Today's Zelda's Inferno exercise was to create a collage. Here's an attempt to flatten mine into a linear text:

castaways
anonymous middle-aged white business man
disaster
shoot
rifle
unfair battle
another anonymous middle-aged white business man
computer skull
moon
amish wheelwright with pneumatic tools
how you survive
(words on fire)
best energy exercise
it's extraordinary special expanding satisfaction
enjoy!
all through the night take it...easy

the tree outside my window
is god

the sparrow in its branches knows this
the hawk that takes and tears and rends the sparrow's mate as it sits in the branches knows it too
sometimes I know it
sometimes the snow sitting on the branches tells me
sometimes drops of rain hanging pendant from the buds reflect the universe
sometimes its green shade protects me and my house, watching over us tenderly, a guardian, a savior
sometimes it is the dying and resurrecting god of a thousand myths

mostly I look past it, walk under it, without seeing
but every once in a while
every once in a while
it lets me Know

An interesting story at ABCNews.com: "The Thai government said Tuesday it was investigating claims that supposedly celibate Buddhist monks have been using a U.S.-based social networking Web site to flirt with women."

However, the headline of the article is "Zen Flirting?" Which prompted me to send the following note:

While I'm sure the author of the "Zen Flirting?" headline (http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=4385254&page=1) meant no disrespect, the form of Buddhism practiced in Thailand is not Zen. Indeed, in some Zen schools it is not uncommon for monks to marry.

Mentioning Zen in a connection with the Theravada Buddhism found in Thailand would be rather like headlining a story about some scandal in the Catholic Church with a pun about Billy Graham.

The Times (London) considers presidental poetry and notes that Barack Obama "may be the best amateur poet to run for president since Abraham Lincoln, which is saying quite a lot." Obama had two poems published in a college magazine back when he was 19.

From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, this story of a remote-controlled robot armed with a water cannon that its creator, Rufus Terrill, claims has helped prevent break-ins and drug deals on his block and stopped vandals from trashing a local day care center. Others suggest he's a vigilante who's harassing the homeless.

Zelda's Inferno exercise: write about the coming of spring

not here yet but pregnant in the buds
leaves sleep curled like embryos

daylight lingers until almost 6pm again
and the promise of the return of warmth hangs in front of me
I follow it through the dregs of winter like a will-o-the-wisp

the dogs are shedding -
every time I pet them handfuls come off
and the carpet is becoming covered in fur

and back at the trees
you can see warm brown color returning to grey branch-tips
as the sap starts flowing again

and I can feel my own sap start to flow again

standing in line yesterday at the department store I remembered that my heart is broken

I hadn't thought about it in a while -
in the cold of winter it hadn't much mattered
cryonic suspended animation, the heart slows, stops
and winter ices the wound

but warmth and movement take away the numbness
brings back the pain -
and also the possibility of healing

Hi friends. As some of you know, for some time I've been working toward a book about some of my "Zen Pagan" ideas.

While there's still a long way to go, I'm happy to have rough
drafts of some sample chapters, and I've posted them on one of my
websites. If you'd be interested to take a look, your comments would be much appreciated.

http://infamous.net/WhyBuddhaTouchedTheEarth/

(Please feel free to invite others to take a look.)

-Tom

A while back, I mentioned the town of Obama in Japan. The Ethiopian Review has a story on how "this ancient fishing town of 32,000 people" is rooting for the candidate with the same name to win, hoping he'll put them on the tourist map.

Supporters in Obama — which means "small shore" in Japanese — have held parties to watch election results, put up posters wishing the senator luck and plan a special batch of the town's "manju" sweets bearing his likeness.

...

Lest cynics find the city's efforts naive, it was Obama himself who first drew attention to the connection.

Obama, speaking to Japan's TBS network in December 2006, said that when he flew once to Tokyo, an officer stamping his passport told him of the town.

"He looked up and said, 'I'm from Obama,'" the senator said.

A recently published meta-analysis of studies of SSRI antidepressants - including unpublished trials - shows that they are no better than placebos for all but the most severely depressed people; and furthermore, that severely depressed people exhibited a decreased placebo response rather than a increased responsiveness to the drugs. (SSRIs, “selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors” are the class of drugs that include Prozac (fluoxetine),
Effexor (venlafaxine), Serzone (nefazodone), and Seroxat (paroxetine).)

This prompted a discussion over on Slashdot, where I posted as follows:

ISS Science Officer Don Pettit writes about the smell of space:

It seems about as improbable as listening to sounds in space, yet space has a definite smell...I had the pleasure of operating the airlock for two of my crewmates while they went on several space walks. Each time, when I repressed the airlock, opened the hatch and welcomed two tired workers inside, a peculiar odor tickled my olfactory senses. At first I couldn't quite place it. It must have come from the air ducts that re-pressed the compartment. Then I noticed that this smell was on their suit, helmet, gloves, and tools.