date:20090121

"While some candidates on the presidential campaign trail treat paint
promises in glittering generalities, President Obama was often quite
specific about what policies he'd implement as president, with
exhaustive lists of promised policy plans [1] on his much-ballyhooed
website.

As part of our ongoing "Promises Clock" feature, we've chosen five of
these promises to keep an eye on.

We're building our list off of the exhaustive work done by
Politifact's OBAMETER http://tinyurl.com/6unxgt. (500-plus promises,
and counting!) The five we've chosen to highlight are all doable by
presidential order, meaning the new administration can't hide behind
the workings of Congress. We're starting each clock on January 20,
2009 at 12 noon, the date and time of Obama's inauguration."
http://tinyurl.com/a6bnt9

[FairfieldLife] Re: Bush already in Mid East

2009-01-21 Thread Arhata Osho

[FairfieldLife] fluoride in water

2009-01-21 Thread Joe Smith

Anyone have any opinions on fluoride in the drinking water, it's
benefits and health problems.Does Vedic City fluoridate it's water as
well as MUM?

[FairfieldLife] Re: Independent TM Teachers?

2009-01-21 Thread sparaig

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "authfriend"  wrote:
>
> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, billy jim  wrote:
> 
> > it made perfect sense to me that they would not be
> > practiced in Sanskrit. The focus of the sutras was
> > their meaning - a meaning which was by definition
> > independent of their articulated sound value in any
> > language. The TMO could have prevented this reaction
> > by discussing the sanyama practice as a advance
> > development through using "meaning" as a more subtle
> > value than the beginning practice of "sound without
> > meaning" and "learning to focus a deeper form of
> > attention" rather than "only favoring the mantra".
> 
> Dunno, it wasn't explained exactly that way 
> when I learned the TM-Sidhis, but it was
> certainly made clear that the point of the
> sutras was their meaning, the intention the
> words expressed, rather than the sound value
> per se. That distinction from the mantra was
> emphasized. So it was never a problem for me.
> (Easier to remember in English too.)
>

People were told how to seek help to translate the sutras into their native 
tongue
on my course, and, something that one of the 16pyear-olds said, implied that 
they
got a different set of sutras, at least for some, than the adults did, on the 
pre-yogic
flying course.

That is, certain words with a more juvenile flavor were substituted for the more
adult level language.


Lawson

[FairfieldLife] Re: Independent TM Teachers in the San Francisco Bay Area?

2009-01-21 Thread sparaig

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, I am the eternal  wrote:
>
> On Wed, Jan 21, 2009 at 9:10 PM, wayback71  wrote:
> 
> > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB  wrote:
> > There were also many stories of people seeing these robed, older men
> > walking around the
> > room while puja was going on during initiations-of some saying they saw
> > "the guy in the
> > picture" (Guru Dev) in the room, of children claiming to see these types of
> > things, and the
> > person being initiated seeing the very beings the puja was specifically to
> > invoke. I heard
> > these stories second and third hand.  I never had this happen while I was
> > initiating, altho
> > there were a few times while doing the puja alone, when I suddenly found
> > myself on my
> > knees in front of the table and feeling great devotion to Guru Dev.
> >
> 
> Maharishi followed the well known wisdom that only an 18 year old would jump
> out of a perfectly good airplane.  If you want to start a movement, you
> don't do it with a bunch of 30 somethings.  Do it with a bunch of flower
> children.
> 
> Jane Hopson told a buddy of mine who worked for a year on the Houston
> (Navasota, TX actually) forest academy that she could understand his having
> a problem deciding whether or not to give up a year of his life to go from
> LA to Navasota.  She said she knew the feeling, as she remembered when she
> had this hit of really dynamite acid in one hand and her application for TTC
> in the other, trying to decide...
>

That could well explain the stories of people seeing the old guy in the 
picture, 
and the guys walking around the room...


Lawson

[FairfieldLife] Re: Independent TM Teachers?

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, billy jim  wrote:

> it made perfect sense to me that they would not be
> practiced in Sanskrit. The focus of the sutras was
> their meaning - a meaning which was by definition
> independent of their articulated sound value in any
> language. The TMO could have prevented this reaction
> by discussing the sanyama practice as a advance
> development through using "meaning" as a more subtle
> value than the beginning practice of "sound without
> meaning" and "learning to focus a deeper form of
> attention" rather than "only favoring the mantra".

Dunno, it wasn't explained exactly that way 
when I learned the TM-Sidhis, but it was
certainly made clear that the point of the
sutras was their meaning, the intention the
words expressed, rather than the sound value
per se. That distinction from the mantra was
emphasized. So it was never a problem for me.
(Easier to remember in English too.)

[FairfieldLife] Re: Independent TM Teachers?

2009-01-21 Thread bob_brigante

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, billy jim  wrote:
>
> " - or that the siddhi program doesn't use Sanskrit?"
> 

*

Siddhis instruction in India is in Sanskrit -- it's so close to Hindi 
that understanding is not a problem, evidently.

[FairfieldLife] Re: Independent TM Teachers?

2009-01-21 Thread billy jim

" - or that the siddhi program doesn't use Sanskrit?"

I'm wondering where people got the idea that the various sutras should be used 
only in a Sanskrit form? Although trained as a TM teacher, I took my sutra 
training at a citizen siddha course. After receiving a couple of the sutras, a 
few of the participants went spinning off on an arc. Some of them were outraged 
that they had spent $3000 to hear English words that they could have gotten 
from a book or maybe a friend.

I told them that I agreed about the cost (which should have been one-tenth the 
charge) but that after studying the Yoga Sutras for many years it made perfect 
sense to me that they would not be practiced in Sanskrit. The focus of the 
sutras was their meaning - a meaning which was by definition independent of 
their articulated sound value in any language. The TMO could have prevented 
this reaction by discussing the sanyama practice as a advance development 
through using "meaning" as a more subtle value than the beginning practice of 
"sound without meaning" and "learning to focus a deeper form of attention" 
rather than "only favoring the mantra".

However, Maharishi was always wary that people would exchange-out the innocence 
of the practice for an ineffectual discrimination.

Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Independent TM Teachers in the San Francisco Bay Area?

On Wed, Jan 21, 2009 at 9:10 PM, wayback71  wrote:

> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB  wrote:
> There were also many stories of people seeing these robed, older men
> walking around the
> room while puja was going on during initiations-of some saying they saw
> "the guy in the
> picture" (Guru Dev) in the room, of children claiming to see these types of
> things, and the
> person being initiated seeing the very beings the puja was specifically to
> invoke. I heard
> these stories second and third hand.  I never had this happen while I was
> initiating, altho
> there were a few times while doing the puja alone, when I suddenly found
> myself on my
> knees in front of the table and feeling great devotion to Guru Dev.
>

Maharishi followed the well known wisdom that only an 18 year old would jump
out of a perfectly good airplane.  If you want to start a movement, you
don't do it with a bunch of 30 somethings.  Do it with a bunch of flower
children.

Jane Hopson told a buddy of mine who worked for a year on the Houston
(Navasota, TX actually) forest academy that she could understand his having
a problem deciding whether or not to give up a year of his life to go from
LA to Navasota.  She said she knew the feeling, as she remembered when she
had this hit of really dynamite acid in one hand and her application for TTC
in the other, trying to decide...

Re: [FairfieldLife] Sacrifice

On Wed, Jan 21, 2009 at 8:49 PM, raunchydog  wrote:

> Digby 1/19/09
>
> Andrea Mitchell: "...It does go beyond rhetoric. He needs to engage
> the American people in this joint venture. That's part of the call.
> That's part of what he needs to accomplish in his speech and in the
> days following the speech. He needs to make people feel that this is
> their venture as well and that people are going to need to be more
> patient and have to contribute and that there will have to be some
> sacrifice..."
>
> Digby: "...Right. Old and sick people are going to have to give up
> something they "enjoy." That's assuming they "enjoy" being able to eat
> and go to a doctor. Of course, Andrea Mitchell won't have to give up
> what she "enjoys." She's a multi-millionaire.
>
> "It's hard for me to believe that we are going to have this
> conversation while the government is giving hundreds of billions of
> dollars to bankers who see it as a handout to be used to enrich their
> stockholders and themselves. And I am as stunned as I always am that
> we are going to have this conversation while the government insists
> that the United States must spend more on its military than all the
> other countries in the world combined.
>
> But I really can't believe that we are having this conversation when
> social security is well funded for decades and yet the current
> problems are staring us right in the face. I can only assume that
> Obama must feel that he has to solve every problem anyone can possibly
> conceive of in the future as well as the problems of the present and
> I'm sorry, that is the very definition of hubris. Social security is
> not an issue he needs to put on his already very full plate and I
> can't imagine why anyone thinks it is, unless they want to barter it
> away for cooperation on something else, which is unacceptable..." read
> more http://tinyurl.com/9wzbsm
>

One thing's for sure, the election is over.  Now it'll take longer to get us
out of the recession than to get us out of Iraq.  And the stimulus package
is now perhaps to prevent more jobs from being lost, not bring back the
millions that have already been lost.

Obama now sees revamping our nation's infrastructure as increasing broadband
access and making public buildings more energy efficient.  Yeah, that'll
help our roads and bridges from collapsing.

"Sacrifice" is mentioned.  I can see that this will be the new guilt trip
for this administration.  If you want to go with the program, then
sacrifice.   Why not just have everyone over 65 sacrifice by gathering
around the relatives, saying good by and asking that food and medicine no
longer be made available to them like Maharishi did?

Obama will save all our jobs and all our industry by turning each company,
one at a time, into biofuels, solar cell and windmill makers.  Yeah, that'll
work.  That's really heavy industry with high productivity that'll obviously
pay high wages.  Obama must know what high paying production jobs are all
about.  After all, his jobs consisted of community organizer, Constitutional
Law instructor, Civil Rights/Constitutional Law lawyer and short term
legislator.

Oh well, at least the failed hippies here are excited about him.  So excited
they are that the inauguration celebrations brought them back to the 60s for
a day.

[FairfieldLife] Re: Independent TM Teachers in the San Francisco Bay Area?

2009-01-21 Thread wayback71

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB  wrote:
>
> Edg, in my opinion the adherence to the "Gotta 
> do the puja" thang comes from many sources. One
> is the overall "Maharishisez" EQUALS "gotta"
> mindset that was drilled into us for so many
> years or decades.
> 
> Another is the fact that many teachers really
> *did* feel a "buzz" from doing puja. I never 
> felt much of one, but some did, and they assoc-
> iate that buzz with magical thinking and feel
> that something about *their* buzz helped give
> their initiates a buzz, too.
> 
> Yet another is the dogma about something magical
> being "transmitted" from the "holy tradition" 
> when one does puja. If you tend to believe this,
> you're pretty much going to placebo-effect your-
> self into having a buzz, even if one didn't 
> really happen.

There were also many stories of people seeing these robed, older men walking 
around the 
room while puja was going on during initiations-of some saying they saw "the 
guy in the 
picture" (Guru Dev) in the room, of children claiming to see these types of 
things, and the 
person being initiated seeing the very beings the puja was specifically to 
invoke. I heard 
these stories second and third hand.  I never had this happen while I was 
initiating, altho 
there were a few times while doing the puja alone, when I suddenly found myself 
on my 
knees in front of the table and feeling great devotion to Guru Dev.
> 
> But I think that the biggest obstacle to even
> *conceiving* of teaching TM without a puja is
> that MOST HAVE NEVER EXPERIENCED BEING
> TAUGHT MEDITATION TECHNIQUES THAT WAY.
> 
> I have. I've been taught TM techniques *with*
> a puja, and any number of other techniques 
> *without* a puja. Sometimes the "teaching
> process" was individual, sometimes it was in
> a big room with no more mystery surrounding
> it than the teacher saying, "Meditate on 
> this " to 500 people
> at a time. 
> 
> Having experienced both ways of teaching, and
> having *taught* meditation both ways, I honestly 
> don't feel that there is any appreciable dif-
> ference in terms of the "quality" of what the
> student learns and their resulting ability to
> meditate effectively.
> 
> But that's just me. I'm not heavily attached to
> dogma about this stuff, and I'm not attached in
> the least to "Maharishisez." That has the same
> relevance to my life as "BozoTheClownsez." 
> Others are going to feel differently about
> this depending on what *their* attachments are 
> to all of the points above, and I for one am not
> going to try to talk them out of those attach-
> ments.
> 
> What I *do* agree with is that to become widely
> popular today (as opposed to during the 70s), a
> technique is pretty much going to need to be
> taught in a secular fashion, free of rituals
> that most people would interpret as religious.
> That is why mindfulness is making so many inroads
> into society as a whole; you can teach it with
> no "trappings" whatsoever, and it's still the
> same practice.
> 
> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Duveyoung  wrote:
> >
> > "do.rflex" wrote:
> > > The training at TTC included clear, specific explanations by 
> > > Maharishi about what indeed takes place as the mantra is given - 
> > > which my own experience teaching has repeatedly confirmed.
> > 
> > So, are you equally comfortable the to give an
> > "official-as-decreed-by-MMY" second lecture in which you are required
> > to shuck and jive the folks about the mantra being selected for them
> > especially with ultra specificity and cosmic oogabooganess?  
> > 
> > Or will you tell them that "It's your age that determines the mantra,
> > we don't know where Maharishi got them for sure, we don't know why
> > they can be thought to be more life supporting than other Hindu
> > mantras, and that 90% of those who get these mantras quit the practice
> > withing a few months, or that the siddhi program doesn't use Sanskrit?"
> > 
> > It's one thing to create an aura of mystique such that the punters get
> > a good shove to interiority by a theatrical framing, but the taste of
> > it always kept coming back up on me like a tuna fish sandwich.  The
> > ends doesn't seem to justify the means; really now, are you espousing
> > that the TM teacher fool or skew or outrightly dis-educate people into
> > a holy program?  WTF?
> > 
> > Edg
> >
>

[FairfieldLife] Sacrifice

Digby 1/19/09

Andrea Mitchell: "...It does go beyond rhetoric. He needs to engage
the American people in this joint venture. That's part of the call.
That's part of what he needs to accomplish in his speech and in the
days following the speech. He needs to make people feel that this is
their venture as well and that people are going to need to be more
patient and have to contribute and that there will have to be some
sacrifice..."

Digby: "...Right. Old and sick people are going to have to give up
something they "enjoy." That's assuming they "enjoy" being able to eat
and go to a doctor. Of course, Andrea Mitchell won't have to give up
what she "enjoys." She's a multi-millionaire.

"It's hard for me to believe that we are going to have this
conversation while the government is giving hundreds of billions of
dollars to bankers who see it as a handout to be used to enrich their
stockholders and themselves. And I am as stunned as I always am that
we are going to have this conversation while the government insists
that the United States must spend more on its military than all the
other countries in the world combined.

But I really can't believe that we are having this conversation when
social security is well funded for decades and yet the current
problems are staring us right in the face. I can only assume that
Obama must feel that he has to solve every problem anyone can possibly
conceive of in the future as well as the problems of the present and
I'm sorry, that is the very definition of hubris. Social security is
not an issue he needs to put on his already very full plate and I
can't imagine why anyone thinks it is, unless they want to barter it
away for cooperation on something else, which is unacceptable..." read
more http://tinyurl.com/9wzbsm

[FairfieldLife] Re: Independent TM Teachers in the San Francisco Bay Area?

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "sparaig"  wrote:
>
> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Duveyoung  wrote:

> > So, are you equally comfortable the to give an
> > "official-as-decreed-by-MMY" second lecture in
> > which you are required to shuck and jive the
> > folks about the mantra being selected for them
> > especially with ultra specificity and cosmic
> > oogabooganess?  
> 
> I didn't get that from my teacher. I got "there are a
> limited number of mantras, and we choose one from that
> list based on criteria in your application form."

Same here. The method of choosing the mantra was
portrayed as completely objective, not involving
any kind of judgment call of the part of the teacher.

[FairfieldLife] Re: Independent TM Teachers in the San Francisco Bay Area?

2009-01-21 Thread sparaig

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Duveyoung  wrote:
>
> "do.rflex" wrote:
> > The training at TTC included clear, specific explanations by Maharishi
> > about what indeed takes place as the mantra is given - which my own
> > experience teaching has repeatedly confirmed.
> 
> So, are you equally comfortable the to give an
> "official-as-decreed-by-MMY" second lecture in which you are required
> to shuck and jive the folks about the mantra being selected for them
> especially with ultra specificity and cosmic oogabooganess?  
> 

I didn't get that from my teacher. I got "there are a limited number of mantras,
and we choose one from that list based on criteria in your application form."

> Or will you tell them that "It's your age that determines the mantra,
> we don't know where Maharishi got them for sure, we don't know why
> they can be thought to be more life supporting than other Hindu
> mantras, and that 90% of those who get these mantras quit the practice
> withing a few months, or that the siddhi program doesn't use Sanskrit?"
> 

And this answers questions about mantras how? Assuming there is anything
to the program, as MMY teaches it, then answers that go into so much detail
that they discourage people from learning simply because it sounds too simple
to be worth it, are counter-productive.

WHich is it: do you be honest to the point of obsession or do you give an 
honest,
albeit limited, answer that encourages them to participate, on the assumption
that they can use the technique, even though the core of it can be imparted (to 
someone somewhere, perhaps) by the single sentence:

 think a thought but don't try.

> It's one thing to create an aura of mystique such that the punters get
> a good shove to interiority by a theatrical framing, but the taste of
> it always kept coming back up on me like a tuna fish sandwich.  The
> ends doesn't seem to justify the means; really now, are you espousing
> that the TM teacher fool or skew or outrightly dis-educate people into
> a holy program?  WTF?
> 
> Edg
>

Are you required to get dunked in water to become a Christian? WHy do some 
sects insist on this? Why insist on people confessing their sins to a priest 
when
in fact, there's no religious justification for it in the bible? Why give pep 
talks to
a football team? etc...

Lots of pragmatic issues stand behind rituals of all kinds, even if you're not
willing to acknowledge them...

Lawson

[FairfieldLife] 'Quiet Time' in the Classroom

David Lynch Foundation

http://www.stressfreesummit.org/video/

[FairfieldLife] received reply from Jerry J. (re: Edg.)

2009-01-21 Thread yifuxero

received e mail reply from Jerry Jarvis; in regard to the challenge 
posed by Edg that I forward his (Edg's) statements/opinions to Jerry.

He says you (Edg) are welcome to talk to him personally about topics 
and insinuations as stated previously (basically in regard to what you 
feel was Jerry's "silence" after the MUM people took over).

To Edg. only...e mail me and I'll give you Jerry's telephone number 
(since he is offering it to you).

[FairfieldLife] Re: Independent TM Teachers in the San Francisco Bay Area?

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Rick Archer"  wrote:
>
> From a friend:
> 
> A friend of mine is very interested in learning TM, though he 
>cannot 
> afford the current fee of $2500. Does anyone know of an independent 
>TM 
> teacher who can provide instruction for less, in the San Francisco 
>Bay 
> Area? 

Well, yes but it is not 'TM' of course because it is not taught 
through the TM organization.  

try:

http://www.thequietpath.org/


or google quiet path meditation

[FairfieldLife] PK Treatments in India preferred by my European friends

I've gotten some preliminary information back, more details to follow.
Amma's ashram in Kerela is highly regarded and costs $3 a day for room and
board and $3 a day for PK.  Delhi used to be the place to go for PK, cost
€90 a day (all inclusive rate), but now Hyderabad is preferred, cost is €70
(all inclusive rate).

Please stand by for directions and contact information.

