Quote of the day:

"A gentleman is a man who can play the accordion but doesn't."
~ Unknown

Image of the day:


BODY
~ Eccentrics with Pavel -- "Pavel and Chad and bears, oh my! Pavel and Chad and bears, oh my! Okay, there are no bears in this article, but hey, Pavel Tsatsouline and Chad Waterbury working together ought to be exciting enough!"
~ Your Brain And Hormones May Conspire To Make You Fat -- "Why do some people get fat even when they eat relatively little? What creates that irresistible urge for a bag of potato chips or a hunk of chocolate cake, as opposed to a nice crisp apple? Can food urges be irresistible? Physiologists are unraveling the role that your hormones and brain play in urging you to eat more than you should." As always, biology is NOT destiny.
~ Green Tea Compound May Be A Therapy For Rheumatoid Arthritis -- "A new study from the University of Michigan Health System suggests that a compound in green tea may provide therapeutic benefits to people with rheumatoid arthritis. The study, presented April 29 at the Experimental Biology 2007 in Washington, D.C., looks at a potent anti-inflammatory compound derived from green tea."
~ Study Shows No Link Between Self-Weighing And Depression In Women -- "Frequent self-weighing is not associated with depression in women, according to researchers at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health. A study being published in a recent issue of Preventive Medicine found no strong evidence linking frequent scale stepping and depression in women. In addition, self-weighing daily, rather than once every week or month, was associated with lower Body Mass Index (BMI) levels in women 40 years or older."
~ Intersterified Oils: The New Trans Fats? -- "Laws requiring trans fats or partially hydrogenated oils to be listed on nutrition labels went into effect last year, so food manufacturers are finally eliminating them from their products. One substitute that is appearing in some foods is a new type of fat made with a process called interesterification or fatty acid randomization. Interesterified oils have saturated fatty acids, usually from plants, inserted into other vegetable oils. A study from Brandeis University shows that both interesterified fats and partially hydrogenated oils raise the bad LDL and lower the good HDL cholesterol much more than the plant saturated fats found in palm, palm kernel and coconut oils."
~ Study Outlines Fat Hormone's Role in Breast Cancer (HealthDay) -- "Italian researchers are shedding light on how leptin, a hormone found in fat cells, may play a major role in the development and progression of breast cancer."
~ Scientists Prepare for Study on Cherries -- "After getting promising results from experiments with rats, University of Michigan scientists say they're preparing for a clinical study of whether eating tart cherries can help people reduce risk of heart disease and diabetes...."
~ How pistachios help the heart -- "A handful or two of pistachio nuts a day could keep heart disease at bay, research suggests. They appear to lower cholesterol and keep arteries healthy."
~ Why alcohol boosts breast cancer risk: study -- "A study in mice shows that moderate alcohol consumption stimulates the growth and progression of breast cancer by fueling the development of new blood vessels -- a process called "angiogenesis." It does this by boosting expression of a key growth factor known as vascular endothelial growth factor or VEGF."


PSYCHE
~ Cannabis chemical curbs psychotic symptoms -- "One of the active chemicals in cannabis inhibits psychotic symptoms in people with schizophrenia, according to a study which compared it with a leading anti-psychotic drug." See also: Doctors: Pot Triggers Psychotic Symptoms. Hmmm, I'm confused.
~ Scientists Restore Lost Memory in Alzheimer's-Like Mice (HealthDay) -- "In a new study, mice bioengineered to mimic the fading memory of Alzheimer's patients got their memories restored -- either by being placed in stimulating environments or by receiving a drug most commonly used to fight cancer."
~ Perfectionists more stressed by pressure -- "Perfectionists are more sensitive to psychosocial stresses than their more relaxed peers, and this greater responsiveness to stress may have health consequences."
~ Are you interested in reading about creativity? -- A list of books (with links) on creativity.
~ Nobel Winning Economist Discusses His Own Asperger's Syndrome -- "The excellent economics blog Marginal Revolution pointed out this nice YouTube video of Nobel Prize winning economist Vernon Smith. Working and teaching at George Mason University, Smith has been outspoken about his own experiences with Asperger's, and his achievements serve as a powerful reminder of what many who deal with Asperger's can accomplish."
~ Emotion research needs you -- "Jeremy Dean is the author of PsyBlog and also a postgraduate psychology researcher. He's asking for people to spend 15 minutes completing some online questionnaires as part of a study on emotion."
~ Introducing Frigidity -- "Recently there has been a lot of talk, here at this blog (Kripke, Consciousness and the 'Corn, and Two Concepts of Transitive Consciousness) and over at the Brain Hammer (Me So 'Corny, Kripkenite, and Crushing Puppies, Superman) about kripke and causal theories of reference. I have been arguing that a causal theory of reference is independently motivated and if we happen to like higher-order theories of consciousness it gives us a very nice answer to several objections that seem wide spread and in fact gives us an implementation of the higher-order strategy and saves very many of the Cartesian intuitions that people have about consciousness." Geek stuff, but cool.
~ Speed Dating put to the test -- "Psychologists are very interested in first impressions, and in the nature of romantic attraction. What makes a date attractive, very quickly and in a romantic way? And what turns people off? Is falling in love just a subset of liking?"


CULTURE/POLITICS
~ ID and Junk DNA [Dispatches from the Culture Wars] -- Using "junk DNA" to disprove "intelligent design."
~ Golden Guide to Hallucinogenic Plants -- "Online psychedelic drug archive Erowid has scanned in a copy of a classic guide to hallucinogenic plants of the world and how they are used by native peoples. The Golden Guide to Hallucinogenic Plants is by pioneering ethnobotanist, Richard E. Schultes."
~ Spidey the Swinger -- "In 'Spider-Man 3,' our once reluctant hero gets a little cocky--until he discovers his dark side." In case you care.
~ What happens to our forces in Iraq if Bush vetoes the war spending bill? -- "This week, President Bush is expected to veto a $124.2 billion war spending bill that stipulates a timeline for withdrawing troops from Iraq. Lawmakers may revise the legislation, but in the meantime, could the armed forces run out of money?"
~ Editor's Cut: Twelve Steps to Cutting Poverty in Half -- "A bold new plan would improve the lives of 37 million American adults and children. Do we have the political will to do it?"
~ U.S. Given Map That Named America -- "German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday officially handed over to the United States the 500-year-old map that was the first to tell the world of a new land it called America."
~ Does Hillary want Gore to run? -- "Normally you don't advertise to potential donors and operatives that they might want to save their money and time for some other candidate who's not yet in the race, right? But when you think about it, a Gore entry might be good for Hillary--it would dilute the field opposing her, allowing her to maybe squeak by with a plurality victory. ..."
~ Beware the Tennessee Twosome -- "If the Tennessee twosome of Al Gore and Fred Thompson keep the political world guessing much longer about their presidential ambitions, they might find themselves crowned as front-runners. That is an exaggeration of course, but as the former Democratic vice president and one-time Republican U.S. senator turned actor keep considering their White House options, their poll numbers keep rising."
~ The Strange Death of Multiculturalism -- "The ideal of multiculturalism at home was echoed with an ideology of cultural relativism abroad, especially in the 1970's and 1980's. This evolved stealthily into a form of moral racism which held that white Europeans deserved liberal democracy but that people of different cultures had to wait for it. African dictators might do dreadful things but somehow they did not meet with condemnation from many European intellectuals, for criticism implied cultural arrogance."


HABITATS/TECHNOLOGY
~ Geologists Study Mount Baker Happenings -- "More than three decades after steam bursts from Mount Baker resulted in a temporary evacuation of the Baker Lake area, geologists are trying to determine what is happening beneath the volcano."
~ New VERITAS telescope array may help find 'dark matter' -- "Scientists in the Northern Hemisphere have opened a new window on the universe allowing them to explore and understand the cosmos at a much higher level of precision than was previously available. Think of it as acquiring a new pair of glasses that allow you to see more clearly. These new "glasses" are VERITAS, (the Very Energetic Radiation Imaging Telescope Array System), a major new ground-based gamma-ray observatory, designed to provide an in-depth examination of the universe."
~ Ape gestures offer clues to the evolution of human communication -- "Researchers at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center, Emory University, have found bonobos and chimpanzees use manual gestures of their hands, feet and limbs more flexibly than they do facial expressions and vocalizations, further supporting the evolution of human language began with gestures as the gestural origin hypothesis of language suggests."
~ Finding the God Particle [commonground] -- "Physicists in Canada have a brand new atom smasher designed to reveal one of the Universe's great secrets: Why does matter have mass? The unsexy sounding still though theoretical sub-atomic particle Hobbs boson has an ecumenical alias the "God particle." Given the pronounced views on God professed by many scientists, the name alone is interesting."
~ My little world (and yours, too) -- "Imagine, as a thought experiment, that everyone on the planet had the same share of the world's resources. It turns out your share is about six acres (2.5 hectares) of dry land. Now imagine if that were your whole world. How would you treat it?"
~ Noxious Lightning -- "Lightning is more than light and noise: It's an intense chemical factory that affects both local air quality and global climate. But how big is the effect? Researchers aren't sure. To answer the question they're developing a new technique to estimate the factory's output."
~ U.S. and China Object to Global Warming Report -- "The U.S. and China are disputing a climate report proposed by scientists." Imagine that -- the world's two largest polluters don't want the study.


INTEGRAL/BUDDHIST
~ Breaking of the bread -- "I've recently begun conversations with friends about the possibility that the time has finally arrived for me to formally enter the religious life. My path of discernment has led not only to the need to embrace a particular religious community, but also the desire to follow the Spirit into the way of a community devoted to living the Apostolic calling and embracing Jesus Christ himself as the ideal model for being and becoming more fully human."
~ Buddhist Geeks 17: Genpo “Big Mind’s” Gwen -- "In this final segment with Genpo Roshi, Gwen Bell is guided through the Big Mind process. This final portion of the interview gives listeners a rare opportunity to listen to the Big Mind experience happen unscripted and raw."
~ What is Vesak? -- "On Vesak Day, Buddhists all over the world commemorate events of significance to Buddhists of all traditions: The Birth, Enlightenment and the Passing Away of Gautama Buddha."
~ Philosophy the Matrix & Kabbalah -- "I rediscovered the Matrix trilogy this weekend when I accidentally stumbled across two interesting documentaries on the series."
~ GUDO'S ANSWERS -- "Recently a guy named Gustav sent Gudo Nishijima a list of questions. He sent his answers out to several of his students. I thought you might enjoy seeing them. I have not rewritten these at all, so the funny grammar is still as I received it. Enjoy."

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I found this article by Poonam Sharma, Ph.D. through The Art of Intimacy. It's basically a summary of some research by John Gottman, PhD. on how relationships (marriage is his focus) can self-destruct. Sharma adds some ways we can nurture relationships to avoid the Four Horsemen.

Marriage and Health
by Poonam Sharma, Ph.D.

A bad marriage or long-term relationship can have detrimental effects on your health, while a good one can protect you from disease and speed recovery. Sociologist Linda Waite, Ph.D., says, "Marriage is sort of like a life preserver or a seat belt. We can put it exactly in the same category as eating a good diet, getting exercise, and not smoking."

John Gottman, Ph.D., a well-respected psychologist and marriage researcher reports that an unhappy marriage can increase your chances of becoming ill by 35% and take four years off your life! He believes “working on your marriage every day will do more for your health and longevity than working out at a health club".

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

Although many of us believe that anger is the root cause of unhappy relationships, Gottman notes that it is not conflict itself that is the problem, but how we handle it. Venting anger constructively can actually do wonders to clear the air and get a relationship back in balance. However, conflict does become a problem when it is characterized by the presence of what Gottman calls the “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse:” criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling.

1. Criticism. Criticism involves attacking your partner’s personality or character, rather than focusing on the specific behavior that bothers you. It is healthy to air disagreements, but not to attack your spouse’s personality or character in the process. This is the difference between saying, “I’m upset that you didn’t take out the trash” and saying, “I can’t believe you didn’t take out the trash. You’re just so irresponsible.” In general, women are more likely to pull this horseman into conflict.

2. Contempt. Contempt is one step up from criticism and involves tearing down or being insulting toward your partner. Contempt is an open sign of disrespect. Examples of contempt include: putting down your spouse, rolling your eyes or sneering, or tearing down the other person with so-called “humor.”

3. Defensiveness. Adopting a defensive stance in the middle of conflict may be a natural response, but does not help the relationship. When a person is defensive, he or she often experiences a great deal of tension and has difficulty tuning into what is being said. Denying responsibility, making excuses, or meeting one complaint with another are all examples of defensiveness.

4. Stonewalling. People who stonewall simply refuse to respond. Occasional stonewalling can be healthy, but as a typical way of interacting, stonewalling during conflict can be destructive to the marriage. When you stonewall on a regular basis, you are pulling yourself out of the marriage, rather than working out your problems. Men tend to engage in stonewalling much more often than women do.

All couples will engage in these types of behaviors at some point in their marriage, but when the four horsemen take permanent residence, the relationship has a high likelihood of failing. In fact, Gottman’s research reveals that the chronic presence of these four factors in a relationship can be used to predict, with over 80% accuracy, which couples will eventually divorce. When attempts to repair the damage done by these horsemen are met with repeated rejection, Gottman says there is over a 90% chance the relationship will end in divorce.

Check out the rest of the article to get some tips on how to avoid letting the Four Horsemen into your marriage/relationship.
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Writing over at Real Clear Politics, Ian Buruma laments The Strange Death of Multiculturalism in his native Netherlands.

