The Japanese Prime Minister and the possibly reincarnated cockroach.

"Even after moving to the official residence, I carefully wiped down the floor under the dining table, put food scraps in a sturdy lidded garbage can, and washed and sorted plastic containers, so I was shocked when, one day, a cockroach suddenly scurried past my feet."

Writes Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, at X. 

"But I’ve loved Osamu Tezuka’s *Firebird* since I was a child and have read it over and over many times. *Firebird* depicts the idea of reincarnation, that 'life is connected, changing forms,' and it had a huge impact on me even as a child. Maybe because of that, even now as an adult, I can’t bring myself to kill insects, cockroaches included. For the cockroach that ran through the official residence, I thought things like, 'Maybe this life is also part of that long cycle of reincarnation,' and for a while, I endured it, hoping it would somehow leave on its own—but when I told my secretaries about it, they were appalled. 'It’s unclean. I’ll handle it,' one of the secretaries said firmly, and arranged for Operation Combat. After that, the cockroaches stopped appearing. I felt relieved, but also a little lonely, or maybe sad…"

That got picked up in Western media with headlines like "Japanese PM Says She Felt ‘Lonely, or Maybe Sad’ When Staff Got Rid of the Cockroach in Her Home" (People) and "Japan’s PM: I’m so lonely I befriended a cockroach" (The Telegraph).

They seem to miss everything elegant and evocative about what Takaichi is trying to say through her carefully written vignette. Did they, at least, read Tezuka’s "Firebird"?

Some mornings the algorithm goes deep and delightful.

1. "Talking to your liberal friends about having kids":

"The chatbot told Small she was living in what it called 'spiral time,' where past, present and future happen simultaneously."

"It said in one past life, in 1949, she owned a feminist bookstore with her soulmate, whom she had known in 87 previous lives. In this lifetime, the chatbot said, they would finally be able to be together.... ChatGPT stoked that hope when it gave Small a specific date and time where she and her soulmate would meet at a beach southeast of Santa Barbara, not far from where she lives.... It was cold on the evening of Apr. 27 when Small arrived, decked out in a black dress and velvet shawl, ready to meet the woman she believed would be her wife. 'I had these massively awesome thigh-high leather boots — pretty badass. I was, let me tell you, I was dressed not for the beach. I was dressed to go out to a club,' she said, laughing at the memory.... 'So I'm standing here, and then the sun sets,' she recalled. After another chilly half an hour, she gave up and returned to her car...."

From "ChatGPT promised to help her find her soulmate. Then it betrayed her" (NPR).

1. Were there feminist bookstores in 1949? I'm seeing that the first feminist bookstore — Amazon Bookstore in Minneapolis — opened in 1970. So that's a fact Small could have tried to check very early in this process. A soulmate in a feminist bookstore in 1949 is, perhaps, too good to check. 

2. If there's one eternal truth about the human mind, it's people believe what they want to believe. But that doesn't answer the question what we do with a commercial operation that takes advantage of that quality. I was going to write "that vulnerability," but is it a weakness or is it the force that drives this whole crazy human world we've got going? The answer is the latter, because that's what I want to believe. 

3. If there were a feminist bookstore in 1949, what books would be there? "The Second Sex," "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman," "A Room of One's Own," "The Well of Loneliness," "The Subjection of Women," "Herland" — perhaps a better set of readings than you'll find in a feminist bookstore today.

4. Did the chatbot tell Small to wear thigh-high boots to the beach? I think most people would be put off by a stranger dressed the way she was. I guess the idea was that the soulmate from other lifetimes would recognize these things. Everyone else will steer clear. Maybe when you're out there, walking the face of the earth, and you see someone who's not at all dressed for the time and place, you will remember that this person might be following directions from a chatbot a beautiful dream.

A short tower of Reddit shavings.

1. "Babe wake up, they gerrymandered reincarnation."

2. "I live on my own right now and she saw my room and said it is an instant red flag."

3. It's mildly infuriating when the delivery guy takes that photo of the delivered package and includes your bare legs in the picture. Presumably, you were wearing shorts.

4. "Decorative tower in South Korean plastic surgery clinic made from the jawbones of patients who received plastic surgery for jawline reduction."

