New Links

New Links:

I've added a couple more links to the sidebar. As usual, I don't get around to editing the template often enough, and so I forget things or let them go too long. If you feel like I ought to be adding your site to my list, send me an email or leave a comment.

The first is reader Dad29, who has some interesting things to say about local politics, and is a Calvin & Hobbes fan.

The second is Dr. Helen, who is surely my favorite psychologist. That isn't saying much, as longtime readers know all too well, so I should probably say something nicer about her than that. Much like the Geek with a .45, I enjoy and am impressed by her disdain for the orthodoxy of the "discipline" of psychology. But far more importantly than that, I respect her disdain for death.

There's an old story I recall hearing from a Zen Buddhist on the subject of a young man of the samurai class who came to a swordsmaster seeking teaching. He said that he knew nothing, but begged for instruction so that he might become a swordsman and not disgrace his family. At last the master admitted him to the school, and said, "Come here and let me see what you happen to know already." He took up a wooden practice sword, and the young fellow the same, and they took their guard and their eyes met.

The master watched his new student for a moment, and said, "You have lied to me. You are no student. You are a master."

"Not so!" the student replied. "I have never studied a day in my life."

"This cannot be," the master objected.

"Yet it is true," replied the student. "Though, there is one thing. I have never had the ability to study swordplay, but I did not wish to bring disgrace on my family through cowardice. So, for these last several years, I have practiced dilligently to eliminate the fear of death from my heart. But that is the only skill I have learned."

The master set aside his practice sword, and took up instead a pen. He wrote out a certificate of mastery for the student, and sent him away. "Go forth," he said. "There is nothing more I can teach you."

Is that true? Of course it is not. But there is a truth in it, all the same.