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This is what's new!

Americans
get an 'F' in religion
By
Cathy Lynn Grossman
"We
are not all on the same one path to the same one God ...
Religions aren't all saying the same thing. That's presumptuous
and wrong. They start with different problems, solve the
problems in different ways, and they have different goals."
March
8 - Sometimes dumb sounds cute: Sixty percent of Americans can't
name five of the Ten Commandments, and 50% of high school seniors
think Sodom and Gomorrah were married.
Stephen Prothero, chairman of the religion department at Boston
University, isn't laughing. Americans' deep ignorance of world religions
- their own, their neighbors' or the combatants in Iraq, Darfur
or Kashmir - is dangerous, he says.
His new book, Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know
- and Doesn't, argues that everyone needs to grasp Bible basics,
as well as the core beliefs, stories, symbols and heroes of other
faiths.
Belief is not his business, says Prothero, who grew up Episcopalian
and now says he's a spiritually "confused Christian."
He says his argument is for empowered citizenship.
"More and more of our national and international questions
are religiously inflected," he says, citing President Bush's
speeches laden with biblical references and the furor when the first
Muslim member of Congress chose to be sworn in with his right hand
on Thomas Jefferson's Quran.
"If you think Sunni and Shia are the same because they're both
Muslim, and you've been told Islam is about peace, you won't understand
what's happening in Iraq. If you get into an argument about gay
rights or capital punishment and someone claims to quote the Bible
or the Quran, do you know it's so?
"If you want to be involved, you need to know what they're
saying. We're doomed if we don't understand what motivates the beliefs
and behaviors of the rest of the world. We can't outsource this
to demagogues, pundits and preachers with a political agenda."
Scholars and theologians who agree with him say Americans' woeful
level of religious illiteracy damages more than democracy.
"You're going to make assumptions about people out of ignorance,
and they're going to make assumptions about you," says Philip
Goff of the Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture
at Indiana University in Indianapolis.
Goff cites a widely circulated claim on the Internet that the Quran
foretold American intervention in the Middle East, based on a supposed
passage "that simply isn't there. It's an entire argument for
war based on religious ignorance."
"We're impoverished by ignorance," says the Rev. Joan
Brown Campbell, former general secretary of the National Council
of Churches. "You can't draw on the resources of faith if you
only have an emotional understanding, not a sense of the texts and
teachings."
But if people don't know Sodom and Gomorrah were two cities destroyed
for their sinful ways, Campbell blames Sunday schools that "trivialized
religious education. If we want people to have serious knowledge,
we have to get serious about teaching our own faith."
Prothero's solution is to require middle-schoolers to take a course
in world religions and high schoolers to take one on the Bible.
Biblical knowledge also should be melded into history and literature
courses where relevant. He wants all college undergrads to take
at least one course in religious studies.
He calls for time-pressed adults to sample holy books and history
texts. His book includes a 90-page dictionary of key words and concepts
from Abraham to Zen. There's also a 15-question quiz - which his
students fail every year.
But it's the controversial, though constitutional, push into schools
that draws the most attention.
In theory, everyone favors children knowing more. The National Education
Association handbook says religious instruction "in doctrines
and practices belongs at home or religious institutions," while
schools should teach world religions' history, heritage, diversity
and influence.
Only 8% of public high schools offer an elective Bible course, according
to a study in 2005 by the Bible Literacy Project, which promotes
academic Bible study in public schools. The project is supported
by Freedom Forum's First Amendment Center, a Washington, D.C., non-profit
that promotes free speech.
The study surveyed 1,000 high schoolers and found that just 36%
know Ramadan is the Islamic holy month; 17% said it was the Jewish
day of atonement.
Goff says schools are not wholly to blame for religious illiteracy.
"There are simply more groups, more players. Students didn't
know Ramadan any better in 1965, but now there are as many Muslims
as Jews in America. It's more important to know who's who."
Also today, "there is more emphasis on religious experience
as a mark of true religion and less emphasis on doctrine and knowledge
of the faith."
Still, it's the widely misunderstood 1963 decision by the U.S. Supreme
Court that may have been the tipping point: It removed devotional
Bible reading from the schools but spelled out that it should not
have been removed from literature and history.
"The decision clearly states you can't be educated without
it, but it scared schools so much they dropped it all," Goff
says.
"Schools are terrified of this," says Joy Hakim, author
of several U.S. history textbooks. She's in her 70s but remembers
