Okay, it’s been too long.  Dubya was still in office when I last posted.  That makes me a bad blogger, I know.  But I’m coming back.  Soon.

George W Bush is to observe a moment of silence in recognition of the 7th anniversary of the 9/11 tragedies.

Hey! Isn’t that what he did in 2001, also?

Jesus was a community organizer, and Pontias Pilate was a governor. –A commenter on the Alaskan blog, Mudflats.

This a brilliant piece from The Daily Show.  Upon the news that Sarah Palin would be McCain’s VP, the GOP began, blatantly, contradicting themselves–especially when it came to their past rhetoric about Hillary Clinton as well as former Democratic VP prospect Tim Kaine.  This piece shows the hypocrisy of the GOP simply by recalling their own words.

Jon Stewart had Mike Huckabee on as the guest of last night’s The Daily Show. They talked about how the GOP will bring badly needed change to Washington. (I thought the Obama campaign took out a copyright on change. Maybe not.) McCain said the same thing in his acceptance speech Thursday–that he’ll bring change to Washington, and Palin had the balls to say it Wednesday night. In fact, isn’t that what everybody who spoke at the GOP convention said? How perplexing is this message?

Well, it’s this perplexing (the very last exchange of the interview):

Jon: So you feel like your party is the only party who can fix what your party has done.

Mike: Yeah.

After my last post, the one about how Jon Stewart called 24/7 cable news “brutish, low witted beasts” and other names, I decided to revisit my own relationship with cable news.

I’ve actually decided to cut ties with cable news altogether. No mas. That’s right, I no longer watch them–MSNBC, CNN, FNC, doesn’t matter which one, I have now decided to tune out entirely. This decision to let go of cable news is not a boycott or anything crazy like that, but rather a new spiritual practice for me.

Recently, I have been studying Buddhism in the hopes of quieting my mind, simplifying my lifestyle, cleaning the clutter, and centering on what is elemental and essential and slowly walking away from the rest. And this spiritual practice of walking away from wall-to-wall news has become the main behavior modification that I have decided to make. That’s part of the reason why I haven’t posted much in recent weeks.

After more than a week of making the decision to tune out cable news, I definitely feel less anxious. One of the things Jon Stewart has said about cable news is that it creates a false sense of urgency. Anything and everything reported on in 24/7 news is made into a crisis by those who report it. From legitimate crises like hurricanes and the people affected by them all the way down to the stupid stuff like high speed car chases, everything on cable news is spun into frenzy.

So, enough. Enough for me. I’m a week into my new way of engaging the world. Instead of 24/7 news, I now choose to tune into more responsible ways of staying up-to-date. I get my news now from Jim Lehrer at PBS, BBC, and NPR websites. And sometimes from the Huffington Post.

And suddenly it seems right to digest the entire day’s news in 30-minute summaries at the end of the day. You know, The Daily Show way.

Speaking at a Monday morning breakfast in Denver, Jon Stewart, with his above-the-fray habit of telling the truth no matter who it offends, said this:

I’m stunned to see Karl Rove on a news network as an analyst,” said Stewart, adding “Barack Obama could cure cancer and Fox News would figure out a way to frame it as an economic disaster.”

Stewart has always said that 24-hour news channels have created a false sense of urgency, and I agree. Cable news has turned the daily news (what used to only take 30 minutes at 6 pm) into a constant, deafening stream of all-day, repetitious, dumbed-down nonsense. And too many people, including me, have watched hours and hours of it with glazed-over eyes.

In other prophetic utterances, Jon Stewart has had this to share:

* Fox’s ‘fair and balanced’ slogan is an insult to people with brains

* The cable news networks are a brutish, slow-witted beast.

* Fox News is an appendage of the Republican Party.

We all knew it, but Jon said it.

Here’s their billboard in Minneapolis…

A billboard in Minneapolis, the sight of next week's GOP Convention

Believe nothing,

No matter where you read it,

Or who has said it,

Not even if I have said it,

Unless it agrees with your own reason

And your own common sense

-The Buddha

This is an insightful and very personal and profound exploration of the Gospels by a Buddhist Nun who, before taking her vows, was a Christian who became deeply dissatisfied with her life of faith.

Having tried with sincerity to approach my Christian journey in a way that was meaningful within the context of everyday life, I had reached a point of deep weariness and despair. I was weary with the apparent complexity of it all; despair had arisen because I was not able to find any way of working with the less helpful states that would creep, unbidden, into the mind: the worry, jealousy, grumpiness, and so on. And even positive states could turn around and transform themselves into pride or conceit, which were of course equally unwanted.

Looking back at the Gospels as a Buddhist nun, she sees them in an entirely different way. It’s a great exploration into Jesus’ humanity as well as the spiritual similarities of Jesus’ life, death, and teaching and Buddhist teaching and philosophy.