Burning Love

The mad sound scientist has been busy in his den laboratory this year, burning CDs and making masterful mixology for music-minded mooks.

This month I finally completed a collection of jazz tracks to give to my dad, in honor of his 65th birthday and Father's Day:

JAZZ One

The Man I Love - Art Pepper
Where Or When - Wynton Marsalis
The Cylinder - Modern Jazz Quartet
Tenderly - Bill Evans Trio
Riot - Herbie Hancock
Someday My Prince Will Come - Miles Davis feat. John Coltrane
Dinah - Lionel Hampton
Night In Tunisia - Modern Jazz Quartet
Pfrancing - Miles Davis
Honeymooners - Ornette Coleman and Prime Time
Epistrophy - Thelonious Monk
Coming Home Baby - Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis
Red Pepper Blues - Art Pepper
The Golden Striker - Modern Jazz Quartet
Wham Bam Thank You Ma'am - Charles Mingus


JAZZ Two

Rhythm-A-Ning - Thelonious Monk
Driftin' - Herbie Hancock
Confirmation - Modern Jazz Quartet
Teo - Miles Davis
Devil Woman - Charles Mingus
Bloomido - Hank Jones
Lucky To Be Me - Bill Evans Trio
Straight, No Chaser - Thelonious Monk
'Round Midnight - Betty Carter
Black Codes - Wynton Marsalis
I Hear A Rhapsody - John Coltrane
Happy Hour - Ornette Coleman and Prime Time (with Jerry Garcia)
Trav'lin - Modern Jazz Quartet

Dad's been a MJQ fan for a long while. I figured I'd put the most tracks in from the excellent The Complete Last Concert.

***

In March I recorded three CDs from a fine and varied collection of tracks submitted for a music-sharing project. Thanks very much to all the brainy culture vultures who contributed...and thanks again to Al Gore for creating the Internet.

MIX 'N' MATCH
Volume One

You'll Never Be A Man - Elvis Costello and The Attractions
Whatever It Is, I'm Against It - The Marx Brothers
The Legionnaire's Lament - The Decemberists
I've Been Everywhere - Hank Snow
An Emotional Weather Report - Tom Waits
Magneto and Titanium Man - Wings
Midnight Rambler (Live) - The Rolling Stones
My Handy Man - Ethel Waters
Sunshine Superman - Donovan
Lonely Woman - Ornette Coleman
Example #2 - Laurie Anderson
Rebellion (Lies) - The Arcade Fire
Jolene - Dolly Parton
Turn On The News - Hüsker Dü
How Do You Sleep? - John Lennon
Drain You - Nirvana
Road Runner - Bo Diddley
Streets of Bakersfield - Dwight Yoakam & Buck Owens
Paranoid - Black Sabbath


Volume Two

Let's Eat - Nick Lowe
Break The Wall - Aceyalone
Belleville rendez-vouz - Les Triplettes de Belleville
San Diego Zoo - The 6ths
Jive Talkin' - Bee Gees
The Sick Bed of Cuchulainn - The Pogues
Built For Comfort - Howlin' Wolf
Ool-Ya-Koo - Dizzy Gillespie
7 Chinese Bros. - REM
There Will Never Be Any Peace (Until God is Seated at the Conference Table) - The Chi-Lites
Ace of Spades - Link Wray
Impeach The President - DJ Shortkut + Roy C Hammond
The Race Is On - Dave Edmunds
Knockin' On Heaven's Door - Bob Dylan
Spoonful - Howlin' Wolf
Three Is A Magic Number - Bob Dorough
Do That There (The Young Einstein Hoo-Hoo Mix) - Lyrics Born


Volume Three

Futurism Restated - Minutemen
Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap - AC/DC
World Reknown - K-Otix
Let The Good Times Roll - Louis Jordan
Hot Burrito #1 - The Mavericks
Killing Floor - Albert King
Noam Chomsky - Horsies
Cab Driver - The Mills Brothers
The Song of Everything - Los Super Seven
Come On In - "Wigg" Walker & The Dynamites
Huggin' & Chalkin' - Hoagy Carmichael
Static On The Radio - Jim White & Aimee Mann
Free For All (Live) - Ted Nugent
Penetration - Stooges
Texas Never Whispers - Pavement
Opposite Day - Andrew Bird
History Lesson - Part II - Minutemen
If I Were Your Woman - Gladys Knight and The Pips
Rocket 88 - Jackie Brenston feat. Ike Turner

***

In January I uploaded some tracks for this project, which asked contributors to submit songs that fit certain categories. Here were my selections:


*Boastful song: I'm Sitting On Top Of The World - Al Jolson

The Godfather of White Guy Bluster.


*References another song: Paper Doll - PM Dawn

"Theme from Mahogany still transcends."


*Song about food: Polk Salad Annie - Elvis Presley

Mentions food prominently. Havin' fun with Elvis on stage: "That's polk...*drumbeat*...salad!"


*Reminds you of your first love: Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometime - The Korgis

For makeout scene accompaniment, the Classes of 1980-82 were served this skillful blend of ethereal production and "teenage sensitive" lyrics. Eternal sunshine, indeed.


*At least 30 years old but you heard it for the first time within the past year: One O'Clock Jump - Count Basie and His Orchestra

As Count described his music on a 60 Minutes interview: "Tap your foot."