well as a Jewish child how she felt like an outsider in schools
that pushed Christianity in the curriculum.
But she says the backlash went too far. "Now, you can't use
biblical characters or narrative in anything. We've stopped teaching
stories. We teach facts, and the characters are lost."
Religion, like the arts, has become an afterthought in an education
climate driven by "the fixation on literacy and numeracy -
math and reading," says Bob Schaeffer of the National Center
for Fair & Open Testing, a group critical of the standards-based
education movement. "If the ways schools, teachers, principals
and superintendents are judged all depend on math and reading scores,
that's what you're going to teach," he says.
Still, it's a tough tightrope to walk between those who say the
Bible can be just another book, albeit a valuable one, and those
who say it is inherently devotional.
The First Amendment Center also published a guide to "The Bible
and the Public Schools," which praised a ninth-grade world
religions course in Modesto, Calif., and cited a study finding students
were able to learn about other faiths without altering their own
beliefs. But it also said the class may not be easily replicated,
and required knowledgeable, unbiased teachers.
Leland Ryken, an English professor at evangelical Wheaton College
in Wheaton, Ill., tested a 2006 textbook, The Bible and Its Influence,
underwritten by the Bible Literacy Project. Ryken favors adding
classes in the Bible and literature and social studies. But he cautions,
"Religious literacy and world religions are not the same as
the Bible as literature. It's a much more loaded subject, and I
really question if high school students can get much knowledge beyond
a sense of the importance of religion."
The 'Bible and Its Influence' has been blasted by conservative Christians
such as the Rev. John Hagee (the conservative first embraced and
then rebuked by U.S. Senator John McCain under public pressure),
pastor of the 18,000-member Cornerstone Church in San Antonio. Hagee
calls it "a masterful work of deception, distortion and outright
falsehoods" planting "concepts in the minds of children
which are contrary to biblical teaching."
Hagee wrote to the Alabama legislature opposing adoption of the
text, citing points such as discussion questions that could lead
children away from a belief in God. Example: Asking students to
ponder if Adam and Eve got "a fair deal as described in Genesis"
would plant the seed that "since God is the author of the deal,
God is unfair."
Hagee prefers the Bible itself as a textbook for Bible classes,
used with a curriculum created by a group of conservative evangelicals,
the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools, based
in Greensboro, N.C. The council says its curriculum is being offered
in more than 300 schools.
Mark Chancey, professor of religious studies at Southern Methodist
University in Dallas, looked last year at how Texas public school
districts taught Bible classes. His two studies, sponsored by the
Texas Freedom Network, a civil liberties group, found only 25 of
more than 1,000 districts offered such a class.
"And 22 of them, including several using the Greensboro group's
curriculum, were clearly over the line," teaching Christianity
as the norm, and the Bible as inspired by God, says Chancey. One
teacher even showed students a proselytizing Power Point titled,
"God's road map for your life," that was clearly unconstitutional,
he says.
The controversies, costs and competing demands in the schools have
prompted many to turn instead to character education.
But classes promoting pluralism and tolerance fail on the religious
literacy front because they "reduce religion to morality,"
Prothero says, or they promote a call for universal compassion as
if it were the only value that matters.
"We are not all on the same one path to the same one God,"
he says. "Religions aren't all saying the same thing. That's
presumptuous and wrong. They start with different problems, solve
the problems in different ways, and they have different goals."
--
What
happens when the government gets involved with religion? In the
country of Malaysia, it is against the law to convert from Islam
to any other religion.
America's
Generations Gap
June
4 - In an article appearing in the Orlando Sentinel, Harry Wessel
reports that there's a generation gap in America's workplace that's
serious enough to cause a big brain drain in coming years. According
to Randstad USA, an Atlanta-based employment-services company;
"U.S.
businesses risk a shortage of skilled labor -- not because of the
lack of manpower in the wake of retiring baby boomers, but because
of the limited transfer of knowledge.
According
to a Harris Interactive survey, there is little interaction among
the four generations of U.S. employees.
It
defined the four generations as Matures*
(those born before 1946), Baby Boomers (born 1946-1964), Generation
X (born 1965-1979) and Generation Y (born 1980-1988).
The
different generations rarely interact with one another and often
do not recognize each other's skills or work ethic.
Employers
should help close the knowledge gap by instituting ways for each
generation to recognize the strengths and value of all colleagues."
See
the Opththalmic Generations Gap.
Some
Possible Cancer Answers

