift from that old way of thinking/acting/being to a newer one. This is the kind of change, I believe, that is demanded by the great unease and dissatisfaction manifested in the pitiful approval ratings not only of the “decider” currently “in charge” in the Oval Office, but also of our elected representatives and leaders in the Congress of the United States. It was foolish, perhaps, to have hoped for serious change with the election of those slim Democratic majorities a couple of years ago—because the new majorities have been thinking/acting/being not very much differently from the old ones.

The fact of the matter is that it’s not just a few contested issues but the human species that’s in crisis. It’s a different world we have created for ourselves, in the twenty-first century. First, there are now too many of us to live in the old way and maintain neighborly tolerance. Territory is at a premium, and resources are increasingly in contention. We have learned, as a species, about human freedom and human rights; each of us demands our own, and no one wants to sacrifice any part of his or hers. Each of us demands respect for our individuality, and we each resist in our own way every attempt to tell us how to live our lives. Why should I surrender up “my money” for the benefit of others? Let them take responsibility for themselves.

The second factor, as I see it, complicating and adding to the first, is the de facto shift of power from the establishment into the hands of the individual. This shift has been facilitated primarily by the unprecedented advances of technology over the past three decades, including the rapid and ubiquitous availability of information, and the means to broadcast it. Computers, along with a myriad of powerful personal electronic gadgets, mean that we are each able to become our own politician, our own journalist, our own legislator. In the old order, information—and the power that it represented—could be held close, controlled, dispensed at will. Today, that model is no longer operative. We are no longer controllable in the same ways as before.

More than ever in the past, then, we can be governed only by our own consent, and human nature is such as to rebel against any and all restrictions on its absolute freedom. This is why politicians who presume to possess the answers to our problems may no longer be relevant or useful. The old model was managed by paternalism: entrust me with the power and I’ll restore the order that we lack. Father knows best—or, in the context of the current election campaign, Hillary knows best, or John McCain knows best…

This is why I see in Barack Obama the best hope for the future not only of the country but the world. What I hear from him is less that old mantra—Give me the power—and more the understanding that the new model will need to be about empowering others, opening up debate and discussion, and governing through mutual understanding and genuine compassion, bottom-up rather than top-down—which I suppose was the original idea of “democracy.” How far we have come from that!

I realize that I’ll be accused of pie-in-the-sky idealism. My answer is to point to the world-wide, increasingly disastrous symptoms of failure of the old model. The Bush experience, as I see it, has been its logical and long-overdue apotheosis. It’s an old, dreadfully familiar question: If not now, when? Our future as a planet and a species depends on our ability to create a new paradigm, more appropriate to the realities of a twenty-first century world. And I think that Obama has begun to offer a glimpse of what that might look like. It’s multi-faceted and multi-ethnic, not unitary. It embraces rather than separates, is multi-directional rather than linear, and it involves more risk than certainty.

So here’s the question: will we stake everything on a retreat into the proven failures of the past? Or do we have the guts to take that “leap of faith” into an unknowable future?

Clinton and Obama: At the Gym

I had three conversations about Clinton and Obama yesterday morning, as I was laboring on my elliptical walker at the gym. The conversations were with three democratic voters, each with a different take on the California debate and democratic prospects for the election.

My first conversation was with my friend J--- (no real names here, to protect privacy,) who was laboring alongside me to my left. J--- is… well, I’ll call him a free-thinking entrepreneur, an innovator, an inventor, passionate about the potential of the human brain and how to develop its powers. He has business patrons and partners, he told me, with whom he dare not discuss politics for fear of alienating them and losing their financial support for his projects. (Funny, I wonder if a Republican would fear this kind of retaliation for his beliefs from Democratic partners?) J--- believed that Hillary would be a disastrous choice because she would never get elected; there’s simply too much Hillary hatred out there.

(Coincidentally, while waiting for a haircut later in the morning, I happened to pick up a copy of the January 2008 GQ magazine, with an article by Jason Horowitz called “The Hillary Haters”—an alarming, if sadly unsurprising look into this seething, vitriolic little world that thrives on the web and elsewhere. Hillary haters, writes Horowitz, “say she is an extremist left-wing flower child masquerading as a moderate, or a warmongering hawk disguised as a liberal. She’s a liar and a lesbian (short hair! pantsuits!), a cold fish and an adultress. She has no maternal instincts and is hobbled by a debilitating case of insecurity, for which she compensates by acting like a thug… She has no God, or her devoutness is frighteningly fundamentalist. She’s a condescending elitist who sees people—even her friends—as steps on a stairway to the presidency. She is a partisan, a panderer, the personification of everything that is wrong with America.”

If I include this quote, it’s not to further the agenda of these haters, but simply to show what my friend thinks she’s up against. And Hillary, in my view, has work to do to avoid playing into the hands of these people. Between them, the Clintons managed to put their worst foot forward for a couple of weeks recently…)

Then M--- joined in, to my right. M--- is—dare I say it!—an old-time Democrat, a political worker, dedicated to the ever-fresh causes of social justice, civil rights and all the freedoms that go along with it. She recently came back from a week of work in Arizona for John Edwards and, like me, voted early by mail, before Edwards withdrew. My kind of Democrat. She had not seen the debate, and is still smarting, I believe, from the absence of an out-and-out progressive among the candidates.

