Lift Up Your Hearts!

There are many ways to serve one's country besides military service, but today we honor those who have given the extraordinary service of laying their lives, health, and future on the line for us, especially those who gave "the last full measure of devotion." (More)

I know this will not impress you Northerners, but I'll tell the story anyway. When I jumped into the pool today, I thought that the water was a tad on the chilly side. After doing my 10 warm-up lengths, I checked the thermometer: 67 degrees, a drop of six degrees since Friday. It was actually quite pleasant, after a lap or two, though I'm sure it's colder than the Maggie P. in summer. Probably not colder than Lake Bomoseen, however. My goal is to keep swimming until Thanksgiving. This time it was easy, as I had no idea before I stepped in how cold the water was. The real test of my determination will be the next time I venture in.

An Austrian study of the benefits of walking is both encouraging and perplexing. During the four-month study, 45 healthy adults walked 600 meters, three to five times per week. Each participant walked uphill for half of the study, and downhill for the other half, taking a cable car for the opposite trip.

It's not surprising that the walkers benefitted from their exercise; what is peculiar is the distribution of their improvements. Both uphill and downhill walkers experienced a decrease in their LDL ("bad") cholesterol. Uphill walking also lowered triglyceride levels and increased the body's ability to handle fat. Downhill walking significantly increased the body's ability to handle sugar. Walking uphill did not help with sugar, nor downhill with fats. (More)

Florida is being labeled as an unhealthy state, ranking 42nd in a study by the United Health Foundation. On looking further into the study, I discovered that the risk factors they considered were far different from the ones I would have chosen to get a picture of how living in a certain state might be a health risk or benefit. I would have asked questions such as: (More)

Homeschooling is legal in Pennsylvania, but the regulations imposed on homeschooling families are among the strictest in the nation. Recently, one family decided to sue the state on grounds that the rules impose an unreasonable restriction on their freedom of religion. Reading that article, and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's editorial in response, reminds me that we must never, never become complacent about our rights, nor take our freedoms for granted. The Post-Gazette wonders,

To us, the requirements seem rather minimal. Parents must submit an annual affidavit to the local school superintendent outlining their educational goals. They must turn in a log at the end of the year showing what subjects were taught and when. A neutral, certified teacher reviews the work and interviews the child. Standardized tests are required at several grade levels.

What is the problem with that?

One problem is that such an attitude betrays appalling ignorance of what homeschooling is all about. It is not about taking the philosophies, methods, systems, procedures, and materials of school and trying to squeeze them into one's living room. Rather, homeschooling liberates children and families to pursue learning in creative ways that are not possible when subjected to classroom-mentality restrictions. (More)

Researchers at Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital found yet another health benefit of breastfeeding, this time for mothers. Women in the study who breastfed their children for a total of one to two years experienced a 20% lower risk of developing rheumatoid arthritis later in life. For those who breastfed for at least two years, the risk was cut in half.

It appears that Boston could not have two big winners this year. If they could have chosen, I wonder how many would have traded the Red Sox World Series win for a Kerry victory?

John Kerry has conceded, and President Bush is expected to declare his victory. That speech will be the first critical act of his second term. It needs to be humble, conciliatory, positive, respectful, encouraging, and unifying. These are not attitudes that Bush's speeches project very well. Whether the fault is in him or in his speechwriters, the ultimate responsibility lies with the one who speaks the words, and he needs to change his attitude and/or find himself some better speechwriters. Kudos to Kerry for having the grace not to subject the country to weeks of agonizing legal battles. (More)

Cast your vote, then "cast your cares on the Lord, and he will sustain you" (Psalm 55:22). As close as this election is, we can be sure that half of the people in this country will be disappointed with the results. Nonetheless, for the health of our country, we all need to look toward the future with hope and enthusiasm.

