Rev. Danny Fisher

Image via Digital Tibetan Buddhist Altar.

Via William Harryman over at Integral Options Cafe:

Over at his blog Monkey Mind, our friend and past interviewee James Ishmael Ford posts a report he co-authored with Taitaku Pat Phelan and Elihu Genmyo Smith entitled “A Report on Lay Dharma Transmission in North American Sōtō Zen”. As James notes, the report has not been widely distributed, but is nonetheless “an important reflection on an interesting and compelling aspect of the development of Western Zen” that should be read. Take a look.

The New York Times reports that the Chinese government has unofficially closed Tibet to all visitors just as Losar (Tibetan New Year) arrives today.

With the climate crisis such a crucial issue, and one that has had to struggle with loud and influential deniers swayed by ulterior motives, it seems important that media outlets have some kind of oversight in place to make sure op-ed columnists and others have their facts straight. At any rate, I was disappointed that the Washington Post recently ran an op-ed by conservative pundit George F. Will that was loaded with errors and potentially misleading information. As such, I encourage you to do this urgent action from Friends of Earth:

George Will is entitled to his misguided opinion, but he is not entitled to his own facts. As the Center for American Progress Action Fund and Media Matters have documented, Will’s column contained numerous errors:
• Will claimed that “according the U.N. World Meteorological Organization, there has been no recorded global warming for more than a decade.” This is false. In fact, the WMO recently stated that “global warming, mostly driven by greenhouse gas emissions, is continuing.”
  
• Will misleadingly conflated Arctic and global sea ice levels to leave readers with the false impression that global warming isn’t real. After Will’s column was published, the University of Illinois’ Arctic Climate Research Center took issue with his use of their sea ice data, writing: “It is disturbing that the Washington Post would publish such information without first checking the facts.”
  
• Will repeats science deniers’ discredited assertion that a scientific consensus about a global “cooling” crisis existed in the 1970s.
  It is unacceptable for the Washington Post to refuse to correct such falsehoods.

Please use the form here to send a message to the ombudsman (“internal critic”) of the Washington Post to “demand that the paper formally correct Will’s column and stop publishing falsehoods.”