Standing up like a man:  What kind of a woman uses a funnel to go to the bathroom?  I do

A couple of years ago while clicking around the Web site of a well-known travel retailer, I discovered a miracle product that has changed my life and caused some to question my commitment to my gender: The Urinelle “urination funnel for women”—or, as I affectionately refer to them, “pee cones.”

As a frequent traveler, I’m no stranger to creative merchandise promising to make my trip more comfortable, but this item was downright mesmerizing. Allow me to quote directly from the ad copy: “Urinelle makes it easy to answer nature’s call. Women can now stand, with minimal undressing, at hole-in-the-floor ‘squat’ toilets around the world (or too-dirty-to-sit Western toilets).” The fact that I’ve never actually had to face a “squat” toilet did not dampen my enthusiasm.

This brilliant invention, obviously thought up by a female genius who hates public toilets as much as I do, is basically a piece of surprisingly thin paper rolled up like an ice cream cone. The cones lie flat until you are ready to use them; a mere squeeze opens them up to their full potential.

The ad copy goes on to tout how the product is “handy, safe for optimal hygiene, easy to use, and discreet.” (Isn’t pretty much everything you do alone in a bathroom stall discreet?) Apparently “women in 18 countries on six continents” are wild about them. One of these women gives a glowing review: “I just came back from a 26-day trip to China. These were INVALUABLE!! Do not travel to a developing country without them.” And if that weren’t enough, they are biodegradable! How could I have been so late to this party?  Read Article

U.K. millionaire to move to mud hut:  Business tycoon to sell house, start charity in Africa

LONDON - A 41-year-old millionaire businessman who nearly died in a car crash eight years ago is leaving behind his exquisite 16th-century farmhouse and lavish lifestyle to move to a mud hut in Uganda and start a children’s charity.

Jon Pedley plans to sell his telecommunications businesses, a $1.5 million Essex farmhouse with a 1-acre garden and his furniture to raise cash for African orphans, the U.K. Daily Mail reported Wednesday.

His charity, Uganda Vision, will send troubled British children to Uganda where they will help locals orphaned by AIDS and poverty.

The self-made tycoon has a troubled past that includes a criminal record, alcoholism and affairs. He says a serious car crash in 2002 in which he almost died led him to find God.

“I’ve lived an incredibly selfish existence,” Pedley, of Finchingfield, Essex, was quoted as saying in the Daily Mail. “I’ve been convicted of crime, slept rough, been an alcoholic, had affairs, and damaged people’s lives including my own. I’ve always put the pursuit of money in front of everything else.”  Read Article

Doing downward dog to help former sex slaves

A significant event in the history of yoga will occur Saturday. Those once known as untouchables in Hindu society, will lead an around-the-world sun salutation, dedicated to ending human trafficking.

From Australia to Tahiti, throughout South America, Europe and the U.S., to Calgary’s Yoga Shala, studios will host a co-ordinated global practice, staged at the grounds of Mysore Royal Palace in India.

Leading the 108 sun salutations will be a group of 90 young people, rescued by Odanadi Seva Trust, a Mysore anti-trafficking organization.

These people represent India’s most underprivileged class. They have risen above and overcome the worst possible exploitation, surviving slavery, domestic abuse, forced prostitution and other forms of human trafficking. At another point in time—and still largely today—“untouchables” are considered “polluted” by Indian standards, and unworthy of learning yoga.

This subject is close to my heart, having met some of the girls who will be at Mysore Palace, leading the event. They guided me in my own daily practice, while on a bike trip through southern India last spring. (The trip was organized by Odanadi to raise awareness among poor villagers, who are often the target of money-hungry predators.)

The young teenage Odanadi residents were in recovery, and too vulnerable to talk publicly about the sensitive subject of human trafficking.

Morning yoga, though, began to break down the barriers.  Read Article

Science and Scientism:  An Interview with Henry Bauer

Henry Bauer needs no introduction to many Truth Barrier readers. He has been a chemist, professor of chemistry and science studies, and the Dean of Arts & Sciences at Virginia Tech. For someone with those credentials he has also been extraordinarily open-minded and outspoken on many topics his colleagues shy away from, as the titles of some of his books indicate: Beyond Velikovsky; The Enigma of Loch Ness; Science or Pseudoscience; Scientific Literacy and the Myth of Scientific Method; and The Origin, Persistence and Failings of HIV/AIDS Theory. His website is here and his blog is here.

In this interview he discusses the growth of blind faith in science, the dogmatism of “scientific consensus” and the extreme difficulties confronting scientists and researchers who don’t run with the herd, why he doesn’t think “Climategate” changed anyone’s mind, and the need to distinguish the truly anomalous and as-yet unexplained from mere crackpotism and hoaxes when it comes to phenomena like UFOs and Nessie.

JS: A few years ago I wrote that there are people who believe that Global Warming is happening and is a problem that needs to be addressed, and then there are people believe in Global Warming, for whom it is an apocalyptic secular religion. These people exhibit all the traits of a millenarian cult: the blind faith in the received Word, the predictions of the End Times, the dogmatism, the self-righteousness, the anathematizing of anyone who doubts or questions or fails to believe as they do.

I didn’t know it at the time, but I think I was describing an example of what you term “scientism.” Can you describe what you mean by scientism and how you think it came about?

HB: “Scientism” is science as religion; taking contemporary scientific consensus as unquestionably true. The historical roots are in the 19th century, perhaps in North-Western Europe, when science’s progressive triumphs were so notable: atomic theory proved; Periodic Table of the chemical elements; “organic” chemicals no different from inorganic chemicals; germ theory and pasteurization; natural selection as a plausible mechanism for evolution; electromagnetic theory.

