In one of history's more absurd acts of totalitarianism, China has banned Buddhist monks in Tibet from reincarnating without government permission. According to a statement issued by the State Administration for Religious Affairs, the law, which goes into effect next month and strictly stipulates the procedures by which one is to reincarnate, is "an important move to institutionalize management of reincarnation."
A lawyer for the dog? Please. Can't we find a middle ground in which both Michael Vick and Leona Helmsley are deemed nuts? In which we are good stewards of the animals in our lives, but we don't treat them as the legal or moral equivalent of people?
As a concrete matter, what really matters is . . . how do you feel about Wal-Mart? After all, Wal-Mart embodies the impact of free trade and of the transformation of the service economy. That part of the left that bitterly opposes Wal-Mart is in effect defending the balkanized, decentralized service economy of the past that delivered low-quality products at high prices. Now, they believe that they are in fact defending a "high-road economy," but mom-and-pops hardly represent "the high-road economy": quite the contrary.
-- REIHAN SALAM
Given that pregnancy has become oh-so-trendy, we had to know this was coming: a line of clothing for laboring women. Yes, you read that right, clothes for women in labor. To wear during labor and delivery.
While I was at first repulsed, I tried to keep an open mind about the company, Binsi. After all, they do seem to consider various places in which to labor (home, hospital), and to be centered around the idea of a vaginal (as opposed to cesarean) birth. In fact, the website in its FAQs almost turns up its nose at the idea of hospital births (albeit, in the context of supporting their own sales.
-- BEAN
Being a first-time author and going on Oprah but being told you can't mention your book is pretty much akin to having Charlize Theron walk up real close to you, take off all her clothes, look you in the eye -- lean so close you can feel her warm breath -- and whisper in your ear: You may not touch me.
I'm skeptical about the claims that the fake butter flavoring in microwave popcorn causes lung disease in people who eat it, but I have to say that I've always found it disgusting. Maybe my sense of smell is different, but to me it's always smelled more like rancid motor oil than butter, and I always hate it when people are microwaving popcorn at the office. So if people want to ban the stuff based on dubious science, well, I'll be less upset than I might otherwise be.
Whenever I find myself drifting into the kind of dreamy reverie that comes from reading too many poetic phrases on the backs of airplane seats, I remind myself that beauty and meaning are found at every scale of creation -- at the scale of centimeters (bees and flowers and tongues), yes, but also at the scales of microns and light-years. The beauty and meaning of the very small and the very large can only be perceived through the methods of science.
It's not one or the other, it seems to me, but both. Poetry and science. There are more kisses in this universe than merely those that remind the poet of bees sucking honey on a drowsy day.
-- CHET RAYMO
Photograph by Rajesh Kumar Singh/The Associated Press
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