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Zeitgeist
A DVD exposing Christianity, the Banking System and 9/11

OK to Be Gay?

from ABC News --

The American Psychological Association - the largest association of psychologists world-wide – now says it’s ethical -- and can be beneficial -- for counselors to help some clients reject gay or lesbian attractions.

The association plans to promote the new approach with YouTube videos, speeches to schools and churches, and presentations to Christian counselors, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.

According to new APA guidelines, the therapist must make clear that homosexuality doesn't signal a mental or emotional disorder. The counselor must advise clients that gay men and women can lead happy and healthy lives, and emphasize that there is no evidence therapy can change sexual orientation.

But if the client still believes that affirming his same-sex attractions would be sinful or destructive to his faith, psychologists can help him construct an identity that rejects the power of those attractions, the APA says.

That might require living celibately, learning to deflect impulses or framing a life of struggle as an opportunity to grow closer to God.

"We're not trying to encourage people to become 'ex-gay,'" Judith Glassgold, who chaired the APA's task force on the issue, tells the WSJ. "But we have to acknowledge that, for some people, religious identity is such an important part of their lives, it may transcend everything else."

The APA has long endorsed the right of clients to determine their own identities. But it also warned that "lesbians and gay men who feel they must conceal their sexual orientation report more frequent mental health concerns."

Meditate for a Larger Brain
from Physorg.com --
Push-ups, crunches, gyms, personal trainers -- people have many strategies for building bigger muscles and stronger bones. But what can one do to build a bigger brain? Meditate.

That's the finding from a group of researchers at UCLA.. In a study published in the journal NeuroImage, the researchers report that certain regions in the brains of long-term meditators were larger than in a similar control group. In the study, researcher Eileen Luders and her colleagues examined people who had practiced various forms of meditation, including Zazen, Samatha and Vipassana, among others. The amount of time they had practiced ranged from five to 46 years, with an average of 24 years.

Cannabis and the Recession
from New Scientist --
Marijuana fans take heart.  It seems that when times are hard, liberal attitudes to pot tend to prevail.

Euan Wilson of the Socionomics Institute in Gainesville, Georgia, finds that anti-drug laws in the US tend to coincide with high economy, and legalization with recession. Comparing today's situation with alcohol prohibition in the US between 1920 and 1933, Wilson says that just as alcohol was legalized when the economic slump reached its peak, so concessions to marijuana use  could be around the corner (The Socionomist, July 2009). "The current mood is very similar to the 1930s," says Wilson. He says that during economic downturns people have more serious worries, and view marijuana use as relatively innocuous, making society more willing to end the bloodshed by lifting prohibition.

Kleenex & Greenpeace
from Good News Network.com --
Paper products giant Kimberly-Clark Corp joined forces with Greenpeace on Wednesday, pledging to conserve forests by getting wood fiber from environmentally responsible sources. In an announcement with the environmental group, which waged a nearly 5-year campaign against the company for clear-cutting in Canada's boreal forest, Kimberly-Clark said it would stop buying wood fiber from the vast woodland which stretches across the country unless it is certified by the Forest Stewardship Council. "We are a 100-plus-year-old company. We want to be around here for another 100-plus years or more, and the only way we can be is by using sustainable forest practices," Kimberly-Clark's Suhas Apte, vice president of global sustainability, said in a telephone interview. Kimberly-Clark is among the world's largest paper-products manufacturers, including such brands as Kleenex, Scott and Cottonelle.

 

Reality TV & Religion
from Reuters --
Apparently believing that religious competition in the Middle East is not exciting enough already, the television station Kanal T in Istanbul, Turkey, is preparing a reality game show for September release in which 10 certified atheists try to resist conversion by a priest, a rabbi, a Muslim imam and a Buddhist monk. The exact rules have not been disclosed, but the "winning" convert will receive an expense-paid trip to the holy land of the most persuasive religion (the Vatican, Jerusalem, Mecca or Tibet). According to a July Reuters report, Turkey's Islamic Religious Affairs Directorate, not surprisingly, had vowed never to co-operate.

 

Copperhead & Buddhist Meeting
from the Washington Post --
A young copperhead snake trespassed into a building near Poolesville, MD and delivered several venomous piercings to the hand of Sam Pettengill.

Often snakes do not survive such encounters because the victim's first impulse is to kill the attacker. Fortunately for this snake, it had wandered into a Buddhist temple, and Pettengill had an obligation. Before he set out for the hospital for treatment (which turned out to be four antivenin cycles), Pettengill took the snake in his throbbing, increasingly pain-wracked hand, circled a prayer room three times to bless the snake, then released it back into the woods.

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