Tuesday, January 02, 2007

Speedlinking 1/2/07

On behalf of all my various selves, let me be the first to welcome you to 2007!

This morning's image is the Bubble Nebula:

Lots to catch up on after the three-day weekend.

BODY

~ 'Superfoods' Everyone Needs: Experts say more than a dozen easy-to-find 'superfoods' can do wonders for your health. Can't argue with this too much, except for the soy (a no-no for men and a be-cautious for women).
~ Regular And Moderate Physical Activity Is Beneficial For Patients With Heart Failure -- "People with heart failure tend to think that they should avoid physical efforts, in order to prevent the worsening of the already compromised cardiac functions. But a joint research carried out by EVGN scientists and other Italian partners proved that the opposite is true."
~ 7 ways to boost your metabolism. Good advice.
~ People with kids eat more fat than those without -- I see this a lot in my clients.
~ Development Without Death -- "The developing nervous system of vertebrates initially generates an excess of neurons. About one-half of these neurons are then eliminated through programmed cell death, or apoptosis. Although many studies have focused on the mechanism of apoptosis and how to prevent it, few have looked at the fate of the "excess" neurons when their death was prevented. This week, Buss et al. did just that."
~ Snoring Haunts Millions of Americans -- and could be associated with various health issues.


PSYCHE
~ Memories Of Our Life Stories May Be Reinforced While We Sleep - New Insights On Animal Dreams.
~ Physical abuse leads to adult depression, study finds -- Isn't this kind of a no-brainer?
~ Developing Our Brightest Minds -- "Who will be the next Albert Einstein? The next Stephen Hawking? A new report from Vanderbilt University reveals the complex mix of factors that create these intellectual leaders: cognitive abilities, educational opportunities, investigative interests and old-fashioned hard work."
~ Breaking the Addiction -- A little support for those new year's resolutions.
~ Neural Pathway Explains Why Addicts Become Addicts.
~ If This Is One of The Sexiest Things You've Ever Seen, You May Be a Narcissist -- A good post that helps clarify what a narcissist really is.
~ Pain Relief Effectiveness Down To Mind-Set? -- "Research by the Human Pain Research Group at The University of Manchester suggests that people's responses to placebo or "dummy" pain relief varies according to their way of thinking."
~ Motivation Key to Keeping Those 'Get Fit' Resolutions.
~ Tranistory, Insubstantial and Conditional -- From James at Buddhist Blog.


CULTURE
~ The Top Ten Stories You Missed in 2006, from Foreign Policy. This is worth the read.
~ Change the World in 2007 -- "Take altruistic action in the new year: Peter Rothberg explores some pathbreaking resolutions that can make a real difference."
~ Politics: The Consequences of Killing Saddam -- "Robert Dreyfuss writes that the ill-advised rush to the gallows will inflame the insurgency, make reconciliation even more unlikely, and seal forever secrets the dictator has taken to his grave."
~ So long, sugar tits! -- "Disgraced ministers, D-list divorces, Screech's sex tape and celebrity crotch shots all helped make 2006 a year of libidinal surprises."
~ The Year in Culture: Stanley Crouch, Azar Nafisi, Michael Pollan, and others on the most amazing—and disappointing—events of 2006.
~ Tim Boucher scores a coup:
Douglas Rushkoff Interview.
~ Tom at Thoughts Chase Thoughts thinks Oprah is in the same class as Andrew Cohen, Stalin, Hitler, and Satan.


HABITATS
~ 10 Things Your Fitness Club Won't Tell You -- This is good advice to consider before joining a gym.
~ 20 predictions for 2007 from Gristmill.
~ Overestimating the cost of emissions reductions -- "[Robert] Novak says: The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates that [the McCain-Lieberman climate bill] would reduce gross domestic product by $776 billion annually. However, if you read the report he quotes you'll see that $776 billion is the cumulative and undiscounted cost of the program. $776 billion is not the cost per year."
~ Top 10 bizarro environmental moments of 2006 from Gristmill.
~ An anthology of the best science blogging of 2006.
~ An environmental A to Z for 2006.
~ Support Solutions. Support Worldchanging -- They need $$$.
~ From Ray Kurzweil's site: The Year in Nanotech.


INTEGRAL
~ Bounders and Luminauts -- In which Robert Godwin attacks a commenter who attempts to offer a Wilberian perspective.
~ Living a Whole Life, One Part at a Time -- From Gary at Seattle Integral.
~ After too long an absence, Blogmandu is back with a round-up from the integralbuddhoblogosphere: Roundup for Dec 30, 2006.
~ Two posts from Ray Harris at Open Integral: Moral absolutes and postconventional moral reasoning and Sex is a skill that must be taught.
~ Joe Perez of Until has launched a new blog devoted to his experimental integral practice: Whole Writing. He introduces the new site in Congratulations, it's a blog! Introducing Until's new companion weblog.
~ Indistinct Union blogs on Kosmic Addresses and Why KA? In another excellent post, he confirms much of what I think about Sam Harris: Sam Harris' (Failed) Contemplative Science.
~ From Integral World: Integral Ethics by Alan Kazlev, and Some Notes on Personalism by Frank Visser.
~ From Ed Berge at Open Integral: Is self-transformation self-centered?
~ Yos at On Art & Awakening offers A Brief Explanation of Altitude.


3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Did you read that article about Oprah? There is much to criticize about Oprah (her narcissism and arrogance not least of which) and yet, is she really in the category of Satan and Hitler? Hmmm. Let me be awesomely controversial and suggest that on contrary, Oprah embodies one of the feminine modes of Integralism, an extremely powerful and realized feminine mode, which is why she drives so many men, especially, ape-shit bonkers that they could write a ridiculous article of that sort, dismissing her influence with foamy mouthed ranting. I ask you, can you think a single person in all of human history who has be as instrumental in moving more people upward through the spiral than Oprah Winfrey? Incredible numbers of women have moved from blue to orange, or from orange to green, from Oprah's influence. No wonder so many men hate her so much!

Kai in NYC

william harryman said...

Hey Kai,

Yeah, Tom was responding to me having posted that article here. I agree that she comes across as arrogant and narcissistic, but I also agree that she is doing amazing things in the world, especially for women.

I hadn't though about it the way you phrase it, but I think you might be right.

Way back when, I used to work in bookstores around the time that Oprah launched her book club. Our store already worked with a lot of book clubs, but that number went through the ceiling after Oprah launched hers (complete with reading guides). Many women who only read mysteries or romances were suddenly reading "real" books, and their reading outside of the book groups also changed. It's fair to say that, at least for one developmental line, these women grew as a result of Oprah's club. Factor that out over the whole country, and yeah, I think you're right.

Peace,
Bill

Unknown said...

Tom, here. Actually, yes, Hitler and Satan were placeholders, so joining her with them was overthetop -- something I've corrected in the article. But based on Umberto Eco's thoughts in 1995 on Ur-Fascism, putting Oprah in with H & S is not far wrong.

I wanted to get a post up in response to Bill's, so I 'let loose the dogs.'

But I GREATLY disagree with the idea that Oprah does good in the world that counteracts the harm. Her spiritualism is New Agey, wealth-seeking narcissism. I intend to write all about it in my new magazine T that has a smiling picture of me jumping in the air on the cover, wearing a suit made with 12-caret gold threads.

Oprah is decidedly NOT integrated -- except in the Wilber-like sense, the crawlspace faux 2nd tier that Our Man Ken, sadly, inhabits these days.

Btw, is it possible for a man to be greatly critical of Oprah without being accused of sexism or racism? Or is it very much the same as being critical of Ken -- you are immediately remanded to the mean Green Meme?