Relatively constant? Roll over, Einstein!

**New York Times details investigations going on that may alter the standard of the speed of light as a constant. E and mc2: Equality, It Seems, Is Relative Read whole article

Guided by ambiguous signals from the heavens, and by the beauty of their equations, a few brave — or perhaps foolhardy — physicists now say that relativity may have limits and will someday have to be revised.
. . .Any hint of breakage of relativity, scientists say, could yield a clue to finding the holy grail of contemporary physics — a "theory of everything" that would marry Einstein's general theory of relativity, which describes how gravity shapes the universe, to quantum mechanics, the strange rules that govern energy and matter on subatomic scales. . . The field, while still small, is destined for at least 15 minutes of fame next year with the publication in February of "Faster Than the Speed of Light," by Dr. João Magueijo, a cosmologist at Imperial College London. The book is a racy account of Dr. Magueijo's seemingly heretical effort to modify relativity so that the speed of light is not constant, and he will promote it on a long lecture tour."Ruling out special relativity by 2005 is a bit extreme," Dr. Magueijo said in a recent e-mail message, referring to the coming centennial of Einstein's famous paper, "although I would be very surprised if by 2050 nothing beyond relativity has been found."

E and mc2: Equality, It Seems, Is Relative Read whole article

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A cool animated clock

INDUSTRIOUS CLOCK
Other groovy flash stuff at surface.yugop.com

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How does Sugar Nation do "moderation?"

** Dr. Robert C. Atkins, the low carb king, comments on recent statements by the Sugar Association that sugar "in moderation" isn't all that bad for you. Which must be the reason why we'll be treated to commercials for Funky Fries and pudding in a tube! (via Atkins newsletter email)

We have it on the testimony of the president of the Sugar Association, Richard Keelor, that "There is no evidence that sugar in moderation has any ill effects." Since our Constitution protects free speech, I guess I can consider this remark as a fascinating and instructive expression of opinion. Before I even begin to think of what he means by "no evidence," I must ask myself where the word "moderation" came from. Should we assume that the present situation in which nearly 25 percent of the total caloric intake in the United States comes from sugar and high fructose corn syrup is an example of moderation? If not, is the Sugar Association advising that Americans decrease their consumption of sugar? Um. . . . Mr. Keelor seems to have put himself between a rock and a hard place.

. . . These are boom days for sugar products. A case in point: As part of its Funky Fries line, Heinz 57 is rolling out frozen french fries whose slender nutritional profile is enhanced by the addition of chocolate and cinnamon sugar. Applesauce enhanced with sweet strawberry flavor is now manufactured in a tube so that with the dexterous opposition of thumb and forefinger, you can press out some extra carbs just about anywhere you happen to be. Chocolate pudding has made it into a tube as well. And chocolate-covered caramel popcorn has arrived. Every sign in the constellation points to payoff.

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Get a head start on New Year's resolutions

CNN Newswatch - Article How about making a commitment to be more creative rather than make another list of self-serving goals? Radical theologian Matthew Fox says the world is suffering more from a lack of creativity than anything else.

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RX: A healthy dose of forgiveness

**The Christian Science Monitor's Jane Lampman reports on latest research on the therapeutic effects of forgiveness.

There's no getting around it - forgiveness is good for you and holding a grudge is not.

While many people believe that to forgive someone is to let that other guy off the hook, maybe undeservedly, evidence is mounting that it's the one who stops holding a grudge who finds a new lease on life - and on health and well-being.

Read full article: Forgive and your health won't forget

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Do we really want to kill "Hussein's own hostages?"

**Bill Moyers in his PBS Web page tells of what he learned as Lyndon Johnson's press secretary as the Vietnam war was beginning. He calculates the costs of war in mothers, on both sides, deprived of their kids and husbands. Very moving. Let's continue to give "candles and prayers" a chance.

NOW: Commentary - Bill Moyers on the Costs of War | PBS
To launch an armada against Hussein's own hostages, a people who have not fired a shot at us in anger, seems a crude and poor alternative to shrewd, disciplined diplomacy.

Don't get me wrong. Vietnam didn't make me a dove; it made me read the Constitution. That's all. Government's first obligation is to defend its citizens. There's nothing in the Constitution that says it's permissible for a great nation to go hunting for Hussein by killing the people he holds hostage, his own people, who have no choice in the matter, who have done us no harm.

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And now there's "cyberchondria"

** Found this in Rebecca's Pocket. Makes you think about what actually causes illness:

Internet makes hypochondria worse
Too much information can exacerbate condition

By R. Morgan Griffin
WEBMD
Health information on the Web is valuable to most people, but for hypochondriacs, it can be too much information. Their condition can worsen into a modern malady called ‘cyberchondria.

Read the MSNBC.com article: Internet makes hypochondria worse

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Dems could have a Lott on their wish list

From Talking Points Memo: by Joshua Micah Marshall

What I think most Republicans understand is that a lot of Democrats would actually prefer Lott stay as Majority Leader. They'd like him to get battered and be wounded politically -- and that's pretty much already taken care of. But they'd really prefer he stay in place. Because as long as he's Senate Majority Leader, politically speaking, he's the gift that just keeps on giving.

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Whole Lott-a doubletalk going on

** Paul Krugman in The Other Face the NY Times for December 13, 2002 points out that while Trent Lott's "apology" and George Bush's rebuke hit the right buttons with the tolerant majority, there is also a tacit statement to the racist minorities that is the exact reverse.

Bear in mind that while Mr. Bush has finally denounced Mr. Lott's remarks, he and his party benefit from the strategy that allows the likes of Mr. Lott to hold so much power.

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More Christmas myth-busters

** (This originally appeared on Beliefnet.com and I would post a link but the article is no longer available.) Though I'm in favor of demystifying spiritual themes, I still don't fully agree with his conclusion in the last paragraph. I suspect the standard explanation of the "Incarnation" is itself a myth.

No Room at the Inn?
By Ben Witherington III

The whole notion of the Holy Family being left shelterless by the world was probably no part of the original story.