For our country—and for ourselves, also. It is appropriate that today's news includes a Dutch study confirming the positive health benefits of optimism. The nine-year study of nearly a thousand men and women between the ages of 65 and 85 found that an optimistic personality contributed significantly to reduced mortality. The effect was most dramatic when cardiovasculary mortality alone was considered. (The above link takes you directly to the Archives of General Psychiatry where the research was published. As might be expected, unfortunately, the news stories circulating differ vastly in accuracy, with some reporting the opposite of the true cardiovascular results.) (More)

Thus far I have tried to remain fairly nonpartisan in my political commentary, but the time has come to take a stand. I have been a Democrat all my voting life, although I’ve been gradually coming to realize that the party I thought represented compassion and liberty acts in reality as if it cared no more—and in many ways less—about such things than the Republicans.

George W. Bush has sufficiently disappointed and embarrassed me that the Democrats probably could have saved my vote by putting forth a moderate candidate who would present himself as a positive alternative. Instead, they chose John Kerry.

Without detailing the intellectual and visceral internal debate behind my voting choices, I include some brief comments on the issues both candidates seem to think paramount, based on their advertising rhetoric:

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As I have written previously, I believe that Florida's voting procedures in 2000 were as fair and accurate as any in the country, and better than some.

I have no such assurance this year. Four years ago, any irregularities were minor and mostly attributable to innocent mistakes. Now everyone knows that Florida matters, and the stakes are so high that I no longer trust either side to resist the temptation to pretend that the ends can justify the means. The negative ads, on both sides and at all levels, have convinced me of one thing: that neither side can be expected to take the high moral ground on anything important.

Between "early voting" and the misuse of the absentee ballot system, chances of fraud, collusion, and coercion are high, and the chance of knowing the results in a timely matter is low. (More)

This is for my dear friends who will soon be travelling to Spain:

When I was in elementary school, we were taught, drilled and tested on the formulas for converting temperature measurements between Fahrenheit and Celsius. Celsius was known as Centigrade back then, but they both begin with C so it doesn't matter. :)

F = 9/5 x C + 32

C = 5/9 x (F - 32)

It was an all but useless exercise. How often do most people need to do those conversions? In the science lab, we use Celsius; otherwise, Fahrenheit. Except at our house, when I was young. The thermometer that my father bought and installed outside our window read only in Celsius, so I was kept busy converting it into the more familiar numbers. Even so, I never really learned the conversion formulas; I never could remember which way they went. How liberating it was, many years later, when I realized that I could easily figure that out, knowing 0C = 32F (water freezes) and 100C = 212F (water boils).

It wasn't until I was more than 30 years outside of elementary school, vacationing in New Zealand, that I discovered even greater freedom. All temperatures there are in Celsius (as they are in most of the world), and those old formulas were just too clumsy. So I amused myself by developing a much handier formula that was just fine for my purposes. (More)

Get your news first, from Crickler! Their nifty little puzzles often alert me to interesting news stories, which I follow up with my favorite overall news source, Google News. Today's intriguing tidbit has been a little hard to pin down, as the full story at Salon.com requires a subscription. Supposedly you can get a "one day pass" to read it if you watch an advertisment, but I sat through the thing twice and still was asked to register, so I gave up and will wait till a free news source covers the story. However, since I was asked my opinion, I'll quote the beginning (free) part of the story:

One theory is that the President was receiving some sort of assistance during the debate, which would make Bush the immoral, irresponsible idiot of his opponents' visions. I have a few thoughts of my own, and have gathered more from other folks:
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I do all my blog work in Firefox, and my secondary browser of choice is Netscape, so I didn't realize the site is fouled up in Internet Explorer until a couple of kindly readers complained. I apologize to all of you IE users, and will try to figure out which of my changes could have made such a mess.

We're watching the lunar eclipse. The first time I saw that beautiful phenomenon, my father awakened me in the early hours of the morning, and we drove to a place where we could see the moon well. I was cold and sleepy. But it was worth it: to see the moon, and to have that special time with my dad.

Tonight we have it easy. We step out of our front door into the warm Florida night, and there is the disappearing moon, clear and lovely and perfectly framed. It reminds me of watching space shuttle launches, which we also see from our front yard. Except that this time I have no lingering fears that the beauty will splinter and fall as I watch.