[FairfieldLife] Post Count

2009-01-21 Thread FFL PostCount

Fairfield Life Post Counter
===
Start Date (UTC): Sat Jan 17 00:00:00 2009
End Date (UTC): Sat Jan 24 00:00:00 2009
506 messages as of (UTC) Wed Jan 21 23:53:25 2009

42 TurquoiseB 
34 I am the eternal 
33 authfriend 
30 Bhairitu 
26 shempmcgurk 
26 Arhata Osho 
23 off_world_beings 
21 "do.rflex" 
20 Duveyoung 
17 Vaj 
16 cardemaister 
15 raunchydog 
15 curtisdeltablues 
13 "Richard J. Williams" 
12 nablusoss1008 
12 dhamiltony2k5 
11 Sal Sunshine 
 9 Peter 
 9 John 
 8 mainstream20016 
 8 Rick Archer 
 7 Nelson 
 6 sparaig 
 6 arhatafreespe...@yahoo.com
 6 Richard M 
 5 yifuxero 
 5 bob_brigante 
 5 Hugo 
 5 "grate.swan" 
 5 "BillyG." 
 4 satvadude108 
 4 gullible fool 
 4 geezerfreak 
 4 Dick Mays 
 4 Alex Stanley 
 3 Richard Williams 
 3 Paul Mason 
 3 Patrick Gillam 
 2 wayback71 
 2 pranamoocher 
 2 Yifu Xero 
 2 wle...@aol.com
 2 Jack Smith 
 2 David Fiske 
 2 "min.pige" 
 2 "Dr. Natan Ophir" 
 1 wvosteen 
 1 ruthsimplicity 
 1 michael 
 1 metoostill 
 1 lurkernomore20002000 
 1 johnbloggs1080 
 1 honey108bee 
 1 guyfawkes91 
 1 boo_lives 
 1 amarnath 
 1 Marek Reavis 

Posters: 57
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Europe Saturday: BST 1 AM CEST 2 AM EEST 3 AM
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Europe Saturday: GMT 12 AM CET 1 AM EET 2 AM
For more information on Time Zones: www.worldtimezone.com

[FairfieldLife] Re: Is it just me?

2009-01-21 Thread Nelson

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "boo_lives"  wrote:
>
> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Nelson" 
> wrote:
> >
> > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Duveyoung  wrote:
> > >
> > > What's wrong with hope?
> > > 
> > > After eight years, nay, three decades of shuck and jive presidents,
> > > along comes one who truly offers a different approach, and yet
> > > naysayers are panicking and tarring our new guy with a broad brush
> > > before he's even done with his first day in office.
> > > 
> > > What's wrong with hoping for a few days, a few weeks, a few months
> > > that this guy can bootstrap us all into a higher intent?
> > > 
> > > All these years, and now we have these folks with buckets of cold
> > > water to toss on our flames of passion.  WTF?
> > > 
> > > If this were a foxhole, and someone started spewing this kind of
> > > negativity, he'd be slapped upside the head, right?  
> > > 
> > > Indulge in panic all you want out there, but I'm taking a few
days off
> > > from this and partying down.
> > > 
> > > Even if I'm wrong, I'll get a nice buzz out of the deal while those
> > > cringing at the other side of the foxhole will be miserable during
> > > that time.  I ask you, who more profits?  
> > > 
> > > Me sez me does.
> > > 
> > > Give the guy a break.  All signs still point to him holding the
reins
> > > firmly, and he's going to kick the ass of anyone under him who
doesn't
> > > get his vision.  I predict someone is going to get into it with
Obama
> > > and be tossed out in short order.
> > > 
> > > Edg
> > > 
> > snip
> >   One site I read pointed out that shortly, Obama will be gone.
> 
> What does that mean?
>
 Political problems were the issue.

[FairfieldLife] Doubt

Here's a spiritual exercise for you.

You all know the actress Meryl Steep. You know her 
from her many roles, and the skill she has exhibited 
in them. Most of those roles have been sympathetic,
people you can empathize with and love.

Now imagine her as horror incarnate, the incarnation
of all the qualities you most detest in a spiritual 
context. That horror is the lynchpin of John Patrick 
Shanley's "Doubt." Nurse Ratched in "One Flew Over
The Cuckoo's Nest" was a lightweight by comparison.

You have met her before. See the movie, and you'll
figure out where. It may be a different "where"
for each of you, or it may be the same "where."
But if you've paid your dues in any spiritual 
organization, you've met her. 

Philip Seymour Hoffman and Amy Adams are both out-
standing in this film, but it's Meryl Streep's
Sister Beauvier you will remember. And in the end,
in spite of her horrific, shriveled, black heart, 
she'll help you understand what drives such a person, 
and allow you to feel compassion even for her. And
if that ain't the essence of a spiritual film, I 
don't know what is.

[FairfieldLife] Re: Independent TM Teachers in the San Francisco Bay Area?

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Duveyoung  wrote:
>
> Instruct me then:
> 
> How would you answer the below questions from a first lecture audience:
> 
> "Hi!  My brother's an initiator and so I have an insider's viewpoint
> that has led me to ask these questions:



I'd likely have stopped you before you made your full interrogatory
and said something like "that's great your brother is a TM teacher and
can answer those questions he's apparently already discussed with you.
For now we will be..." and then describe and proceed with the program
as outlined.

A question like that would kind of be an obvious red flag that it has
come from someone insincere who may simply wish to disrupt the
instruction for others or to intentionally create controversy. A good
teacher can skillfully handle situations like that.




> Where did these mantras come from?  Who invented them?  How are they
> used and why?  Did Maharishi invent them or take them from some
> tradition he's a part of?  Why do some folks get different mantras
> from different initiators? Why do some initiators only have two
> mantras to give out and other have 16?  How can I get the right
mantra> from you for certain since I could have gone to another
initiator with> a differing set of mantras?  The other initiator might
have the mantra> you're going to give me but he's giving them out
differently -- how do> you explain this?"
> 
> I'm betting you don't bother to answer each of the above questions
and> will try to smarm your way around this challenge.
> 
> Eyes are upon you dude.
> 
> Yes, I lied for Guru Dev, and everybody knew it, and everybody did
it,> and you did too if you followed the marketing training I got.  I
gave> my lectures to well over 10,000 people, got 20% of them to
meditate,> and all during that time, not one other initiator came up
to me after> a lecture and said shame on me.  




If you had any personal integrity to begin with you wouldn't have done
it. That's a big reason I left the TMO. I refused to teach that way
and I couldn't tolerate the huge number of creeps like you who had
such little personal integrity and respect for what they were teaching
that they -did- teach that way.





> Fess up or claim a moral superiority that we know not of.  
> 
> Edg
> 
> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "do.rflex"  wrote:
> >
> > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Duveyoung  wrote:
> > >
> > > Not sure you answered me, cuz, I want to know if you, as I did,
> > > outrightly lied about the mantras utilizing a variety of diversions,
> > > subtrafuges, misdirections, spinnings, and lies.
> > 
> > 
> > No. I didn't. And I think it's shameful that you did.
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > > 
> > > I assured my audiences that these mantras were known for their
> > > life-supporting effects and had been refined throughout the ages
with
> > > an exacting specificity, such that, no one should take another
mantra
> > > for fear it might be URP WHO KNOWS SHUDDER BE BAD FOR YOU!  I never
> > > would have answered anyone truthfully if they'd had the smarts
to ask
> > > the questions they never knew to ask about the fact that the mantras
> > > are selected solely due to the initiate's age and nothing else.
I was
> > > told not to if they did and given ways to please the questioner
> > > without answering the question.   Why?  Because then the whole "we
> > > select a mantra fitted for you" would be exposed as a falsity, and
> > > that the TM teacher was nothing more than a follower of a simple
rule
> > > instead of being some hotshot expert in mantras as the audience was
> > > led to suppose.
> > > 
> > > I would never have suspected that Maharishi's mantras were but
> > > recently designated -- not a handed-down part of the TM
traditions --
> > > when I first started TM, and it was quite a while after I became
a TM
> > > teacher that it slowly dawned on me that I was misrepresenting the
> > > truth when I lectured in order to mask the TMO's Achilles Heel.
> > > 
> > > It seems you are comfortable with the above and have a
rationalization
> > > for such actionsor, you are still believing the lies yourself. 
> > > Er, do you think Guru Dev gave the mantras to MMY, say, in a
dream or
> > > something, wh?  
> > > 
> > > Edg
> > > 
> > > 
> > > 
> > > 
> > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "do.rflex"  wrote:
> > > >
> > > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Duveyoung  wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > Okay, I'll play along with your "game" once more.
> > > > > 
> > > > > Do you give full knowledge about the mantras when you give a
> second
> > > > > lecture?
> > > > 
> > > > 
> > > > That's better.
> > > > 
> > > > I haven't initiated for a long time, but when I did, I'd answer
> > > > questions openly if they came up. Getting the practice right
and the
> > > > initiate comfortable with doing it properly is the aim.
Keeping the
> > > > whole thing as simple and uncluttered as possible is part of
that. 
> > > > But I always openly answered questions i

[FairfieldLife] Samurai Obama

Scroll down:

http://gamu-toys.info/sonota/sw/obama/obama.html


(Site is slow to load, but worth the wait.)

H/t Andrew Leonard of Salon

[FairfieldLife] Re: Independent TM Teachers in the San Francisco Bay Area?

Instruct me then:

How would you answer the below questions from a first lecture audience:

"Hi!  My brother's an initiator and so I have an insider's viewpoint
that has led me to ask these questions:

Where did these mantras come from?  Who invented them?  How are they
used and why?  Did Maharishi invent them or take them from some
tradition he's a part of?  Why do some folks get different mantras
from different initiators? Why do some initiators only have two
mantras to give out and other have 16?  How can I get the right mantra
from you for certain since I could have gone to another initiator with
a differing set of mantras?  The other initiator might have the mantra
you're going to give me but he's giving them out differently -- how do
you explain this?"

I'm betting you don't bother to answer each of the above questions and
will try to smarm your way around this challenge.

Eyes are upon you dude.

Yes, I lied for Guru Dev, and everybody knew it, and everybody did it,
and you did too if you followed the marketing training I got.  I gave
my lectures to well over 10,000 people, got 20% of them to meditate,
and all during that time, not one other initiator came up to me after
a lecture and said shame on me.  

Fess up or claim a moral superiority that we know not of.  

Edg

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "do.rflex"  wrote:
>
> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Duveyoung  wrote:
> >
> > Not sure you answered me, cuz, I want to know if you, as I did,
> > outrightly lied about the mantras utilizing a variety of diversions,
> > subtrafuges, misdirections, spinnings, and lies.
> 
> 
> No. I didn't. And I think it's shameful that you did.
> 
> 
> 
> > 
> > I assured my audiences that these mantras were known for their
> > life-supporting effects and had been refined throughout the ages with
> > an exacting specificity, such that, no one should take another mantra
> > for fear it might be URP WHO KNOWS SHUDDER BE BAD FOR YOU!  I never
> > would have answered anyone truthfully if they'd had the smarts to ask
> > the questions they never knew to ask about the fact that the mantras
> > are selected solely due to the initiate's age and nothing else. I was
> > told not to if they did and given ways to please the questioner
> > without answering the question.   Why?  Because then the whole "we
> > select a mantra fitted for you" would be exposed as a falsity, and
> > that the TM teacher was nothing more than a follower of a simple rule
> > instead of being some hotshot expert in mantras as the audience was
> > led to suppose.
> > 
> > I would never have suspected that Maharishi's mantras were but
> > recently designated -- not a handed-down part of the TM traditions --
> > when I first started TM, and it was quite a while after I became a TM
> > teacher that it slowly dawned on me that I was misrepresenting the
> > truth when I lectured in order to mask the TMO's Achilles Heel.
> > 
> > It seems you are comfortable with the above and have a rationalization
> > for such actionsor, you are still believing the lies yourself. 
> > Er, do you think Guru Dev gave the mantras to MMY, say, in a dream or
> > something, wh?  
> > 
> > Edg
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "do.rflex"  wrote:
> > >
> > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Duveyoung  wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Okay, I'll play along with your "game" once more.
> > > > 
> > > > Do you give full knowledge about the mantras when you give a
second
> > > > lecture?
> > > 
> > > 
> > > That's better.
> > > 
> > > I haven't initiated for a long time, but when I did, I'd answer
> > > questions openly if they came up. Getting the practice right and the
> > > initiate comfortable with doing it properly is the aim. Keeping the
> > > whole thing as simple and uncluttered as possible is part of that. 
> > > But I always openly answered questions if they arose. I never
saw any
> > > reason not to.
> > > 
> > > 
> > > 
> > > > 
> > > > Edg
> > > > 
> > > > 
> > > > -- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "do.rflex"  wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Duveyoung 
wrote:
> > > > > >
> > > > > > "do.rflex" wrote:
> > > > > > > The training at TTC included clear, specific explanations by
> > > > Maharishi
> > > > > > > about what indeed takes place as the mantra is given - which
> > > my own
> > > > > > > experience teaching has repeatedly confirmed.
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > So, are you equally comfortable the to give an
> > > > > > "official-as-decreed-by-MMY" second lecture in which you are
> > > required
> > > > > > to shuck and jive the folks about the mantra being selected
> > for them
> > > > > > especially with ultra specificity and cosmic oogabooganess?  
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > Or will you tell them that "It's your age that determines the
> > > mantra,
> > > > > > we don't know where Maharishi got them for sure, we don't
> know why
> > > > > > they can be thought to be more life supporting than other

[FairfieldLife] Re: Independent TM Teachers in the San Francisco Bay Area?

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Duveyoung  wrote:
>
> Not sure you answered me, cuz, I want to know if you, as I did,
> outrightly lied about the mantras utilizing a variety of diversions,
> subtrafuges, misdirections, spinnings, and lies.


No. I didn't. And I think it's shameful that you did.



> 
> I assured my audiences that these mantras were known for their
> life-supporting effects and had been refined throughout the ages with
> an exacting specificity, such that, no one should take another mantra
> for fear it might be URP WHO KNOWS SHUDDER BE BAD FOR YOU!  I never
> would have answered anyone truthfully if they'd had the smarts to ask
> the questions they never knew to ask about the fact that the mantras
> are selected solely due to the initiate's age and nothing else. I was
> told not to if they did and given ways to please the questioner
> without answering the question.   Why?  Because then the whole "we
> select a mantra fitted for you" would be exposed as a falsity, and
> that the TM teacher was nothing more than a follower of a simple rule
> instead of being some hotshot expert in mantras as the audience was
> led to suppose.
> 
> I would never have suspected that Maharishi's mantras were but
> recently designated -- not a handed-down part of the TM traditions --
> when I first started TM, and it was quite a while after I became a TM
> teacher that it slowly dawned on me that I was misrepresenting the
> truth when I lectured in order to mask the TMO's Achilles Heel.
> 
> It seems you are comfortable with the above and have a rationalization
> for such actionsor, you are still believing the lies yourself. 
> Er, do you think Guru Dev gave the mantras to MMY, say, in a dream or
> something, wh?  
> 
> Edg
> 
> 
> 
> 
> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "do.rflex"  wrote:
> >
> > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Duveyoung  wrote:
> > >
> > > Okay, I'll play along with your "game" once more.
> > > 
> > > Do you give full knowledge about the mantras when you give a second
> > > lecture?
> > 
> > 
> > That's better.
> > 
> > I haven't initiated for a long time, but when I did, I'd answer
> > questions openly if they came up. Getting the practice right and the
> > initiate comfortable with doing it properly is the aim. Keeping the
> > whole thing as simple and uncluttered as possible is part of that. 
> > But I always openly answered questions if they arose. I never saw any
> > reason not to.
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > > 
> > > Edg
> > > 
> > > 
> > > -- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "do.rflex"  wrote:
> > > >
> > > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Duveyoung  wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > "do.rflex" wrote:
> > > > > > The training at TTC included clear, specific explanations by
> > > Maharishi
> > > > > > about what indeed takes place as the mantra is given - which
> > my own
> > > > > > experience teaching has repeatedly confirmed.
> > > > > 
> > > > > So, are you equally comfortable the to give an
> > > > > "official-as-decreed-by-MMY" second lecture in which you are
> > required
> > > > > to shuck and jive the folks about the mantra being selected
> for them
> > > > > especially with ultra specificity and cosmic oogabooganess?  
> > > > > 
> > > > > Or will you tell them that "It's your age that determines the
> > mantra,
> > > > > we don't know where Maharishi got them for sure, we don't
know why
> > > > > they can be thought to be more life supporting than other Hindu
> > > > > mantras, and that 90% of those who get these mantras quit the
> > practice
> > > > > withing a few months, or that the siddhi program doesn't use
> > > Sanskrit?"
> > > > > 
> > > > > It's one thing to create an aura of mystique such that the
> > punters get
> > > > > a good shove to interiority by a theatrical framing, but the
> > taste of
> > > > > it always kept coming back up on me like a tuna fish sandwich.
>  The
> > > > > ends doesn't seem to justify the means; really now, are you
> > espousing
> > > > > that the TM teacher fool or skew or outrightly dis-educate
> > people into
> > > > > a holy program?  WTF?
> > > > > 
> > > > > Edg
> > > > 
> > > > 
> > > > 
> > > > Maybe you can unscramble your brains and ask a coherent
question. Or
> > > > maybe you can't.
> > > >
> > >
> >
>

Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Get Lost tonight

That's what DVRs are for.  I can watch CSI OnDemand anyway so don't need 
to record it.   The Comcast DVR has two tuners (which most DVRs have 
these days) plus I have an HDHomeRun box on my network with two digital 
tuners so I can record shows to any computer on the network and play 
them back on the computer or on my networked DVD player which plays HD 
material in HD on my 53" set.   I also have a tuner card on a Windows 
desktop to record shows as well as a KWorld PlusTV USB stick that can do 
that to even on a laptop.  Ain't technology wonderful!  ;-)

yifuxero wrote:
> OK, but Criminal Minds is on tonight at 9 PM, followed by CSI NY.  
> And tomorrow the first episode without Grissom, the character now 
> played by Larry Fishburne.---

[FairfieldLife] Re: Independent TM Teachers in the San Francisco Bay Area?

Not sure you answered me, cuz, I want to know if you, as I did,
outrightly lied about the mantras utilizing a variety of diversions,
subtrafuges, misdirections, spinnings, and lies.

I assured my audiences that these mantras were known for their
life-supporting effects and had been refined throughout the ages with
an exacting specificity, such that, no one should take another mantra
for fear it might be URP WHO KNOWS SHUDDER BE BAD FOR YOU!  I never
would have answered anyone truthfully if they'd had the smarts to ask
the questions they never knew to ask about the fact that the mantras
are selected solely due to the initiate's age and nothing else. I was
told not to if they did and given ways to please the questioner
without answering the question.   Why?  Because then the whole "we
select a mantra fitted for you" would be exposed as a falsity, and
that the TM teacher was nothing more than a follower of a simple rule
instead of being some hotshot expert in mantras as the audience was
led to suppose.

I would never have suspected that Maharishi's mantras were but
recently designated -- not a handed-down part of the TM traditions --
when I first started TM, and it was quite a while after I became a TM
teacher that it slowly dawned on me that I was misrepresenting the
truth when I lectured in order to mask the TMO's Achilles Heel.

It seems you are comfortable with the above and have a rationalization
for such actionsor, you are still believing the lies yourself. 
Er, do you think Guru Dev gave the mantras to MMY, say, in a dream or
something, wh?  

