Quote of the day:

"We cannot really love anybody with whom we never laugh."
~ Agnes Repplier

Image of the day:

BODY
~ Most Comprehensive-Ever Survey Of Flavonoids In U. S. Foods -- "The U. S. Department of Agriculture's James M. Harnly and colleagues are unveiling new flavonoid data collected from the first systematic sampling of foods designed specifically to characterize flavonoids."
~ Concorde Grape Juice Has Heart-health Benefits Like Red Wine -- "A laboratory study, just published in the January 2007 issue of Cardiovascular Research, Concord grape juice worked in a similar fashion to red wine to promote healthy arterial function."
~ Exercise Does Not Increase Risk of Knee Osteoarthritis -- This is good news.
~ Major Link In Brain-Obesity Puzzle Found -- "A single protein in brain cells may act as a linchpin in the body's weight-regulating system, playing a key role in the flurry of signals that govern fat storage, sugar use, energy balance and weight, University of Michigan Medical School researchers report."
~ 100 Percent Juices Found As Beneficial To Health As Fruits And Vegetables -- "When it comes to some of today's health issues, 100 percent fruit and vegetable juices do help reduce risk factors related to certain diseases.This conclusion is the result of a European study designed to question traditional thinking that 100 percent juices play a less significant role in reducing risk for both cancer and cardiovascular disease than whole fruits and vegetables."
~ Oils in bath products may enlarge boys' breasts -- "Lavender and tea tree oils found in some shampoos, soaps and lotions can temporarily leave boys with enlarged breasts in rare cases, apparently by disrupting their hormonal balance, a preliminary study suggests."
~ A Virtual Map to the Root of Diabetes and Other Metabolic Disease -- "Researchers have developed a "global human metabolic network" that could pave the way for new treatments aimed at disorders like diabetes and high cholesterol." var bool_dhtmlPOPup = true; //restarting dhtml popup exclusively. /*var mathRandom = Math.random(); if( mathRandom < .5 ) { var bool_dhtmlPOPup = true; } else { var bool_dhtmlPOPup = false; } */

PSYCHE
~ Left-handers 'think' more quickly -- "Connections between the left and right hand sides or hemispheres of the brain are faster in left-handed people, a study in Neuropsychology shows."
~ How the brain tells time (without a wrist watch that is) -- "A team of researchers from UCLA has created a model of how the brain could potentially tell time and has also tested a part of the model on human subjects."
~ Top 10 Things You Should Know About Antidepressants -- "Antidepressants are prescription drugs used to treat depression and a variety of other psychological conditions such as anxiety, panic, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). Some depression drugs are also used to treat medical conditions (e.g. some tricyclic antidepressants are given for chronic pain).Here is a list of helpful information about antidepressants (not in order of importance)."
~ Why Can't You Tickle Yourself? -- "Scientific American has a "Ask the Expert" series, and someone asked why it was impossible to tickle yourself."
~ New Study Is First To Link Romantic Relationships To Genes -- "New research suggests that choosing a mate may be partially determined by your genes. A study published in Psychological Science has found a link between a set of genes involved with immune function and partner selection in humans.Vertebrate species and humans are inclined to prefer mates who have dissimilar MHC (major histocompatibility complex) genotypes, rather than similar ones." Awww, how romantic!
~ Autism's So-Called Epidemic -- "The rise in cases may be due to better diagnostic skills." Wow, an astute sense of the obvious.
~ New Center for Spirituality and the Mind at University of Pennsylvania.


CULTURE
~ Can The Severely Mentally Ill Thrive Within The Community? -- "With $2.5 million in new support from the National Institute of Mental Health, researchers from the Regenstrief Institute, Inc., Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis and Adult and Child Mental Health Center, Inc. are evaluating the effectiveness of Assertive Community Treatment."
~ Biden Unbound: Lays Into Clinton, Obama, Edwards -- "To hear him tell it, Hillary Clinton’s position is calibrated, confusing and “a very bad idea.” John Edwards doesn’t know what he’s talking about and is pushing a recipe for Armageddon in the Middle East. Barack Obama is offering charming but insubstantial fluff."
~ Then there's the whole "racist" statement from Big Joe: Biden says Obama is first 'bright and clean' African-American candidate.
~ Molly Ivins: 1944-2007 -- " Molly Ivins passed away this afternoon at her home. We send our condolences to family and friends, and a whole lot of love to Molly. We had planned on posting this in the morning, as a love note to her, before we learned of her passing, but it seems so appropriate a tribute to her kick ass spirit to post her own feisty words this evening."
~ Democracy-building is failing in Iraq. But it could work in Iran -- "In his book The Persian Puzzle, Kenneth Pollack aptly frames the problem of Iran as a "race between two clocks." One clock counts down the time until Iran enriches enough uranium to build a nuclear weapon. The other ticks off the hours remaining for its corrupt and dysfunctional clerical regime."
~ Is the Terror Threat Overhyped? -- "On Sunday the Los Angeles Times ran a piece by John Hopkins professor and New Republic contributing editor David Bell. It has generated a fair amount of controversy these past few days."
~ 1,500 Volunteers to Build 6 Playgrounds in One Day at New Orleans Schools. Cool.
~ Al Franken Will Run For The Senate -- Good luck with that.


HABITATS
~ Value-Based Insurance Design: Fiscally Responsible, Clinically Sensitive Approach To Making The Most Of Health Dollars -- "Like a one-size-fits-all shirt that doesn't fit anyone very well, American health insurance plans charge every person the same out of pocket cost for medical services - regardless of their effect on a person's health.So, whether your visit to the doctor is for life-threatening cancer, or just the common cold or a sprained ankle, you'll pay the same co-pay or deductible."
~ Air pollution 'raises risk of heart disease' -- "Air pollution might help cause heart disease and strokes in older women, United States researchers reported on Wednesday."
~ An Estimated Quarter Of Uninsured U.S. Residents Are Eligible But Not Enrolled In Public Health Insurance Programs -- "About one-quarter of the approximately 46 million uninsured U.S. residents qualify for government-funded health care programs but are not enrolled, the AP/Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports. Some people are unaware that they qualify for public programs, while others might have difficulty with long, complex enrollment forms or face delays in participation approval."
~ Investment in Clean Energy Surged 167% in 2006 -- "Venture capital and private investments in clean energy companies saw a huge leap in 2006, increasing by 167% from $2.7 billion to $7.1 billion."
~ Tales of the Self-Sufficient City -- "Somewhere at the intersection of New Urbanism, DIY culture, and the resurgence of gardening for self-sustenance, an active and growing community of artist-maker-activists is redefining urban survivalism."
~ Jeff Christian and the Zero-Energy House -- "Jeff Christian directs the Buildings Technology Center at the Oak Ridge National Labs. Over the last four years he has conducted research on five prototype houses that cost between 60 cents and one dollar a day in energy costs to operate."


INTEGRAL/BUDDHIST
~ From Sean at Deep Surface: Matrix Revolutions revisited.
~ In case you missed it: Announcement: 2nd Annual Blogisattva Awards Nominees.
~ Nonviolence and the Dharma -- From Al at Pursuit of Mysteries.
~ The Buddhist Geeks are on a roll: The Rise of the Technosattva. Part 1.
~ Even if you don't read the interesting post, go look at the pretty pictures: Second Life, weather magic, and other unlikely things.
~ From ebuddha: 60% of Integral Practice mystery solved!

If you like percussion, this is pretty damn cool.

Quote of the day:

"Youth would be an ideal state if it came a little later in life."
~ Herbert Henry Asquith

Image of the day:


BODY
~ U.S. Department Of Health & Human Services Partners With Ad Council And DreamWorks To Combat Childhood Obesity.
~ Exercise Can Help Prevent Erectile Disfunction -- Now if that isn't a good reason to get your ass in the gym, guys, you deserve what you get.
~ Approach To Treating Severe Malnutrition Still Fails Millions Of Children -- "Severe malnutrition is a major contributing factor in the deaths of 1.5 million children every year. The World Health Organization has said that, if its treatment guidelines are followed, the death rate in children admitted to hospital can be kept as low as 5%, but it is more common for 20% or over to die."
~ Kids' Soccer Injuries Analyzed -- "Study Says Girls' Injuries on the Rise -- but Less Serious Than Boys.'" Don't let anyone ever tell you that soccer isn't a contact sport -- I had far more injuries playing soccer than I ever did playing football.
~ Binge eating is major health problem: study -- "Out-of-control binge eating is the biggest eating disorder in the United States, more common than anorexia and bulimia combined and contributing to a rise in obesity, researchers said on Thursday."
~ Be Thinner, Healthier, More Productive: Go to Bed -- "Because Sleep Deprivation Can Have Dire Consequences, Getting a Full Eight Hours Is Important."
~ Muscles, not fat, strengthen bones -- "Researchers speculated that excess fat, which places more weight on the bones, may help build stronger bones in young people. However, a new study has found that this is not the case." OK, this falls into the really dumb theory category. It's all about the muscle people.


PSYCHE
~ Functioning On Automatic Pilot -- "Walking while holding a conversation and writing a letter whilst thinking about its content: we perform many actions without even thinking about them."
~ Selenium loss linked to cognitive decline in aged -- "The results of a new study conducted by researchers in France suggest that selenium levels decrease with age, which may contribute to a loss of neurological abilities in the elderly."
~ Why she can't get no satisfaction -- "In her new book, Dr. Anita H. Clayton says women often sabotage their own sex lives." Sounds interesting because it's about taking responsibility.
~ While You Record, Life Passes By -- "Photography is a good example. Everyone has been to a party where there's someone flitting around in the background with their camera while never really taking part in what is going on. We've all done it in one way or another."
~ What is I.Q.? (An IQ FAQ).
~ Predisposed to PTSD -- "Some people bounce back after trauma more than others."
~ Recognizing Four Types of Abuse -- "Why emotional abuse is the hardest to spot; 11 warning signs that should tip you off."
~ Research Links Change in Brain with Addiction -- "A researcher at the University at Buffalo's Research Institute on Addictions (RIA) has found a change in the brain that occurs after drug use and that may contribute to drug addiction."


CULTURE
~ Initial Product RED Contributions To Global Fund Flowing To Africa, Financial Times Reports -- "According to Global Fund Executive Director Richard Feachem, Product RED has raised more than $10 million in the United Kingdom from February 2006 through September 2006 (Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report, 10/16/06). According to the Times, $5.25 million from the project has been directed toward HIV/AIDS programs in Rwanda, and $4 million has been directed toward programs in Swaziland."
~ US Issues Guidelines in Case of Flu Pandemic -- "Cities should close schools for up to three months in the event of a severe flu outbreak, ball games and movies should be canceled and working hours staggered so subways and buses are less crowded. . . ."
~ Richard Branson Launches Virgin Stem Cell Bank -- "Virgin founder Sir Richard Branson has launched a dual private and public blood bank of umbilical cord blood as a source of stem cells to help treat donors or their families and other people who might need it."
~ Tibet's refusal to be Chinese -- "Economic advance is not winning all that many hearts and minds."
~ Is Obama Black Enough? -- "Viewpoint: Joe Biden's comment was rooted in the misconception that Al Sharpton and 50 Cent - not Barack Obama - represent the "real" black community." Is this a load of crap or is it just me?
~ Hillary: "I Have to Earn Every Vote" -- "In an interview with TIME, the Democratic front-runner talks about her stance on the war, the prospects for universal health coverage - and chocolate milkshakes in Iowa."
~ 10 Things You Didn't Know About John Edwards -- Do you care? He leads in Iowa, but does he have shot?
~ Jamming at the Speed of Light -- "New P2P software lets musicians collaborate in real time on the web without the familiar digital hiccups of the past."