Whenever Christmas rolls around, and the stories of Jesus' birth are read or heard in word and song, various images of what happened back then in Judea are conjured up. The problem is that these stories have been embroidered in the human imagination and in print in so many ways during the past two millennia that it is hard to get back to the original story and hear it in a fresh and clear way. In this and in subsequent columns during the Christmas season, we will rethink these stories and see if we can get back to what the New Testament writers were trying to tell us.

Let us take, for example, the story in Luke 2:4-7. Joseph and Mary must return to Bethlehem, Joseph's ancestral home, to be registered for tax purposes. Bethlehem, then as now, was a very small town that may not even have had a wayside inn. Whether it did or not, the likely place a poor couple would stay when making such a visit, especially with a pregnant woman involved, is with Joseph's relatives. The Greek word in question in Luke 2:7, "kataluma," while it can mean "inn," also has as a normal meaning "guest room," which is in fact precisely what it means else-where in Luke-Acts, including in the story of the last supper. Furthermore, Luke uses a very different word for "inn" elsewhere (for example, in the parable of the Good Samaritan).

What then happens to our story if we make a simple and likely variation in the translation of the word "kataluma"? First, there is no image conveyed of the holy family being told there is no room in a wayside inn. What they learn is that they have arrived at their relatives too late to be accommodated in the guest room. But this is not the end of the matter.

Far too many Christmas sermons have been based on the assumption that the family then ended up in a barn somewhere. This, too, is doubtful. Peasant families with only a few precious farm animals in ancient Israel regularly brought their animals into the back of their own homes for safekeeping, especially at night and in winter. It is historically far more plausible that Jo-seph's relatives made room for the holy family in the back or lower part of their own home, where the animals were. In short, the whole notion of the holy family being cast out by the world is probably no part of the original story.

They may not even have had to share the space with farm animals. Notice that Luke 2:7 does not mention there were animals present--unlike the next story, in Luke 2:8, which explicitly be-gins out in the fields, where there are shepherds and sheep. It is entirely possible that Mary's placing Jesus in the corn crib is an act that bespeaks the absence of the animals in the home at this juncture.

Somehow, when we allow the Christmas stories and their legendary accretions to be blended together in our minds, we not only miss the original thrust of the story, we even mislead those who would like to believe in the stories. At heart, this story is about what John Donne said it was about: "Twas much that man was made like God long before; But that God should be made like man--much more." The Christmas story does not call us back to a faith in the fractured fairy tales of childhood. It calls us forward to deal with the miracle of the Incarnation. If there is to be a mental wrestling in an age of doubt, let it be with the real substance of the real story.

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What is Christianity coming to?

** The advent of Christianity changed the world forever. But by the 16th century it had degenerated into a politicized state religion drained of spiritual vision and its original healing genius. The Reformation sought to remedy all that and to re-establish Christianity's original energy and its empowerment of the individual. Alas, it, too, has fallen victim to the drag of materialism.

In The Next Christianity, a longish article in the October 2002 Atlantic Monthly, Philip Jenkins posits a spooky apocalypic conflict between southern Christianity, which is a throwback to the Counter-Reformation -- ultra-conservative, supernaturalistic and antagonistic to the all that is the basis for Western progress and identity -- and northern Christianity, which he sees as the basis for all that the West has become, good and bad.

And yet, at the core of Christianity is an idea so powerful that it will not stay suppressed forever. Perhaps we need yet another Reformation, where the "primitive Christianity" espoused by the south can be expressed within the context of individual freedom of thought and action. It would be regressive to adopt the mob-think of ultra-conservative religionists, and yet Jenkins foresees a clash between the two systems that is anything but a slam dunk for modernity. Here's the precis:

We stand at a historical turning point, the author argues—one that is as epochal for the Christian world as the original Reformation. Around the globe Christianity is growing and mutating in ways that observers in the West tend not to see. Tumultuous conflicts within Christianity will leave a mark deeper than Islam's on the century ahead.

Read the whole article online at: The Atlantic | October 2002 | The Next Christianity

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No more mailing list

** Just to clarify an earlier entry, I am no longer using an outside mailing list service so there's no risk of spam. However, if you'd like me to notify you when I've put something especially groovy on the site, just click this gimme feedback button.

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"Prey" tell

** A scientist assesses Michael Crichton's heavily promoted new book, Prey. Via nanodot.org

The book is not just wrong; it's stupid. The science is bogus. The technology is broken. And even the real-world stuff is impossible. . . . it doesn't work as a book, and you certainly can't learn any science from it.

Full critique

More on nanotechnology:

Attack of the Killer Dust, by Heather Green, published in Business Week Dec. 2, 2002, uses the release of Michael Crichton's latest novel Prey to point out that "nanotech has a scary side".

Business Week on Crichton novel - Nanodot

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Bobble -- but boldly!

Lutherans break out the fun with Martin Luther bobblehead Martha Sawyer Allen, Minneapolis Star Tribune - Dec. 7, 2002 It's not always easy being Lutheran. Be proud, but not too proud. Boast, but only to yourself. Eat Jell-O, but not too much. And have fun? Well . . . Two Lutheran guys in Moorhead, MN decided that even Lutherans could have fun and started a Web site: oldlutheran.com Full article

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Teen abstinence - the gross-out factor

** Steve Waldman, founder of Beliefnet.com, maintains kind of a blog/column on that site. His December 3 entry takes a look at some trends in the movement for teen celibacy today.

Lecturing to hormone-crazed teenagers about abstinence actually works? That seems to be the implication of a recent study by the Centers for Disease Control showing a 16% drop in the number of teens having intercourse compared to ten years earlier. And, according to the Newsweek cover story that brought this issue once again to our attention, the youngsters now pledging abstinence were influenced by in-school abstinence programs, like the ones President Bush wants to fund.
....
I also figured the abstinence approach was based partly on a false premise; that many teens really would rather not have sex but were feeling pressured into doing it. My memory of adolescence was that most teens wanted to have sex but felt there wasn't enough supply to fill the demand, in part because it was taboo. This may reveal a bit too much about my own adolescent frustrations, but I assumed this was the reality of the world.

Instead, it turns out President Bush and other advocates of abstinence programs were right: there is a large group of teens in a gray area – they would rather not have sex but need some good reasons or peer support to say no.