The ideal of multiculturalism at home was echoed with an ideology of cultural relativism abroad, especially in the 1970’s and 1980’s. This evolved stealthily into a form of moral racism which held that white Europeans deserved liberal democracy but that people of different cultures had to wait for it. African dictators might do dreadful things but somehow they did not meet with condemnation from many European intellectuals, for criticism implied cultural arrogance.

The Netherlands, where I was born, has perhaps been divided by the debate over multiculturalism more than any other country. The murder of the filmmaker Theo van Gogh two and a half years ago by an Islamist assassin has incited a wrenching debate about the country’s entrenched culture of tolerance and easy access for asylum-seekers.

Long before the arrival of Muslim guest workers in the 1960’s and 1970’s Dutch society was in a sense ‘multicultural’ in that it was already organised into Protestant, Catholic, liberal and socialist “pillars,” each with its own schools, hospitals, TV stations, papers and political parties. When guest workers from Morocco and Turkey became de facto immigrants, some began to champion the creation of an additional Muslim pillar.

But at the moment that multiculturalism’s advocates were making this suggestion, Dutch society was undergoing a dramatic transition. With secularization taking hold, the traditional pillars began to break down.

Moreover, fierce attacks on Muslims started to come from people who, raised in deeply religious families, had turned into radical leftists in the 1960’s and 1970’s. From defining themselves as anti-colonialists and anti-racists – champions of multiculturalism -- they have become fervent defenders of so-called Enlightenment values against Muslim orthodoxy. These people feared the comeback of religion; that the Protestant or Catholic oppressiveness they knew first-hand might be replaced by equally oppressive Muslim codes of conduct.

But their turn away from multiculturalism is not what prevented the emergence of a “Islamic” pillar in Dutch society. The main problem with this idea was that people from Turkey, Morocco, and the Arab countries, some deeply religious and some quite secular, and all with perceptible animosities towards each other, would never have agreed on what should constitute such a pillar.

In any case, it is now too late to create such a pillar. With the earlier pillars having collapsed, the emergence of a new one would bring about a situation where an increasingly integrated majority would be negotiating with a minority, thus perpetuating its isolation in the process.

Whether Europeans like it or not, Muslims are part of Europe. Many will not abandon their religion, so Europeans must learn to live with them and with Islam. Of course, this will be easier if Muslims come to believe that the system also works to their benefit. Liberal democracy and Islam are reconcilable. Indonesia’s current political transition from dictatorship to democracy, although no unqualified success, shows that this is achievable.

Read the rest.

Roger Kimball, writing over at The New Criterion blog, thinks that Buruma tries too hard to straddle a fence between good and evil, and he takes issue with Buruma's efforts to maintain some form of multiculturalism in a post-9/11 world:

The case of Mr. Buruma illustrates an important point: That the "openness" that liberal society rightly cherishes is not a vacuous openness to all points of view: it is not "value neutral." It need not, indeed it cannot, say Yes to all comers, to the Islamofascist who after all has his point of view, just as much as the soccer mom, who has hers. Western democratic society is rooted in a particular vision of what Aristotle called "the good for man." The question is: Do we, as a society, still have confidence in the animating values of the vision? Do we possess the requisite will to defend them? Or was François Revel right when he said that "Democratic civilization is the first in history to blame itself because another power is trying to destroy it"? The jury is still out on those questions. How they are answered will determine the future not only of Western universities but also of that astonishing spiritual-political experiment that is Western democratic liberalism.

Not surprisingly, I think they are both missing the point.

Multiculturalism is a valuable step in human evolution, but it has degenerated into political correctness and cultural relativism, as Ken Wilber has so cogently pointed out over the years. But postmodernism has a plus side as well, and it has contributed much to our understanding of the world:

"This is where postformal developments are so important. For the pluralistic stage takes formalism and differentiates it into numerous, multiple systems, each with its own wonderful richness, color, local context, and diverse backgrounds. This is, of course, the major wave behind multiculturalism, the diversity movements, and postmodernism in general. It is responsible for being able to take multiple perspectives and appreciate all of them with sensitivity and care.

"However, as so many researchers have pointed out, if the pluralistic wave succeeds in differentiating the many cultural systems into numerous meta-systems, it cannot yet integrate them. This is why postmodernism tends to end up in mere fragmentation, alienation, and despair. Only with the next wave of consciousness development--that of the integral or holistic wave--are the numerous differentiated systems brought together into an integrated tapestry that, while honoring their important differences, sets them in an integrated context that finds unity and wholeness as well. [Wilber]

 

One of the ways Wilber distinguishes whether the postmodern, post-formal stage of development will go awry or not is by understanding if it is passed through as a communal stage or an agentic stage. He contends that 60% or so of those at this stage are in the communal version, which he believes results in these people getting stuck in the Mean Green Meme, or Boomeritis. Please note that Wilber is using color terminology from Spiral Dynamics in this passage -- Green is essentially a post-formal, relativist stage.

"Now I believe that such is often the case, but it is not necessarily or inherently the case. I believe the evidence strongly suggests that any stage can take on an agentic or a communal tone. If we look at the four basic structures we are talking about--concrete, formal, pluralistic, integral--there is nothing about those stages that says, this stage inherently must be agentic and this one must be communal. So here is my suggestion: every stage can be experienced in either a relatively agentic or communal fashion . And that means that green can exist in both hot and cool tones--there is both agentic green and communal green. In fact, it appears that whether a particular stage is agentic or communal depends on factors in all four quadrants . Let me give some quick examples:

"In the Upper-Right quadrant, a major contributing factor is whether you are a male or female. If you are a male, then you are more likely to experience most stages of growth with a relative emphasis on agency. When you go through the concrete stage (blue), you might be a John Wayne--a strong defender of traditional communal values, but carried out in a very strong agentic fashion! (Because SD incorrectly insists that blue is communal by nature, it is forced to say that John Wayne is 'dipping back into red' for his agentic tilt; but that is exactly what John Wayne's screen character is not : his character is humble, self-facing, never takes credit, just does his duty, fights for God and country, never complains, never draws attention to himself: he has so little red it's pathetic! What he is, is strong agentic blue , a fact SD can't account for). Of course, if you are a man with a more communal personality, then you will experience blue in a more communal way. Likewise a woman with a more agentic personality will be more individualistic at this stage, and so on. There is no biological determinism here, it is simply that biological factors in the UR quadrant have a significant hand in determining how the stages will be experienced, and that means that, on average , males will experience stages more agentically and females more communally (probably testosterone and oxytocin, but that's another topic). The point is that each stage can tilt toward agentic or communal, depending on various factors in the UR.

"Likewise, of course, with factors in the Lower-Left quadrant: one's cultural background will have a very strong say in how individuals experience the stages of development. I was talking with a friend from Japan just yesterday, and he said that his countrymen just do not have any stage that is highly agentic; it would kill most males or females to be highly individualistic. 'We have a saying: the nail that stands out, gets hammered down.' This is often thought to be why the Japanese receive so few Nobel prizes--which demand individual, creative initiative--but are so good at taking other inventions and perfecting them. Well, the point is simply that, in Japan, all of the stages tend to have a strongly communal tone to them. Put it this way: orange in Japan is as communal as blue in America; moreover, according to my friend, the social herd pressure at orange is just as strong as it is at blue--there is very little 'alternating' going on here because the LL quadrant is so powerful in Japan.

"Look now at some of the factors in the Lower-Right quadrant: the social system itself--and especially the techno-economic base--can exert a profound influence on whether a stage will be experienced agentically or communally. Foraging, herding, industrial, and informational bases select strongly for agency; horticultural, agrarian, and maritime, more for communal. Horticultural red is actually very communal, herding red is flamingly agentic.

"Well, perhaps you see my point. I do not believe that there is anything inherent in the cognitive basic structures of a stage that says this stage must in all ways be agentic or must be communal. The relative strength of agency and communion at every stage is a product of factors in all four quadrants--intentional, behavioral, social, and cultural.

"Now this implies the following: because of factors in all four quadrants, the pluralistic stage in this country has been largely experienced as a communalistic stage, and SD has described that stage fairly accurately as the green meme. HOWEVER, many people--I would say, based on deductions from Paul Ray's research, about 40% of those who go through the pluralistic level--experience that pluralistic level in strongly individualistic terms. In other words, they don't go through a communal green-pluralism but an agentic green-pluralism. Not cool green, but hot green; not self-sacrificing but self-assertive; not politically correct, but politically individualistic. Both agentic and communal green are still pluralistic (they both share the same basic level of consciousness, which is postformal pluralistic-relative), but agentic is individual-emphasizing and communal is group-emphasizing. These agentic folks are exactly the second-tier people who read SD and say, 'I don't have a green bone in my body--I did not go thru a green stage!' These are the folks that led Jenny to question, correctly, whether the green meme--as described by SD--is a real stage (and she's right: no, it isn't. But the pluralistic stage is. In other words, cool green--which is the ONLY green for SD--is not a universal stage, because there is also hot green. Thus, everybody goes through green, but it can be either cool or hot, depending on the four quadrants. The pluralistic green wave is universal, but neither cool green nor hot green is. So you can indeed get to second tier without ever going through cool green.)

 

If Wilber is correct, and many people feel is not, pathological postmodernism is largely communal, or culturally based, while healthy postmodernism is more agentic and individually based. Personally, I think he gets into trouble here by applying gender tags to each version (communal = female / agentic = male), but that's his cross to bear. I might be risking some serious flaming here, but in this formulation Wilber appears to be promulgating the patripsyche (an internalized form of patriarchal values that tends to reject feminine values).

If we look at the idea of multiculturalism (MC from now on), and its possible death, with all this information in mind, then I think we can begin to see both why multiculturalism might be in trouble, and why we need to transcend and include its best offerings.

Communal MC is what most people are rejecting when they reject MC as too relativist and too inclusive (an inclusivity that blames itself for other's pain -- and inherently threatens its own existence by neglecting to respect hierarchies for anything, but especially for value systems that want to destroy it). But it is also communal MC or postmodernism that brought us the feminist movement, racial equality, environmentalism, and a whole list of other communal values -- so I think it's hard to argue that it's all about communal MC being bad.

Agentic MC is not subject to these problems, supposedly, but is much more individualistic. As Wilber says, "not self-sacrificing but self-assertive; not politically correct, but politically individualistic." If Wilber is right about this, America -- with its powerful respect for individualism and autonomy -- ought not be subject to communal MC pathologies, but as he has so often pointed out, it is. This is true especially in the academic world and in radical Leftist politics.

So, then, the question is: Does the academic environment foster a communal mindset or does it reward those who already possess it? Most would agree that radical Leftist politics attracts those who already possess a communal mindset, especially as a result of its reliance on Marxist, socialist ideals.

I think the communal / agentic split is a red herring.

While Buruma laments the decline of multiculturalism in his own nation, and rightfully so since it appears that it is being rejected wholesale and not transcended into a more integral understanding, many in this country applaud the decline of MC's influence in the university.

Integral theory argues that postmodernism (or post-formalism) is a necessary developmental stage. We needed to get to a point where we could differentiate the multitude of different systems of thought and values -- but that it gets into trouble when it tries to see all of them as equal. The next, more integral developmental stage sees and values all the different systems, but it can also recognize ones that are pathological from ones that are healthy -- MC fails in this area.

We need not regress into a dogmatic, ethnocentric defense of our own values systems as a reaction against the failures of MC, as Buruma fears is happening in the Netherlands, and as Kimball seems to argue for (though it's not exactly clear if he wants to regress into ethnocentrism or transcend MC, but my sense is the former).

We can certainly intellectualize a more integral understanding of what must replace MC both culturally and academically, and that is the first step toward internalizing a more integral worldview. More people need to speak against the regression into ethnocentric values that is happening in Europe and in the United States, but we must also speak for a post-MC worldview that is capable of recognizing that some value systems are pathological and must be contained (how we contain them is another discussion).
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Quote of the day:

"Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones."
~ Bertrand Russell

Image of the day (John Craig)
BODY
~ Cholesterol-Lowering Drugs Can Cause Muscle Pain -- "This review found that statin- induced muscle damage is more common in Asians, people who exercise, have had recent surgery, have kidney, liver or thyroid disease, or have high triglycerides. The incidence of muscle pain and damage from statins is extremely low in non-exercisers, three to ten percent in those who exercise, and very high in competitive athletes." Diet and exercise . . . diet and exercise.
~ Spring fitness tuneup -- "If you have been working out all Winter then great, you should be fine, but if you have not been working out keep these five tips in mind over the next few weeks as Spring becomes running, biking, exercising, and eating season." Pay special attention to thoughts on stretching.
~ Dr. Details: An Interview with Eric Serrano -- "He's influenced many, including our own Charles Poliquin and Alwyn Cosgrove, but some people in our biz think that Dr. Serrano's just a little "out there." Genius or mad scientist? You decide."
~ One Stage Regeneration System For Articular Cartilage Repair From Depuy Mitek Shows Promise In Pilot Study -- "DePuy Mitek, Inc. announced a critical milestone in its multi-center randomized pilot study evaluating the safety and performance of its Cartilage Autograft Implantation System (CAIS), with 29 patients enrolled in the study in the United States since March 2006. This investigational device and method is designed as a primary surgical treatment of damaged knee cartilage using the patient's own healthy cartilage in a single operation."
~ Exercising harder keeps weight off longer -- "Among a group of overweight men and women participating in an 18-month weight loss program, those who were still getting 75 minutes of exercise daily a year after the program ended had lost 26 pounds, compared with 1.8 pounds for people who were exercising less."
~ Yes, coffee really is good for you -- "Drinking coffee can help ward off type 2 diabetes and may even help prevent certain cancers, according to panelists discussing the benefits — and risks — of the beverage at a scientific meeting." Damn straight.
~ When determining who’s fat, is BMI bunk? -- "A surprising new study finds that some people with a body mass index that indicates they're overweight may actually have little body fat — and some folks whose BMI categorizes them as skinny actually are way too flabby." My BMI is 26 (overweight) but my bodyfat is slightly less than 9%. It took a study to figure out that I'm healthier than a skinny-fat-guy with a BMI of 23 and 18% bodyfat?!
~ Scientists Identify Key To Integrating Transplanted Nerve Cells Into Injured Tissue -- "Scientists at the Schepens Eye Research Institute, an affiliate of Harvard Medical School, have identified a key mechanism for successfully transplanting tissue into the adult central nervous system. The study found that a molecule known as MMP-2 (which is induced by stem cells) has the ability to break down barriers on the outer surface of a damaged retina and allow healthy donor cells to integrate and wire themselves into remaining recipient tissue."