Edg

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "do.rflex"  wrote:
>
> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Duveyoung  wrote:
> >
> > Okay, I'll play along with your "game" once more.
> > 
> > Do you give full knowledge about the mantras when you give a second
> > lecture?
> 
> 
> That's better.
> 
> I haven't initiated for a long time, but when I did, I'd answer
> questions openly if they came up. Getting the practice right and the
> initiate comfortable with doing it properly is the aim. Keeping the
> whole thing as simple and uncluttered as possible is part of that. 
> But I always openly answered questions if they arose. I never saw any
> reason not to.
> 
> 
> 
> > 
> > Edg
> > 
> > 
> > -- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "do.rflex"  wrote:
> > >
> > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Duveyoung  wrote:
> > > >
> > > > "do.rflex" wrote:
> > > > > The training at TTC included clear, specific explanations by
> > Maharishi
> > > > > about what indeed takes place as the mantra is given - which
> my own
> > > > > experience teaching has repeatedly confirmed.
> > > > 
> > > > So, are you equally comfortable the to give an
> > > > "official-as-decreed-by-MMY" second lecture in which you are
> required
> > > > to shuck and jive the folks about the mantra being selected
for them
> > > > especially with ultra specificity and cosmic oogabooganess?  
> > > > 
> > > > Or will you tell them that "It's your age that determines the
> mantra,
> > > > we don't know where Maharishi got them for sure, we don't know why
> > > > they can be thought to be more life supporting than other Hindu
> > > > mantras, and that 90% of those who get these mantras quit the
> practice
> > > > withing a few months, or that the siddhi program doesn't use
> > Sanskrit?"
> > > > 
> > > > It's one thing to create an aura of mystique such that the
> punters get
> > > > a good shove to interiority by a theatrical framing, but the
> taste of
> > > > it always kept coming back up on me like a tuna fish sandwich.
 The
> > > > ends doesn't seem to justify the means; really now, are you
> espousing
> > > > that the TM teacher fool or skew or outrightly dis-educate
> people into
> > > > a holy program?  WTF?
> > > > 
> > > > Edg
> > > 
> > > 
> > > 
> > > Maybe you can unscramble your brains and ask a coherent question. Or
> > > maybe you can't.
> > >
> >
>

[FairfieldLife] Re: Secular Meditation and Consciousness-based Education

2009-01-21 Thread wvosteen

One secular, simple, effective, inexpensive method that is 
scientifically varified is from Heartmath (heartmath.com). They sell 
a simple biofeedback, heart monitor that signals when your heart 
rythms are in entrainment called the Emwave. http://www.emwave.com/

With minimal coaching, one can easily become masters of their 
emotions. They are quite successful in marketing this.

My take is they are teaching bhakti yoga without any religious or 
spiritual trappings. 

Bill
   
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "dhamiltony2k5" 
 wrote:
>
> > 
> > On Jan 20, 2009, at 10:24 PM, grate.swan wrote:
> > 
> > > At some point some very secular, simple, effective, inexpensive 
> method
> > > will emerge. With a good narrative. And that does have a marked 
> >effect
> > > on learning, retention, creativity, synthesis of ideas, etc. 
> >Within 10
> > > years it could have 80% saturation. It will happen -- exactly 
> >when and
> > > how long it will take are indeterminant.
> > 
> >
> 
> Thoughtful swan,  & that kind of narative might probably come from 
a 
> physicist type scientist; not the TMorg, or a buddhist or catholic 
> monk.  All those others come along with a lot of baggage for folks 
to 
> carry very far.
> 
> Yeah, is coming a time to also let the institutional defending of 
> buisness trademarks & patents go public and just let it go on as 
one 
> of the 'quiet time' meditation that might be useful.  
> 
> Folks will do it based on their own experience with it.
> 
>   
> 
>  --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Vaj  wrote:
> >
> 
> > Non-sectarian forms of meditation are taking off and of course  
> > they're free. Since they're less encumbered by Hinduism or any  
> > particular religion, the chances are they may be the future of 
> >school  
> > based meditation, esp. since good, solid research backs them up.
> > 
> > I too did TM throughout college and I'd have to say it's primary  
> > benefit was 20 min. of rest, two times a day. In other words, it 
> >was  
> > insignificantly different from just taking a scheduled nap, 2x  
a  
> > day. Nice, but hardly earth-shattering.
> >
>

[FairfieldLife] Re: Independent TM Teachers in the San Francisco Bay Area?

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Duveyoung  wrote:
>
> Okay, I'll play along with your "game" once more.
> 
> Do you give full knowledge about the mantras when you give a second
> lecture?


That's better.

I haven't initiated for a long time, but when I did, I'd answer
questions openly if they came up. Getting the practice right and the
initiate comfortable with doing it properly is the aim. Keeping the
whole thing as simple and uncluttered as possible is part of that. 
But I always openly answered questions if they arose. I never saw any
reason not to.



> 
> Edg
> 
> 
> -- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "do.rflex"  wrote:
> >
> > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Duveyoung  wrote:
> > >
> > > "do.rflex" wrote:
> > > > The training at TTC included clear, specific explanations by
> Maharishi
> > > > about what indeed takes place as the mantra is given - which
my own
> > > > experience teaching has repeatedly confirmed.
> > > 
> > > So, are you equally comfortable the to give an
> > > "official-as-decreed-by-MMY" second lecture in which you are
required
> > > to shuck and jive the folks about the mantra being selected for them
> > > especially with ultra specificity and cosmic oogabooganess?  
> > > 
> > > Or will you tell them that "It's your age that determines the
mantra,
> > > we don't know where Maharishi got them for sure, we don't know why
> > > they can be thought to be more life supporting than other Hindu
> > > mantras, and that 90% of those who get these mantras quit the
practice
> > > withing a few months, or that the siddhi program doesn't use
> Sanskrit?"
> > > 
> > > It's one thing to create an aura of mystique such that the
punters get
> > > a good shove to interiority by a theatrical framing, but the
taste of
> > > it always kept coming back up on me like a tuna fish sandwich.  The
> > > ends doesn't seem to justify the means; really now, are you
espousing
> > > that the TM teacher fool or skew or outrightly dis-educate
people into
> > > a holy program?  WTF?
> > > 
> > > Edg
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > Maybe you can unscramble your brains and ask a coherent question. Or
> > maybe you can't.
> >
>

[FairfieldLife] Re: Get Lost tonight

2009-01-21 Thread yifuxero

OK, but Criminal Minds is on tonight at 9 PM, followed by CSI NY.  
And tomorrow the first episode without Grissom, the character now 
played by Larry Fishburne.---

 In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bhairitu  wrote:
>
> Just a heads up that the new season of Lost on ABC starts tonight.  
I 
> know there are a number of fans here.
> 
> Also the second half of Fringe's season on Fox started last night 
and I 
> thought that episode was quite good.  Fringe is also another J.J. 
Abrams 
> creation.
> 
> The final episodes of Battlestar Gallactica began last Friday on 
> Sci-fi.   I also picked up the BSG season 1 HD-DVD at Fry's for $15 
> thought it was $10 a couple days later.  There are no Blu-Ray 
versions 
> of the BSG seasons yet though there are DVDs.  The commentaries 
were 
> very interesting and a deep insight on what goes into creating a TV 
> series by seasoned veterans of the genre.  Though they had some 
overview 
> of where they wanted to go much of it changed and was made up as 
they went.
> 
> I also picked up the Heroes season one HD-DVD at Fry's for $10 the 
> other.  I am looking forward to listening to the commentaries for 
it.
> 
> For you Bruce Campbell fans "Burn Notice" starts the second half of 
its 
> second season this Thursday on USA.
> 
> I watched "Max Payne" last night on Blu-Ray and thought it was so-
so 
> which was also what the critics thought.  I also have "Henry Poole 
is 
> Here" to watch on DVD.  Gonna be a busy week.  I have an episode of 
> Damages to catch up with as the OnDemand function on my DVR blew up 
last 
> week after a power outage (probably a spike).  Funny everything but 
> OnDemand worked but the tech and I figured out it got fried somehow 
and 
> that I should take it to the Comcast store and exchange it which I 
did 
> yesterday.  That might be one good point about renting their box 
over 
> owning an HD TiVo (which I don't think you can get OnDemand with 
anyway 
> but I may be wrong as the Cablecard may implement it).  The DVR was 
on a 
> surge protector and actually off (on standby) at the time.  I think 
the 
> same spike blew the UPS on this machine as I have had to replace it 
too.
>

[FairfieldLife] Get Lost tonight

Just a heads up that the new season of Lost on ABC starts tonight.  I 
know there are a number of fans here.

Also the second half of Fringe's season on Fox started last night and I 
thought that episode was quite good.  Fringe is also another J.J. Abrams 
creation.

The final episodes of Battlestar Gallactica began last Friday on 
Sci-fi.   I also picked up the BSG season 1 HD-DVD at Fry's for $15 
thought it was $10 a couple days later.  There are no Blu-Ray versions 
of the BSG seasons yet though there are DVDs.  The commentaries were 
very interesting and a deep insight on what goes into creating a TV 
series by seasoned veterans of the genre.  Though they had some overview 
of where they wanted to go much of it changed and was made up as they went.

I also picked up the Heroes season one HD-DVD at Fry's for $10 the 
other.  I am looking forward to listening to the commentaries for it.

For you Bruce Campbell fans "Burn Notice" starts the second half of its 
second season this Thursday on USA.

I watched "Max Payne" last night on Blu-Ray and thought it was so-so 
which was also what the critics thought.  I also have "Henry Poole is 
Here" to watch on DVD.  Gonna be a busy week.  I have an episode of 
Damages to catch up with as the OnDemand function on my DVR blew up last 
week after a power outage (probably a spike).  Funny everything but 
OnDemand worked but the tech and I figured out it got fried somehow and 
that I should take it to the Comcast store and exchange it which I did 
yesterday.  That might be one good point about renting their box over 
owning an HD TiVo (which I don't think you can get OnDemand with anyway 
but I may be wrong as the Cablecard may implement it).  The DVR was on a 
surge protector and actually off (on standby) at the time.  I think the 
same spike blew the UPS on this machine as I have had to replace it too.

[FairfieldLife] Re: Tom Barlow Sweepstakes

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Sal Sunshine  
wrote:
>
> On Jan 21, 2009, at 12:30 AM, shempmcgurk wrote:
> > A Google Image search of "Tom Barlow" brings up the following 
mugs.
> >
> Will the real Tom Barlow...?
> > Choose the FairfieldLife Tom Barlow and you can win an all-
expenses  
> > paid trip for two to Swanton, Vermont:
> >
> Second prize is 2 trips...
> Sal
>

Actually, Swanton is quite nice.

It's on Lake Champlain as well as the border of Quebec.  Lots of 
Quebecers have summer homes there and spend the weekends at the 
beach, something I've done over the years.

[FairfieldLife] Re: Sanskrit translator wanted

2009-01-21 Thread cardemaister

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bhairitu  wrote:
>
> authfriend wrote:
> > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB  wrote:
> > 
> >   
> >> As for the website Bhairitu pointed to, all that
> >> you have to do to see its True Believer nature
> >> is to do a mental "search and replace" on the
> >> text in it and replace every mention of "Sanskrit"
> >> with "Hebrew." Then you'll see what the site is
> >> really about. 
> >>
> >> It's attempting to present a case for learning
> >> Sanskrit based on its supposedly spiritual nature,
> >> and its supposed status as the "mother of all
> >> languages."
> >> 
> >
> > But if you read the Briggs article at the URL I
> > posted in response to Bhairitu, you won't see any of
> > that; it's purely technical. Although the site itself
> > is pro-Sanskrit, they've reproduced the original
> > piece without commentary:
> >
> > http://www.gosai.com/science/sanskrit-nasa.html
> >
> >   
> >> The only relevant
> >> piece of information in this context is whether
> >> it is an *unambiguous* language. Given a sentence
> >> in Sanskrit, can that sentence be parsed one and
> >> only one way?
> >>
> >> Everything I've ever heard is that the answer to
> >> that question is a definitive "No." And that
> >> unambiguous answer rules out Sanskrit as the
> >> basis of an experiment in machine translation
> >> that is based on the notion of that base lang-
> >> uage being unambiguous.
> >> 
> >
> > I've now looked at the article a little more
> > closely, and while I don't have the chops to
> > understand it, it does seem clear that the issue
> > of ambiguity has several different elements,
> > depending on what aspect of a language you're
> > looking at. What I can't tell is whether the
> > kind of ambiguity Barry believes characterizes
> > Sanskrit is the same kind of ambiguity Briggs
> > claims is avoided in Sanskrit.
> >
> > It does seem clear that to rule out Sanskrit on
> > the basis of ambiguity, such that it cannot serve
> > as an artificial language in the manner Briggs
> > proposes, one would have to *read the article*
> > and understand the nature of the case he's making,
> > and then refute it on the same level. I strongly
> > suspect that what Barry's saying has nothing to do
> > with the case Briggs makes.
> >
> > A big part of the reason for apparent ambiguity of
> > a Sanskrit sentence may have to do with 
> > insufficient expertise in Sanskrit grammar. A
> > non-native speaker of English without much
> > knowledge of English grammar might be completely
> > flummoxed as to how to interpret "Time flies like
> > an arrow, fruit flies like a banana," the sentence
> > Barry cited. And Sanskrit is *vastly* more complex
> > grammatically than English.
> >
> > There may be clues, in other words, encoded in a
> > Sanskrit sentence that someone not steeped in the
> > grammatical details would miss, and thus think the
> > sentence could be parsed more than one way, when in
> > fact the clues point to one and only one way.
> >
> > It's also possible, it seems to me, that the content
> > of Sanskrit sentences makes a difference--that a
> > sentence describing the nature of Purusha, for
> > example, may have ambiguities and/or multiple levels
> > of meaning that a sentence describing an everyday
> > situation may not.
> Sanskrit has many more tenses than languages like English or even 
> Hindi.  It was about at the level where I was studying the 9th level 
> tense that I sort of lost interest and someone with expertise in the 
> language suggested I didn't need to worry to much about that as the 
> sutras and stotras were actually simple poetry and didn't use much of 
> the higher level elements of the language.  A few years back I also got 
> into a chat about this card and another guy, who had a lot of Sanskrit 
> expertise on alt.meditation.transcendental about the levels of
tenses in 
> Sanskrit.
> 
> Obviously implementing a translation engine is quite complex and the 
> articles point out only one approach that might be used not "the 
> approach."  In fact the first word I used in my first post on the 
> subject was "supposedly" which qualifies everything that followed as
not 
> necessarily an implemented approach but one that has been mentioned.  
> Companies could be very sworn to secrecy and may indeed have a lexicon 
> system based on Sanskrit for all we know (and maybe never know).
>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P%C4%81%E1%B9%87ini

The Ashtadhyayi is one of the earliest known grammars of Sanskrit,
although he refers to previous texts like the Unadisutra, Dhatupatha,
and Ganapatha [2]. It is the earliest known work on descriptive
linguistics, generative linguistics, and together with the work of his
immediate predecessors (Nirukta, Nighantu, Pratishakyas) stands at the
beginning of the history of linguistics itself.

It is the earliest known work on descriptive linguistics,
***generative linguistics***,

[FairfieldLife] Re: Independent TM Teachers in the San Francisco Bay Area?

Okay, I'll play along with your "game" once more.

Do you give full knowledge about the mantras when you give a second
lecture?

Edg


-- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "do.rflex"  wrote:
>
> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Duveyoung  wrote:
> >
> > "do.rflex" wrote:
> > > The training at TTC included clear, specific explanations by
Maharishi
> > > about what indeed takes place as the mantra is given - which my own
> > > experience teaching has repeatedly confirmed.
> > 
> > So, are you equally comfortable the to give an
> > "official-as-decreed-by-MMY" second lecture in which you are required
> > to shuck and jive the folks about the mantra being selected for them
> > especially with ultra specificity and cosmic oogabooganess?  
> > 
> > Or will you tell them that "It's your age that determines the mantra,
> > we don't know where Maharishi got them for sure, we don't know why
> > they can be thought to be more life supporting than other Hindu
> > mantras, and that 90% of those who get these mantras quit the practice
> > withing a few months, or that the siddhi program doesn't use
Sanskrit?"
> > 
> > It's one thing to create an aura of mystique such that the punters get
> > a good shove to interiority by a theatrical framing, but the taste of
> > it always kept coming back up on me like a tuna fish sandwich.  The
> > ends doesn't seem to justify the means; really now, are you espousing
> > that the TM teacher fool or skew or outrightly dis-educate people into
> > a holy program?  WTF?
> > 
> > Edg
> 
> 
> 
> Maybe you can unscramble your brains and ask a coherent question. Or
> maybe you can't.
>

Re: [FairfieldLife] Ding Dong the Bush is Gone

2009-01-21 Thread Sal Sunshine

On Jan 21, 2009, at 2:17 PM, Bhairitu wrote:
> Everybody sing along now:
>
> Ding dong the Bush is gone,
> the wicked, wicked Bush is gone.
> Ding dong the wicked Bush is gone!
>
> Ding dong Dick Cheney's gone,
> the wicked wicked Cheney's gone.
> Ding dong the wicked Cheney's gone!
>
> BTW, I head the sun came once Bush flew away from the White  
> House.  ;-)

Too bad nobody thought to throw a bucket of water on him.

Sal

[FairfieldLife] Ding Dong the Bush is Gone

Everybody sing along now:

Ding dong the Bush is gone,
the wicked, wicked Bush is gone.
Ding dong the wicked Bush is gone!

Ding dong Dick Cheney's gone,
the wicked wicked Cheney's gone.
Ding dong the wicked Cheney's gone!

BTW, I head the sun came once Bush flew away from the White House.  ;-)

Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Language translation as playing checkers

TurquoiseB wrote:
> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bhairitu  wrote:
>   
>> As as software professional and developer/designer my first step 
>> would be to buy some time from linguistics experts.  I would also 
>> brainstorm with other developers on solutions to the problem of 
>> language translation. Then you would want to do some modeling on 
>> several of the solutions and see what floats and what sinks. Some 
>> of the first translation software that I bought years ago came out 
>> of Russia. That was most likely based on research done at the their 
>> universities and  institutes. And yes I might well look into 
>> Sanskrit as an intermediate language too and most certainly track 
>> down what has already been done in that area. 
>> 
>
> First, I was just rappin' and trippin' on the
> idea, not actually proposing that I'd ever be
> interested in writing such software.  :-)
>   
It's not a one man job anyway but who knows tinkering around with it you 
might come up with a new method or idea at least.
> Second, I did a little Googling and found that
> I was on the right track in at least two critical
> areas. The first was that there is a general con-
> sensus that the higher the degree of ambiguity
> in the language itself (the more possible ways
> that a sentence can be possibly translated, given
> all the possible meanings and possible parts of
> speech that the words in that sentence can have),
> the more monumental the task of translating that
> language is. The second is that such translation
> programs are, in fact, done in discrete stages,
> not as sheer number-crunching dictionary matches.
>
> Dictionary matching is seen as the least useful
> and practical method. A base knowledge of ling-
> uistics and natural language are considered
> essential. "Intermediate languages" are used,
> but they are never an existing human language;
> none of them are precise and unambiguous enough
> to qualify. Instead, they are a made-up symbolic
> language into which the source human language is 
> decoded, prior to encoding it back into other
> human languages. This tends to be referred to
> as the "interlingual" approach.
>   
I helped manage a project many years ago where the designer/developers 
wanted to use a large list of "memes" to create artificial human 
behavior.  My Indian philosophy background suggested to me that wasn't 
necessary and of course processing all those "memes" would have required 
a lot of CPU time for a real time emulation.  I suggested instead a 
system loosely based on Ayuveda and balancing doshas more "westernly" 
explained as "homeostasis" as I figured they would never get the concept 
of purusha.  Human beings usually seek to be in balance with their 
environment so those factors could be broken down to a few variables 
which could be rapidly computed.

One of our lead programmers came across a computer science doctorate 
paper from someone at U.C. Berkeley with a very similar and proven 
thesis.  Sometimes what we think is sophisticated behavior is not at 
all.  Think about that for a while.  The project I worked on was 
eventually released and became a great success story.

Similarly one can see that doing a lexicon matching would not be a very 
efficient process.  Most likely the more abstract and simpler the method 
the more successful.   But it takes a lot of great thinking to come up 
with those simpler concept while the complex ones are easier.

Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Sanskrit translator wanted

authfriend wrote:
> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB  wrote:
> 
>   
>> As for the website Bhairitu pointed to, all that
>> you have to do to see its True Believer nature
>> is to do a mental "search and replace" on the
>> text in it and replace every mention of "Sanskrit"
>> with "Hebrew." Then you'll see what the site is
>> really about. 
>>
>> It's attempting to present a case for learning
>> Sanskrit based on its supposedly spiritual nature,
>> and its supposed status as the "mother of all
>> languages."
>> 
>
> But if you read the Briggs article at the URL I
> posted in response to Bhairitu, you won't see any of
> that; it's purely technical. Although the site itself
> is pro-Sanskrit, they've reproduced the original
> piece without commentary:
>
> http://www.gosai.com/science/sanskrit-nasa.html
>
>   
>> The only relevant
>> piece of information in this context is whether
>> it is an *unambiguous* language. Given a sentence
>> in Sanskrit, can that sentence be parsed one and
>> only one way?
>>
>> Everything I've ever heard is that the answer to
>> that question is a definitive "No." And that
>> unambiguous answer rules out Sanskrit as the
>> basis of an experiment in machine translation
>> that is based on the notion of that base lang-
>> uage being unambiguous.
>> 
>
> I've now looked at the article a little more
> closely, and while I don't have the chops to
> understand it, it does seem clear that the issue
> of ambiguity has several different elements,
> depending on what aspect of a language you're
> looking at. What I can't tell is whether the
> kind of ambiguity Barry believes characterizes
> Sanskrit is the same kind of ambiguity Briggs
> claims is avoided in Sanskrit.
>
> It does seem clear that to rule out Sanskrit on
> the basis of ambiguity, such that it cannot serve
> as an artificial language in the manner Briggs
> proposes, one would have to *read the article*
> and understand the nature of the case he's making,
> and then refute it on the same level. I strongly
> suspect that what Barry's saying has nothing to do
> with the case Briggs makes.
>
> A big part of the reason for apparent ambiguity of
> a Sanskrit sentence may have to do with 
> insufficient expertise in Sanskrit grammar. A
> non-native speaker of English without much
> knowledge of English grammar might be completely
> flummoxed as to how to interpret "Time flies like
> an arrow, fruit flies like a banana," the sentence
> Barry cited. And Sanskrit is *vastly* more complex
> grammatically than English.
>
> There may be clues, in other words, encoded in a
> Sanskrit sentence that someone not steeped in the
> grammatical details would miss, and thus think the
> sentence could be parsed more than one way, when in
> fact the clues point to one and only one way.
>
> It's also possible, it seems to me, that the content
> of Sanskrit sentences makes a difference--that a
> sentence describing the nature of Purusha, for
> example, may have ambiguities and/or multiple levels
> of meaning that a sentence describing an everyday
> situation may not.
Sanskrit has many more tenses than languages like English or even 
Hindi.  It was about at the level where I was studying the 9th level 
tense that I sort of lost interest and someone with expertise in the 
language suggested I didn't need to worry to much about that as the 
sutras and stotras were actually simple poetry and didn't use much of 
the higher level elements of the language.  A few years back I also got 
into a chat about this card and another guy, who had a lot of Sanskrit 
expertise on alt.meditation.transcendental about the levels of tenses in 
Sanskrit.

Obviously implementing a translation engine is quite complex and the 
articles point out only one approach that might be used not "the 
approach."  In fact the first word I used in my first post on the 
subject was "supposedly" which qualifies everything that followed as not 
necessarily an implemented approach but one that has been mentioned.  
Companies could be very sworn to secrecy and may indeed have a lexicon 
system based on Sanskrit for all we know (and maybe never know).

[FairfieldLife] Re: Independent TM Teachers in the San Francisco Bay Area?

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Duveyoung  wrote:
>
> "do.rflex" wrote:
> > The training at TTC included clear, specific explanations by Maharishi
> > about what indeed takes place as the mantra is given - which my own
> > experience teaching has repeatedly confirmed.
> 
> So, are you equally comfortable the to give an
> "official-as-decreed-by-MMY" second lecture in which you are required
> to shuck and jive the folks about the mantra being selected for them
> especially with ultra specificity and cosmic oogabooganess?  
> 
> Or will you tell them that "It's your age that determines the mantra,
> we don't know where Maharishi got them for sure, we don't know why
> they can be thought to be more life supporting than other Hindu
> mantras, and that 90% of those who get these mantras quit the practice
> withing a few months, or that the siddhi program doesn't use Sanskrit?"
> 
> It's one thing to create an aura of mystique such that the punters get
> a good shove to interiority by a theatrical framing, but the taste of
> it always kept coming back up on me like a tuna fish sandwich.  The
> ends doesn't seem to justify the means; really now, are you espousing
> that the TM teacher fool or skew or outrightly dis-educate people into
> a holy program?  WTF?
> 
> Edg



Maybe you can unscramble your brains and ask a coherent question. Or
maybe you can't.

[FairfieldLife] We are the ones we have been waiting for.

2009-01-21 Thread Dick Mays

http://www.newsweek.com/id/180457
LETTERS
White House Advice
The author of 'The Color Purple' cautions Obama
not to lose himself, or his soul, to the burdens
of the office.

By Alice Walker | NEWSWEEK
Published Jan 19, 2009

From the magazine issue dated Jan 21, 2009

Dear Brother President:

You have no idea, really, of how profound this
moment is for us. Us being the black people of
the Southern United States. You think you know,
because you are thoughtful, and you have studied
our history. But seeing you delivering the torch
so many others carried, year after year, decade
after decade, century after century, only to be
brought down before igniting the flame of justice
and of law, is almost more than the heart can
bear. And yet, this observation is not intended
to burden you, for you are of a different time,
and, indeed, because of all the relay runners
before you, North America is a different place.
It is really only to say: well done. We knew,
through all the generations, that you were with
us, in us, the best of the spirit of Africa and
of the Americas. Knowing this, that you would
actually appear, someday, was part of our
strength. Seeing you take your rightful place,
based solely on your wisdom, stamina and
character, is a balm for the weary warriors of
hope, previously only sung about.

I would advise you to remember that you did not
create the disaster that the world is
experiencing, and you alone are not responsible
for bringing the world back to balance. A primary
responsibility that you do have, however, is to
cultivate happiness in your own life. To make a
schedule that permits sufficient time of rest and
play with your gorgeous wife and lovely
daughters. Not to mention your brave and precious
grandmother.* And so on. One gathers that your
family is large. We are used to seeing men in the
White House become juiceless and as white-haired
as the building; we notice their wives and
children looking strained and stressed. They soon
have smiles so lacking in joy that they remind us
of scissors. This is no way to lead. Nor does
your family deserve this fate. One way of
thinking about all this is: it is so bad now that
there is no excuse not to relax. From your happy,
relaxed state, you can model real success, which
is only what so many people in the world really
want. They may buy endless cars and houses and
furs and gobble up all the attention and space
they can manage, but this is because it is not
clear to them yet that success is truly an inside
job. That it is within the reach of almost
everyone.

I would further advise you not to take on other
people's enemies. Most damage that others do us
is out of fear, humiliation and pain. Those
feelings occur in all of us, not just in those of
us who profess a certain religious or racial
devotion. We must all of us learn not to have
enemies, but only confused adversaries who are
ourselves in disguise. It is understood by all
that you are commander in chief and are sworn to
protect our beloved country. However, as my
mother used to say, quoting a Bible with which I
often fought, "hate the sin, but love the
sinner." There must be no more crushing of whole
communities, no more torture, no more
dehumanizing as a means of ruling a people's
spirit. This has already happened to people of
color, poor people, women, children. We see where
this leads, where it has led.

A good model of how to "work with the enemy"
internally is presented by the Dalai Lama, in his
endless caretaking of his soul as he confronts
the Chinese government that invaded Tibet.
Because, finally, it is the soul that must be
preserved, if one is to remain a credible leader.
All else might be lost; but when the soul dies,
the connection to Earth, to Peoples, to Animals,
to Rivers, to Mountain ranges, purple and
majestic, also dies. And your smile, with which
we watch you do gracious battle with unjust
characterizations, distortions and lies, is that
expression of healthy self-worth, spirit and
soul, that, kept happy and free and relaxed, can
find an answering smile in all of us, lighting
our way, and brightening the world.

We are the ones we have been waiting for.

In Peace and Joy, Alice Walker

*Obama's "brave and precious" grandmother made
her return to the Great Source a day before her
grandson's historic turn of the historical wheel.
We imagine her flying, smiling, free. Well done,
Grandmother. Those of us who intuit your
greatness send our thanks.

Walker's recent books include "We Are the Ones We
Have Been Waiting For," "Now Is the Time to Open
Your Heart" and "A Poem Traveled Down My Arm."
This essay first appeared on TheRoot.com.

Editor's Note:
This story is from a special commemorative issue
of Newsweek on the occasion of Barack Obama's
inauguration. On sale Jan. 21, you can order it
here:

https://m1.buysub.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/AmericanDream?storeId=12002&catalogId=12502&p

[FairfieldLife] Re: Independent TM Teachers in the San Francisco Bay Area?

Edg, in my opinion the adherence to the "Gotta 
do the puja" thang comes from many sources. One
is the overall "Maharishisez" EQUALS "gotta"
mindset that was drilled into us for so many
years or decades.

Another is the fact that many teachers really
*did* feel a "buzz" from doing puja. I never 
felt much of one, but some did, and they assoc-
iate that buzz with magical thinking and feel
that something about *their* buzz helped give
their initiates a buzz, too.

Yet another is the dogma about something magical
being "transmitted" from the "holy tradition" 
when one does puja. If you tend to believe this,
you're pretty much going to placebo-effect your-
self into having a buzz, even if one didn't 
really happen.

But I think that the biggest obstacle to even
*conceiving* of teaching TM without a puja is
that MOST HAVE NEVER EXPERIENCED BEING
TAUGHT MEDITATION TECHNIQUES THAT WAY.

I have. I've been taught TM techniques *with*
a puja, and any number of other techniques 
*without* a puja. Sometimes the "teaching
process" was individual, sometimes it was in
a big room with no more mystery surrounding
it than the teacher saying, "Meditate on 
this " to 500 people
at a time. 

Having experienced both ways of teaching, and
having *taught* meditation both ways, I honestly 
don't feel that there is any appreciable dif-
ference in terms of the "quality" of what the
student learns and their resulting ability to
meditate effectively.

But that's just me. I'm not heavily attached to
dogma about this stuff, and I'm not attached in
the least to "Maharishisez." That has the same
relevance to my life as "BozoTheClownsez." 
Others are going to feel differently about
this depending on what *their* attachments are 
to all of the points above, and I for one am not
going to try to talk them out of those attach-
ments.

What I *do* agree with is that to become widely
popular today (as opposed to during the 70s), a
technique is pretty much going to need to be
taught in a secular fashion, free of rituals
that most people would interpret as religious.
That is why mindfulness is making so many inroads
into society as a whole; you can teach it with
no "trappings" whatsoever, and it's still the
same practice.

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Duveyoung  wrote:
>
> "do.rflex" wrote:
> > The training at TTC included clear, specific explanations by 
> > Maharishi about what indeed takes place as the mantra is given - 
> > which my own experience teaching has repeatedly confirmed.
> 
> So, are you equally comfortable the to give an
> "official-as-decreed-by-MMY" second lecture in which you are required
> to shuck and jive the folks about the mantra being selected for them
> especially with ultra specificity and cosmic oogabooganess?  
> 
> Or will you tell them that "It's your age that determines the mantra,
> we don't know where Maharishi got them for sure, we don't know why
> they can be thought to be more life supporting than other Hindu
> mantras, and that 90% of those who get these mantras quit the practice
> withing a few months, or that the siddhi program doesn't use Sanskrit?"
> 
> It's one thing to create an aura of mystique such that the punters get
> a good shove to interiority by a theatrical framing, but the taste of
> it always kept coming back up on me like a tuna fish sandwich.  The
> ends doesn't seem to justify the means; really now, are you espousing
> that the TM teacher fool or skew or outrightly dis-educate people into
> a holy program?  WTF?
> 
> Edg
>

[FairfieldLife] Re: Independent TM Teachers in the San Francisco Bay Area?

"do.rflex" wrote:
> The training at TTC included clear, specific explanations by Maharishi
> about what indeed takes place as the mantra is given - which my own
> experience teaching has repeatedly confirmed.

So, are you equally comfortable the to give an
"official-as-decreed-by-MMY" second lecture in which you are required
to shuck and jive the folks about the mantra being selected for them
especially with ultra specificity and cosmic oogabooganess?  

Or will you tell them that "It's your age that determines the mantra,
we don't know where Maharishi got them for sure, we don't know why
they can be thought to be more life supporting than other Hindu
mantras, and that 90% of those who get these mantras quit the practice
withing a few months, or that the siddhi program doesn't use Sanskrit?"

It's one thing to create an aura of mystique such that the punters get
a good shove to interiority by a theatrical framing, but the taste of
it always kept coming back up on me like a tuna fish sandwich.  The
ends doesn't seem to justify the means; really now, are you espousing
that the TM teacher fool or skew or outrightly dis-educate people into
a holy program?  WTF?

Edg

[FairfieldLife] Re: Independent TM Teachers in the San Francisco Bay Area?

2009-01-21 Thread pranamoocher

Have no fear- The Great Obama will provide whatever instruction is
necessary.


--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, nablusoss1008 
wrote:
>
> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Rick Archer" rick@ wrote:
> >
> > From a friend:
> >
> > A friend of mine is very interested in learning TM, though he
> cannot
> > afford the current fee of $2500. Does anyone know of an independent
> TM
> > teacher who can provide instruction for less, in the San Francisco
> Bay
> > Area?
>
> Consider this; whatever you THINK, your friend will not be learning
> TM as taught by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. He will also be excluded from
> any advanced programme. You will for sure be able to find a fool that
> will teach this fellow something, but you should carefully consider
> your own responsebility in this issue.
>
>  It should still be the TM instruction, with puja, checking and
> > all of that. Thanks.
> >
>

[FairfieldLife] Warning About Real Virus!

2009-01-21 Thread Dick Mays


SNOPES confirms this as a true virus.

THERE IS AN EMAIL WITH SUBJECT LINE OBAMA ACCEPTANCE SPEECH FLOATING 
AROUND WITH A TROJAN HORSE ATTACHMENT.  DO NOT OPEN FOR ANY 
REASON!!! DELETE IMMEDIATELY.  THE TROJAN STEALS ALL PASSWORDS AND 
USER IDS!!!


It's real, all right! Check out the full story here:

http://www.snopes.com/computer/virus/obamaspeech.asp

[FairfieldLife] Re: Independent TM Teachers in the San Francisco Bay Area?

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "shempmcgurk" 
wrote:
>
> This is one of the reasons why I always felt someone like Deepak 
> Chopra should have begun his experience in the TMO as a Flower Boy on 
> Saturday mornings.  Chopra is very much someone who, deservedly, was 
> a star pupil because he studied his ass off...but he was also the 
> Dauphin-like golden boy.
> 
> I think the experience would have humbled him.  It certainly did me 
> and certainly convinced me of the power of the puja.  I would wait 
> outside the doors of the puja room and be the person who would guide 
> the initiates to the room where they do their first meditation.  
> Sitting outside the puja room I would always notice an incredible 
> energy change in the area which exponentially ratcheted up about the 
> time the mantra was given out.  It was incredibly palpable and 
> convinced me that something was happening...yes, I would say that it 
> was the enlivening of the Holy Tradition and, yes, making the 
> recitation of the puja an essential requirement of receiving a mantra.
> 
> And, most definitely "yes", it does toggle the power of the mantra 
> (to use Edg's term, below).  "Toggle" is a really good word to 
> describe it!
> 
> With such an important thing at hand, why would anyone want to take a 
> chance they weren't getting the full effect?
> 
> I'm not 100% sure, but I've asked this question before and have been 
> told that in Chopra's meditation technique he doesn't preceed it with 
> a puja.  If true, he's an irresponsible prick who is playing with 
> people in a very irresponsible way.
> 
> Not that what he is teaching them isn't better than them not learning 
> anything at all; only that it is not complete and the effects won't 
> be what they could have been.



As a TM teacher trained by MMY in 1971 and having initiated many, many
people, I fully agree with Shemp's assessment and will add that the
sometimes overwhelming yet gentle and sublime 'energy' I've
experienced while teaching during the initiation has been an
undeniable and profound experience - at times with varying degrees of
intensity.

The training at TTC included clear, specific explanations by Maharishi
about what indeed takes place as the mantra is given - which my own
experience teaching has repeatedly confirmed.

Re: [FairfieldLife] MUST WATCH -- James Taylor et al at 42 minutes

2009-01-21 Thread Sal Sunshine

On Jan 21, 2009, at 2:38 AM, off_world_beings wrote:
> Who says the 60's is out of style !
> James Taylor holds true to form, and brings along some friends for  
> the experience:

That's our boy.  Still sounds great.

Sal

Re: [FairfieldLife] Tom Barlow Sweepstakes

2009-01-21 Thread Sal Sunshine

On Jan 21, 2009, at 12:30 AM, shempmcgurk wrote:
> A Google Image search of "Tom Barlow" brings up the following mugs.
>
Will the real Tom Barlow...?
> Choose the FairfieldLife Tom Barlow and you can win an all-expenses  
> paid trip for two to Swanton, Vermont:
>
Second prize is 2 trips...
Sal

[FairfieldLife] Re: Independent TM Teachers in the San Francisco Bay Area?

2009-01-21 Thread yifuxero

--(has a 415 telephone #): ...TM teacher available at 
http://www.thequietpath.org



- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Richard M"  
wrote:
>
> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "shempmcgurk" 
> wrote:
> >
> > This is one of the reasons why I always felt someone like Deepak 
> > Chopra should have begun his experience in the TMO as a Flower 
Boy on 
> > Saturday mornings.  Chopra is very much someone who, deservedly, 
was 
> > a star pupil because he studied his ass off...but he was also the 
> > Dauphin-like golden boy.
> > 
> > I think the experience would have humbled him.  It certainly did 
me 
> > and certainly convinced me of the power of the puja.  I would 
wait 
> > outside the doors of the puja room and be the person who would 
guide 
> > the initiates to the room where they do their first meditation.  
> > Sitting outside the puja room I would always notice an incredible 
> > energy change in the area which exponentially ratcheted up about 
the 
> > time the mantra was given out.  It was incredibly palpable and 
> > convinced me that something was happening...yes, I would say that 
it 
> > was the enlivening of the Holy Tradition and, yes, making the 
> > recitation of the puja an essential requirement of receiving a 
mantra.
> > 
> > And, most definitely "yes", it does toggle the power of the 
mantra 
> > (to use Edg's term, below).  "Toggle" is a really good word to 
> > describe it!
> > 
> > With such an important thing at hand, why would anyone want to 
take a 
> > chance they weren't getting the full effect?
> 
> 
> Agreed. Us Saturday morning flower boys are of like mind!
> 
>  
> > I'm not 100% sure, but I've asked this question before and have 
been 
> > told that in Chopra's meditation technique he doesn't preceed it 
with 
> > a puja.  If true, he's an irresponsible prick who is playing with 
> > people in a very irresponsible way.
> > 
> > Not that what he is teaching them isn't better than them not 
learning 
> > anything at all; only that it is not complete and the effects 
won't 
> > be what they could have been.
> >
> >
> > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Duveyoung  wrote:
> > >
> > > Rick,
> > > 
> > > Do you feel the puja etc. is necessary for the technique to "get
> > > activated by Guru Dev" or something of that ilk?
> > > 
> > > Seems to me that an ancient ritual has a chance of helping 
> > (deluding?)
> > > a newbie to imprint on the technique, so that's a practical 
benefit,
> > > but do you actually think there's something mystical happening 
that
> > > toggles the power of the mantra or its use or that "somehow" 
primes
> > > the pump of the initiate's mind?
> > > 
> > > I once loved the idea of the 5,000 year tradition being carried
> > > forward and that the mantras were as ancient and as long-
understood
> > > for their effects, but all that was hooey as far as anyone can 
tell
> > > these days since we have no provenance of the mantras.
> > > 
> > > Why tell your friend to cheat the TMO out of a fee and all that 
if 
> > the
> > > dang system of meditating only ended up with a dysfunctional
> > > organization of ill repute?  And, hey, if your friend really 
takes 
> > off
> > > and has incredible experiences, how is he/she going to approach 
the
> > > TMO to further or intensify their program if they're not 
officially 
> > a
> > > paying-member of the TMO?  If the experiences are THERE your 
friend
> > > may be quite vulnerable to many risks when the passion to amp 
up the
> > > results skews their decisions about what organization to become
> > > involved with.  Your friend might equally "get off" on an Amma 
hug, 
> > ya
> > > see? Where's the beef that your friend thinks he/she's going to 
> > get? 
> > > Why aren't you more fully advising this person about the 
vagaries of
> > > spiritual methodologies such that a more informed decision 
> > about "how
> > > to meditate and why to do so" becomes clearer to that person?  
> > > 
> > > Edg
> > > 
> > > 
> > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Rick Archer"  
wrote:
> > > >
> > > > From a friend:
> > > > 
> > > > A friend of mine is very interested in learning TM, though he 
> > cannot 
> > > > afford the current fee of $2500. Does anyone know of an 
> > independent TM 
> > > > teacher who can provide instruction for less, in the San 
> > Francisco Bay 
> > > > Area? It should still be the TM instruction, with puja, 
checking 
> > and 
> > > > all of that. Thanks.
> > > >
> > >
> >
>

[FairfieldLife] Re: Independent TM Teachers in the San Francisco Bay Area?