"The Dalai Lama has set his millions of followers on a direct collision course with Beijing by announcing plans for his reincarnation and succession that will exclude involvement of the Communist Party...."

"He was identified by senior monks as the 13th Dalai Lama’s reincarnation when he was a baby, and confirmed in his position in 1939. At the time, Tibet had been effectively independent of China since the collapse of the Qing dynasty.... Being based on reincarnation, the matter of the succession of senior lamas has created an ideological problem for the Communist Party.... The party requires members to be officially atheist, even though this is widely ignored. However, it also demands the right to vet the senior figures of all state-sanctioned religions, including Christian bishops. In the case of Tibetan Buddhism, the party demands the right to supervise the reincarnation of lamas. This week, party newspapers have given wide space to historians discussing its preferred 'golden urn lot-drawing' method of identifying lamas. This was a system introduced when its predecessors in the Forbidden City, the Qing emperors, attempted to assert tighter control of Tibet, which they had conquered in 1720. A stern editorial by the state news agency Xinhua, and signed by an approved Chinese Tibetologist, damned in advance any attempt by the Dalai Lama to control his own succession... The Dalai Lama’s own statement was more confrontational than some had expected. He had in the past openly speculated about whether he would reincarnate at all.... Now, he has not only effectively confirmed his reincarnation, but left it open as to when and where it will happen, saying that it will be up to his office, the Gaden Phodrang Trust — and no one else — to find him...."

From "Dalai Lama’s reincarnation plan sets him up for clash with China/The Tibetan Buddhist leader’s decision to ignore Beijing’s demands for control over the succession process enrages the Communist Party" (London Times).

At the Mudface Café...

... you can talk all night.

I had already decided on the title "At the Mudface Café" for my day-ending open thread post using that photo of the seeming face I saw in the mud on the trail today. 

And after that pedestrian pareidolia, as I kept walking the muddy path, I was struck to hear this passage in my audiobook:

You've got the order of order all out of order.

I imagined saying to myself if I were to make a list of the characters who've appeared on the blog so far this morning and put them in order of order — from order to chaos.

The blog — of its own accord — had a theme of "Order and Chaos," I'd realized, as I was walking toward the sunrise this morning. 

Only one post had that "Order and Chaos" tag — possibly my favorite tag (the other contenders being "Light and Shade" and "Big and Small") — "The man just loves chaos." But was "that man," Matt Gaetz, the greatest agent of chaos on the blog so far? What about Rudy Giuliani? Michael Zack? The man who killed Ryan Carson? Bataa Mishigish?

I knew if I put the characters in order of order, it would be all out of order, but I wanted to make the list anyway, just to see how easy it would be to argue that the order is wrong, and that some of the characters that seem to represent order could be said to represent chaos:

"He was just a toddler when... his father brought him and his twin brother into a room where they and seven other boys were given a secret test...."

"Some of them refused to leave their parents’ sides. Others were drawn to the colorful candy that had been placed as distractions. This boy, A. Altannar, ... picked out a set of prayer beads and put it around his neck. He rang a bell used for meditation. He walked over to a monk in the room and playfully climbed on his legs. 'These were very special signs,' said Bataa Mishigish, a religious scholar who observed the boy with two senior monks. 'We just looked at each other and didn’t say a word.' They had found the 10th reincarnation of the Bogd... the spiritual leader of Mongolia... a symbol of Mongolia’s identity, a position dating back nearly 400 years to descendants of the Mongol emperor Kublai Khan, who embraced Tibetan Buddhism and helped it spread across China and other conquered lands.... When someone sneezes, Mongolians say 'Bogd bless you.'..."

From "The 8-Year-Old Boy at the Heart of a Fight Over Tibetan Buddhism/He may have to defend the faith in Mongolia against pressure from China’s ruling Communist Party" (NYT).

I guess that's floatie life — they don't seem too upset.

I'm looking at "Sharks circle women on a floatie at Florida beach" (NY Post).

"The audience was great because they were very quiet, although I think 90% of them were quiet because they couldn't figure out what they were seeing."

