Now, what, then, will be happiness? And happiness, of course, is such a vague word, so let's say well-being. And so, I think the best definition, according to the Buddhist view, is that well-being is not just a mere pleasurable sensation. It is a deep sense of serenity and fulfillment. A state that actually pervades and underlies all emotional states, and all the joys and sorrows that can come one's way. For you, that might be surprising. Can we have this kind of well-being while being sad? In a way, why not? Because we are speaking of a different level.
The notion that we can control external conditions is mistaken, he explains, … “We have this very arrogant idea that we have extracted ourselves from nature. We are masters of the universe, we can send people to the moon, we can manipulate genes. It seems that we are invincible.”He is horrified, too, by the idea of transhumanism, and its adherents’ quest to prolong dramatically the human lifespan. “Imagine Donald Trump being elected for the 50th time or Lionel Messi scoring his 50,000th goal. How boring!” I laugh in agreement. He goes on: “I mean, I love my hermitage, but a thousand years? As my mother likes to say, eternity is awfully long, especially near the end.”source archived*
Although the family shown in the photograph is not Sahin’s, and the boy in the yellow shirt is not him, the milieu it depicted may well have been similar to the one in which Sahin grew up. According to multiple reports, Sahin’s father — like the father of the “boy in the yellow t-shirt” — immigrated to Germany as a gastarbeiter (“guest worker”) in a Ford factory in Cologne. Both men originally arrived by themselves, before their respective families later joined them.
The purpose of the guest-worker programs was to bring an influx of skilled labor into Germany in order to revive the German economy in the 1960s and 1970s. Workers were originally intended to stay for only two years, before returning to their countries of origin, but the rules were later changed and allowed for family reunification in Germany.
So in the case of Sahin and the boy in the yellow shirt, their families’ journey in German society began under the same legal mechanisms, and in similarly modest circumstances.*
In the last sentence of Straw Dogs, Gray asked a question, almost plaintively: “Can we not think of the aim of life as being simply to see?” Has writing the current book helped him to understand what such a life of experience might look like?“Cats live for the sensation of life, not for something they might achieve or not achieve,” he says. “If we attach ourselves too heavily to some overarching purpose we’re losing the joy of life. Leave all those ideologies and religions to one side and what’s left? What’s left is a sensation of life – which is a wonderful thing.”*
Labour's McCarthyist purge of left-wing members – which is ostensibly about antisemitism – has gotten so ridiculous that they've started kicking out *actual Jewish people* https://t.co/LY0ZXnDDrM
— Yes, You're Racist (@YesYoureRacist) December 3, 2020
It's so shocking to see such an honest analysis of media performance on Assange. Just brilliant. 👏👏👏 https://t.co/GbzyXjxSPA
— Media Lens (@medialens) December 3, 2020
Acuitas lipid structures protect therapeutic molecules on their journey to human cells https://t.co/vAXbVQ7MA6
— George Atherton (@notrehta) November 19, 2020
likened to “a delivery system that wraps up a fragile ornament, shields it on a bumpy journey and then finds your house, opens the front door and unwraps the package“ pic.twitter.com/TtuCxh7ApX
Madden’s path to this moment began in the working-class neighbourhood of Clapham in London, where he lived above a pub run by his Irish immigrant parents.
He completed a BSc and a PhD in biochemistry at the University of London in 1980 and began searching for a fellowship opportunity to continue his training.
“I had always wanted to come to North America, so I applied to work with Pieter Cullis* at UBC,” he said. “I had no idea what Vancouver was like, I barely knew where it was.”
Once Madden arrived it was soon apparent he would not be going back to England anytime soon, “not once I realized what a paradise it is.”
Madden met the woman who would become his wife — family physician Dr. Linda Tai — at UBC while she was a graduate student in the same research group. They have raised twins — a boy and a girl.
Over the years, Madden has founded a number of companies based on his research successes.
At Tekmira Pharmaceuticals, he led the development of anticancer drugs, including Marqibo, Alocrest and Brakiva.
Earlier this year, Madden was made a fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering for his work in the field of nucleic acid delivery.*
I’m not saying you’re self-censoring. I’m sure you believe everything you’re saying. But what I’m saying is if you believed something different, you wouldn’t be sitting where you’re sitting.
If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear. The common people still vaguely subscribe to that doctrine and act on it. … [I]t is the liberals who fear liberty and the intellectuals who want to do dirt on the intellect: it is to draw attention to that fact that I have written this preface. (!?)*
The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum — even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there’s free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate.
Noam Chomsky - The 5 Filters of the Mass Media Machine#NoamChomsky #Media https://t.co/pWGz7xz3AZ
— Noam Chomsky (@noamchomskyT) October 10, 2020
Media Lens on a new book about journalism by former Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger. It reveals far more than he can imagine: a rational mind firmly constrained by what it dare admit about its own submission to the depravities of power https://t.co/UuGlQP8OUW
— Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) December 5, 2020