PSYCHE
~ Prognosis worse with childhood bipolar disorder -- "When bipolar disorder arises in childhood, it may take far longer to diagnose and have a worse prognosis, a new study suggests." There's no consensus that children can even be diagnosed as bipolar.
~ An owner's manual for the brain -- "So when did Discover magazine get so good? They've got an excellent 'Mind and Brain' section with a long list of feature articles freely available online. Actually, what I wanted to feature was a one off magazine called 'Discover presents The Brain: An Owner's Manual', which I found on the shelves of my local newsagent."
~ "Obligatory" running and "bizarre" food preoccupations [Dr. Joan Bushwell's Chimpanzee Refuge] -- "I've reproduced my two-year-old post below, and have included the comments that originally appeared there. In re-reading this I was struck, not for the first time, by the general wishy-washiness of behavioral research. I can agree, for example, that a lot of runners have "bizarre preoccupation" with food and are "compulsively" athletic -- and see myself in a lot of what the authors describe, really -- but good luck finding useful clinical criteria for these."
~ STAR*D Depression Study Finds Cognitive Therapy Equivalent To Medication But Selected By Fewer Patients -- "In the federally funded Sequenced Treatment Alternatives to Relieve Depression (STAR*D) study, outcomes for cognitive therapy as a second-step treatment were not different from outcomes of medication therapy. However, random assignment in this STAR*D level was based on each patient's treatment preferences, and only 26 percent of the patients accepted cognitive therapy as an option."
~ Psychotherapy's Effectiveness In Depression Is Demonstrated By Two Studies Using High And Low Therapy "Doses" -- "Adding intensive psychotherapy to drug treatment for patients hospitalized with severe depression significantly increased the rate of response, compared to a group not receiving psychotherapy, according to a new study. The contribution added by the psychotherapy component was evident early on, with acute response rates of 70 percent in those receiving both medication and psychotherapy, compared with 51 percent for those not receiving psychotherapy."
~ Science of hypnosis -- "Hypnosis and Suggestion is a fantastic website created by Dr Matt Whalley, an academic hypnosis researcher who gives a level-headed and detailed account of what is known about the science of hypnotic states and suggestion."
~ Getting emotional about cognitive science -- "The Boston Globe has a well-researched article on how emotion has become increasingly important in scientific models of the mind."


CULTURE/POLITICS
~ Hate Makes a Comeback -- "Groups Like the Ku Klux Klan and Neo-Nazis Target Mexican Immigrants."
~ Hitchens Joins the Party [EvolutionBlog] -- "Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett and Sam Harris have had things to themselves for too long. Now it's time for Christopher Hitchens to join the party. His new book God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything is now available."
~ Is the Wall Street Journal Worth It? -- "Rupert Murdoch makes a big bid for the newspaper's parent company. It's not a sign of improving fortunes for beleaguered dailies, but evidence of why the Journal is unique."
~ Supergirl Syndrome -- "She's smart, skinny, athletic, pretty and everybody loves her. Lakshmi Chaudhry writes that this market-driven model of perfection doesn't necessarily make a girl happy."
~ The Guantánamo Hunger Strike -- "Guantánamo is in the grips of a hunger strike--an age-old form of protest that marked such world events as the fight for women's suffrage and Indian and Irish independence. The U.S. military's response to the hunger strike is not surprising: punitive force-feeding, a dangerous and painful approach." Gotta keep them alive so we can kill them, eh?
~ "Jihad": idea and history | Patricia Crone -- "The notion of jihad is one of the most contested in the modern Islamic and political lexicon. In a four-part essay, Patricia Crone makes it comprehensible: by identifying its textual sources, examining how early Muslims translated it into practice, asking how they made sense of it ethically, and exploring its contemporary relevance."
~ SCOTT HORTON—Bill Moyers: “Buying the War” -- "I recently wrote that America needed a journalist who could do what David Halberstam did in The Best and the Brightest with respect to the decision to go to war in Iraq. Well, Moyers has done exactly that. The story is called “Buying the War.” His work is patient, fair and sympathetic—in all those points it takes a softer approach than Halberstam would have—but it doesn’t shirk from asking the essential questions. This is well done, and essential."
~ Will the Dems Let Florida Cut in Line? -- "The state that had the last word on the 2000 election now wants the first one on the 2008 Presidential race. It's the latest battle in the Primary War Between the States."


HABITATS/TECHNOLOGY
~ It's Not What Chimps Say, It's What They Gesture -- "A new study of chimpanzees and bonobos reveals that the meaning of vocalizations is fixed whereas the meaning of gestures depends on the context." var bool_dhtmlPOPup = true; //restarting dhtml popup exclusively. /*var mathRandom = Math.random(); if( mathRandom < .5 ) { var bool_dhtmlPOPup = true; } else { var bool_dhtmlPOPup = false; } */ ~ News seekers turning to online search engines, videos and blogs -- "US news-seekers are increasingly turning to Internet search engines, video clips and gossip-slingers to sate curiosity about current events, according to a study released Tuesday."
~ Computers Simulate 50 Percent of a Mouse Brain -- "Researchers simulated half of a mouse brain on a supercomputer."
~ Technique monitors thousands of molecules simultaneously -- "A chemist at Washington University in St. Louis is making molecules the new-fashioned way — selectively harnessing thousands of minuscule electrodes on a tiny computer chip that do chemical reactions and yield molecules that bind to receptor sites."
~ Death, Sex in Space Considered by NASA -- "As NASA plans long journeys to Mars, officials begin to consider ethical issues."
~ Be afraid. Be very very afraid [The Island of Doubt] -- "In a story that caught the attention of only the more astute climate science journalists a few weeks ago, one of the more experienced oceanographers of our time, Peter Wadhams of Cambridge University, reported that the Arctic ice cap is melting much faster than we thought. How much faster? So fast that the rate made the story seem too alarmist to take seriously."
~ Can Plankton Save the Planet? [commonground] -- "In an effort to ameliorate the effects of global warming, several groups are working on ventures to grow vast floating fields of plankton intended to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and carry it to the depths of the ocean. It is an idea, debated by experts for years, that still sounds like science fiction -- and some scholars think that is where it belongs."
~ Why Supercontinents Self-Destruct -- "Analysis shows why Pangea burst, leading to huge eruptions and rapid warming."


INTEGRAL/BUDDHIST
~ The Spiritual Problem of The New Age for Integral -- "I have deep roots in critical thinking, inquiry-based practice, and shadow-work, yet am living and practicing my profession in a community largely defined by a complete absence of these perspectives and a deep adherence to gullible New Age magical thinking, defensive metaphysical consolation and dissociative denial of reality. "
~ Don't taint my Buddhism with comparisons to Christianity -- "I recently commented on an article discussing Buddhism from a more traditional Christian perspective and subsequently received a reply from a Catholic priest in a small spark of interfaith dialog. Perhaps it would for some be better to call it establishment Christianity rather than traditional as some could rightly point out that many now heretical views on the life of Christ once flourished among the early Christians. This raises the question of how many Buddhists, especially Western Buddhists, see Christianity."
~ Plato, on artistry -- "Firstly, I ought add that Plato (here through the voice of Timaeus), never explicitly states that he refers to artists, or artistry. But on the premise that artists are creators, the logic that what is said about creators can bear transfer to artists (though maybe not inerrantly) for consideration by artists on how to conduct their creative affairs seems sound." This is good stuff -- check it out.
~ Meditation is Not to Soothe -- "Soothing activities aren’t meditation, and are often quite different from focusing on the breath, and calming the chatter. I notice more and more people saying that they meditate when they’re driving (oh-oh…look out!), or exercising. Do you see the distinction between focused concentration, relaxing or soothing yourself, and meditating? We should definitely keep talking about this."
~ Self and brain -- "The last time I did zazen it was really very deep - there was almost no sense of self, only constantly shifting processes of sensation, feeling and thought. At one point the thought appeared that this was an unborn, undying state, neither eternal nor nonexistent, but free from birth and death. I had just been reading a text, which had inspired me. But this wasn't a sutra or the writings of some mystic, it was a description of the issues surrounding consciousness and self from the perspective of neuroscience."
~ Gnosis and Outreach -- "Carrying on from the topic of the last post. First, a current working definition of "integral" that is able to include both Wilber and Aurobindo. By "integral" can be meant they share these qualities" See also: Spiritual attitude -- "I've been getting some very good comments from my original suggestion for a gnostic community."
~ B-SCAN with Steve Pavlina (Part 1) -- "During the past week, Steve was kind enough to take some time to grant me this interview. Initially, I sent him the usual set of questions I ask in this B-SCAN series. To my surprise, it was Steve who suggested that I ask the questions that matter to me and that I don't hold back. So I revised the questions and included those which are 'controversial.'"
~ Meditation and Intimacy -- "I have just started teaching another ten-week meditation course at the botanical gardens, and I’ve been thinking about what a strange and difficult thing meditation is to teach – not because it is in any way esoteric, but because it is, I think, incredibly subtle."

.

These remind me of Steven Wright jokes, and since I don't really know where these came from, they could be. Whatever. They're entertaining for my simple mind.

Idle Thoughts From A Strange Mind

I planted some bird seed. A bird came up. Now I don’t know what to feed it.

I had amnesia once — or twice.

I went to San Francisco. I found someone’s heart. Now what?

Protons have mass? I didn’t even know they were Catholic.

All I ask is a chance to prove that money can’t make me happy.

If the world was a logical place, men would be the ones who ride horses sidesaddle.

What is a “free” gift? Aren’t all gifts free?

They told me I was gullible… and I believed them.

Teach your children to be polite and courteous in the home and when they grow up, they’ll never be able to merge their car onto the freeway.

Experience is the thing you have left when everything else is gone.

One nice thing about egotists: they don’t talk about other people.

My weight is perfect for my height — which varies.

I used to be indecisive. Now I’m not sure.

The cost of living hasn’t affected its popularity.

How can there be self-help “groups”?

If swimming is so good for your figure, how do you explain whales?

Show me a man with both feet firmly on the ground, and I’ll show you a man who can’t get his pants off.

Is it my imagination, or do buffalo wings taste like chicken?

I am always an advocate for eating healthy fats, and nuts contain some of the healthiest fats you can include in your diet -- as long as you practice moderation (nuts are high calorie).

If you also want to include some seeds in your diet, go for pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds.

This is from SixWise.com:

Many people were scared away from nuts during the low-fat craze of the last few decades, but now nuts are making a comeback. Nuts are excellent sources of protein, minerals, "good" monounsaturated fats and other nutrients, and they're good for the heart.

A study conducted by Loma Linda University in California that involved 31,000 Seventh Day Adventists found that eating nuts lowered the risk of heart disease and helped participants to keep their weight down. Other large-scale studies, including the Physician's Health Study, the Iowa Women's Heath Study and the Harvard Nurses Health Study, also found that eating nuts lowered heart disease risk. Other studies have shown that nuts help lower bad "LDL" cholesterol.

In fact, in July 2003, the FDA approved the following health claim for nut package labels:

"Scientific evidence suggests, but does not prove, that eating 1.5 ounces per day of some nuts, as part of a diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol, may reduce the risk of heart disease."

It only takes a small handful of nuts to satisfy hunger (and help you stay full longer), and there are many varieties to choose from. Here are six of the healthiest.

1. Walnuts When it comes to nuts, the walnut is the king. It's a great source of the healthy omega-3 essential fatty acids, which have been found to protect the heart, promote better cognitive function, and provide anti-inflammatory benefits for asthma, rheumatoid arthritis, eczema and psoriasis. Walnuts also contain the antioxidant compound ellagic acid, which is known to fight cancer and support the immune system. But that's not all--in a study in the August 2003 issue of Phytochemistry, researchers identified 16 polyphenols in walnuts, including three new tannins, with antioxidant activity so powerful they described it as "remarkable." Walnuts are incredibly healthy for the heart. A study in the April 2004 issue of Circulation found that when walnuts were substituted for about one-third of the calories supplied by olives and other monounsaturated fats in the Mediterranean diet: Total cholesterol and LDL (bad) cholesterol were reduced The elasticity of the arteries increased by 64 percent Levels of vascular cell adhesion molecules, which play a major role in the development of atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries), were reduced

2. Almonds Just a quarter cup of almonds contains nearly 25 percent of your needed daily value of the important nutrient magnesium, plus is rich in potassium, manganese, copper, the antioxidants vitamin E and selenium, and calcium. In fact, a quarter cup of almonds has almost as much calcium as a quarter cup of milk. They're also great for the colon. An animal study on the effects of almonds on colon cancer found that animals (which were exposed to a colon-cancer-causing agent) given whole almonds had fewer signs of colon cancer than animals given almond oil or no almonds. Researchers suspect the benefit may be due to almonds' high fiber content. Plus, almonds are one of the best nuts for lowering cholesterol because 70 percent of the fat they contain is the healthy monounsaturated variety, which has been shown to help clear arteries.

