Essays
Recent essays I have written on different topics. All my essays are available in the archive.
Healthy Foods
Which food groups are healthy and which unhealthy? A meta analysis was published in 2017 that looked at 12 food groups: whole grains, refined grains, vegetables, fruits, nuts, legumes, eggs, dairy, fish, red meat, processed meat, and sugar-sweetened beverages. They evaluated each food group by looking at its effect on all cause mortality. Some decreased all cause mortality, others increased, and some had no effect.
Advice for Politicians
I once wondered why Thomas Aquinas, who knew about Grekk and Roman democracies, didn't consider democarcay the best form of government. So I looked up what he said on the subject. I won't repeat what he said, but I will put it in my own words. Government is the exercise of power over a population in a nation through law enforcement and the military. And power is the ability to ignore the wishes of other people. So the most essential quality for any politician is to put the benefit of the people over their own benefit. Any politician who cares more about their own benefit does not deserve to hold office.
Meditation Without Goal
Brad Warner did a video on the subject of meditation without a goal. As sometimes happens, after watching it I felt I could give a better explanation, or at least a different perspective, So here are my thoughts. The question of what is the goal of meditation comes up often in Soto Zen because Dogen emphasized the meditation practice is to simply sit with no object and no goal. Whenever the quesion came up when I was teaching meditation, I said that the goal of meditation is to do the mediation properly. It is like practicing a song on a musical instrument, you play it over and over again with no other purpose than to play it properly. The problem of having a goal is not so much the goal, but the anticipation. A goal makes you focus on the future instead of the present.
Bukelismo
Last Sunday Nayib Bukele and his New Ideas party swept the elections in El Salvador. President Bukele is not only popular in his country, he is the most popular president in all of Latin America. He offers a new direction for the politics of Latin America, which has swung between neoliberalism and socialism. The reson why is clear. While these two seem to offer coherent ideologies, in practice they have been nothing more than masks to cover the actions of self seeking and corrupt politicians. Instead Bukelś policies have been designed for the benefit of the people and not himself. Thus the public has responded with enthusiasm for them.
Why Trump Is Popular
I know many of my liberal friends don't understand why Donald Trump is popular. I thought I should right a brief explanation. After World War II a number of organizations have formed at both the national and international level. Because the Western world ahs been stable since then, these organizations have continued, but with time society has changed and these organizations no longer represent the values of many Americans. Donal Trump refers to these organizations as the "Deep State." Typically they draw their membership from major cities, the upper classes, and elite universities. Thus there is a disconnect between them and working class and rural populations. Aggravating the situation, these organizations often see changing the behavior and beliefs of the public as part of their mission. But a traditional and complacent public does not want to change, and the anger this creates builds support for any politician promising to dismantle these organizations. Despite being a child of the same elite upper class, Donald Trump has cleverly taken advantage of this anger to build a loyal following.