Hasta La Gadget!

Robbinsville, New Jersey may seem like an odd place for a religious pilgrimage, but that is exactly what it may become.

The Bochasanwasi Shri Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha, also known at BAPS, inaugurated what is reported to be one of the largest U.S. Hindu temples in early August, and it is already drawing a crowd to its home in Robbinsville.

BAPS volunteer Yogi Trivedi, a Ph.D. candidate in religion at Columbia University, said the mandir was initiated to accommodate a growing Hindu population in New Jersey.

“As the community started getting larger,” Trivedi told The Huffington Post, “[BAPS] realized they needed their own house of worship.”

The BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir covers 160 acres, and the primary mandir, or temple, on the premises measures 133 ft long and 87 ft wide. The Guinness world record holder for largest Hindu temple is the BAPS Swaminarayan Akshardham in New Delhi, which measures 356 ft long and 316 ft wide.

The New Jersey structure is made of Italian marble — more than 13,000 stones’ worth, according to BAPS — which traveled first from Italy to India where it received traditional carvings from craftsmen before making the journey to New Jersey.

New Jersey winters aren’t particularly conducive to preserving marble, though, which is why BAPS built an entire second structure around the temple.

This is something Manav Lalwani, a New Jersey resident and member of the Sadhu Vaswani Mission, said young Hindus find appealing about BAPS — its ability to bring religious tradition alive while staying conscientious of its surroundings.

“They recognize the value of religion being relevant to its time and place,” Lalwani said. “[BAPS is] bringing Hindu culture and tradition to New Jersey but recognizing that it is still within this American environment.”

Although there are nearly 80 BAPS temples in North America, the Robbinsville mandir is just the sixth built entirely of stone and according to an ancient Hindu architectural tradition based in the shilpa shastras, the Times of Trenton reported. It took three years, many volunteer hours and roughly $18 million to build.

“At the heart of a Hindu mandir is personal devotion, bhakti, a one-on-one devotion with God,” Trivedi told HuffPost. “Primarily it provides a home, and it is not only a house of God but a house for the devotee.”

Trivedi said that at the heart of this mandir, in particular, is the spirit of volunteerism. “We’re all volunteers here,” he said. “Building the mandir is a process. Not only does it help creator complete the physical process but it helps build a mandir inside one’s heart. That way God can reside within you.”

BAPS inaugurated the complex with a series of public rituals from August 8-10 in the presence of the group’s 92-year-old guru, His Holiness Pramukh Swami Maharaj.

On August 8 BAPS celebrated with a grand yagna, or offering ritual, that included Vedic rituals and prayers for world peace. The ceremonies concluded Sunday with the consecration of sacred images in the temple’s central shrine.

Several elected officials attended the opening, as well, including New Jersey Senator Cory Booker and Maryland Rep. Steny Hoyer, Pennsylvania Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick, New Jersey Rep. Frank Pallone, Attorney General of the State of New Jersey, John Jay Hoffman, and Indian Consul General Dnyaneshwar Mulay.

“I am so impressed,” Booker said in a BAPS press release. “Indeed, I give reverence to an extraordinary structure which will stand in all of North America as one of the greatest places of faith we have but I am more impressed with the people of this community.”

Trivedi said he expected the mandir to build cultural awareness in the community through its many events, activities and services. These will include language classes (like Hindi and Sanskrit), cultural classes, music classes, dance classes, SAT tutoring, spiritual counseling, canned food drives and blood donation. Aarti, or the waving of the sacred lamps, will take place five times a day and is a symbolic reminder of a pre-electricity era in which devotees lit lamps to view the murti, or images of the divine, within the mandir.

“The greatest gift this mandir gives to the community is it changes the social, spiritual and cultural landscape,” Trivedi told HuffPost. “It raises cultural tolerance.”

Lalwani also said he is thrilled BAPS chose New Jersey as the site for its new temple — even though he isn’t affiliated with their organization.

“Fellow hindus of my age group have been excited about it,” Lalwani told HuffPost. “It’s something to be proud of, and that goes beyond sects of Hinduism — across sects people are excited.”

There comes a point in every life where your dreams are run over by the steamroller of reality. For me, it was the idea of a home that looked like something out of “The Dick Van Dyke Show.” Over the years, I hoarded vintage everything and anything, sacrificing space, sanity and occasionally my shins as I’d knock into a too-low nightstand found for $5 at a thrift store. While I had imagined a man living with me in this outdated wonderland, he was a vague apparition that I assumed would periodically offer me a martini as I carefully guided a jaunty chandelier into place.

When the man materialized, however, he was one with a strong “collector” streak. He came complete with an unusually large amount of comic books, Swedish death metal t-shirts and seemingly hundreds of WWE figurines that often became hazards. After Rowdy Roddy Piper landed squarely on my head, there came an ugly moment where I screamed “I’m going to THROW ALL OF THESE THINGS OUT.”

And it was at that very moment where I recognized the voice as not being my own. It was the voice of an a**hole.