HABITATS
~ Breakthrough in nanodevice synthesis revolutionizes biological sensors -- "Yale Institute for Nanoscience and Quantum Engineering engineers have developed a novel approach to synthesizing nanowires using wet-etch lithography on commercially available silicon-on-insulator wafers."
~ Does evolution select for faster evolvers? -- "It's a mystery why the speed and complexity of evolution appear to increase with time. For example, the fossil record indicates that single-celled life first appeared about 3.5 billion years ago, and it then took about 2.5 billion more years for multi-cellular life to evolve."
~ No Big Bang? Endless Universe Made Possible by New Model -- "A new cosmological model demonstrates the universe can endlessly expand and contract, providing a rival to Big Bang theories and solving a thorny modern physics problem, according to University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill physicists."
~ Fossils of "Most Primitive Primate" Found Near Yellowstone -- "Fossils of a 56-million-year-old mouse-size animal discovered in Wyoming could redraw humans' family tree, scientists say."
~ Deadly Superbugs are Talking About You -- "The chatter between bacteria may hold the key to developing drugs to fight off killer superbugs, scientists say."
~ Bacteria Cause Sea to Smell Good -- "That unique smell found near the sea comes from a gas produced by specific bacterial genes, according to a new study." And here I thought is was all the seagull shit and rotting seaweed. OK, yes, I like the ocean.
~ Global Warming Wakes Groundhogs Earlier -- "Balmy winter weather has snapped awake groundhogs and other hibernating animals too early, well before their food is available."

Speaking of which, Happy Groundhog Day!


INTEGRAL/BUDDHIST
~ Outside Integral over at Zaadz.
~ Alan Watts' Skepticism and Mine from Nagarjuna at Naked Reflections.
~ Discovering Sara from Fight The Misery Conspiracy.
~ Stephen Dinan: Taking Responsibility for Transforming Iraq, over at Integral Visioning.
~ Slow Motion Social Anxiety from Aaron at Anxious Living.
~ Groundhog's Day and Buddhism from MD at The Woodshed.

Yesterday, Al Gore was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to stop climate change. Later in the day, this story popped up on The Guardian Unlimited, from the UK. The study in question is one of the most comprehensive, and from what I can tell, even-handed looks at climate change so far. It certainly is not conclusive, but it suggests that there is an incredible likelihood that human activity is contributing to the acceleration of climate change. It appears ExxonMobile would rather pay off people to oppose those findings than let the scientific process work on its own.

Scientists offered cash to dispute climate study

Ian Sample, science correspondent
Friday February 2, 2007
The Guardian

Scientists and economists have been offered $10,000 each by a lobby group funded by one of the world's largest oil companies to undermine a major climate change report due to be published today.

Letters sent by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), an ExxonMobil-funded thinktank with close links to the Bush administration, offered the payments for articles that emphasise the shortcomings of a report from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Travel expenses and additional payments were also offered.

The UN report was written by international experts and is widely regarded as the most comprehensive review yet of climate change science. It will underpin international negotiations on new emissions targets to succeed the Kyoto agreement, the first phase of which expires in 2012. World governments were given a draft last year and invited to comment.

The AEI has received more than $1.6m from ExxonMobil and more than 20 of its staff have worked as consultants to the Bush administration. Lee Raymond, a former head of ExxonMobil, is the vice-chairman of AEI's board of trustees.

The letters, sent to scientists in Britain, the US and elsewhere, attack the UN's panel as "resistant to reasonable criticism and dissent and prone to summary conclusions that are poorly supported by the analytical work" and ask for essays that "thoughtfully explore the limitations of climate model outputs".

Climate scientists described the move yesterday as an attempt to cast doubt over the "overwhelming scientific evidence" on global warming. "It's a desperate attempt by an organisation who wants to distort science for their own political aims," said David Viner of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia.

"The IPCC process is probably the most thorough and open review undertaken in any discipline. This undermines the confidence of the public in the scientific community and the ability of governments to take on sound scientific advice," he said.

The letters were sent by Kenneth Green, a visiting scholar at AEI, who confirmed that the organisation had approached scientists, economists and policy analysts to write articles for an independent review that would highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the IPCC report.

"Right now, the whole debate is polarised," he said. "One group says that anyone with any doubts whatsoever are deniers and the other group is saying that anyone who wants to take action is alarmist. We don't think that approach has a lot of utility for intelligent policy."

One American scientist turned down the offer, citing fears that the report could easily be misused for political gain. "You wouldn't know if some of the other authors might say nothing's going to happen, that we should ignore it, or that it's not our fault," said Steve Schroeder, a professor at Texas A&M university.

The contents of the IPCC report have been an open secret since the Bush administration posted its draft copy on the internet in April. It says there is a 90% chance that human activity is warming the planet, and that global average temperatures will rise by another 1.5 to 5.8C this century, depending on emissions.

 

Read the whole article.

Damn, I knew ExxonMobile was shady, but this is pretty low even for them. When science can be bought, it is no better than mythic thinking.

 

I found this through one of the social networking sites.

 
The graph shown above relates the arithmetic mean IQ measured in various country's populations, to the fraction of each country's population that believes religion is very important.

The green diamonds represent individual countries; the yellow line is a linear regression (y = mx + b), calculated by the least squares method. The United States data point is circled in red.

There are many charts and graphs that go along with this post.

The religious attitude data is from a poll that was part of the Pew Global Attitudes Project.

The question wording used in the poll was as follows:

How important is religion in your life—very important, somewhat important, not too important, or not at all important?

The report available online only lists the percentage that said religion was 'very important'.

The IQ data is from IQ and the Wealth of Nations by Richard Lynn and Tatu Vanhanen.

I don't know what this person's agenda is, and a little reverse linking took me to a simple homepage with no explanation of who it is or why it exists.

It all seems well researched, and if it is accurate, it is pretty useful information. The author does ask an important question regarding how this might relate to individuals:

The data shown above begs the question: what would be revealed by a survey that correlated IQ and religiosity on an individual basis? Within a given population, is religion more important to persons of high intelligence, or low intelligence?

Exactly. We all know very bright people who are religious. So there cannot really be a direct one-to-one relationship between IQ and religiosity. Even Sam Harris would concede that there is no direct relationship between IQ and religiosity, and his argument would benefit most from such a relationship.

At best we have a correlation, but that in itself is interesting.

Finally, the IQ tests used to assess intelligence among non-English speaking people are notoriously inaccurate, so what we really get with this information is the relative IQ compared to Western standards, not the inherent intelligence of the people being tested.

Found this cool site through linking to links that led me to links. Somehow, I think I've been here before and forgotten. But now I am back and bookmarking.

Welcome to the largest freely available archive of full-text books about religion, mythology, folklore and the esoteric on the Internet. The site is dedicated to religious tolerance and scholarship, and has the largest readership of any similar site on the web.

They are seeking donations to keep the site running. Seems like a worthy cause to me.

Here are some of the recent additions that have posted.

Notable Recent Additions

The House of the Hidden Places (1/9/2007)
The Satapatha Brahmana, Part IV (SBE 43) (12/19/2006)
Lives of the Saints (12/14/2006)
The Hieroglyphics of Horapollo (12/12/2006)
The Rosetta Stone (12/5/2006)
Devil Worship in France (12/3/2006)
Tractate Berakoth (12/2/2006)
The Satapatha Brahmana, Part III (SBE 41) (11/29/2006)
Nostradamus: The Man Who Saw Through Time (11/21/2006)
Proofs of a Conspiracy (11/18/2006)
Original Hebrew of a Portion of Ecclesiasticus (with the Alphabet of Ben Sira) (11/15/2006)
Tractate Sanhedrin (11/8/2006)
The Satapatha Brahmana, Part II (SBE 26) (11/5/2006)
Unveiled Mysteries (10/18/2006)
The Myth of the Birth of the Hero (10/16/2006)
The Satapatha Brahmana, Part I (SBE 12) (10/7/2006)
The Religions of South Vietnam in Faith and Fact (10/4/2006)
Karezza, Ethics of Marriage (10/3/2006)
The Comte de St. Germain (10/1/2006)
A Miracle in Stone: or The Great Pyramid of Egypt (9/28/2006)
The Love Letters of Abelard and Heloise (9/18/2006)
The Brahan Seer (9/13/2006)
Noa Noa (9/6/2006)
The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ (8/30/2006)
History of Philosophy in Islam (8/27/2006)

It's nice to see they are covering ALL of the bases with this site. Please stop and check it out -- and help them out if you feel moved to do so.

Waking Up

Witness the full moon disappearing the stars,
ask yourself why we crave clarity of light.

Does it mean anything that two hands touch?
Each seeks comfort that only flesh conveys.

This, then, is the mystery, that a man and a woman
do not know the words, the secret incantation.

Witness the awkward fumbling toward awareness,
ask yourself what magic resides in the eyes of the other.

Are there any words that can decipher the morning?
Even then, tendrils of ivy restrain the new sun.

So much left unsaid in the fertile darkness . . .
.
.

Over at Deepak Chopra's Intent Blog, DK Matai has an interesting post on Holistic Relativity: Spiritual Planes and Consciousness.

Matai is presenting what appears to be an integral vision of consciousness evolution based in the Hindu tradition of Sant Mat. Here is a brief description from Wikipedia, although it would be beneficial to look at the whole article to really get a grasp of what this tradition is about.

The Sant Mat movement was not homogeneous, consisting mostly of these Sants' presentation of socio-religious attitudes based on bhakti (devotion) as described a thousand years earlier in the Bhagavad Gita.^[3] Sharing as few conventions with each other as with the followers of the traditions they challenged, the Sants appear more as a diverse collection of spiritual personalities than a specific religious tradition, although they acknowledged a common spiritual root.^[4]

The boundaries of the movement were likely not sectarian and were devoid of Brahmin concepts of caste and liturgy. The poet-sants expressed their teaching in vernacular verse, addressing themselves to the common folk in oral style in Hindi and other dialects such as Marathi. They referred to the "Divine Name" as having saving power, and dismissed the religious rituals as having no value. They presented that true religion was a matter of surrendering to God "who dwells in the heart" ^[3].

 

But his preliminary notes, which is how Matai views this post, also include several other systems of levels and planes, including Christianity. Here are a few of the graphics he employs in the post. [You can click on the images to see them in full size.]




Matai offers an explanation of some of the symbolism involved in these systems, referencing both the Hindu and Christian conceptions. He then provides his explanation of the seven levels, drawing multiple systems into the model.

The Systematic Symbolism of Seven Levels & Seven Colors

Level One – The Physical Body
Red in the spectrum, physically dense in form, temporal in duration.
In the labyrinth it is the outermost circle. In the mandala it is the foundation upon which the other levels are constructed. In this life the physical surroundings support and nurture its growth.

Note: Existence is holographic. Every color, every level, contains every other, and the juxtaposition of seven colors on seven levels and according to eight possible arrangements creates an infinite variety of visual effects which could even be called illusions.

Level Two – The Etheric Body

Orange in the rainbow spectrum, of a finer vibrational substance, only somewhat less temporal than its physical replica.

