"Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy."
H. L. Mencken
Image of the day:
BODY
~ Making fitness fit -- "People are always on their way to something and in this environment, it’s hard to strike a balance between work, school, internships and a social life, let alone find the time to sneak in a workout."
~ Link Discovered Between Enzyme, Fat Formation And Appetite -- "The enzyme TPPII may contribute to obesity by stimulating the formation of fat cells, suggests a study in EMBO reports this week. The enzyme, TPPII, has previously been linked to making people feel hungry, but Jonathan Graff and colleagues now show that it may be even more deeply involved in causing obesity.The team found that TPPII actually stimulated the formation of fat cells in worms and mammalian cells and that by reducing it, fat stores decreased."
~ Pricey Running Shoes Not Worth It: Study Confirms -- "When it comes to picking footwear, runners should follow Prince Charming's lead and consider a shoe's fit, not its price tag, new research suggests. Using high-tech methods, a team of Scottish scientists found no differences in either comfort or shock absorption between $80 pairs of running shoes and pairs made by the same companies costing more than $150."
~ Meditation a Quick Fix for Stress -- "Meditating for just 20 minutes a day for five days helped to increase energy and decrease anxiety and stress, as measured by levels of stress hormones, a small study found. Using the so-called integrative body-mind training method, which comes from traditional Chinese medicine, the study participants reported better attention and control of stress than those relying on relaxation training, which is popular in the West."
~ Bacteria Cause Chocolate Cravings -- "Dying for some chocolate? Blame colonies of bacteria in your gut."
~ Skip household chores — for your health! -- "Housework might be bad for your health, according to a study suggesting that tidying up as little as once a week with common cleaning sprays and air fresheners could raise the risk of asthma in adults."
~ Commentary: There's hope in alternative healing -- "In a recent column, Emily Breidbart, a second-year medical student at New York University School of Medicine, expressed concerns about her medical education and the frustrating health-care system she will soon enter."
~ Statins reduce loss of function, keeping old lungs young - even in smokers -- "Statins are known to be good for lowering cholesterol and maybe even fighting dementia, and now they have another reported benefit: they appear to slow decline in lung function in the elderly— even in those who smoke. According to researchers in Boston, it may be statins' anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties that help achieve this effect."
PSYCHE/SELF
~ Does birth order matter? -- "The question's been around forever -- and so have the myths surrounding it. But the debate over the impact of birth order gained new urgency this summer when the results of a new study were announced: Firstborns' IQs tend to be higher than those of their younger siblings."
~ Reality and Perception -- "Our shared physical reality is the most common state of reality we experience, but it certainly isn’t the only one. Our nighttime dreams are another state, as are astral experiences, near-death experiences, and out-of-body experiences."
~ Your Brain is Not Your Friend -- "A mind is a terrible thing. Whether because of the brain’s internal structure or the way social and cultural pressures cause our minds to develop and function, in the end the result is the same: minds that are not only easily deceived and frequently deceptive in their own right, but when caught out, refuse to accept and address their errors." This is why shadow work and meditation are so important to mental and spiritual health.
~ Health Tips: Anger to Sleep Deprivation -- "Manage your anger, the sleep deficit, and no bones about it."
~ Accomplish More By Doing Less -- "The 'Einstein Principle' is very simple. It basically states that we are most productive when we have fewer projects to devote more of our time on. Common sense, right?"
~ 15 Ways to Reclaim 2 Precious Hours Every Day -- "Time management is really about managing yourself. It’s about making a commitment to be more organized, maintain your focus and use your time to your best advantage. You probably know that effective time management will help you get more done each day. But it has important health benefits, too. By managing your time more wisely, you can minimize stress and improve your quality of life."
~ Add Excitement and Diversity to Daily Life with the Yin Yang Philosophy -- "We have become so enamored with the quality of balance that we sometimes miss out on the beauty of opposing forces in our lives. Periodically shaking things up can be extremely healthy and provide us with a wonderful sense of renewal."
~ Stanislav Grof I: Race For Consciousness -- "This video, where you will hear Stanislav Grof speak at the Omega Institute, is just over 5 minutes long, and is about the race for consciousness in our current society. Stanislav Grof, M.D., Ph.D., is a psychiatrist with over forty years experience of research into non-ordinary states of consciousness...."
CULTURE/POLITICS
~ Evangelical Leaders Perkins, Bauer Back Away From Threats To Back Third-Party Candidate If Abortion-Rights Supporter Wins GOP Nomination -- "Family Research Council President Tony Perkins and American Values President Gary Bauer on Wednesday "backed away" from previous threats that religious conservative leaders would consider running a third-party presidential candidate if the Republican Party nominates an abortion-rights supporter, The Hill reports."
~ Before Nobel Award, Public Support for Gore Presidential Bid Limited -- "Gallup polling on Al Gore shows that U.S. public opinion of him prior to his receiving the Nobel Peace Prize was slightly more positive than negative. There has not been a large groundswell of support for him to run for president so far this year, and if he were to enter the Democratic primaries, he would place no better than third in Gallup's national polls of Democrats' presidential nomination preferences." Rumors are swirling that he may run now.
~ David Sirota: Confronting the Anti-Tax Hollow Men -- "That's how revolutions end - not with a bang, but with a whimper. And that goes for the Republicans' 30-year anti-tax revolution. As my new nationally syndicated column today shows, the public is finally turning away from the me-first economic darwinism of the anti-tax movement, and at least some Democrats are getting out in front of the fight to change the tax debate for the better."
