Author: Jonathan Erdman

It’s the end of the world as we know it?

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Glenn Beck to Sean Hannity: “We are officially at the end of the country as we know it” if Trump loses in 2020. I sure as hell hope so, but I have my doubts. We’ve heard this kind of thing before. Those on the political right tend to use this kind of hyperbole to generate hysteria and rally the troops to get them out to vote. (This is especially when the Republican rank and file is being asked to vote for an an unsavory and unpopular like Trump.) But liberals do it too: recall that Obama was supposed to bring hope and change yet 8 years later we were in short supply on both counts. Nonetheless I remain hopeful. Hope, after all, is a choice.

Warren is for real and I’m pretty sure Mark Zuckerberg unfriended her

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It seems a bit… what’s the word?…Cheeky. It seems a bit cheeky to put anti-Facebook ads up on Facebook, but that’s precisely what Elizabeth Warren did. Predictably, Facebook took the ads down. In the ads Warren called for the break-up of tech giants like Google, Amazon, and Facebook, all of which Warren is calling out. I really respect what Warren has been doing in the early phases of the 2020 campaign. She’s come out swinging, challenging the domination of corporations with an intense and uncompromising sense of urgency, which is precisely what we needed if we hope to even make a dent in the corruption that both parties have made normative in America. Here’s more from the article:

Ocasio-Cortez: ‘Capitalism is irredeemable’ | TheHill

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Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) on Saturday called capitalism “irredeemable.” “Capitalism is an ideology of capital – the most important thing is the concentration of capital and to seek and maximize profit,” she said during an interview at the South by Southwest conference in Austin, Texas, according to Bloomberg News. “To me, capitalism is irredeemable,” she added, arguing that capitalism’s goals come at a cost to people and the environment, Bloomberg reported.

Watch “March 15 Sermon by James Finley, Ph.D.” on YouTube

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I recently came across this little homily from one of my favorite spiritual teachers, James Finley. He’s been called the spiritual teacher that spiritual teachers listen to when they listen to spiritual teachers…or something like that… In any event, what makes him compelling has nothing to do with needing some kind of esoteric or highly specialized knowledge. It’s that he’s just had a mature presence, the picture of someone experienced, i.e. he has suffered, but he is also relaxed and calm, which always gives me a sense of reassurance, because when someone who is serene and light can talk about the deepest most difficult shit that we have to endure, then it means something. [Footnote: my auto-correct keeps changing “spiritual” to “Doritos.” I change it back, but I’m quite certain that there are Doritos teachers who are also fans of James Finley. There is no doubt in my mind.] In any event, if you have ten minutes to watch the homily, let me know what you think. [Note on photo: that’s early 2012, when I …