Especially depressing that the party in the business of ignoring these kinds of crimes has now been in power nationally for six years.

It's a religiously-enforced system of apartheid. With everything that that entails, including prohibitions against miscegenation (with sometimes-draconian punishments).

I've always wondered why more people with a low caste don't just switch religions. That explains the pressures better than I have seen before.

The occupation-based ostracism reminds me of burakumin in Japan. I didn't know anything about Dalit neo-Buddhism, though.

4: Look up B.R. Ambedkar - it's been a thing for a while, for similar motivations, but I don't know what its fortunes have been over the past century..

4: With all the horrible things in the world that I am aware of, it still amazes me how many horrible things I've never heard of.

4: Variant of the same thing right? Passed via (hahhaha) Buddhism.

I hope they get the Tantric kind of Buddhism instead of the fuedal-lord lama one.

They got the Zen obedience-unto-suicide-bombing kind of Buddhism.

3: on top of which, converting to Buddhism or worse still Islam doesn't exactly let you stop worrying about mass murder by Hindu bigots. Like, you know, the current prime minister of India.

I thought the largest movement of conversion among the Dalits was to Christianity. Caste hostility is certainly a factor in the persecution of Punjabi Christians in Pakistan. See the story of Asia Bibi.

11: Yes, but by less of a margin (in India) than I would have expected, given Buddhists don't evangelize nearly as much.

India's 2011 Census said 2.3% of the Indian population was Christian and 0.7% was Buddhist; but Wikipedia cites estimates that 41% of Christians are Dalit while about 87% of Buddhists are "Converted, Ambedkarite, or Neo-Buddhists"; assuming identity of the latter with Dalit, that works out to 12.8m Dalit Christians and 8.2m Dalit Buddhists (mostly in Maharashtra state).

Hindus really don't evangelize much either, unless you count spreading fecal matter on salad bars in Oregon.

This time I know not to explain the reference back to you.

I don't think you should assume I always know what I'm talking about.

7: I'm no expert, but I'm not sure how specifically Buddhist the origins of burakumin are - ideas of ritual purity and pollution are pretty basic in Shinto as well. Of course there were multiple distinct Buddhist imports and revivals, and they've all coexisted so long that trying to pick out what's particularly Buddhist or Shinto about the social hierarchy, or suicide bombing, or anything else involves a lot of egg-unscrambling.

I feel like I should hard boil some eggs today.

I don't really know much about Buddhist except what I learned watching The Matrix.

I thought The Matrix was about The Cave.

16: Yeah, I'm also no expert, but purity/pollution is one of the most important elements of Shinto, and at the time the burakumin were officially segregated into a distinct caste at the start of the Tokugawa shogunate Shinto and Buddhism were semi-conjoined anyway. Most burakumin belonged to Jodo Shinshu, the most popular Buddhist school, but when the predecessor of the Buraku Liberation League was founded in 1922 it took the crown of thorns as its emblem with a specific nod to Christianity as the religion of the oppressed. That didn't result in many actual conversions, as far as I know, but "Crown of Thorns Theology" is a specifically Japanese brand of liberation theology based on buraku liberation.

19: Plato was a good thinker, but he never got to "there is no spoon."

I am not doing well. My daily routine is get up hung the fuck over at around 7, log on to work, lie down on the couch, get my food delivery from outside the door to my apartment about ten minutes after the delivery guy leaves it and rings the door bell, do a bit of work, shower, do some more work, maybe lie down on the couch a bit, more work, log off, nap (usually have a nightmare), get up, eat, drink myself into a stupor while watching something online (Downfall yesterday, it's topical). Weekends are the same but no food delivery and no work. I maybe go out once a week or once every other week for essentials. Now this varies little in my normal routine except I had a very active social life, going to the Rugby Club to drink and play pool with friends on Thursday evenings and sometimes Fridays, frequent desert excursions, other invitations to friends' parties, seeing movies in the cinema, etc.

I think the main thing that is affecting my mood is that my apartment completely lacks any kind of view. It's brand new, spacious, nice, and has windows that let in light but they look directly across the street to the apartment next door. And they're dirty with dust. I can't even see the street below. I think I could take this much better if I had a decent view, and even a balcony. My lease is up at the end of May (and added stressor) and my original intention was to move closer to a metro station and get a place with a balcony and a view (I can get something like that for basically the same price, even cheaper). But I'm so worried about catching this that I don't want to risk the potential exposure that finding a new place and moving would, well, expose me to. But I really don't think I'm going to be able to live like this for months and months, because that's how long I think it's going to go on.

