Peak Bullshit: Turns Out The Dalai Lama is a Hateful Figure

Apparently, even privileged fucks from China can exploit inclusivity and diversity to shut people down. You know... hateful people like the Dalai fucking Lama.

Now I don't agree with the Lama or his ethos, but come on... he mostly talks about dealing with your own garbage and tending to yourself.

If you needed any more evidence that Social Justice is morally bankrupt exploitation of feeling over fact (and feeling over the exercise of individual judgment), there you have it. Calls for diversity and inclusivity, with rare exception, imply an abandonment of reason, which is the only bullshit detector you have.

Our relationship with our own faculties of reason come down to practice. It's use it or lose it. Either we call things as we see them or we're the next mark for whomever figures out how to push our buttons.

But, if our commitment to the truth is strong enough and we form convictions based on our long-term practice of clear thinking, we can be like the immovable stone in the river... the manipulations will flow around us like so much water.

We don't need to fix the world or anyone else's flawed notions. But we do need to look upon the world call bullshit when we see a steaming pile of it.  We are at peak bullshit right now (or hopefully heading toward it).  You've never needed your reason more.

There Are Four Lights!

From "Chain of Command - Part 2", a season 6 episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation

Wax On, Wax Off: The Arpeggio Meditation by Daniel Ward

Ukulele Magazine recently featured an article written by Daniel Ward on practicing arpeggios slowly and another article expanding on it.  I've incorporated meditative fingerpicking into my daily practice first thing to get focused on breathing and listening. 

I have also adapted the practice for the key of G Major:

ARPEGGIO MEDITATION IN G MAJOR

Fingerpicking practice, breathing, and listening. Arranged by Francis Luong (Franco)

G                                 Gmaj7
   4/4
    Gtr I
||--------2-------2-|-------2-------2-|-------2-------2-|-------2-------2-|
||o-----3-------3---|-----3-------3---|-----2-------2---|-----2-------2---|
||o---2-------2-----|---2-------2-----|---2-------2-----|---2-------2-----|
||--0-------0-------|-0-------0-------|-0-------0-------|-0-------0-------|


  Em7                                 Em6
|-------2-------2-|-------2-------2-|-------2-------2-|-------2-------2-|
|-----0-------0---|-----0-------0---|-----0-------0---|-----0-------0---|
|---2-------2-----|---2-------2-----|---1-------1-----|---1-------1-----|
|-0-------0-------|-0-------0-------|-0-------0-------|-0-------0-------|


  Cmaj7                               D7sus4            D7
|-------2-------2-|-------2-------2-|-------0-------0-|-------0-------0-|
|-----0-------0---|-----0-------0---|-----3-------3---|-----2-------2---|
|---0-------0-----|---0-------0-----|---0-------0-----|---0-------0-----|
|-0-------0-------|-0-------0-------|-2-------2-------|-2-------2-------|


  G                                   Cm
|-------2-------2-|-------2-------2-|-------3-------3-|-------3-------3--||
|-----3-------3---|-----3-------3---|-----3-------3---|-----3-------3---o||
|---2-------2-----|---2-------2-----|---3-------3-----|---3-------3-----o||
|-0-------0-------|-0-------0-------|-0-------0-------|-0-------0--------||

The Good, the Bad, and PowerTab

I decided to try assembling a tab using powertab which is pretty old these days and hasn't been maintained.  I don't suspect I'll continue using it.  Print output has severe issues with title alignment on Windows 10.

My inelegant workaround is ASCII output, which permits me to adjust the text.  I just don't think I have the patience to PDF, screenshot, and crop after using that dreadful interface.  

screenshot and crop from PDF

screenshot and crop from PDF

We Are Wary of Outrage... and No Mob Can Have Us

Those of us who refuse to be whipped into a mob are few but feisty.

We arm our intellects. We prepare ourselves to recognize manipulation and deception. We know our core principles and convictions.

We are wary of outrage... We know it to be seductive and a key tool to uncenter us without our notice.

We acknowledge and affirm that no one can ever take our reason from us without our acquiescense and that we can surrender it in subtle ways. We make a practice of not yielding it.

We commit ourselves on this day and each day forward that we will move only on our own best individual judgment... never in haste or anger... responding, not reacting... with resolve or defiance as the situation calls for it.

We are no mob and no mob can have us.