2009 April 08 « Rev. Danny Fisher

April 8, 2009

Naropa University Names New President

[This post has been updated as of 5:30 p.m. EST on 4.9.09.]

This just in from ColoradoDaily.com: Dr. Stuart C. Lord, the associate provost of Darmouth College and a Chrisitian minister, will succeed Thomas Coburn as the next president of Buddhist-inspired Naropa University, one of my alma maters. Dr. Lord, who will become the institution’s first black president, begins his new job on July 1st of this year. He was quoted as saying the following at a press conference announcing the hire today:

I’m thrilled and excited and eager to work with a talented, committed faculty who teach from the heart and soul and who embody the vision of transformation through contemplative practice. It’s an exciting time for the history of this place and an exciting time in this transition and the plans set forth will create great opportunities for Naropa and the Boulder community.

Congratulations, Dr. Lord!

[UPDATE: Our friends at Naropa's Allen Ginsberg Library point us to other news stories about the hire, including the reflections of our pal Waylon Lewis at elephantjournal.com.]

[Photo via Naropa University.]

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April 8, 2009

Ran

New York Times film critic A.O. Scott’s “Critic’s Pick” this week is one of my most favorite films: Akira Kurosawa’s 1985 masterpiece Ran. Take a look at what Scott has to say about the film below–it includes some conversation about the film’s Buddhist imagery.

April 8, 2009

Burma News (4.8.09)

Here’s the latest news on Burma:

The Herald-Sun reports that the documentary Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country (which I’ve blogged about before) received the Anne Dellinger Grand Jury Award, the Center for Documentary Studies Filmmaker Award and the Full Frame/Working Films Award at this year’s Full Frame Documentary Film Festival.

Burma VJ is also mentioned in a BBC story about “capturing Burma’s protests on film.”

Finally, the following exchange occured during a press briefing at the U.S. Department of State today:

QUESTION: Have we received a letter, signed by 17 members of Congress, asking for the appointment of a Special Envoy to Burma? At this point, do we have a response?

ANSWER (from Robert Wood, acting department spokesman): The Department has recently received a letter signed by 17 members of Congress on Burma. We are preparing an appropriate reply. As a general rule, we do not make our correspondence with Congress public.

April 8, 2009

Tibet News (4.8.09)

Here are the latest Tibet-related headline:

The Associated Press reports that “a Chinese court on Wednesday handed down death sentences to two Tibetans accused of starting deadly fires in last year’s anti-government riots in Tibet.”

In the wake of the recent news about computer-hacking linked to China, Peter Lee writes about their government’s decade-long “game of whack-a-mole to control the burgeoning channels of digital communication between Tibetan dissidents inside Tibet and in the Tibetan diaspora” for the Asia Times Online.

The Deutsche Presse-Agentur reports that “a leading campaigner for Tibetan independence delivered a speech in Hong Kong Monday after an earlier engagement was postponed following objections from Beijing officials.”

April 8, 2009

Archives of Internal Medicine: Silence about Death "May Be Costly, In Terms of Health Care Dollars and Patients’ Suffering"

Over at The New Old Age, a blog from the New York Times‘ Jane Gross and other “Health” section writers, Maggie Jones posts about a new study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine that “suggests just how costly the [lack of doctor-patient coversations about death] may be, both in health care dollars and in patients’ suffering.”

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