Mike C Sees

Yahoo! News - Supreme Court takes up 'under God': "The phrase 'under God' was added to the Pledge by Congress in 1954, and the Supreme Court has not ruled on its constitutionality. Representing the U.S. government, Solicitor General Theodore Olson avoided the notion that 'under God' had a current religious meaning. Olson argued that the phrase is viewed as an 'acknowledgement' of religion's role in the lives of America's founders. Under a 1985 court opinion, such acknowledgements amount to a 'patriotic exercise' and not an 'endorsement,' Olson said."

"[Justice Breyer said] Congress also could have a right to insert the phrase "under God" into the Pledge because 'it serves the purpose of unification.' The phrase, the justice said, could be 'meant to include everybody' in a statement of common purpose. "

Planet Watching Forecast: This video from Accuweather has a nice shot of the five planet alignment thing that's going on overhead this week :-)

Anatomy Lessons, a Vanishing Rite for Young Doctors: "Through the mid-20th century, medical students typically spent hundreds of hours dissecting. Working in small groups with scalpels and scissors, they would tease out every major structure in the body, including tendons, arteries and nerves, memorizing dozens of tortuous pathways and hundreds of Latin names in the process. But as the focus of medical science has shifted from whole organs to cells and molecules, more and more teaching hours are consumed by molecular biology and genetics."

Newly Released Documents Shed Light on Microsoft Tactics: "The plaintiffs contend the new documents show that Microsoft violated nondisclosure agreements with Go, and then used that information to build PenWindows, a competitor to Go's PenPoint operating system. The documents included Microsoft's internal e-mail messages showing that it had detailed knowledge of Go's product plans. "

Regulators Want Antidepressants to List [Suicide] Warning: "'We think this is good advice whether the drugs did it or not,' said Dr. Robert Temple, associate director of medical policy at the agency. 'If someone commits suicide, it doesn't really matter whether it's the drug or the underlying disease. In either case, you need to pay attention.'"

"The drugs in the warning are: Prozac; Zoloft; Paxil; Wellbutrin; Luvox, from Solvay; Celexa and Lexapro, from Forest Laboratories Inc.; Effexor, from Wyeth; Serzone, from Bristol-Myers Squibb; and Remeron, from Akzo Nobel."

An author named Michael Gelb has developed the Seven Da Vincian Principles, [How to Think Like Leonardo Da Vinci : Seven Steps to Genius Every Day], a guide to life based largely on the ideas in da Vinci’s notebooks. They are:
“Curiosita- An insatiably curious approach to life and an unrelenting quest for continuous learning.
Dimostrazione- A commitment to test knowledge through experience, persistence, and a willingness to learn from mistakes.
Sensazione- The continual refinement of the senses, especially sight, as the means to enliven experience.
Sfumato- A willingness to embrace ambiguity, paradox, and uncertainty.
Arte/Scienza- The development of the balance between science and art, logic and imagination. “Whole-brain” thinking.
Corporalita- The cultivation of grace, ambidexterity, fitness, and poise.
Connessione- A recognition of and appreciation for the interconnectedness of all things and phenomena. Systems thinking.”

NYTimes Driving: Smart Car

Interview With God
This site offers some nice gifts, best of all the free gift of this movie, with these wise reminders for us all:

"What surprises you most about humankind?
That they get bored with childhood, they rush to grow up, and then long to be children again;
That they lose their health to make money, and then lose their money to restore their health;
That by thinking anxiously about the future, they forget the present, such that they live in neither the present nor the future;
That they live as if they will never die, and die as though they had never lived.

As a parent what are some of life's lessons you want your children to learn?
To learn they cannot make anyone love them - All they can do is let themselves be loved;
To learn that it is not good to compare themselves to others;
To learn to forgive by practicing forgiveness;
To learn that it only takes a few seconds to open profound wounds in those they love, and it can take many years to heal them;
To learn that a rich person is not one who has the most, but is one who needs the least;
To learn that there are people who love them dearly, but simply do not yet know how to express or show their feelings;
To learn that two people can look at the same thing and see it differently
To learn that it is no enough that they forgive one another, but they must also forgive themselves.

My time is eternity. Just know that I am here. Always."

