Emerson Wojciechowska Fittipaldi

"You may choose your own fate," saith the Lord to him.   Further He said:

"You may be overcome by a brief rush of adrenalin as you enter Turn Six, and slide off onto the edge of a berm at 180 mph, the car flipping rather late in the crash onto its back, compressing your skull and your spine as well.

"Or much later your daughter may send you, on your birthday, and without irony, a white plastic wheel that the nurse will know to clamp to the tray of your wheelchair, and in the center a feeble little red button of a horn, one that you will delight in pressing repeatedly with your right thumb, not so much for the squeak that it makes as for its 'organic compression' every time you push it."

 

Flailing, Blindly, at the Feet of the Boddhisatva

In which the narrator recognizes that Buddhist philosophy is as jesuitical as is Jesuit philosophy. 

With apologies for the repetition, we have noted that the literal meaning of “compassion” is “shared suffering.” 

When compassion is exercised, then, is it to that extent spent?   That is, is there a Second Law of Thermodynamics at work, or at play, here?  Or was the Great Achievement of the Buddha to have discovered and accessed an Infinite Reservoir of Compassion?  But would such an Infinite Reservoir of Compassion not imply an infinite amount of suffering in the world?  And suffering on that scale created at Whose Hand? 

Perhaps the Buddha would say that our mistake is in concluding that the Infinite Reservoir of Compassion is the Ultimate Foundational Reality of All Things.  Rather, the Infinite Reservoir flows out of the Foundational Reality.  Which is not created.  Which is, in fact, the Creator.  Of a world without end.

 

 

The Teachings of the Compassionate Buddha

Here in abbreviated form.

 

Dreaming of KJU

In my dream, Kim Jong Un has invited a large group of journalists and other non-governmental observers of the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea to Pyongyang to meet with him personally.  In the run-up to the event, there is widespread speculation that it might lead to a breakthrough in solving all of the various geopolitical problems with their source in the DPRK, not because of the meeting itself, but because it might reflect a change of heart about engaging with the world in a positive way, coming from the very top.

The meeting is held in a rather nondescript function room at mid-day.  The invited journalists have been asked not to act like journalists "in the moment" as it were, and they hold to this pledge, but there are other journalists, domestic and foreign, present to record it.

Kim arrives on time and looking very casual, in black pants with a black belt and a short-sleeved white shirt open at the collar to reveal a white T-shirt underneath.  He does not smoke.   He does not even sit, but rather strolls around the room as he talks to those assembled, who are also standing.  They do not talk back.  Kim's English is near fluent, much better than I expected notwithstanding the period that he spent in his youth at a Swiss boarding school.

Kim's tone, until the end, is light-hearted.  He often smiles, talking of his country's modern history and of his father and grandfather, Kim Jong Il and Kim Il Sung.  But towards the end he begins to focus on a particular middle-aged British journalist, one perhaps more famous than any of the others, one I will call "Peter Cowper."  Kim addresses him by his first name, and he begins to speak of some of the pieces that Cowper has written about the regime, including pieces focusing on its flagrant human rights abuses.  His tone becomes more serious and his voice somewhat louder.

At the very end, still looking at Cowper, Kim mentions as if in passing the name of a young woman, a name not known to anyone else in the room but Cowper.  Then he references, rather cryptically, an abortion.  Cowper blanches.

Kim thus had at the meeting a message to give to three concentric audiences -- to Cowper himself, to the assembled visitors, and to the world at large.  The message is the same -- that the Leader has seen and taken note of everything, that he will not be mocked, and that in the end revenge without mercy will be visited on his enemies.

From that time forward, until his death, Cowper is mindful of the possible presence of assassins whenever he takes as much as a step outside his home.

 

Rex Chelestes Pays a Visit

At times during the Hour of the Wolf I feel the Hand of Our Lord pressing down on me, as if I were a grilled-cheese sandwich on a very hot skillet.

 

Time to Pay Attention!

Broadcast from speakers atop the Studebaker trucks that the American people gifted to their Soviet brothers during the Great Patriotic War, at the urban crossroads now, in places like Vladivostok and Ufa, but could be Minneapolis, St. Paul --

Внимание! Вниманиe! Внимание!

 

Way to Go

It has recently and reliably been reported that Jang Song Thaek, the uncle by marriage of Kim Jong Un, completely lost his mind in the period between his public arrest and his execution.

And well he might.   We do not know for certain the means of his execution, but in high-profile cases such as his, it is common for the condemned man to be tied to a stake at a military drill field, with hundreds of his peers and often his family members filling up the bleachers some hundred yards away.  When the order is given, anti-aircraft guns -- cannons designed to take down low-flying American fighter jets -- open fire on the man.  We know that the human body is about 60% water.  In seconds, the man is reduced to a puddle and fragmentary other remains.

But the remains cannot "remain."  They are an insult to the Dignity of the Dear Leader.  And so, before the crowd has left, two young enlisted men cross the parade ground with flame throwers and evaporate the blood, incinerate the rest so that it is unrecognizable as anything but ash.

Nowadays the witnesses wear masks as a precaution against COVID.  They are glad for the masks when the cooking smells make their way to the viewing stands.