3. Cashews Cashews are lower in fat than most nuts, and 65 percent of this fat is unsaturated fatty acids. Of this, 90 percent is oleic acid, the heart-healthy fat found in olive oil. Plus, cashews are rich in copper, magnesium, zinc, iron and biotin.

4. Pecans Pecans are an excellent source of over 19 vitamins and minerals including vitamins E and A, folic acid, calcium, magnesium, copper, phosphorus, potassium, manganese, several B vitamins and zinc. Plus, according to Sue Taylor, R.D., director of nutrition communication for the National Pecan Shellers Association, "Recent clinical research studies evaluating the impact of pecans on serum cholesterol have found pecans can significantly help lower blood cholesterol when consumed as part of a heart-healthy diet." In fact, a study from New Mexico State University found that eating 3/4 cup of pecans a day may significantly lower LDL (bad) cholesterol and help to clear the arteries.

5. Brazil Nuts These nuts are extremely nutrient-rich and contain protein, copper, niacin, magnesium, fiber, vitamin E and selenium. Selenium is a powerful antioxidant that works to neutralize dangerous free radicals. A study at the University of Illinois even found that the high amounts of selenium in Brazil nuts may help prevent breast cancer.

6. Macadamia Nuts

These nuts are high in protein, fiber, healthy monounsaturated fats, potassium and magnesium. And, a study done at Hawaii University found that people who had added macadamia nuts to their diets for just one month had total cholesterol levels of 191, compared to 201 for those eating the typical American diet. The largest change was found in the LDL (bad) cholesterol.

A Little Goes a Long Way

The key with nuts is simply not to overeat them. They are highly concentrated in both their calories and their nutrients, so you only need a small handful at a time. Eating a variety of nuts appears to be the best way to get all the different benefits each nut has to offer.

 

Quote of the day:

"Sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast
~ Lewis Carroll

Image of the day:


BODY
~ South Beach Diet review -- "The South Beach Diet is not a traditional low-carb plan. Instead, you'll be encouraged to choose the right carbs, such as whole grains and certain fruits and vegetables; the right fats, such as olive, and canola oil; and lean sources of protein." For those who want a well-known diet, this is the one I recommend.
~ Eat My Meat, The Sequel -- "Screw that Spiderman sequel! We've got the only sequel that matters: the next installment of Dave Tate's "Eat my Meat." Oh, and you'll want to get a bench shirt after looking at one of the pictures in this article, guaranteed."
~ Once-a-year shot can prevent osteoporosis: study -- "The Novartis osteoporosis drug Reclast, given once a year, reduces the risk of broken bones for three years but may spark an abnormal heart rhythm in some patients, researchers said on Wednesday." Or you could just train with weights.
~ Tamoxifen Protects Certain Women at High Risk for Breast Cancer (HealthDay) -- "Tamoxifen helps prevent breast cancer in women at high risk for the disease who have also had their ovaries removed as part of a hysterectomy, researchers report."
~ Hydrotherapy, Tai Chi can ease osteoarthritis -- "Both water-based exercise and the Chinese exercise system Tai Chi can help older people with severe arthritis move and feel better, researchers from Australia report."
~ Caffeinated Sunflower Seeds Offer Jolt -- "The seeds are marketed as chewable caffeine for those who need a boost." If they could figure out a way to combine whey protein, walnuts, and caffeine, I 'd be in heaven.
~ Shape Up Like Spider Man -- "[W]ith the superhero workout below, you can shape up like Spider-Man, too. But these three activities aren’t for the weak. If you’re a beginner, start slowly and work your way up to this challenge."


PSYCHE
~ FDA urges new adult warnings on antidepressants -- "All antidepressants should carry new warnings about an increased risk of suicidal thoughts and behavior in young adults ages 18 to 24 during initial treatment, U.S. health officials proposed on Wednesday."
~ Monthly therapy keeps depression at bay for some -- "Women who recover from depression with the help of psychotherapy alone can stay well for as long as two years with monthly "maintenance" therapy, a new study shows."
~ Older people are better losers -- "A bad night at the bingo may not be as painful for older people – over-65s are less upset by loss than twenty-somethings, brains scans reveal."
~ Protecting Your Memory: A Full-time job? [Neurontic] -- "The more well-adjusted among us might fault Jakobson Ramin for her hysteria over the prospect of slower recall, but in some ways it's a good thing. Trust me. If you want to know everything there is to know about memory, put a journalist convinced she's losing hers on the job."
~ This Wednesday: Six tips for feeling better about yourself -- "When you’re feeling lousy about yourself, what can you do to feel better? Here’s the secret."
~ A Slow Smile Attracts -- "As a correspondent about my emotion research (still time to take part) reminded me, psychology research is not good at capturing change. Measurements tend to be fairly static, either looking at one slice of time or asking participants to average over a period. Which is why this research on smiling is so unusual."
~ How To Fight--and How Not To -- "There's a right way and a wrong way to argue."
~ Let Your Unconscious Mind Go to Work for You -- "Science is saying, “Wait a minute.” Literally, the message is, “Wait a minute.” Your most creative ideas do not come to you after you squint and make a thinking sound, “mmmmm.” Research is pointing to a better way to get the best answers: It’s through your unconscious mind."


CULTURE/POLITICS
~ Are social networking sites doomed to failure? [Cognitive Daily] -- "Once users saw that they were being censored, rather than simply voted down by their peers, a full-scale rebellion occurred, and hundreds of Digg users began submitting the code in a variety of creative formats. At its worst, the entire front page of Digg was completely populated by these articles."
~ Brief history of unbelief on PBS [Evolving Thoughts] -- "OK, Americans, a couple of years after the British saw it, you are being treated to Jonathon Miller's A Brief History of Unbelief, a three-part series on how atheism came to be possible in western society, such that it is now one of the larger "religious" divisions in our culture."
~ Edwards Rejects the "War on Terror" -- "As the phrase is treated with increasing skepticism in both parties, Democratic Presidential hopeful John Edwards is gambling that voters will agree it is outmoded."
~ Senate Judiciary Committee Subpoenas Gonzales to Provide Rove Emails -- "Senators subpoenaed Attorney General Alberto Gonzales Wednesday, ordering him to provide all e-mails related to presidential adviser Karl Rove and the firings of eight federal prosecutors."
~ The Notion: The Media, Impeachment & Kucinich -- "Snarky beltway pundits are mocking Dennis Kucinich's call for impeachment. But what's wrong with holding the President accountable?"
~ A President Gone AWOL -- "John Nichols writes that as Bush claims moral high ground by vetoing legislation that seeks to end a bungled war, former Iraq commanders say he consistently ignored their advice."
~ Reaction to 'D.C. Madam' Story Moves to Anger and Frustration -- "Reaction inside the administration, on K Street, and in Congress to the evolving "D.C. Mmadam" scandal has turned from titillation to frustration and anger that the alleged clients lied to officials about their practices, didn't do enough to protect their anonymity, and have waited too long to step down even though they know they are on Deborah Jeane Palfrey's list."


HABITATS/TECHNOLOGY
~ 1.5 Million Species Going Extinct? -- "If you just heard the wake-up call regarding the many environmental problems harming our planet -- largely the result of humans unnecessarily tinkering with Mother Nature -- you haven't begun to see all the changes, according to this disturbing excerpt from the upcoming book, The Fragile Edge by Julia Whitty."
~ And the Green Design Awards Go To... -- "We're rolling out the green carpet and gawking at the winners of a recent spate of contests celebrating the best in sustainable design."
~ Study confirms the risk of exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke outdoors -- "Tens of thousands of Americans die each year from secondhand tobacco smoke, according to a 2006 report by the U.S. Surgeon General. While the health risks associated with indoor secondhand smoke are well documented, little research has been done on exposure to toxic tobacco fumes outdoors."
~ Honeybee Die-Off Threatens Food Supply -- "If honeybees disapper, so could America's food supply."
~ Beer Maker, Scientists to Create Energy -- "Scientists and Australian beer maker Foster's are teaming up to generate clean energy from brewery waste water - by using sugar-consuming bacteria."
~ Researchers shed light on diet of early human ancestors -- "Eight years ago, the field of anthropology was rocked by isotopic evidence that suggested one-third of the diet of early human ancestors consisted of grasses and sedges, or the tissue of animals that ate such plants. The news puzzled scientists, who were unable to reconcile the results with what they knew about the teeth of human ancestors who lived more than 2 million years ago."
~ BP CEO resigns -- "John Browne, who's been head of oil giant BP for 41 years, abruptly resigned yesterday. Browne grew the lackluster company into the second largest oil company in the world; he also was among the first oil executives to proactively acknowledge the danger of climate change and encourage action." He resigned after lying in court about a homosexual relationship he was trying to keep quiet -- that's sad.
~ Princeton physicists connect string theory with established physics -- "String theory, simultaneously one of the most promising and controversial ideas in modern physics, may be more capable of helping probe the inner workings of subatomic particles than was previously thought, according to a team of Princeton University scientists."


INTEGRAL/BUDDHIST
~ Exploring labeling-images -- "The job of the mind is to produce thoughts, and one category of thoughts are these labels that take the form of images."
~ Thank you for the ILP -- "This week on Integral Spiritual Center...."
~ David Byrne & Daniel Levitin -- "David Byrne, the well known lead singer and songwriter of the seminal band Talking Heads, has had an extensive solo career, won an Academy Award for his work on The Last Emperor soundtrack, exhibited his artwork internationally, and authored five books, including, most recently, Arboretum. For 10 years, Daniel Levitin worked as a session musician, sound and recording engineer, and record producer. He is now the James McGill professor of behavioral neuroscience and music at McGill University and the author of The New York Times bestseller This Is Your Brain on Music. Recently at STK, in New York's Meatpacking District, the two traded ideas about music, language, and memory."
~ The substance of spiritual practice -- "What is the substance of spiritual practice? In Buddhism people may refer to seated or walking meditation, chanting, bowing/prostrations, lighting candles or incense, and visualization techniques. Yes, things things can be helpful and have their place, and they can be an anchor/touchstone for spiritual awareness and depth, but do they constitute the sum or even the bulk of spiritual practice (and we can for other sacred traditions list similar activities)?"
~ Trust -- "I find myself clinging to beliefs when I don’t trust myself to do otherwise. I suppose I think that if I don’t come armed with a belief of some sort, I won’t know what to do. And the most widely held beliefs are the best because I feel shored up by the common assent of others and don’t have to go it alone."
~ Buddhism and Humanism -- "When we think about Buddhism, it might be common that we do not suppose any relations between Buddhism and Humanism. But recently I have begun to notice the existence of much relation between Buddhism and Humanism, and I think that the recent enthusiastic approach of Euro-American Civilization to Buddhism might be related with such a humanistic tendency of the world history in the 21st Century."
~ Sangha Start-Up -- "So, how can we create Sangha without forcing it unnaturally? Here are my thoughts and observations about what makes Sangha work."
.

The new issue of Edge is up, and it has some great stuff.

Here is the table of contents:

THE THIRD CULTURE

THE GOSPEL OF JUDAS
A Talk with Elaine Pagels

WHY THE GODS ARE NOT WINNING
by Gregory Paul & Phil Zuckerman

THE REALITY CLUB

Gloria Origgi, Charles Leadbeater
on "Who Says We Know" By Larry Sanger

THIRD CULTURE NEWS

NEW YORK
Are You There, God? It's Me, Hitchens
By Boris Kachka

SLATE
Brains!: A special issue on neuroscience and neuroculture
Daniel Engber, Slate Science Editor
Alison Gopnik, George Johnson, John Horgan, Steven Pinker, Daniel Gilbert, Joshua Gilbert, Marc Hauser, Jiseph LeDoux

THE CHRONICLE REVIEW
The DNA of Religious Faith
By David P. Barash

THE ECONOMIST
In The beginning

DISCOVER
The Discover Interview: Marc Hauser

YOU TUBE
Bill O'Reilly Interviews Richard Dawkins

POP TECH
Brian Eno

Enjoy.

This was the Daily Om from a couple of days ago. It's not groundbreaking information, but it's a good reminder that we are responsible for our own well-being.

Cause, Effect, And Transformation
Feeling Depleted

There are times in our lives when it seems our bodies are running on empty. We are not sick, nor are we necessarily pushing ourselves to the limit-rather, the energy we typical enjoy has mysteriously dissipated, leaving only fatigue. Many people grow accustomed to feeling this way because they do not know that it is possible to exist in any other state. The body's natural state, however, is one of energy, clarity, and balance. Cultivating these virtues in our own bodies so that we can combat feelings of depletion is a matter of developing a refined awareness of the self and then making changes based on our observations.