Economist.com | Poverty and inequality: "The toll of global poverty is a scandal. But deploring economic injustice is no answer"

When I recently read Thomas Cahill's book on The World Before and After Jesus, it included my first reading on the Shroud of Turin. It is obviously a much-discussed topic, and today I note The Shroud of Turin and the Resurrection Problem - an Anglican/Episcopal perspective

Methodists Put Minister on Trial for Declaring Herself a Lesbian. Well, we certainly have to pray that something good will come of this for the church.

In Searching We Trust: This is full of good common sense. Or maybe it's not as common as it should be? "'With an estimated 200 million searches logged daily, Google, the most popular Internet search engine, 'has a near-religious quality in the minds of many users,' said Joseph Janes, an associate professor at the University of Washington in Seattle who taught a graduate seminar on Google this semester. 'A few years ago, you would have talked to a trusted friend about arthritis or where to send your kids to college or where to go on vacation. Now we turn to Google.'"

Sex and the Brain: Researchers Say, 'Vive la Difference!': "Countless tests on thousands of women made it clear that the little blue pill [Viagra] though able to stir arousal, did not always evoke sexual desire." They're done trying for now. "Viagra's failure underscored the obvious: when it comes to sexuality, men and women to some extent are differently tuned. For men, arousal and desire are often intertwined, while for women, the two are frequently distinct. Scientists have recently begun to map out how this difference shows up in the brain." There is mention of another study last year at Northwestern U. that points up the distinction in women. However, a doctor from NYU says "Differences between genders are boring The big differences are within the sexes, between individuals. It is not the case that every person pays attention to the same thing." Michael Gurian, author of many books on boy / girl differences and their roots in brain differences, should be so pleased.

Smile, these are good times says the Economist. The argument is that incomes are rising more than statistics indicate. Median income stats are diluted by large numbers of immigrants willingly entering the country to take low paying jobs. "Most Americans have at least two cars and their own house, and they send their children to college." We have bigger homes and spend a great deal of our time on how to buy more stuff for them.

Though "in February, a mere 21,000 jobs were created, according to the official payroll survey, at a time when George Bush's economists forecast 2.6m new jobs for 2004 ... the jobs lost are mainly a cyclical affair, not a structural one." The Economist is convinced that "in the next year or so, today's high productivity growth will start to translate into more jobs." But if your profession is one that typically is seen as "overhead" instead of "revenue-producing", you may feel the pain more acutely and for longer.

Cheers to St. Urho: "Patron saint of Finland has his day, too -- right before St. Patrick's... 'It's really just a MYTH -- in capital letters, ha ha,' says Ottawa's Ida Capern, born in Finland ... We latched on to this goofy thing four years ago, when we started a St. Urho festival at the Arrow and the Loon in the Glebe' in Ottawa, Canada."

Mike Hendriks writes in the Kansas City Star that 'Whereas St. Patrick allegedly drove the snakes from Ireland, what St. Urho did was rid Finland of locusts by shouting “Heinasirkka, heinasirkka, menetaalta hiiteen.” Which is Finnish for “grasshopper, grasshopper, go away!”'

Clearly Finland, Canada and Minnesota share a terrific talent to fire imaginations in the cause of late winter parties! Nice choice of Finnish recipes included in the original [Ottawa Citizen, Canada - Mar 10, 2004] article. Too bad its not online anymore, but there are lots more good recipes at the Canadian Friends of Finland. Lots of background on St. Urho by Googling Urho Minnesota. The University of Toronto Finnish Club has "The St. Urho Legend as of March 18, 1995: A Semi-Humorous Finnish Critique, by Prof. B. Vahamaki."

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels ... but have not love, it profits me nothing. I just love this Crosswalk.com site. Look up Bible verses by keywords or by a specific book and chapter, in different editions. Join a daily study guide. This is a fine ministry.

Ex-U.N. Inspector Has Harsh Words for Bush in his new book "Disarming Iraq": "Speaking of Mr. Bush and his principal ally, Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, he writes, 'I am not suggesting that Blair and Bush spoke in bad faith, but I am suggesting that it would not have taken much critical thinking on their own part or the part of their close advisers to prevent statements that misled the public.'" In a talk to a crowd of 1,200 people on Monday night at New York University, Mr. Blix said he did not share the Bush administrations' view that the war had made the world a safer place.