The Secret Teachings of All Ages

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“When confronted with a problem involving the use of the reasoning faculties, individuals of strong intellect keep their poise, and seek to reach a solution by obtaining facts bearing upon the question. Those of immature mentality, on the other hand, when similarly confronted, are overwhelmed.” That’s one of the few quotable pieces I’ve found while reading through The Secret Teachings of All Ages, by Manly P. Hall. Originally published 1928, it has gone through several editions, most recently as an oversize, 750-page paperback in 2003. The full, ostentatious title includes this: An Encyclopedic Outline of Masonic, Hermetic, Qabbalistic and Rosicrucian Symbolic Philosophy … ……… click below for more ↓

To sleep, perchance to dream

Collingwood / Humour & Satire / My Writing / Personal Reminiscences / Pets & Animal BehaviourLeave a comment

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Aye, there’s the rub. To sleep in, one weekend morning, when there are no pressures for meetings, work, deadlines. To roll away from the soft light that filters through the blinds and enjoy that delicious moment of closing your eyes and drifting back into a dream. Covers pulled up, the street quiet outside the widow, the furnace gently wheezing its warm air into the room; nothing is better in the world. But of course, there are others with different ideas. The real masters of the house brook no laziness, have no interest in our needs, in how much wine we ……… click below for more ↓

The Hobgoblins under the Lobbyist Bridge

Collingwood / Critical Thinking / Municipal Politics / US PoliticsLeave a comment

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Lobbyist. For some, the word conjures frightening images of nefarious trolls and ogres in Armani suits lurking under the bridges and in the woods in the dark night, snatching unwary politicians and dragging them down to whatever hell the gullible and naive descend to (a hell cleverly paved with gold and champagne flutes). The very word itself is printed in bold and in colour in some comments, just in case you might miss it and the boogeyman-thrill the hiss of the word gives. Lobbyisssst… my precioussss…. That’s in part because the popular impression of lobbying derives from watching American TV ……… click below for more ↓

Another Zen tale

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Carrying on in the tradition of my last post, here’s another of the stories from Paul Reps’ book, Zen Flesh, Zen Bones. Before I repeat it, consider the story of Diogenes, the Greek philosopher and founder of the school of Cynics (cynos is Greek for dog, thus the “dog” philosophers). Diogenes once complained that, “Dogs and philosophers do the greatest good and get the fewest rewards.” I might add municipal politicians to that list… He broke almost every rule of civic and social convention to teach his philosophy, almost like a Zen master using koans to break the bonds of rigid ……… click below for more ↓

A Zen story

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There are all sorts of great stories, great tales of wisdom and enlightenment, to be found in Zen Buddhism. They often have that sort of eternal depth and universal meaning to our lives, regardless of your personal beliefs. The one below came back to me, last night, while I was walking my dog and pondering why some people remain so angry over little things, why they can’t move on. It goes like this… Two Zen monks, a young and and old one, were walking along the road on the way to visit a monastery in the hills. They came to ……… click below for more ↓

10,000 words too many

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Been working the last two-and-a-half months on my latest book for Municipal World. A bit of a challenge, actually – trying to combine marketing, branding, advertising, public relations and communications topics into one coherent yet succinct package has been difficult. There are so many things to say, so many areas to cover, that brevity often escapes me (there are those that say it’s always that way with me…). I’ve been reading about three dozen books on the topics, and an unknown (but very high) number of websites and white papers on the same subjects. I have almost 2GB of PDF ……… click below for more ↓

Is it time for a Collingwood ukulele group?

Arts / Collingwood / Culture / Musical Instruments / Personal Reminiscences2 Comments

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When a friend recently told me he had joined the new Guelph ukulele group, it made me somewhat envious. After all, having a local support-performance-practice-chat-socialize group for any hobby is always great. When your hobby is a passion that requires an audience to realize itself fully, a local group is de rigeur. You simply need others people to practice with to get better and share the joy. Uke groups have been springing up all over. The ukulele is currently the most popular musical instrument in the world. The Corktown Ukulele Jam is a weekly group get-together in Toronto that I’ve ……… click below for more ↓

Scaramouche

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He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad. That has to rank among the best opening lines in a novel, up there with Dickens’ “It was the best of times…” opening in A Tale of Two Cities. This line, however, is from Rafael Sabatini’s 1921 novel, Scaramouche. Yesterday, I was rummaging through my rather messy and erratic book collection, poking among books stacked upon books, and in piles on the floor, looking for a copy of Albert and the Lion that I wrote about recently. I didn’t find it, but I did find ……… click below for more ↓