But judging from the Newsweek article they are not abstaining primarily for moral reasons. These programs seem to be at their most effective when they stress not Sodom and Gomorrah but syphillus and gonorrhea. Chris, one of the celibate teens profiled, joined a Christian abstinence group called Teen Advisors. “We watched their slide show in eighth grade and it just has pictures of all these STDs [sexually transmitted diseases],” he says. “It’s one of the grossest things you’ve ever seen. I didn’t want to touch a girl, like, forever.”

Read the article

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Regulating for a free Internet

** Paul Krugman in NYT suggests that some regulation may actually preserve the Internet's freedom.

Until recently, the Internet seemed the very embodiment of the free-market ideal — a place where thousands of service providers competed, where anyone could visit any site. And the tech sector was a fertile breeding ground for libertarian ideology, with many techies asserting that they needed neither help nor regulation from Washington.

But the wide-open, competitive world of the dial-up Internet depended on the very government regulation so many Internet enthusiasts decried.

Full article: Digital Robber Barons?

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Musings on "The Matrix"

** A new collection of essays, "The Matrix and Philosophy" explores that film's provocative philosophical implications. Reviewed by Laura Miller at Salon.com. Excerpts from her review:

For those few souls who haven't seen it, "The Matrix" describes the travails of Neo, a young programmer whose vague sense that there is "something wrong with the world ... a splinter in the mind" comes to fruition when he meets the unspeakably cool Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne). He takes a pill Morpheus offers, and after a few trippy effects, discovers that his late-20th-century urban life is merely a virtual reality simulation (the Matrix). He and almost all of the rest of humanity are actually kept in womb-like cells, where they supply energy to a vast computerized artificial intelligence, while their minds are occupied with a completely fake "existence."

Morpheus is the leader of that small band of rebels that always turns up in such stories, and Neo joins them in their fight to free humanity...
….
The philosophers contributing to "The Matrix and Philosophy" … find the implied and explicit ontological questions posed by the film intriguing. "What is real? How do you define real?" Morpheus asks Neo at one point. "If you're talking about what you can feel, what you can smell, what you can taste and see, then real is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain."
….
Since the senses have been known to lie, since when we're dreaming we often do not realize that we are dreaming (and therefore are having an "unreal" experience we mistakenly consider real), the ordinary sensory evidence we rely on to tell us what is true cannot necessarily be trusted. Can we really be sure that any of it is authentic?
….
A member of Morpheus' crew, Cypher, decides he's had enough and betrays his leader in exchange for being reabsorbed into the Matrix with his memory of reality erased and a new virtual life as a wealthy actor. "After nine years, do you know what I realize?" he tells one of the agents. "Ignorance is bliss."
….
The nature of reality and the validity of Cypher's choice are the two substantive philosophical questions the movie poses.

Full review: Salon.com Books | "The Matrix and Philosophy" by William Irwin, ed.

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What if Saddam is telling the truth?

** This Salon piece entertains the possibility that Saddam will give hawks just the excuse they need to start shooting - denial that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. But what if he's telling the truth? "The ultimate irony -- if Iraq really had no weapons of mass destruction, but we went to war anyway," says David Albright, a former U.N. weapons inspector.
Salon.com News | Blind man's brinksmanship

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Pope says nope to carbs

** ...but yup to low fat. Oh well, if it's good enough for Madonna....

Ananova - Pope losing pounds on Zone Diet
Pope John Paul II has reportedly started to lose the pounds after starting on the Zone Diet earlier this year.

Italian newspaper Il Messegero says he has been looking slimmer since going on the diet in the spring.

The Zone Diet has also been adopted by celebrities such as Madonna and Demi Moore.

The Pope reportedly went on the diet to help his arthritis and shaking. Sources at the Vatican have said his face is less swollen and he is also speaking more coherently.

The diet, which centres around creating a 40/30/30 balance of carbohydrate, protein and fat, was created by diet guru Dr. Barry Sears, who said he found it "humbling but gratifying" to have the Pope following his plan.

However he added that he had no plans to ask him to star in advertisements for the diet.

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Quote of the moment

** "The difference between communism and capitalism is that communism is
man's inhumanity to man, while capitalism is exactly the opposite."

- Joke making the rounds in Budapest cafes, as quoted by George Lang, author, in Saveur (April 2002) via Utne.com

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What about "the day after" we topple Saddam?

** In a live chat today from Baghdad via spirituality.com Scott Peterson, correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor and an expert on Middle East affairs, had this to say about the consequences of a US invasion of Iraq:

Gentry/Utah: Do you think life will be better if the Americans take out Saddam and put in a regime that the US government sees fit?
Scott Peterson: The hazards of trying to reengineer a new government in Iraq possibly outweigh the benefits. Because if chaos is allowed to grip the country -- as many Iraqis predict -- then it could result in a virtually ungovernable country.

That doesn't mean that it is going to split into three ethnic based regions, but what it does mean is that there could be a large degree of violence associated with revenge attacks and people getting back at those who they feel have caused them the most pain in the last 30 years.

The problem for American strategic planners is that while Iraqis may not be entirely in favor of their own government they are also deeply suspicious of American motives and they often blame the United States for ensuring that UN sanctions imposed upon Iraq for the last 12 years have been among the most strict in history.

They often accuse the US of being interested in controlling Iraq only for its oil resources and they believe the regime when it tells that the US has been responsible for the deaths of 100,000s of Iraqi children who the government says have died as a result of those sanctions.

This means that any government that is seen to have been imposed by the US will face an uphill battle in order to appear legitimate before most Iraqis.

And it's one of the reasons that Iraqi exiles -- some of whom are being considered by Washington to form part of a future government -- are so concerned about the "day after."
...............
One other aspect of reporting here is that you do have a greater understanding of why many Iraqis think the way they do and it is a value to Americans to read counter-intuitive analysis such that even if Iraqis don't care for their regime that doesn't necessarily mean that they want America to change it for them.
………………………………………….
Paula/Boston: What do you think American schoolchildren should know about Iraq and Iraqis?
Scott Peterson: …that not everyone here is Saddam Hussein.