In the development of the personality its reference is to the early emotional environment and formative influences.

Note: Healing techniques such as Reiki and acupuncture recognize the interconnection between the physical and its energy pattern, here called the etheric.

Level Three – The Astral Body

Yellow in the spectrum, sometimes called the lower mental level, transitional and limited in endurance, a non-physical vehicle in which consciousness can move inter-dimensionally.

Its formative influences are a given culture’s secular, religious and educational institutions and how these shape the way we think.

Note: Physics is closing in on metaphysics as in laboratory experiments atoms and molecules are being transported.

Level Four – The Mental Body

Green in the spectrum, interfacing the temporal and the eternal, a transitional energy body that enables transformation.

In this life its purposes are achieved in relationship with others.

Note: Christianity begins according to Joseph Campbell is a fourth chakra process. God is in Christ reconciling the human and the divine.

Level Five – The Causal Body

Blue in the spectrum, sometimes called the transpersonal, it’s energy field is the repository of the soul’s enduring memories, influences and progress.

Its nature is volitional and its function is to empower the soul’s journey.

Note: This level is attuned to the inner voice of spirit. When Christ spoke of having ears to hear he referred to this level of consciousness. It is how one knows one’s own truth.

Level Six – The Diamond Body

Indigo in the spectrum, eternal in reality, the level of Brahmic or Christ Consciousness.

This is Aurobindo’s supramental field where thinking is superceded by an intuitionally received knowing.

Note: The step between five and six is from the transpersonal to the eternal. It is a conscious awareness St Paul called “the mind of Christ.”

Level Seven – The Celestial Body

Violet in the spectrum, visionary in function, this is the energy field in which the Self and the All are eternally One.

Note: Awakening to the Christ realization that “I and the Father are one,” is the goal of the soul’s the journey through and beyond physical life.

 

Much of this will be familiar to anyone who has read Ken Wilber and the other integral theorists. Matai finishes the post with some explication of how this model works, using computers as a metaphor (unfortunately).

The whole post is certainly worth a read. I didn't so justice to everything he tries to bring into the discussion. Still, I hope this will give you enough of a sense of what he is aiming for that you might check it out. The post is open to comments and it might be interesting if some Western integral thinkers could enter into dialogue with Matai.

Integral theory of all flavors could benefit from an exchange between cultures.

ABC News ran a brief article on the meaning of dreams, especially recurring dreams. While there is nothing extremely noteworthy about the article, it is somewhat refreshing to see a mainstream article on dreams that doesn't reduce dreaming to the random firing of neurons or some such crap.

Here is most of the text:

They can be startlingly vivid and real, or fragmented and bizarre.

Whatever form they take, dreams can reveal a lot about what a person really thinks.

"Dreams give us an X-ray of our unconscious. They show us, particularly when we're at life's passages or turning points, what's going on inside, what we're having trouble coping with," said Alan Siegel, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley who has studied dreams for nearly 30 years.

* * * * *

Disturbing dreams often occur around major life events: moves, marriage, divorce, the death of a loved one or pressure at work.

Siegel believes stressful or upsetting dreams can be a sign of what's buried deep inside the mind.

"Dreams are important to survival. They are crucial to the balance of our psyche. … They help us work out conflicts that we're having every single day," he said. "They go to the cutting edge of what's stressful, what's bothering us and what we're working out in our lives."

Siegel said that dreams can provide guidance if people understand them. Psychologists recommend recording dreams in a journal so that they can be examined for clues later.

"The two best techniques are to focus on the emotion in the dream, and that's often the most important part, and just ask yourself what in my waking life feels like this," said Deirdre Barrett, an assistant professor of psychology at Harvard Medical School.

 

Barrett also recommends trying to connect details in the dreams to one another.

"You can just go through and associate detail to detail," she said. "This particular dark figure in the dream, did they look like anyone I've seen recently?"

Siegel and Barrett explained the meaning behind common dreams.

Being Stuck or Paralyzed

"This dream usually has to do with some form of emotional paralysis," Siegel said. "You're stuck in some way in your life and the dream is reflecting that in a metaphor."

Being Naked or Dressed Inappropriately

"These dreams seem to crop up when people are feeling some kind of social inadequacy," Barrett said.

Losing Teeth

"[This could be] a feeling of rejection, being fired, things not working out with a friend or colleague," Siegel said. "When you experience emotional or physical loss, that's when you tend to have the teeth falling out dream."

Nightmares

Nightmares often reflect an especially intense emotion or unresolved conflict. "The stronger the emotion in the dream, whether it's pleasure or fear, the more likely the dream is important," Barrett said.

 

The dime-store interpretation isn't really very useful for anyone who has worked with dreams, but it might inspire some people to begin paying more attention to their dreams. At the end of the article they provide a link to The International Association for the Study of Dreams.

Dreams can be a crucial form of shadow work for many of us. Much of what happens in dreams is generally below the threshold of consciousness, so bringing the dream material into the light of day can help us work out some of the material in shadow that is seeking our attention.

If you're new to dream work, you can find a great collection of links representing a variety of approaches at Dream Gate's Dream Library.

Beauty, eh?

This guy is amazing.

Martin Waugh combines art and science to capture nature's infinite beauty.

Throughout history, water has calmed the soul, soothed the spirit and healed the wounded. Martin's free-flowing photography evokes images from rolling, rhythmic oceans to drops of water falling upon a lake, taking one on a spiritual journey bounded only by imagination.

Martin's creative uses of high-speed photography make it possible to capture the smooth and effortless curves of liquid, eliciting a childlike sense of fun and whimsy. Interpretations of his work often reveal as much about the viewer as the artist. His images are engaging metaphors for life and are as intriguing to the eye as they are thought provoking.

By varying the size, speed and position of drops, as well as the color, viscosity, and surface tension, Martin creates a panorama of color, movement and intrigue.

Martin received his B.S. degree in Physics from Lewis and Clark College in Oregon. He lives in Portland, where he has kayaked many of the gorgeous white water rivers the region has to offer. His work can be found in both corporate and private art collections.

 

You can read about the process of making these images here.

And here are a few of the images that struck me.

You can view the whole portfolio here.

 

Quote of the day:

"It is well to remember that the entire universe, with one trifling exception, is composed of others."
~ John Andrew Holmes

Image of the day:

BODY
~ Power nap to power your run -- I'm a huge fan of naps, but then I get up at 3:30 every morning.
~ Study Shows Active Children Focus Better In School -- Works for adults, too.
~ Lavender And Tea Tree Oils May Cause Breast Growth In Boys -- Environmental estrogens are evil. We are exposed to far too many of these toxic chemicals. This is why kids shouldn't eat soy, too.
~ Creatine Supplement May Help People With Muscular Dystrophies -- Creatine should be considered an essential nutrient. It also improves memory, heart health, and is anti-viral, among many other benefits.
~ Detecting Performance-Enhancing Drugs -- Some top-notch coaches claim that ALL world-class athletes are using some form of banned substance.
~ Chromium Picolinate Shows Greater Clinical Benefits In Diabetes Management Than Other Forms Of Chromium Supplements -- Old news, and still they keep doing more studies.
~ Weight-Loss Supplement Shows Good And Bad Traits -- The study looked at CLA, a popular supplement that many claim can help with fat loss. The results pose cause for concern, but certainly are not definitive.
~ Less Television And More Gathering Around The Dinner Table Prevents Childhood Obesity.


PSYCHE
~ Mood-Food Connection: We Eat More And Less-Healthy Comfort Foods When We Feel Down, Study Finds -- "People feeling sad tend to eat more of less-healthy comfort foods than when they feel happy, finds a new study co-authored by a Cornell food marketing expert. However, when nutritional information is available, those same sad people curb their hedonistic consumption. But happier people don't."
~ Research Investigates Whether Vitamin Folate Helps To Treat Depression -- "Folate, a vitamin found in foods such as green vegetables, helps to produce chemicals that regulate brain functions, including mood, sleep and appetite."
~ Feeling blah? Beat back the winter blues -- "For sufferers, January and February tend to be the months when this form of depression, clinically known as Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), hits hardest. But thanks to years of research and numerous studies, there are several methods considered effective in treating SAD."
~ Does Marriage Take Work? -- This is from a new blog I am watching called The Art of Intimacy.
~ Why Health Benefits of Good Relationships Rival Exercise and Nutrition -- "It is now a truism that our relationships have important effects on our psychological well-being. Some even suggest maintaining and fuelling good relationships might be as vital for our health as good nutrition and regular exercise (Ryff et al., 2001)."
~ Prescribing ecstasy -- "Slate has an article on the use of MDMA ('Ecstasy') in the treatment of people with post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD." We now know that alpha lipoic acid can be used to combat the death of serotonin cells associated with ecstasy, so this is good news.
~ New Harvard Findings Suggest Multiple Dimensions Shape Our Perception Of 'Mind' -- "Through an online survey of more than 2,000 people, psychologists at Harvard University have found that we perceive the minds of others along two distinct dimensions: agency, an individual's ability for self-control, morality and planning; and experience, the capacity to feel sensations such as hunger, fear and pain."
~ Study Explains Why Psychedelic Drugs Produce Different Neurological Effects -- Sounds cool, but it just explains the neurological pathways, not why we can have transpersonal experiences.
~ The Most Important Quality to Have in Tough Times -- On gratitude.


CULTURE
~ Little Progress Seen for Poorest After Hurricane -- "The recovery from Hurricane Katrina has stagnated for the poorest families displaced by the storm, a new study shows."
~ S.D. Billionaire Donates $400 Million -- "When officials at Sioux Valley Hospitals & Health Systems told him of their dream to transform the facility into a major research institution for children's health, he donated $400 million, and they promised to rename the institution after him - Sanford Health."
~ Required STD shots worry some parents -- "Some conservatives and parents’ rights groups worry that requiring girls to get vaccinated against the sexually transmitted virus that causes cervical cancer would condone premarital sex and interfere with the way they raise their children." Yeah . . . that's just dumb.
~ Candidate Edwards: raise taxes for healthcare -- "Democratic US presidential candidate John Edwards on Sunday said that he would raise taxes, chiefly on the wealthy, to pay for expanded healthcare coverage under a plan costing $90 billion to $120 billion a year."
~ Support Our Troops (Except for the Gay Ones) -- "A new Harris Poll shows that just over half of Americans, 55%, think gays and lesbians should be allowed to serve openly in the military. Which means that nearly half think they shouldn't."
~ Coaching Players For Life -- Sometimes, George Will makes sense.
~ Why the yin disconnects from the yang -- "Any future vision that features a rising Asia is labeled "Blade Runner-ish," as in, fooking scary!" From the always challenging to read Thomas P. M. Barnett.
~ Scorsese Takes Top DGA Honors -- Damn well deserved. Next up, the long-overdue Oscar.
~ From The Zero Boss: Gays Killing Themselves? Blame It on The Liberals!
~ Buddhism and God Reposted -- From James at Buddhist Blog.