2009-01-21 Thread Richard M

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "shempmcgurk" 
wrote:
>
> This is one of the reasons why I always felt someone like Deepak 
> Chopra should have begun his experience in the TMO as a Flower Boy on 
> Saturday mornings.  Chopra is very much someone who, deservedly, was 
> a star pupil because he studied his ass off...but he was also the 
> Dauphin-like golden boy.
> 
> I think the experience would have humbled him.  It certainly did me 
> and certainly convinced me of the power of the puja.  I would wait 
> outside the doors of the puja room and be the person who would guide 
> the initiates to the room where they do their first meditation.  
> Sitting outside the puja room I would always notice an incredible 
> energy change in the area which exponentially ratcheted up about the 
> time the mantra was given out.  It was incredibly palpable and 
> convinced me that something was happening...yes, I would say that it 
> was the enlivening of the Holy Tradition and, yes, making the 
> recitation of the puja an essential requirement of receiving a mantra.
> 
> And, most definitely "yes", it does toggle the power of the mantra 
> (to use Edg's term, below).  "Toggle" is a really good word to 
> describe it!
> 
> With such an important thing at hand, why would anyone want to take a 
> chance they weren't getting the full effect?


Agreed. Us Saturday morning flower boys are of like mind!

 
> I'm not 100% sure, but I've asked this question before and have been 
> told that in Chopra's meditation technique he doesn't preceed it with 
> a puja.  If true, he's an irresponsible prick who is playing with 
> people in a very irresponsible way.
> 
> Not that what he is teaching them isn't better than them not learning 
> anything at all; only that it is not complete and the effects won't 
> be what they could have been.
>
>
> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Duveyoung  wrote:
> >
> > Rick,
> > 
> > Do you feel the puja etc. is necessary for the technique to "get
> > activated by Guru Dev" or something of that ilk?
> > 
> > Seems to me that an ancient ritual has a chance of helping 
> (deluding?)
> > a newbie to imprint on the technique, so that's a practical benefit,
> > but do you actually think there's something mystical happening that
> > toggles the power of the mantra or its use or that "somehow" primes
> > the pump of the initiate's mind?
> > 
> > I once loved the idea of the 5,000 year tradition being carried
> > forward and that the mantras were as ancient and as long-understood
> > for their effects, but all that was hooey as far as anyone can tell
> > these days since we have no provenance of the mantras.
> > 
> > Why tell your friend to cheat the TMO out of a fee and all that if 
> the
> > dang system of meditating only ended up with a dysfunctional
> > organization of ill repute?  And, hey, if your friend really takes 
> off
> > and has incredible experiences, how is he/she going to approach the
> > TMO to further or intensify their program if they're not officially 
> a
> > paying-member of the TMO?  If the experiences are THERE your friend
> > may be quite vulnerable to many risks when the passion to amp up the
> > results skews their decisions about what organization to become
> > involved with.  Your friend might equally "get off" on an Amma hug, 
> ya
> > see? Where's the beef that your friend thinks he/she's going to 
> get? 
> > Why aren't you more fully advising this person about the vagaries of
> > spiritual methodologies such that a more informed decision 
> about "how
> > to meditate and why to do so" becomes clearer to that person?  
> > 
> > Edg
> > 
> > 
> > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Rick Archer"  wrote:
> > >
> > > From a friend:
> > > 
> > > A friend of mine is very interested in learning TM, though he 
> cannot 
> > > afford the current fee of $2500. Does anyone know of an 
> independent TM 
> > > teacher who can provide instruction for less, in the San 
> Francisco Bay 
> > > Area? It should still be the TM instruction, with puja, checking 
> and 
> > > all of that. Thanks.
> > >
> >
>

[FairfieldLife] Re: Sanskrit translator wanted

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bhairitu  wrote:

> What else would Sanskrit scholars be looking at if
> it wasn't spiritual texts, Turq?  That seems to be
> the only stuff that survived.

Not according to Briggs:

"Besides works of literary value, there was a long
philosophical and grammatical tradition that has
continued to exist with undiminished vigor until
the present century. Among the accomplishments of
the grammarians can be reckoned a method for
paraphrasing Sanskrit in a manner that is identical
not only in essence but in form with current work
in Artificial Intelligence."

And:

"The author [of a grammatical analysis quoted
by Briggs], Nagesha, is one of a group of three
or four prominent theoreticians who stand at the
end of a long tradition of investigation. Its
beginnings date to the middle of the first
millennium B.C. when the morphology and
phonological structure of the language, as well
as the framework for its syntactic description
were codified by Panini.

"His successors elucidated the brief, algebraic
formulations that he had used as grammatical
rules and where possible tried to improve upon
them. A great deal of fervent grammatical
research took place between the fourth century
B.C and the fourth century A.D. and culminated
in the seminal work, the Vaiakyapadiya by
Bhartrhari.

"Little was done subsequently to advance the study
of syntax, until the so-called 'New Grammarian'
school appeared in the early part of the sixteenth
century with the publication of Bhattoji
Dikshita's Vaiyakarana-bhusanasara and its
commentary by his relative Kaundabhatta, who worked
from Benares. Nagesha (1730-1810) was responsible
for a major work, the Vaiyakaranasiddhantamanjusa,
or Treasury of definitive statements of grammarians,
which was condensed later into the earlier described
work. These books have not yet been translated."

[FairfieldLife] Re: The Big O

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, off_world_beings  
wrote:
>
> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "authfriend"  wrote:

> > raunchydog isn't angry anyway, she's mocking the
> > excess of the day, and rightfully so. I hope I'd
> > have had the grace to be embarrassed by it if I
> > had been an Obama supporter. It isn't good for
> > Obama, and it isn't good for the country.
> > 
> > We all wish him well, but good grief, let's do it
> > with our feet on the ground.>>
> 
> Bullshit.
> There's nothing like a good party.
> And if anyone had their feet on the ground and was
> realistic today, it was Obama in his speech. He's
> the ONLY one that showed a measured and cautious
> sentiment in any quarter whatsoever. He did not
> plan nor demand this partythe system does.
> 
> You Americans need to lighten up and have some fun
> for ONE DAY for chrise sakes.

You seem to be contradicting yourself. I agree with you
that Obama's speech was feet-on-the-ground, and that it
was a stark contrast to the insanity of the party going
on all around him. So which is it, should we be sober
and realistic like Obama, or should we lighten up and
have fun for a day?

Me, I think there's a happy medium. That Bush is gone
is cause for unrestrained rejoicing, as is the fact
that we have an African-American president. That this
president happens to be Barack Obama is not yet such
a cause; the signals are trending positive, but they're
still distinctly mixed, and we shouldn't confuse the
latter with the former.

(BTW, he certainly *went along with* the system in
planning and demanding the party. He could have
insisted it be toned down. Maybe the sobriety of his
speech was a reaction to realizing it had gotten out
of control.)

[FairfieldLife] Re: Independent TM Teachers in the San Francisco Bay Area?

2009-01-21 Thread nablusoss1008

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Rick Archer"  wrote:
>
> From a friend:
> 
> A friend of mine is very interested in learning TM, though he 
cannot 
> afford the current fee of $2500. Does anyone know of an independent 
TM 
> teacher who can provide instruction for less, in the San Francisco 
Bay 
> Area?

Consider this; whatever you THINK, your friend will not be learning 
TM as taught by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. He will also be excluded from 
any advanced programme. You will for sure be able to find a fool that 
will teach this fellow something, but you should carefully consider 
your own responsebility in this issue.

 It should still be the TM instruction, with puja, checking and 
> all of that. Thanks.
>

[FairfieldLife] Re: Sanskrit translator wanted

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB  wrote:

> As for the website Bhairitu pointed to, all that
> you have to do to see its True Believer nature
> is to do a mental "search and replace" on the
> text in it and replace every mention of "Sanskrit"
> with "Hebrew." Then you'll see what the site is
> really about. 
> 
> It's attempting to present a case for learning
> Sanskrit based on its supposedly spiritual nature,
> and its supposed status as the "mother of all
> languages."

But if you read the Briggs article at the URL I
posted in response to Bhairitu, you won't see any of
that; it's purely technical. Although the site itself
is pro-Sanskrit, they've reproduced the original
piece without commentary:

http://www.gosai.com/science/sanskrit-nasa.html

> The only relevant
> piece of information in this context is whether
> it is an *unambiguous* language. Given a sentence
> in Sanskrit, can that sentence be parsed one and
> only one way?
> 
> Everything I've ever heard is that the answer to
> that question is a definitive "No." And that
> unambiguous answer rules out Sanskrit as the
> basis of an experiment in machine translation
> that is based on the notion of that base lang-
> uage being unambiguous.

I've now looked at the article a little more
closely, and while I don't have the chops to
understand it, it does seem clear that the issue
of ambiguity has several different elements,
depending on what aspect of a language you're
looking at. What I can't tell is whether the
kind of ambiguity Barry believes characterizes
Sanskrit is the same kind of ambiguity Briggs
claims is avoided in Sanskrit.

It does seem clear that to rule out Sanskrit on
the basis of ambiguity, such that it cannot serve
as an artificial language in the manner Briggs
proposes, one would have to *read the article*
and understand the nature of the case he's making,
and then refute it on the same level. I strongly
suspect that what Barry's saying has nothing to do
with the case Briggs makes.

A big part of the reason for apparent ambiguity of
a Sanskrit sentence may have to do with 
insufficient expertise in Sanskrit grammar. A
non-native speaker of English without much
knowledge of English grammar might be completely
flummoxed as to how to interpret "Time flies like
an arrow, fruit flies like a banana," the sentence
Barry cited. And Sanskrit is *vastly* more complex
grammatically than English.

There may be clues, in other words, encoded in a
Sanskrit sentence that someone not steeped in the
grammatical details would miss, and thus think the
sentence could be parsed more than one way, when in
fact the clues point to one and only one way.

It's also possible, it seems to me, that the content
of Sanskrit sentences makes a difference--that a
sentence describing the nature of Purusha, for
example, may have ambiguities and/or multiple levels
of meaning that a sentence describing an everyday
situation may not.

[FairfieldLife] Re: Language translation as playing checkers

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bhairitu  wrote:
>
> As as software professional and developer/designer my first step 
> would be to buy some time from linguistics experts.  I would also 
> brainstorm with other developers on solutions to the problem of 
> language translation. Then you would want to do some modeling on 
> several of the solutions and see what floats and what sinks. Some 
> of the first translation software that I bought years ago came out 
> of Russia. That was most likely based on research done at the their 
> universities and  institutes. And yes I might well look into 
> Sanskrit as an intermediate language too and most certainly track 
> down what has already been done in that area. 

First, I was just rappin' and trippin' on the
idea, not actually proposing that I'd ever be
interested in writing such software.  :-)

Second, I did a little Googling and found that
I was on the right track in at least two critical
areas. The first was that there is a general con-
sensus that the higher the degree of ambiguity
in the language itself (the more possible ways
that a sentence can be possibly translated, given
all the possible meanings and possible parts of
speech that the words in that sentence can have),
the more monumental the task of translating that
language is. The second is that such translation
programs are, in fact, done in discrete stages,
not as sheer number-crunching dictionary matches.

Dictionary matching is seen as the least useful
and practical method. A base knowledge of ling-
uistics and natural language are considered
essential. "Intermediate languages" are used,
but they are never an existing human language;
none of them are precise and unambiguous enough
to qualify. Instead, they are a made-up symbolic
language into which the source human language is 
decoded, prior to encoding it back into other
human languages. This tends to be referred to
as the "interlingual" approach.

An assumption to my earlier rap that I didn't
spell out was that any such system has to be
heavily rule-based. That is agreed to by all the
sources I found today. 

Dictionary-based translation (one-to-one word 
mapping) is considered the least successful map-
ping, as I suspected. "Statistical" methods trans-
late by comparing many side-by-side previous
translations between the two languages. "Example-
based" translation is similar to what I described
as "parsing for idioms," and makes use of a large
database of known phrases and word combinations.

The best software so far uses combinations of all
these methods, not just one, but they tend to 
*rely* on one approach more than another. For
example, SYSTRAN (which underlies Yahoo's Babel-
fish) is primarily an example-based system, 
whereas Google Translate's engine is primarily
statistical-based.

It is generally agreed that the best commercial
translation software available rarely works well
enough "out of the box." Instead, like optical
recognition software for scanning printed pages,
it needs to have the ability to "learn" from past
mistakes and correct similar mistakes in the future.
Thus you translate, have a native speaker of the
target language go in and make corrections to the
output, send that back to the processing engine,
and hopefully it will do better the next time, 
having "learned" from its own mistakes.

And that's all I know about this arcane subject...  :-)

[FairfieldLife] Re: Independent TM Teachers in the San Francisco Bay Area?

This is one of the reasons why I always felt someone like Deepak 
Chopra should have begun his experience in the TMO as a Flower Boy on 
Saturday mornings.  Chopra is very much someone who, deservedly, was 
a star pupil because he studied his ass off...but he was also the 
Dauphin-like golden boy.

I think the experience would have humbled him.  It certainly did me 
and certainly convinced me of the power of the puja.  I would wait 
outside the doors of the puja room and be the person who would guide 
the initiates to the room where they do their first meditation.  
Sitting outside the puja room I would always notice an incredible 
energy change in the area which exponentially ratcheted up about the 
time the mantra was given out.  It was incredibly palpable and 
convinced me that something was happening...yes, I would say that it 
was the enlivening of the Holy Tradition and, yes, making the 
recitation of the puja an essential requirement of receiving a mantra.

And, most definitely "yes", it does toggle the power of the mantra 
(to use Edg's term, below).  "Toggle" is a really good word to 
describe it!

With such an important thing at hand, why would anyone want to take a 
chance they weren't getting the full effect?

I'm not 100% sure, but I've asked this question before and have been 
told that in Chopra's meditation technique he doesn't preceed it with 
a puja.  If true, he's an irresponsible prick who is playing with 
people in a very irresponsible way.

Not that what he is teaching them isn't better than them not learning 
anything at all; only that it is not complete and the effects won't 
be what they could have been.

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Duveyoung  wrote:
>
> Rick,
> 
> Do you feel the puja etc. is necessary for the technique to "get
> activated by Guru Dev" or something of that ilk?
> 
> Seems to me that an ancient ritual has a chance of helping 
(deluding?)
> a newbie to imprint on the technique, so that's a practical benefit,
> but do you actually think there's something mystical happening that
> toggles the power of the mantra or its use or that "somehow" primes
> the pump of the initiate's mind?
> 
> I once loved the idea of the 5,000 year tradition being carried
> forward and that the mantras were as ancient and as long-understood
> for their effects, but all that was hooey as far as anyone can tell
> these days since we have no provenance of the mantras.
> 
> Why tell your friend to cheat the TMO out of a fee and all that if 
the
> dang system of meditating only ended up with a dysfunctional
> organization of ill repute?  And, hey, if your friend really takes 
off
> and has incredible experiences, how is he/she going to approach the
> TMO to further or intensify their program if they're not officially 
a
> paying-member of the TMO?  If the experiences are THERE your friend
> may be quite vulnerable to many risks when the passion to amp up the
> results skews their decisions about what organization to become
> involved with.  Your friend might equally "get off" on an Amma hug, 
ya
> see? Where's the beef that your friend thinks he/she's going to 
get? 
> Why aren't you more fully advising this person about the vagaries of
> spiritual methodologies such that a more informed decision 
about "how
> to meditate and why to do so" becomes clearer to that person?  
> 
> Edg
> 
> 
> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Rick Archer"  wrote:
> >
> > From a friend:
> > 
> > A friend of mine is very interested in learning TM, though he 
cannot 
> > afford the current fee of $2500. Does anyone know of an 
independent TM 
> > teacher who can provide instruction for less, in the San 
Francisco Bay 
> > Area? It should still be the TM instruction, with puja, checking 
and 
> > all of that. Thanks.
> >
>

[FairfieldLife] Re: Is it just me?

2009-01-21 Thread boo_lives

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Nelson" 
wrote:
>
> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Duveyoung  wrote:
> >
> > What's wrong with hope?
> > 
> > After eight years, nay, three decades of shuck and jive presidents,
> > along comes one who truly offers a different approach, and yet
> > naysayers are panicking and tarring our new guy with a broad brush
> > before he's even done with his first day in office.
> > 
> > What's wrong with hoping for a few days, a few weeks, a few months
> > that this guy can bootstrap us all into a higher intent?
> > 
> > All these years, and now we have these folks with buckets of cold
> > water to toss on our flames of passion.  WTF?
> > 
> > If this were a foxhole, and someone started spewing this kind of
> > negativity, he'd be slapped upside the head, right?  
> > 
> > Indulge in panic all you want out there, but I'm taking a few days off
> > from this and partying down.
> > 
> > Even if I'm wrong, I'll get a nice buzz out of the deal while those
> > cringing at the other side of the foxhole will be miserable during
> > that time.  I ask you, who more profits?  
> > 
> > Me sez me does.
> > 
> > Give the guy a break.  All signs still point to him holding the reins
> > firmly, and he's going to kick the ass of anyone under him who doesn't
> > get his vision.  I predict someone is going to get into it with Obama
> > and be tossed out in short order.
> > 
> > Edg
> > 
> snip
>   One site I read pointed out that shortly, Obama will be gone.

What does that mean?

[FairfieldLife] Gordon Brown brings Britain to the edge of bankruptcy

2009-01-21 Thread Arhata Osho

Is this contagious!?













Gordon Brown brings Britain to the edge of bankruptcy 
Iain Martin says the Prime Minister hasn't 'saved the world' and now faces 
disgrace in the history books 
 

They don't know what they're doing, do they? With every step taken by the 
Government as it tries frantically to prop up the British banking system, this 
central truth becomes ever more obvious.

Yesterday marked a new low for all involved, even by the standards of this 
crisis. Britons woke to news of the enormity of the fresh horrors in store. 
Despite all the sophistry and outdated boom-era terminology from experts, I 
think a far greater number of people than is imagined grasp at root what is 
happening here. 

The country stands on the precipice. We are at risk of utter humiliation, of 
London becoming a Reykjavik on Thames and Britain going under. Thanks to the 
arrogance, hubristic strutting and serial incompetence of the Government and a 
group of bankers, the possibility of national bankruptcy is not unrealistic.

The political impact will be seismic; anger will rage. The haunted looks on the 
faces of those in supporting roles, such as the Chancellor, suggest they have 
worked out that a tragedy is unfolding here. Gordon Brown is engaged no longer 
in a standard battle for re-election; instead he is fighting to avoid going 
down in history disgraced completely.

This catastrophe happened on his watch, no matter how much he now 
opportunistically beats up on bankers. He turned on the fountain of cheap money 
and encouraged the country to swim in it. House prices rose, debt went through 
the roof and the illusion won elections. Throughout, Brown boasted of the 
beauty of his regulatory structure, when those in charge of it were failing to 
ask the most basic questions of financial institutions. The same bankers Brown 
now claims to be angry with, he once wooed, travelling to the City to give 
speeches praising their "financial innovation".

