NASA has an interesting site called “Astronomy Picture of the Day”. The July 23rd entry is an extremely high speed film of lightning. The July 3rd picture of Saturn is also very good.
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html
This is their photograph from 2010 July 20, possibly showing Zeus in action over Athens:
I’ve often wondered when and how the men in charge of Christianity decided that sex, especially outside of marriage, is shameful.
In an article in the New York Review of Books, Peter Brown (a respected professor of history at Princeton) implies that Ambrose of Milan (aka St. Ambrose) and John Chrysostom of Antioch and Constantinople were largely responsible (or irresponsible, depending on your point of view). Both men were bishops in the 4th century. According to Brown:
In their hands, long-established codes of living in this world (propounded by philosophers since classical times) were transformed … (into) divinely sanctioned precepts with which to achieve entrance to the other world….
It was not enough that precepts of courage, continence and self-denial should help to steer men and women through the dangers and temptations of this life alone. These virtues, if practiced with heroic abandon, were held to lead directly to heaven.
The ascetic or philosophical life, in which the mind or soul was elevated above the body, had often been recommended as the best or most satisfying way of life by ancient philosophers. Eventually, this way of life became not just the most prudent one, but the most religiously acceptable one. Sex became officially dirty.
No doubt the story is complex. One of the books that tells the story and which is discussed in Professor Brown’s article is Ambrose and John Chrysostom: Clerics between Desert and Empire by J. H. W. G. Liebeschuetz. Only $100.96 on Amazon (or $88 if you lean toward the electronic).
I spent a couple hours yesterday trying to coordinate some medical treatment between two doctor’s offices and a hospital. There are  alternatives. Here’s one which could save us time and money while improving the nation’s health care:
A health care system owned and managed by Alaska’s native people has achieved astonishing results in improving the health of its enrollees while cutting the costs of treating them.
Just the vocal track.
The United States, apparently alone among industrialized nations, is caught up in a struggle between two extremely different political persuasions.
It’s as if a competent lifeguard is trying to rescue a remarkably incompetent, very large swimmer. The lifeguard is doing her best (in this case, it’s probably a “her”), but the swimmer (probably a “him”) is in a panic, insanely struggling and dragging them both under the waves.
People can see this death struggle from the shore, but they’re not paying much attention. They’re mostly worrying about their tans and whether it’s time to go buy a hot dog.
One problem with this metaphor is that the people on the beach are being dragged down too. Unfortunately, they’re too preoccupied, uninterested or stupid to notice what’s going on.
The swimmer, of course, would call himself a “conservative”. A more accurate designation would be “radical right-wing ideologue”.
(Postscript: I was asked who the lifeguard represents. Metaphors are especially open to interpretation, but let’s say the lifeguard represents those thoughtful people who are paying attention to what’s happening to this country.)
Whereof One Can Speak 🇺🇦 
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