HABITATS
~ Oil giant primes the biofuel pump with $500 million -- "BP will team with UC Berkeley, the University of Illinois and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory on a 10-year research project."
~ The Greenest Building in the world is in Chicago.
~ Envisioning One Planet Schools -- "The best way to get new ideas to take hold is to teach them to young people. School-age kids are impressionable and imaginitive, and pick up new perspectives readily. So it makes sense that a concept like "One Planet Living" -- which many of us find difficult to imagine -- would be natural to a kid."
~ Homo Futurus: How Radically Should We Remake Ourselves - Or Our Children? -- "Transhumanists -- those who advocate the use of science to alter the human future -- may be playing an instrumental role in reshaping our lives."
~ The looming oxygen shortage -- Trees? We don't need no stinkin trees.
~ Google Earth to blur key India sites -- Paranoia will destroy ya. Well, okay, they may have a point.
~ Apple: iTunes Users Should Wait on Vista -- "Apple Inc. is urging some iPod and iTunes users to hold off on upgrading computers to Windows Vista, warning that the iTunes music software may not work well with the new operating system from rival Microsoft Corp." Anyone know if there are compatibility issues, for real?
~ 46 Nations Back Body to Protect Planet -- "Forty-five nations answered France's call for a new environmental body to slow inevitable global warming and protect the planet, perhaps with policing powers to punish violators."


INTEGRAL
~ Ken's Foreword to Big Mind/Big Heart by Genpo Roshi -- At least KW pays lip service to the fact the Genpo Roshi "borrowed" his technique from Voice Dialogue by Hal Stone. The problem is that Big Mind is a watered down and less effective approach.
~ Ken Wilber is a Transhumanist Borg -- From ~C4Chaos, of course.
~ The Shadow Knows -- ISC update.
~ Also from ~C: Neurotheology + Neuromysticism = 21st Century Shamanism.
~ Integral pathology? -- A good post from Joe at Until.
~ From CJ Smith: tiers upon tiers.
~ The many faces of integral politics from Ed Berge at Open Integral.
~ Weekend reading — on "metaphysical imagination" -- An excellent post from Matthew at The Daily Goose.
~ Mystery of Existence has put up several excellent posts of late around the topic of alchemy.
~ "Transcend and Exclude?" Deconstructing unhealthy eros -- From Durwin at Zaadz.

Yesterday, I posted the Psychology Today article over at Zaadz, in which I mention liking David Deida.

One reader mentioned taking issue with Deida's over-emphasis of polarity in sexuality. I tend to agree that Deida puts too much emphasis on polarity for his to be a truely integral model.

It seems to me, and it is just my opinion, that one of the goals of personal evolution should be to transcend polarity. Rather than an either/or approach, we should be seeking a both/and approach.

In an old post from last year, this is how I stated my views on this topic:

This second-tier conception of gender identity allows either partner to assume the masculine or feminine energy in the relationship. Further, it's not a problem if both partners assume male energy or female energy. At higher experiential states (tantra in the traditional sense), the gender energies become archetypal in nature--as ego recedes--and can result in gender union (a kind of hieros gamos). At the highest levels, gender dissolves completely, along with ego.

With this view in mind, I have also advocated for the abolition of the terms gay and straight, and would rather see sexuality expressed along a spectrum. From this vantage point, we can no longer talk about types of people (gay or straight, masculine or feminine), but forms of expression. This is what I wrote back then:

We need to move the dialogue on this issue into new realms. Gay and straight should be forms of expression, not types of people. I firmly believe that if we could strip away all the cultural bullshit about being homosexual, a lot of people might have a "gay" relationship just as often as a "straight" relationship.

Obviously, the majority of people are going to chose opposite-gender partners for the purposes of raising a family, and this is as it should be (or we'd become extinct). But minus the stigma we have attached to homosexuality, a lot more people would try both types of expression as they form their adult identity.

Some might choose to have both types of relationships as adults. Maybe this is where Joe Perez's ideas on polyamory come into relevance. It is possible to love more than one person at a time, of either gender. This is certainly a post-conventional form or sexual expression.

More to my point, however, is the reality that it is possible to love people of both genders at different times in our lives (including simultaneously). I would argue that not only is it possible, it's healthy. Further, not only is it healthy, it represents an integral-level sexual identity to be able to honor those feelings.

However, I do not mean to imply that someone who does not ever experience that same-gender form of emotional/sexual expression is not integral. I am simply stating that the ability to love a same-sex person and express that love through sexuality is a healthy form of integral relationship.

We need to move beyond straight and gay to realize that people are capable of fluid and flexible expressions of sexuality. We need to stop identifying people as one thing or another. As long as we continue to do so, we perpetuate the self/other dichotomy that is the source of all fear and oppression.

The reality of loving gay relationships undermines some of Deida's position, although he could certainly argue that one partner always assumes the feminine role while the other inhabits the masculine.

I certainly enjoy the polarity of masculine and feminine in relationships, but I also enjoy those times when there is a both/and energy going on. If we can inhabit a space in which we are both/and, we have the possibility of many more levels of interaction.

Traditionally, we have this:

Masculine <--> Feminine

But what if we could have this instead?

Masculine <--> Feminine
Feminine <--> Masculine
Masculine <--> Masculine
Feminine <--> Feminine

Wouldn't that just be a hell of a lot more fun? If we can play with polarity rather than being confined by it, our relationships can be much more open and much more expansive. Isn't that the best of all worlds?

Found this at Neatorama, who found it here.

Quote of the day:

"Skeptical scrutiny is the means, in both science and religion, by which deep insights can be winnowed from deep nonsense."
~ Carl Sagan

Image of the day:

BODY
~ You're Overtraining! -- "Damn it! Another one of those articles that forced us to reevaluate what we're doing in the gym!"
~ Studies: Older exercisers recover as fast as children -- We lose strength as we age, but older people can recover from exercise as quickly as children (but slower than young adults).
~ Researcher Launches Human Trials On Promising New Diet Product -- Oligo fructose is "not a chemical or a drug. In fact it's a food product that is already being used in things like yogurt, cereal and baby food. We have found in a previous study with rats that the fibre increases the levels of a satiety hormone called glucagon-like peptide (GLP-1) in the body and increases a gene in the intestines that helps the body to create more GLP-1."
~ Help To Change Unhealthy Habits -- "But counting on willpower alone to make a change is inviting failure. A Special Report in the February issue of Mayo Clinic Health Letter discusses the essential steps to a healthier life, including how planning and self-control skills -- not willpower alone -- help make healthy behavior changes."
~ Corn, Oats, Cherries And Red Wine's High Melatonin Content Can Help Delay Ageing -- "The consumption of melatonin, a natural substance produced in small amounts by human beings and present in many types of food, delays the oxidative damage and inflammatory processes typical of the old age. Melatonin can be found in small amounts in some fruits and vegetables, like onions, cherries and bananas, and in cereals like corn, oats and rice, as well as in some aromatic plants, such as mint, lemon verbena, sage or thyme, and in red wine."
~ Calcium Lowers Cardiovascular Risk In People On A Weight Loss Program -- "Taking calcium and vitamin D supplements while on a weight loss program lowers the risk of cardiovascular disease."
~ Debate Grows Over Female Thyroid Testing -- "Even a slightly underactive thyroid - too mild for symptoms - during pregnancy might trigger premature birth and babies born with lower IQs. But doctors don't know if treating a symptom-free mother would help...."
~ Vitamin D Deficiency is a Major Cause of Parkinson's Disease -- "In an excellent paper, a pair of researchers (father and son) presented considerable evidence that vitamin D deficiency is one cause, perhaps the major cause, of Parkinson's disease."


PSYCHE
~ Youth suicides up after decade of decline -- "New government figures show a surprising increase in youth suicides after a decade of decline, and some mental health experts think a drop in use of antidepressant drugs may be to blame."
~ Studies tie depression, loneliness to physical ills -- "Depression, severe mental illness and loneliness are linked to illnesses such as heart disease and dementia, according to several studies published Monday."
~ Could Extreme Irritability Be Childhood Bipolar Disorder? -- "Results of a new study may help improve the diagnosis and treatment of two debilitating childhood mental disorders -- pediatric bipolar disorder (BD) and a syndrome called severe mood dysregulation (SMD)."
~ Study: Sex of any kind can harm teens emotionally -- "Researchers at the University of California San Francisco found that up to one-half of the sexually active teenagers in their study said they'd ever felt "used," guilty or regretful after having sex."
~ The Changing Psychology of Wealth.
~ Betting on Awareness [The Frontal Cortex] -- "Conscious awareness is difficult to measure. On the one hand, it's a private, subjective phenomenon that resists easy quantification. (Only I know what I am aware of.) On the other hand, neuroscience won't be able to understand many mental phenomena - like consciousness - unless it can develop objective measurements for these slippery, subjective phenomena."
~ New UCLA Study Challenges Theory Of Inner Clock -- "For decades, scientists have believed that the brain possesses an internal clock that allows it to keep track of time. Now a UCLA study in the Feb. 1 edition of Neuron proposes a new model in which a series of physical changes to the brain's cells helps the organ to monitor the passage of time."
~ Symptoms of depression linked to early stages of artery disease -- "Depressive symptoms—especially physical signs, such as fatigue and loss of appetite—may be associated with thickening arteries, which may reflect an early sign of coronary artery disease, according to a report in the February issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals."


CULTURE
~ Obama Confronts 'Outsider' Dilemma -- How does he win and still maintain his identity as a party outsider bringing hope rather than more of the same?
~ House Passes $463B Spending Bill That Would Allocate $1.3B Increase To Fund International HIV/AIDS, TB, Malaria Programs.
~ The FDA Isn't Making it Easy to Identify Cloned Foods.
~ Republicans block Senate debate on Iraq -- "Republicans blocked a debate on the Iraq war in the U.S. Senate on Monday, dealing a setback to critics of President George W. Bush's plan to send in thousands more troops, but Democrats warned they would not give up trying to force Bush to change course." The more things change, the more they stay the same.
~ Super Bowl draws 3rd-largest U.S. TV audience ever -- And they all feel asleep in boredom.
~ Men Are From Mars, But Only If They're Straight -- Why does the makers of the Snickers Bar hate gay men?
~ Prince rocked the Super Snore halftime show.
~ Glenn Greenwald: Profile of the Neoconservative Warrior -- "Mark Steyn is one of the most extremist warmongers in our country and is gripped by the fear that the European race will die out as Muslims breed too rapidly and take over. He has also been as fundamentally wrong as one can be about virtually every issue he has touched."
~ Ancient Semitic Snake Spells Deciphered in Egyptian Pyramid -- "The world's oldest Semitic passages—spells found deep within an ancient pyramid—show that the Egyptians turned to neighboring Canaanites for help fending off venomous snakes."


HABITATS
~ Pedestrian-Friendly Communities Make For More Active Older Adults -- "Build it, and they will walk. That's the message from a new study that suggests communities that make it easy for senior citizens to walk will end up with more active residents."
~ Enviga's calorie-burning claims investigated -- "Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal on Monday said his office was investigating claims by Coca-Cola and Nestle that their new drink can burn calories, saying it may amount to 'voodoo nutrition.'"
~ New, Improved Environmental Destruction! -- Mother Jones is not so impressed with BP's new foray into biofuels.
~ Sea creature's toxin could lead to promising cancer treatment -- "A toxin derived from a reclusive sea creature resembling a translucent doughnut has inspired UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers to develop a related compound that shows promise as a cancer treatment."
~ Chemists show that nature could have used different protein building blocks -- "Chemists at Yale have done what Mother Nature chose not to — make a protein-like molecule out of non-natural building blocks, according to a report featured early online in the Journal of the American Chemical Society."
~ Global Warming is Only One Symptom -- "Climate change is only one symptom of a greater disease scientists call global environmental change (GEC). Global warming is the rash. GEC is the bubonic plague. The other symptoms are equally deadly and still barely recognized outside science."
~ World's oldest rocks show how Earth may have dodged frozen fate of Mars.