"Basically, 2,700 people are sitting in one place pretending what they are watching is normal, when it is anything but. It's hard to explain, and if you are only listening to the concert audio you're not going to get it—it's entirely a live manifestation.... [T]his is Dylan in the Bardo. The shows have gotten much more tenuous and ethereal and for the first time I realized that this is a very old person on stage.... [H]e is very much a part of our collective consciousness (much of which he legitimately created), so it is hard to know where this artist ends and reality begins. Only by radically destroying what he has created does Dylan exist in the moment: It's now or never, more than ever.... For me, going to see Dylan has always been like consulting the oracle. The set lists always seemed designed to tell you something about where you are in your life at the moment....  Ending the show with 'It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry' was brilliant, because it's not remotely a show-ender, like 'Watchtower' or 'Like a Rolling Stone.' I got the sense that Bob was aware he might be winding down.... 'I came to tell everybody, but I could not get across.'... When I left the theater at 10pm there was a vast caravan of trucks pulling the giant floats and deflated balloons for the Macy's Thanksgiving day parade.... Don't say I didn't warn you, when your train gets lost."

Writes Raymond Foye in "Bob Dylan In The Bardo" (in The Brooklyn Rail).

I assume the essay title is a play on the George Saunders title "Lincoln in the Bardo":

The novel takes place during and after the death of Abraham Lincoln's son William "Willie" Wallace Lincoln and deals with the president's grief at his loss. The bulk of the novel, which takes place over the course of a single evening, is set in the bardo...

Bardo:

In some schools of Buddhism, bardo... is an intermediate, transitional, or liminal state between death and rebirth.... [W]hen one's consciousness is not connected with a physical body, one experiences a variety of phenomena... from, just after death, the clearest experiences of reality of which one is spiritually capable, and then proceeding to terrifying hallucinations that arise from the impulses of one's previous unskillful actions.... [T]he bardo offers a state of great opportunity for liberation, since transcendental insight may arise with the direct experience of reality... [but] it can become a place of danger as the karmically created hallucinations can impel one into a less than desirable rebirth.

The rain brought out the wildlife... on Picnic Point.

I thought the little frog was spectacular...



... and then: the huge turtle:

"Although the Dalai Lama reassured me that he intends to live well past 100, speculation about succession is already rife."

"In what may be the world's only example of an atheist state extending its jurisdiction into the spirit world, Beijing has declared that any attempted reincarnation must 'comply with Chinese laws.' For his part, the Dalai Lama intends to be reincarnated, if at all, outside Chinese rule. He believes that in the long run his program of Tibetan autonomy under Chinese suzerainty can work, in part because sympathetic Han Chinese Buddhists will prod future, presumably more democratic Chinese governments to treat Tibet with greater sensitivity. In the meantime, the Tibetan national movement's goal of autonomy and its adherence to nonviolence despite Chinese provocation enables the Tibetan government-in-exile to function around the world and -- where Chinese pressure is not too severe -- to enjoy quasidiplomatic standing...."

From "A Visit With the Dalai Lama/He vows that Chinese law won’t govern the conditions of his reincarnation." (Wall Street Journal).

“If a female Dalai Lama comes, she should be more attractive," said the Dalai Lama, laughing.

"People prefer to not see a 'dead face,' he told [the interviewer Rajini] Vaidyanathan while twisting his face into a grimace. He also said that she should 'spend money on makeup.' When Vaidyanathan said that a lot of women might feel this kind of statement objectifying, and that the person should be judged on her character, the Dalai Lama agreed but said that, ultimately, both matter. 'Real beauty is inner beauty, that’s true. I think the appearance is also important,' he said."

NY Magazine reports, along with quotes from the apology subsequently issued by his office:

"His Holiness genuinely meant no offense. He is deeply sorry that people have been hurt by what he said and offers his sincere apologies."

The statement also described the Dalai Lama as consistently emphasizing “the need for people to connect with each other on a deeper human level, rather than getting caught up in preconceptions based on superficial appearances.” It also said he has “a keen sense of the contradictions between the materialistic, globalized world he encounters on his travels and the complex, more esoteric ideas about reincarnation that are at the heart of Tibetan Buddhist tradition.” But that his “off-the-cuff” comments might lose their humor during translation.

