Dalai Lama: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

Damn this is funny. Especially the part where His Holiness turns a mock-reluctant John Oliver into a Demon. High Comedy. Then you notice--what we're talking about here is Powers and Competence, and, if you pay attention, what you're seeing here is a very harsh slap-down of the whole embarrassed face of the "Government" of the People's Republic of China. The old man has, in fact, a decidedly wolfish ("wolf in monk's robes") fury in him--as well as apparently infinite compassion.

But no, seriously--as an atheist bo'n and bred, and a Mahayana Buddhist--I am naturally disposed to be utterly disbelieving in Dalai Lamas. Not only do I dispute their right to be Dalai Lamas, I doubt that being a Dalai Lama can have any real, powerful meaning or significance. And this video proves how utterly wrong those casual assumptions of mine are.  Intriguing to me as a specifically gay ideologue is the (I think) television footage from the early 60's of the much younger and strikingly virile Vajrayana monk who was his Holiness, who seems to have quite the presence, and the allure, of a no-nonsense Jesuit of ducal, say, or Gonzagan, descent.