Find webcam streams and order in some big screens?

Part of my explicit survival strategy for living alone here and something I tell other people is that I never decline an invitation. Added to my health anxiety is that I have asthma and I'm a former smoker who stupidly started vaping a couple of years ago when I get hooked again by smoking in bars.

And stop drinking. But we both know how useful that advice is.

Is going for a walk possible? That's always helped me, but I don't know what the rules are there.

Now is not the time to stop drinking, Mossy.

26 Yes, though my neighborhood isn't really well suited to casual walks but I've been mulling this over, maybe drive somewhere that isn't closed down so I can take a walk. Do it maybe 2 or 3 times a week in the morning.

Sorry, Barry. Should we try to set up calls among commenters here? This is a reasonable thing to do, right? Who needs/wants a call? (Not from me, necessarily, I am very shy, but maybe it can be a gregarious-commenters-in-lockdown initiative?)

My efforts this year to quit drinking have all failed, which is a little unsettling. In the past I really could just stop for long stretches and pick it up again at will. Now it seems like I just think I can, but some part of me "voluntarily" rebels each evening. Hmmmmmm. (The reward for this rebellion last night and the night before was very delicious Sancerre, so goddamn it.)

Sorry all, that was supposed to go in the weekly check in thread.

28.1 is a great idea, Tia and I did some coworking last week and not only did I get a lot done but it did wonders for my mood.

It all sounds familiar to me, Barry.

So... maybe we could put up a virtual meetup request/planning thread that could be very ad hoc? Who wants a call, time zone, etc.?

Yeah, and I'll renew a request/invitation to cowork whenever anyone wants it. I wonder if we could make a little calendar. I'd like to broadcast my availability rather than just depend on my own initiative because I just space out about inviting people. Speaking only for myself, I am not lacking for opportunities for focused interaction via video platforms; what I really need is to get work done in a companionate way.

And who's willing to supply a call (as it were), since we're all so goddamn uggedly individualist and stuff.

Maybe I should just make Tia's coworking calendar and share it here and at the other place.

Email at the link, hit me up and maybe we can exchange mobile numbers for those I don't have? I much prefer and respond more quickly to Whatsapp messages than emails.

I'd be down for an awkward virtual meetup. Throw some shadows up on my bare cave walls.

Ok, I'm resolved to take a walk in my neighborhood and go see if my barber is in, not for a haircut (I'm like Jeremiah Johnson here, but with payos) but because he and the other Bangladeshi barbers at my regular place are very poor and I want to give them some money.

This is really fucked up.

Very fucked up, lah.

I too would theoretically be available for awkward imaginary meetups.

Epic thunderstorm just came through. It went from sunny to horizontal rain and can't see 1 foot out the window to hail and back to sunny in about 10 minutes. The power flickered for a minute and I thought "Fuck. This is just what we need.", but fortunately it didn't go out.

Biggest excitement in days.

Wow. Democrats won the unprecedentedly ratfucked Wisconsin Supreme Court election?

That's just incredible news. On Wisconsin.

Oh my God, now they're going to say it was illegitimate.

That has to be a good sign for 2020.

It sounds like two cas are having a fight in this bus's ventilation system. But life is boring, so it's probably just a pneumatic thing.

It's not 'ratfucking' when you win fair and square.

I'm so old that I remember when Trump claimed that the Gov trying to postpone the Wisconsin primary was to prevent his endorsed candidate from winning.

At the WaPo site, it looks like that with the precincts reporting so far, 800k votes were cast in the presidential race, and 1.4M in the supreme court race. That's kind of wild. Or, maybe it's what democracy looks like.

Does ratfucking have to be successful to meet the definition?

Holy shit, that's great news.

49: Well that's a hell of a thing. Looks like the Supreme court election and Marsy's Law (I don't know what that is) drove the turnout, rather than the presidential primary. There may be hope for this democracy thing after all.

The utilitarian side of me thinks you can't call it a ratfucking if you have a rodent left unsatisfied.

The Wisconsin news is cheering. People risked death (and will die) to vote these fuckers out.

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"Being beaten up is never a good feeling, or being chucked from your house"