If not, many Zen Temples have an online presence. I practice online, with Red Ceddar out of Bellingham, Washington. There are centers in Colorado which is Mt Time if that is better. An in person Sangha is best but online is helpful.

Two words, Joseph Cotten. Set in Santa Rosa, great film, doesn’t get enough love.

A ‘normal’ person trying to navigate the real world? That would be hilarious. I have seen normies lose it while encountering me and I’m not as weird as a lot of people I love.

I loved many books my dad read to me before I could read. The first book that stands for reading on my own was Bartholomew Cubins and the 500 Hats. After that I tore through Seuss’s collection and never looked back. The book I read most often as a child was, The Wind in the Willows.

We have people dying everyday because of lack of care with thousands more going into bankruptcy. Now even the med care for those of us with means is breaking down because of the rush for profits. How is yours not working?

Sexual reproduction allows the opportunity for genetic mutations (changes) to occur. Mutations allow species to modify over time towards greater survivability. Sometimes these mutations allow individuals to move into ecological niches where there is less competition for resources. Look at a forest: fish can only survive in water, squirrels need the nuts and safety of trees, mice live in areas where they can get grass seed and foxes live where they can get mice, and on and on.

Look up the concept of primordial soup and how all life on earth came from the same set of chemicals and then, over millions of years, evolved into all the life we have.

Brother is still one of my favorite Sayles movies and it may be my favorite Sci-fi movie. “I have another magic trick for you. Wanna see me make all the white people disappear?”

Yes! I understand that was Lucas’ film school graduate project and was filmed in the, as yet uncompleted, BART tunnels. I may be not entirely correct but that is the lore. It’s very good.

In general conversation I am surprised by what people are unfamiliar with. In this community I suppose they are quite well known. The few that fly off the top of my head— The General, funniest film I’ve seen. By and with Buster Keaton Rashomon, a philosophical gem from Kurosawa Hanna, a humorous thriller with art house sensibilities. The Guard, Brendan Gleason and Don Cheadle in a very funny action crime drama.

I don’t expect people to know the film I love that lead a friend to tell me to never recommend a movie to them again: Chan is Missing, a mystery drama with an unorthodox ending.

Stop drinking, do EST (now Landmark) stay in school, understand that your upbringing was toxic, find a therapist and be kind to yourself.

Edit: UK, not just GB.

Am I correct that GB has both national and private health care available? How well does that work. I seems the Bits like it.

The Informant, and in a skillfully crafted unfolding story with a cascade of surprises.

Have you tried The Santa Clarita diet? It’s a zombie comedy and it’s well made.

My father read that poem to me many times. It informed my intentions in life. Thank you.

Osteoarthritis baby. Getting old isn’t for wimps.

Killing me Softly

One of the funniest things I hear is when Republicans call neo liberal Democrats Socialists.

You have resources so you would be fine in the US system. If you were poor you wouldn’t have a line to stand in. Healthcare debt is the leading cause of bankruptcy in the US. If Breaking Bad had been a Canadian production it would have had to find a different premise.

I stand with you brother. I swelled with pride when my union organizing son said, ‘dad, you’re the one who radicalized me’. Now he helps me understand the source of his generation’s despair. I am farther left than I have ever been and I started on the left.

The distinction is lead actors, the stars, who are known for who they are. You would say, oh, that’s a John Wayne movie but not, oh, that’s a Bruce Dern movie. It is not unusual for character actors to be the more skilled actors even when they are not remembered. It’s like side men in recording studios, necessary, highly competent, largely unknown. (Yeah, I like Dern more than I like Wayne)

Throw the tape recorder in the bathtub.

What, the line, feed your head, feed your head, isn’t clear enough?

I have been looking at Project 2025. Combing through some of the analysis and commentary on this I see, at best, no good coming out of it--Forbes calls is a blueprint for economic disaster, and at worst a blueprint for an authoritarian regime. It looks like a dismantling of our traditional government of checks and balances and giving the weight of control to the president. Certainly this is not what the founding fathers intended. I think of what Benjamin Franklin said after the completion of the US Constitution: Gentlemen, you have a republic, if you can hold onto it. Thoughts?

Try baking it. There are recipes and it’s easier than boiling it.