Tag Archives: nonviolence

Who Is Your Neighbor?

Sharing with a stranger–one of the better angels of our nature–is on display in this YouTube: __________ The video is moving, but why is it moving? Why don’t we have similar responses, say, to adult alcoholics who are homeless, cold, … Continue reading

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“Cool Braining” Should Be The New Phrase For Yawning

Or, perhaps, “empathy enhancing.” __________ I take from the above video that maybe “hot heads” should not just count to ten in an effort to not blow up at other people, but perhaps try yawning (“cool braining” or “empathy enhancing”) … Continue reading

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Negotiation of the Detour: The Pervert’s Guide to the Origin of Rhetoric

Accompanied by a black and white dog, a huntress, not young, steps from a blue grove into the dawn light. It’s spring; we are outside of Athens in 508 BC. Pericles will not be born for another 13 years. The … Continue reading

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American Cop Pepper Sprays Nonviolent Occupy UC Davis Protesters

____ Since when is it okay for an American police officer in full riot gear to step up to nonviolent, hunkered down, university students and use pepper spray on them as if they were insects in need of insecticide?  

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The Truth of Progress: Steven Pinker Interviewed by Reason Magazine

Steven Pinker’s new book, The Better Angels of Our Nature, on the decline of violence through history, is great—maybe his best book ever. Well, on second thought, let’s say it ties his The Blank Slate. That’s saying a lot. Here’s Pinker talking about The … Continue reading

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Christianism Watch: The Sign of the Fish Enlisted for War

A pretty darn ironic image: one of the Prince of Peace’s symbols enlisted for nationalist identification and war: . Of course, Constantine did something similar with the cross. But, if a contemporary Christian uses the sign of the fish in … Continue reading

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An Agnostic Interviews a Muslim: Are One of the Names of God Love?

In this clip, I ask Kamal al Khatib, an imam who heads a Muslim congregation in Palmdale, Ca., about non-retaliation and love in Islam:

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Is Islam a violent religion in the same way that it is a patriarchal religion?

In a recent New York Times essay, Robert Wright attempts to complexify the “jihadi intent” narrative for the Times Square bomber, Faisal Shahzad, to which Jerry Coyne dismissively retorts: It’s social difficulties, mental illness, financial problems, and American depredations in the Middle … Continue reading

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Here’s a Link to Mark Twain’s “The War Prayer”

In case you’re interested.

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A Muslim Imam Who Once Advocated Violence Now Renounces Terror

The heart intervenes. This today in Spiegel: In 2001, imam Mohammed El Fazazi of Morocco preached that it it is a Muslim obligation to “slit the throats of non-believers” in a Hamburg mosque. Among his listeners and star pupils were … Continue reading

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Our Monsters, Ourselves

The MONSTEROUS plays an enormous role in literature and the human imagination—from the Book of Revelation and Dante’s Inferno to Nosferatu and Mad Monster Party. It also plays a large role in politics—as in the demonizing, by the far right, of Barack … Continue reading

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Euripides’s “Bakkhai”: Is Dionysus Jesus?

Euripides’s “Bakkhai” is an extraordinary play, and functions on many fascinating levels. At one level it can be read as an indictment of rationalism, and a warning to the audience against atheism. Toward the beginning of the play, for example, … Continue reading

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