Roundup for Oct 30, 2006

© x kwan, 2006. Detail from picture Little Miss Perky by X. Kwan, posted in "Bushed" in the blog by F & X Kwan foot before foot: the photoblog.

Ooop. Blogmandu has been neglected! But today, alas, a new entry.

Here’s what’s new and spiffy in the integral- and buddhoblogospheres:

tinythinker in peaceful turmoil writes of some of his more serious attachments, how attachments can be intellectually described and then, very helpfully, pulls us up out of any intellectual tule fog with this visualization

Until you have started really seeing [your attachments], like strings on a puppet moving you about as conditions in your life appear to change, [intellectual depictions of what attachments are are inadequate]. And, of course, it's even harder to see that, in fact, there are no strings (yes, it is a bit reminiscent of the "no spoon" line from that Zennish motion picture). When one is/is in the realization, rather than anticipating it or acknowledging [it] after the fact, there is nothing to hinder or become hindered by.

George of Sentient Developments has been posting what he calls a “Buddha Break” every few days since the 17th, in “an effort to write more about Buddhist topics and tie it into the context of [his] blog.” In his fifth and latest “break,” George writes about a meditation class conducted by his yoga instructor that had elements that are contrary to the practice he’s accustomed to, based on the vipassana tradition. Writes George

Once the meditation started we focused on the breath – a practice that I’m very familiar with. But after a few minutes of that he had us move ‘beyond’ a focus on the breath to a focus on the pure mind. This I could not understand nor accomplish. In fact, the idea of zoning-out like this is anathema to my own notions as to why we meditate and how we work to improve the practice of mindfulness. It might be my ignorance, but it seemed “unmindful” to try to attain a state of uber-relaxed ‘pure mind.’ I don’t even know what that means.

Brad Warner's forthcoming book is up at Amazon, with a release date of Apr 28, 2007. Brad writes a bit about the release in a post titled "Where Do We Go When We Die?" in his blog Hardcore Zen.

Hill Street Blues: In “California is Pathetic, Part 2” The Brad of Hardcore Zen tells us why he is getting so few to show up for zazen in his Hill Street Center. Basically, it’s because Buddhist practice “is hard work” and “most people are … lazy and pathetic.” He tells us, though, that he is happy to get what pathetic turnout he gets rather than suffer from what he calls The ‘Frampton Comes Alive’ Effect which is when “a whole bunch of people [show up] who are just there because being there is the thing to do.” I note that Brad’s sentiments here seem to be in sharp contrast to the sentiment one gathers from the title of Brad’s forthcoming book [see graphic at right]. We may have to wait until the book is out to square this circle.

Up from the gutter and into the fast lane: Nagarjuna is in a slump; his bowling scores are way down and this after learning about some of the game's finer points. He is convinced that in order to get his game squared away he must get a boost of confidence – not only at the bowling center but in his life generally. He writes in Naked Reflections,

“[A]ct the way I wish to feel, and feel the way I wish to act.” In Star Trek, there is something called the “Rules of Acquisition” that act as the guiding principles of all self-respecting Ferengi in their daily conduct, aimed, as it is, at building wealth and power. I'm tempted to construct my own personal list of guiding rules or precepts with the maxim above at or near the top of that list.

Buddhism is very fortunate to have a stellar, hard-working guide at About.com in Anthony Flanagan. For quite some time the entries Anthony posts have been in blog format so I am happy to start appropriately recognizing his work as part of the buddhoblogosphere. Anthony’s latest post is about Rahula, the Buddha’s son. It is yet another expertly written essay of Anthony’s focusing on Buddhism basics in About Buddhism. Anthony's essays that are beyond or well beyond the basics are also expertly written. Svaha!

The latest issue of Holons [for Nov 06] – news from the Integral world [but decidedly NOT Frank Vissar’s Integral World] – includes reviews by C4 and Vincent Horn. Each mentions his work in his solo blog. C4 reviews the DVD release of the film Running Scared. C4 writes in his blog, ~C4Chaos, “Even Roger Ebert agrees with me :) So if you think you can handle it, check out the movie.” Vincent reviews Alan Wallace’s new book The Attention Revolution. Says Vince in Numinous Nonsense, delighted with the publishing credit, “Suweet. … Pretty cool because I also just recorded an interview with … Wallace for [the new group podcast blog] Buddhist Geeks.”