When I visit the United States I am often surprised at how shallow the common understanding of Iraq is among Americans who see every aspect of this country through the visage of that one man. Regardless of their regime, many Iraqis are very well educated. They work very hard to feed their families. They have the same concerns about getting a decent education that we all share. They wonder when their country is going to be able to use its oil wells to rebuild itself.

And they are concerned about the future, as any of us would be, if that future included a war that promised to be so severe and so resolute that we have seen nothing like it for decades.
……………………………………………
moppo/boston: Tom Friedman in a recent NYTimes piece suggested that this is the time for Iraqi scientists and officials to defect. But a letter to the editor claimed this would actually hurt Iraqis more than help: "A potential Iraqi defector may decide to withhold his information, for fear of consequences to his country. Any revelations will trigger a devastating American invasion costing thousands of Iraqi lives." Is there that kind of patriotism there?

Scott Peterson: There is no doubt that Iraqis are worried about the consequences of a war and anything that might be seen to trigger that war could be seen as something that would yield many Iraqi casualties as well as American casualties.

While some Iraqis and many Americans may argue that a greater good could come from a war, many Iraqis themselves who have settled with this way of life for a generation are now as concerned about the consequences of dramatic changes and how they could affect their families and their lives.

In this respect, I think many Iraqis now are weighing up what they have with what the possibilities may be, and as pressure increases on Iraq from outside people will begin to make decisions about how they want their future to be.

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At last. PROOF that you know how to tie your shoes.

There are many millions of different possibilities but, reassuringly, the proof shows that centuries of human trial and error have already selected the strongest lacing patterns. However, the pattern using the least amount of lace possible, the decorative "bowtie" lacing, is usually only seen in shoe shop displays. Via New Scientist. Read full article

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Thatzit, no more carbs!

Via Reuters....
Refined Foods May Be Cause of Pimples and Acne

Wed December 4, 2002 02:03 PM ET
LONDON (Reuters) - Eating too much refined bread and cereal, rather than chocolate and greasy foods, could be the cause of teenage acne and pimples.

Loren Cordain and scientists at the Colorado State University in Fort Collins have published research showing that refined carbohydrates unleash a series of reactions in the body which increase the production of bacteria that cause acne.

"There's a lot of anecdotal evidence," Neil Mann, a nutrition researcher at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia told New Scientist magazine Wednesday.

Mann and his colleagues are planning to test the theory and will be putting 60 teenage boys on low-carbohydrate diets for three months to see if it has an impact.

"Dermatologists will tell you they have put patients on low-carbohydrate diets and seen improvements. This will be the first controlled study," he added.

Although acne makes teenagers in developed countries miserable, it is almost unknown in some societies such as the Kitava Islanders in Papua New Guinea where processed foods are at a minimum.

According to Cordain, the Inuit people in Alaska did not suffer from pimples until the arrival of the Western diet.

"Acne may not be the only problem caused by eating large quantities of highly refined starches. Such diets have also been blamed for causing short-sightednesand contributing to adult-onset diabetes," New Scientist said.

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What do you know about Christmas?

** This came via email from a friend.

"A Religious Santa Claus Story
   - By John Shelby Spong

The birth narrative of Jesus shouldn't be taken literally.
Part One of a series about the Nativity.

The symbols are everywhere: on radio and television, in newspapers and magazine ads, in store windows, and eventually in our own homes. Sometimes they depict a jolly old elf dressed in red, sometimes accompanied by reindeer and a sleigh. Sometimes they show a manger, a baby, angels singing to shepherds, or wise men following a star. Some of the symbols rotate around the North Pole, the others around a little town named Bethlehem.

Most people do not literalize the story of Santa Claus. He is a symbol--a powerful symbol, but still just a symbol. I suggest that the birth narratives of Jesus, too, cannot be taken literally. They, too, are symbols, a religious version of Santa Claus. Some religious people will be offended by that suggestion. I invite them to reconsider."

Full Text of article
The original article appeared on Beliefnet.com.
See also: Easter: the historicity that matters

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Can one good man save Iraq?

** "Wisdom is better than weapons of war," concludes the writer of the Bible book of Ecclesiastes. He tells how “There was a little city, and few men within it; and there came a great king against it, and besieged it, and built great bulwarks against it: Now there was found in it a poor wise man, and he by his wisdom delivered the city." Eccl 9:14-18

Citing another Bible story, New York Times columnist Tom Friedman suggests that today such "wisdom" might take the form of "information" from a courageous Iraqi scientist or official. See 'Sodom' Hussein's Iraq.

Maybe we should be praying to strengthen the courage of that one "poor wise man."

PS: Here's a thought from a letter to the editor about Friedman's article.

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Intimations of incorporeality

** The Internet is giving us realistic experiences daily in the incorporeality of the spiritual universe. Through email, instant messaging, bulletin boards and Web sites, people are engaging with each other on the basis of ideas instead of material bodily factors. This blog at this moment is an example. It doesn't really matter where you are right now, how old you are, what gender, size, shape of your body, or what time of day it is -- you are interacting with me on the basis of some common interest -- in other words, in ideas.

Could this be the step prior to the realization that reality is ultimately non-material? Could it be that what great spiritual thinkers have been trying to tell us for ages is about to become universally experienced?

Here's a New York Times story about an early computer innovator who got intimations of incorporeality back in 1974. Speaking mind to mind

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Producing the war

**Via Shou?
"Get ready for the next generation of wartime propaganda," writes Ed Halter in his story War Games in the Village Voice. The US military is producing big-budget military promotional films and war-based video games to "boost national morale" and "court new recruits". Read full entry

Could this be next?

From Mad Magazine: the full size Coming soon! poster. (Via MaxSpeak.)

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Between science and spirituality

** The Chronicle: 11/29/2002:
"I do not believe in miracles, at least not defined in the conventional religious manner as divine disruptions of the natural order. But if a miracle is defined as an infinitely improbable phenomenon, then our existence is a miracle, which no theory natural or supernatural will ever explain."

