“Islamophobia,” Terrorism, and Liberal Confusion
There is a recent fashion of labeling people who point out the link between radical Islam and terrorism as being “Islamophobes” or simply racist. Sam Harris in particular has fallen prey to this kind of criticism. This is well-meaning but incorrect. It is based on a confusion that happens a lot in our liberal demographic: equating the critique of ideas and beliefs with... Read More
Why You Need to Watch Vice on HBO
I’ve long had a love-mostly dislike relationship with Vice. I’d see the mag around NYC for years and pay it little mind. While I don’t mind sarcasm—I consider it high art, in fact—the snark that has replaced much of journalism in the form of blog posts and scrimpy articles annoys me. While much of Vice’s site and magazine remains full of such trifling... Read More
We Are All One?
After his mother died when he was five years old, Henry L Marsh was sent to live with his aunt and uncle in rural Virginia. As the ’40s rolled on, Marsh attended the racially segregated Moonfield School, where he shared desk space and pencil shavings with 77 other pupils in seven grades, all with one teacher supervising. That didn’t stop the future Civil Rights... Read More
Another Blowback to Separation of Church and State
With a very serious tone and dour look, Kansas governor Sam Brownback has declared tomorrow, December 8, a ‘Day of Restoration‘ in his state, begging of his god for mercy during these troubled times. In his speech he goes on to ask every citizen of our state to join in asking a Holy God to bring healing and restoration—help in mending broken lives, bringing... Read More
Can Yoga Create a Culture of Social and Political Engagement?
On November 1, Matthew Remski initiated a conversation about yoga, politics and the 2012 presidential election that lit up the blogosphere. YogaBrains played a significant role in this dialogue, gathering together some of the brightest minds in yoga to talk, in pragmatic terms, about whether we should as a growing culture and demographic endorse Barack Obama. Since then Matthew... Read More
Creating The Culture We Crave
Last night was a bittersweet evening for us liberal-minded Californians. While I was exuberant in helping to keep Barack Obama in office, I was saddened to learn my fellow citizens would rather not know if genetically modified foods are being stocked in our food aisles, and that it’s still OK to kill people. There were plenty of progressive victories around America—namely,... Read More
Obama’s (Com)Passion and Romney’s Myth-Making Machine
There is a particular brand of thought that allows Americans to believe that again electing the Republican party into power will ‘save our country,’ instead of forcing us to return to the economic and social spiral that defined the Bush presidency. The thinking that causes people to behave so foolishly as to not recognize the blatant lies and daily hypocrisy that is trademark... Read More
A Challenge to the Yoga Community—Can We Endorse Obama?—Raises More Questions than Answers
I’ve felt for years that yoga community will never evolve into a functional culture until it becomes first active, and then effective, in progressive politics. I’ve argued that the true promise of yoga will be fulfilled when practitioners are able to harmonize the internal gifts of practice with the demands of civic reality, and employ their quiet insights to the task of social... Read More
Yogis Stand Up And Endorse Obama
Here at YogaBrains we’ve been actively endorsing Obama, launching our own controversial critiques of the failure of both Western yoga culture and New Age leaders to accurately represent the reality of the political landscape of America, let alone inspire their constituents to actively participate in the political process. It was heartening for us to see Matthew Remski further... Read More
Why Marianne Williamson Needs To Face Reality
One of the more disturbing elements of what has been a formidable push of activating yogis in the political sphere is this constant ‘oneness’ I keep seeing repeated. Julian Walker succinctly dealt with this issue, so I will not repeat his brilliant exposition on the topic. The point here is this: we are not one, in terms of ethics and moral values, how we carry ourselves... Read More
