Thirty Three Things (v. 58)

I'm on a different path today in that I no longer identify as gay or hold a gay-centered worldview. However, if it hadn't been for some loving gay men in my life, I might not have lived long enough to have made the choices that eventually led me to Christ. I believe the Lord sovereignly used some in the gay community to preserve my life to the point of engaging the Christian community. This then eventually led me to eternal life found in Christ.

Do you think Christ used a gay man's hands to wipe away my tears at 3:15 a.m. in a Nashville restaurant, as I mourned the loss of Ron and feared for my own life? Do you think Christ was using a gay man's hands to hold my own as I grappled with "inconclusive" test results? Is it possible that Jesus goes places that the Church is sometimes afraid to?

I do.

11. Eight Questions About the Human Body That Kids Always Ask (HT: Neatorama)

12. Blogging meets literary analysis: why people read blogs

A group at the University of California-Irvine, however, decided to approach the question from the perspective of human-computer interactions, where the humans involved were blog readers. Mixing in a dose of literary theory provided some interesting insights into how readers view and define blogs...

What they found is that reading blogs has become a habit integrated into Internet use for many people, akin to instinctively checking e-mail. Several of the blog readers described it as simply a way to pass the time, using terms like "wasting time" and "doing nothing." One of them described it in terms of addiction: "I don't really look forward to cigarettes anymore, but it's something that happens through the course of the day that I feel like I might need to do. It just becomes habit, I guess."

13. How to Memorize Verbatim Text

14. Rick Warren on the success of The Purpose Driven Life:

"If I wanted to after the book came out I could have bought an island and retire and have people serve me little drinks with umbrellas the rest of my life. But when you write a book and the first sentence of the book is, 'It's not about you,' then you kind of figure the money is not for you and the fame is not for you."

15. Jennifer Graham of the WSJ on talking about the nation's digestive health:

"Digestive problems," [Actress Jamie Lee Curtis] said, "are important and surprisingly common, but we don't discuss them. Whereas we routinely talk about other uncomfortable topics, such as erectile dysfunction, digestive health is not being addressed - and it's time to change that."

That's one viewpoint. Another might be that it's time to stop talking about erectile dysfunction.

16. Ronald F. Marshall notes that many of the children's versions of the biblical story of Jonah water down, change, or leave out key parts of the biblical text in an effort to make the story more appealing to children:

Jonah is a horrifying book, with its raging storm and fierce sea-monster, a suicide attempt and near drowning, and, at the end, a confrontation with a massive enemy city. But in American children's literature it is largely a harmless adventure story, all about travel and intrigue, underwater hideouts, success and fame.

17. Follow-up: Last week I mentioned the six Maasai warriors who traveled to England to run the London Marathon. Here is an excerpt from their diary during their week:

I miss meat and blood very much. Not vegetables because they are food for a woman. There is milk here but blood is better because it gives energy. English tea with sugar is good and we tried Coco Pops, but the nicest food is croissants....

The weather here is strange. From a window it looks warm but outside it's very cold. It is better when we're running or in the shower. We heard about showers before, in a briefing about the country. It said be careful - when the shower is hot it is really hot, and when cold, really cold. This is true.

18. How to subscribe to toilet paper

19. Zoe Sandvig on cracking the Narnia code:

From time to time, another scholar arrives on the scene claiming to have cracked the code to Lewis' Narnia. Try these on for size. Narnia is an abbreviation of Spenser's The Faerie Queen. No, it represents the seven Catholic sacraments. Or how about the seven deadly sins?

Others say that there is no coherent connectivity between the books. J.R.R. Tolkien, one of Lewis' closest friends, claimed that Lewis must have been imaginatively confused while writing the series. In contrast to Tolkien's intricately developed Lord of the Rings trilogy, Narnia seems like a mish-mash of folklore and Arthurian legend. In particular, many have criticized the appearance of Father Christmas in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe as tacky.

Enter Cambridge scholar Michael Ward claiming to have found a key to a code, like everyone else.

I believe him.

20. How To Break Down A Door

21. 20 Percent of Scientists Admit Using Brain-Enhancing Drugs

Nature released the results of an online survey in which 20 percent of respondents, largely drawn from the scientific community, admitted to using brain-enhancing drugs like Ritalin (methylphenidate) and Provigil (modafinil).

Sixty-two percent of the scientists who had taken drugs used Ritalin while 44 percent reported using Provigil and only 14 percent had tried beta blockers like propranolol.

22. 22 contemporary poets worth reading if you think there's no good poetry written nowadays.

23. 38 Planned Movie Remakes You Didn't Know About

24. 28 Sequels Later: more films you didn't know were coming (HT: The Presurfer)

25. LOLCat of the Week

see more crazy cat pics

26. DNA Paternity Test Almost Fooled: Man Put Someone Else's Saliva In His Mouth

Detection of a fraud attempt in sample taking for a DNA analysis is modifying forensic scientists' action protocol: It will be compulsory for the donor to wash his mouth out before a witness. The fraud attempt took place in a paternity test, when the donor mixed his own saliva with that of someone else's.

27. Graphical demonstration of the hand signals needed to buy and sell commodities on the floor of the New York Mercantile Exchange. (HT: kottke.org)

28. Working Memory Has Limited 'Slots' -- A new study by researchers at UC Davis shows how our very short-term "working memory," which allows the brain to stitch together sensory information, operates. The system retains a limited number of high-resolution images for a few seconds, rather than a wider range of fuzzier impressions.

29. Sugar-powered Cars: World's Most Efficient Method To Produce Hydrogen Developed -- Chemists are describing development of a "revolutionary" process for converting plant sugars into hydrogen, which could be used to cheaply and efficiently power vehicles equipped with hydrogen fuel cells without producing any pollutants.

30. Just 20 minutes of weekly housework boosts mental health -- Just 20 minutes of any physical activity, including housework, in a week is enough to boost mental health, reveals a large study published ahead of print in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.

31. Attending religious services predictive of fidelity -- A new study published in the Journal of Marriage and Family reveals that attendance at religious services predicts marital fidelity....Religious service attendance was the only unique, religious predictor of infidelity. Prayer, importance of religiousness, and strong reported faith were not predictors.

32. The Uncrashable Car? -- The largest road safety research project ever launched in Europe will usher in a series of powerful road-safety systems for European cars. But, in the long term, its basic, experimental research could lead to a car that is virtually uncrashable.

33. The Awareness Test