First, if you're ever called upon to write an opinion piece for a newspaper, do a little fact-checking first. Andy Lamey's basic premise in "Stop the lama love-in" is that His Holiness the Dalai Lama is failing as the leader of the Tibetan liberation movement and should step aside. However, one could question whether His Holiness has ever functioned as anything resembling a leader of a "Tibetan liberation movement."

His role at this point is hard to pin down, I admit. The Dalai Lama is no longer a head of state, even a head of state in exile, except in a figurative sense. The Tibetan government in exile is now headed by the prime minister of an elected parliament, and His Holiness has stepped away from running a government. Further, the many pro-Tibet activists around the globe don't take orders from the Dalai Lama and often do not agree with him.

Yes, he has failed at winning any freedom for Tibet. But the Dalai Lama's "middle way" strategy is completely rational, especially given that China has the largest standing army in the world and Tibet is, um, Tibet. Armed rebellion would almost certainly end in a bloodbath.

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At the site Well&GoodNYC there's an article called "It's just turkey: A Buddhist primer for surviving the holidays." I'm sorry I didn't find this until late last night, after most Thanksgiving dinners were consumed. But, we've still got Christmas to survive enjoy, right?

The advice comes from Carl Sheusi, a NYC holistic coach and yoga teacher who incorporates Zen teacher Genpo Merzel Roshi's "Big Mind" teachings into his work. It's good advice for anyone from families of button-pushers, or anyone who endures holiday dinners feeling misunderstood and judged.

Instead, Sheusi says, family dinners can be upaya. "If we're going to become enlightened, we need to admit our not so favorite parts of ourselves," he says. "And there's nothing like family to help us with that."

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Via Greg Zwahlen at Beliefnet, check out "First Person Plural" by Paul Bloom, published in the November 2008 Atlantic. Bloom is a professor of psychology at Yale, and he is writing about happiness. But he is also writing about the nature of selves. He says,

We used to think that the hard part of the question "How can I be happy?" had to do with nailing down the definition of happy. But it may have more to do with the definition of I.

He also writes that scientists are struggling with the concept of self, since self is not something that can be pinned down physiologically. Some scientists say that a person is a collection of systems and subsystems that interact with each other, but there is no one spot in in our heads that is always "me." Others think something within us must be the chief executive in charge; they just haven't figured out what it is yet.

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Today is the day of the annual pre-Thanksgiving presidential photo op, in which the President of the United States gets his picture taken with a turkey or two.  Contrary to what you might read in news stories, the first president to issue an official pardon that spared the turkey's life was President George H.W. Bush, in 1989. Before that, the turkey was just as likely to be the main course at the White House Thanksgiving dinner.

Since 2005 the pardoned turkeys have been sent to either Disneyland or Disney World to be grand marshals in a Thanksgiving parade. This year's official White House turkey, Courage, and the emergency backup turkey, Carolina, will be sent to the California park and will live out their days in Frontierland.

Some animal welfare activists argue that the fragile birds ought to be sent to a farm sanctuary instead. Domestic turkeys are bred to die young. They are overweight creatures with weakened immune systems, and even the pampered presidential turkeys usually die within six months of their "reprieve."

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