My significant other subscribed to the ersatz “Mad Men” fantasy, as long as he could have his (many) things in the picture. Bumps on the head aside, it’s nothing to freak out about. In fact, it’s what keeps our home from becoming a museum. You might not see our place on, say, Apartment Therapy or Design*Sponge, but no one ever looks at the apartment and asks: “How can you live like that?” There is no official “taste police” that’ll punish you for, say, eating off of a souvenir plate of Lititz, Pennsylvania. Your only enemy is yourself.

In the spirit of embracing one’s home, flaws and all, here is an unofficial list of other things that make your house into a home.

The “House Smell.”

No, it’s not a disgusting smell, or one that indicates filth. It’s the distinct aroma of a (clean) home that you only notice when you leave for an extended period of time and return. Everyone’s house smells different.

Your Pet, Where It Isn’t Supposed To Be

I can buy Cookie all the beds she could ever need, but she’ll still curl up at the precise corner of my bed where a sunbeam alights at exactly 3 p.m.

The Mass Of Books, DVDs and CDs That Resist Progress

They fill our shelves, yet we can’t get rid of 90% of them.

An Obstacle Course Of Shoes Strewn Through The Hallway

Because there’s no greater feeling in the world than taking off your shoes after a long day.

The Hand-Me-Down Piece Of Furniture

It’s not vintage. It’s not an antique. But it used to be in your grandmother’s house and it was given to you for your first place. Of course, it doesn’t match anything. Who cares?

Your “Unloading Zone”

This is the place you throw your keys, purse and mail as soon as you get in. It could be a small table, a counter, a bookcase or even the dining room table. It is usually characterized by a mess.

Cheesy But True: Happiness, However You Define It
It nearly hurts me to write this, that’s how cheesy it is. But, if your home is relatively a happy one — even if you define happiness as zoning out in front of repeat viewings of “Regular Show,” which I’m told is not something successful adults watch but who really cares — then your mess magically becomes more acceptable. If you spend your evenings screaming into the void, a mess is then a warning sign.

Warning: The video above contains graphic content.

Protests continue following the Aug. 9 shooting of unarmed teenager Michael Brown by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson. The marchers, though, are not just protesting Brown’s slaying. They are also voicing pent-up anger at an old problem: police violence, often directed at black and brown people.

The horrific beating of Rodney King by five police officers in Los Angeles in 1991 — and the subsequent acquittal of his assailants — sparked the L.A. riots of 1992, leading to 53 deaths, some at the hands of police. It was also a video introduction to police brutality for those in America who may have doubted its severity.

Twenty years later, a police beating or shooting has a decent chance of getting caught on camera — either the one on the phone in everybody’s hand or the surveillance camera pointing down at the street. The latter captured Kelly Thomas, a schizophrenic homeless man, being beaten to death by authorities in Fullerton, California, after being mistaken for a suspect in a series of car break-ins in the area. They, too, were acquitted.

Footage shows Oscar Grant being restrained by BART transit officers on the train platform in Oakland, California, following an altercation. Unarmed and lying on the platform, Grant was shot to death by James Mehserle, who claimed to have mistaken his gun for his taser. The alleged accidental death of Grant at the Fruitvale BART station was memorialized in last year’s film Fruitvale Station.

In June, Edgar Vargas Arzate was running from police in Santa Ana, California, near where Thomas was beaten, before surrendering in the front yard of a neighbor’s home. He was lying unarmed and face-down in the grass, but officers still savagely beat Arzate. When he was taken into custody, he was charged with assaulting an officer.

In July, Staten Island resident Eric Garner was suspected by the NYPD of selling untaxed cigarettes. When he refused arrest, an officer put the asthmatic man in a chokehold. Garner repeatedly screamed “I can’t breathe!” and died soon after.

In August, less than two weeks after the death of Michael Brown, police in the St. Louis area shot another man. Officers responded to a 911 call regarding an alleged robbery at a convenience store. When they arrived, footage shows Kajieme Powell pacing, and he yells “shoot me now.” Officers said he had a knife. Within 15 seconds of arriving on the scene, the two officers opened fire, killing Powell.

These are only a few examples of the force employed by police officers across the country. Some experts contend that police are trained to shoot to kill. A recent Washington Post op-ed written by an officer told readers, “[I]f you don’t want to get shot, tased, pepper-sprayed, struck with a baton or thrown to the ground, just do what I tell you … Most field stops are complete in minutes. How difficult is it to cooperate for that long?”

Others are calling for a new law that would require law enforcement to wear cameras to avoid police misconduct and maintain a higher level of accountability. Studies in which officers have been asked to wear cameras have shown the method can be effective — one California study found police brutality plummeted when cops were recorded.

The fact remains that we do not know how many people are killed in police shootings annually, but we do know that at least five unarmed black men have been killed by police in the last month alone.

HuffPost’s new Ferguson Fellowship aims to have a reporter investigate police behavior in St. Louis and the surrounding suburbs. To back the project and learn more about the fellow, visit our partner, the Beacon Reader.

If you thought the two-story red, blue and yellow masterpiece you constructed purely from LEGOs as a kid was impressive, then you’re going to love this.