Does the Prime Minister realise the likely implications when the country joins 
the dots? He has never been wild on shouldering blame, so I doubt it.. But 
Brown is a historian. He should know that when a nation has put all its chips 
on red and the ball lands on black, the person who made the call is 
responsible. Neville Chamberlain discovered this in May 1940 with the German 
invasion of France.

We're some way from a similar event. But do not underestimate the gravity of 
the emergency and potential for disgrace.

The Government's bail-out of the banks in October with £37 billion of 
taxpayers' money was supposed to have "saved the world", according to the PM, 
but now it is clear that it has not even saved the banks. Our money kept the 
show on the road for only three months.

As the Liberal Democrats' Treasury spokesman Vince Cable asks: where has the 
£37 billion gone? The answer, as Cable knows, is that it has disappeared down 
the plug hole.

It is finally dawning on the Government that the liabilities of the British 
banks grew to be so vast in the boom years that they now eclipse the entire 
economy. Unfortunately, the Treasury is pledged to honour those 
liabilities because it has guaranteed not to let a British bank go down. RBS 
has liabilities of £1.8 trillion, three times annual UK government spending, 
against assets of £1.9 trillion. But after the events of the past year, I wager 
most taxpayers will believe the true picture is worse. 

Meanwhile, the assets are falling in value. This matters, because 
post-nationalisatio n these liabilities are now yours and 
mine.

And they come piled on top of the rocketing national debt, charitably put at 
£630 billion, or 43 per cent of GDP. The true figure is much higher because the 
Government has used off-balance sheet accounting to hide commitments such as 
PFI projects.

Add to that record consumer indebtedness and Britain becomes extremely 
vulnerable. The markets have worked this out ahead of the politicians, as 
usual, and are wondering what to do next. If they decide our nation is a basket 
case, they will make it so. 

The PM and the Chancellor , both looking a year older every day, tell us that 
for their next trick they will buy more bank shares, create a giant insurance 
scheme for bad debt, pledge to honour liabilities without limit, cross their 
fingers and hope it all works. The phrase "bottomless pit" springs to mind for 
a reason: that is what they have designed.

In this gloom, the Prime Minister has but one slender hope: that somehow, by 
force of personality, the new President Obama engineers a rapid American 
recovery restoring global confidence, energising the markets and making us all 
forget this bad dream. 

Obama is talented but he is not a magician. Instead, Gordon Brown's nightmare, 
in which we are all trapped, is going to get much worse. 

Hotmail® goes where you go. On a PC, on the Web, on your phone.  See how.

Re: [FairfieldLife] Language translation as playing checkers

TurquoiseB wrote:
> [ A rap, probably interesting only to those who dig language
> or the principles of software design or both. Caveat emptor. ]
>
> I admit to being fascinated by the topic of whether Sanskrit
> would be a useful "intermediate language" for use in machine
> translation software, because I am fascinated by language and
> how we perceive it and understand it. But I have never worked
> on language translation software, and don't really understand
> how it "works" or the theories behind it. I am just amazed 
> that the translation software I have used in the past works
> as well as it does -- 65-70% accuracy is *miraculous* in my
> opinion.
>
> So I'm tossing out some musings on how such software *might*
> work, based on my own ignorance (if someone out there knows
> more, other than just by Googling it and trying to "appear"
> knowledgeable, please post away), and my experience writing
> an AI checkers game.
>
> The Rama - Frederick Lenz guy I used to study with occasionally
> assigned his students projects to work on to help them "tech up"
> their software skills, and thus earn more money. One of these
> projects, while we were all studying AI, was to write a computer
> checkers game. Checkers, for those who don't know, is not nearly
> as simple as you might think. There are computerized chess games
> that have been developed that can win against human masters of
> the game more often than any of the computerized checkers games
> can. 
>
> Anyway, we figured out really quickly that "brute force" wasn't
> going to work. That is, you can't look at the position of pieces
> on the board and calculate *all possible moves* and then choose
> the best, because that's too computationally huge a task. It
> would take too long. 
>
> So what we wound up doing was approaching the game in stages. 
> The first stage was to parse the board for "known patterns." 
> We would then compare those known patterns with a database of 
> known patterns we had gotten from books about checkers. If we
> found a pattern match, and there was a proven "best response" 
> for that pattern, it was game over. We never had to calculate
> possible moves, because we already knew what the best one was.
> If we didn't find a match, then we moved on to analyzing pos-
> sible moves, but that was still too computationally intensive,
> so we had to try to create efficient "Occam's Razor" search
> trees, and attempt to calculate only the most *likely* 
> branches of the search tree. The result was that my team's
> checkers program did OK, but still lost consistently against
> human checkers masters. So it goes.
>
> Anyway, I'm thinking that a similar approach *must* be what
> is necessary to write good language translation software. It
> pretty much has to be done in *stages*, not by parsing each
> word sequentially. 
>
> For example, the first stage would probably be searching for
> known patterns again -- in this case, idioms, phrases that 
> consist of several words that, when placed together in a 
> certain order, pretty much always mean the same thing in that
> language. For example, in French "avoir la dent" does *not*
> mean what it says literally ("to have a tooth"); it means "to
> be hungry." If you find a number of these idiomatic phrases,
> you can put them aside and *most likely* (Occam's Razor again)
> not have to try to attempt to translate them word by word.
>
> My next pass would probably be to identify the remaining words 
> as the different parts of speech they represent -- are they 
> nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, etc.? This
> is complicated, because many words with the exact same spell-
> ing can be different parts of speech, depending on syntax
> and position with regard to other words.
>
> Anyway, having identified the idioms and gotten them out of
> the way, and then having performed an Occam's Razor "most
> likely" pass on what part of speech each remaining word was,
> then I'd go for the database match, and try to match them up
> one-for-one with their counterparts in the target language
> database. Finally, there would be a final "logic pass" based
> on passing the completed translation through a commonly-
> available syntax/grammar checker for the target language to
> see if it makes sense and follows all the rules. If not, 
> correct the errors and the result is your "translation."
>
> That would be my approach, anyway. It may have *nothing* to
> do with how such software is really written. I'm just tripping
> on the idea in hopes that someone here knows how such language
> translation software is really written, and how it really works. 
> If so, please clue me in. I'm curious.
As as software professional and developer/designer my first step would 
be to buy some time from linguistics experts.  I would also brainstorm 
with other developers on solutions to the problem of language 
translation.   Then you would want to do some modeling on several of the 
solutions and see what floats and w

Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Sanskrit translator wanted

TurquoiseB wrote:
> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, cardemaister  wrote:
>   
>> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB  wrote:
>> 
>>> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bhairitu  wrote:
>>>   
 Supposedly some translations engines use Sanskrit as an 
 intermediate language because it is unambiguous. The program 
 will take text in a language and translate it to Sanskrit and 
 then from Sanskrit to the target language.
 
>>> I´m sorry, but this sounds like bullshit to me.
>>>
>>> I know very little about Sanskrit, but everything
>>> I ever heard talked specifically *about* its 
>>> ambiguity. They talked about poetry forms in 
>>> which every word in the verse could have several
>>> meanings, and the whole *art* of the poetry form
>>> was being able to put a whole series of these 
>>> words -- *each* of them having four or five 
>>> meanings -- together in such a way that no 
>>> matter which meaning of any of the words you 
>>> pick, the whole verse still makes sense.
>>>
>>> Plus, just looking at the definitions Card posts
>>> here, words often have *more* than four or five 
>>> completely different meanings, right there in the 
>>> definitions he posts. 
>>>
>>> So I´m thinkin´ that this stuff about using
>>> Sanskrit as an ¨intermediate language¨ for trans-
>>> lation engines is just someone´s True Believer
>>> bullshit.
>>>
>>> If you want an unambiguous language, choose French.
>>> That is why all international treaties use it as
>>> the ¨master language¨ for the treaties. There is
>>> a copy in the language of each country, but the
>>> master is in French, because it is so precise. 
>>> Everything I´ve ever heard about Sanskrit presents
>>> it as just the opposite.
>>>
>>> Card or others can correct me on this if I´ve heard
>>> incorrectly. I´m not trying to knock Sanskrit or
>>> anything; it´s just that Bhairitu´s claim sounds
>>> the opposite of everything I´ve ever heard about
>>> the nature of Sanskrit as a language.
>>>   
>> I love Sanskrit, but not because I'd think it's unambiguous.
>> Just as a simple example, the inflectional form 'yoginaH' could
>> be either ablative/genitive singular (e.g. from/of) or 
>> nominative/accusative plural ([many] yogis, either as a subject
>> or an object of the sentence), depending on the context.
>> 
>
> Thanks for weighing in, Card. As I said, I'm 
> not questioning the idea of Sanskrit being a
> cool language, just the idea of it being a
> cool "intermediate" language for translation
> because of its "unambiguous nature." Literally
> everything I have ever read about it mentioned
> that it was one of the *most* ambiguous lang-
> uages on the planet.
>
> Ambiguity *is* the issue when it comes to trans-
> lation, whether by humans or by software. It's
> captured in the classic example from English:
>
> "Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like
> a banana." 
>
> This sentence only makes sense, even in English,
> once you have "parsed" it and realized that the
> words "flies" and "like" have very different
> meanings in one phrase than they do in the other.
> *As I understand it*, that is the problem with
> Sanskrit, and in spades. Each word has *many*
> meanings; as Vaj puts it, not just "double 
> entendre" but "multiple entendre." Thus it is 
> hard for me to conceive of it as a suitable 
> language with which to address the many problems 
> of machine language translation. 
>
> As for the website Bhairitu pointed to, all that
> you have to do to see its True Believer nature
> is to do a mental "search and replace" on the
> text in it and replace every mention of "Sanskrit"
> with "Hebrew." Then you'll see what the site is
> really about. 
>
> It's attempting to present a case for learning
> Sanskrit based on its supposedly spiritual nature,
> and its supposed status as the "mother of all
> languages." Sanskrit may *be* both. For all I 
> know, God, all the gods and goddesses and angels
> sit around discussing Monday Night Football in
> Sanskrit, because it's the most suitable lang-
> uage for doing so. Maybe it even has magical
> abilities to heal the sick and raise the dead
> and fix the game during Monday Night Football.
>
> I don't know, and I don't care. The only relevant
> piece of information in this context is whether
> it is an *unambiguous* language. Given a sentence
> in Sanskrit, can that sentence be parsed one and
> only one way?
>
> Everything I've ever heard is that the answer to
> that question is a definitive "No." And that
> unambiguous answer rules out Sanskrit as the
> basis of an experiment in machine translation
> that is based on the notion of that base lang-
> uage being unambiguous. 
What else would Sanskrit scholars be looking at if it wasn't spiritual 
texts, Turq?  That seems to be the only stuff that survived.  Maybe if 
you learn Sanskrit and maybe Pali while you're at it you can go do some 
digs in India and see if you can find any texts from the sports section

[FairfieldLife] Re: Independent TM Teachers in the San Francisco Bay Area?

2009-01-21 Thread Patrick Gillam

Rick, the friend of your friend wants 
to learn TM from Paul Brown.

http://www.thequietpath.org/

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Rick Archer" wrote:
>
> From a friend:
> 
> A friend of mine is very interested in 
> learning TM, though he cannot 
> afford the current fee of $2500. Does 
> anyone know of an independent TM 
> teacher who can provide instruction for 
> less, in the San Francisco Bay 
> Area? It should still be the TM instruction, 
> with puja, checking and 
> all of that. Thanks.
>

[FairfieldLife] Re: Is it just me?

2009-01-21 Thread Nelson

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Duveyoung  wrote:
>
> What's wrong with hope?
> 
> After eight years, nay, three decades of shuck and jive presidents,
> along comes one who truly offers a different approach, and yet
> naysayers are panicking and tarring our new guy with a broad brush
> before he's even done with his first day in office.
> 
> What's wrong with hoping for a few days, a few weeks, a few months
> that this guy can bootstrap us all into a higher intent?
> 
> All these years, and now we have these folks with buckets of cold
> water to toss on our flames of passion.  WTF?
> 
> If this were a foxhole, and someone started spewing this kind of
> negativity, he'd be slapped upside the head, right?  
> 
> Indulge in panic all you want out there, but I'm taking a few days off
> from this and partying down.
> 
> Even if I'm wrong, I'll get a nice buzz out of the deal while those
> cringing at the other side of the foxhole will be miserable during
> that time.  I ask you, who more profits?  
> 
> Me sez me does.
> 
> Give the guy a break.  All signs still point to him holding the reins
> firmly, and he's going to kick the ass of anyone under him who doesn't
> get his vision.  I predict someone is going to get into it with Obama
> and be tossed out in short order.
> 
> Edg
> 
snip
  One site I read pointed out that shortly, Obama will be gone.
  Be interesting to see how it plays out.
  Either way, I suspect we will have a serious shortage of monotony.

[FairfieldLife] Re: Independent TM Teachers in the San Francisco Bay Area?

Worship imbues the object of focus with vibration, feeling, sound, and
resonance with unseen, unspoken mystical power, beyond the senses,
whether it is the Catholic Eucharist, Native American dances and
chants, prayers to Mecca, a pilgrimage to the Haj, yagynas, a fire
ceremony, Buddhist rituals, Shabbat, etc.  Otherwise, Rick should hand
the person a list of the mantras published on FFL and let him pick
one. O.K. now he, sits to meditate, closes his eyes and the first
thing that pops into his head is, "Did I pick the right mantra?" 
Doubt precludes innocent practice, the aspirant's experience is not
effortless, he strains, gets a headache, gives up and tells his
friends, "Yep, been there done that, don't bother wasting your time."
Either Rick or his friend thinks there is some value in following a
prescribe tradition as did Maharishi until the day he died.
http://tinyurl.com/8uuvwl

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Duveyoung  wrote:
>
> Rick,
> 
> Do you feel the puja etc. is necessary for the technique to "get
> activated by Guru Dev" or something of that ilk?
> 
> Seems to me that an ancient ritual has a chance of helping (deluding?)
> a newbie to imprint on the technique, so that's a practical benefit,
> but do you actually think there's something mystical happening that
> toggles the power of the mantra or its use or that "somehow" primes
> the pump of the initiate's mind?
> 
> I once loved the idea of the 5,000 year tradition being carried
> forward and that the mantras were as ancient and as long-understood
> for their effects, but all that was hooey as far as anyone can tell
> these days since we have no provenance of the mantras.
> 
> Why tell your friend to cheat the TMO out of a fee and all that if the
> dang system of meditating only ended up with a dysfunctional
> organization of ill repute?  And, hey, if your friend really takes off
> and has incredible experiences, how is he/she going to approach the
> TMO to further or intensify their program if they're not officially a
> paying-member of the TMO?  If the experiences are THERE your friend
> may be quite vulnerable to many risks when the passion to amp up the
> results skews their decisions about what organization to become
> involved with.  Your friend might equally "get off" on an Amma hug, ya
> see? Where's the beef that your friend thinks he/she's going to get? 
> Why aren't you more fully advising this person about the vagaries of
> spiritual methodologies such that a more informed decision about "how
> to meditate and why to do so" becomes clearer to that person?  
> 
> Edg
> 
> 
> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Rick Archer"  wrote:
> >
> > From a friend:
> > 
> > A friend of mine is very interested in learning TM, though he cannot 
> > afford the current fee of $2500. Does anyone know of an
independent TM 
> > teacher who can provide instruction for less, in the San Francisco
Bay 
> > Area? It should still be the TM instruction, with puja, checking and 
> > all of that. Thanks.
> >
>

[FairfieldLife] Tom Barlow, African-American

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, off_world_beings  
wrote:
>
> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "shempmcgurk"  
> wrote:
> >
> > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, off_world_beings 
 
> > wrote:
> > >
> > > Yea that's me on the left at the bottom Magoo.
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > Is that you with the t-shirt and the belt beside the woman with 
> brown 
> > hair?>>
> 
> Yes.
> 
> OffWorld


Oh.

Well, then, I can see why you told us you were part Black.  Your 
African roots shine right through.

Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Is it just me?

2009-01-21 Thread Arhata Osho

Hope is great.
When one 'hits the field', it's passion to get the job done, meeting the 
challenges
as they surely will come incessantly.  At the end of day and the beginning of 
the 
next - push the hope button.  People should enjoy the moment, but be vigilant 
for
the shadowy and invisible rocks and barriers on the path.
Arhata

What's wrong with hope?

After eight years, nay, three decades of shuck and jive presidents,

along comes one who truly offers a different approach, and yet

naysayers are panicking and tarring our new guy with a broad brush

before he's even done with his first day in office.

What's wrong with hoping for a few days, a few weeks, a few months

that this guy can bootstrap us all into a higher intent?

All these years, and now we have these folks with buckets of cold

water to toss on our flames of passion.  WTF?

If this were a foxhole, and someone started spewing this kind of

negativity, he'd be slapped upside the head, right?  

Indulge in panic all you want out there, but I'm taking a few days off

from this and partying down.

Even if I'm wrong, I'll get a nice buzz out of the deal while those

cringing at the other side of the foxhole will be miserable during

that time.  I ask you, who more profits?  

Me sez me does.

Give the guy a break.  All signs still point to him holding the reins

firmly, and he's going to kick the ass of anyone under him who doesn't

get his vision.  I predict someone is going to get into it with Obama

and be tossed out in short order.

Edg

--- In FairfieldLife@ yahoogroups. com, arhatafreespeech@ ... wrote:

>

> 

> 

> 

> 

> 

> 

> 

> 

> 

> 

> 

> 

> 

> Time to temper the euphoria with commonsense and avoid delusion! Is

the author a bit pessimestic? It's positive to be vigilant and, find

ways to participate in 'giving back'.

> Arhata

> Is it just me? 

> 

>  

> 

> Gerald Warner 

> 

> Telegraph.co. uk 

> 

>  

> 

>  

> 

> Barack Obama inauguration: this Emperor has no clothes, it will all

end in tears 

> 

>  

> 

>  

> 

> This will end in tears. The Obama hysteria is not merely

embarrassing to witness, it is itself contributory to the scale of the

disaster that is coming. What we are experiencing, in the deepening

days of a global depression, is the desperate suspension of disbelief

by people of intelligence - la trahison des clercs - in a pathetic

effort to hypnotise themselves into the delusion that it will be all

right on the night. It will not be all right.

> We have been here before. In the spring of 1997, to be precise, when

a charismatic, young prime minister entered Downing Street, cheered by

children bussed in for the occasion waving plastic Union Jacks. A very

few of us at that time incurred searing reproaches for denouncing the

Great Charlatan (as I have always denominated Tony Blair) and

dissenting from the public hysteria. Three times a deluded Britain

elected that transparent fraud. Yesterday, when national bankruptcy

became a formal reality, we reaped the bitter harvest of the

Blair/Brown imposture.

> The burnt child, contrary to conventional wisdom, does not fear the

fire. After the Blair experience there is no excuse for anybody in

Britain falling for Obama. Yet today, in this country, even some of

those who remained sane during the emotional spasm of the Diana

aberration are pumping the air for Princess Barack. At a time of gross

economic and geopolitical instability throughout the Western world,

this is beyond irresponsibility.

> To anyone who kept his head, the string of Christmas cracker mottoes

booming through the public address system on Washington's National

Mall can only excite scepticism. It is crucial to recall the reality

that lies behind the rhetoric. Denouncing "those who seek to advance

their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents" comes ill

from a man whose flagship legislation, the Freedom of Choice Act, will

impose abortion, including partial-birth abortion, on every state in

the Union. It seems the era of Hope is to be inaugurated with a

slaughter of the innocents.

> Obama's American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan is like one of those

toxic packages traded by bankers: it camouflages many unaffordable

gifts to his client state. With a federal deficit already at $1.2

trillion, Obama wants to squander $825 billion (which will undoubtedly

mushroom to more than $1 trillion) on creating 600,000 more government

jobs and a further 459,000 in "green energy" (useless wind turbines

and other Heath-Robinson contraptions favoured by Beltway

environmentalists) .

