Health Care Workers Share Thoughts About Anti-Vaxxers (funny!)

 

These health care workers shared their honest thoughts about anti-vaxxers in this hilarious PSA on ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’’

Dōgen Zenji (1200 - 1253) Soto Zen

 

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Dōgen Zenji (1200 - 1253) was a Japanese Buddhist priest, writer, poet, philosopher, and founder of the Sōtō school of Zen in Japan. 

Originally ordained as a monk in the Tendai School in Kyoto, he was ultimately dissatisfied with its teaching and traveled to China to seek out what he believed to be a more authentic Buddhism. Upon his return to Japan, he began promoting the practice of zazen (sitting meditation) through literary works. He eventually left Kyoto for the mountainous countryside where he founded the monastery Eihei-ji, which remains the head temple of the Sōtō school today. 

Art - Zen Circle by John Rossi 
Music: Zen Shakuhachi - Kyotaku 
Daylight - Shakuhachi, Hang and Gongs

 

"Sitting is the gateway of truth to total liberation" ~Dogen Zenji 

Tot Zbor (IRIS)

IRIS - Tot zbor (Vol.2 - 1987)

 

 

Easy Sleazy: Jagger and Grohl mocking anti-vaxxers

Mick Jagger and Dave Grohl mock anti-vaxxers in new song

“Shooting the vaccine, Bill Gates is in my bloodstream. It’s mind control,” 

 “The Earth is flat and cold, it’s never warming up. The Arctic’s tundra turned to slush, the second coming’s late, there’s aliens in the Deep State.” 

 

Outstanding reporting from Romania (RECORDER): "The Great White Clan"

From the RECORDER investigative journalist:

"after 8 months of undercover investigation I discovered a secret network in which businessmen, politicians and prelates from the top of the Church work hand in hand in a mega-business: the construction and rehabilitation of churches with public money. All this network operates with the blessing of the most powerful person in the Romanian Orthodox Church, whom his people call the Great White"

The right-wing itch of a Romanian math leader

Dr. Vasile Brinzanescu, former Director of the Institute of the Romanian Academy, has a right-wing itch that he cannot scratch often enough. Scratching that itch usually means sharing right wing opinion pieces, sometimes accompanied by his comments to the effect that “yes, I agree with that”, being at the same time careful with his image, so that he will not give the impression of right wing nut (so that if the shared opinion piece is too extreme, he would only say “they have a point” or "I'm just saying"...). But don’t take my word for it. Instead let’s listen to him…

•    Arguing against what he calls the “Stupid protests of the anti-racists” that “have no reason” yet have “grave consequences against humanity” [!]:

•    Finding (June 23, 2020) mitigating circumstances for a controversial project in the Romanian Senate that bars all references to gender identity in Romanian schools and universities (on the account that the movement for gender equality is “exaggerated”):

•    Arguing (June 28, 2021) against the personal right to express the gender identity: “we don’t care how they see themselves; the problem is that they go public and boast with their options and with their unjustified requests, and then we are aggressed. They better mind their business and cease aggressing others” :

 
 

Coming from a university professor, the extremism is surreal. Who will drop a tear for the poor homophobes that “feel aggressed” (?!)

Last but not least, there is always Princeton’s Sergiu Klainerman, a sacred cow for many in the Romanian right. His politically charged opinion pieces (or, shall we say, strawmen) are often shared by Brinzanescu, who carefully never forgets to emphasize the mathematical prestige of Klainerman as an additional “weight”, just for good measure. Of course, any discussion on a topic of equity/equality/justice in/around Mathematics is dismissed summarily. For example, the mere reference to the book “Mathematics for Human Flourishing” by Harvey Mudd’s Francis Su (past President of the MAA), is furiously dismissed by a Jack-in-the-box Brinzanescu, who claims, just for good measure, “mathematical privilege” for the ICM invited speaker Klainerman, which would somehow “weaken” Su’s book (even if no mathematical comparison between Klainerman and Su was attempted!). In the end Brinzanescu would pompously and ceremoniously conclude: “There is no place for justice in Mathematics”. Intentionally missing Su’s point that Mathematics, being a human activity, is (and should be) used, with all its internal rules notwithstanding, to produce a multitude of resources FOR human flourishing (that’s too much for right-wing armchair ideologues, though).  One can only wonder that, maybe, the same person who is afraid of and antagonistic towards, the “liberal” idea of mathematics for social justice would also be afraid of, say, the emergence of mathematical models and quantitative tools that quantify and fight gerrymandering (see “Republicans poised to rig the next election by gerrymandering electoral maps”)

God forbid that somebody like yours truly, who works at a small undergraduate college would criticize Brinzanescu’s views on his own Facebook page. In that case, if Brinzanescu’s bullying attempts (such that, “you are working at a seventh-rate school”, or “why aren’t you doing something else than Fibonacci numbers” – that is, sort of “yuck” coming from a furious Springer author) are unsuccessful, all messages of Brinzanescu’s opponent will be deleted (tell me more about cancel culture, Director!). Of course, Brinzanescu would also delete, in this context, his own aggressive (potentially self-damaging) messages. Like I said, he is a very careful propaganda guy - keeping his prestige intact requires him being a good manager of his sh#t. To their credit, some Romanian math professors working in the West at R1 Universities dared to argue (all too politely) against Vasile Brinzanescu’s views, occasionally schooling him free of charge.

Somewhere in Bluffton Nature Preserve...

A paradise of insects...  

September 19, 2021

© Mihai Caragiu