By
Hari Singh Bird
Excerpts From 'Cancer Answers' Link Below*
"Low
oxygen levels in cells may be a fundamental cause of cancer."
"There
are several reasons cells become poorly oxygenated. An overload
of toxins clogging up the cells, poor quality cell walls that don't
allow nutrients into the cells, the lack of nutrients needed for
respiration, poor circulation and perhaps even low levels of oxygen
in the air we breathe.
Cancer cells produce excess lactic acid as they ferment energy.
Lactic acid
is toxic, and tends to prevent the transport of oxygen into neighboring
normal cells. Over time as these cells replicate, the cancer may
spread if not destroyed by the immune system.
Chemotherapy and radiation are used because cancer cells are weaker
than normal cells and therefore may die first.
However, chemo and radiation damage respiratory enzymes in healthy
cells, and overload them with toxins, so they become more likely
to develop into cancer. The underlying cancer causing conditions
are worsened, not improved. And the cancer usually returns quickly
a second time unless you make changes to support the health of your
body." --
Some
Personal Observations
a) In my experience as a teacher of Kundalini Yoga, I have observed
many people, young and old, with poor breathing habits. The practice
of Kundalini Yoga** (inclusive
of the Breath of Fire,
Deep Breathing, Stretching, Internal Massage, etc.), and other aerobic
exercising, can provide additional and much needed oxygen to oxygen
starved cells, especially the brain.
Notes
from a Kundalini Yoga class: "No matter how good the diet is,
we tend to exceed the self cleaning capacity of our bodies. Uric
acid (a byproduct of meat consumption),
calcium crystals, and many other wastes and poisons get stored in
tissues and joints. They make us stiff and may cause many diseases.
In Kundalini Yoga, muscle
stretching and internal massage bring waste back into circulation
so that the lungs, intestines, kidneys, and skin are able to remove
it."
b) Cow's milk contains lots of lactic
acid.***
For
some interesting and thought provoking words about Kundalini Yoga
and our consumption of milk,
water, and flesh
food, see these links.
*http://cance-prevention.net/?engine=
overture!801&keyword=sign+of+lung+cancer
**http://www.harisingh.com/newsKundalini.htm
***http://www.milksucks.com/index2.asp
http://www.watercure.com
http://www.harisingh.com/newsNews.htm#meat
--
A
Call To The Faithful

By
Lou Dobbs
CNN Commentator
"This
week the head of the Los Angeles Archdiocese, Cardinal Roger
Mahony, basically threatened his faithful with denial of heaven
if
they don't support amnesty for illegal aliens."
NEW YORK (CNN) - The separation of church and state in this country
is narrowing. And it is the church, not the state that is encroaching.
Our Constitution protects religion from the intrusion or coercion
of the state. But we have precious little protection against the
political adventurism of all manner of churches and religious organizations.
The leadership of the Catholic Church and many Protestant churches,
as well as Jewish and even Muslim religious organizations, are driving
that political adventurism as those leaders conflate religion and
politics. And while there is a narrowing of the separation between
church and state, there is a widening schism between the leadership
of churches and religious organizations and their followers and
members.
Conservative evangelical leader James Dobson recently said actor
and former Sen. Fred Thompson wasn't Christian enough to be president.
He instead chose to commend Newt Gingrich, who has been married
three times and recently admitted to an extramarital affair. Five
evangelical Christian leaders signed the "Land Letter"
to President Bush in 2002 affirming a Christian theological basis
to invade Iraq.
This week the head of the Los Angeles Archdiocese, Cardinal Roger
Mahoney, basically threatened his faithful with denial of heaven
if they don't support amnesty for illegal aliens. The good Cardinal
said: "Anything that tears down one group of people or one
person, anything that is a negative in our community, disqualifies
us from being part of the eternal city."
The nation's religious leaders seem hell-bent on ignoring the separation
of church and state when it comes to the politically charged issue
of illegal immigration. A new coalition called Christians for Comprehensive
Immigration Reform Wednesday will begin lobbying lawmakers with
a new advertising and direct mail campaign on behalf of amnesty
for illegal aliens.
The Rev. Jim Wallis of Sojourners Magazine put it this way: "If
given the choice on this issue between Jesus and Lou Dobbs, I choose
my Lord and savior, Jesus Christ."
But before the faithful acquiesce in the false choice offered by
the good Reverend, perhaps he and his followers should consult Romans
13, where it is written: "Everyone must submit himself to the
governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which
God has established. The authorities that exist have been established
by God. Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling
against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring
judgment on themselves."
There is a more obvious and immediate judgment offered by the followers
and members of both the Protestant and Catholic Churches. A Zogby
poll last year asked churchgoers if they supported the House bill
that would make illegal aliens return home and reduce future illegal
immigration by securing the border and performing checks on illegal
employers. Seventy-five percent of Protestants responded that was
a good or very good idea, 77 percent of born-again Christians also
agreed, and 66 percent of Catholics also backed tougher enforcement
measures.
This schism between our church leaders and church members is just
as broad and deep as that between our elected officials and their
constituents across the country. Neither the state nor the church
is exhibiting wisdom or fidelity to our national values in permitting
the widening of that divide.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the
writer. --
Trash
Talk Radio