INTEGRAL/BUDDHIST
~ Theta Healing, Magic, and the Big Picture and More on Theta healing from Alan Kazlev.
~ Inter-religious theologies -- CJ Smith looks at religious pluralism from a Christian viewpoint.
~ Buddhist Geeks 5: We’re Not the Cheerleaders of Buddhism -- Part 2 of their podcast with Phil Stanley.
~ It's Days Like This -- "Every day that we meditate we water the seeds of strength in our store consciousness and keep open the avenues to balance and peace so that when we really need understanding of a difficult moment the pathway to reach that realization is already there."
~ Over at the I-I pod: Transcendent Sex.
~ From ~C4Chaos, Debate on Religion and Reason: Sam Harris vs. Reza Aslan.
~ Z-Bate! Faith, Reason & The Four Quadrants, an attempt to have a focused debate on integral questions.

Found this at Neatorama, who posted it in cooperation with Mental Floss. Since I'm stealing from these folks, pretty much all the time, please help me repay the Karmic debt I am incurring (so that I may entertain you) by visiting those very cool sites. Thanks.

11 Most Important Philosophical Quotations

1. “The unexamined life is not worth living” – Socrates (470-399 BCE)

Socrates’ [wiki] belief that we must reflect upon the life we live was partly inspired by the famous phrase inscribed at the shrine of the oracle at Delphi, “Know thyself.” The key to finding value in the prophecies of the oracle was self-knowledge, not a decoder ring.

Socrates felt so passionately about the value of self-examination that he closely examined not only his own beliefs and values but those of others as well. More precisely, through his relentless questioning, he forced people to examine their own beliefs. He saw the citizens of his beloved Athens sleepwalking through life, living only for money, power, and fame, so he became famous trying to help them.

2. “Entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily” – William of Ockham (1285 - 1349?)

Commonly known as Ockham’s razor, the idea here is that in judging among competing philosophical or scientific theories, all other things being equal, we should prefer the simplest theory. Scientists currently speak of four forces in the universe: gravity, the electromagnetic force, the strong nuclear force, and the weak nuclear force. Ockham [wiki] would certainly nod approvingly at the ongoing attempt to formulate a grand unified theory, a single force that encompasses all four.

The ultimate irony of Ockham’s razor may be that some have used it to prove God is unnecessary to the explanation of the universe, an idea Ockham the Franciscan priest would reject.

3. “The life of man [is] solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” – Thomas Hobbes (1588 – 1679)

Referring to the original state of nature, a hypothetical past before civilization, Hobbes [wiki] saw no reason to be nostalgic.

Whereas Rousseau said, “Man is born free, and he is everywhere in chains,” Hobbes believed we find ourselves living a savage, impossible life without education and the protection of the state. Human nature is bad: we’ll prey on one another in the most vicious ways. No doubt the state imposes on our liberty in an overwhelming way. Yet Hobbes’ claim was that these very chains were absolutely crucial in protecting us from one another.

4. “I think therefore I am” – René Descartes (1596 – 1650)

Descartes [wiki] began his philosophy by doubting everything in order to figure out what he could know with absolute certainty. Although he could be wrong about what he was thinking, that he was thinking was undeniable. Upon the recognition that “I think,” Descartes concluded that “I am.”

On the heels of believing in himself, Descartes asked, What am I? His answer: a thinking thing (res cogitans) as opposed to a physical thing extended in three-dimensional space (res extensa). So, based on this line, Descartes knew he existed, though he wasn’t sure if he had a body. It’s a philosophical cliff-hanger; you’ll have to read Meditations to find out how it ends.

5. “To be is to be perceived (Esse est percipi).” Or, “If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?” – Bishop George Berkeley (1685 – 1753)

As an idealist, Berkeley [wiki] believed that nothing is real but minds and their ideas. Ideas do not exist independently of minds. Through a complicated and flawed line of reasoning he concluded that “to be is to be perceived.” Something exists only if someone has the idea of it.

Though he never put the question in the exact words of the famous quotation, Berkeley would say that if a tree fell in the forest and there was no one (not even a squirrel) there to hear it, not only would it not make a sound, but there would be no tree.

The good news is, according to Berkeley, that the mind of God always perceives everything. So the tree will always make a sound, and there’s no need to worry about blipping out of existence if you fall asleep in a room by yourself.

6. “We live in the best of all possible worlds.” – Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646 – 1716)

Voltaire’s famous novel Candide satirizes this optimistic view. And looking around you right now you may wonder how anyone could actually believe it. But Leibniz [wiki] believed that before creation God contemplated every possible way the universe could be and chose to create the one in which we live because it’s the best.

The principle of sufficient reason holds that for everything, there must be sufficient reason why it exists. And according to Leibniz the only sufficient reason for the world we live in is that God created it as the best possible universe. God could have created a universe in which no one ever did wrong, in which there was no human evil, but that would require humans to be deprived of the gift of free wills and thus would not be the best possible world.

7. “The owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the falling of the dusk.” G.W.F. Hegel (1770 – 1831)

Similar to “vision is 20/20 in hindsight,” Hegel’s [wiki] poetic insight says that philosophers are impotent. Only after the end of an age can philosophers realize what it was about. And by then it’s too late to change things. It wasn’t until the time of Immanuel Kant (1724 - 1804) that the true nature of the Enlightenment was understood, and Kant did nothing to change the Enlightenment; he just consciously perpetuated it.

Marx (1818 – 1883) found Hegel’s apt description to be indicative of the problem with philosophy and responded, “the philosophers have only interpreted the world differently, what matters is to change it.”

8. “Who is also aware of the tremendous risk involved in faith – when he nevertheless makes the leap of faith – this [is] subjectivity … at its height.” – Søren Kierkegaard (1813 – 1855)

In a memorable scene from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Indy deduced that the final step across his treacherous path was a leap of faith. And so it is in Kierkegaard’s [wiki] theory of stages of life.

The final stage, the religious stage, requires passionate, subjective belief rather than objective proof, in the paradoxical and the absurd. So, what’s the absurd? That which Christianity asks us to accept as true, that God became man born of a virgin, suffered, died and was resurrected.

Abraham was the ultimate “knight of faith” according to Kierkegaard. Without doubt there is no faith, and so in a state of “fear and trembling” Abraham was willing to break the universal moral law against murder by agreeing to kill his own son, Isaac. God rewarded Abraham’s faith by providing a ram in place of Isaac for the sacrifice. Faith has its rewards, but it isn’t rational. It’s beyond reason. As Blaise Pascal said, “The heart has its reason which reason does not know.”

9. “God is dead.” – Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 – 1900)

Well, you might not hear this one in a graduation speech, but you’ll probably hear it in college. Actually, Nietzsche [wiki] never issued this famous proclamation in his own voice but rather put the words in the mouth of a character he called the madman and later in the mouth of another character, Zarathustra.

Nevertheless, Nietzsche endorsed the words. “God is dead” is often mistaken as a statement of atheism. It is not, though Nietzsche himself was an atheist. “Dead” is metaphorical in this context, meaning belief in the God of Christianity is worn out, past its prime, and on the decline. God is lost as the center of life and the source of values. Nietzsche’s madman noted that himself came too soon. No doubt Nietzsche, too, thought he was ahead of his time in heralding this news.

10. “There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide.” – Albert Camus (1913 – 1960)

Camus’ [wiki] solution to the philosophical problem was to recognize and embrace life’s absurdity. Suicide, though, remains an option if the absurdity becomes too much. Indeed Camus’ own death in a car crash was ambiguous. Was it an accident or suicide?

For Camus, the absurd hero is Sisyphus, a man from Greek mythology who is condemned by the gods for eternity to roll up a stone up a hill only to have it fall back again as it reaches the top. For Camus, Sisyphus typified all human beings: we must find a meaning in a world that is unresponsive or even hostile to us. Sisyphus, Camus believed, affirms life, choosing to go back down the hill and push the rock again each time. Camus wrote: “The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man’s
heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”

11. “One cannot step twice in the same river.” – Heraclitus (ca. 540 – ca. 480 BCE)

Heraclitus definitely isn’t alone here. His message was that reality is constantly changing it’s an ongoing process rather than a fixed and stable product. Buddhism shares a similar metaphysical view with the idea of annica, the claim that all reality is fleeting and impermanent.

In modern times Henri Bergson (1859 – 1941) described time as a process that is experienced. An hour waiting in line is different from an hour at play. Today contemporary physics lends credence to process philosophy with the realization that even apparently stable objects, like marble statues, are actually buzzing bunches of electrons and other subatomic particles deep down.

Bonus material at Neatorama: How to pronounce the names of famous philosophers whose names are often slaughtered.

An old favorite from my college days.

Quote of the day:

"Humankind cannot stand very much reality."
~ TS Eliot

Image of the day:

BODY
~ Lifting Weights Helps to Prevent Diabetes -- Old news, but good news.
~ Pills Or Papayas? Survey Finds Americans Want Healthful Foods, Not More Medicines -- "A new survey shows the vast majority would rather change their diets - including trying a vegetarian diet - than use medicines. According to a nationally representative survey of 1,022 adults conducted in mid-January by Opinion Research Corporation, 69 percent of Americans would prefer to try a dietary approach. Just 21 percent preferred treating diabetes with medicines." I'd have to say that there is some kind of expectation bias in this survey.
~ Sexual History Should Be An Integral Component Of Medical Assessment -- "Physicians should make taking a sexual history an integral part of medical assessment as sexual symptoms can be a sign of serious underlying disease, according to the first paper in a Series which begins in this week's issue of The Lancet."
~ Ibuprofen beats acetaminophen for period pain -- And without killing your liver the way acetaminophen does.
~ Stem cells from fat transplanted into heart -- "Doctors have implanted adult stem cells extracted from a man’s fat tissue through liposuction into his heart, in an experimental treatment for angina and heart disease, a Spanish hospital said."
~ Is work making you fat? -- "Health experts say finding ways to fit in fitness during the workday is an increasingly important strategy in the battle of the bulge."
~ Beyond the DNA: Chemical signatures reveal genetic switches in the genome.


PSYCHE
~ 2 Brains -- 1 Thought -- "Although no two brains are alike, they can display a comparable pattern of neural activity when exposed to similar sensory input. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization have now developed a mathematical method to design networks from neural cells which exhibit a predefined pattern dynamics."
~ Brain's Reward Circuit Activity Ebbs And Flows With A Woman's Hormonal Cycle -- "Fluctuations in sex hormone levels during women's menstrual cycles affect the responsiveness of their brains' reward circuitry, an imaging study at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), a component of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has revealed."
~ Insomnia and the Unconscious [The Frontal Cortex].
~ Size and Sensibility -- "Self-acceptance doesn't always come with weight loss."
~ Media Messes With Men's Minds Too -- "Body image in the minds of men."
~ Slow-Wave Activity During Sleep Affected By Quality, Intensity Of Wakefulness -- "A study published in the February 1st issue of the journal SLEEP provides a first direct demonstration that the "quality" and "intensity" of wakefulness can affect slow-wave activity (SWA) during subsequent sleep."
~ Can people change from gay to straight?
~ The Universe is Relationship -- From the Art of Intimacy blog.
~ Overcoming Procrastination with Preparation and Planning.
~ Honey I Love You - Let’s Fight -- From TikkunGer: "A little while back Tamara did a post on the topic of Relationships and Good Fighting and it was quite interesting. The post discussed an audio lecture on the topic of relationships, marriage and arguments/fighting."


