[Buddha-l] Vajrayana on buddha in the Buddha (Mitchell Ginsberg)

[Richard Hayes]

On Jan 16, 2010, at 2:13 PM, Jim Peavler wrote:

> I'm humiliated that after waiting for over thirty years to quote my political hero, Spiro Agnew, I blew it.

The man who said "In the United States today, we have more than our share of the nattering nabobs of negativism," also predicted the rise of Rupert Murdoch when he said "The American people should be made aware of the trend toward monopolization of the great public information vehicles and the concentration of more and more power over public opinion in fewer and fewer hands." He was clearly a prophetic voice.

A few nights ago our household watched one of my favorite movies about one of my least favorite Quakers, Oliver Stone's "Nixon." Anthony Hopkins was (as always) brilliant in the role. But one glaring flaw of the film is that there was no mention whatsoever of Spiro T. Agnew. How can one tell the story of Nixon's presidency without depicting the important role played by Agnew, the sage who made the keen observation that "An intellectual is a man who doesn't know how to park a bike"? (There were no female intellectuals back then, as you'll recall.)

I can hear some of you asking what this all has to do with Buddhism. It has everything to do with Buddhism. There is a rumor going around on the Internet that Spiro Agnew's son was said to be gay by Brit Hume, the very man who recently said that Tiger Woods should abandon Buddhism and become a Christian.
Also, germane to our recent discussion of Brights and Buddhists, Spiro Agnew was neither.

Richard