We began our spirituality discussion with an overview from EJ of his Zen beliefs – oddly, as it turned out, since Zen as he explained it is not spiritual at all. Zen does not teach that people have “spirits”, or “souls”, as such. “There is no ‘you’; there is no ‘me’.” Like other belief structures, …
Category Archives: Wrap-Ups
WikiWrap
Last week’s discussion was well attended despite the impending ice storm. Thanks to everybody for coming out. Here’s some of what went down. “I am really surprised there isn’t more outrage from Americans over the Wikileaks releases,” said Joah. He meant the Apache helicopter video in particular. The soldiers in the video technically did follow …
A Question of Desire: Food Wrap
A baker’s dozen of us turned out in Williamsburg last Tuesday, to discuss the intricacies of the American food system and our own attitudes towards eating. “Knowing where the food comes from” was the succinct answer to the question posed to Alex, on why he had become a vegetarian. Of all who attended, he was …
Building Out the City
“I think people tend to have a misconception of the film,” said Fiore DeRosa, co-creator (with Jen Senko) of “The Vanishing City“. “We’re not some NIMBY, anti-development crowd. We’re not against safe, clean neighborhoods.” DeRosa was commenting on the possible irony that we had gathered to watch his film in a so-called “luxury condo” development. …
End of the Mass Media and Pop Culture?
It’s been nearly a month, but here, finally, is a wrap-up of the last discussion, with my own recent thoughts on the subject intertwined… How will musicians and writers, and other artists and tradesmen whose work is now primarily digital, make a living now that their product can be so easily and freely acquired? Jeremy …
Battling Our Own Prejudice
We began Wednesday night with Alex reading from the introduction to his book, which centered on a speech Glenn Beck made in Tampa, in November 2009. There Beck announced “The Plan”, an as-yet-undefined blueprint for taking America back from the progressives and advocates of “social justice”. Beck believes that this phrase is a euphemism for …
Art Wrap – Not Exactly “All Figured Out”
Friday’s Junta on contemporary art was one of the best yet and a lot of fun for everyone involved. We had a lot of good feedback: thanks to everyone for coming out. JohnJ started us off with a quick overview of artistic movements in the last 140 years, with an emphasis toward trying to explain …