CULTURE
~ Democratic Lawmakers Introduce Legislation To Reform FDA, Increase Prescription Drug Regulation.
~ Discipline debate: Spanking gets a time-out -- "A proposed California law that would outlaw spanking has reignited the debate on the best way to discipline unruly tots."
~ Rev. Haggard to get online MA in Psych - Also no longer gay. You might this is something from The Onion, but no, sadly, it is true. More from CNN: Haggard "Completely Heterosexual". What a complete load of shit. Of course, The Zero Boss weighs in: Ted Haggard Says He HATES Cock! He’s CURED!
~ Why Giuliani is the G.O.P. Favorite -- "Leadership is going to be the single most important issue to G.O.P. voters. That, along with the conservative animus towards McCain, is why Rudy has the edge."
~ Obamania -- "Amy Goodman for Democracy Now hosts In These Times' Salim Muwakkil and Lynn Sweet from the Chicago Sun-Times, to discuss the politics of the Barack Obama phenomenon. Audio and video clips at the link. Salim has written about Obama and issues of race in this piece for In These Times." Should be a good conversation.
~ Feingold: Democratic Consultants Aiding and Abetting Republican Warlust -- "Discussing the political dynamics of the non-binding resolution opposing escalation in Iraq, Sirota reports the Senator saying: this is a battle between Democrats' Washington consultant class and the rest of the country - and he specifically targets the D.C. elites from the Clinton administration, who he accurately notes largely supported the war from the get-go."


HABITATS
~ Two Americas on Global Warming: 95% of Congressional Dems Polled Accept Man-Made Global Warming Compared to Only 13% of Congressional GOP [Framing Science] -- The article looks at why this might be so.
~ More efficient solar greenhouse developed -- "Researcher Rachel van Ooteghem of the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research has designed a control system for an improved solar greenhouse that..."
~ Skystream Residential Wind Turbines: An Interview with Frank Greco -- "Now that sustainability is a relatively common concept (or at least people understand that climate change is a real threat), we frequently hear people asking, 'How can I live a greener life?'"
~ All Politics is Global: An Interview with Simon Rosenberg -- "Simon Rosenberg is considered among the most important strategic thinkers in American politics. As founder and president of the innovative New Democrat Network, Rosenberg has emerged from the field of traditional activists and operatives as a result of his long-range thinking and pioneering use of new media and technology to reinvent electoral politics."
~ Rare Madagascar Tortoise Hatches at Zoo -- "The Knoxville Zoo says it has become the first U.S. zoo to successfully breed Northern spider tortoises, a subspecies so rare they can no longer be exported from their native Madagascar off Africa's southeastern coast."
~ Exxon Valdez Oil-Spill Toxins Undiminished 16 Years On.
~ For the First Time Ever, a U.S. Court Halts a GMO Field Trial -- "Judge Harold Kennedy found the USDA should have required environmental impact statements before approving field trials of pesticide-resistant creeping bentgrass and Kentucky bluegrass in Oregon."


INTEGRAL/BUDDHIST
~ Sacred Marriage, Part One from Gary at Integral in Seattle. See also: Open Heart, Open Hands.
~ Progress on the book (the axis of the 5th dimension) -- From Joe at Until: "I think I've known for some time that writing Kronology will be the most challenging adventure I've undertaken as a writer... and perhaps in life. But what I didn't expect is just how fun the journey would be."
~ Power Dynamics and Relations in Integral from ebuddha.
~ At Indistinct Union: Fukuyama on Identity Politics.
~ Respect Those Cabinets! -- "Buddhism is about respect -- respect for oneself, respect for one's neighbors, respect for one's enemies, respect for all animals, even respect for your kitchen cabinets."
~ ~Omni-Peephole: Parallel Universes from ~C4Chaos.

Some more fun signs, brought to you by the good people at Dark Roasted Blend.



First off, a few about parking:




Once you start driving there is no guarantee you'll have a smooth journey:






More signs here.

Our definitions of who we have been as human beings keep having to be revised. This story, in particular, may provoke a shift in how we understand the patterns of our evolution as a species. There has never been an example of a double burial from Neolithic cultures -- until now.

Here is the story:

Couple hug for 5,000 years

ROME - Archaeologists in Italy have discovered a couple buried 5,000 to 6,000 years ago, hugging each other.

"It's an extraordinary case," said Elena Menotti, who led the team on their dig near the northern city of Mantova.

"There has not been a double burial found in the Neolithic period, much less two people hugging - and they really are hugging."

Menotti said she believed the two, almost certainly a man and a woman although that needs to be confirmed, died young because their teeth were mostly intact and not worn down.

"I must say that when we discovered it, we all became very excited. I've been doing this job for 25 years. I've done digs at Pompeii, all the famous sites," she said.

"But I've never been so moved because this is the discovery of something special."

A laboratory will now try to determine the couple's age at the time of death and how long they had been buried.

 

Quote of the day:

"Insanity in individuals is something rare - but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule."
~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Image of the day:

BODY
~ BONUS ARTICLE: The Rest-Pause Technique -- By Charles Staley at T-Nation.
~ Conquering Enemies of the Spine -- By Michael Stare and Cassandra Forsythe at T-Nation. "Are you 30 years old but feel like you've got the spine of a 90-year-old well digger? Michael and Cassandra can cure what ails ya'. Practice their deloading drills regularly and your spine will soon be as straight and springy as a young poodle dog's tail."
~ 6 Dumb Training Mistakes: Want to be Stupid? Do One of These things! -- By Christian Thibaudeau. "Thibs is on a mission. The angry Canadian wants to see the incidence of training stupidity decrease. Are you a "kitchen sink" trainer or coach? Have you misinterpreted the concept of overtraining? If so, duck!"
~ Garlic Hope In Cystic Fibrosis Infection Fight -- "Garlic has been hailed a wonder drug for centuries and has been used to prevent gangrene, treat high blood pressure, ward off common colds and is even believed by some to have cancer-fighting properties. Now, scientists at The University of Nottingham are leading a new pilot study to see if the pungent bulb could also hold the key to preventing cystic fibrosis patients from falling foul of a potentially-fatal infection." Mmmm . . . garlic.
~ First nonprescription diet drug wins approval -- "The first over-the-counter weight-loss pill won approval from U.S. health officials on Wednesday, giving the two-thirds of Americans who are obese or overweight another option to help them shed pounds." This is crap -- don't buy it.
~ Human Proteins Evolving Slowly Thanks To Multi-Tasking Genes -- "Many human proteins are not as good as they might be because the gene sequences that code for them have a double role which slows down the rate at which they evolve, according to new research published in PLoS Biology."
~ Breast-feeding enhances kids' eyesight -- "Breast-fed children are significantly more likely to do well in measures of stereoscopic vision than are those who received formula during infancy, according to UK researchers."
~ Drug combo improves Parkinson's -- "Manipulating chemicals in the brain that produce similar effects to marijuana could pave the way for a new treatment for Parkinson’s disease, scientists said on Wednesday."
~ Study: Male sweat causes female hormones to rise -- "Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley have conducted a study that concluded a few whiffs of androstadienone--a pheromone found in male sweat and perfumes--can raise levels of the hormone cortisol in women. Cortisol is associated with stress, but also arousal and brain activation."


PSYCHE
~ Antidepressant, counseling may help hypochondriacs -- "Cognitive behavior therapy and treatment with the antidepressant paroxetine, better known as Paxil or Seroxat, may both be effective short-term treatments for people with an excessive concern about illness, according to Dutch researchers."
~ Doctors’ personal beliefs can hinder care -- "A disturbing number of doctors do not feel obligated to tell patients about medical options they oppose morally, such as abortion and teen birth control, and believe they have no duty to refer people elsewhere for such treatments, researchers say."
~ Born to be bad? Genetic research says maybe -- "If some children seem like they were born to be bad, new research suggests it may be true." Well, that explains a lot.
~ Neuroanatomical basis for Psychic EEG fMRI psychical parasomething ability.
~ Beauty Is In the Eye of the Beer-Holder -- "A research project commissioned by Bausch and Lomb, and headed by Nathan Efron, Professor of Clinical Optometry at the University of Manchester, tried to reduce the "beer goggles effect" down to an equation. No college student is unfamiliar with beer-goggling: that regrettable effect that alcohol and dark rooms have on our ability to judge attractiveness."
~ Survey Identifies Teen Online Behaviors Associated With Online Interpersonal Victimization -- "Teens who talk to strangers online are more likely to become victims of online harassment than those who share their personal information on the Internet."
~ Therapy: The Loneliest Profession -- "The life of a therapist can be socially isolating."
~ Understanding Meditation -- "Exploring some of the mystique and misunderstandings of meditation and finding a method that suits your personality."
~ Learning to Fly -- From Life 2.0.


CULTURE
~ The First Global Think Tank? -- "In a move that portends potentially far-reaching changes in the Washington think-tank scene, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a venerable institution founded in 1910 with money from industrialist Andrew Carnegie, has formally relaunched itself as the 'first multinational and ultimately global – think tank.'"
~ Is Edwards the Howard Dean of 2008? -- "With his anti-war stance and universal health plan, the 2004 VP nominee wants to establish himself as the progressive candidate - forcing Clinton and Obama farther left."
~ Ex-NBA Player Comes Out -- "John Amaechi is gay, and now the first NBA player to come out publicly is ready to talk about it." There are undoubtedly a lot of gay athletes afraid to come out -- maybe this will help.
~ Music: A Sorrowful Lucinda Williams -- "The songs on her new album deal with the death of her mother and the breakup of a love affair--and that’s the good news."
~ Amanda Marcotte Incident Proves The John Edwards Campaign is Run by Troglodytes (and Mitt Romney Likes Balls) -- A liberal blogger gets blind-sided by wingnuts, and The Zero Boss has an opinion. This is another BIG ISSUE in the liberal blogosphere, so The New Republic, among many others, has weighed in: THE LATEST EDWARDS PSEUDO-SCANDAL.
~ If Chris Rock Says It, It's Funny; If Sarah Silverman Says It, It's Tasteless -- Sexism in comedy.
~ Bush DOJ Has Orders to Sic Dems -- "Not only has the Bush administration been purging out-of-favor U.S. attorneys across the nation, it has also been using its DOJ to investigate Democrats far more frequently than Republicans, according to TPMmuckraker. From 2001 to 2006, when Democrats made up just half of all elected officials (local and national) in the country, 79 percent of the DOJ's investigations targeted Dems."
~ Students Use Chat Lingo in Class -- "Middle school teacher Julia Austin is noticing a new generation of errors creeping into her pupils' essays."