It takes a village: Jack [aka, Jeb] – well known to longstanding B’du readers for his defunct Wondering on the Way <q.v.> blog, which was the sterling Buddhist voice during the Katrina disaster – is building up Buddhist Village which acts as a community with an ezine at its hub. Check it out, AND latch on to the village feed.

Atheism Discussion

And finally, for today, Sean of Deep Surface and Bob of Dust are mainstays in a cross-blog discussion going on regarding atheism. In “Atheists and Development,” Sean writes that he agrees with famed atheist Sam Harris that “helping the faithful to understand reason is important for the survival of our species.” Stuart Davis in his stuartdavis blog had ripped into the idea, writing in an “Open Letter to Rational Pundits,” “We had better figure out how to see depth, experience altitudes of awareness, and embrace development, or those lower stations will render us undone.”

Dust’s Bob had a serious, mad, but funny, too, and “Cranky, mean-spirited reaction to Stuart Davis’s blog,” writing to Stu that he is “flat, flat, flat-out full of shit when you parrot Wilber’s smoke and mirrors ‘solution’ to the world’s problems.”

In a later, calmer post, Bob writes, “How did I change my mind about religious faith? Or if you prefer, How did I develop to a more inclusive worldview? The answer to both questions is the same in my case: I was exposed, over time, to series of thoughtful, rational, evidence-based perspectives that eventually made utterly transparent the silliness, ignorance, and self-limiting nature of religious dogma. And until integral or developmental theorists can demonstrate a more effective approach to this problem, or any other for that matter, I will have to go with what’s worked for me.”

C4 of the blog ~C4Chaos, in a thoughtful comment to Bob’s words suggests “gather[ing] people in different religions and faith who already are at the world-centric stage of development and do the rational dialogue with them instead of attempt[ing] to dialogue among the masses.”

Roundup for Oct 17, 2006

Here's today's roundup, y'all:

Mike of Unknowing Mind finds that when he had a “physical expression of spiritual practice” – specifically, when he was training in Aikido, a Japanese martial art -- Buddhism had a heightened effect on his life. He writes, “Aikido acts as a physical expression of the value of egolessness, compassion, and wisdom.”

As best he can, Mike Doe of Do-Doe deals with a wild mouse in his house.

George of Sentient Developments welcomes us to the Age of Weapons Containment when there are likely to be other North Koreas or groups with bio-labs to develop horribly dangerous weaponry. He writes, “Preventing the wide-spread and unchecked accessibility to apocalyptic technologies will redefine the human condition. We may have to live with a multitude of existential threats in perpetuity. This is not a good situation.” No.

C4 of ~C4Chaos will be going to the Blog Business Summit 2006 in Seattle later this month, representing both his solo-blogging self and Zaadz, the walled social blogging community and virtual-fern pick-up bar that will change the world. He asks his “dear readers” to send him questions to ask the speakers or uber-bloggers he commiserates with at the conference.

In Genius of Insanity part of an AP report is posted on the high death toll so far this month of Iraqis killed in sectarian reprisals and of US soldiers in the streets. Adds Blogger James Ure, “[I]t's time that we adults grab the wheel of this convoy on a highway to hell and change directions. We can do that by electing Democrats to the Congress this November.”

Paul, The Blue Eyed Buddhist, links to an MSNBC report, “Power crunch spotlights deregulation turmoil,” and shows us that it is yet another issue that the Republicans have bobbled. He writes, “So the next time … there’s a brown-out … thank a Republican for dorking things up.”

Nagarjuna of Thoughts Chase Thoughts takes up a conjecture by Gagdad Bob of what would happen if the states of the US were divided into separate Red and Blue Nations. Would a Blue America have ruinous taxes and an intrusive govenment? Would a Red America allow corporations to run amuck and be non-compassionate toward poor citizens? Or, are the fifty states better being all together finding a Middle Way?

Cenk Uygur blogging in the Huffington Post:

George W. Bush will live in infamy for what he has done in Iraq. 161 dead. 83 dead. 53 dead. 16 tortured. 17 decapitated. Shiite doctors dumping the bodies of Sunni patients they have murdered. Burn marks. Executions. Torture chambers. Revenge killings. Family members shot in front of their wives and children.

These are all the headlines from Iraq in just the last couple of days.

If this isn't a civil war, what in the world is? Anywhere from 50,000-650,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed in the last three and half years. Let that sink in for a second. That's a gigantic number. The human toll in Iraq has been unspeakable. And none of it had to happen. This was a war of choice. And it has been one of the worst choices ever made by a world leader.