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More on war

**"The best way to think about sorting out the priorities between Iraq and al-Qa'eda is to imagine that the United States invades Iraq and that while we are doing so, al-Qa'eda conducts another terrorist attack that results in the death of several hundred Americans."
Excerpt from The Threatening Storm via rc3.org

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Research on low carb lifestyle

** Who says there's no research on low carb?
Here's a list of research studies and reports (with links) on low carb vs. low fat life styles.
View list in new window

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Slow down, you move too fast

**Study says patience is more than a virtue

CHICAGO, Illinois (CNN) -- More bad news for people with hard-charging personalities. Researchers said Wednesday that they have found a correlation between having a sense of time urgency and impatience (TUI) and an increased risk of developing hypertension or high blood pressure.
"The higher the tendency of time urgency and impatience, the higher the risk of developing hypertension," lead researcher Dr. LeJingh Yan told CNN. The finding applies to young adults who are impatient and do not have enough time to finish what they need to do. Full story

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Music and the smell of war

** As the US administration prepares the American public for a show of serious ass-kicking in Iraq, Benjamin Britten’s Cantata Miserecordium and Ballad of Heroes, when presented on the same program, is a strong counter dose of anti-war caution. Such was the case November 14 at Symphony Hall in Boston. Both pieces involve large choruses and male soloists. A big orchestral sound by the BSO included a busy percussion section adding ominous low timpani tones, crackling snares, splashing cymbals and bass drum booms to convey the violence that is the context for both these pieces. The Miserecordium, was composed in 1939, when Great Britain was in the beginning stages of World War II, and Heroes was a 1962 commemoration of the wartime activities of the Red Cross.

“Disease is spreading, war is stalking, famine reigns far and wide,” cries the Miserecordium chorus. And again in the Heroes: “It’s farewell to the drawing-room’s civilized cry…Now matters are settled with gas and bomb,”

I don’t know how far in advance musical programs are chosen, but I suspect it is well ahead of the performance date - what with programs to be printed and rehearsals scheduled, etc. A year? More? Did anyone suspect a year or more ago that war would be in the air on November 14, 2002? Did anyone consciously plan to remind this audience of war’s awfulness even as the righteous thrill builds for the impending clash? Regardless, I couldn't miss the acrid tang of smoldering evil even while the texts of both pieces celebrated compassion and bravery. More than the words, the music itself seemed to be saying: One day, sooner or later, we will awaken to the horror we have allowed to be unleashed when we supported this war. And it will smell like the sound of Britten's piano and harp accents. It will haunt us like the aftershocks of witnessing the scene of a bad highway accident – even though the scene has a delicious allure as we approach and pass.

Some say it’s time for America to assume its role of Empire, and to use swift and overwhelming force in maintaining order in the world and safety for itself. They blame previous timidity and hesitation for the buildup of secret terrorist elements that wreaked vast destruction on its shores, as well as on its interests abroad. There is an appeal to this good-cop/bad-cop persona. It seems like an effective way to get even with the bad guys of the world. The wielding of overwhelming physical force is seductive, especially when done for a good purpose. But the intoxication of erupting power only masks our innate revulsion at the tragedy we perpetrate through its destructive use and sets us up for the inevitable hangover.

If the sequence could be reversed, hangover first and the binge second, maybe there wouldn’t be a binge. Maybe the double-barreled Britten program is a way of giving us a taste and smell of the awfulness we seem to be ignoring in our run up to war.

Even so, I wonder how many of the patrons in Symphony Hall that night made the connection. Hard to tell. They seemed to be happy to applaud the performances, with the performers taking the requisite smiling bows, a ritual that acts like a chaser to the strong drink just consumed -- as if to say, aw shucks folks, we didnt' really mean it.

Whoever planned the program must have figured the audience would probably need more comforting than that. The evening concluded with a big hunk of Schubert pound cake and whipped cream that seemed intended to offset the grim pungency of the preceding battles of Britten.

But I wonder if anyone else went home catching whiffs of war hangover in the air.

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Atlanta Journal-Constitution article on sugar

** A series exploring the mountain of sugar in our lives and the consequences for public health

"Americans have loved sweets since the first colonist cut the first apple pie. But there are growing signs -- especially at the waist -- that a healthy appetite is becoming an unhealthy infatuation. The country that invented Oreos and Big Gulps -- and then double-cream Oreos and Double Gulps -- is developing some serious issues with sugar."

• Do Southerners have a bigger sweet tooth?
• America's craving for all things sweet
• American sugar consumption soars POP-UP
• Test your sugar IQ POP-UP

COMING THIS WEEK
• Health implications
• Sugar makers struggle
• Are you a sugar addict?
• How to reduce the sugar in your life.
Home page of the series

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What you always knew about cheeseburgers

** "They say that every cloud has a silver lining.

And so it is, in this season of very cloudy news, when everyone's retirement fund is tanking, when millions of menopausal women are trying to wean themselves off estrogen therapy, when America is girding for a war against Iraq that nobody seems to want and the cost of renting a cruddy cabin on the North Shore has topped $2,000 a week, we find this one tiny patch of blue sky:

Cheeseburgers may not be that bad for us."
Laura Billings in the St. Paul Pioneer Press: Maybe carbo loads and no-loads aren't so terrific

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Garrison Keillor's diatribe on Norm Coleman

** Garrison is a skillful writer, and when he gets angry at you, you don't want him to write about you! I can't say I knew Norm Coleman very well when I lived in St. Paul. I guess I thought he was pretty much a nice guy - and St. Paul seems to be doing OK. I'm sure Keillor and Paul Wellstone were birds of a feather, which might explain the vitriol in this Salon.com piece. Or, maybe GK knows more about Norm than I do.

Norm Coleman won Minnesota because he was well-financed and well-packaged. Norm is a slick retail campaigner, the grabbiest and touchingest and feelingest politician in Minnesota history, a hugger and baby-kisser, and he's a genuine boomer candidate who reinvents himself at will. Salon.com Politics | Empty victory for a hollow man

This site may require you to register and pay for the content. If you want the full text of the article, email me here

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Prophets of the 80s

** These classic "Get Your War On" cartoons were made in the 1980s, when we were young and naive. The drawings, grammar, and typography of these early strips are a little crude, but they offer valuable context for recent exciting news developments! Example

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Just a sweet tooth - or a real addiction?

** Once skeptical, scientists take a closer look at the notion that people can get hooked on sugar as if it were a drug.
From the LA Times

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Mailing list caveat

** It was pointed out to me that the free mailing list service I had engaged for this blog might use your email address for spam. I had orginally removed it but it seems fairer to let you use at your discretion.