HABITATS
~ Wal-Mart, union call for universal health care -- "Wal-Mart and one of its most vocal labor foes joined forces on Wednesday to call for universal health-care coverage for all Americans by 2012, but offered no specific proposals."
~ Orangutans Losing Their Forests Faster Than Expected, Extinction Draws Near, & How You Can Avoid Making Their Prognosis Worse.
~ New data shakes accepted models of collisions of the Earth's crust -- "New research findings may help refine the accepted models used by earth scientists over the past 30 years to describe the ways in which continents clash to form the Earth's landscape."
~ "Global Cooling" Wiped Out North America's Reptiles, Amphibians, Study Finds -- "Fossils suggest a worldwide cold spell millions of years ago caused the extinction of many cold-blooded animals in North America, thanks to a reverse greenhouse effect."
~ Bush’s Budget: Hello Petroleum, Goodbye Endangered Species, Clean Water, Amtrak...
~ In tiny supercooled clouds, physicists exchange light and matter -- "Physicists have for the first time stopped and extinguished a light pulse in one part of space and then revived it in a completely separate location. They accomplished this feat by completely converting the light pulse into matter that travels between the two locations and is subsequently changed back to light."
~ From Burning Silo: close encounters with Dolomedes spiders -- I like spiders, as long as they are in photographs and not in my house.


INTEGRAL/BUDDHIST
~ Meditation sandwich with a side order of impermanence. Nice post.
~ From Ryan at Buddhist Geeks: What Do We Know About Buddhism?!
~ Integrating Rational Distinctions with Expansive Spirituality -- A discussion in the Zaadz I-I pod.
~ From Julian at Zaadz: Z-Bate! #1 {Exchange Two} Faith, Reason & The Four Quadrants.

If you have a minute, go check out The Rise of Christian Fascism and Its Threat to American Democracy over at AlterNet. The title is sure to piss some people off, but Chris Hedges makes some valid points, as I try to outline below. I'm not sure if things are as dire as Hedges suggests, but he clearly gets the source of the issue.

Here is the key section:

[ Dr. James Luther Adams, Hedges ethics professor at Harvard Divinity School] understood that totalitarian movements are built out of deep personal and economic despair. He warned that the flight of manufacturing jobs, the impoverishment of the American working class, the physical obliteration of communities in the vast, soulless exurbs and decaying Rust Belt, were swiftly deforming our society. The current assault on the middle class, which now lives in a world in which anything that can be put on software can be outsourced, would have terrified him. The stories that many in this movement told me over the past two years as I worked on "American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America" were stories of this failure -- personal, communal and often economic. This despair, Adams said, would empower dangerous dreamers -- those who today bombard the airwaves with an idealistic and religious utopianism that promises, through violent apocalyptic purification, to eradicate the old, sinful world that has failed many Americans.

These Christian utopians promise to replace this internal and external emptiness with a mythical world where time stops and all problems are solved. The mounting despair rippling across the United States, one I witnessed repeatedly as I traveled the country, remains unaddressed by the Democratic Party, which has abandoned the working class, like its Republican counterpart, for massive corporate funding.

The Christian right has lured tens of millions of Americans, who rightly feel abandoned and betrayed by the political system, from the reality-based world to one of magic -- to fantastic visions of angels and miracles, to a childlike belief that God has a plan for them and Jesus will guide and protect them. This mythological worldview, one that has no use for science or dispassionate, honest intellectual inquiry, one that promises that the loss of jobs and health insurance does not matter, as long as you are right with Jesus, offers a lying world of consistency that addresses the emotional yearnings of desperate followers at the expense of reality. It creates a world where facts become interchangeable with opinions, where lies become true -- the very essence of the totalitarian state. It includes a dark license to kill, to obliterate all those who do not conform to this vision, from Muslims in the Middle East to those at home who refuse to submit to the movement. And it conveniently empowers a rapacious oligarchy whose god is maximum profit at the expense of citizens.

 

It's rare to see someone actually get what is happening from a big picture, worldview position. Maybe Sam Harris is having more impact that I thought.

I tend to think that Hedges is a little over the top, especially because it seems that the far right is losing some of its power over the last year or so. But he makes one very valid point, one that does scare me a bit -- and I hope it never happens:

The radical Christian right, calling for a "Christian state" -- where whole segments of American society, from gays and lesbians to liberals to immigrants to artists to intellectuals, will have no legitimacy and be reduced, at best, to second-class citizens -- awaits a crisis, an economic meltdown, another catastrophic terrorist strike or a series of environmental disasters. A period of instability will permit them to push through their radical agenda, one that will be sold to a frightened American public as a return to security and law and order, as well as moral purity and prosperity. This movement -- the most dangerous mass movement in American history -- will not be blunted until the growing social and economic inequities that blight this nation are addressed, until tens of millions of Americans, now locked in hermetic systems of indoctrination through Christian television and radio, as well as Christian schools, are reincorporated into American society and given a future, one with hope, adequate wages, job security and generous federal and state assistance.

He is spot-on correct here. The only way to alter a worldview is to change the life conditions that created it or allowed it to rise. This is classic Spiral Dynamics, and it is something that I believe to be true. The question now, when so many of our politicians bow down before the far right even if they don't agree with them (they fear them), is how do we fix it before it does get as bad as Hedges suggests, or before that next event that destabilizes everything?

Water Lily

My whole life is mine, but whoever says so
will deprive me, for it is infinite.
The ripple of water, the shade of the sky
are mine; it is still the same, my life.

No desire opens me: I am full,
I never close myself with refusal-
in the rhythm of my daily soul
I do not desire-I am moved;

by being moved I exert my empire,
making the dreams of night real:
into my body at the bottom of the water
I attract the beyonds of mirrors...

Quote of the day:

"The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is at all comprehensible."
~ Albert Einstein

Image of the day:

BODY
~ Study: Pseudoephedrine can improve performance of runners and other athletes -- But you'll have to wrestle the meth-heads for it.
~ Parents Blind To Their Children's Weight -- "The study of more than 1100 families found that 89 per cent of parents of overweight 5 - 6 year-olds and 63 per cent of parents of overweight 10 - 12 year-olds were unaware their child was overweight."
~ Stroke victims train brains to see again -- "A new study bolsters evidence that people partially blinded by a stroke or brain injury may be able to improve their field of vision by teaching new parts of their brain to see, U.S. researchers said on Thursday."
~ Americans have adopted heart-healthier diets -- "Over the past 20 years, the diets of American adults have become more consistent with most dietary recommendations for heart disease prevention -- but the trend may not be continuing, research suggests." Not the people I see.
~ S. Africa launches biggest AIDS vaccine trial -- "South Africa, burdened with one of the world's major HIV/AIDS epidemics, unveiled plans on Thursday for its biggest AIDS vaccine trial."
~ Autism more common in U.S. than thought -- "Autism is more common in the United States than anyone had estimated, affecting about one in every 150 children, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on Thursday."
~ More Evidence Vitamin D Prevents Cancer -- From Dr. Mercola.
~ Why You Should NOT Use Bottled Water Whenever Possible -- "People pay premium prices for exotic bottled water brands like Fiji and Evian in the hopes that it is more pure than water from nearby sources. However, this puts a giant strain on both the environment and your pocketbook."
~ Fighting Fat With an Earlier Bedtime -- "A new study published in the current Child Development finds that children who sleep more tend to weigh less than children who sleep less and are less likely to be overweight five years later."


PSYCHE
~ Health Tip: Symptoms of Addiction -- "Addiction to drugs or alcohol can lead to a variety of behavioral and physical changes in teenagers."
~ Relationship Of Neonatologists' End Of Life Decisions To Their Personal Fear Of Death -- "Doctors who fear their own death say they are more prepared than other doctors to hasten death in sick newborns for whom further medical treatment is considered futile."
~ The art of decompression: Stress busters that work -- "Stress leaves us exhausted, tearful, and nervous. It also makes us more likely to struggle with high blood pressure, depression, anxiety, and overeating. So what to do? Health.com brings you a slew of strategies that'll help you get your stress in check without doing you in."
~ Dads may increase daughters’ risk of bulimia -- "Fathers are important influences on their daughters’ perceptions of their weight and shape during childhood, and can increase their risk of developing an eating disorder in adolescence, research shows."
~ More spiritual help needed for the dying -- "Doctors may have to take a more active role in addressing the spiritual needs of patients with terminal illnesses, a study suggested on Thursday."
~ Getting Closer: The Art of Self-Disclosure -- "Turning an acquaintance into a good friend can be hard. Whether it's romantic or platonic, there are endless reasons why people fail to connect and maintain their relationships with each other."
~ Can music convey meaning in the same way as language? [Cognitive Daily] -- "The musical notes weren't just noises; they were intended to convey a meaning above and beyond a mere sequence of sounds. But if her music really did convey such deep meaning, why did she have to explain it to the audience beforehand? Can music ever express semantic meaning directly, without requiring a composer or someone else to "translate" for us?"
~ New Games Turn Focus to Mental Health -- "Video games, once the subject of much societal concern, have been receiving something of a PR face-lift recently through cycles of positive media coverage of the potential for healthy lifestyle improvements that come from gaming."
~ Unconscious Shopping [The Frontal Cortex] -- "Another week, another fascinating seminar over at Mind Matters. The paper in question concerns a topic near and dear to me: decision making."
~ Common gene version optimizes thinking -- but with a possible downside -- "Most people inherit a version of a gene that optimizes their brain's thinking circuitry, yet also appears to increase risk for schizophrenia, a severe mental illness marked by impaired thinking, scientists at the National Institutes of Health's (NIH) National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) have discovered."


CULTURE
~ The Ecstasy of Influence -- An essay on plagiarism in which much of the text is plagiarized, sort of.
~ Democratic Presidential Candidate Edwards Releases Universal Health Coverage Plan That Includes Employer Mandates, Regional Health Ins. Purch. Pools.
~ Supporters Push Gore 2008 -- "Veterans of Al Gore's past are quietly assembling a campaign to draft the former vice president into the 2008 presidential race — despite his repeated statements that he's not running."
~ What Pulp Fiction stole from the prophet Ezekiel -- "The Lord vows revenge against the Edomites, Moabites, Philistines, and Ammonites. Why is this chapter important in American pop-cultural history? I didn't know, either, but several readers gave me a heads-up. It's a key source for Pulp Fiction."
~ The critical buzz on Paul Auster -- "Auster's new novel—in which characters from his previous books visit an unnamed amnesiac narrator who seems to represent Auster himself—has exhausted some critics with its metafictional games. Salon sighs, 'When Auster gets cooking, he's like a magician who can amaze us by sawing a woman in half; when he's not, as in Travels in the Scriptorium, it's as if he's sawing away without a woman in the box.'"
~ Ex-Playmate Anna Nicole Smith Dies -- "Anna Nicole Smith, the former Playboy playmate whose bizarre life careened from marrying an octogenarian billionaire to the untimely death of her son, died Thursday after collapsing at a South Florida hotel." May she find some peace.
~ NYC Cabbie Finds and Returns Gems -- "Honesty was the best policy for New York taxi driver Osman Chowdhury, who found 31 diamond rings in his cab -- and returned them to their owner."
~ Worst President Ever? -- "Is George W. Bush the worst President the United States has ever seen? Nicholas von Hoffman examines how Bush stacks up in a race to the bottom with other miserable failures who occupied the White House."
~ Gallery: Toys for Grown-Ups -- "In Japan, toys aren't just for kids. From drinking game accessories to ghost detectors, you can have fun at any age."