Roundup for Oct 14, 2006

Tanimbar Islands -- Drawing by Will Buckingham. Copyright, Will Buckingham, 2006. Will of thinkBuddha has launched a new blog, WillBuckingham.com, as "an outlet for more literary or straightforwardly philosophical reflections" and to cogitate on the "curious business of wrestling with words and with meanings" what with a novel he has coming out next Spring, called Cargo Fever, and one he's in the midst of writing now. Hopefully, he will also use the new blog as a place to post more of his drawings.

A quick roundup for you all.

One thing I forgot to write-up last roundup is the good, good news that chalip of Zen Under the Skin made an appearance with two posts after a blogging absence of about five weeks. In one of the posts, “Home Training,” chalip asks the question “After years of no practice or haphazard practice, how do you change? How do you develop the discipline that makes daily practice a reality?” She then addresses the questions, dealing with the circumstances in her life, doing so in a way that we may use some of her ideas for ourselves.

Natasha has put up a perfect post to introduce new readers to her blog, feminish. What I mean by that is that it is a beautiful piece of writing – with footnotes! – that explains where the feminism movement is today – its goals and obstacles – and the difficulties a woman has in being herself and dealing with the expectations of others in this our still-very-skewed and too-screwy world.

Umguy of Ideological Putty is messed up and will be in Las Vegas. If anybody wants to meet up with him there and do god-only-knows what, read his post.

It is fall in New York state. Michael of One foot in front of the other proves it with beautiful pictures taken on a clear, magical afternoon.

Bill of Integral Options Café endorses an effort by Oprah and Bono to buy Red products to help fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria in Africa. My question: Why should anybody living a far less conspicuously consumptive life than Oprah take advice on what to buy from her show? Shouldn’t she be getting advice on what to buy and not to buy from us? Couldn’t Oprah just give the effort one year of her salary and leave us alone? James of Genius of Insanity makes the case for Buy Red, too, in his blog. Writes James who had lived in Ivory Coast for two years, “[The Africans] are a proud and beautiful people who need our help. I saw first hand the terrible effects of HIV/AIDS there.”

Good heavens! George of Sentient Developments is inventing words that are taking hold in English! They are in Wikipedia and gather lots of hits when entered as a Google search. At the end of his post, George has questions which begin with this one: “When does a word cease to be a neologism and become a bona fide word?”

That's a wrap. Good night and good blog reading!

Roundup for Oct 10, 2006

Miso, the meistro of Big Red Buddha is interviewed in the latest addition to the Buddhist ezine the worst horse. It’s a terrific interview, titled “Buddhism gets its Onion,” that is clever and funny as hell. Plus, you find out a lot about Miso, but not more than he’ll allow. A good job of interviewing is done by the even-more-mysterious-than-Miso webmeister of the worst horse. Good stuff, y’all.

Here, a tasty tidbit from the interview, instructions from Miso on how to handle a ticked-off Buddhist: “…[I]t’s helpful to remember we Buddhists are easily distracted. I try to keep a book handy with some exotic teaching by a brand-name Buddhist personality. Just toss it in the direction of a ticked-off Buddhist, and they'll quickly become engrossed in its novelty. Shiny bits of foil may have the same effect. Once the ticked-off Buddhist's attention turns from you, back away slowly. Works like a charm.”

In his blog Naked Reflections, Nagarjuna does a great job breaking down and commenting on a brilliant Glenn Greenwald article that analyses the significance of the Foley sex scandal. The scandal and cover up is a crystallizing affair that exhibits the hypocrisies, madness and power greed of the Republicans to the public, as well as exposing the Republicans for all their duplicity and doublespeak. [Btw, congratulations are past due Nagarjuna for an earlier post of his that was excerpted by John Hughes of ipsoSacto for Blog Watch and then appeared in the Sacramento Bee Sunday Forum section on 9/24, in the weekly department "Surfing USA." The original, full post, titled “That’ll Show Them for Calling Us Violent,” appeared on Sept 18 in Naked Reflections.]

A new voice in the Buddhoblog chorus y’all need to be turned on to is natasha, a “twentysomething, british, free spirit in France” who writes feminish. Her primary interest is feminism, but she is keen on zen, meditation and British politics, too. Her link-rich post yesterday was mostly on “the veil thing,” a hot feminism topic following last month’s boob thing. I love the fresh, non-sugary positivism, while still being edgy and smart, found in natasha’s writing.

