Archive for October 2008


Yogic Politics

October 16th, 2008 — 4:24pm

I recently wrote a short piece that went out on Yoga Journal’s Conference Connection Newsletter on resuming my yoga practice after having surgery recently to relieve pain in my neck and back. I wrote about how the body speaks its needs plainly — if you learn to listen. But that was not the topic that I was originally asked to write on.

“Can you write about how yoga can help you speak about politics without getting heated? How yoga can help keep you centered and calm in the middle of fierce, polarizing emotions?” a conference staffer asked me.

I thought about it for 1.8 seconds and said, “That’s a great idea. But I can’t write it.”

I am dumbfounded and very angry at how this country has been run for the last eight years. The economy. The Iraq War. The erosion of civil liberties. The neglect of our environment. Of our infrastructure of roads and bridges. The state of our public education. When Bush stole the 2000 election, I said to my husband, “this is the turning point. We are witnessing the decline of the American empire.” I just had no idea it would decline so fast.

What happened to the country I used to live in? Because of some weird emotional torment of Shakespearian proportions  between Bush Jr. and Senior, we have lost over 4000 young men and women in a war we had no business starting. How did our economy tank so fast?  I have not watched the President on TV or listened to him on the radio for the last few years, because I loathe him, his incurious mind, his Machiavellian VP, and their failed policies.

So no, I have no equanimity about politics, and no, I didn’t write that piece.

But I do have hope. I watch the polls avidly and though things look great for Obama. But if somehow McCain won, I couldn’t bear the heartbreak. John McCain might have been a maverick and a hero at one time, but all I see now is an angry, cynical man who has no idea how to run a campaign and or a presidency. His choice of Palin was cynical, irresponsible and unforgivable.

Obama is the first politician I’ve ever been excited by. He’s a brilliant, elegant, calm, able man. He’s a leader. Imagine that, a President who actually rises up above partisanship to lead this country into this new century.

Make sure you vote. And if you have young kids, bring them to the voting booth with you. They need to know it’s a right that can never be taken for granted.

Comment » | Uncategorized

New McCain Attack Ads

October 5th, 2008 — 10:53am

Ot’s no secret that McCain is getting desperate. Those swing states are swinging towards blue. And when Republicans get desperate, they drag out the current version of Willie Horton — make the enemy big, black, and gosh darn it, just down right scary. Lock your doors! Keep your women and children safe!

Enter the new McCain ad. Does the man in this ad really look like Barack Obama? Slightly. But a darker, scarier, thicker lipped Obama. In other words, a blacker version. Why, now that I think of it, he looks like a young O.J. Simpson!

If just on visual terms alone, Obama ran a similar ad against McCain, he might run something like this:

…except with gray hair.

Comment » | Uncategorized

Ogden — The Inappropriate Yoga Guy

October 3rd, 2008 — 8:19am

 

I like my job. Especially when it gets wacky and weird.

Avi Rothman, also known as “The Inappropriate Yoga Guy,” was up at the Yoga Journal offices filming his latest yoga installment. The crew shows up. Lights are set up. Makeup applied. As an extra, my job was to sit in staged yoga class watching Ogden come in and come on to my fabulous yoga teacher, Saranna Miller.

Saranna was a great sport, and somehow managed not to crack up during the filming.

The rest of the filming will be today. Ogden will crash an edit meeting, suggest he be the cover model for Yoga Journal, with such cover lines as “Bitchin Yoga,” and Ogden, being Ogden, will come on to anything with legs and a pulse.

The first installment will air on Youtube in about a month. The second installment will air on the Yoga Journal website.

What I love most about this is my company’s willingness to poke good natured fun at the piety we sometimes see in the yoga world. Yoga is serious stuff, and is the foundation of my physical and spiritual practices. But laughter is also the best medicine.

Comment » | Uncategorized

Back to top