BIG, a Danish architecture firm, is creating a “LEGO house” to become a creative learning “experience center” complete with displays and installations to engage the expected 250,000 annual guests. The first bricks —or should we say blocks?— were laid just this past week. The firm expects to complete work by 2016.

“LEGO proportions are really the golden ratio of architecture,” Bjark Ingels, the firm’s founder, told Dezeen. “I think for testing ideas quickly it can be quite powerful.”

And while your childhood creation may have been a bit smaller than the Denmark-based structure, it does employ elements, such as stacked rectangular volumes and modular brick motifs, that are a real LEGO lovers dream come true.

Check out the video above to see the planned creation, and cue the nostalgia.

Judging from press reports, when Congress returns from its August recess in early September, the United States military will have been bombing “Islamic State” fighters in Iraq for a month, with a broader set of missions than originally advertised, and with plans to continue bombing for months.

The United States Constitution and the 1973 War Powers Resolution require that such a war be authorized by Congress in order to continue. We cannot accept that such major decisions about the use of our power and resources, putting U.S. soldiers at risk and shaping the perceptions of the world about us by shedding the blood of foreigners that we don’t know, be made indefinitely behind closed doors by executive fiat.

As Representative Jim McGovern said on August 8 when the strikes began:

These strikes do involve the United States directly in hostilities, regardless of how limited they are and regardless of whether there’s a humanitarian purpose involved… If these operations are continuing when Congress returns in September, then Congress needs to take action to authorize them.

On July 25 — two weeks before the U.S. bombing of Iraq began — the House overwhelmingly passed 370-40 an amendment offered by McGovern, insisting that Congressional authorization precede any “sustained combat role” in Iraq for U.S. forces. Currently it seems that a “sustained combat role” for U.S. forces is exactly what the Administration and the Pentagon are planning.

Ninety-eight percent of the Democrats voting and 83 percent of the Republicans voting supported the McGovern amendment.

In Congress and public opinion, there are, broadly speaking, three camps right now regarding the airstrikes the U.S. is conducting in Iraq. There is a camp cautiously supporting the President’s actions so far, but worried about mission creep and seeking to contain further escalation; there is a camp opposed to the President’s actions so far because they do not want to see any U.S. military action in Iraq right now at all; and there is a camp that supports the President’s actions so far but wants the U.S. to do much more, and is pressing the President to do much more.

Whatever one thinks of the President’s actions so far, it does not seem likely that there will be a majority in Congress in the near future to force the withdrawal of U.S. military forces. But there might well be a majority in the near future to do two things:

– Insist that a military campaign that goes on for months needs explicit Congressional authorization, as required by the Constitution and the War Powers Resolution; and

– try to establish limits on the military campaign through such an authorization.

One way to try to establish limits is to try to specify in the resolution exactly what mission(s) the authorization is for. This is a good thing to try to do; it will force the Administration to articulate more clearly what the mission(s) are.

But that the track record of trying to constrain the President — any President — in this way is very poor. The 2002 Iraq AUMF was used as authority for a war that continued until the withdrawal of U.S. troops in December 2011, long after Saddam Hussein was executed, long after his “weapons of mass destruction” were found to be non-existent, his government was destroyed, and his army was disbanded.

The 2001 “global war on terror” AUMF passed after the September 2001 attacks was dangerously overbroad, as Representative Barbara Lee correctly warned at the time. But even the already overbroad 2001 AUMF was dramatically expanded through interpretation by the Bush and Obama Administrations with Congressional acquiescence, creating the category of “associated forces” to al Qaeda as targets for U.S. military force, although this concept did not appear in the resolution.

Far and away the most successful tool that Members of Congress have used since 2001 to push for ending wars that have started has been to demand the establishment of a timetable for ending them.

This suggests that Congress should consider giving its authorization for war in Iraq an expiration date. This would force Congress to reconsider the war in the future if it continued; it would force the President to make his case in the future for continued war; it would force the nation to reflect on the claims that were made when force was authorized and how these claims turned out before renewing the authorization for force.

There is no successful legal precedent yet that I am aware of for giving a war authorization an expiration date. But in other legislation, it is normal for things to expire, so that they have to be explicitly renewed. The Patriot Act had an end date. That ensured that Congress would have to revisit the question of authorizing expanded government surveillance in the future if the Administration wanted to continue having such expanded authority. There is no legal reason that a war authorization could not have an end date, ensuring that Congress would have to consider the issue again in the future in order for the war to continue.

And there is a significant, recent political precedent for the idea that a war authorization should “sunset.” In May, Rep. Adam Schiff offered an amendment — supported by many civil liberties and peace groups — to make the 2001 AUMF expire in a year, so that Congress would have to consider a new authorization of force for the “war” formerly known as the “global war on terror.” The amendment was narrowly rejected 233-191. As recently as May, 191 Members of the House — 164 Democrats and 27 Republicans — voted for the idea that an authorization of force can expire and have to be renewed.

A lot can happen between now and when Congress comes back into session in September. But we can say now that it is plausible that Congress could pass such a limitation in September, and that this might be the strongest limitation that Congress can pass in September.