A few scant moments of focused self-examination in which you assess your recent schedule, diet, and general health may help you zero in on the factors causing your depletion. If you are struggling to cope with an overfull agenda, prioritization can provide you with more time to sleep and otherwise refresh yourself. Switching to a diet containing plenty of nutritious foods may serve to restore your vigor, especially when augmented by supplements like B vitamins or ginseng. Consider, too, that a visit to a healer or homeopath will likely provide you with wonderful insights into your tiredness. But identifying the source of your exhaustion will occasionally be more complicated than spotting a void in your lifestyle and filling it with some form of literal nourishment. Since your earthly and ethereal forms are so intimately entwined, matters of the mind and heart can take their toll on your physical self. Intense emotions such as anger, sadness, jealousy, and regret need fuel to manifest in your consciousness, and this fuel is more often than not corporeal energy. Conversely, a lack of mental and emotional stimulation may leave you feeling listless and lethargic.

Coping with and healing physical depletion will be easier when you accept that the underlying cause might be more complex than you at first imagined. A harried lifestyle or a diet low in vital nutrients can represent only one part of a larger issue affecting your mood, stamina, and energy levels. When you believe that you are ultimately in control of how you feel, you will be empowered to transform yourself and your day-to-day life so that lasting fatigue can no longer gain a foothold in your existence.

There are many ways to deal with depletion, and finding productivity skills is one of them -- the more efficient we are, the less time we have to spend working.

The Ririan Project offers a lot of useful information on productivity, creativity, working with emotions, and so on. It's a great resource for finding ways to avoid or overcome depletion.

Steve Pavlina also offers a wealth of information in this area -- some of it can be a bit too New Age for my taste, but some of it is also quite insightful.

Zen Habits is another site that offers information on achieving goals and increasing productivity. Some of it is Zen-based, as the blog name might suggest, and some of it is just nuts-and-bolts efficiency information.

There are probably a lot of other resources out there, but these are the ones that I read on a regular basis.

However, I think the bottom line for fighting physical, emotional, psychological, and spiritual depletion is mindfulness. If we can be more mindful of what is going on inside of us, we can begin to see the warning signs of depletion before we end up sick, depressed, or worse. And we can begin to choose alternate ways of being.

Although mindfulness training comes out of Buddhism, it need not be a religious practice or something esoteric. It simply asks us to stop for a moment, take a few deep breaths, and tune in to what is going on inside of us.

We can tune into our bodies and be aware of stress or exhaustion. When we can be present to our physical selves, we can learn a lot about how we are functioning in our lives. Many of us treat our bodies like machines, but a machine that isn't properly attended breaks down. Our bodies offer warning lights, the same way our cars do, but we have to listen for them and slow down -- even for a moment -- to become aware that something is out of balance before we break down and need to go to the doctor. Stress contributes to a whole range of physical illnesses -- as does poor nutrition and a lack of exercise -- so, it's worth our effort to pay attention to our physical health.

The same thing holds true for emotions. Many of us -- especially men -- tune out emotions or otherwise try to avoid them. But if we aren't aware of our emotional states, we can act out inner frustrations in our daily lives, and it will be our friends, family, partners, and co-workers who suffer because we are unconscious. But we also suffer. If we are not happy in our life and work, but we refuse to look at those feelings, we can never change the situation. Becoming mindful of our emotions is the best way I know of to avoid acting out destructive emotions -- like anger or frustration -- on those around me. When I can stop, tune into my anger, and take a few deep breaths, I am far less likely to yell at someone, suffer road rage (a hard one for me), or blame other people for what I am feeling.

Of course, this applies to our spiritual lives as well. When we are out of tune with our deeper purpose -- whatever that may be (and many of us have never bothered to look seriously at what that may be) -- our souls will suffer. When we are miserable at such a deep and important level, everything else in our lives, no matter how happy we are in some ways, will lose its luster. I can have all the things I want -- nice possessions, the perfect partner, and a great job -- but if my soul isn't getting its needs met, I will be unhappy. The hard part is that this unhappiness is hard to see unless we really learn to tune in to ourselves in deeper ways -- and this is where meditation or contemplative prayer is so useful. Even ten minutes a day can make a difference if we do it on a regular basis.

Mindfulness need not be work -- it simply asks us to be more present to ourselves in our daily lives. Instead of being on auto-pilot as we go through all the responsibilities we have each day -- in our jobs, our friendships, our relationships, and so on -- we can tune into to ourselves. We can ask, gently, "How do I feel right now?" We can develop a mental check list for our body, our hearts, our minds, and our souls. Even if we only do this while we are in the shower in the morning, or as we go to bed in the evening, we will begin to become more aware of what is going on inside of us -- and this will help us avoid depletion of all kinds.

Please don't think I have mastered this -- I still struggle every day with being aware and being mindful. It's a lifelong practice. It's hard at first, and we may feel discouraged, but the more effort we give it -- and NOT as another responsibility we have to deal with , but gently and compassionately -- the more we can become aligned with who we really are as human beings.
.

Quote of the day:

"Cats are smarter than dogs. You can't get eight cats to pull a sled through snow."
~ Jeff Valdez

Image of the day (David Lorenz Winston):


BODY
~ Fructose is Not Better than Ordinary Sugar -- "Fructose is processed differently in the body than the far more common sugar, glucose. Glucose causes the pancreas to release insulin which drives sugar from the bloodstream into cells. Glucose causes fat cells to release leptin that makes you feel full so you eat less; it also prevents the stomach from releasing ghrelin that makes you hungry. On the other hand, fructose does not cause fat cells to release leptin and does not suppress ghrelin. This means that fructose increases hunger to make you eat more. Furthermore, the liver converts fructose far more readily to a fat called triglyceride, than it does with glucose."
~ Gene Switch That Tells Cells To Burn Fat Triggered By 'Exercise Pill' -- "By giving ordinary adult mice a drug - a synthetic designed to mimic fat - Salk Institute scientist Dr. Ronald M. Evans is now able to chemically switch on PPAR-d, the master regulator that controls the ability of cells to burn fat. Even when the mice are not active, turning on the chemical switch activates the same fat-burning process that occurs during exercise. The resulting shift in energy balance (calories in, calories burned) makes the mice resistant to weight gain on a high fat diet." If this works in humans, this guy is going to be richer than the mind can fathom.
~ BONUS ARTICLE: Top 3 Nutritional Mistakes (and how to fix them) -- "More often than not people's nutritional problems can be fixed by a couple of very simple changes and/or additions. Mike Roussell has outlined the top 3 mistakes people make (along with how to to go about fixing them)."
~ Fish, Seafood Better Than Olive Oil, Nuts Against Heart Disease -- "Researchers have found that a diet rich in fish, seafood, and grains -- also called polyunsaturated fats -- is better at preventing heart disease than a diet containing olive oil, nuts, and avocados -- called monounsaturated fats. Although both types of fats are healthy, people should probably include more of the first than the second in their diet to keep a healthy heart, the scientists say."
~ Steroid shot may ease carpal tunnel pain -- "A single corticosteroid injection in the wrist can bring temporary relief from the pain of carpal tunnel syndrome, a new research review suggests."
~ DNA mutation causes heart disease in whites -- "A treasure hunt for genes has found that up to three-quarters of people of European descent have DNA that raises their risk for heart disease -- and these genes are close to a stretch of DNA linked to diabetes."
~ If You Aren't Using This Type of Exercise You Are Missing Out Big Time -- "You may recall a series of articles written by Ryan Lee about the value and advantages of interval training, especially for time-starved folks like you and me. Conventional medicine is jumping on the bandwagon too, as so graphically described in a small Canadian study about the beneficial effect seven high-interval training sessions had on eight women in their early 20s, and after only two weeks."
~ Experts share sneaky little slim-down tricks -- "Losing weight is a major goal for many Americans. And now that obesity has grown into a public health issue, it's more important than ever. Health magazine went to the top weight-control experts for their No. 1 tips to get the weight off now. Take a look."


PSYCHE
~ Gender Differences in Reading Nonverbal Behaviour -- "Some psychologists, in testing understanding of nonverbal behaviour, have found that women fare better than men. While this might be explained by some experiential, or even intrinsic, failing in men, new research suggests it might have more to do with interpersonal goals."
~ Psychoanalysis of Resident Evil and Silent Hill -- "Resident Evil and Silent Hill have been given a psychoanalytic interpretation by two academics wanting to undercover the underlying symbolism of these popular video games."
~ Deep Brain Stimulation Shows Promise In Treatment Of Memory Problems Associated With Severe Psychiatric Disorders -- "Researchers from the Cleveland Clinic will present results of a study today that shows deep brain stimulation (DBS) is associated with improvements on formal memory tests in patients with severe psychiatric illness. Since 2001, this team of investigators has been using DBS for treatment of obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD)."
~ Scientists Identify New Strategy For Preventing Acute And Chronic Brain Disease -- "Scientists at the Gladstone Institute of Neurological Disease (GIND) have discovered that reducing levels of the protein tau can prevent seizures and neurological deficits related to Alzheimer's disease. The findings, reported in the journal Science, demonstrate that when tau is removed from mice genetically engineered to simulate Alzheimer's disease, their memory function is retained and they live a normal lifespan."
~ Schizophrenia And Depression Symptoms In Mice Caused By Gene Malfunctions -- "Researchers have demonstrated for the first time that malfunction of a gene that had been associated with schizophrenia and depression does indeed cause symptoms of those disorders. They said their findings in mice offer a possible animal model for developing treatments for schizophrenia and depression. Also, they said their findings support the theory that the two disorders share common genetic mechanisms."
~ 20 Sure-Fire Ways to Come Up With Great Ideas -- "One problem that many bloggers face is the daily challenge of coming up with a good, useful post. After blogging for awhile, new ideas may be hard to come by. But great ideas are everywhere, if you know where to look, keep your eyes open, and know how to make use of them once you find them."
~ My Turn: How I Thrive Despite Depression -- "Thanks to some new therapies and a hardy sense of humor, I've learned to live, and even thrive, with depression."
~ Study: Doing Good Makes You Feel Good -- "If you want to be happy, do something meaningful, a new study says."


CULTURE/POLITICS
~ Domestic Violence Should Be Treated As Public Health Issue, Opinion Piece Says -- "Domestic violence causes "devastating" psychological and physical damage to women and should be approached as a public health issue, Cesar Chelala -- an international public health consultant and author of the Pan American Health Organization publication "Violence in the Americas" -- writes in a Philadelphia Inquirer opinion piece."
~ India's rising middle class -- "India's consumption could leapfrog Germany's in two decades." See also" Feeling Like a Trillion Dollars.
~ James Comey's testimony hurts Gonzales -- "In his testimony before Congress today, former Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty was quiet, understated, and devastating to Alberto Gonzales."
~ The TIME 100 -- "Who are the people making a difference? TIME makes its annual picks of the 100 most influential men and women shaping our world."
~ D.C. Madam -- "I have little interest in who is and isn't on the D.C. Madam's list, though the rank hypocrisy of Randal Tobias paying for sexual massages after a hard day of requiring foreign governments to swear off prostitution before receiving foreign aid to fight AIDS is pretty rich. What's instructive about this mess is that it shows exactly what it takes to get booted from the Bush administration."
~ Giuliani Remains Most Popular Candidate Despite Slight Dip in Ratings -- "Rudy Giuliani continues to be viewed more positively by the American public than any of the other leading candidates for president. Recently, his favorable rating dipped below 60% for the first time. The slight decline in Giuliani's popularity has largely been confined to Democrats and independents and liberals and moderates; his ratings have been consistent among conservatives and Republicans."
~ No More Witch Burnings for PC Offenses -- "Despite the ironic mockery, political correctness still packs a punch. Say the wrong thing today and you can be gone tomorrow, your status as a top broadcaster, university president or politician obliterated. It happens in the small space of a sentence--defrocked, banished, gonzo. Outside a courtroom, I'm not aware of many other forces in American life that can do that." Comments on this one?
~ Robert Koehler | "The Christian Taliban Is Running the Department of Defense" -- "Robert Koehler writes, 'When George Bush, in the wake of 9/11, puffed himself into Richard the Lionheart and declared he would lead the country in a 'crusade' against terrorism - you know, crusade, as in slaughter of Muslim infidels - turns out ... oh, how awkward (if you're on White House spin duty) ... he may have been speaking literally.'"
~ Is This What the Army Thinks of Us? -- "It looks like it's official: the United States Army thinks that American reporters are a threat to national security."


HABITATS/TECHNOLOGY
~ Gore vs. Schwarzenegger—who's the better environmental spokesman? -- "Al Gore's title as the leading U.S. political figure on the topic of global warming may be in danger. California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has been on a roll recently, pushing for tougher state environmental standards and speaking out on the issue. Our partners at MediaCurves.com decided to compare Gore and Schwarzenegger side-by-side by running clips of their recent environmental speeches for a group of 309 survey respondents. Click here to launch our video slide show of the results, which may surprise you."
~ Poor Nations Brake Greenhouse Gas Rise -- "Developing nations that are fast industrializing, such as China and India, have braked their rising greenhouse gas emissions by more than the total cuts demanded of rich nations by the UN's Kyoto Protocol."
~ Delegates Wrangle Over Climate Report -- "Delegates at the climate change conference met into the night Thursday struggling to reach consensus on how to cut greenhouse gas emissions as a way to deal with the threat of economic and environmental catastrophe from global warming."
~ Video: Killer Whales Blasted by U.S. Navy Sonar -- "Like the boom of a jet fighter taking off, sonar noise in Puget Sound was hitting orcas with enough intensity to cause the marine mammals to race to shore, a biologist reports."
~ Mercury's Core Secrets Exposed -- "Mercury has molten core, a finding that solves a 30-year old mystery about the tiny planet."
~ Grassroots good -- "Paul Hawken's new book Blessed Unrest is a much-needed analysis of the movement that's poised to change the world as we know it. It's a must read, (excerpted here in Orion magazine) even if you're not a self-described grassroots activist. In it, he states that "the movement to restore people and planet is now composed of over one million organizations" working toward ecological sustainability and social justice."
~ Harvesting Rainwater -- "If you could get 600 gallons of water at no cost, would you take it? It is possible to harvest that much water from rooftop runoff from only one inch of rainfall! Multiply that by the average number of inches that fall per year where you live and it can add up to a substantial amount of water."