> It is frightening to think there is a real possibility that the

entire world economy could go into complete meltdown and famine kill

millions. Yet Western - and British - commentators are cocooned in a

warm comfort zone of infatuation with America's answer to Neil

Kinnock. We should be long past applauding politicians

[FairfieldLife] PAUL MCCARTNEY CONCERT

2009-01-21 Thread michael

 










SAVE THE DATE! 

GLOBAL BENEFIT CONCERT 
PAUL MCCARTNEY 
& FRIENDS | SATURDAY, APRIL 4, 2009


A once in a
lifetime event! 
Teach one million
kids to meditate 
Radio City Music Hall
New York City 
Contact us today 
Concert.DavidLynchFoundation.org 
Guest stars to be announced soon!






“Teach one
million kids
to meditate 
—and we
will change
the world overnight.”
—David Lynch

Paul McCartney and other great musicians will perform a global benefit concert 
at Radio City Music Hall in New York City on Saturday, April 4, 2009, in 
support of the David Lynch Foundation’s international initiative to teach one 
million children the Transcendental Meditation technique—and change the world 
overnight. 
Limited seats: A limited number of excellent seats have been reserved for 
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Concert.DavidLynchFoundation.org


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Hosted by the David Lynch Foundation for Consciousness-Based Education and 
World Peace
Click here to unsubscribe

[FairfieldLife] Re: Is it just me?

What's wrong with hope?

After eight years, nay, three decades of shuck and jive presidents,
along comes one who truly offers a different approach, and yet
naysayers are panicking and tarring our new guy with a broad brush
before he's even done with his first day in office.

What's wrong with hoping for a few days, a few weeks, a few months
that this guy can bootstrap us all into a higher intent?

All these years, and now we have these folks with buckets of cold
water to toss on our flames of passion.  WTF?

If this were a foxhole, and someone started spewing this kind of
negativity, he'd be slapped upside the head, right?  

Indulge in panic all you want out there, but I'm taking a few days off
from this and partying down.

Even if I'm wrong, I'll get a nice buzz out of the deal while those
cringing at the other side of the foxhole will be miserable during
that time.  I ask you, who more profits?  

Me sez me does.

Give the guy a break.  All signs still point to him holding the reins
firmly, and he's going to kick the ass of anyone under him who doesn't
get his vision.  I predict someone is going to get into it with Obama
and be tossed out in short order.

Edg

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, arhatafreespe...@... wrote:
>
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Time to temper the euphoria with commonsense and avoid delusion! Is
the author a bit pessimestic? It's positive to be vigilant and, find
ways to participate in 'giving back'.
> Arhata
> Is it just me? 
> 
>  
> 
> Gerald Warner 
> 
> Telegraph.co. uk 
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Barack Obama inauguration: this Emperor has no clothes, it will all
end in tears 
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> This will end in tears. The Obama hysteria is not merely
embarrassing to witness, it is itself contributory to the scale of the
disaster that is coming. What we are experiencing, in the deepening
days of a global depression, is the desperate suspension of disbelief
by people of intelligence - la trahison des clercs - in a pathetic
effort to hypnotise themselves into the delusion that it will be all
right on the night. It will not be all right.
> We have been here before. In the spring of 1997, to be precise, when
a charismatic, young prime minister entered Downing Street, cheered by
children bussed in for the occasion waving plastic Union Jacks. A very
few of us at that time incurred searing reproaches for denouncing the
Great Charlatan (as I have always denominated Tony Blair) and
dissenting from the public hysteria. Three times a deluded Britain
elected that transparent fraud. Yesterday, when national bankruptcy
became a formal reality, we reaped the bitter harvest of the
Blair/Brown imposture.
> The burnt child, contrary to conventional wisdom, does not fear the
fire. After the Blair experience there is no excuse for anybody in
Britain falling for Obama. Yet today, in this country, even some of
those who remained sane during the emotional spasm of the Diana
aberration are pumping the air for Princess Barack. At a time of gross
economic and geopolitical instability throughout the Western world,
this is beyond irresponsibility.
> To anyone who kept his head, the string of Christmas cracker mottoes
booming through the public address system on Washington's National
Mall can only excite scepticism. It is crucial to recall the reality
that lies behind the rhetoric. Denouncing "those who seek to advance
their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents" comes ill
from a man whose flagship legislation, the Freedom of Choice Act, will
impose abortion, including partial-birth abortion, on every state in
the Union. It seems the era of Hope is to be inaugurated with a
slaughter of the innocents.
> Obama's American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan is like one of those
toxic packages traded by bankers: it camouflages many unaffordable
gifts to his client state. With a federal deficit already at $1.2
trillion, Obama wants to squander $825 billion (which will undoubtedly
mushroom to more than $1 trillion) on creating 600,000 more government
jobs and a further 459,000 in "green energy" (useless wind turbines
and other Heath-Robinson contraptions favoured by Beltway
environmentalists) .
> It is frightening to think there is a real possibility that the
entire world economy could go into complete meltdown and famine kill
millions. Yet Western - and British - commentators are cocooned in a
warm comfort zone of infatuation with America's answer to Neil
Kinnock. We should be long past applauding politicians of any hue:
they got us into this mess. The best deserve a probationary
opportunity to prove themselves, the worst should be in jail.
> It is questionable whether the present political system can survive
the coming crisis. Whatever the solution, teenage swooning
sentimentality over a celebrity cult has no part in it. The most
powerful nation on earth is confronting its worst economic crisis
under the leadership of its most extremely liberal politician, who has
virtually n

[FairfieldLife] Is it just me?

2009-01-21 Thread arhatafreespeech














Time to temper the euphoria with commonsense and avoid delusion! Is the author 
a bit pessimestic? It's positive to be vigilant and, find ways to participate 
in 'giving back'.
Arhata
Is it just me? 

 

Gerald Warner 

Telegraph.co. uk 

 

 

Barack Obama inauguration: this Emperor has no clothes, it will all end in 
tears 

 

 

This will end in tears. The Obama hysteria is not merely embarrassing to 
witness, it is itself contributory to the scale of the disaster that is coming. 
What we are experiencing, in the deepening days of a global depression, is the 
desperate suspension of disbelief by people of intelligence - la trahison des 
clercs - in a pathetic effort to hypnotise themselves into the delusion that it 
will be all right on the night. It will not be all right.
We have been here before. In the spring of 1997, to be precise, when a 
charismatic, young prime minister entered Downing Street, cheered by children 
bussed in for the occasion waving plastic Union Jacks. A very few of us at that 
time incurred searing reproaches for denouncing the Great Charlatan (as I have 
always denominated Tony Blair) and dissenting from the public hysteria. Three 
times a deluded Britain elected that transparent fraud. Yesterday, when 
national bankruptcy became a formal reality, we reaped the bitter harvest of 
the Blair/Brown imposture.
The burnt child, contrary to conventional wisdom, does not fear the fire. After 
the Blair experience there is no excuse for anybody in Britain falling for 
Obama. Yet today, in this country, even some of those who remained sane during 
the emotional spasm of the Diana aberration are pumping the air for Princess 
Barack. At a time of gross economic and geopolitical instability throughout the 
Western world, this is beyond irresponsibility.
To anyone who kept his head, the string of Christmas cracker mottoes booming 
through the public address system on Washington's National Mall can only excite 
scepticism. It is crucial to recall the reality that lies behind the rhetoric. 
Denouncing "those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and 
slaughtering innocents" comes ill from a man whose flagship legislation, the 
Freedom of Choice Act, will impose abortion, including partial-birth abortion, 
on every state in the Union. It seems the era of Hope is to be inaugurated with 
a slaughter of the innocents.
Obama's American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan is like one of those toxic 
packages traded by bankers: it camouflages many unaffordable gifts to his 
client state. With a federal deficit already at $1.2 trillion, Obama wants to 
squander $825 billion (which will undoubtedly mushroom to more than $1 
trillion) on creating 600,000 more government jobs and a further 459,000 in 
"green energy" (useless wind turbines and other Heath-Robinson contraptions 
favoured by Beltway environmentalists) .
It is frightening to think there is a real possibility that the entire world 
economy could go into complete meltdown and famine kill millions. Yet Western - 
and British - commentators are cocooned in a warm comfort zone of infatuation 
with America's answer to Neil Kinnock. We should be long past applauding 
politicians of any hue: they got us into this mess. The best deserve a 
probationary opportunity to prove themselves, the worst should be in jail.
It is questionable whether the present political system can survive the coming 
crisis. Whatever the solution, teenage swooning sentimentality over a celebrity 
cult has no part in it. The most powerful nation on earth is confronting its 
worst economic crisis under the leadership of its most extremely liberal 
politician, who has virtually no experience of federal politics. That is not an 
opportunity but a catastrophe.
These are frank, even ungracious, words: they have the one merit that, unlike 
almost everything else written today about Obama, they will not require to be 
eaten in the future.

[FairfieldLife] Re: Independent TM Teachers in the San Francisco Bay Area?

Rick,

Do you feel the puja etc. is necessary for the technique to "get
activated by Guru Dev" or something of that ilk?

Seems to me that an ancient ritual has a chance of helping (deluding?)
a newbie to imprint on the technique, so that's a practical benefit,
but do you actually think there's something mystical happening that
toggles the power of the mantra or its use or that "somehow" primes
the pump of the initiate's mind?

I once loved the idea of the 5,000 year tradition being carried
forward and that the mantras were as ancient and as long-understood
for their effects, but all that was hooey as far as anyone can tell
these days since we have no provenance of the mantras.

Why tell your friend to cheat the TMO out of a fee and all that if the
dang system of meditating only ended up with a dysfunctional
organization of ill repute?  And, hey, if your friend really takes off
and has incredible experiences, how is he/she going to approach the
TMO to further or intensify their program if they're not officially a
paying-member of the TMO?  If the experiences are THERE your friend
may be quite vulnerable to many risks when the passion to amp up the
results skews their decisions about what organization to become
involved with.  Your friend might equally "get off" on an Amma hug, ya
see? Where's the beef that your friend thinks he/she's going to get? 
Why aren't you more fully advising this person about the vagaries of
spiritual methodologies such that a more informed decision about "how
to meditate and why to do so" becomes clearer to that person?  

Edg

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Rick Archer"  wrote:
>
> From a friend:
> 
> A friend of mine is very interested in learning TM, though he cannot 
> afford the current fee of $2500. Does anyone know of an independent TM 
> teacher who can provide instruction for less, in the San Francisco Bay 
> Area? It should still be the TM instruction, with puja, checking and 
> all of that. Thanks.
>

[FairfieldLife] Re: Language translation as playing checkers

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Duveyoung  wrote:
>
> I have an approach that I've never seen considered in my A.I.
> readings, and since I am a bear of little brain, I've discounted it
> greatly -- thinking, "who could I be to have insight into this
> challenge when all these huge minds have failed?" but though I don't
> have the coding chops to go toe to toe with even the stupidest A.I.
> programmer, my idea for the approach still holds power for me, and 
> one of these days I'll have to sit down with a good coder and get 
> some non-disclosure paperwork signed, and then see if what I have 
> in mind is a joke, or hey!, something new.  
> 
> The nice thing about my approach is that it can probably be roughed
> out and working in a few hours time by a good coder.
> 
> Hint about my approach:  I don't try to solve the problem.

If you manage to get it built, you can rely
on a great many sales to politicians.  :-)

Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Whitest Kids - Hitler Rap

On Wed, Jan 21, 2009 at 3:47 AM, TurquoiseB wrote:

>
>
> Hey L.Shaddai,
>
> Remember when you were back on your course
> and I pointed out the sometimes manic nature
> of your posts while there and "on program,"
> and that you might want to look at that later
> to see whether it "feels" as good in retrospect
> as it did at the time?
>
> This is another of those suggestions. Have you
> noticed that since coming *back* from this IA
> course you're *angry* and *cynical* a lot, so
> much so it appears consistently in your posts?
> I certainly have.
>
> Do you think there is a link?
>
> Not sayin'...just askin'...
>

Yes.  I'm being real.  In FF/VC I was being real.

[FairfieldLife] Independent TM Teachers in the San Francisco Bay Area?

2009-01-21 Thread Rick Archer

>From a friend:

A friend of mine is very interested in learning TM, though he cannot 
afford the current fee of $2500. Does anyone know of an independent TM 
teacher who can provide instruction for less, in the San Francisco Bay 
Area? It should still be the TM instruction, with puja, checking and 
all of that. Thanks.

[FairfieldLife] Re: Tom Barlow Sweepstakes

2009-01-21 Thread off_world_beings

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "shempmcgurk"  
wrote:
>
> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, off_world_beings  
> wrote:
> >
> > Yea that's me on the left at the bottom Magoo.
> 
> 
> 
> Is that you with the t-shirt and the belt beside the woman with 
brown 
> hair?>>

Yes.

OffWorld


> 
> 
> 
> 
> > 
> > (But really Shemp, what is your obsession with me?...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> When I read some of the tripe you write here I internally debate 
> whether I should respond, think better of it, yet want an outlet 
> through which to express my discomfort with your worldview.  This 
is 
> a way of channelling it into something without stressing myself.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> >its just getting kinda creepy... and a 
> > bit sad for you. What is it about me with which you are so 
obsessed 
> and acting like a 
> > pervert stalker? )
> 
> 
> 
> I have a soft spot for the mentally and morally challenged.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> > 
> > OffWorld
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "shempmcgurk" 
 
> wrote:
> > >
> > > 
> > > A Google Image search of "Tom Barlow" brings up the following 
> mugs.
> > > 
> > > Choose the FairfieldLife Tom Barlow and you can win an all-
> expenses paid
> > > trip for two to Swanton, Vermont:
> > > 
> > > 1.
> > >
> >
>

[FairfieldLife] Re: Secular Meditation and Consciousness-based Education

>
> > 
> > > At some point some very secular, simple, effective, inexpensive 
> method
> > > will emerge. With a good narrative. And that does have a marked 
> >effect
> > > on learning, retention, creativity, synthesis of ideas, etc. 

>...
> > I too did TM throughout college and I'd have to say it's primary  
> > benefit was 20 min. of rest, two times a day. In other words, it 
> >was  
> > insignificantly different from just taking a scheduled nap, 2x  >a  
> > day. Nice, 
>but 
hardly earth-shattering.
> >
>


Om Well, to be fair, experience may vary even within TM.

[FairfieldLife] Re: Language translation as playing checkers

Turq,

The last time I scanned the field of A.I., I came away thinking that
your well-reasoned below approach has been used many times by the best
of the best minds and found far more challenging an approach than
expected.  

The A.I. industry's shop-talk admits that this approach requires the
biggest IQs compared to those of A.I.coders who are trying brute force
approaches, but thinking about thinking can end up with a massive
program that has so many sub-rules that it requires a brute force
hardware base also merely to process its analysis, and the refinement
of the rule-set requires an unending, fractaleque, recursive grinding
that "never gets there from here," and the program cannot "fish or cut
bait."

There was a recent public contest to test the various A.I. products
that try to pass the Turing Test, and as I read the outputs of those
programs, it was pathetic.  All of the "electronic personalities" were
spotted easily.  No program passed the test.

I remain convinced that a true A.I. program cannot be created until a
machine as complex as the human brain is invented.  It may require a
computer that matches a human brain quark for quark, before true A.I.
becomes an emergent property.  This is perhaps decades away when
biologically grown computers are up to speed -- or perhaps a quantum
computer will finally be practical -- then, all bets are off when such
massive brute force becomes available.

I have an approach that I've never seen considered in my A.I.
readings, and since I am a bear of little brain, I've discounted it
greatly -- thinking, "who could I be to have insight into this
challenge when all these huge minds have failed?" but though I don't
have the coding chops to go toe to toe with even the stupidest A.I.
programmer, my idea for the approach still holds power for me, and one
of these days I'll have to sit down with a good coder and get some
non-disclosure paperwork signed, and then see if what I have in mind
is a joke, or hey!, something new.  

The nice thing about my approach is that it can probably be roughed
out and working in a few hours time by a good coder.

Hint about my approach:  I don't try to solve the problem.

Edg

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB  wrote:
>
> [ A rap, probably interesting only to those who dig language
> or the principles of software design or both. Caveat emptor. ]
> 
> I admit to being fascinated by the topic of whether Sanskrit
> would be a useful "intermediate language" for use in machine
> translation software, because I am fascinated by language and
> how we perceive it and understand it. But I have never worked
> on language translation software, and don't really understand
> how it "works" or the theories behind it. I am just amazed 
> that the translation software I have used in the past works
> as well as it does -- 65-70% accuracy is *miraculous* in my
> opinion.
> 
> So I'm tossing out some musings on how such software *might*
> work, based on my own ignorance (if someone out there knows
> more, other than just by Googling it and trying to "appear"
> knowledgeable, please post away), and my experience writing
> an AI checkers game.
> 
> The Rama - Frederick Lenz guy I used to study with occasionally
> assigned his students projects to work on to help them "tech up"
> their software skills, and thus earn more money. One of these
> projects, while we were all studying AI, was to write a computer
> checkers game. Checkers, for those who don't know, is not nearly
> as simple as you might think. There are computerized chess games
> that have been developed that can win against human masters of
> the game more often than any of the computerized checkers games
> can. 
> 
> Anyway, we figured out really quickly that "brute force" wasn't
> going to work. That is, you can't look at the position of pieces
> on the board and calculate *all possible moves* and then choose
> the best, because that's too computationally huge a task. It
> would take too long. 
> 
> So what we wound up doing was approaching the game in stages. 
> The first stage was to parse the board for "known patterns." 
> We would then compare those known patterns with a database of 
> known patterns we had gotten from books about checkers. If we
> found a pattern match, and there was a proven "best response" 
> for that pattern, it was game over. We never had to calculate
> possible moves, because we already knew what the best one was.
> If we didn't find a match, then we moved on to analyzing pos-
> sible moves, but that was still too computationally intensive,
> so we had to try to create efficient "Occam's Razor" search
> trees, and attempt to calculate only the most *likely* 
> branches of the search tree. The result was that my team's
> checkers program did OK, but still lost consistently against
> human checkers masters. So it goes.
> 
> Anyway, I'm thinking that a similar approach *must* be what
> is necessary to write good language translation software. It
> pret

[FairfieldLife] Privatized Public Schools: Cannon Fodder for the Military

With Obama's pick for Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, it looks
like we could see a repackaging of Bush's "No Child Left Behind." Bush
designed NCLB to slowly destroy public education with the intention of
privatizing failing schools, thereby increasing the disparity between
the haves and have nots. If Duncan implements Chicago's ideological
playbook for public schools nationwide, we will see NCLB on steroids.
Privatizing failing schools, means the expendable "have nots" can
choose between joblessness, crime, privatized prison or cannon fodder
for a military, also moving in the direction of privatization. 

When Bush declared he wanted to create an "ownership society," (a
slogan he eventually dropped) he meant that "we" the many, would be
owned by the corporate "few." The march toward privatization of public
schools, the military, prisons, roads, water, energy, airwaves, the
NET, does not bode well for the future of our county. The commons, the
infrastructure that serves the common good should never be privatized.

raunchydog 

Tomgram: Andy Kroll, Will Public Education Be Militarized?
As he packs up for Washington, Arne Duncan leaves behind a Windy City
legacy that's hardly cause for optimism, emphasizing as it does a
business-minded, market-driven model for education. If he is a
"reformer," his style of management is distinctly top-down, corporate,
and privatizing. It views teachers as expendable, unions as
unnecessary, and students as customers. Disturbing as well is the
prominence of Duncan's belief in offering a key role in public
education to the military. Chicago's school system is currently the
most militarized in the country. read more... http://tinyurl.com/9ajve5

"...Even if Duncan's policies do continue to boost test scores in
coming years, the question must be asked: At whose expense? In a
competition-driven educational system, some schools will, of course,
succeed, receiving more funding and so hiring the most talented
teachers. At the same time, schools that aren't "performing" will be
put on probation, stripped of their autonomy, and possibly closed,
only to be reopened as privately-run outfits -- or even handed over to
the military. The highest achieving students (that is, the best
test-takers) will have access to the most up-to-date facilities,
advanced equipment, and academic support programs; struggling students
will likely be left behind, separate and unequal, stuck in decrepit
classrooms and underfunded schools.