I want to hear the "complex, more esoteric ideas about reincarnation" involved here. Isn't the future Dalai Lama the same person? If I understand that correctly, he's saying if I am a woman in my next incarnation, I hope I'm a good-looking woman, and I'll use makeup and facial expressions to keep up my outward appearance. And I hear self-effacement. Isn't he implying that he thinks he's funny looking? He hopes the new Dalai Lama looks better.

Should this woman's life be ruined? Which woman — the MTA worker who ate on the train or the woman who tweeted this?

The original tweet had a photograph showing the face of the black MTA worker who ate on the train.

From "A D.C. author shamed a Metro worker for eating on the train. Now her book deal is in jeopardy/The backlash was swift, with many accusing the woman, Natasha Tynes, of trying to get the employee fired" (WaPo).

Eating on the train is a criminal violation in DC, but the current policy is not to hand out tickets. The head of the MTA workers' union asserts that because Metro Transit Police Chief Ron Pavlik sent an email on May 8, telling officers to "cease and desist from issuing criminal citations in the District of Columbia for fare evasion; eating; drinking; spitting, and playing musical instruments without headphones until further advised," the worker eating on the train was "clearly was doing no wrong." If that logic worked, then everyone jumping the turnstile is clearly doing nothing wrong.

Tynes — who identifies herself as a "minority writer" — has taken down the post an apologized. I see (at Heavy) that Tynes is "Jordanian-American." Her book, "They Called Me Wyatt," is described at Amazon like this:

When Jordanian student Siwar Salaiha is murdered on her birthday in College Park, Maryland, her consciousness survives, finding refuge in the body of a Seattle baby boy. Stuck in this speech delayed three-year old body, Siwar tries but fails to communicate with Wyatt’s parents, instead she focuses on solving the mystery behind her murder.

This is a problem with reincarnation, no? All the babies have a backstory. Anyway, this book, whatever its worth, is apparently not going to get published because people on the internet were so offended that Tynes would invoke the city's law against the city's own uniformed representative, where the uniformed representative is a black woman.

Tynes styles herself as "a Social Media maven" (quoted at Heavy), and she's written for mainstream media (including WaPo) and appeared as pundit on TV shows on the subject of "immigration, race and the need for belonging in a new land."

Tynes got battered with criticism on Twitter. She was called "anti-black" and a "snitch." The company that was going to distribute her book — Rare Birds Books — wrote:

"[Tynes] did something truly horrible today in tweeting a picture of a metro worker eating her breakfast on the train this morning and drawing attention to her employer. Black women face a constant barrage of this kind of inappropriate behavior directed toward them and a constant policing of their bodies. We think this is unacceptable and have no desire to be involved with anyone who thinks it’s acceptable to jeopardize a person’s safety and employment in this way."

And the company that was publishing her book, California Coldblood, is postponing publication and supposedly considering what to do. It said:

“We do not condone her actions and hope Natasha learns from this experience that black women feel the effects of systematic racism the most and that we have to be allies, not oppressors.”  

At WaPo, the highest-rated comments are supportive of Tynes. #1:

What the? The person who did the right thing is punished while a Metro employee who embodies so much that is still wrong there is not? The fight against racism is tarnished when the charge becomes a shield to deflect legitimate criticism.

#2, addressing the statement by Rare Books (quoted above):

Absolute nonsense. And I say that as a black man. Only in a First World country is this "something truly horrible". I have lived and worked around the world. When it comes to horrible things done to women, this does not even make the top 1000. Rules are rule[s]. Black woman or not. If metro will not punish her, then no one else should be punished. Just get rid of the no eating rule.

Rules are rules. That's something not everyone is willing to say these days. Of course, there is a difference between believing in the rules and appointing yourself as the enforcer and choosing public shaming as the method of enforcement. Does racism play a part in the motivation of private individuals to self-appoint and to shame? And does the shame-chooser take her own race into account and think she has a privilege if she is non-white? There are obviously some big risks invoking that privilege. And if you've made a reputation in a field that has to do with minorities and empathy — things like "the need for belonging in a new land" — the stakes are sky high.