By
Gwen Ifill
Op-Ed Contributor
New York Times Opinion
"This
country will only flourish once we consistently learn to applaud and
encourage the young people who have to work harder just to achieve
balance on the unequal playing field."
Washington
DC - LET’S say a word about the girls. The young women with
the musical names. Kia and Epiphanny and Matee and Essence. Katie
and Dee Dee and Rashidat and Myia and Brittany and Heather.
The Scarlet Knights of Rutgers University had an improbable season,
dropping four of their first seven games, yet ending up in the N.C.A.A.
women’s basketball championship game. None of them were seniors.
Five were freshmen.
In the end, they were stopped only by Tennessee’s Lady Vols,
who clinched their seventh national championship by ending Rutgers’
Cinderella run last week, 59-46. That’s the kind of story
we love, right? A bunch of teenagers from Newark, Cincinnati, Brooklyn
and, yes, Ogden, Utah, defying expectations. It’s what explodes
so many March Madness office pools.
But not, apparently, for the girls. For all their grit, hard work
and courage, the Rutgers girls got branded “nappy-headed ho’s”
— a shockingly concise sexual and racial insult, tossed out
in a volley of male camaraderie by a group of amused, middle-aged
white men. The “joke” — as delivered and later
recanted — by the radio and television personality Don Imus
failed one big test: it was not funny.
The serial apologies of Mr. Imus, who was suspended yesterday* by
both NBC News and CBS Radio for his remarks, have failed another
test. The sincerity seems forced and suspect because he’s
done some version of this several times before.
I know, because he apparently did it to me.
I was covering the White House for this newspaper in 1993, when
Mr. Imus’s producer began calling to invite me on his radio
program. I didn’t return his calls. I had my hands plenty
full covering Bill Clinton.
Soon enough, the phone calls stopped. Then quizzical colleagues
began asking me why Don Imus seemed to have a problem with me. I
had no idea what they were talking about because I never listened
to the program.
It was not until five years later, when Mr. Imus and I were both
working under the NBC News umbrella — his show was being simulcast
on MSNBC; I was a Capitol Hill correspondent for the network —
that I discovered why people were asking those questions. It took
Lars-Erik Nelson, a columnist for The New York Daily News, to finally
explain what no one else had wanted to repeat.
“Isn’t The Times wonderful,” Mr. Nelson quoted
Mr. Imus as saying on the radio. “It lets the cleaning lady
cover the White House.”
I was taken aback but not outraged. I’d certainly been called
worse and indeed jumped at the chance to use the old insult to explain
to my NBC bosses why I did not want to appear on the Imus show.
I haven’t talked about this much. I’m a big girl. I
have a platform. I have a voice. I’ve been working in journalism
long enough that there is little danger that a radio D.J.’s
juvenile slap will define or scar me. Yesterday, he began telling
people he never actually called me a cleaning lady. Whatever. This
is not about me.
It is about the Rutgers Scarlet Knights. That game had to be the
biggest moment of their lives, and the outcome the biggest disappointment.
They are not old enough, or established enough, to have built up
the sort of carapace many women I know — black women in particular
— develop to guard themselves against casual insult.
Why do my journalistic colleagues appear on Mr. Imus’s program?
That’s for them to defend, and others to argue about. I certainly
don’t know any black journalists who will. To his credit,
Mr. Imus told the Rev. Al Sharpton yesterday he realizes that, this
time, he went way too far.
Yes, he did. Every time a young black girl shyly approaches me for
an autograph or writes or calls or stops me on the street to ask
how she can become a journalist, I feel an enormous responsibility.
It’s more than simply being a role model. I know I have to
be a voice for them as well.
So here’s what this voice has to say for people who cannot
grasp the notion of picking on people their own size: This country
will only flourish once we consistently learn to applaud and encourage
the young people who have to work harder just to achieve balance
on the unequal playing field.
Let’s see if we can manage to build them up and reward them,
rather than opting for the cheapest, easiest, most despicable shots.
Gwen Ifill is a senior correspondent for “The NewsHour With
Jim Lehrer” and the moderator of “Washington Week."
--
*Note: Don Imus was fired from his positions with NBC News and CBS
just hours after his suspensions from both networks.
Invisibility
Cloak May Be Possible
By
Andrew Bridges
Imagine an invisibility
cloak that works
just like the one Harry Potter inherited from his father.
An invisibility cloak and other Harry Potteresque types of magic
are likely doable, researchers say. "What's standing in the
way is our engineering capabilities," said John Pendry, a physicist
at the Imperial College London.
Researchers in England and the United States think they know how
to do that. They are laying out the blueprint and calling for help
in developing the exotic materials needed to build a cloak.
The keys are special manmade materials, unlike any in nature or
the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. These materials
are intended to steer light and other forms of electromagnetic radiation
around an object, rendering it as invisible as something tucked
into a hole in space.
"Is it science fiction? Well, it's theory and that already
is not science fiction. It's theoretically possible to do all these
Harry Potter things, but what's standing in the way is our engineering
capabilities," said John Pendry, a physicist at the Imperial
College London.
Details of the study, which Pendry co-wrote, appear in Thursday's
online edition of the journal Science.
Scientists not involved in the work said it presents a solid case
for making invisibility an attainable goal.
"This is very interesting science and a very interesting idea
and it is supported on a great mathematical and physical basis,"
said Nader Engheta, a professor of electrical and systems engineering
at the University of Pennsylvania. Engheta has done his own work
on invisibility using novel materials called metamaterials.
Pendry and his co-authors also propose using metamaterials because
they can be tuned to bend electromagnetic radiation - radio waves
and visible light, for example - in any direction.
A cloak made of those materials, with a structure designed down
to the submicroscopic scale, would neither reflect light nor cast
a shadow.
Instead, like a river streaming around a smooth boulder, light and
all other forms of electromagnetic radiation would strike the cloak
and simply flow around it, continuing on as if it never bumped up
against an obstacle. That would give an onlooker the apparent ability
to peer right through the cloak, with everything tucked inside concealed
from view.
"Yes, you could actually make someone invisible as long as
someone wears a cloak made of this material," said Patanjali
Parimi, a Northeastern University physicist and design engineer
at Chelton Microwave Corp. in Bolton, Mass. Parimi was not involved
in the research.
Such a cloak does not exist, but early versions that could mask
microwaves and other forms of electromagnetic radiation could be
as close as 18 months away, Pendry said. He said the study was "an
invitation to come and play with these new ideas."
"We will have a cloak after not too long," he said.
The Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency supported
the research, given the obvious military applications of such stealthy
technology.
While Harry Potter could wear his cloak to skulk around Hogwarts,
a real-world version probably would not be something just to be
thrown on, Pendry said.
"To be realistic, it's going to be fairly thick. Cloak is a
misnomer. 'Shield' might be more appropriate," he said. --
THE
CRUCIFIXION

