XPost: alt.religion.buddhism.tibetan, soc.culture.china   
   From: peter@dharma.dyndns.info   
      
     Painkiller for the soul   
   Monday, 27 August 2012 00:00 JK Randle   
      
      
   Unknown to the rest of America, most of the guys in the White House   
   carry a badge on the lapel of their jackets. It looks harmless enough.   
   Indeed, the women have followed suit. But if you take a close look, you   
   may be able to decipher the cryptic message on the badge: “Where is Joe?”   
      
   It is a reference to Vice-President Joe Biden who appears to be   
   irremediably accident prone. Keeping Joe on a leash has been a   
   monumental challenge. Now he has dropped the ball.   
      
   Indeed, his detractors insist that what he has done is to drop an atomic   
   bomb on the White House. There was panic all over, but the only person   
   who remained absolutely calm was Dalai Lama, who, with his inimitable   
   chuckle, demanded for a reply of what Joe Biden had said before a   
   gathering of black men and women at the NAACP (National Association for   
   the Advancement of Coloured People) conference in Houston on July 12,   
   2012, that Mitt Romney wants to “put you all back in chains.” Wow! It   
   does not get more racist than that.   
      
   The prevailing mood in the White House was that Joe should be kicked off   
   the presidential ticket. Obama would just have to quickly find a   
   replacement as his running mate. The pollsters went to work immediately.   
   Two women topped the polls – Michelle Obama, the first lady, and Hilary   
   Clinton, former first lady and currently Secretary of State. The latter   
   was last seen somewhere in Angola partying with the locals and merrily   
   dancing away, hips to the left, feet to the right, and then back and   
   forth, while waving arms in the air like a windmill.   
      
   Joe refused to apologize or back down. His defence was a masterpiece:   
   “All these years I have been dropping clingers before white audiences   
   but nobody complained. Why all the fuss just because this time it is a   
   black audience? This is racism.”   
      
   The Dalai Lama thought it was all so hilarious. So he chuckled some   
   more. “So the vice-president blew the gasket, as you like to say in   
   Queen’s English! Let’s get serious. Black people have even more awesome   
   challenges to contend with.”   
      
   The Dalai Lama does not ever touch gadgets – not even the telephone or   
   laptop. He has never used a mobile phone or come to grips with You-tube,   
   Twitter or Facebook. He hardly ever watches television, but he demanded   
   we switch over to Rustenburg, near Johannesburg, South Africa where   
   3,000 black employees of Lonmin Plc have been protesting for almost two   
   weeks over the brutal killing of 34 miners who were shot by the mostly   
   black South African Police. What a huge shock, 18 years after the end of   
   apartheid and the swearing in of the angelic and beloved Nelson Mandela   
   as the first black president of the Republic of South Africa!   
      
   It was the Dalai Lama who demanded an answer to what he considered a   
   most critical question: “America elected Barack Obama in 2008 as the   
   first black president of America: what will happen 18 years afterwards –   
   in 2026?”   
      
   There was dead silence all over the White House. I am not sure I heard   
   the Dalai Lama correctly but he seemed to declare: “We have been feeding   
   the bodies of black people in America and Africa with painkillers, but   
   the pain and suffering are in their souls.”   
   This was followed by a CNN “Inside Africa” report that quoted a recent   
   World Bank report which slugged off Lagos as the third least attractive   
   city in the world.   
      
   As if that was not bad enough, Al Jazeera has gone to town with its   
   extract from another World Bank report on Nigeria: 80 percent of the   
   companies doing business in that country claim they have to pay bribes   
   to government officials to get anything done.   
      
   We were not expecting Barack Obama to join us but he did anyway. He   
   obviously had a lot on his mind: “I am stuck with Joe Biden. Choosing   
   either Michelle or Hilary Clinton will not fly. It’s too late anyway.”   
      
   Then he added: “I have been briefed about what the Dalai Lama has been   
   saying to you guys. He is right. Confucius was also right when ten   
   thousand years ago he observed that there are three ways you can achieve   
   wisdom. First way is the way of Meditation – that is the most noble way.   
   Second way is through Imitation, which is the easiest and least   
   satisfying. Third way is by way of Experience and personal knowledge.   
   This is the most difficult.   
      
   “I agree with the Dalai Lama and Confucius that wisdom is knowing the   
   purpose of life and knowing how to achieve it. The Merit of Man is not   
   the knowledge he possesses but in the Effort he made to achieve it.   
   Wisdom is situate in this realm. Let us pause and reflect, and see   
   whether these make some meaning to us. As for my Republican opponent   
   Mitt Romney and his running mate Paul Ryan, they just don’t get it. They   
   don’t even want to know.”   
      
   President Barack Obama was about to exit when he turned round and added:   
   “I do not want to contradict what the Dalai Lama said about Africa.   
   However, I want to share with you the following report in The Punch of   
   July 28, 2012: ‘African leaders must identify with the people – Malawi   
   president.’”   
      
   Obama had barely finished when Fox TV delivered a counter blow with the   
   following report: ‘I stabbed my son to end relationship with his father   
   – 28-year-old woman’: Sunday Vanguard, July 29, 2012.   
      
   http://tinyurl.com/8cjf7hr   
      
   http://www.businessdayonline.com/NG/index.php/analysis/commentar   
   /43397-painkiller-for-the-soul   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)