Here’s how she ends her post,

And the thing is (“what is the thing, Natasha?”), the thing is - these discussions [on veils/burqas/boobs] are better than any I’ve ever had offline. Honest. Go read.

A couple of book recommendations in the last day or two sound intriguing: Deep-thinker Bill of Integral Options Café has put The Trouble With Diversity: How We Learned to Love Identity and Ignore Inequality [amazon link] on his future-reading list. The book argues that we should be worrying about economic privilege instead of social identity in our search for civil justice. The stinking rich and their playboy and lazy girl progeny float above the hoi polloi in their castles in the air, leaving the rest of us on the ground tussling over scraps. Sounds about right.

Meantime, James of Monkey Mind alerts us to a forthcoming re-issue of a book from Susan Murphy, called Upside-Down Zen: Finding the Marvelous in the Ordinary [amazon link] after seeing an advance copy. Writes James, “Quite simply, Susan Murphy gives Zen a Western face with an Australian accent. And it’s right on! Not a false note throughout. She presents an understanding of Zen that is faithful to the tradition, but which is now deeply and truly our own. Which is, of course, exactly how Zen needs to be presented. She wiggles a finger at us, winks, and gently invites us into the ancient conspiracy.”

Honest. Go read!

Roundup for Oct 8, 2006

Detail from photo in Tyson of tysonwilliams.com's flickr collection of photographs taken at the Buddhist Relic Tour Exhibit.

Bill of Integral Options Café writes about the six necessary conditions that must be ripe or right for change to occur in a person’s life. Apparently, only those with means can change. Who else could afford all the therapists, teachers, leaders, study and travel that’s necessary?

Miso of Big Red Buddha writes of an Integral Buddhist named Bill “on the mend after an experiment in the horizontal integration of asymmetrical self-realization techniques goes awry.”

The Buddhist Relic Tour came to Toronto and Tyson of tysonwilliams.com snapped some cool photos and otherwise enjoyed a full day at the exhibit. Am I the only one, or are there others of you hoping that from these relics we ought to one day be able to map Buddha’s DNA? I don’t know what good or harm it might do, but I’d still like to see it done.

John, the Inveterate Bystander, warns of the real threat of another Bush war in the Middle East, launched against Syria and Iran. [Considering the US military recruitment problems and depletion of supplies and risk of further inflaming the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan, I cannot see how Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld would dare act so boldly and recklessly. If one house of congress falls to the Democrats, surely that would tie the Administration’s hands.]

Seamus, The Contemporary Taoist, alters his plan such that rather than abstaining from booze and reefers, he will imbibe moderately. On his first evening under the modified plan, he seems to have exceeded his set limits by more than a little. Is Seamus wise to seek a middle way or is he a rationalizing alcoholic?

Both Joshua and beesucker wrote about the Amish tragedy yesterday. Joshua of Mudita Journal quoted and linked to Sam Browne’s conservative Rants and Raves blog that was insightful speculating on the motivations of the shooter. beesucker of Authentic Personality wrote about the concern the Amish community has for the family of the shooter. Wrote beesucker, “Very beautiful. This sincere effort to heal is inspirational.”

Cliff Conquers the World

This is so cool. Cliff’s This is This was listed #5 in MSN UK’s recent survey of the Top Thirty Must-Read Blogs. Cliff mentions the honor in a post yesterday. Here’s the online survey on MSN_UK, btw. The MSN piece says that “more than a quarter of the UK [is] now writing an online journal,” which means that out of these 25 million bloggers OUR CLIFF, BUDDHISM’S CLIFFY, made the TOP FIVE with his blog! By now, Bill Gates prob’ly has This is This on his RSS aggregator. This is soooo cool.

MSN UK’s Top Ten Must-Read Blogs are

1. Biffovision
2. Stray Dog and the Chocolate Blog
3. My Boyfriend is a Tw#t
4. Wide Awake Wesley
5. This is This
6. A Cultured Left Foot
7. 2012 Olympics Competitor
8. Arseblog
9. New York Addick
10. Corridor of Uncertainty

There’s our Cliff, right in the middle of these upper tier of the upper tier. Yowza! [Hmmm. I wonder if Wide Awake Wesley might be a Buddhist.]