INTEGRAL/BUDDHIST
~ Relevance of Buddhism In Changing Times -- "The 2,500-year-old Buddha Dharma has a special role to play because Buddhism uniquely propounds the concept of interdependence, which accords closely with the fundamental notions of modern science."
~ Ragged guests -- "Sometimes the guests that come through are pretty ragged… (Guests here meaning any content of experience, including emotions, reactivity, wounds, etc.) And if we try to push them away, ignore them, call the police, pretend they are not there, or end up wailing or running frantically around with them, they stay ragged." This is a great analogy to working with subpersonalities.
~ I've been attempting to discern in very concrete terms how shadow retrieval functions at post-conventional levels of consciousness -- "I think there is still a 3-2-1 process of shadow work accessible at transpersonal levels of development. There is still an "I" (World Soul), a "We" (the World Soul and the self), and an "It/Its" (the World Soul's shadow reincorporated into the self)."
~ intersubjective nondual -- "This is a theme I return to frequently. One reason why I think the intersubjective must be taken up is that we are at the end of the individual path."
~ *Special Event: Zaadz Symposium on Integrative Spirituality!* -- "The Symposium is called Integrative Spirituality: Grounded Contemporary Perspectives and will feature 7 blogposts over 7 days from 7 different posters on this fascinating and powerful subject!"

.

I wrote last week that I feared the woman I love was drowning in loss and sadness. It seems I was right. But rather than embrace the healing and transformation that can come from moving through loss, she is embracing the cold comfort of the pain she knows and has tentatively decided to return to a loveless and intolerable situation.

Even though she has agreed to see me before she makes a final decision, I feel that all I can do is watch, helplessly.

I hurt for me, and in ways I cannot even express, I hurt for her.

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Trying to Breathe

I used to know how to mourn.
I'd dye my hair black, get a new piercing,
brood like a dying poet, and the girls
would descend, wanting to heal me.

I wish I hadn't outgrown that.

Now there is sitting. I wear pain
as a fine garment, elegant, transient.
In the dawn I will be numb again,
going about the business of forgetting.

I look at loss and it stares back.

I try to breath it all in and exhale
peace and healing. My throat is a knot.
I can't inhale deeply and my heart
has stopped beating -- frozen muscle.

I can no longer pretend to pretend.

Everything comes undone . . . again
and again . . . I watch it all dissolve
and wish I could dissolve with it,
but here I sit, gasping for air.
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[I had originally started this post yesterday afternoon, when things were much different in my life. I had started to write about how great things are in my life, but a big part of that was the relationship I thought I had. The recent change in that situation came as quite a shock -- I didn't see it coming. Still, I am proud of the physique transformation I made.

At 40 years of age, I am in the best shape of my life. I thought, also, that this was the beginning of a whole new period of happiness in my life, but I fear that is now gone. Still, I think I will go back to school next year, no matter what else happens, so I am at the beginning of a new stage in my life -- even if it is alone.]


Today is my 40th birthday.

It is also the end of my "fit at 40" challenge -- an attempt to be in the best shape of my life on my 40th birthday. As of this morning, I am 185 lbs at 8.3% bodyfat. My goal was 8%, so I feel good about having mostly reached my goal. I started a few months ago at around 210 lbs and 16-17% bodyfat.

You can read about my workouts, diet, and supplements at this post.

And in the do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do department, I got into this shape without really doing very much cardio. When I began, I was doing some cardio and playing racquetball whenever I could, but for the last couple of months I have simply lifted weights four days a week, full-body, and dieted. I did pretty low carbs most of the time, and extremely low carbs for the last two weeks (less than 50 grams a day).

I'm posting partly because I am proud of what I have accomplished (I've never been lean AND muscular) and partly to show that even us older guys (and gals) can look pretty darn good.

[I hope to post pictures soon.]

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This blog is going black for a little while. Yesterday ranks as one of the top five worst days in my life, and I've had some really bad days. I need to sort out my life and my feelings and try to find some ground beneath my feet. I'm in over my head in the nigredo right now, and I need to let the process work itself out.

[Yeah, yeah, I said I was going to take some time away from blogging, and I am -- I won't return to full-time blogging for a while -- but I wanted to share this experience.]


Each of my three primary subpersonalities [Apollo (the little professor), Cyman (the cynical young man), and Sophia (the wise emotional one)] developed in one way or another as a result of facing loss and fear. When I experience loss in my life, each of these subs thinks it knows best how to deal with it and get me through it.

For the last 48 hours or so, these subs have been at war, each one trying to dictate how I navigate this challenging period in my life.

Apollo wants to think it all better, argue with logic for how things should be, and avoid allowing emotions to cloud the situation.

Cyman thinks it's all fucked and I should just accept that I will never have anything good in my life. His approach is to avoid the pain by any means possible, usually in self-destructive ways.

Sophia wants me to dive into the pain and let it work itself out. She doesn't care if I am unable to function in my daily life as long as I don't ignore how I am feeling.

None of these approaches can work on its own -- they may have been appropriate responses at one point in my life (given who I was then and the tools available to me) -- but they are no longer healthy ways to deal with loss and pain.

Each of the three major schools of subpersonality work (Psychosynthesis, Voice Dialogue, and Internal Family Systems) suggest that we are not just a collection of subs. Within the swirling voices of our subs, there is a core self or authentic self that can manage the voices. This deeper self is who we really are beneath all the voices.

In Psychosynthesis, this core self is called the Higher Self. In Voice Dialogue, they talk about an aware ego that is not attached to any one subpersonality but has access to higher awareness, a kind of observer self. In Internal Family Systems this function is referred to as the Self. In Ken Wilber's integral model, this function is named the anterior self (the I/I of awareness).

One of the primary goals of subpersonality therapy is to help the person identify and gain access to this core self. In doing so, the client can learn over time to disidentify with subpersonalities and intense emotional states in order to gain some much needed perspective.

I've been working with this process on and off for more than six years. Each time I go through something challenging, it becomes easier to find access to that core self.

Last night, as I was sitting outside enjoying the cool night air, my core self spontaneously emerged. From the vantage point of higher awareness, I could see all of my subs fighting for control. And I could see that no matter how much pain I am feeling, I will survive this challenging time.

But I was also able to see that the happiness of the woman I love is crucial to my own happiness. I could see that it would not serve me well to let Apollo try to logic her into agreeing that she should stay with me. She would end up resenting me at some point. I saw that I have to allow her to choose her own path -- and to hope that she will not let fear dictate the decision. If she does, there is nothing I can do about it. I have to trust that she knows what will make her happy.

Most importantly, I was able to see how blessed I have been to have her in my life these last months. I still hope there are many months and years to come, but if not, then I will cherish this time and move forward with my life, a better person for having known her.

This morning I am still operating from this space. At the same time, I am allowing myself to hurt and feel sad that this relationship may be over. Disidentifying with pain does not mean it goes away, it simply alters the experience from one of "I am hurting" to one of "I feel sad, but I am not my sadness."

One last note. Subpersonalities aren't all bad -- they have positive qualities that we can access when we operate from the core self. This post comes from Apollo's love of systems and making sense of things, but also from Sophia's need to extend compassion to myself and to the woman I love. When we can step back from our subs and see them as tools and not as who we are, we can use the gifts each one offers to navigate challenging times.

I'm going to spend the rest of today reading Pema Chodron and meditating on equanimity.
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You all knew I couldn't stay away from blogging for too long. I'm not ready to return to full-time blogging, yet, but I have grown bored with being depressed, wallowing in despair, and feeling hopeless. That isn't who I am as a person.

There is nothing I can do to change the situation right now. I have given everything I have to this relationship -- love, patience, compassion, and openness. There is nothing I would have done differently if I had it to do over again -- and I regret nothing.

Experience tells me that this equanimity will come and go, so I'm going to take the time I need to process all the feelings.

But there is too much I want to do in this short life to live beneath a cloud of loss any longer.
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It's been nearly ten years since I have experienced the kind of depression I have felt since everything came down Thursday night. I'm not talking about sadness or angst, or even despair. I'm talking curled up in fetal position with a bottle in one hand and a cigarette in the other kind of depression [this is a metaphor -- I'm not actually doing this]. I would have tried to sleep through it, but sleep seems to be something my body and mind have forgotten how to do.

It occurred to me at some point in the last few days (perhaps during the short period of clarity I felt Saturday night and Sunday morning), that being depressed like this feels an awful lot like some kind of possession. I didn't even recognize the person I have been the past few days as me -- I didn't even look like me in the mirror.

Through a strange alchemy of hormones and neurotransmitters, my mind and body had been hijacked by this thing we call depression. It feels almost literally like being possessed by a spirit of darkness.

One of the nice things about prolonged sleep deprivation is that it can produce altered states (and I get a lot of reading done). I feel pretty clear right now (but I could be delusional as well -- so flip a coin), as though I am seeing clearly for the first time in days.

I can see the depression I have been experiencing as a kind of possession by a subpersonality. I've never looked at depression in this way before, or seen anyone else look at it this way either.

None of this negates the neuro-chemical component, or the emotional component. And I would certainly hesitate to suggest that this can be applied to the clinically depressed. But for people who are dealing with situational depression, as I have been, I think there might be some value in approaching the problem from the perspective of subpersonalities.

One of the foundations of subpersonality theory is that subs develop most often as a self-protective measure. They arise to protect a young and fragile psyche from intense physical or emotional experiences. When seen from this angle, depression serves the same purpose.

Intense situational depression isn't feeling sad or hurt, it's feeling almost nothing. Along with the numbness comes despair that it will ever be any different, lethargy and avoidance of responsibilities, either prolonged sleep or sleeplessness, and a desire for escape by any means available. This may be one way that some psyches learn to cope with intense feelings -- the pain is experienced as so intense that some part of the psyche takes over and shuts everything down.

But for those of us who have been in therapy and have learned to access an observer self, or have learned to do so through meditation, or have found access to the core self through "parts" or subpersonality work, we can experience short periods of disidentification from the depressed state. Anyone can be taught this ability, especially in therapy, where it might be crucial to gain some objective perspective.

Simply experiencing this disidentification presents the very real possibility that situational depression is a form of subpersonality. Some researches have suggested (and I'll find more evidence on this in a later post) that different parts or subs have completely different postures, attitudes and beliefs -- it makes sense they would also have slightly different neuro-chemical states.

Obviously, I'm just speculating here (although from a solid foundation). But seeing my recent depression as a subpersonality allows me to look at what it needs and how it is trying to serve me. Instead of feeling a victim of the hormones and other chemicals in my body, I simply see them as a symptom of the larger issue -- that I was possessed by a depressed subpersonality, one that I will name, for now, The Darkness (I've never been good at naming things).


[NOTE: If you are reading this and are seriously depressed, please seek help. Treatment works.]
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Today's Daily Dharma from Tricycle comes at a very good time -- this is a good message for me to hear.

Opening From Heart

Right now, and in every now-moment, you are either closing or opening. You are either stressfully waiting for something--more money, security, affection--or you are living from your deep heart, opening as the entire moment, and giving what you most deeply desire to give, without waiting. If you are waiting for anything in order to live and love without holding back, then you suffer. Every moment is the most important moment of your life. No future time is better than now to let down your guard and love. Everything you do right now ripples outward and affects everyone. Your posture can shine your heart or transmit anxiety. Your breath can radiate love or muddy the room in depression. Your glance can awaken joy. Your words can inspire freedom. Your every act can open hearts and minds. Opening from heart to all, you live as a gift to all. In every moment, you are either opening or closing. Right now, you are choosing to open and give fully or you are waiting. How does your choice feel?

~ David Deida, from 365 Nirvana, Here and Now by Josh Baran

I tend to go about my life feeling isolated and alone. But when it matters, I have an incredible network of friends in both meat-space and virtual-space. I have been truly floored by the support I have received in the past five days -- from friends, clients, fellow bloggers, and complete strangers. I even received a personal email from an important person at the Integral Spirituality Center -- and to be honest, I had no idea my blog was being read by anyone there.

I just want to express my gratitude for everyone who reads this blog -- those who comment and those who don't. This thing would be nothing without its readers. I am truly grateful.

Peace.

Today's Daily Dharma from Tricycle:

Crossing the River

When we study Buddhism, we learn about the view and the meditation as supports for encouraging us to let go of ego and just be with things as they are.... These supports are often likened to a raft. You need the raft to cross the river, to get to the other side; when you get over there, you leave the raft behind. That’s an interesting image, but in experience it’s more like the raft gives out on you in the middle of the river and you never really get to solid ground.

~ Pema Chödrön, Start Where You Are

From Everyday Mind, a Tricycle book edited by Jean Smith

 

 

Very cool . . .



MSNBC/Newsweek looks at The Encyclopedia of Life:

Now the Encyclopedia of Life will endeavor to document online every one of the world’s 1.8 million named species—each getting its own dedicated Web page. “This is one of those great things that will help everyone,” says Cristián Samper, the acting secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. “It’s one of those fun projects for humanity.”