~ Hitchens was right. Now will Gore run? -- "Today, the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded former Vice President Al Gore and the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts to educate the public about global warming. In a "Fighting Words" column last month, Christopher Hitchens argued that a Nobel Prize would boost Al Gore's chances of winning a presidential bid and wondered eagerly if Gore would run."
~ A refugee from Western Europe -- Sam Harris and Salman Rushdie -- "As you read this, Ayaan Hirsi Ali sits in a safe house with armed men guarding her door. She is one of the most poised, intelligent and compassionate advocates of freedom of speech and conscience alive today, and for this she is despised in Muslim communities throughout the world."
~ Mr. Conservative 2.0 -- "Last night Rep. Ron Paul made a wistful kind of trip to the Clarendon neighborhood of Arlington, Virginia for a speech to the Robert Taft Club, a paleoconservative salon launched in 2006. Planning began long before news broke of Paul's $5.1 million summer fundraising haul. That news turned a small event into a monster lecture, around 300 people lining up and around stairs to get into a small, oak-panelled room at a chop house."
~ Study: Youth See Christians As Judgmental, Anti-Gay -- "Majorities of young people in America describe modern-day Christianity as judgmental, hypocritical and anti-gay. What's more, many Christians don't even want to call themselves "Christian" because of the baggage that accompanies the label."
~ Vatican publishes Knights Templar papers (AP) -- "It's not the Holy Grail, but for fans of "The Da Vinci Code" and its tantalizing story line about the Knights Templar, it could be the next best thing."
HABITATS/TECHNOLOGY
~ Titan's drizzle made of methane -- "Cassini craft reveals rain on the Saturn moon and a cloud bank thick with the smog-like compound."
~ Understanding mysterious continental intraplate earthquakes -- "A new volume published by the Geological Society of America sheds light on mysterious earthquakes in the interiors of continents. These earthquakes, like those that occur in the central U.S., are what the book's editors describe as "an embarrassing stepchild of modern earthquake seismology." Continental Intraplate Earthquakes: Science, Hazard, and Policy Issues provides a comprehensive overview of these rare but very real global hazards."
~ China Censors Ratchet Up Web Monitoring -- "At first, Liu Xiaoyuan just fumed when his online journal postings disappeared with no explanation. Then he decided to do something few if any of China's censored bloggers had tried. He sued his service provider."
~ 'Electromagnetic Wormhole' Possible with Invisibility Technology -- "The team of mathematicians that first created the mathematics behind the "invisibility cloak" announced by physicists last October has now shown that the same technology could be used to generate an 'electromagnetic wormhole.'"
~ EPA not enforcing Clean Water Act, says report -- "The U.S. EPA is not so much enforcing the Clean Water Act, says a new report from green group U.S. PIRG. According to EPA data, 57 percent of the country's industrial plants and municipal wastewater facilities dumped more than the allowable level of pollutants and sewage into waterways at least once in 2005, the most recent year that records are available."
~ Rare Chinese tiger spotted for first time in decades -- "A rare South China tiger has been spotted in the wild for the first time in decades, surprising researchers who feared the subspecies was extinct outside of captivity, state media said Friday."
~ Ants Corral and Tranquilize Victims -- "Ants footprints hold chemicals that tranquilize food-producing aphids."
INTEGRAL/BUDDHIST
~ Peripheral vision logic “a”perspective -- "In the last meeting of Santa Rosa Integral Salon we used as a loose organizer the phrase “the integral periphery.” A few of us had in mind that by that we’d discuss those persons/ideas on the periphery of Ken and/or I-I. But I intentionally planned to allow the discussion to go “peripheral,” i.e., where it wanted to, and not to hold on to the above direction/focus. Part of this is because peripheral vision is itself like vision logic, in that PV doesn’t focus on specific objects but takes in the whole field of vision and observes it as a gestalt."
~ Women’s Intellectual Abilities -- "Some of us have lately been having a discussion on gender and sexism at the Open Integral (see here and here). After my horrible experience with organized religion, which nearly — nearly! — convinced me of men’s superior intellectual abilities compared to women (how Life got me out of this nonsense will be the subject of a detailed post in the future), I was an agnostic with pretty much zero tolerance for sexism."
~ An enlightened politics -- "The monks are calculating that any mistreatment they receive will only increase their public support; they are using their status as a means to mobilise people against the regime. And all the time the monks have insisted on the unconditional Buddhist principle of non-violence and urged their lay colleagues to do the same. We are witnessing one of the most extraordinary demonstrations of religiously inspired courage and political engagement for the benefit of others."
~ Western Funerals and Buddhist prayers -- "Earlier this week my monastery got a call from someone who’s mother had past away and they wanted a monk to says some prayers at the funeral. The mother was a Buddhist sympathizer and had recently been to Burma to participate in the protests there."
~ Buddhist Churches of America Statement on Burma -- "As the situation in Burma continues to deteriorate, it seems worthwhile to highlight the efforts that Buddhists in other countries are undertaking to keep the plight of the Burmese in the public eye. A good example is the recent statement released by Koshin Ogui and Gordon Bermant, the Bishop and President, respectively, of the Buddhist Churches of America."
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