by An Eyewitness
This
extraordinary account claims Jesus was crucified, removed from the
cross ... alive, and then fully recovered with the help of the Essenes.
The
Dead Sea Scrolls were uncovered in 1947. What do the Dead Sea Scrolls
reveal about Jesus and why haven't these works been published, in
full, after 60 years of 'research'? Is it possible that they reveal
data that corroborates Jesus' survival, as claimed in 'The
Crucifixion,' by An Eyewitness? Is this the non-fiction sequel to
'The DaVinci Code'? Is this The Greatest Story Never Told? Click
here, now! 
Birth
Date Numerology
Your
Birth Number can indicate who you are, what you are good at, and
what your inborn abilities are. It can also point to what you have
to learn, and the challenges that you face. A Birth Number does
not present you with any obstacles to being anything you want to
be, but it may just color your choices differently and give you
better insight as to choices that you make.
To figure out your Birth Number, add all the numbers in your Birth
Date together, as in the example, until there is only one digit.
Example: March 20, 1950
3 + 20 + 1950 = 1973
Continue until you end up with a single digit number.
1 + 9 + 7 + 3 = 20
2 + 0 = 2
2 is the Birth Number to read for the Birth Date in this example.
1
= THE ORIGINATOR
2
= THE PEACEMAKER
3
= THE LIFE OF THE PARTY
4
= THE CONSERVATIVE
5
= THE NONCONFORMIST
6
= THE ROMANTIC
7
= THE INTELLECTUAL
8
= THE BIG SHOT
9
= THE PERFORMER

