How the Universe Works - Big Bang

Netflix로 Discovery channel에서 간만에 아주 잘만든 다큐를 보았다.
거의 3D 수준으로 보이는 우주 영상들이 대단했음.
빅뱅은 아무리 봐도 언제나 경이롭고 신비롭다. 바로 그 에너지 '점'은 어디에서 왔을까.
나중에 우주가 '망'한다고 하더라도 또 다른 빅뱅의 여지가 있다.
지금의 우리는 몇번째 우리인지 모른다.
무한의 반복이 연속된다.
죽음은 끝이 아니다.

Ron Paul

ENEMY OF THE STATE by Nicholas Lemann

http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2012/01/09/120109taco_talk_lemann

"Mitt Romney will probably win in the end, but each of his serially surging competitors enjoys more immediate access to some essential region of the Republican soul. Herman Cain is the tough, no-bullshit businessman, Rick Santorum the devout pro-lifer, Rick Perry the hypermasculine cowboy, Michele Bachmann the evangelical populist, Newt Gingrich the swashbuckling geostrategist. It seems fitting that the final surge should belong to Ron Paul, who speaks most directly to one of his party’s deepest emotions: hostility to government."

"Especially to the self-selected group that comes to the Iowa Republican caucuses, Paul’s positions are pulse quickening. If you are antitax, Paul has that sentiment nailed more than any other candidate. If you are antiwar, Paul is right there with you. If you fear for your personal freedoms, Paul has you covered. And if you want a sweeping philosophy, deeply grounded in fundamental texts (Hayek, von Mises, Rothbard), Paul is your man. Nobody has a better claim to be a protest candidate. He’s the only one who has ever run for office from a third party. He’s not about passing bills; he’s about root-and-branch change. His popularity, even if it’s temporary, demonstrates that all politics isn’t necessarily local—that big ideas can exert a pull on voters, too."

"Paul’s baseline obsession is with currency: President Nixon’s decision, forty years ago, to take the United States off the gold standard is what brought him into politics. His hatred of the Federal Reserve Board is related to a mistrust of currencies managed by governments. Underlying everything is, of course, a larger mistrust—the sense that in some hushed Washington conference room highly consequential arrangements are being made that will help a few privileged insiders and hurt ordinary Americans. Although Paul has spent most of his life directly benefitting from one or another federal payroll or program, starting when he served in the Air Force, he isn’t just striking a pose when he describes government as the enemy of freedom. He means it."

Rick Santorum

역시나 돌+아이들 보는게 정치판 보는 big motivation중 하나...

A Long List of the Most Terrible Things Rick Santorum Has Ever Said
http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/99240/santorum-surge-2012-vetting-quotes


9 Things You Need to Know About Rick Santorum
http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2012/01/04/9-Things-You-Need-to-Know-about-Rick-Santorum.aspx#page2

Rick Santorum & David Brooks

Rick Santorum과 Davis Brooks의 한계

"The communitarian crush on Rick Santorum" - The New Republic

http://www.tnr.com/blog/the-stump/99294/the-communitarian-crush-rick-santorum

: David Brooks is back at it today, taking a second straight column to praise Rick Santorum for alone among the Republican candidates drawing attention to the woes of the working class and for drawing links between the strengths of their communities and values and our economic future. It is a more nuanced piece than Brooks' previous one, and notes that Santorum falls short when it comes to reckoning with the policy implications of a values-based economic outlook:

Santorum doesn’t yet see that once you start thinking about how to foster an economic system that would nurture our virtues, you wind up with an agenda far more drastic and transformational.

If you believe in the dignity of labor, it makes sense to support an infrastructure program that allows more people to practice the habits of industry. If you believe in personal responsibility, you have to force Americans to receive only as much government as they are willing to pay for. If you believe in the centrality of family, you have to have a government that both encourages marriage and also supplies wage subsidies to men to make them marriageable.