I also found that This is This ranks #45 on The British Bloggers Directory, which uses technorati technology, so I would guess this ranking is based on popularity measured by count of in-links or other traffic statistics. The description of This is This in the Brit Blog Directory reads thusly, "This ain't something else. Occasional daily life with outbreaks of funny and the chance of philosophy from the far east - Risk of songs."

So, This is This has it all: Critical acclaim AND popularity. If Cliff was in high school, he'd be Prom King. And to think, we're talking about a BUDDHIST blog. [But, yeah, the, a, 'humor thing' helps -- or, should I say 'humour thing' (sorry, Brits).]

Writes Cliff, modestly, "I can’t explain how much I thinks this rocks. I honestly can’t, and I’m supposed to be the guy with the good speaking, and writing them - um… with, you know, the words. Without them, I’m kind of jingling my change."

Roundup for Oct 7, 2006

This time in the Roundup, Synchronicity and a bountiful harvest.

Synchronicity, Somewhat

Detail from photo in My Zen Life. One of John's less prefered places to sit.

At 7:53am Pacific Time, yesterday, whiskey of whiskey river posted a quote that begins “There was also another reason why it was now possible to paint. …” Twenty-one minutes later, John of My Zen Life posted a picture of the bathroom in the house his family had recently moved into and put up an entry titled “day-glow lime green.” He writes, “can you believe the previous owners actually did this to the downstairs bathroom??” Of course, John may not be using paint so much as a sledge hammer.

Detail from graphic in ~C4Chaos. A frame from the evolving film "I AM."

At 2:54pm Pacific Time, C4 of ~C4Chaos's post hit the electron highway regarding an online film project called “I AM.” C4 writes, “It's a free movie. What makes this film especially cool, aside from its very meaningful message, is that it's also probably ‘the first major open-source film project in history’ wherein everyone is invited to co-create the film. I'll look forward on how this film would evolve over time.” Sixteen minutes later, Mike Doe of Doe-Do put up his post “Learning to be me!!” It his wonderful long thoughtful post, Mike writes, “Over the last few months I have been working a lot on letting go of various beliefs about myself – mostly negative but also some positive. The beliefs about me are not who I am. They are constraining things that paint a false picture.”

Blog Harvest

This is a great find: Bill of the IOC recommends a Buddhist pop-culture ezine, the worst horse. I checked it out – as Bill suggests – and found it chockablock with interesting stuff. I hadn’t heard of it; apparently it’s been around since February. Though parts of it are written in diary/blog fashion there is no RSS feed, unhappily – but I will be sure to bookmark it.

First off, the site recommends several wonderful blogs very familiar to frequent B’du readers: TMcG, Big Red Buddha ["Buddhism gets its Onion”], My Zen Life, The Buddhist Blog and Tyson Williams. Others blogs mentioned that are active – that B’du will be sure to pursue as a collector of beautiful buddhoblogs -- are Moonpointer, Monkey Mind, ok smile, Ottmar Liebert, and Living Tonglin.

I am especially happy to learn from the worst horse of Monkey Mind, a new blog written by James Ishmael Ford, who recently mentioned B’du reporter and something he wrote in a sermon, "Mindful Politics," he gave in front of the First Unitarian Society in Massachusetts where he is senior minister. Btw, James mentions four blogs he expecially likes in a recent post in Monkey Mind. He doesn’t provide links, so here they are: Hardcore Zen [by Brad Warner]; Philocrites [by Chris Walton, blogging as Philocrites]; Zen Blog of the Vimala Sangha [by Lew Richmond, et al]; and The Everyday Zen Foundation Blog [by Zoketsu Norman Fischer]

Mark of Zen Filter has had a spurt of activity this new month with five recommendations thus far – including the Zen Blog of the Vimala Sangha [which has an “interesting discussion on bowing”]; a post from the blog of the Savitri Era Learning Forum [“As if meditation were a debt”]; and a link to a post about Dogen and the Game of Go in the blog Numenware.

Also, Digitalzen of Digital Dharma recommends the venerated 'toon website Dharma the Cat. And B'du recommends Tao Diary, blogged by Crash. Crash is taking his spirituality in a new direction. He writes, "I have turned to Buddhism because it has a concrete method of doing things. ... The Buddha ... operationally defined what he meant by compassion, and gave a concrete plan of how to achieve a state of loving-kindness. Not only that, but there is good evidence (which will come in later posts) that the advice the Buddhists offer squares almost perfectly with modern psychological studies."