THE ORIGINATOR
1's are originals. Coming up with new ideas and executing them is
natural. Having things their own way is another trait that gets
them as being stubborn and arrogant. 1's are extremely honest and
do well to learn some diplomacy skills. They like to take the initiative
and are often leaders or bosses, as they like to be the best. Being
self-employed is definitely helpful for them.
Lesson to learn: Others' ideas might be just as good or better and
to stay open minded.
Famous 1's: Tom Hanks, Robert Redford, Hulk Hogan, Carol Burnett,
Wynona Judd, Nancy Reagan, Raquel Welch.

THE PEACEMAKER
2's are the born diplomats. They are aware of others' needs and
moods and often think of others before themselves. Naturally analytical
and very intuitive they don't like to be alone. Friendship and companionship
is very important and can lead them to be successful in life, but
on the other hand they'd rather be alone than in an uncomfortable
relationship.
Lesson to learn: Being naturally shy, 2's should learn to boost
their self-esteem and express themselves freely and seize the moment
and not put things off.
Famous 2's: President Bill Clinton, Madonna, Whoopee Goldberg, Thomas
Edison, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

THE LIFE OF THE PARTY
3's are idealists. They are very creative, social, charming, romantic
and easygoing. They start many things, but don't always see them
through. They like others to be happy and go to great lengths to
achieve it. They are very popular and idealistic.
Lesson to learn: 3's should learn to see the world from a more realistic
point of view.
Famous 3's: Alan Alder, Ann Landers, Bill Cosby, Melanie Griffith,
Karen Roundbutt, Salvador Dali, Jodi Foster.

THE CONSERVATIVE
4's
are sensible and traditional. They like order and routine. They
only act when they fully understand what they are expected to do.
They like getting their hands dirty and working hard. They are attracted
to the outdoors and feel an affinity with nature. They are prepared
to wait and can be stubborn and persistent.
Lesson to learn: 4's should learn to be more flexible and to be
nice to themselves.
Famous 4's: Neil Diamond, Margaret Thatcher, Arnold Schwarzenegger,
Tina Turner, Paul Hogan, Oprah Winfrey.

THE NONCONFORMIST
5's are the explorers. Their natural curiosity, risk taking and
enthusiasm often land them in hot water. They need diversity, and
don't like to be stuck in a rut. The whole world is their school
and they see a learning possibility in every situation. The questions
never stop.
Lesson to learn: 5's are well advised to look before they take action
and make sure they have all the facts before jumping to conclusions.
Famous 5's: Abraham Lincoln, Charlotte Bronte, Jessica Walter, Vincent
Van Gogh, Bette Midler, Helen Keller and Mark Hail.

