SerPolUS_IDES

Brooks commends Obama as a thoughtful, disciplined pragmatist, not an ideologue. Nevertheless, he sees Obama's gargantuan appetite for reform in many sectors as an "over-stepping" that provokes American anti-government suspicions. He advises one year of demonstrating how government is a humble servant, rather than an imperious leviathan.

Brooks admiringly describes how well Obama & Biden get along, & how tranquilly the White House staff operates despite all the recent setbacks. "Some would say the administration is underreacting to the incredible shift in the public mood. Some would say they need more voices from the great unwashed. But no one could accuse them of panicking, or of scrambling about incoherently. In their first winter of discontent, they are offering continuity and comity. Whatever their relations with the country might be, inside they seem unruffled. The bonds of association, from the top down, seem healthy - especially for a bunch of Democrats."

Brooks suggests Obama should get out on the road, as a "saner" version of Perot, with charts & graphs, to educate Americans on how dysfunctional American government has become, and to ask for the political support needed to change things. If Obama doesn't do this, someone else will come along and do it.

Review by Judith Shulevitz (author of "The Sabbath World: Glimpses of a Different Order of Time"): Wade asserts "the God gene" & its evolutionary function - "to bind human beings into cooperative groups," making altruism, group (over self-) interest & solidarity a matter of conscience (with the gods as enforcers). Shulevitz's criticism is "that he has under-ambitiously portrayed religion as less encompassing and consequential than it is."

Yoga at hotels & spas.

Protecting personal privacy on Facebook

Better Calling for Less: With a solid signal, smart-phone users of Wi-Fi phone applications (e.g., with Skype) should have good sound quality and no dropped calls, in WiFi zone (instead of using cell towers, etc.)

Small, competent, 12 megapixels, 3-in screens, hi-def video capture, image stabiliz'n, face recognition, zoom 10-12X. BUT: still shutter lag, low-light noise, blown-out highlights.

cosmetic plastics attracting more doctors in training

Douglas Kmiec, pro-life conservative, supports Obama because he thinks he is most likely to REDUCE number of abortions = the real goal

efforts to make Obama the rejectable "other" with whom compromise is impossible (ethnicity an unspoken aspect?)

The fundamental fix for health care reform is likely to be achieved only through trial and error and incremental gains.\n

An anti-Obama bumper-sticker slogan which seems to urge people to pray for an end to the President's days (in office?).

Serious effect on medical cost curve

book by Paul F. Knitter, "Without Buddha I Could Not Be a Christian" - journey of a Catholic theologian (former priest), with dedication thanking atheist brother for "helping to keep me honest."

NYT-Op-Ed

Midge's Dx of Ca, & Support at MSKCC

Column by Dominique Browning at EDF website - about religious leaders concern for human "stewardship" of environment; an offset to other view that "God won't let it happen unless it's God's will to have it happen - so why do anything different?" See statement of Dr. Daniel Boone of Trevecca Nazarene University in Tennessee (yes, a descendant of the first famous Boone).

This Australian theological student discusses the dependence of early (and contemporary) Christians on prior or current ideas that come from outside the Christian and biblical tradition.

A non-theist argues for non-displacement of science and religion as systems of knowledge