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War in Iraq?

** The Christian Science Monitor has a rich resource for perspective on this hot issue at what Rebecca's Pocket calls a WARBLOG

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After 9-11, a perspective on war

** (via Rebecca's Pocket):: From one year ago [Sept 2001]: Dreaming of War

Will this confrontation with real terror kill our taste for the vicarious kind? Perhaps; but it does not follow that we will be less susceptible to illusion. As many have pointed out, if this is war it is a mutant variation: a war in which the enemy is protean and elusive, and how to strike back effectively is far from clear. Yet for a decade Americans have been steeped in the rhetoric of "zero tolerance" and the faith that virtually all problems from drug addiction to lousy teaching can be solved by pouring on the punishment. Even without a Commander in Chief who pledges to rid the world of evildoers, smoke them out of their holes and the like, we would be vulnerable to the temptation to brush aside frustrating complexities and relieve intolerable fear (at least for the moment) by settling on one or more scapegoats to crush. To imagine that trauma casts out fantasy is a dangerous mistake.

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QUESTION: Does everything have an opposite?

From Forrest's blog

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God's ego

** God's ego is not so fragile that He needs people to worship Him, that He needs people to fear or believe in Him. God is closer than you think He is. God is you. We together are God; He was just so close we couldn't see Him. --Michael

From The Beat Within, "a publication of the writings and art from Juvenile Halls and beyond...a weekly publication providing an outlet for the thoughts / stories / opinions / ideas of young people who are locked up and want to express themselves."

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Free Web tools

If it's free or very inexpensive, my daughter-in-law, Laurie, knows about it.
Here's a neat set of FREE gizmos to jazz up your blog.

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It's the food, stupid - continued

OCTOBER 14. In Appleton, Wisconsin, a revolution has occurred. It's taken
place in the Central Alternative High School. The kids now behave. The
hallways aren't frantic. Even the teachers are happy.

The school used to be out of control. Kids packed weapons. Discipline
problems swamped the principal's office.

But not since 1997.

What happened? Did they line every inch of space with cops? Did they
spray valium gas in the classrooms? Did they install metal detectors in
the bathrooms? Did they build holding cells in the gym?

Afraid not. In 1997, a private group called Natural Ovens began
installing a healthy lunch program. Huh?

Read full story.

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I love GrumpyGirl

Lo, the Dave Barry of blogville. Check out www.grumpygirl.com for some great writing!

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It's the food, stupid

Article: It's The Food Stupid

November 7, 2002
Why we're fat: It's the food, stupid
By LINDA WILLIAMSON -- Toronto Sun
"Step away from the bagel. Dump the sugary soft drink and fries. There, I've just saved the feds about $15 million."

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Hirarious site

engrish.com

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Understanding war

"The cause is always a lie. If people understood, or individuals or
societies understood in a sensory way what war was, they’d never do it.
War is organized industrial slaughter."
CHRIS HEDGES INTERVIEW
A Reporter Separates The Rhetoric From The Reality of War
by Steven Rosenfeld
From Tom Paine.com

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"The Web is a genuine gift economy,

...and you will gain personal currency the more you give away."
--Rebecca Blood, The Weblog Handbook, p. 87

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IF IT WERE all so simple!

"IF IT WERE all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" - Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn, exiled Russian novelist, quoted in Yes! (Winter 2002)

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An interesting clock

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Vote early, vote right

Out of official earshot, words of dissent | csmonitor.com ALL FOR ONE: An Iraqi cabby says that when he arrived to vote on Oct. 15, he was handed a ballot already marked for Saddam Hussein. Out of 11.5 million voters, the Iraqi government says 100 percent voted to give the president another seven-year term.

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Removing those Annoying Ads From the AIM Buddy List

First, exit out of AIM if it's currently running. Launch Explorer and
change to the default AIM folder. This is usually found in the
c:\program files\aim95\ folder. Identify the file "admin.ocm" and
make a copy of it in the same folder. Identify the file "advert.ocm"
and delete this file. Rename the copy of "admin.ocm" to "advert.ocm"

Tip from WUGNET

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Quote of the moment:

Life is like an analogy.

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Boom Click-a Boom

Let's hear it for Lady Liberty!

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Smartass saying of the moment:

Life is an endless struggle full of frustrations and challenges, but eventually you find a hair stylist you like.

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Quote of the moment:

"Compassion is a kind of fire (Aquinas says compassion is the fire that Jesus came to set on the earth)--it disturbs, it surprises, it ignites, it burns, it sears, and it warms. Compassion incinerates denial; it especially warms and melts cold hearts, cold structures, frozen minds, and self-satisfied lifestyles. Those who are touched by compassion have their lives turned upside down. That is not necessarily a bad thing."

- Matthew Fox, Episcopal priest and theologian, in the book Creation Spirituality

Why isn't murder as exciting as it used to be?

(Thanks to Susan Howell for the tip.)
"Murder is so routine, including the killing of children, it doesn't even warrant serious news coverage in most cases....We don't know what to do about all this violence. We don't know how to process it. We don't even know how to cover it. We sensationalize it, glamorize it, eroticize it." Read full article from nytimes.com

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Audacious retort to female superiority

First, from "her" side of the issue, an item from Fortune magazine.
BRAINSTORM 2002
Brain Scans: Why Women Should Rule the World
Boys' clubs: They suddenly have a whole lot to answer for
Justin Fox
Monday, October 28, 2002

Kim Campbell, former Prime Minister of Canada, offered a solution to today's scandal-riddled world: women leaders. "The qualities that are defined as masculine are also the same qualities that are defined as the qualities of leadership. There is virtually no overlap between the qualities ascribed to femininity and those to leadership." Yet in several studies, Campbell said, "results show that when you have a critical mass of women in an organization, you have less corruption." Peru and Mexico have even implemented initiatives based on such thinking. And Campbell warned that "lest you think that all we aspire to for the world can be accomplished by male-dominated organizations, I have only to say to you: Enron, Taliban, Roman Catholic Church."

