God and Ultraman
Last night I watched episode 45 of Ultraman 80, “The Endlessly Challenging Soul of the Baltan Alien” on Crunchyroll. Ultraman 80 was the 1980 entry in the long-running Ultraman TV series produced by Tsuburaya Productions, the company I worked at for 15 years. In this episode, a young boy takes a photo of a UFO, […]
“White people,” “Black People” and Other Kinds of People
In the past week we’ve seen videos of three humans being killed by other humans called “police.” Two of these humans were what folks in the USA call “Black people.” One was what folks in the USA call a “White person.” Then someone opened fire on some police officers in Dallas, killing five of them. […]
#StraightPrideDay is Dumb But I Totally Get It
I am a white “cis-gendered” heterosexual male. So, in terms of what they call “identity politics” these days I’m nobody. Because I’m everybody. Of course I’m privileged and all of that. Nobody sees me on the street and yells out racial slurs, or makes unwanted sexual advances, or pulls me aside at airport security because […]
The Eternal Value of One Little Thing
I’m working on a new Dogen book. And in doing so, I’ve noticed a little message Dogen sneaks into his writings from time to time that I’d never really seen before. In my current book Don’t Be a Jerk, Dogen says, “Even if the whole universe is nothing but a bunch of jerks doing all kinds of jerk-type things, there is […]
Is There Life After Death?
Last night I saw Chuck Klosterman speak at Skylight Books in Los Angeles. During his talk he read a piece from But What If We’re Wrong? (which I reviewed in my last entry) that illustrates my point about how he — like lots of people these days — voices some of the same ideas contained […]