A well-endowed one at that. The Encyclopedia of Life—a collaboration of the Smithsonian, Harvard University, Chicago’s Field Museum, the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, Mass., the Biodiversity Heritage Library and the Missouri Botantical Garden—has already received $12.5 million in grants from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and has been promised more than an additional $10 million. And like Wikipedia, the centralized database of every known living thing will be free and open source when it goes live early next year (in the meantime, the EOL site, which launched this week, comprises four sample pages and an inspirational video).

Samper, a biologist by training and the director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History since 2003, spoke with NEWSWEEK’s Brian Braiker about his vision for the Encyclopedia of Life.

Read the rest.

I found this at Suite 101 -- it might give some insight into my fascination with Raven. I tend to identify more with the indigenous views on Raven -- the Europeans had a definite bias against any black bird.

Raven, Enigmatic Pagan Symbol

Feathered Kin: Symbol of Magick, Creation, Healing and Protection

To Shamanic people of many cultures, Raven was, for the most part, beneficial. To the superstitious and some of orthodox religions, the bird was an ill omen.

Raven the Bird

Raven is a member of the corvid family as are crows, magpies, blue jays and others. They are intelligent animals. Two wild ravens helped a captive one escape by digging a hole from outside of its cage while the one inside dug from there. They can be taught to talk. Ravens are playful and have learned to use tools. They employ stones and other hard objects to crack nuts.

Ravens, scavengers, are found globally. Zoologists have found they are more beneficial than destructive to the environment. The only difference between a raven and a crow is the size. The former is the larger one.

Old World Pagan Raven Symbolism and Superstitions

Bran is the Celtic word for Raven, ubran is the Welsh name. Raven symbolizes protection, initiation and healing. It brings in deep healing and signifies the death of one thing to bring in the birth of another. Raven’s other attributes are eloquence, change in consciousness, wisdom, messages from spirit and something unexpected, but beneficial would happen soon. Raven was believed to be not totally trustworthy, so Celts were careful in working with it.

In the Germanic-Norse tradition, Waelceasig, Raven, was connected to death. Slain warriors were deemed to be feeders of Raven.

People in Cornwall believed that a raven cawing above a house meant good fortune was coming. Sailors believed that killing a raven was to bring ill fortune. Scottish hunters believed Raven’s raucous calls meant a successful hunt.

Ravens live in the Tower of London. The English believe that if they leave the tower, disaster will fall upon the country. They left the tower before the bombings began in England during World War II. The birds were reintroduced to the tower after the war ended and have been kept there since then and have a Ravenmaster who cares for them. Their wings are clipped so they cannot fly away.

In the Middle Ages, it was believed that to hear Raven’s caw was an omen of death. Sightings of the turnfalkens, ravens, and hearing their calls was a death omen to the Hapsburgs, the ruling family of the Austro/Hungarian Empire. Christians of that era believed that evil priests became ravens when they died.

Native American Raven Beliefs

AmerIndians associated Raven with magick, a powerful medicine or power that gives courage to enter the void, the Great Mystery where Great Spirit resides. When Raven appears, there will be a positive change in consciousness. Raven guards ritual magick and healing.

Raven brought light into the darkness of the world and transformed and created part of Maka, Mother Earth. He named plants and taught animals.

Raven is the hallmark of shape-shifting. Raven could see all and find things that are hidden.

Some tribes believe that Raven is Trickster like Coyote and Crow. Raven is teacher out outwits himself, being fooled by his shenanigans.

Raven, in accordance with Celtic symbolism, is believed to be a sign that something special, but unexpected will happen.

 

Today's Daily Dharma from Tricycle:

Spiritual Practice

Spiritual practice is difficult in the beginning. You wonder how on earth you can ever do it. But as you get used to it, the practice gradually becomes easier. Do not be too stubborn or push yourself too hard. If you practice in accord with your individual capacity, little by little you will find more pleasure and joy in it. As you gain inner strength, your positive actions will gain in profundity and scope.

~ The Dalai Lama, A Flash of Lightning in the Dark of Night

From Everyday Mind, a Tricycle book edited by Jean Smith

From my experience, the key point in this quote is not pushing too hard. If we become attached to outcomes in our spiritual practice, we are missing the point. It's not about the destination, as they say, it's about the journey.
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I found these over at Personal Development with The Positivity Blog. Here are a few of my favorites -- I really like the Frank Herbert quote the best.

Fears are educated into us, and can, if we wish, be educated out.
Karl Augustus Menninger

I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.
Frank Herbert

 
Fear: False Evidence Appearing Real.
Unknown

Fear is only as deep as the mind allows.
Japanese Proverb

Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. The fearful are caught as often as the bold.
Helen Keller

If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.
Marcus Aurelius

You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do.
Eleanor Roosevelt

The enemy is fear. We think it is hate; but, it is fear.
Gandhi

If you’d like to read more about fear and overcoming it have a look at 5 Life-Changing Keys to Overcoming Your Fear and How to Move Beyond Being a Self-Help Junkie for some practical pointers and advice.

I found this at The Art of Intimacy.

Dr. Lana Holstein and Dr. David Taylor offer a seven stage model of sexuality that I find kind of interesting.

1. Biology: the physical and chemical functioning of our bodies.
2. Sensuality: the energy of pleasure that flows through our bodies because of our ability to feel.
3. Desire: what most of us have come to think of as sexy and sexual -- it is the mating dance, the hey, check me out!
4. Heart: the energy of committed love and devotion. The way we celebrate I am yours; you are mine, with many tokens and rituals -- weddings, anniversaries, Valentines.
5. Intimacy: the energy of truth and trust. Think of staying up all night with a new lover, just talking and getting to know each other.
6. Aesthetics: not about superficial beauty, but rather inner beauty, a quality of the soul.
7. Ecstatics: the energy of the sacred contributing to our sexuality -- that deep place where we lose our ego boundaries and dissolve in oneness with our beloved.

I think they are approaching an integral model based on this short clip. But I'm not sure if they see this as a developmental model. And of course, we would have to add an eighth stage in which one has access to all of the first seven by choice and at the same time.

You can see more about their product at their website.

[I'm going to try a new speedlinking schedule for a while -- might stick with it, might go back to the old way -- who knows. Just glad to be back.]

Quote of the day:

"Last night I stayed up late playing poker with Tarot cards. I got a full house and four people died."
~ Steven Wright

Image of the day:


BODY
~ Blood on the Barbell: Dan John -- "Blood on the Barbell is our new series describing workouts to do when your woman left you, your momma' don't love you, and even your dog doesn't care much for you. This time, Dan John brings the hurt and the healin'."
~ Diabetes can be caused by excess fat in muscles -- Not new info -- "Before insulin can do its job of driving sugar into cells, it must first attach on special hooks on the surface of cell membranes called insulin receptors. When excess fat is stored in muscles, the insulin receptors internalize so that insulin cannot attach on the hooks. This markedly increases the amount of insulin that is necessary to drive sugar into cells, and eventually huge amounts of sugar accumulate in the bloodstream to cause diabetes and damage every cell in the body."
~ Marine Omega-3 Fatty Acids Have Positive Effect On Muscle Mass, Study Shows -- "A research team led by Carole Thivierge, from Universite Laval's Institute of Nutraceutics and Functional Foods, shows that omega-3 fatty acids from fish oil have a positive effect on the metabolism of muscle proteins. This finding, published in a recent edition of the Journal of Physiology, could have significant implications in the fields of animal farming as well as human health."
~ Can An Omega-3 Fatty Acid Slow The Progression Of Alzheimer's Disease? -- "Nutritionists have long endorsed fish as part of a heart-healthy diet, and now some studies suggest that omega-3 fatty acids found in the oil of certain fish may also benefit the brain by lowering the risk of Alzheimer's disease."
~ 4 Ways to Lose Body Fat Faster -- The usual good advice: diet, hydration, smaller frequent meals, weight training.
~ More Proof That Lifting Heavy Doesn't Bulk Girls Up -- "At a bodyweight of 115lbs, Samantha Turnbull can snatch 156lbs (from floor to overhead in one graceful movement). Smantha can also clean and jerk (floor to overhead in two movements) 187lbs - that's 1.6 times her bodyweight." Damn!


PSYCHE
~ Another important element of happiness: having a sense of CONTROL over your life -- "Research shows that a key component of happiness is a sense of control over your life. The more you perceive yourself to be in control, the better you feel. A sense of control means having a feeling of autonomy, of choosing how you spend your time, of doing your own work in your own way."
~ Green Walking Beats The Blues, New Study Recommends Ecotherapy For Depression -- "Going for a green walk in a park or countryside where one is surrounded by nature reduces depression whereas walking in a shopping centre or urban setting increases depression."
~ Neuropsychoanalysis: Freud and the brain -- "Bookslut has an in-depth interview with neuropsychologist Dr Mark Solms, one of the pioneers of neuropsychoanalysis, the field that attempts to test, extend and integrate Freudian ideas with modern neuroscience."
~ Self Harming Behaviour May Be Predicted ByTest -- "Researchers have found a better way to predict self-injurious behavior by using a test that does not rely on the individual to articulate their thoughts, but instead assesses their implicit attitudes towards self-injury. This procedure addresses a major challenge in the identification of people who engage in self-injurious behavior, because such individuals are often intentionally uncommunicative in order to avoid unwanted treatment as well as unable to articulate their feelings."
~ Emoticons as a psychiatric treatment guide -- Humor.


CULTURE/POLITICS
~ The Sharpton/Hitchens smackdown -- "You know you're in for a raucous dialogue when the guy who wrote a book called God Is Not Great is the less controversial of the two speakers. A week ago, Slate contributor and God Is Not Great author Christopher Hitchens and the Rev. Al Sharpton faced off in a debate about religion at the New York Public Library. Slate Editor Jacob Weisberg moderated the event."
~ Gingrich May Run for President -- "Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Monday there is a very good chance he'll get into the race for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination, but he won't decide until after September."
~ What Mitt Romney Believes -- "Will the Republican's past liberal views on abortion come back to haunt him?"
~ Fever Pitch -- "Pharmaceutical companies that appeal directly to the people their products most benefit--patients--are still regarded with suspicion. The Institute of Medicine, a nonprofit that researches biomedical issues, recommended a ban on advertising new classes of drugs in a report commissioned by Congress. Until last week, Senate legislation mandating an overhaul of the FDA approval process would also have given the FDA the power to ban ads for new drugs until two years after approval. Now that the provision has been weakened, interest groups are already calling for separate legislation to cut off communication between manufacturer and consumer."
~ Cheney Sabotages Talks with Tehran -- "Leave it to Dick Cheney to dash hopes for any cooler heads to prevail between Washington and Tehran."


HABITATS/TECHNOLOGY
~ Mystery Solved: How Alexander the Great Defeated Tyre -- "Ancient sandbar allowed him to build a causeway to the island."
~ Using soil to lock up carbon could help offset global warming -- "In the journal Nature, Cornell biogeochemist Johannes Lehmann writes that an economical way to help offset global warming is to pull carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere by charring biomass without the use of oxygen."
~ 'Fossil' Star Is Milky Way's Oldest -- "The oldest known star in the Milky Way was born 13.2 billion years ago."
~ Scientists search for cause of bee deaths -- "A U.S. scientist says parasites, pathogens and pesticides are all possible suspects in the recent staggering decline in the number of the world's honeybees."
~ Cluster spacecraft makes a shocking discovery -- "ESA's Cluster was in the right place and time to make a shocking discovery. The four spacecraft encountered a shock wave that kept breaking and reforming - predicted only in theory."


INTEGRAL/BUDDHIST
~ A special word of thanks to Julian over at Zaadz for organizing the first ever symposium on Zaadz, called Integrative Spirituality: Grounded Contemporary Perspectives. Here are the seven participants:

• Day 1: Julian
• Day 2: Hokai
• Day 3: Grey
• Day 4: Elektroglide
• Day 5: Bob
• Day 6: MrTeacup
• Day 7: Balder
  

~ From Mike at Unknowing Mind: Interfaith Blog Event #6: Role of Faith.
~ Altitude and development -- "In Rommel’s post Don’t Confuse Dharma with Derrida, he asked several questions regarding altitude (level of development) of the assessor and assessing certain documents – in this case Wilber’s assessment of Lankavatara Sutra as a “turquoise” document."
~ Mindfulness in Each Breath -- "In video from our new partner MypathTV, Zen monk Thich Nhat Hanh explains how by paying attention to inhaling and exhaling, we can become more present and alive. Watch the video."
~ The gifts of states -- "Here are a few of the gifts of states, of shifting contents of experience…"
.

The New Yorker takes a look at the rise of angry atheism. They blame 9-11 for the increase in pissed off atheists, but I can think of many other sources -- Pat Robertson, George Bush, and James Dobson, among so many others.

I am not an atheist in the way are Harris, Dawkins, Hitchens, and Dennett, but I am also not a theist in any way, so I have been enjoying watching this new wrinkle in Western culture develop and play itself out. Very interesting.