Reporter Associate: Julie Schlosser
The Fortune article

And Arthur's retort:
The author's mistake is to say Quality A has a bad side and Quality B is better because it doesn't have the bad side of Quality A. But when honestly examined, Quality B has a bad side all its own -- albeit totally different from that of Quality A.
While both genders can express any qualities, I believe it's true that men have been socialized to rely more on individual focus and women more on collective focus. BUT, there is nothing inherently more virtuous about either approach. Individualism gone awry yields corruption definitely. But collectivism has its dark side as well. Collectivism gone awry yields problems never getting address and/or people being stifled/smothering.There are political example of each throughout history (for what's its worth, my math has the "collective" registering a much higher body count). Men need to know when collective action is called for (realize when nurturing the people involved is more important than being a hero, focus on what's right instead of who's right) and women when individual action is required (taking responsibility to fix a problem instead of accommodating and perpetuating it, allowing people/minorities the space to be different regardless of what the majority thinks).

Boy's clubs have a lot to answer for? Oh brother. Try this on for size, women raise everybody. Between the overwhelming preponderance of female authority figures at home (Dad is the abstract, distant disciplinarian away at work most of the time) and at school (women teachers are far more common than men, especially at pre-high school levels) women shape society almost single handedly. The women's club has a lot to answer for. The blame game is so easy to play -- but so unconstructive and unsatisfying as well.

Are women less corrupt? Well, my guess would be women who express sufficient individualism exhibit corruption at rates equal to men exhibiting the same principle. Women who express less individualism and more collectivism would exhibit less corruption--but that's a different axis with it's own set of problems (herd mentality, asleep at wheel, problems get ignored for sake of avoiding conflict).

"But Arthur," you say, "everyone knows men have the greater tendency to commit crimes--look at all the prisons!" Sure, I agree. That's easy to spot. But if knew what you were looking for, you'd see women's greater tendency toward "criminal negligence" is as much of the world's problem.

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The treatment almost as bad as the disease

ABC News story on Moscow hostage crisis

Quote of the moment:

Many people fear nothing more terribly than to take a position which stands out sharply and clearly from the prevailing opinion."
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

More skinny on low carb

From Lora Carpender's newsletter
This week, another few articles in the news have inspired my column... First off, let me call your attention to one such article. It's titled "Scales tipping toward diabetes" and appeared in USA Today (thank you to Janice Brown for sending me the article.) You should read the entire article (link below), but let me point out a few things...
It starts out with a bang: "If Americans keep putting on the pounds at the current rate, almost everyone is going to be overweight by 2030, a top obesity researcher says."
That's sickeningly chilling, isn't it?
It goes on... "These grim projections from some of the nation's top obesity and diabetes doctors are based on new government statistics showing that almost 65% of American adults, or more than 120 million people, are overweight or obese."
"Foreyt [a weight-loss researcher at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston] predicted in a 1995 scientific journal article that almost everyone in the USA would be overweight or obese by 2230. Now he has moved that up 200 years. At the rate we're going, he says, almost everyone could be not just overweight, but obese, by 2100."
They go on to look at how this could cripple the health care system. And look at childhood diabetes. All stark realities difficult to look at, but even harder to deny. Yet at the end of this roster of doom, there is no conclusion or answer other than to further educate people to eat "healthy" and "get exercise." The link to diabetes alone should be a clue. How can this "phenomenon" remain a mystery to them? (The full article is available here.)
Let's look around us for just a few moments, both at advertising, the news, and the way of the world:
I searched for recipes geared for kids to cook for a friend of mine. All the books I found (and there were hundreds) heavily utilized sugar and other empty carbs as the mainstay of kids' recipe ingredients. Of course the Sugar Council and every major sugar manufacturer has areas on their sites for kids (that feature "sweet treats" usually hawked by adorable characters), and have articles for parents showing that sugar is not at all harmful for children.
The news tells of the latest "craze"... fried Twinkies! (If you hadn't heard, this is spearing a frozen Hostess Twinkie on a stick; dipping it in sweet waffle batter, frying it in hot oil or shortening; and then further dusting it with powdered sugar.) Taking a product already made entirely of white flour, sugar and transfats, then adding more flour and more transfats, and MORE sugar! Then they sell 'em at fairs and fill their children with them.
When I'm standing in the checkout the other day, the clerk looks down at my stack of low carb bars. She says, "I've been thinking of giving up sugar, but it will be hard with the kids' sweets in the house." Then she leans in to me with a concerned (conspiratorial) look on her face and says, "You DO know you can't put kids on a sugar free diet, right? Kids need the sugar for their growing brains to function." WHAT?????
In this time of a struggling economy, more people than ever need to rely on grocery coupons. Have you seriously looked at coupons lately? They're 95% for high-carb food products. I am told this is because cheap (for them) carbs are where all the profits are.
Look at the rack of "Women's Magazines"... the first thing you'll note is that each one has found THE PERFECT DIET or TRICK that will allow you to lose the weight forever. They're all totally different from magazine to magazine of course. And the very next week (or month), look again... OOops.. guess they were wrong last time, because THIS is the REAL miracle! (Well, until next issue, I guess.) And it never fails that each week some of my friends are trying yet another "sure fire" diet they found in Good Housekeeping, Woman's Day, Redbook etc. They usually promise "... without giving up your favorite foods!!" So, there's a diet that will let you eat cookies, pies, candy bars, chips, fries, Coke, and Krispy Kreme and still lose weight??! Think they might have just realized that in an ever fattened up world, magazines just sell better with weight loss promises on the cover??
Have I mentioned that as a society we need to all just wake up and look reality in the face... while our reflections still fit in the mirror!?
The article referenced above says, "we won't reach a point at which every single American will weigh too much. Some small percentage, possibly 5% to 15%, probably will be able to maintain a healthy weight because they are genetically protected, or they are willing to carefully watch what they eat and be fairly active. But they will be part of an ever-increasing minority.."
You know who most of their "small percentage" of normal weight people will be?
Us. The low carbers.

