Friday, September 21, 2007, 05:15 PM PST [General]
I use prayers adapted from Alexander Carmichael's 19th c. anthology, Carmina Gadelica, specifically §§303 & 316, while facing the Sun (eyes closed, of course) or the Moon, and with arms upraised.
My eventual goal is a full daily round of Sun salutations—Sunrise, Solar Noon, Sunset, Night—as well as for Moon salutations throughout its monthly cycle. These salutations, though, are separate from the formal Morning, Noon, Evening and Night rituals.
Please tell me, what do *you* do? What would you like to work up to?
Friday, September 21, 2007, 04:45 PM PST [General]
The Senate—including my senator, Dianne Feinstein—passed a resolution yesterday condemning MoveOn.org, and it has but one purpose: to intimidate all of us who care about ending this war. To send the message that anyone who speaks the unpleasant truths about this war will pay. To make everyone—especially politicians—think twice before they accuse the administration of lying. We know what bald-faced liars the Bush Administration is, and we're not going to just shut up because they don't want to hear about it.
I am LIVID. Indeed, Barbara Boxer and Barbara Lee do speak for me, not Dianne Feinstein.
Most importantly, by doing so, Congress passed a resolution opposing and condemning the exercise of free speech by its citizens.
I just signed a statement telling Congress that I'm not going to shut up, they aren't going to intimidate me, and that I'm going to keep freely speaking out until they force an exit strategy out of this obscene war based on lie after lie after lie.
Friday, September 21, 2007, 04:33 PM PST [General]
My fellow (Prayer)Beadfreaks (AYKWYA* ),
Just got these in the mail earlier this week (along with a full 5-decade rosary made of the same acorn beads as well) from rosarycard.net. I was waiting until I had them in hand and could vouch for whether they were worthwhile or not before posting about them. While they are smaller in real life than in the photos, they're well detailed, they feel good in the hand and between the fingers, and I am looking forward to using them—whether I modify them or not.
As the saying goes in ADF, "Fast as a speeding oak ...." With each prayer and each affirmation on each acorn bead, I am sowing the seeds of the future.
Friday, September 21, 2007, 04:21 PM PST [General]
Dear Paganfolk, friends, and acquaintances here on Covenspace,
I made the annual car trip back to the West Texas town of El Paso to visit my elderly father for his birthday in late August and stayed several weeks. Within 36 hours of arriving, it was clear: Dad can no longer live alone. The one thing that has broken my heart as much as having to pick out the clothes Mama was going to be buried in, was picking him bodily up off the floor where he had fallen.
So, after 7 really good years in the San Francisco Bay Area, I am moving back to El Paso, TX this next week. Ye Gods, I hate moving to begin with. I hate the fact that one of my biggest heroes now needs someone available to help him with activities of daily living.
I have been up to my eyeballs in boxes and packing, making arrangements, and still keeping up with my job (*heh* it only helps so much that I'm self-employed.)
I get the U-Haul and some local guys to load it up for me Monday and begin the trek back to El Paso this next week.
Please understand and forgive my absence/silence at this very stressful time.
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - In high income countries, programs that encourage abstinence from sex as the only method of preventing HIV infection are not effective in achieving this goal, findings from a review of trial data suggest.
As reported in this week's issue of the British Medical Journal, Dr. Kristen Underhill and colleagues, from the University of Oxford in the UK, searched 30 electronic databases to identify studies that examined the effectiveness of abstinence-only programs as a means of preventing HIV infection. Data from 13 trials, containing nearly 16,000 U.S. youth, were included in their analysis.
Compared with no program, safer sex programs, and various other control programs, the abstinence-only programs did not seem to reduce HIV risk. Specifically, abstinence-only programs did not influence the rate of unprotected vaginal sex, the number of sexual partners, condom use, or initiation of sexual activity.
In one trial, there was evidence that abstinence-only programs may have had an adverse effect. Compared with a comparison group of young people who did not participate in an HIV prevention program, abstinence-only programs were associated with a rise in sexually transmitted infections and pregnancy. Still, the authors note that other trials did not show a significant link between abstinence-only programs and these outcomes.
In another trial, there was a suggestion that abstinence-only programs may reduce levels of vaginal sex, but the follow-up period was relatively short.
"In contrast to abstinence only programs, programs that promote the use of condoms greatly reduce the risk of acquiring HIV, especially when such programs are culturally tailored behavioral interventions targeting people at highest risk of HIV infection," Dr. Stephen E. Hawes, from the University of Washington in Seattle, and colleagues note in a related editorial.
SOURCE: British Medical Journal, August 4, 2007.
What is so broken about the American medical and research establishment that this truth has to be proclaimed by BRITISH doctors reviewing American studies on American youth to point out the obvious fallacy of American Puritans' abstinence-onlyism?