Perhaps the material achievements of the Industrial Revolution contributed, because then as now most people think technology comes from applying science — most scholars of science and technology don’t accept that, but in any case technologists and theorists were in effective contact in groups like the Royal Society of London.

The notion that Darwin had unseated the Bible probably contributed to putting “Science” onto a religious pedestal for some people.

David Knight’s The Age of Science is an excellent, concise survey of how science gained a sort of hegemony by the end of the 19th century; he cites Huxley as a consciously and overtly proud preacher of Scientism, delivering “lay sermons for the Church Scientific.”  Read Interview

Light a Lenten candle this Earth Hour:  A carbon fast reflects the true meaning of the Lenten season

“Hide the chocolates! I’m giving up candy!” Today, is Lent for North American Christians merely a confectioner’s nightmare (or a dieter’s dream)?

Isaiah 58 offers a different challenge: “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter - when you see the naked, to clothe them?”

Although an ancient tradition, under the papacy of Gregory the Great in the 600s, Lent became a 40-day (not including Sundays) preparation for Easter. It was marked by fasting and by denial of pleasures. Christians fasted until afternoon and ate only one meal per day, usually in the evening. Many went vegan, skipping meals of meat and animal products, even fish.

In 2010, Benedict XVI’s short Lenten message is a profound reflection on the theme of justice. The pope reminds us that in Lent, “The Church invites us to a sincere review of our life in light of the teachings of the Gospel.” If a “sincere review of our life,” leads us further than our dietary choices, what more could Lenten observance mean?  Read Article

Scientists reveal negative impact of Roundup Ready GM crops

Five studies published in the October 2009 issue of The European Journal of Agronomy reveal the negative impacts of using Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide, a formula developed specifically for the company’s line of genetically modified (GM) “Roundup Ready” crops. The papers, which were not released in the United States, offer a solid indictment against GM crops and the plight of using the Roundup herbicide.

Robert Kremer, a microbiologist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service, co-authored one of the five papers and offered insight into their premise during an interview with The Organic & Non-GMO Report, a monthly newsletter that offers recourse in addressing the challenges of fighting GM foods.

Kremer and his colleagues began studying the effects of Roundup on soil back in 1997. They found that the herbicide was causing an increase in parasitic colonization at the roots of Roundup Ready soybeans and corn. They also observed an increase in fungal growth that leads to sudden death syndrome (SDS) in the plants.

Glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, is systemically changing the soil composition in the fields where it is used, leeching from plant roots into the ground. It is also disrupting the normal microorganism balance on plants and in soil, spurring the growth of harmful bacterial colonies that are destroying the beneficial ones.

According to Kremer, the most apparent disruption by glyphosate is observed in rhizobia, a type of bacterium that fixes nitrogen in the soil. Glyphosate’s toxicity inhibits rhizobia from enriching soil with nitrogen, preventing plants from receiving this necessary element.  Read Article

Sasquatch hunter coming to Tri-Cities

KENNEWICK, Washington, USA—When Jeff Meldrum goes into the backcountry, he keeps his eyes, ears and nose alert for signs of Sasquatch.

For 12 years now, the author of Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science has been on the hunt for evidence that will prove or disprove existence of the legendary tall, apelike creature described in hundreds of sightings across much of forested North America.

Meldrum, an associate professor of anatomy and anthropology at Idaho State University in Pocatello, will talk about his research at a free 7 p.m. Thursday program at the Kennewick Library, 1620 S. Union St.

“As a scientist I don’t have the answers yet,” Meldrum said in a phone interview Tuesday. But he hopes his research will be fruitful.

“I’m quite personally convinced there will be a new species of primate confirmed,” he said.

Meldrum said he has more than 200 casts of what may be Sasquatch footprints—each a five-toed impression up to nearly 14 inches long and more than 5 inches wide found at various sites.

Some of those he collected himself in 1996 near Walla Walla, where he had gone to talk to a man who had reported finding tracks in the Blue Mountains. His interest in the legendary creature dates back to when he was 11 years old and saw the famous film taken by Roger Patterson near Bluff Creek, Calif., of a purported Bigfoot running away.

As an expert in primate and human locomotion, Meldrum looks for detail that shows the mechanics of how a Sasquatch foot differs from a human’s. The Sasquatch footprints show a foot that flexes in the middle, more like an ape than a man, he said.  Read Article

Concocting a Cure for Kids With Issues

If you’re the parent of a child who’s having trouble learning or behaving in school, you quickly find yourself confronted with a series of difficult choices.

You can do nothing — and watch your child flounder while teachers register their disapproval. Or you can get help, which generally means, first, an expensive and time-consuming evaluation, then more visits with more specialists, intensive tutoring, therapies, perhaps, or, as is often the case with attention issues, drugs.

For many parents — particularly the sorts of parents who are skeptical of mainstream medicine and of the intentions of what one mother once described to me as “the learning-disability industrial complex” — this experience is an exercise in frustration and alienation.

These parents often don’t trust the mental-health professionals who usually treat children with “issues,” as we euphemistically tend to refer to problems like learning disabilities, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, autism or other developmental difficulties. They find offensive the prospect of having a child “labeled” when his or her development doesn’t correspond to what seem like random, overly restrictive norms. They find the notion of putting children on psychotropic medication frightening and unacceptable. They want to find concrete causes for their children’s diffuse, often difficult-to-understand problems and, ideally, to find cures. They want their children to achieve, and they’re dissatisfied with what they feel are the palliative half-measures offered by pediatricians, psychiatrists, psychologists and learning specialists.

That’s why some of these parents end up seeking the services of people like Stanley A. Appelbaum.  Read Article