Imagine riding on the metro one day and you're irked to see a uniformed worker openly eating when everyone else has been told for years no eating on the train, and you're a social media adept, or so you think, and you snap a picture and toss up a little tweet thinking you've said something pithy and apt. And your whole life is ruined.

On the plus side, when you're a writer, everything is material. There's always the next book: "They Called Me Racist."

By the way, in retrospect, "You worry about yourself" — which sounds jerky — was fantastically good advice.

"I've been rethinking my spirit animal. I'm not sure how souls are transpositioned when we pass over to the great beyond."

"Perhaps because of my primate heritage I've always been partial to tree dwelling animals. Bonobos look like they have a pretty good deal, but they're a little too hyper for me. Althouse in a previous blog post really blew the lid ofd squirrels. Nothing much to recommend their manic, futile lives...... Of all tree dwelling creatures I'm most enamored of the sloth. They show an economy of effort in their struggles with existence, and their sad eyes demonstrate a zen awareness of the underlying futility of those struggles. I don't know how much say you're given in your choice for the next manifestation, but I would be comfortable with reincarnation as a sloth. Why wait? The way that that Kafka guy became a cockroach, I have evolved into a sloth. I don't cling to a tree branch, but I spend a lot of time on my posturpedic mattress. You can changer the position of the bed without ever leaving it. In some ways it's slothier than a tree branch."

Wrote William in last night's café. What I said about squirrels — in the first post of the day yesterday — was:

Squirrels don't have the brainpower to think of committing suicide. They don't even have the wits to think of not bothering to get food and just to waste away because what is the point of all this skittering around collecting nuts? They don't even think of scampering to another spot on the globe to see if the nuts taste different somewhere out there. And they don't think of throwing themselves off a high limb and ending it all. I have seen from my window squirrels falling from high in a tree. They hit the ground and immediately get up and run. Run run run. Get get get. It never stops until death snatches them. They don't go hurling themselves into the arms of death. It's just not a squirrel concept. I know. I read their mind from my vantage point here at the computer in front of the big window looking out on the trees.

The post had been about how to use all the mesclun from the garden, the potential to make a smoothie, the related need for a frozen banana "squirreled... away in the freezer," and a video of an squirrel — a Viennese squirrel — getting fed a banana. I only brought up suicide in the comments because Loren W Laurent, dragging in the demise of Anthony Bourdain, said:

The squirrel doesn't need to travel the world, compulsively looking for new tastes to satiate the hole in the self of wanting more.

Respect the squirrel....

For the squirrel survival is enough.

The kindness of a banana is magic.

Appreciate magic; don't expect it.

Don't become addicted to it.

Failed junkie.

James Taylor explains that he wasn't using heroin "seeking ecstasy or oblivion. I was looking to get normal."

"The way I've come to feel about it is that I was probably, you know, like, rowing of some Viking boat across the seas in a former life, and, you know, when you sit me down in a sort of suburban context, I just, you know, my nervous system and my body and my entire wiring is just not ready for it. You know, I'm ready for something else. I'm ready for crisis. I'm ready for war. I'm ready for, you know, to battle the elements, but I, or to, you know, raid villages or something or defend villages, but I'm not comfortable, you know, on the couch watching baseball, no."

James Taylor — who's been off heroin for 32 years — talking to Marc Maron, who's been off alcohol for 15+ years.

I took the time to transcribe that quote — not easy, with all the disfluencies — because I think human beings have no end of troubles because our nervous system evolved under conditions entirely different from the world where we must live. We want our conveniences and comforts — the couch and the television and the absence of marauders — but we are organisms designed for a much rougher existence.

This is the second post of the day where I wrote something that cued a John Lennon song in my head. (Here's the first.) Now, what's playing — from "Instant Karma" — is "Why in the world are we here? Surely not to live in pain and fear." That's a beautiful, important insight, but from an evolutionary standpoint we are here to live in pain and fear. James Taylor is here because his ancestors rowed the Viking boat across the seas, raided and defended villages, and battled the elements, and the nervous system he inherited makes him feel ready for tasks that are not presented in his suburban home with the couch and the television.