HABITATS
~ If Leonardo Had Made Toys -- "LEONARDO DA VINCI’S 15th-century vision of mechanical flight apparently never included fixed wings assisted by propellers or jet engines. His chief inspiration was birds, reflected in drawings of a flying machine fashioned to stay aloft by flapping its wings."
~ The Alarm Clock as a Moving Target. Catch It if You Can -- "This alarm clock doesn’t just make noise, it breaks the snooze-button habit: after the first snooze period, Clocky rolls off the nightstand and runs away."
~ AOL Founder to Launch Revolutionhealth.com -- "Steve Case's Web Site Will Include Expert Advice, Patient's Doctor Ratings."
~ Microsoft's new OS Vista spurs computer sales -- "US sales of computers carrying Microsoft's new operating system Vista soared in the week after it was launched, defying the expectations of analysts who gave Vista lackluster reviews."
~ Group Names Top 10 Polluting Refineries -- "Environmental activists on Thursday said more stringent air-quality regulations are needed for oil refineries along the Gulf Coast, a region densely populated with petroleum industry plants."
~ Sea Shepherd Ships Attack Japanese Whaling Fleet in Antarctic Waters -- "The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society’s two ships, the Farley Mowat and the Robert Hunter, have found the Japanese whaling fleet in Antarctic waters after six weeks of searching and attacked them."
~ Enceladus, a moon of Saturn, is a 'cosmic graffiti artist,' astronomers discover -- "Astronomers from the University of Virginia and other institutions have found that Enceladus, the sixth-largest moon of Saturn, is a "cosmic graffiti artist," pelting the surfaces of at least 11 other moons of Saturn with ice particles sprayed from its spewing surface geysers."
~ Coyote-Tracking Web Site Exposes Canine, Human Troublemakers -- "A project that tracks coyotes in real time can pinpoint which animals are at risk of becoming urban pests—and which households might be to blame." Awww, leave the poor coyotes alone.


INTEGRAL/BUDDHIST
~ BIG LOVE, Big heart, Big Life from Gary at Integral in Seattle, on relationships and love. See also Shamanic Breathwork and Open Heart. Gary is doing some good stuff, check it out.
~ The eclipse of a cry -- An excellent post from Dave at Via Negativa on poetry.
~ What is a Kronoscope? -- "Kronoscopes are one of the first applications of Kronology, the holistic symbolic system that I am developing for my forthcoming book." From Joe at Until.
~ From Lotus In the Mud: do amida buddhists meditate? - updated.
~ Inevitable Consequences! On Karma.
~ Bruce Lipton on Epigenetics -- Two videos.

In a practical, no fun kind of way, this list makes a lot of sense. Too many people think that love is all you need and then end up hating each other because of one of these issues. Relationships have to work in all quadrants, including the less fun ones like finances or shared beliefs.

This is from The New York Times:

Relationship experts report that too many couples fail to ask each other critical questions before marrying. Here are a few key ones that couples should consider asking:

1) Have we discussed whether or not to have children, and if the answer is yes, who is going to be the primary care giver?

2) Do we have a clear idea of each other’s financial obligations and goals, and do our ideas about spending and saving mesh?

3) Have we discussed our expectations for how the household will be maintained, and are we in agreement on who will manage the chores?

4) Have we fully disclosed our health histories, both physical and mental?

5) Is my partner affectionate to the degree that I expect?

6) Can we comfortably and openly discuss our sexual needs, preferences and fears?

7) Will there be a television in the bedroom?

8) Do we truly listen to each other and fairly consider one another’s ideas and complaints?

9) Have we reached a clear understanding of each other’s spiritual beliefs and needs, and have we discussed when and how our children will be exposed to religious/moral education?

10) Do we like and respect each other’s friends?

11) Do we value and respect each other’s parents, and is either of us concerned about whether the parents will interfere with the relationship?

12) What does my family do that annoys you?

13) Are there some things that you and I are NOT prepared to give up in the marriage?

14) If one of us were to be offered a career opportunity in a location far from the other’s family, are we prepared to move?

15) Does each of us feel fully confident in the other’s commitment to the marriage and believe that the bond can survive whatever challenges we may face?

 

Tricycle's Daily Dharma: February 9, 2007:

 

So Much Goodness

The practice of metta, uncovering the force of love that can uproot fear, anger, and guilt, begins with befriending ourselves. The foundation of metta practice is to know how to be our own friend. According to the Buddha, "You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection." How few of us embrace ourselves in this way! With metta practice we uncover the possibility of truly respecting ourselves. We discover, as Walt Whitman put it, "I am larger and better than I thought. I did not think I held so much goodness."

~ Sharon Salzberg, Lovingkindness, from Everyday Mind, edited by Jean Smith, a Tricycle book.

They're so pretty . . . and poisonous.

From Dark Roasted Blend:

Not all beautiful frogs depicted here are poisonous, but those who are - can be very deadly indeed. The most poisonous animal is not a snake or a spider. It's a beautiful little frog! "Most frogs produce skin toxins, but the dart poison frogs from Central and South America are the most potent of all. The golden poison frog, called terribilis (the terrible), is so toxic that even touching it can be dangerous. A single terribilis contains enough poison to kill 20,000 mice or 10 people. It is probably the most poisonous animal on Earth." (source)

There are a lot more frog pictures at the site.

Tricycle's Daily Dharma: February 10, 2007:

The Truth of Suffering

The essence of the Buddha's message is contained in the Four Noble Truths. The first of these is the truth of suffering.... The Buddha declared that all our experiences of joy, indifference and pain are unsatisfactory. Are not even our greatest mundane pleasures tainted with dissatisfaction? When these pleasures pass away are we not left with unfulfilled longing and discontent? But in spite of this, we tend to cling to the pleasures of life, ignoring our transient nature.....

The suffering we must recognize includes not only the kind we experience at the loss of a loved one, or when we lose our job for example, but also includes the more fundamental conditions of our human experience, namely, aging, sickness, and death.

~ B. Alan Wallace, Tibetan Buddhism from the Ground Up, from Everyday Mind, edited by Jean Smith, a Tricycle book.

I feel I want to add that suffering is not the inherent state of all things, but only the result of our egos clinging to desires, wants, and needs. We are all already enlightened, but our egos stand between us and that awareness.

Too many people, I think, hear the First Noble Truth and think that Buddhism is a pessimistic approach to life. Quite the opposite. Buddhism offers us the hope -- and the tools -- to free ourselves from the limited viewpoint of ego attachment, to know ourselves as we already are -- filled with Buddhanature.

Rolling Stone has a fairly lengthy piece on Barack Obama, the charismatic candidate many of us hope can show himself worthy of our vote for president.

Destiny's Child

No candidate since Robert F. Kennedy has sparked as much campaign-trail heat as Barack Obama. But can the one-term senator craft a platform to match his charisma?
By BEN WALLACE-WELLS

Shortly after Barack Obama was elected to the United States Senate in 2004, he began residing, Monday through Thursday, in a one-bedroom apartment a few blocks from the Capitol. For a forty-three-year-old man who had been married for thirteen years and who had two young daughters, it was an isolating experience. The building has a yoga studio and a running track and a decidedly own-and-urban view of some ratty rooftops in the city's tiny Chinatown district; its decor, glass and brick, is less U.S. senator than junior management consultant. In his return to bachelor life, Obama found himself "soft and helpless. My first morning in Washington, I realized I'd forgotten to buy a shower curtain and had to scrunch up against the shower wall in order to avoid flooding the bathroom floor." The other new Democrat elected to the Senate that year, Ken Salazar of Colorado, took an apartment in the same building with his brother John, who is himself a congressman; they spent their time watching documentaries about leathery old cowboys on the Western Channel. Obama spent most of his time reading briefing books.

When Obama first got to Washington, he wanted to be a wonk, to keep his head down and concentrate on small issues. "The plan was: Put Illinois first," one of his aides tells me. Obama himself admits that his initial agenda had a "self-conscious" modesty. His early legislative accomplishments have been useful and bipartisan -- he has even sponsored bills with ultraconservative Sen. Tom Coburn, who believes that high school bathrooms breed lesbianism -- but they have been small-scale and off the headlines: a plan to make it easier for citizens to find out about government spending, increased research into ethanol, more job training and tax credits for "responsible fathers." This is the kind of head-down diligence that plays well in the Senate. "I am amazed by his sheer stamina," says Sen. Dick Lugar, a Republican from Indiana who has become something of a mentor to Obama.

But Washington has plenty of wonks, and Obama wasn't going to distinguish himself through diligence alone. He came to the Capitol equipped with his own, swelling celebrity; the Senate was not a perfect fit. Beyond his considerable charm, Obama can be righteous and cocky. He came to Washington pushing the hope that politics could be better -- but now he can give the impression that he'd rather be just about anywhere other than in Washington. "It can be incredibly frustrating," he tells me. "The maneuverings, the chicanery, the smallness of politics here." Listening to a bloviating colleague at his first meeting of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Obama slipped a three-word note to a member of his staff: "Shoot. Me. Now." On a recent day, as Obama made his way through the Capitol's corridors, his fellow senators seemed like good-natured sportscasters, jolly and easy with their power, bantering about the fortunes of baseball teams in their home states. . Obama is aloof and quiet. He prefers to listen, attentive as a rector, not quite of this world, silently measuring it. "The typical politician pushes himself on people to get them to pay attention," says Frank Luntz, the Republican campaign strategist. "Obama is quieter. He doesn't push -- he has a laid-back feel that pulls you in. That is so rare."

 

Read the whole article.

I found this at Former Fat Guy, and I thought that it was good advice:

10 Changes To Your Diet That Will Instantly Make it 90% Better

Most individuals do not eat like they are supposed to. Out of those individuals 95% of them don’t realize that by making 10 simple changes to their eating lifestyle they can improve their diet by 90% along with improving their health and overall well-being.

Apply these changes to your diet today and you too will be experiencing an increased benefit to your health, probable weight loss, a leaner body, and likely improvements to your blood profile. This all equals a longer healthier life.

Now let’s get started so you can benefit from these 10 simple changes that everyone can make immediately.

1. Hydration: Is there a difference

Consume Green Tea or Water instead of calorie filled drinks such as soft drinks. Green Tea has many health benefits and is a powerful antioxidant. You should be drinking 1ml of non-caffeinated fluid for every calorie that you consume. This works out between (8-12) 8oz glasses of Green Tea or Water a day.

2. Benefits of Fiber

Recommend consuming 25-35 grams of fiber per day. Since the average diet contains only 14 grams we could all use more fiber. Fiber will help satisfy hunger pangs as well as control insulin and blood sugar levels which tend to promote fat storage when they are elevated. By simply eating at least 1 serving of fruit and vegetables at every meal should get you to the goal of 25-35 grams of fiber per day.

3. The Importance of Protein

Eat lean protein sources which include; lean beef, chicken breasts, turkey breasts, salmon, low-fat cottage cheese and other low-fat dairy products, and whey protein powders, at every meal. This will also help control insulin levels and satisfy hunger pangs which tend to promote fat storage. You will find yourself naturally eating less food throughout the day if you eat some type of lean protein at every meal.

4. Frequent Meals: Why?

Eat 4-6 small meals day a day instead of the usual 2-3 large meals. Eating frequently will help regulate and boost your metabolism to burn more calories. By also including your protein and vegetables at these meals you will tend to eat less overall thereby reducing your calorie intake.

5. What are Whole Foods?

Consume whole foods that are high in fiber and low in sugar such as lean protein (lean beef, chicken, fish, and whey protein), fruits & vegetables (oranges, apples, strawberries, blueberries, broccoli, peppers, asparagus, carrots, nuts (almonds, cashews, & walnuts), and whole grains.
Try to minimize processed foods that come in a box or a bag. Instead choose whole grain choices such as whole wheat foods, oatmeals, and vegetables.

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