Since it is Friday, both Will of thinkBuddha and Mike of Unknowing Mind have written bodacious Scribe Jamborees. [Both blogs are part of the elite Daily Scribe network which asks its membership to have a linkfest on Fridays.] Among the many links in each blog's jamboree post, Will honors Mike's post "encouraging us to go where there is no path," and Mike honors a post of Will's on Mindfulness and the Enigma of Life.

tinythinker of peaceful turmoil informs us that there are no longer any Buddhist blogs in Beliefnet's haven of great spiritual blogs, Blog Heaven. Paper Frog got punted at the time blogger Christopher Baskind mothballed PF for other endeavors; WoodMoor Village Zendo got dropped more recently -- though Nacho's blog continues in operation at full force. Writes tiny, "I have no idea why Woodmoor would be removed, but it and/or one or two of several other blogs (Danny Fisher, Lotus in the Mud, Green Clouds, The Buddhist Blog, etc, just to name a few) would also be right at home in the list. I guess we'll see what happens (as always)."

Roundup for Oct 2, 2006

Detail from one photo in Lorianne of Hoarded Ordinaries' "Festival of the Trees"

Both Lorianne of Hoarded Ordinaries and Dave of Via Negativa worked on Lorianne’s compellation for Festival of the Trees, an arborous blog carnival. Great links, and what beautiful photographs! A tall post with grandeur and stature, like a mighty redwood! Both whiskey of whiskey river [here] and Dave of V.N. [here] quickly put up entries in their blogs to bark a revelrous herald for Lorianne’s magnificent post.

Bill of Integral Options Café tells us he was heavily into goth music and culture in his youth and retains a love and interest in much that is goth, now, as a full-fledged adult. After confessing to once having had black-purple hair, he writes, “Generally, I was fascinated with all things morbid. It seems semi-logical to me that someone who was interested in goth might eventually become a Buddhist. The goth fascination with death, decay, pain, and suffering all lends itself to the first noble truth: life is suffering.”

John, the Inveterate Bystander, asks “Where is Riverbend?” Riverbend is a young woman, in her early 20s, who started the blog Baghdad Burning in August of 2003 but hasn’t been heard from since August 5 of this year. In her post for that last day, she writes about murderous threats received by people in the city from Sadr’s followers asking them to leave, or else.

John’s inquired about what might have happened to Riverbend, but received no substantive response from worried correspondents. John ends his post with the following words and then a link to Baghdad Burning

I hope that she turns up, and if she does wonderful. I fervently hope she does. If she does not, you should know about another unwilling victim of Bush's "liberation" of Iraq.

Bill of Oaksong’s Nemeton opens the brand-new month telling us that his blogging might be light for a spell, in part because of a “Top Secret Life-Changing Decision.”

Joanna of Hummingbirds Don’t Sing is excited about Technorati, her profile there, and Mama Cass. Sadly, having just registered her blog, she has no in-links to HDS. Well, hell, this B’du post oughta fix THAT.

Roundup for Oct 1, 2006

Detail from one of a Flckr collection of photographs by Al of In Pursuit of Mysteries, taken at a match between the Shevil Devils and Outlaws on Sept 30.

Both Al of In Pursuit of Mysteries and Sean of Deep Surface posted interesting pieces on roller derby. Al attended a match between the San Francisco Shevil Dead and the Oakland Outlaws and has pictures and made a YouTube vid. Sean went to a screening in Austin of the 1972 film Unholy Rollers [imdb] that was introduced by Quentin Tarantino at a theatre called the Alamo Draft House. The crowd was rambunctious as was the movie.

Al writes, “[R. and I] had a good time knee deep in cheap beer and kitsch.” Sean writes, “Unholy Rollers was an awesome spectacle. There were several sex scenes, many exposed breasts, and the protagonist went from bad to worse in an interesting way. If you can find it, rent it immediately.”

Both bloggers remarked on the revival of the ‘sport.’ Says Al, “The Bay Area is part of a revival of Roller Derby that is currently occurring. Seattle is another hotspot of activity.” Says Sean, “Apparently this niche sport has come back, at least in Texas. If the exploitation movie was accurate, the violence between skaters is mostly staged like professional wrestling. The sport appears to be a cross between wrestling and Nascar - with skates - and more fun to watch than either one.”

Do either Al or Sean delve into the close Buddhism connection to Roller Derby? Well, not so much, no. Perhaps they’ll do so in follow-up posts.