If you believe social trust is the precondition for a healthy society, you have to have a simplified tax code that inspires trust instead of degrading it. If you believe that firm attachments and stable relationships build human capital, you had better offer early education for children in disorganized neighborhoods. If you want capitalists thinking for the long term and getting the most out of their workers, you have to encourage companies to be more deeply rooted in local communities rather than just free-floating instruments of capital markets.

But of course these sorts of approaches are utterly at odds with current doctrine in the party whose nomination Santorum is seeking. I agree with Brooks that there is value in Santorum's mere acknowledgment that our society is no longer the land of Horatio Alger that Mitt Romney makes it out to be; indeed, I was one of the first to identify this aspect of Santorum's appeal. But I would caution against overstating Santorum's commitment to this message, as I think that Brooks, even with the above caveat, comes close to doing. The truth is, even someone as conservative as Santorum has let himself be ratcheted rightward to be considered acceptable in the GOP of 2012. He is in favor of slashing the already-low tax rates on capital gains and dividends, and he rails against the threat of European social democracy with as much fervor as any of the other candidates, a rhetorical stance that would make hard indeed to come out for wage subsidies or early education for children in "disorganized neighborhoods" or "encouraging" companies to be more "deeply rooted in local communities." Brooks notes that Santorum has in recent years come around to supporting community-building government programs like Americorps, but he must not have been at the Santorum event I was at on Friday in Marshalltown, Iowa, where Santorum told a young man who got up to advocate for Americorps and Habitat for Humanity that he just didn't see how we could afford to fund such efforts. "Is it the role of the federal government to do this?" he told the young man. "There are going to be programs like Americorps where we just don't have the resources." The young man,who appeared generally inclined to support Santorum, seemed slightly stunned by the answer. "Programs like these, you cut them and you'll be building more prisons. You can't find a more family-friendly organization than Habitat for Humanity," he said. In other words, he was arguing for the programs on Santorum's own terms, almost as if channeling Brooks. But Santorum ignored him and moved on.

Some interesting comments:


- Brooks: "If you believe social trust is the precondition for a healthy society, you have to have a simplified tax code that inspires trust instead of degrading it."

When he thinks of building social trust, the first thing he thinks of is making life slightly easier for tax accountants? How does one hit the 'send' button after typing something like that and not then jump off a bridge out of embarrassment?

- My reaction when I read Brooks's column this morning was that his lofty ideals don't come even remotely close either to Santorum's history in the Senate or to his policy positions in the campaign. This is vintage Brooks: creating an association between lofty ideals and a favored politician by putting both in the same column when in fact they have no association in reality. Since Brooks has become the brain expert, he uses the association technique often. I suppose that if it's okay for Republicans to create their own reality it's okay for columnists to do the same.

Also, Brooks uses vague language. Here's one sentence: "If you want capitalists thinking for the long term and getting the most out of their workers, you have to encourage companies to be more deeply rooted in local communities rather than just free-floating instruments of capital markets." What on earth does that mean? Again, it's vintage Brooks. What would Strunk and White think about the use of such vague language. They would identify it for what it is, which is the language of the deceiver, the language of the propogandist.

- "But Santorum ignored him and moved on." Because Santorum is a holier than thou narcissistic little shit of a man. He longs for an America of the 1950's and pretends we can go back to that age but is utterly clueless as to reasons and conditions that existed then (strong unions, very large manufacturing base)

- A couple of friends say I am being unfair to Brooks by comparing him to a propagandist by selecting one sentence out of an entire column. Fair enough. But I didn't even select the most egregious example but rather a sentence that has no meaning at all. Here's another: "If you believe in personal responsibility, you have to force Americans to receive only as much government as they are willing to pay for." "Force"? At the end of a gun? No, not even Brooks. He must be referring to the balanced budget amendment (what else?). Why not say that Brooks and Santorum believe only those who support the balanced budget amendment believe in "personal responsibility". Brooks relies on an uncritical (i.e., not close) reading of his columns, the same as does the propagandist.

- Forget Santorum's bigotry, his misogyny, his attacks on birth control and peoples' private sex lives which apparently he thinks it is the business of the state to regulate. This is "values" apparently.