One good quote:

Bertrand Russell, who had a prodigious knowledge of history and a crisp wit, claimed in 1930 that he could think of only two useful contributions that religion had made to civilization. It had helped fix the calendar, and it had made Egyptian priests observe eclipses carefully enough to predict them. He could at least have added Bach’s St. Matthew Passion and more than a few paintings; but perhaps the legacy of religion is too large a conundrum to be argued either way. The history of the West has been so closely interwoven with the history of religious institutions and ideas that it is hard to be confident about what life would have been like without them. One of Kingsley Amis’s lesser-known novels, “The Alteration,” tried to envisage an alternative course for modern history in which the Reformation never happened, science is a dirty word, and in 1976 most of the planet is ruled by a Machiavellian Pope from Yorkshire. In this world, Jean-Paul Sartre is a Jesuit and the central mosaic in Britain’s main cathedral is by David Hockney. That piece of fancy is dizzying enough on its own. But imagine attempting such a thought experiment in the contrary fashion, and rolling it back several thousand years to reveal a world with no churches, mosques, or temples. The idea that people would have been nicer to one another if they had never got religion, as Hitchens, Dawkins, and Harris seem to think, is a strange position for an atheist to take. For if man is wicked enough to have invented religion for himself he is surely wicked enough to have found alternative ways of making mischief.

Read the whole thing.

Quote of the day:

"You don't stop laughing because you grow old. You grow old because you stop laughing."
~ Michael Pritchard

Image of the day:


BODY
~ The Everlasting Bond -- "If you're at work, don't read this. We're serious. What'll happen if you do? The urge to train will be so great that you'll literally walk out of the office, run to the gym, and start doing squats while still wearing your suit."
~ Working out on the Road -- "Get our picks for the best hotels for fitness."
~ Health Benefits Of Whole Grains Confirmed By Study -- "A diet high in whole grain foods is associated with a significantly lower risk of developing cardiovascular disease, including heart disease and stroke, according to an analysis conducted by researchers at Wake Forest University School of Medicine."Consuming an average of 2.5 servings of whole grains each day is associated with a 21 percent lower risk of cardiovascular disease compared to consuming only 0.2 servings," said Philip Mellen, M.D."
~ Fatty Acid Catabolism Higher Due To Polyphenol Intake -- "Polyphenols, dietary substances from vegetables, fruits and green tea, bring about a change in the energy metabolism. Dutch researcher Vincent de Boer has discovered that polyphenols increase the fatty acid breakdown in rats and influence the glucose use in fat cells."
~ Even limited exercise helps overweight women -- "Just 10 minutes of exercise a day can help even the most inactive overweight women, US researchers reported on Tuesday."
~ DIET: Thin People May Be Fat Inside -- "Thin People May Be Fat on the Inside, Doctors Warn; Exercise Key, Rather Than Dieting."


PSYCHE
~ Music: Fine Tuning the Brain -- "How music lessons may strengthen verbal skills."
~ Why You Don't Go Out More -- "Brain scans of quiet thinkers and social butterflies."
~ Field Guide to the Loner: The Real Insiders -- "The introvert reaps secret joy from the solitary life." See also: Introverts: At Home in the World.
~ How the Mind Works: The video lectures -- "The Technology, Entertainment, Design conference has strayed from its original focus and now hosts a wide-ranging set of talks, including a number on 'How the Mind Works', all of which are available online as streamed video."
~ Active and Constructive Responding - With A Twist -- "Active and constructive responses are characterized by sincere enthusiasm for the good event being described, by being excited and happy for the other person and by showing genuine interest in the good event being described."
~ Study: Intuition, mood may affect belief -- "A U.S. study suggests people who are intuitive and in a good mood are prone to believe just about anything."
~ Self-Compassion May be More Important Than Self-Esteem in Dealing With Negative Events, New Studies Show -- "Why do some people roll with life`s punches, facing failures and problems with grace, while others dwell on calamities, criticize themselves and exaggerate problems?"


CULTURE/POLITICS
~ Rev. Jerry Falwell Dead at 73 -- "The Rev. Jerry Falwell died Tuesday after being found unconscious in his office Tuesday." See also: Fineman: Falwell's Place in the Political Landscape.
~ MSNBC Mistakes Online Parody for Official White House Web Site -- "Josh Marshall and Atrios have both called attention to MSNBC's reporting on Falwell's death, wherein the White House was quoted: "Jerry Falwell has earned his role as the de facto executive director of domestic and global policy for the White House." That particular quoted text, however, was posted not by the actual White House - the web address of which is whitehouse.gov - but at whitehouse.org, a well-known parody web site. Don at Article 19 has posted a rough transcript. update: Crooks and Liars has the video."
~ The Simpsons Hit 400 -- "Over eighteen seasons and three presidential eras, The Simpsons has paid badly animated homage to all that sucks in America. Simon Maxwell Apter measures their impact."
~ Could Roger Clemens be worth every penny? -- "Roger Clemens, the winningest pitcher alive and still an ace at an age when most ballplayers are selling cars, recently stood up in George Steinbrenner's box at Yankee Stadium, like Mussolini at the balcony, and told a cheering crowd that he was coming back to the Yankees. New York sports being New York sports, the muttering started a half-second after the cheering. Did the Yankees just buy another pennant? Or another Kevin Brown? Is Clemens really worth $18 million?"
~ Giuliani's Choice -- "Giuliani is betting his post-9/11 image and economic conservatism will be enough to win him the nomination in a party that has not nominated a pro-choice Republican since Gerald Ford in 1976. It doesn't help that Giuliani also embraces the gay rights political agenda and stronger gun control." See also: Rudy Tests the Pro-Lifers.


HABITATS/TECHNOLOGY
~ New invention to make parabolic trough solar collector systems more energy efficient -- "A mirror alignment measurement device, invented by Rich Diver, a researcher at Sandia National Laboratories, may soon make one of the most popular solar collector systems, parabolic troughs, more affordable and energy efficient."
~ Nanotechnology restores art masterpieces -- "Italian scientists are developing nanotechnologies to simply and less expensively restore paintings and other works of art."
~ A Two-Time Universe? Physicist Explores How Second Dimension of Time Could Unify Physics Laws -- "For a long time, Itzhak Bars has been studying time. More than a decade ago, the USC College physicist began pondering the role time plays in the basic laws of physics — the equations describing matter, gravity and the other forces of nature.:
~ Vast Regions of West Antarctica Melted in Recent Past -- "A team of NASA and university scientists has found clear evidence that extensive areas of snow melted in west Antarctica in January 2005 in response to warm temperatures. This was the first widespread Antarctic melting ever detected with NASA's QuikScat satellite and the most significant melt observed using satellites during the past three decades. Combined, the affected regions encompassed an area as big as California."
~ Strong Evidence of Dark Matter Found -- "The Hubble telescope has revealed a ghostly ring of apparent dark matter."
~ World's mayors gather for climate-change summit in New York City -- "Gone are the days when mayors chomped cigars and handed out keys to the city. Today's civic leaders face a somewhat more monumental task: saving the planet."


INTEGRAL/BUDDHIST
~ Disidentification -- "Any disidentification is only to a story, and it can happen in many ways… and as usual from the form and emptiness sides of the story."
~ John Mackey Gives an Integral Overview of Food -- "Steve Frazee loves John Mackey. Me too. Who wouldn't? Aside from being the kick ass CEO of Whole Foods (and having the foresight of investing in Zaadz :)), John Mackey is one of the most vocal and integrally-minded CEOs out there. And I don't use the word “integral” very lightly."
~ We are the next Buddha -- "Helen wrote in her blog “Why the next Buddha will be a collective.” I hope to show with this article where I am coming from in this regard so that in the time to come we can have beautiful dialogues, trialogues or any other -logues to help this meme propagate."
~ Three centers and Buddhas -- "I wrote another post on this a while ago, but wanted to revisit it (as with some many topics here) to see what comes up now. The three centers - heart, belly and head - each filter Spirit, Existence, life in different ways…"
.

From The Onion:

Hallmark Scientists Identify 3 New Human Emotions

May 16, 2007 | Issue 43•20

KANSAS CITY, MO—Scientists at Hallmark Cards' Center for the Research and Development of Sentiments announced Monday that they had discovered three previously unknown emotions that can be experienced by human beings and captured on a folded piece of card stock.

Enlarge Image

Exploring The Human Psyche

Dr. Susan McMurrough has spent years analyzing the deep, unexamined feelings of thousands of test subjects in order to discover new, marketable emotions.

"These new Hallmark-brand feelings will fill a void that has too long persisted in the consumable pleasantries market," said Hallmark president and CEO Don Hall, Jr., speaking to reporters in front of a watercolor backdrop of tulips beside a pond. "They will add a whole new level of complexity and nuance to the way we humans relate to one another, and will fill in any gaps left by our 'Thinking of You' and 'Just Because' categories."

The first emotion the project successfully isolated was "requiapathy," the combination of relief and guilt that comes with the sudden realization that you no longer miss a dead loved one. That discovery quickly led to the uncovering of "seprudity," the feeling of appreciating a coworker's dedication without fully understanding his or her job function, and "trepatiousness," a synthesis of rage and jealousy, though more muted and often accompanied by a sensation of weight-lessness.

"[Trepatiousness] appears to be a very rare emotion, almost exclusively experienced while in a dream state," said principal investigator Dr. Susan McMurrough, a leader in the field of keepsake science best known for her work on the revolutionary "Blank Inside" line of cards. "The only way to activate it during waking hours, in fact, is with a combination of reds, oranges, and drowsy beagles in top hats."

The three emotions represent the latest discovery in the center's ongoing Emotions Mapping Project, a $42.4 million effort to identify and codify all of the mental and physiological states generated within the human psyche that are not currently covered by Hallmark's extensive line of greeting cards and collectible ornaments.

Enlarge Image

A prototype of one of the new cards, which will be available at Hallmark stores in time for Father's Day.

In 2002, McMurrough monitored the MRI activity of nearly 10,000 test subjects between the ages of 25 and 40 as they described all emotions they had experienced in the past six months and rated each for its intensity, duration, and whether it would be conveyable to others by mail. To identify targets of further study, McMurrough's team referenced that data against a matrix of all possible combinations of the neurotransmitters that catalyze human emotion.

"Until now, millions of people worldwide were forced to express their sincere and heartfelt requiapathy, seprudity, and trepatiousness with clumsy words and gestures," Hall said. "Our colorful and succinct messages will spare them countless hours of inconvenience and potential misunderstandings."

After a second group of Hallmark scientists successfully replicated the initial study's results, the sentiments were immediately submitted to the U.S. Patent Office and rushed to Hallmark headquarters, where writers, illustrators, and graphic designers interpreted the new emotions in warm, concise verse; inoffensive, ingratiating humor; and reassuring pastel watercolors.

"This research is not only groundbreaking—it's inspirational," said Mallory Jefson, a writer for Hallmark's Best Wishes department, who added that the emotions have led them to creative heights not reached since Secretaries Day became Administrative Professionals Day in 2000. In a single day of brainstorming, Jefson and her colleagues developed 15 seprudity-based card concepts that incorporated cats in sunglasses, and 22 new coffee mugs featuring the tart-tongued, post-menopausal character Maxine expressing requiapathy.

The Hallmark laboratories have been at the forefront of the greeting card sciences since the '40s. Their work has led to the creation of eight federally recognized holidays, the specification of a time frame in which someone ought to get well, and over a dozen flower and cursive-font combinations that, sales figures show, have effectively conveyed the complex emotional and psychological states of an estimated 185 million Americans.

 

An interesting article -- certainly, sites like YouTube are going to change the face of election campaigning. In fact, it already has with the anti-Hillary Apple 1984 video.

Web 2.0 meets Campaign 2008

Podcasts and videos are among the features found on the interactive websites of US presidential candidates.

By Linda Feldmann | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

WASHINGTON - Go to www.YouTube.com/emergencycheese and click on the video "Congressman Ron Paul Visits My Dorm Room." There, according to Georgetown student James Kotecki, viewers will see the first-ever interview with a presidential candidate from a college dorm room. They can hear Mr. Paul present his libertarian take on foreign policy, economics, and the Constitution. In the background, the clutter of toiletries atop Mr. Kotecki's dresser adds to the "just dropping by" feel.

To Kotecki, college senior and political video junkie, his YouTubed interview with Paul is what the marriage of Web 2.0 and Campaign '08 should be all about: interactivity. Candidate-to-voter communication should be a two-way street, he says, not just one-way pronouncements.

Click to enlarge

Source: Alexa.com/Rich Clabaugh – Staff

Of course, most voters aren't going to have half-hour, one-on-one chats with presidential candidates. And chances are Kotecki, who aggressively courts candidate attention via YouTube, will find it much harder to land interviews with top-tier hopefuls like Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D) of New York or former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani (R). If nothing else, a dorm-room drop-by probably doesn't fit the presidential image they're trying to project. But there's no doubt that interaction with voters – aided and amplified by still-unfolding Web innovations – is the name of the game in the 2008 presidential race.

Peter Daou, Internet director for the Clinton campaign, has watched the trajectory up close for years; he ran online outreach for John Kerry's presidential campaign in 2004. Interactivity "was important then, obviously," Mr. Daou says. "What has changed is the mechanisms to do it have become far more robust, more commonplace, more popular."

Onetime Democratic candidate Howard Dean's cutting-edge use of the Internet four years ago, as a way to raise big money fast, organize volunteers, and communicate with supporters, now looks downright quaint. And, analysts note, Mr. Dean's ultimate flameout as a presidential contender early in the 2004 primaries shows that success on the Web does not guarantee actual votes.

The same may hold true today. Sen. Barack Obama (D) of Illinois, at least, hopes not. He blew away the competition in both parties by raising $6.9 million from 50,000 contributors online during the first quarter of 2007.

 

Read the rest.