THE ROMANTIC
6's are idealistic and need to feel useful to be happy. A strong
family connection is important to them. Their actions influence
their decisions. They have a strong urge to take care of others
and to help. They are very loyal and make great teachers. They like
art or music. They make loyal friends who take the friendship seriously.
Lesson to learn: 6's should learn to differentiate between what
they can change and what they cannot.
Famous 6's: Albert Einstein, Jane Seymour, John Denver, Meryl Streep,
Christopher Columbus, Goldie Hawn.

THE INTELLECTUAL
7 's are the searchers. Always probing for hidden information, they
find it difficult to accept things at face value. Emotions don't
sway their decisions. Questioning everything in life, they don't
like to be questioned themselves. They're never off to a fast start,
and their motto is slow and steady wins the race. They come across
as philosophers and being very knowledgeable, and sometimes as loners.
They are technically inclined and make great researchers uncovering
information. They like secrets.
Lesson to learn: 7's live in their own world and should learn what
is acceptable and what is not in the world at large.
Famous 7's: William Shakespeare, Lucille Ball, Michael Jackson,
Joan Baez, Princess Diana.

THE BIG SHOT
8's are the problem solvers. They are professional, blunt and to
the point, have good judgment and are decisive. They have grand
plans and like to live the good life. They take charge of people.
They view people objectively. They let you know in no uncertain
terms that they are the boss.
Lesson to learn: 8's should learn to exude their decisions on their
own needs rather than on what others want.
Famous 8's: Edgar Cayce, Barbara Streisand, George Harrison, Jane
Fonda, Pablo Picasso, Aretha Franklin, Nostrodamus.

THE PERFORMER
9's are natural entertainers. They are very caring and generous,
giving away their last dollar to help. With their charm, they have
no problem making friends and nobody is a stranger to them. They
have so many different personalities that people around them have
a hard time understanding them. They are like chameleons, ever changing
and blending in. They have tremendous luck, but also can suffer
from extremes in fortune and mood.
Lesson to learn: To be successful, 9's need to build a loving foundation.
Famous 9's: Albert Schweitzer, Shirley MacLaine, Harrison Ford,
Jimmy Carter, Elvis Presley.
Astrology
For You 
The
Cutting Edge
Which
Cut Is Older?
(It's a Trick Question)
By
Marian Burros
If some of the meat in supermarkets is looking rosier than it
used to, the reason is that a growing number of markets are
selling it in airtight packages treated with a touch of carbon
monoxide to help the product stay red for weeks.

