Re: The peculiar and the profound

Justin,

> All the information on those conferences are on my wesbite

Please don't be so terse: WHAT WEBSITE?

I certainly don't know it, and most of the people on this list won't know it.

> The Burmese Studies conference is the big Burmese Studies
> conference that is held every year.

Again, this level of detail could only be informative for someone who
already knew what you were talking about.  I don't; and other people
on the list won't.  If you could provide the link to the website
specifying the conference, that would be of some material assistance.

> No reason to
> hate people or to criticize them undeservingly to make
> ourselves feel smart.

What are you talking about?  Desultory back-stabbing is the life-blood
of the industry!  A.K. Warder is one of the most trucculent human
beings alive (albeit, he is now just barely alive) and the incessant,
hateful combat between him and just about every other pretender to the
Pali or Kavya specialization defined a generation.  Similarly, my
early experience with the demonic (and pointless) curelty of J.M.
Mason, S. Sandhal, and Phyllis Granoff, showed me that the world of
classical indology is defined by "people hating eachother and
criticizing in order to make themselves feel smart".  There's a reason
that none of these Western academics ordained: no metta-bhavana!

> I like Jakarta.

Yes, but you see, this is the problem of supply and demand again: you
say only positive things about *EVERY CITY ON EARTH*, so I can hardly
take this advice very seriously.

> Good for you with the U.N. job. UNESCO has done some positive
> things with preserving and recording Lao rituals lately.

Yeah, the UN-WFP also provided $12-million of support to Pol Pot's
Khmer rouge _per annum_, and set up & ran the camps that were used by
the U.S. to supply arms and mines to them (for decades) on the
Thai-Khmer border.  You see how dangerous it is to offer unconditional
praise?

> It srtikes me now though that done of this is about Pali
> grammar, so I will shut up.

You have a point; however, I think the conference information will be
useful to many on the list.

E.M.