Bwog tipster Sara Vogel informs us that Robert Thurman, professor of Buddhist studies and relative of all sorts of famous people, is this week’s New York Times Magazine “Questions For…” interviewee. In the interview, Thurman talks about why the Dalai Lama never comes over to hang out anymore, totally disses Slavoj Zizek, and also at one point says, “I meditate on how Dick Cheney was my mother in a previous life and nursed me at his breast.” (Impromptu Photoshop contest: if you send us an image of Thurman suckling at the teat of our Vice President, we will include it in this post.)

For more of the Robert Thurman interview experience, check out the Blue and White’s October Conversation.

UPDATE 12:06 AM: A treasure arrives in our inbox, from Photoshop hero Jon Hill:

(Hello, Daily Intelligencer!)

The Center for Buddhist Studies just released the recording of a panel entitled “Tibet’s Future… Does it Have One?” The discussion features prominent Tibet and Buddhism scholars Robert Thurman, John Kenneth Knaus, Amit A. Pandya, and John Tkacik.

The roundtable is a particularly topical one: Last week, for the first time since 1989, ethnic Tibetans publicly demonstrated against Chinese rule. China has since expelled all foreign media from Tibet and shut down access to the internet. Discrepancies in the purported number of Tibetan deaths have also arisen, with the Tibetan government claiming nearly a hundred dead, and the Chinese government saying just seven.

As the semester’s coursework has come to an all-too-brief halt, now is as good a time as any to learn about something you might not have known about before. (And it’s only going to get more press coverage as the Olympics approach.) Plus, Robert Thurman’s voice is hypnotic. Trust us.  

Prestige-obsessed Columbians should be pleased to hear that 3 2 3 of the 5 most influential “idea-makers” in New York (as ranked by New York Magazine) work at Columbia!

Everyone else should at least get some morbid thrill to know that on said magazine’s list of the 5 most influential New Yorkers in education, our own PrezBo appears not.

Update: Adding to the irony, he did make the cut for real estate.

Update 2: Robert Thurman (Uma’s dad) made it in religion.

Bwog is proud to bring the first installment of “Lecture Hopping,” in which correspondents go to speeches, lectures, and public displays of erudition so you don’t have to.

Monday February 13
Religion as a Natural Phenomenon: Daniel C Dennett in conversation with Robert Thurman
Miller Theatre

With his luxuriant white beard and paternal stature—minus the professorial polka dotted tie—philosopher Daniel C. Dennett vaguely resembles Moses as he gestures to his power point slides in Miller Theater. An ironic association, perhaps, for one who denies the existence of God.

That’s not the main point of his talk, of course—no one would be hired these days with the charge of proving God doesn’t exist. Instead, as the Director of Tufts University’s Center for Cognitive Studies, Dennett focuses on something even more unsettling for religious people: the idea of religion as a biological phenomenon. A virus, actually, infecting the human brain and driving us to sacrifice ourselves for something we can’t even see.
Read more…