|
|
 15 Apr 2004 @ 02:21
Cold geese calling in the sky.
Leaves tumbling over the empty hills.
Day is dwindling on the dark village road.
Alone, I carry my empty bowl home.
---Ryokan
Vast solitude
My thinning body
transparent autumn.
---Soen Nakagawa
Worldly acquisitions of wealth and the need of clinging to them, as well as the pursuit of the Eight Worldly Aims, I regard with as much loathing and disgust as a man who is suffering from billiousness regardeth the sight of rich food. Nay, I regard them as if they were the murderers of my father; therefore it is that I am assuming this beggarly and penurious mode of life.
---Milarepa
The picture is of Maureen Dowd receiving a Pulitzer for Commentary in 1999. Sometimes her columns in the New York Times are so insightful, precise, and brilliantly written that the reader actually is moved to take some responsibility for citizenship in this shaky republic. And in an age of Virtual Reality and It's All About Me, such an accomplishment is heroic.
I mean, I know a guy who recently spent $70,000 on a unique red Hummer. It gets 8 miles to the gallon. He spent $200 on gasoline just going to pick it up. He parks it where surveillance cameras provide an image of it at all times to his office---and remote screens at home. If anyone else drives it or fools around with it, computer codes let him know this has happened. He tells people he always wanted one, he had the extra money, so he bought it. Simple as that. I mean, there's a war on, so why not celebrate the advantages? I will not reveal what this man does for a living...unless you ask me privately.
But I digress: back to Ms. Dowd. To most conservatives she is among the most loathsome of individuals, and I must confess sometimes her work turns me off too. But not lately! She has been mightily up in arms about President Bush and his administration...and rarely more so than in her column this morning. More >
|
|
|
|
 2 Feb 2004 @ 01:38
New Year's first snow---ah---
just barely enough to tilt
the daffodil
---Basho
I too when dead
want to be near this stone marker---
the withered pampas grass.
---Buson
After ecstasy,
the laundry.
---Zen Saying
Medicine Man of the Cheyenne
Howard Terpning
[American Painter, Born 1927]
The current issue of the New Yorker magazine features an investigative article entitled "MIRACLE IN A BOTTLE
by MICHAEL SPECTER
Dietary supplements are unregulated, some are unsafe—and Americans can’t get enough of them."
Mr. Specter's credentials are listed at the bottom---in case you want to check his ingredients first.
Issue of 2004-02-02
Posted 2004-01-26
One day last September, as Britney Spears was about to board a flight to Los Angeles from London, a rectangular blue bottle fell out of her purse. She quickly stuffed it back in, but not before the paparazzi recorded the event. Neither Spears nor her spokesman was willing to comment on the contents of the bottle, but the next morning London’s Daily Express published a page of pictures under the headline “exclusive: pop princess spotted at airport with pot of slimming tablets.” Spears was apparently carrying Zantrex-3, one of the most popular weight-loss supplements currently sold in the United States. The pill, which retails at about fifty dollars for a month’s supply, contains a huge dose of caffeine, some green tea, and three common South American herbs that also act as stimulants. It hit the U.S. market last March and has had a success that would be hard to overstate. Millions of bottles have been sold, and during the Christmas season it was displayed in the windows of the nation’s largest chain of vitamin shops, G.N.C. (It is so highly sought after that many of the stores keep it in locked cabinets.) Zantrex-3 is also sold at CVS, Rite Aid, Wal-Mart, and other chains, and over the telephone and on the Internet. If you type “Zantrex” into Google, more than a hundred thousand citations will appear. At any moment, there are scores of people auctioning the stuff on eBay. More >
|
|
<< Newer entries Page: 1 2 3 4 |
|