I was surprised, though, by M---‘s reaction when I told her about the half-humorous question that drew the most enthusiastic audience response: whether the two remaining candidates would go for a Clinton/Obama or Obama/Clinton “dream ticket”? (Both fudged, with good humor.) Mary thought it not a dream but, she said forcefully, “a nightmare.” Both of these two, in her view, have perhaps insurmountable hurdles: sexism and racism are still such powerful forces in this country that the electorate would reject either or both of them in favor of a Republican “white guy.”

We were joined in our conversation by my friend R---, a gay man who recently sold his own small entrepreneurial business and with whom I regularly enjoy talking politics at the gym. R--- confessed, after watching the debate, to a switch of loyalties from Obama to Clinton. He found her performance more “complete” (his word), more knowledgeable, more authoritative.

I, too, was impressed by her performance—which compensated for some of the nastiness of a couple of weeks ago. This was the other Hillary—charming, attractive, extraordinarily well-informed, strong and capable. In charge. R--- saw her as an agent of change, but one who had more proven capacity to make it happen. My argument with him was this: on the surface of things, both Clinton and Obama stand for very much the same kinds of change; the differences are few. I, though, see a more fundamental difference between them—a difference that I have tried to write about before, but for which I found a formulation that was at once clearer and more elegant. Here it is:

Hillary Clinton seeks power for its exercise, by her, in order to bring about the changes that most of us Democrats agree on; Obama, in the other hand, seeks to empower others. She “knows what’s best,” and can “fix the problems of this country.” He doesn’t have all the answers, but know that they’re out there, waiting to be found. She controls, he listens. Ironically, like Bill, she’s more the “republican” in the equation; Obama, as I see it, more the “democrat.”

Side By Side

There they were, then, side by side. Hillary and Barack, Barack and Hillary. They paid tribute to John Edwards, and acknowledged his contribution to the debate, particularly in his concern for working people and the "two Americas." I was glad they did that, even though I was aware that they needed to attract Edwards supporters to their side.

Who won this round? I'd say a draw. Each of them spoke well, There was no bickering--or only in undertones.

I’m afraid you’re going to be reading a lot of political thoughts on The Buddha Diaries for a while to come. I have noticed a considerable falling-off in posted responses recently, and wonder if this is the reason? I hope not. I feel that I have to do what I can to add my voice to the important national debate in this year’s election, and while I’m not much of a precinct-walker or phone-bank operator, I can write. Given where we stand as a country after seven years of Bush, I cannot simply sit by and observe. I have to act. I will be sending what money I can afford to support, first—now that Edwards is gone—Barack Obama, and then whoever the Democratic candidate turns out to be. If it’s Hillary, I know she has the wherewithal to make a far better president than the current usurper who sits in her former home. I’m sure that, when the time comes, Ellie and I will host a fundraiser for the candidate, as we did last time for Kerry. This multiplied our ability to chip in financially by many, many times, and will certainly be worth repeating. Besides, it was good fun.

That said, The Buddha Diaries has become my voice, and I intend to continue to speak my mind on the candidates, their policies and promises, and the role of the media in the campaign. Today, for example, after last night's debate, I think back to the Nicholas D. Kristof column in yesterday’s New York Times on “The Dynastic Question.” I was surprised that Kristof thought that this “one sweeping topic has gone relatively unexamined.” In my circles, it has been much talked-about, and it was mentioned again last night. Hillary came up with a cute answer--that it took a Clinton to clean up the last Bush's mess, and it might take another to clean up this one's. But still, not counting the years of George H.W. Bush’s Vice Presidency, the Bush-Clinton-Bush… Clinton? thing has gone on, already for nineteen years. Add another year (gulp!) of Bush and then eight of Hillary and you get twenty-eight years of White House occupation by Bushes and Clintons. Says Kristof, “I can’t find any example of even the most rinky-dink ‘democracy’ confining power continuously for seven terms over 28 years to four people from two families.”

This is not to denigrate the good Senator from New York. As Kristof writes, there are those “who admire Mrs. Clinton and believe she would make a terrific president.” Still, he adds, “28 years… two families! That needn’t be decisive, but it’s too important to be ignored.”

What galls some people about Hillary—and count me among them—is that “my turn” sense of entitlement she has sometimes traded on. As Gail Collins wrote in her column on the same page as the Kristof piece, Hillary could improve her chances with many of us by “purging her campaign of the lingering sense that the presidency is her due and anyone who stands in her way is a particularly mean chauvinist. You cannot run a campaign with the slogan: ‘Vote for Hillary--Think of All She’s Been Through.’” To which she added, to balance things out: “And while it seems unlikely, Barack might consider admitting once in a while that it’s possible for a person to reach a greater tomorrow while voting for somebody else.”

Fair enough. Is this all matter for The Buddha Diaires? I think so. When you stop to think about it, it’s all closely connected to the Eightfold Path, which offers us plenty of commonsense guidance on the road to happiness. Besides, George W. Bush’s avowed intentions notwithstanding, compassion is a quality that has seemed notably lacking in our national life in recent years, not to mention our relations with other peoples and countries in the world. I feel an urgent need to do what I can to bring it back.