Between Buddhism and the hard yards of police work

Between Buddhism and the hard yards of police work

BUDDHISM and law enforcement are unusual bedfellows.

Adhering to the principles of non-violence, calmness and love for all human beings is not easy when your day job involves investigating and locking up potentially violent criminals.

But a handful of NSW Police have committed themselves to the ancient philosophy and are applying it in their daily work.

“It’s easy to be appalled and disgusted with the things I have seen, and to view the people that I have to deal with as inherently bad,” one officer, Jason Puxty, said.

“Buddhism has taught me to understand them as people who have done very bad things.

“I will pursue them, process them and deal with them appropriately, but at the same time treat them with dignity and compassion.”

You have to read this, and not because it’s about a Buddhist: VirtueOnline

…For too long the silent majority, those dedicated Episcopalians who faithfully attend Mass on Sundays and sometimes Wednesdays, has taken it on the chin. First, there was the ordination of female priests, then came female bishops. The “first mitered Mama”– as she referred to herself in an early television news interview -– recently celebrated her twentieth year wearing the pointed hat.

Now there is a female presiding bishop, whom feminists praise for breaking through the stained glass ceiling, while she is out to dismantle the very church which raised her to such a lofty position – one diocese, one church, one bishop, one priest, and one parishioner at a time. No one is safe from her tentacled reach.

And of course, let us not forget Gene Robinson who became a “June bride” last year and helped to rend the very fabric of worldwide unity in the Anglican Communion, the bond which was holding nearly 80 million Anglican Christians together in brotherly love, respect, harmony and fellowship.

via VirtueOnline – News – Exclusives – Grassroots protest against Buddhist bishop’s confirmation underway.

Yeah. Even the staid Episcopalians have their lunatic fringe, it seems. Just look at all that “brotherly love, respect and fellowship.” This must be the Anglican version of Opus Dei.

Climate Scientists Convene Emergency Meeting In Advance of Copenhagen Climate Summit

Climate Scientists Convene Emergency Meeting In Advance of Copenhagen Climate Summit

Politicians aren’t listening, so climate scientists have convened an emergency meeting in Copenhagen over the next three days to collate the latest scientific findings so they can exert pressure on the negotiating teams that will meet in Copenhagen next December.

Choice of Drug Czar Indicates Focus on Treatment, Not Jail – washingtonpost.com

“The success of our efforts to reduce the flow of drugs is largely dependent on our ability to reduce demand for them,” Kerlikowske said yesterday at a ceremony attended by his former law enforcement colleagues. “Our nation’s drug problem is one of human suffering, and as a police officer but also in my own family, I have experienced the effects that drugs can have.”

Kerlikowske’s adult stepson, Jeffrey, has been arrested in the past on drug charges, an issue that the police chief referenced in his remarks yesterday.

Kerlikowske’s top deputy is expected to be A. Thomas McLellan, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania medical college and the chief executive of the Treatment Research Institute in Philadelphia, according to two sources in the drug control community who said the selection underscored the administration’s philosophy of rehabilitation and outreach.

via Choice of Drug Czar Indicates Focus on Treatment, Not Jail – washingtonpost.com.

The New Mercenaries


Under a relentless equatorial sun and the gaze of her Zimbabwean instructor, Juliet Kituye quickly reassembles her AK-47. Next to her, a young man in a ripped red T-shirt discharges imaginary rounds at an invisible target.On a disused soccer pitch in the suburbs of the Ugandan capital, Kampala, 300 hopefuls are being put through rudimentary firearms training. Many of the recruits are raw and their drills occasionally lurch towards slapstick. One trainee lets the magazine slip out of his automatic rifle and onto the red earth, someone else about turns right instead of left. All of them share the same dream, however: going to Iraq.

CorpWatch : UGANDA/IRAQ: Why 10,000 Ugandans are eagerly serving in Iraq

Yo…Bill Gates! Why no global warming research?

…you might think a foundation focusing on third-world “sustainable” development would devote some significant portion of its resources toward preventing catastrophic global warming. After all, on our current emissions path, we will have destroyed a livable climate by 2100. Most every independent scientific and economic analysis says the developing world will suffer horribly. This goes double for the region Gates is focusing much of the foundation’s resources on — Africa, a continent facing climate-driven desertification in the north and the south, a continent with huge coastal populations.

But, in fact, the Gates Foundation has no program to help prevent global warming. … Bill Gates global warming | Salon

Interview, Debra Gwartney, “Live Through This” | Salon Life

Debra Gwartney was trying to escape a failed marriage when she moved from Tucson, Ariz., to Eugene, Ore., in the early ’90s with her four daughters in tow. What the newly single mother didn’t foresee was that, as she fled from her past to a different city and job, her relationship with her girls would be forever transformed, too. Enraged by the divorce and the move, her two oldest daughters, Amanda and Stephanie, soon ran away, seeking adventure on the streets and shelter in abandoned buildings with other teenagers like them.

via Interview, Debra Gwartney, “Live Through This” | Salon Life.

In Search of Silence

At the Hoh River trailhead, where a path disappears into the gloom under giant, lichen-draped Douglas fir and western red cedar, I meet up with Gordon Hempton. He stands calm and dry under an umbrella, comfortable in the wool and cotton clothes he has chosen for their silence. Middle-aged, limber, and weather-tanned, Gordon is on a mission to record the natural sounds of the world before they are drowned out by human noise. For years, he has searched for the quiet places where falling water and wren song can still be clearly heard. This weekend, he is taking me to one of the few remaining quiet spots in the United States.  (Click image for more)

Willie Smits restores a rainforest — This guy takes “making a difference” to an entirely new level.

By piecing together a complex ecological puzzle, biologist Willie Smits has found a way to re-grow clearcut rainforest in Borneo, saving local orangutans — and creating a thrilling blueprint for restoring fragile ecosystems.

via Willie Smits restores a rainforest | Video on TED.com.