Public education is not meant to be a win-lose, us-versus-them system,
nor is it meant to be a recruitment system for the military -- and yet
this, it seems, is at the heart of Duncan's legacy in Chicago, and so
a reasonable indication of the kind of "reform" he's likely to bring
to the country as education secretary."

[FairfieldLife] Re: Language translation as playing checkers

2009-01-21 Thread cardemaister

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB  wrote:
>
> 
> For example, the first stage would probably be searching for
> known patterns again -- in this case, idioms, phrases that 
> consist of several words that, when placed together in a 
> certain order, pretty much always mean the same thing in that
> language. For example, in French "avoir la dent" does *not*
> mean what it says literally ("to have a tooth"); it means "to
> be hungry." 

Both Google and Dictionary.com translate that to
"(to) have (the) tooth".

[FairfieldLife] Re: Tom Barlow Sweepstakes

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, off_world_beings  
wrote:
>
> Yea that's me on the left at the bottom Magoo.

Is that you with the t-shirt and the belt beside the woman with brown 
hair?

> 
> (But really Shemp, what is your obsession with me?...

When I read some of the tripe you write here I internally debate 
whether I should respond, think better of it, yet want an outlet 
through which to express my discomfort with your worldview.  This is 
a way of channelling it into something without stressing myself.

>its just getting kinda creepy... and a 
> bit sad for you. What is it about me with which you are so obsessed 
and acting like a 
> pervert stalker? )

I have a soft spot for the mentally and morally challenged.

> 
> OffWorld
> 
> 
> 
> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "shempmcgurk"  
wrote:
> >
> > 
> > A Google Image search of "Tom Barlow" brings up the following 
mugs.
> > 
> > Choose the FairfieldLife Tom Barlow and you can win an all-
expenses paid
> > trip for two to Swanton, Vermont:
> > 
> > 1.
> >
>

[FairfieldLife] Secular Meditation and Consciousness-based Education

> 
> On Jan 20, 2009, at 10:24 PM, grate.swan wrote:
> 
> > At some point some very secular, simple, effective, inexpensive 
method
> > will emerge. With a good narrative. And that does have a marked 
>effect
> > on learning, retention, creativity, synthesis of ideas, etc. 
>Within 10
> > years it could have 80% saturation. It will happen -- exactly 
>when and
> > how long it will take are indeterminant.
> 
>

Thoughtful swan,  & that kind of narative might probably come from a 
physicist type scientist; not the TMorg, or a buddhist or catholic 
monk.  All those others come along with a lot of baggage for folks to 
carry very far.

Yeah, is coming a time to also let the institutional defending of 
buisness trademarks & patents go public and just let it go on as one 
of the 'quiet time' meditation that might be useful.  

Folks will do it based on their own experience with it.

 --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Vaj  wrote:
>

> Non-sectarian forms of meditation are taking off and of course  
> they're free. Since they're less encumbered by Hinduism or any  
> particular religion, the chances are they may be the future of 
>school  
> based meditation, esp. since good, solid research backs them up.
> 
> I too did TM throughout college and I'd have to say it's primary  
> benefit was 20 min. of rest, two times a day. In other words, it 
>was  
> insignificantly different from just taking a scheduled nap, 2x  a  
> day. Nice, but hardly earth-shattering.
>

[FairfieldLife] Re: Bye-bye Bush

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Hugo"  wrote:
>
> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "authfriend"  wrote:
> >
> > For anyone who missed it, video of Bush's helicopter
> > taking off from the White House for the last time and
> > disappearing in the distance:
> > 
> > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJ7zRVuo7jQ
> > 
> > I had to go out this afternoon and didn't get to
> > watch it live. I couldn't really believe he was
> > GONE until I saw the video.
> > 
> > Biggest WHEW ever.
> >
> 
> 
> I almost felt sorry for Dubya having to sit there
> while Obama spelt out what had become on America and
> the sort of effort that will be needed to put it right.
> Especially as Obama is at leat three infinities more
> eloquent than him.


Bush got booed as he walked to the inauguration platform. Look at the
look on his face. He looks like an uncertain and frightened little kid:

Watch: http://www.politico.com/largevideobox.html?id=8601460001

[FairfieldLife] Online Video of Inauguration Sets Records



---Millions of cubicle dwellers across the country helped set records
for Internet traffic on Tuesday as they watched online video of the
inauguration ceremonies  or at least tried to. The overwhelming
demand meant that some Web sites and data networks had trouble keeping
up, forcing many people to turn to less cutting-edge forms of media...

Data from CNN.com captured the uniqueness of the online surge. CNN
said it provided more than 21.3 million video streams over a nine-hour
span up to midafternoon. That blew past the 5.3 million streams
provided during all of Election Day. At its peak, CNN.com fed 1.3
million live streams simultaneously, according to Jennifer Martin, a
spokeswoman for the site. 

Akamai, which helps companies meet demand for their online offerings,
worked with media companies like The New York Times, The Wall Street
Journal and Viacom to stream live video. It reported a record-breaking
day, feeding up seven million video streams at one time...

"We built capacity for CNN.com Live to handle well above and beyond
what was, to our knowledge, the most-viewed live video event in
Internet history," Ms. Martin said.

~Full article: 
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/21/us/politics/21video.html


[NOTE: I was able to watch the whole thing here in Brazil either
online or on CNN International on TV. I stuck with online because
there was a choice between four different screened events.]

[FairfieldLife] Language translation as playing checkers

[ A rap, probably interesting only to those who dig language
or the principles of software design or both. Caveat emptor. ]

I admit to being fascinated by the topic of whether Sanskrit
would be a useful "intermediate language" for use in machine
translation software, because I am fascinated by language and
how we perceive it and understand it. But I have never worked
on language translation software, and don't really understand
how it "works" or the theories behind it. I am just amazed 
that the translation software I have used in the past works
as well as it does -- 65-70% accuracy is *miraculous* in my
opinion.

So I'm tossing out some musings on how such software *might*
work, based on my own ignorance (if someone out there knows
more, other than just by Googling it and trying to "appear"
knowledgeable, please post away), and my experience writing
an AI checkers game.

The Rama - Frederick Lenz guy I used to study with occasionally
assigned his students projects to work on to help them "tech up"
their software skills, and thus earn more money. One of these
projects, while we were all studying AI, was to write a computer
checkers game. Checkers, for those who don't know, is not nearly
as simple as you might think. There are computerized chess games
that have been developed that can win against human masters of
the game more often than any of the computerized checkers games
can. 

Anyway, we figured out really quickly that "brute force" wasn't
going to work. That is, you can't look at the position of pieces
on the board and calculate *all possible moves* and then choose
the best, because that's too computationally huge a task. It
would take too long. 

So what we wound up doing was approaching the game in stages. 
The first stage was to parse the board for "known patterns." 
We would then compare those known patterns with a database of 
known patterns we had gotten from books about checkers. If we
found a pattern match, and there was a proven "best response" 
for that pattern, it was game over. We never had to calculate
possible moves, because we already knew what the best one was.
If we didn't find a match, then we moved on to analyzing pos-
sible moves, but that was still too computationally intensive,
so we had to try to create efficient "Occam's Razor" search
trees, and attempt to calculate only the most *likely* 
branches of the search tree. The result was that my team's
checkers program did OK, but still lost consistently against
human checkers masters. So it goes.

Anyway, I'm thinking that a similar approach *must* be what
is necessary to write good language translation software. It
pretty much has to be done in *stages*, not by parsing each
word sequentially. 

For example, the first stage would probably be searching for
known patterns again -- in this case, idioms, phrases that 
consist of several words that, when placed together in a 
certain order, pretty much always mean the same thing in that
language. For example, in French "avoir la dent" does *not*
mean what it says literally ("to have a tooth"); it means "to
be hungry." If you find a number of these idiomatic phrases,
you can put them aside and *most likely* (Occam's Razor again)
not have to try to attempt to translate them word by word.

My next pass would probably be to identify the remaining words 
as the different parts of speech they represent -- are they 
nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, etc.? This
is complicated, because many words with the exact same spell-
ing can be different parts of speech, depending on syntax
and position with regard to other words.

Anyway, having identified the idioms and gotten them out of
the way, and then having performed an Occam's Razor "most
likely" pass on what part of speech each remaining word was,
then I'd go for the database match, and try to match them up
one-for-one with their counterparts in the target language
database. Finally, there would be a final "logic pass" based
on passing the completed translation through a commonly-
available syntax/grammar checker for the target language to
see if it makes sense and follows all the rules. If not, 
correct the errors and the result is your "translation."

That would be my approach, anyway. It may have *nothing* to
do with how such software is really written. I'm just tripping
on the idea in hopes that someone here knows how such language
translation software is really written, and how it really works. 
If so, please clue me in. I'm curious.

Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: PAUL MCCARTNEY CONCERT and Consciousness-based Education

2009-01-21 Thread Vaj



On Jan 20, 2009, at 10:24 PM, grate.swan wrote:


At some point some very secular, simple, effective, inexpensive method
will emerge. With a good narrative. And that does have a marked effect
on learning, retention, creativity, synthesis of ideas, etc. Within 10
years it could have 80% saturation. It will happen -- exactly when and
how long it will take are indeterminant.



Non-sectarian forms of meditation are taking off and of course  
they're free. Since they're less encumbered by Hinduism or any  
particular religion, the chances are they may be the future of school  
based meditation, esp. since good, solid research backs them up.


I too did TM throughout college and I'd have to say it's primary  
benefit was 20 min. of rest, two times a day. In other words, it was  
insignificantly different from just taking a scheduled nap, 2x  a  
day. Nice, but hardly earth-shattering.

[FairfieldLife] Re: Bye-bye Bush

2009-01-21 Thread Hugo

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "authfriend"  wrote:
>
> For anyone who missed it, video of Bush's helicopter
> taking off from the White House for the last time and
> disappearing in the distance:
> 
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJ7zRVuo7jQ
> 
> I had to go out this afternoon and didn't get to
> watch it live. I couldn't really believe he was
> GONE until I saw the video.
> 
> Biggest WHEW ever.
>

I almost felt sorry for Dubya having to sit there
while Obama spelt out what had become on America and
the sort of effort that will be needed to put it right.
Especially as Obama is at leat three infinities more
eloquent than him.

[FairfieldLife] And I have new respect for Springstien...

2009-01-21 Thread off_world_beings

And I have new respect for Springstien that I lacked before:
See about 15 minutes in:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfQf5Y545J4

OffWorld



--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, off_world_beings 
wrote:
>
> U2 sings their song form the days before LiveAid (Irish [Sir] Bob
Gledof's creation [Boomtown Rats of my teenage years] ) singing a song
they wrote inspired by Dr. martin 
> Luther King, and now sung on the Lincoln memorial by a bunch of
(originally) poor boys 
> from Ireland for the President who is a man born in Hawaii to a
white woman and a 
> Kenyan man about a month before I was born in 1961 (Barack is a Leo,
I am the Virgo) in 
> this time that is either the end of the worldor is it just the
beginning of humanity?  You 
> tell me.
> 
> Wow, it this blows my mind.
> 
>  Check it out at 1 hour 30 minutes:
> 
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfQf5Y545J4
> 
> 
> OffWorld
> 
> 
> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, off_world_beings 
wrote:
> >
> > Check it out:
> > 
> > (earphones required:)
> > 
> > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfQf5Y545J4
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > OffWorld
> > 
> > 
> > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, off_world_beings 
wrote:
> > >
> > > Whatever the cynics say, and whatever the outcome, this is a
truly great day for 
> America 
> > and 
> > > the world. The world thanks you America for this day of hope and
vision.
> > > 
> > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfQf5Y545J4
> > > 
> > > ( I've only got as far as the James Taylor bit and the throwback
to the spirit of the 60's 
> > > coming back to infect the 21st century...but mandespite all
the corny and annoying 
> > stuff 
> > > in this inauguration ceremony, there are some CLASSIC jems, and
the world is behind 
> > Barack 
> > > and his family and no-one expects him to do it alone, but he
represents the future 
> hope 
> > that 
> > > we all have waited 30 years or more for.)
> > > 
> > > THANK  YOU  AMERICA ! ! !
> > > 
> > > This is in some ways the greatest day of my life, I don't care
what happens later.
> > > 
> > > 
> > > 
> > > OffWorld
> > >
> >
>

[FairfieldLife] Re: Cute true story about perception (Snopes-certified)

2009-01-21 Thread Hugo

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB  wrote:
>
> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Hugo"  
wrote:
> >
> > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB  
wrote:

> > 
> > But generally I'll hurry past a guitarist in case they start 
> > playing this:
> > 
> > http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=6XD-WjF8me8
> 
> Point taken. :-)
> 
> However, this story is meaningful to me because,
> as I mentioned, I seem to have an inability TO
> "walk past" a street musician without giving him
> or her at least a chance. More often than not I
> stop and listen for a while, and leave them a tip.
> ( Accordionists excepted. :-)

On my first trip to paris I was astonished to find
a chamber orchestra performing on the metro, I later
found out that buskers do auditions to get to a slot
there! That's a great idea to weed out the wonderwallers.

> One of my great "finds" while doing this was Carlos
> Vamos, in Amsterdam. Here is a short clip of him
> playing "Little Wing" at the exact location he was
> when I first discovered him. 
> 
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WILII4fZfDw

That would stop me too. The thing about it is
it's originality and it sounds a cut above our
"wonderwall" friend in my clip. You can sense the
quality but I'm still not sure if that's because
I'm rock oriented and a classical music buff would
hurry past in disgust.

I think that to sense greatness you need the ability
to appreciate it in your personal sense of good musical
values and our violinist may just have had the bad luck
to be surrounded by people like me whose inner
sense of musical direction heads of in a different way.
I think no matter how good something specialist is if
you don't *get* it you never will. Or not without
training. OK, maybe it's another excuse ;-)

I know of some great buskers in London but can't 
find them on youtube, I think a camcorder would
be a good investment. This talent needs broadcasting.
There is a tunnel in London that links the tube to
the museums in Kensington that has the best acoustics,
I could hang out there and get an albums worth from
just the flute player whose musing echo through the
underground. The slide blues guitarist is pretty good
too. And the guys who play the bins at covent garden..
... there's website here if I could be bothered.

> I heard the music from a block away, and it stopped
> me in my tracks. Because it was reverberating all
> around, I couldn't tell at first exactly where it
> was coming from, and had to search for a while until
> I found him in this square. I stood there for half
> an hour listening to him play, and then tipped him
> profusely and bought all of the albums he had for
> sale. Looking at the album credits later, I dis-
> covered that there were jazz greats playing on them, 
> who obviously thought enough of Carlos and his 
> unique style to do so. 
> 
> I posted this because I find it an interesting phen-
> omenon, and thought Curtis might as well. As a writer,
> the closest I've ever been able to come to "playing
> on the streets" was deciding to put the book I wrote
> about my time with Rama - Frederick Lenz up on the
> Web for free rather than trying to sell it. An agent
> had already offered to market it for me, and I toyed
> with that idea, but then some friends offered to put
> it into Web format for me and that struck me as being
> more fun, and "cleaner," in that I wouldn't be trying
> to make money by riding on the coattails of a spir-
> itual teacher.
> 
> All I can say is that the occasional response I get
> in email from someone who stumbled across it and found
> it valuable to them are far better compensation than
> I would have ever gotten from selling it. I think this
> may be why I feel the way I do about street musicians.

[FairfieldLife] Re: Sanskrit translator wanted

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, cardemaister  wrote:
>
> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB  wrote:
> >
> > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bhairitu  wrote:
> > >
> > > Supposedly some translations engines use Sanskrit as an 
> > > intermediate language because it is unambiguous. The program 
> > > will take text in a language and translate it to Sanskrit and 
> > > then from Sanskrit to the target language.
> > 
> > I´m sorry, but this sounds like bullshit to me.
> > 
> > I know very little about Sanskrit, but everything
> > I ever heard talked specifically *about* its 
> > ambiguity. They talked about poetry forms in 
> > which every word in the verse could have several
> > meanings, and the whole *art* of the poetry form
> > was being able to put a whole series of these 
> > words -- *each* of them having four or five 
> > meanings -- together in such a way that no 
> > matter which meaning of any of the words you 
> > pick, the whole verse still makes sense.
> > 
> > Plus, just looking at the definitions Card posts
> > here, words often have *more* than four or five 
> > completely different meanings, right there in the 
> > definitions he posts. 
> > 
> > So I´m thinkin´ that this stuff about using
> > Sanskrit as an ¨intermediate language¨ for trans-
> > lation engines is just someone´s True Believer
> > bullshit.
> > 
> > If you want an unambiguous language, choose French.
> > That is why all international treaties use it as
> > the ¨master language¨ for the treaties. There is
> > a copy in the language of each country, but the
> > master is in French, because it is so precise. 
> > Everything I´ve ever heard about Sanskrit presents
> > it as just the opposite.
> > 
> > Card or others can correct me on this if I´ve heard
> > incorrectly. I´m not trying to knock Sanskrit or
> > anything; it´s just that Bhairitu´s claim sounds
> > the opposite of everything I´ve ever heard about
> > the nature of Sanskrit as a language.
> 
> I love Sanskrit, but not because I'd think it's unambiguous.
> Just as a simple example, the inflectional form 'yoginaH' could
> be either ablative/genitive singular (e.g. from/of) or 
> nominative/accusative plural ([many] yogis, either as a subject
> or an object of the sentence), depending on the context.

Thanks for weighing in, Card. As I said, I'm 
not questioning the idea of Sanskrit being a
cool language, just the idea of it being a
cool "intermediate" language for translation
because of its "unambiguous nature." Literally
everything I have ever read about it mentioned
that it was one of the *most* ambiguous lang-
uages on the planet.

Ambiguity *is* the issue when it comes to trans-
lation, whether by humans or by software. It's
captured in the classic example from English:

"Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like
a banana." 

This sentence only makes sense, even in English,
once you have "parsed" it and realized that the
words "flies" and "like" have very different
meanings in one phrase than they do in the other.
*As I understand it*, that is the problem with
Sanskrit, and in spades. Each word has *many*
meanings; as Vaj puts it, not just "double 
entendre" but "multiple entendre." Thus it is 
hard for me to conceive of it as a suitable 
language with which to address the many problems 
of machine language translation. 

As for the website Bhairitu pointed to, all that
you have to do to see its True Believer nature
is to do a mental "search and replace" on the
text in it and replace every mention of "Sanskrit"
with "Hebrew." Then you'll see what the site is
really about. 

It's attempting to present a case for learning
Sanskrit based on its supposedly spiritual nature,
and its supposed status as the "mother of all
languages." Sanskrit may *be* both. For all I 
know, God, all the gods and goddesses and angels
sit around discussing Monday Night Football in
Sanskrit, because it's the most suitable lang-
uage for doing so. Maybe it even has magical
abilities to heal the sick and raise the dead
and fix the game during Monday Night Football.

I don't know, and I don't care. The only relevant
piece of information in this context is whether
it is an *unambiguous* language. Given a sentence
in Sanskrit, can that sentence be parsed one and
only one way?

Everything I've ever heard is that the answer to
that question is a definitive "No." And that
unambiguous answer rules out Sanskrit as the
basis of an experiment in machine translation
that is based on the notion of that base lang-
uage being unambiguous.

[FairfieldLife] Re: Whitest Kids - Hitler Rap

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "I am the eternal"
 wrote:
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpRqvCps_MQ
> 
> Hitler is now down with the Jews, Gays and Blacks.  A new age 
> has dawned today.  Hail, Messiah!  Hail, The One!

Hey L.Shaddai,

Remember when you were back on your course 
and I pointed out the sometimes manic nature
of your posts while there and "on program,"
and that you might want to look at that later
to see whether it "feels" as good in retrospect
as it did at the time?

This is another of those suggestions. Have you
noticed that since coming *back* from this IA
course you're *angry* and *cynical* a lot, so
much so it appears consistently in your posts? 
I certainly have.

Do you think there is a link?

Not sayin'...just askin'...

[FairfieldLife] Re: Radical Creed Transcendentalism