Perfect Sense

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I have always liked sandbox stories; tales in which the author could stretch his of her imagination, place ordinary characters into a seemingly normal situation, then see what happened when the conditions were changed.* Sandbox environments are virtual places were you can test ideas, explore paths, examine consequences to actions without spilling over into the real world. They have all the appearance of the real world, but the parameters can be changed to suit the tinkerer. Programmers often create sandbox environments to test programs; anyone who does web development does so in a sandbox before putting the pages into use. ……… click below for more ↓

On being a left wing pinko socialist

Critical Thinking / Municipal Politics / Personal Reminiscences / PoliticsLeave a comment

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My left-wing, pro-union friends would be amused to hear me called a “leftie.” They generally think of me as right as Steven Harper. The only difference to them, I suppose, is my unwillingness to sell Canada to the highest corporate bidder (Chinese or American…). My right-wing friends think I’m somewhere between Karl Marx and the late Jack Layton. I’ve always thought of myself as a “political agnostic.” Probably due to years in the media where cynicism about politicians and politicians is rife. I pursue humanist goals,* not party goals. I simply have no faith in party politics. I don’t see this ……… click below for more ↓

Albert and the Lion

Books & Reviews / Literary pretensions / Personal ReminiscencesOne Comment

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A recent comment on Facebook – “You just can’t resist poking the bear…”* made me remember a poem by Marriott Edgar that I enjoyed as a child in the 1950s: Albert and the Lion. I actually first heard it orally – we had a collection of old 78s and a wind-up gramophone in the basement. Among the musical treasures were several monologues by Stanley Holloway who read this and several other poems about Young Albert, accompanied by a piano that accented his words. There was a book, too, probably brought from England by my father when he came over in ……… click below for more ↓

ID’s deep roots in creationism

Atheism & Spirituality / Balderdash & Hoaxes / Pseudoscience & Quackery / Science & Technology / Social Order & Disorder5 Comments

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Proponents of creationism often try to deny that “intelligent” design (ID) is merely creationism wrapped in a fake lab coat to make it look like it’s pals with science. It isn’t. They’re not buddies, didn’t go to school together, and don’t ‘like’ each others Facebook pages. ID is merely a tawdry, paper-thin attempt to hoodwink the gullible who can’t see past the plastic pocket protector that there’s a bible in the pocket. In part this is because the popular notion of what a theory is has devolved into a synonym for guess or an unproven assumption. But that’s not the ……… click below for more ↓

Maybe some people are just dense…

Science & Technology / Social Order & Disorder2 Comments

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Story in today’s Science Daily: Why Some People Don’t Learn Well: EEG Shows Insufficient Processing of Information to Be Learned. While you might initially want to say “because they’re stupid,” (or Republicans), the authors reach a different conclusion. It may be that some people just don’t process information efficiently: …the main problem is not that learning processes are inefficient per se, but that the brain insufficiently processes the information to be learned. Which made me think…. it’s like eating. If you don’t chew your food sufficiently, it doesn’t get digested as well. I know a lot of people who don’t ……… click below for more ↓

Or maybe doomsday just postponed…

Pets & Animal Behaviour / Science & Technology / Social Order & DisorderLeave a comment

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A story in Science Daily today talks about the effect that antibiotics used in animals has had on humans. Or rather, on antibiotic-resistant bacteria which are dangerous to humans. The increasing production and use of antibiotics, about half of which is used in animal production, is mirrored by the growing number of antibiotic resistance genes, or ARGs, effectively reducing antibiotics’ ability to fend off diseases — in animals and humans. Now this is hardly news. Concerns over unchecked use of antibiotics in farm animals have been raised for decades. The antibiotics have been working their way through the system and ……… click below for more ↓

Doomsday averted (again)

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Seventeen thousand miles. Seems like a long way, but it’s less than one tenth the distance from here to the moon, and it’s within the satellite belt. In cosmic terms, it’s frighteningly close. Consider that the Sun is 93 million miles way, and it affects everything on this planet.* It’s still a miss, though. Asteroid DA14 will race by Earth at 27,700 kPH, February 15. But it won’t hit us. Whew. You might be able to see it, if you know where to look. You’ll have to be fast, though – it will move VERY quickly across the sky. And ……… click below for more ↓

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