From Brooks' piece, this is the absolute piece de resistance and I would like an apology from Mr. Brooks for even thinking of it let alone publishing in the NYT:

"If you believe in the centrality of family, you have to have a government that both encourages marriage and also supplies wage subsidies to men to make them marriageable."

EXCUSE ME?

- Oh by the way. If Hillary or some other "communist" says "It Takes A Village" we are attacked but now we got the family thing; oh give me a break please. And since when does Catholic doctrine OF ANY KIND have any business in an AMERICAN election?

This is not 15th century Spain thank goodness. It is the job of the supposedly independent press to remind our politicians of this.

a nice website on Japan

http://www.japanreview.net/reviews.htm

일본

The Myth of Japan’s Failure
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/08/opinion/sunday/the-true-story-of-japans-economic-success.html?_r=2&ref=opinion&pagewanted=all

NYT opinion article by Eamon Fingleton

앞으로 일본 경제에 대해 얘기하기 전에 일단 Eamon Fingleton을 좀 봐야겠다.
물론 그가 일본 경제에 대해 너무 rosy하기 얘기하고 예측하는 것은 문제 있지만
(e.g. Blindside: Why Japan Is Still on Track to Overtake the U.S. By the Year 2000 같은
책은 이미 제목만으로 틀려버렸음; 1995-6년이 너무 좋아서 착각을...)

그동안 Richard Katz나 Ed Lincoln 같은 이들의 주장에 너무 빨려들아간 면이 강함.
(예를 들어 Katz 인터뷰: http://www.japanreview.net/interview_richard.htm)


Fingleton의 홈페이지와 그의 추천 책들:
http://www.fingleton.net/best-books-on-japan-a-second-opinion/

끽다거

끽다거..喫茶去


당나라의 선승인 종심(778~897) 조주(趙州)지방의 관음사에 살았기에
조주 라고 불렸다고 합니다.
종심 선사는 끽다거'喫茶去'라는 말로 선승들을 깨우치게 한 것으로 널리 알려져 있구요^^;


한 승려가 도착하여 종심선사가 묻기를
"여기에 처음 왔는가 아니면 온적이 있는가?"하고 물으니
"온적이 있습니다."하였고
종심 선사는 "차 한잔 마시게"(喫茶去) 라고 대답하였습니다.

다른 승려에게 물으니, 또 다른 승려는"온적이 없다"하였습니다.

그러자, 스승인 종심 선사는 또 "차 한잔 마시게~"(喫茶去)라고 하였다고 하지요?^^;

뒤에 원주가 묻기를"왜 온적이 있다 해도 차를 마시라하고,온적이 없다해도 차를 마시라고 했습니까?"
하고 묻자
스승은 또 다시 "자네도 차나 한잔 마시게~"(喫茶去)라고 하였다고 합니다.
(지월록指月錄기록)


이는 차를 마신 후에 맑아지는 정신처럼
차 마신후의 맑은 정신으로 선명하게 생각하고,깨우쳐서 정견(正見)을 지니는 것이
불도를 터득하는 지름길로 생각했기 때문에였다고합니다.


또한 차의 효능중 각성 효과를 중요시한 때문이라고도 하지요^^;


우리 나라에서는 이것을 두고 조주의 '끽다화두'라고도 하여 무척 중요하게 여겼다고합니다.
종심선사는 조로趙老, 조씨趙氏라고도 불렸었고,
조주의 선다(禪茶)라는 뜻으로 '조주다''조주선''조로풍''조주다풍'이라고도 하였다고 합니다.


조주다가 언급된 것은 고려중엽으로,
진각국사 혜심(1178~1234)이 '차 끓이는 샘물'이라는 글에서
'차를 끓여 마신후에 상쾌함이란 쉽게 얻어지기 어려우니,몸소 조주선을 시행네보네'
라고 하여 차를 마시고 선을 수행하는 것을 '조주선'이라고 했습니다.


이는 집착을 떨쳐 마음이 편안하고 즐거움이 온다는 것을 뜻하므로 
차를 마신후를 참선의 단계로 보았다고 합니다.