quote from ... The Guardian Unlimited special report : Debunking some popular medical myths

Often it is said, for example, that we use just 10% of our brains. Magician Uri Geller readily spreads this myth as an explanation for why he can bend spoons; he claims to use more of his brain than the rest of us. Truth be told, we use 100% of our brains - even while watching a silly Uri Geller magic show. That 10% figure was invented in the 30s by ad men in America selling self-help pamphlets. "Scientists say you only use one-tenth of your brain," the ads said. "Wake up to your true potential."

In the 19th century, scientists did indeed determine that certain parts of the brain didn't seem to have any obvious function (such as moving a limb) when stimulated by an electrode. They called these regions "the silent cortex" and later learned that these regions were responsible for the very traits that make us human: language and abstract thought.

How can we be sure that Geller is not even 10% right about the brain? For one, commonsense: never has a doctor said, "You'll be fine.The bullet is lodged in the 90% part of the brain you don't use." Biologically, any part of the body will deteriorate without use. Legs shrivel in a cast, and neurons in the brain die as a result of diseases such as Alzheimer's and dementia. And if you want proof in pictures, modern scans all show that the entire brain is active.

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit."

That time of year thou may'st in me behold,
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,--
Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
Sonnet lxxiii. - Shakespeare

Condom Kingdom Deflated by Failure (Are You Listening, Bill?)

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates was welcomed to the Indian city of Hyderabad last week by a giant air-filled condom. The 8-foot monstrosity brought a smile to the face of the world’s richest man, who was there to announce a $100 million AIDS program to be financed by his foundation.(1)

Hyderabad, of course, is the site of Microsoft’s first software development center outside the United States. Gates’s glee may have been prompted by the thought of all the goodwill that his generosity would buy among the Indian people. By blanketing the country with condoms, he would single-handedly stop the spread of HIV.

Perhaps Gates is unaware of what a failure condom-pushing programs have been in the past:

· The Center for Disease Control has reluctantly, but accurately, questioned the effectiveness of condoms in protecting against sexually transmitted diseases, noting that the failure rate for condoms can be as high as 15%.(2)

· The highly-regarded international peer-reviewed medical journal, The Lancet, in 2000 published an article in which the authors argued that the massive distribution of condoms in conjunction with a “safe sex” message may actually help spread the HIV virus.(3)

· The pro-abortion Allan Guttmacher Institute (AGI) notes a condom failure rate as high as 17.6%.(4)

· The condom failure rate in the West is so high that over 65% of approximately 3,000 condom users surveyed discontinued use after 24 months.(5)

· A new UN report suggests that monogamy, not condoms, is the answer to the AIDS epidemic.(6)

· Even Gates’s own foundation has effectively dissed condoms. On the limited utility of AIDS prevention methods among African women, the Gates Foundation states that “if it diminishes sexual pleasure, it is unlikely to be used reliably.”(7)

Condoms have other drawbacks as well. They can lead to increased rates of abortion as a back-up method of so-called family planning. They can cause cervical cancer.(8)

And, as was recently documented in Tanzania,
substandard condoms—which can contribute directly to the spread of disease—are a problem.(9)

Quoted from email from PRI http://www.pop.org

I remember my mother the day that we met
It is a day I shall never entirely forget
And I toy with the fancy that young as I am
I should know her again if we met in a tram

But mother is happy in turning a crank
That increases the balance at somebody's bank
I and feel satisfaction that mother is free
From the sinister task of attending to me

They have brightened our room that is spacious and cool
With diagrams used in the Idiot School
And books for the blind that will teach us to see
But mother is happy for mother is free

For mother is dancing up forty-eight floors
For love of the Leeds International Stores
And the flame of that faith might perhaps have grown cold
With the care of a baby seven weeks old

For mother is happy in greasing a wheel
For somebody else who is cornering steel
And though our one meeting was not very long
She took the occasion to sing me this song :

"Oh hush thee my baby, the time will soon come
When thy sleep will be broken with hooting and hum
There are candles want turning and turning all day
And knobs to be pressed in the usual way

Oh hush thee my baby take rest while I croon
For progress comes early and freedom too soon

By G. K. Chesterton

Prayer of a Soldier in France

My shoulders ache beneath my pack
(Lie easier, Cross, upon His back).

I march with feet that burn and smart
(Tread, Holy Feet, upon my heart).

Men shout at me who may not speak
(They scourged Thy back and smote Thy cheek).

I may not lift a hand to clear
My eyes of salty drops that sear.

(Then shall my fickle soul forget
Thy Agony of Bloody Sweat?)

My rifle hand is stiff and numb
(From Thy pierced palm red rivers come).

Lord, Thou didst suffer more for me
Than all the hosts of land and sea.

So let me render back again
This millionth of Thy gift. Amen.

Joyce Kilmer
1918
( lifted from Ad Orientem )

Not exactly the nicest name, but this 100books link will take you to a page that is close to my heart. A group of friends reading the top 100 books and reviewing them.

I am heartened to see that they have included "The End of the Affair" by Graham Greene on the list. It is in my top 5 books ever.

So this is a record of hate far more than of love, and if I come to say anything in favor of Henry and Sarah, I can be trusted. I am writing against the bias because it is my professional pride to prefer the near-truth even to the expression of my near-hate.

The opening lines of The End of the Affair by Graham Greene

It is of course, not a tale of hate.

I found a review of the movie starring Ralph Fiennes and Julianne Moore that comes close to the way I feel about it. I more readily condemn the movie for it's deviation from the plot just where the plot is perfect. Here's the page - James Bowman

What has this to do with philosophy? A lot really, as both pastimes can really be said to be useless. Which is a very good thing. More on this later.

If trees were tall and grasses short,
As in some crazy tale,
If here and there a sea were blue
Beyond the breaking pale,

If a fixed fire hung in the air
To warm me one day through,
If deep green hair grew on great hills,
I know what I should do.
In dark I lie; dreaming that there
Are great eyes cold or kind,
And twisted streets and silent doors,
And living men behind.

Let storm clouds come: better an hour,
And leave to weep and fight,
Than all the ages I have ruled
The empires of the night.

I think that if they gave me leave
Within the world to stand,
I would be good through all the day
I spent in fairyland.
They should not hear a word from me
Of selfishness or scorn,
If only I could find the door,
If only I were born.

By G.K. Chesterton

The last few decades have been marked by a special cultivation of the romance of the future. We seem to have made up our minds to misunderstand what has happened; and we turn, with a sort of relief, to stating what will happen--which is (apparently) much easier. The modern man no longer presents the memoirs of his great grandfather; but is engaged in writing a detailed and authoritative biography of his great-grandson. Instead of trembling before the specters of the dead, we shudder abjectly under the shadow of the babe unborn. This spirit is apparent everywhere, even to the creation of a form of futurist romance. Sir Walter Scott stands at the dawn of the nineteenth century for the novel of the past; Mr. H. G. Wells stands at the dawn of the twentieth century for the novel of the future. The old story, we know, was supposed to begin: "Late on a winter's evening two horsemen might have been seen--." The new story has to begin: "Late on a winter's evening two aviators will be seen--." The movement is not without its elements of charm; there is something spirited, if eccentric, in the sight of so many people fighting over again the fights that have not yet happened; of people still glowing with the memory of tomorrow morning. A man in advance of the age is a familiar phrase enough. An age in advance of the age is really rather odd. What's Wrong with the World - G. K. Chesterton

No metaphysician ever felt the deficiency of language so much as the grateful. -Charles Caleb Colton, author and clergyman (1780-1832)