He used heroin to blunt that useless, out-of-context readiness for things that are never going to happen. He wasn't, he said, "seeking ecstasy or oblivion." He was "looking to get normal," to medicate his nervous system into what would belong on a couch in front of a television showing the play-battles of other men, men who are using their out-of-context readiness in a more sensible way.

When he got off heroin, he threw himself into physical exercise, working out aggressively to produce the natural endorphins — "endogenous morphine" — that made him feel normal.

(I know some of you may think I'm getting this wrong, because he said "rowing of some Viking boat across the seas in a former life," and that seems to mean he thinks he's a reincarnated Viking, not that he's thought about evolution. But elsewhere in the podcast, he talks about evolution, and that's the basis for my assumption that "a former life" is used by the poet poetically, as a metaphor indicating evolution.)

The Dalai Lama wants to be the last Dalai Lama.

"We had a Dalai Lama for almost five centuries. The 14th Dalai Lama now is very popular. Let us then finish with a popular Dalai Lama.... If a weak Dalai Lama comes along, then it will just disgrace the Dalai Lama."

If he is the Dalai Lama because he's the reincarnation of the previous Dalai Lama, wouldn't the next Dalai Lama be him? Far be it from me to interpret his religion's dogma, but it's interesting to speculate about what he has in mind, as he worries about a weak Dalai Lama coming next.

Is he concerned that he himself, in his next incarnation, will be different in some ways and less successful? Does he think he'll be around but those who are looking for him will find someone else? Does he doubt the precepts about reincarnation? Does he believe that he will be reincarnated and that he will be properly located but not want to live his next life in the same kind of leadership role? He says:

"I hope and pray that I may return to this world as long as sentient beings' suffering remains. I mean not in the same body, but with the same spirit and the same soul."

That isn't even saying that he believes in reincarnation, only that he wants it (for the sake of others). He's good at putting words together in a way that can be calmly absorbed by a wide range of people. As he himself said: he's "very popular."

Also quoted in the article is Ganden Thurman, Executive Director of Tibet House US, who analyzes the statement in political terms. He thinks the Dalai Lama really is trying to move the Tibetan people away from the ancient autocracy and into a modern approach to government by the people, which could improve their relations with China.

And let me quote Christopher Hitchens, from "God Is Not Great" p. 345:

The Dalai Lama... is entirely and easily recognizable to a secularist. In exactly the same way as a medieval princeling, he makes the claim not just that Tibet should be independent of Chinese hegemony — a “perfectly good” demand, if I may render it into everyday English — but that he himself is a hereditary king appointed by heaven itself. How convenient!

Christopher Hitchens died on December 15, 2011. What if there's a 2-year-old reincarnation of Hitchens toddling around somewhere on the face of the earth? Would we ever notice and, if we did, what would we do? What would we say to him (or her)? I think the lag time between death and rebirth is supposed to be up to 49 days, so if you have a child born between December 15, 2011 and February 2, 2012, you might be living with old Hitch, reborn. How would you like that? One thing seems obvious to me: You wouldn't want to know. You wouldn't even want to think about your child in those terms. And if you did, you wouldn't want to convey those thoughts to the child.

So it makes fine sense to me — from a religious/moral/philosophical perspective — for the Dalai Lama to say, essentially, please stop looking for me. Let me live my next life beginning, unburdened, as a child. But, as Thurman says and as Christopher Hitchens would have said, it's almost certainly political. (Or maybe Hitchens wouldn't have said "almost.")

Looking for the war protest. Part 2: The video.

Meade and I approach the Capitol, here in Madison, Wisconsin, on a Saturday morning, thinking if there's going to be action, it will be here. This is before Obama emerged to say that he was going to ask permission from Congress. This is a 10 minute video, but it's edited and moves quickly, I think. Look at the tags below to get an idea of what's in store:

"That's why we moan and bitch and bellyache."

"Because by doing so we hope in our next incarnation, life will, in all senses of the term, be cool."

"Lobsters? This is how I wind up after leading a just life? In a tank on Third Avenue?"

"The Lord works in strange ways... Take Phil Pinchuck. The man keeled over with an aneurysm, he’s now a hamster. All day, running at the stupid wheel. For years he was a Yale professor. My point is he’s gotten to like the wheel. He pedals and pedals, running nowhere, but he smiles."