Both of these steaks were red when bought on Feb. 3. Kept
refrigerated, they were then photographed on Feb. 16. Why the
difference? The one at top was treated with a process that has
some consumer groups angered.
This form of "modified atmosphere packaging," a technique
in which other gases replace oxygen, has become more widely
used as supermarkets eliminate their butchers and buy precut,
"case-ready" meat from processing plants.
The reason for its popularity in the industry is clear. One
study, conducted at Oklahoma State University for the Cattlemen's
Beef Board in 2003, said retailers lost at least $1 billion
a year as meat turned brown from exposure to oxygen, because,
though it might still be fairly fresh and perfectly safe, consumers
simply judged meat's freshness by its color.
The
carbon monoxide is itself harmless at the levels being used
in the treated packaging. But opponents say that the process,
which is also used to keep tuna rosy, allows stores to sell
meat that is no longer fresh, and that consumers would not know
until they opened the package at home and smelled it. Labels
do not note whether meat has been laced with carbon monoxide.
The Food and Drug Administration approved use of the process
in 2004. The Washington Post reported in its Monday editions
that Kalsec, a Michigan producer of a natural food extract that
helps slow the discoloring of the meat but does not "fix"
it in the same way as carbon monoxide, had petitioned the agency
to reverse that decision.
The Consumer Federation of America and the advocacy group Safe
Tables Our Priority have written a letter to the agency in support
of the petition because, they say, the bright red color could
mask spoilage and dangerous bacteria in older meat or meat that
has not been kept at the proper temperature.
Supermarket chains including A.&P. and Pathmark do not carry
the treated meat, but it is showing up with increasing frequency
elsewhere. In New York City, it is sold at 30 Gristede's stores,
at D'Agostino markets under the labels Laura's Lean Beef and
Creekstone's, and at the Morton Williams stores in the Associated
chain. A spokeswoman for Safeway did not respond to phone calls
and e-mail messages about sale of the treated meat there, but
it was available at a Safeway market in Bethesda, Md., earlier
this month. SuperTarget stores are also selling it, and Wal-Mart
reports carrying it in 150 stores.
"This is what is going to happen in the meat business,"
said John A. Catsimatidis, chairman and chief executive of Gristede's.
"The meat looks great. It looks as red as the day it was
cut."
Processors say treated ground meat can be sold for 28 days after
leaving the plant, and solid cuts for 35 days. The agribusiness
company Cargill says it has sold 100 million packages in the
last year.
Randy Huffman of the American Meat Institute Foundation, an
industry group, said, "The primary benefit in providing
this product to consumers is the red color they have grown to
expect."
In a firsthand look at the treated meat, a package of a conventionally
wrapped rib steak and one with the carbon monoxide were both
red when bought on Feb. 3 near Washington. They were then kept
refrigerated. By Feb. 16, when they were photographed for the
pictures that appear with this article, the conventional meat
was brown, but the treated meat was still rosy. And as of yesterday,
other treated meat bought at the same time was still red despite
having been left unrefrigerated on a kitchen counter since Feb.
14.
Some food scientists who approve of other forms of modified
atmosphere packaging as a way of extending a product's life
say this form of it can be unsafe. Michael Doyle, director of
the Center for Food Safety at the University of Georgia, says
one study found that when meat in modified packages that included
carbon monoxide was stored at 10 degrees above the proper temperature,
salmonella grew more easily.
Representative John D. Dingell of Michigan, the ranking Democrat
on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, has asked the F.D.A.
to explain its approval of the process.
"It's just common sense that when consumers buy meat, they
use color as an important indicator of its freshness,"
Mr. Dingell said in an e-mail message to a reporter. "For
F.D.A. to rely on a promise of some stamp on the package that
says 'use or freeze by' is just naïve."
BECOME
A VEGETARIAN
Help stamp out SARS and Bird Flu
Think
about it!
Most food-borne human illnesses
are related to the eating of flesh foods.
Case
Against Eating Meat The
SARS Connection
SCHOLARS
RATE
WORST PRESIDENTIAL BLUNDERS
By Elizabeth Dunbar
From engaging in sexual relations with an intern to letting the
Vietnam War escalate, U.S. presidents have been blamed for some
egregious errors.
So who had the worst blunder? President James Buchanan, for failing
to avert the Civil War, according to a survey of presidential
historians organized by the University of Louisville's McConnell
Center.
The survey's top 10 presidential blunders were announced Saturday
during a President's Day weekend conference called "Presidential
Moments."
"We can probably learn just as much - or maybe even more
- by looking at the mistakes rather than looking at why they were
great," said political scientist and McConnell Center Director
Gary Gregg.
Scholars who participated said Buchanan didn't do enough to oppose
efforts by Southern states to secede from the Union before the
Civil War.
The second worst mistake, the survey found, was Andrew Johnson's
decision just after the Civil War to side with Southern whites
and oppose improvements in justice for Southern blacks beyond
abolishing slavery.
"We continue to pay" for Johnson's errors, wrote Michael
Les Benedict, an Ohio State University history professor emeritus.
Lyndon Johnson earned the No. 3 spot by allowing the Vietnam War
to intensify, Gregg said.
Where does Bill Clinton's Monica Lewinsky scandal rank? Many scholars
said it belonged at No. 10, saying that it probably affected Clinton's
presidency more than it did American history and the public.
The rest of the top 10 blunders:
4. Woodrow Wilson's refusal to compromise on the Treaty of Versailles
after World War I.
5. Richard Nixon's involvement in the Watergate cover-up.
6. James Madison's failure to keep the United States out of the
War of 1812 with Britain.
7. Thomas Jefferson's Embargo Act of 1807, a self-imposed prohibition
on trade with Europe during the Napoleonic Wars.
8. John F. Kennedy allowing the Bay of Pigs Invasion that led
to the Cuban Missile Crisis.
9. Ronald Reagan and the Iran-Contra Affair, the effort to sell
arms to Iran and use the money to finance an armed anti-communist
group in Nicaragua.


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