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Paul Wellstone died in an airplance crash today in MN. Nice guy - I'd met him on the street in St. Paul a couple of times. A populist politician, practically the only one of his degree of liberality. It's said that in any vote that was lopsided except for one or two votes, Wellstone's would have been in the minority. Only the good die young. But hey who says that we're supposed to stay here forever? There are NO GUARANTEES.
"Upon this stage of existence goes on the dance of mortal mind. Mortal thoughts chase one another like snowflakes, and drift to the ground. Science reveals Life as not being at the mercy of death, nor will Science admit that happiness is ever the sport of circumstance." Science and Health p. 250

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First snow

Just for the record - I saw snow falling for the first time this morning in Boston.

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Quote of the moment

Between two evils, choose neither; between two goods, choose both.
--Tyron Edwards

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Colorado State Collegian - Guardian Angels pumping gas should serve as role models We must demand from our own actions the daily walk of self-sacrifice. We must put on our own version of ridiculous red coats, wherever we live, whatever we do.

The skinny on my low carb life

In July I read an article by Gary Taubes in the New York Times magazine that got me started on a low carb way of eating. I read a few more books, including Atkins' revised book, got on an informative and lively discussion board and talked it over with a couple of trusted friends. I have lost about ten pounds in a couple of months. This is not a lot, but is still encouraging because I believe the loss is due to a change in general habits and not the result of some unnatural imposition of drugs, potions or will power.
The following is taken from a popular blog, Rebecca's Pocket and presents a variety of informed views on the subject. Go to her site for live links to all her sources.

From Rebecca's archive: .
:: On July 7, the New York Times published What if It's All Been a Big Fat Lie? by Gary Taubes, which made the startling claim that the long recommended low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet is causing our current obesity epidemic, and that the fat-friendly, low-carbohydrate Atkins Diet, long dismissed by the medical establishment, is sound.
The WSJ Opinion Journal followed fast on its heels with a piece by anthropology professor Lionel Tiger which outlined the controversy and suggested that a meat-based diet might, with moderation, be more attuned to human physiology than one that is grain-based.
In August, the Washington Post published a close examination of the NYT article, seeking to balance Taube's claims against the science his article claims to refute.
It's a terrific article, shedding light both on the research Taube rejected and his reasons for rejecting it, enabling the reader to assess the quality of Taube's journalism. It's also a lucid reminder of just how 'constructed' reportage really is.
With many readers newly confused about the benefits and hazards of low-fat and high-fat eating, we decided to take a hard look at Taubes's arguments and examine the broader record of dietary re-search that he is accused of ignoring or downplaying. We interviewed more than three dozen experts in the field -- many of them the same people Taubes spoke with -- and reviewed the scientific literature. We also spoke to Taubes himself for several hours and reviewed with him some of the research that he used. [...]
Despite the uproar, even some of Taubes's sharpest critics found merit in the story -- for example, for describing the role that corn sweeteners in soft drinks may play in the obesity epidemic and for forcing scientists to address unanswered questions on fat. 'The good part is that Taubes has stimulated discussion,' said James O. Hill, director of the Clinical Nutrition Research Unit at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center in Denver. 'The bad part is that once again the poor public is confused.'
The WP article also notes that Taube received a $700,000 book deal as a result of his provocative piece.
The American Council On Science And Health rebutted the idea that type of diet determines either health or obesity, pointing out that American activity is in a decline, and that even incremental differences add up.
The activity trends in this country seem to have been pointing down for the last several decades. And that's not just because of more TVs and computer games, though certainly these play a role. All sorts of subtle changes in society contribute to our diminishing exertion. Those of us over a certain age can even recall when driving a car took more physical energy than it does today. Remember trying to parallel park a car without power steering? Or having to actually move the seat manually without a power-assist?
Finally, on September 9, the estimable Nutrition News put it all in perspective:
The cavemen argument doesn't mean eating a lot of lean meat. It really means tracking that animal for a day before you kill it and butcher it. Few of us are willing to live that way, so we need to adapt our behaviors to the modern world. Want air conditioning, your own car, and electrical appli-ances? Then you need to find other ways to burn calories on a regular basis. This may be an ugly proposition to many, but it is the only one that works.

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Quote of the moment

"Words without thoughts never to heaven go." --Shakespeare

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Iraq Announces Amnesty for All

In a speech to the U.N. General Assembly making his case against Iraq, Bush added concerns about Saddam's human rights record, saying that if Iraq wants peace, it will "will cease persecution of its civilian population."

Iraq Announces Amnesty for All
October 20, 2002 Posted: 6:34 AM EDT (1034 GMT)

Those convicted of murder, the statement said, would only be released if the victims' families agreed and those convicted of theft would have to work out a way to repay their victims before being released. Soldiers accused of desertion and those awaiting execution of their death sentences were included.
The announcement came as the Iraqi government tries to rally domestic and international support in the face of U.S. determination to topple it.
"We are shifting the responsibility of reforming them to their families and society after we have provided them with this opportunity," the statement said. "We ask God that we will not regret this decision." [Oh, there will be other decisons to regret.]

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Sniping

Snipers make people feel vulnerable. The odds are greater that you'll get hit by lightning, some say. As someone else said, at least with lightning you can see a storm. With snipers you don't see anything until it's too late. But human life is pretty vulnerable - who says it HAS to go on as it has? I will not forever be here at this workbench and I will have to transit to another some time - until I learn that there are no other dimensions, no other worlds, no other realities. That's what should give me confidence to be unafraid, and ready to help my fellow man regardless of the personal cost to me.I'm impressed with the Guardian Angels project in the DC area - they don bright red jackets and pump gas for people too afraid to leave their cars. I ought to be able to do at least that. But I really should do more.

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Forgive them fathers.

BBC NEWS | Talking Point | How can the US Catholic Church restore trust?Amid the media coverage of the Catholic problem, a respected US newspaper, The Christian Science Monitor, has quietly reported that sexual abuse occurs more often in the Protestant churches, and abuse is also worse in US society at large than it is among Catholic priests. There ought to be a uniform way of dealing with Catholic priests who abuse children, but the suggestion that corrupt priests are always dealt with wrongly, even if true, says nothing about the marginal proportions of these mistakes.
Charlotte Levick, USA

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The march to war.

Take a good look around. If it's peaceful where you are, set it deeply in your memory. You will most likely need to review it soon.

Check out Daniel Ellsberg's blog
A radical idea!: Give "candles and prayer" a chance

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