*Changes tempo at least once/Features an unexpected transition: Suspicious Minds - Dwight Yoakam

The tempo change is obvious, and the transition's differently arranged (and unexpected, the first time I heard it) from the Elvis version. A bright and jangle-y arrangement that's almost as good as the Elvis version in my book, which is saying something.


*Mentions a superhero and/or comic book: Batman Theme - Neil Hefti

I prefer the actual theme used in the show more than Hefti's 1966 hit single, but I wasn't able to download it in time. Still, hard to go wrong with that joyfully repetitive chorus.


*Used in one of your favorite movies: Big Bottom - Spinal Tap

Harry Shearer's greatest moment as a rock bassist, FWIW. Also may still be the only pop lyric that includes the phrase "bum cakes."


*Mentions one of your favorite books: 1984 - David Bowie

This was a tough one. The only ones I could think of were this and Paul Simon's "Duncan," which refers to the Bible. The Bible isn't really one of my favorite books in the enjoyable sense, but I would've stretched it to be one of my favorite books in the important sense, if I'd had to. Thank dog I didn't have to.


*Song your parents liked/One of your father's favorite songs: Earth Angel - The Penguins

Hated to cut one of my dad's favorite songs, "Bo Diddley," for time, but this was one of my parents' favorite makeout songs and will suffice.


*Six-letter title: Goofus - Phil Harris

A find. I'd heard The Carpenters' version long ago, but this is the original & definitive version and accept no substitutes. Balloo the Bear at his pre-rock & roll coolest, daddy-o.


*Mentions a city you've never been to, but would like to: On An Evening In Roma - Dean Martin

A revealing opening, where a studio engineer corrects Dino on a mistake made during the previous take. Dean, in typical insouciant fashion, quips, "Smarty, sittin' there! It's easy for him to sit there!"


*Shape in the title (square, circle etc.): Yellow, Black and Rectangular - Negativland

From Dean Martin to Nichols & May via Mark Hosler and Greg T.

"It has kind of shapes inside."
"Yellow, black, and shapes inside."
"Oh, I see them everywhere ..."
"Eh, eh what else?"
"It has kind of wedge shapes inside."
"Yellow, black ..."
"Black, and yellow, and ..."
"... and with ..."
"... rectangular ..."
"... wedge shapes inside."
"Oh, I see them everywhere, do you hear me?"
"Well, there there, eh just lie back ..."

(Okay, rectangular isn't exactly the same as rectangle, but I'll say it's close enough. The title refers to a sign shaped like a rectangle.)


*Has a specific connection to weather: It Must Be Summer - Fountains of Wayne

"The sun is beating me senseless."

The latest song chronologically of the 24 tracks, from 1999. It must be...that I'm an old fart.


*Great song. Stupid lyrics: Wooly Bully - Sam The Sham and the Pharoahs

I had to cut Donna Summer's "MacArthur Park" for time (Jimmy Webb's gift for melody shines through even more, minus Richard Harris' silly overemoting.) But this classic is a more than worthy substitute.


*Much better live than in its studio version: I Want You To Want Me - Cheap Trick

An obvious choice, but it's hard to beat that wild Budokan crowd. And the playas elevated their games because of it.


*To be played EXTREMELY LOUD/From an album that you denounced as crap before ever hearing but now like: Star 69 - REM

I sampled a little of REM's Monster at a record store in '94 and it initially struck me like REM was over its head trying to consistently rock that hard. But after I picked up a cassette of it at Value Village and gave it a full listen in the early '00s, it grew on me real fast. A great and tight band always, before Bill Berry left. Also, a good song to crank up on a summer day.


*To be played very quietly. More and More Amor - Herb Alpert and The Tijuana Brass

Mellow makeout music for the Boomer demographic. A slick and tasteful example of its kind.


*Built around an extended metaphor: Love Train - The O'Jays

"'Cause if you miss it, I feel sorry, sorry for you."


*This song is brought to you by the letter 'X'. (Title, Band, Album: at least two of these must have an 'X' in them.): No Feelings - The Sex Pistols

I wanted to get X's "Sex and Dying in High Society" but wasn't able to download in time. This one's good, though, and is my second or third fave on Never Mind The Bollocks, Here's The Sex Pistols.


*You remember it from elementary school: Draggin' The Line - Tommy James

Summer 1971, between third and fourth grade. Collecting Topps baseball cards and swimming at the neighborhood park pool so much that I got what still might be my best tan ever.


*A song by the last band you saw live: Ghetto Thang - De La Soul

Sad to say, this concert was in 1993. I've seen the Oregon Symphony and, er, Bill Cosby since then, but of the limiting elements of my family life, not being able to see more live music shows has been one of the ball and chainiest. I've been talking with my brothers about going to the Bumbershoot festival in Seattle some year soon, though.


*Changed your idea of what music is capable of: America Is Waiting - Brian Eno and David Byrne

In 1982, this and "Help Me Somebody," from My Life In The Bush of Ghosts, marked my first exposure to sampling (beyond Dickie Goodman's novelty records, anyway.) Over the previous year I'd dabbled a little with sound sampling at home and at the radio station where I worked, and from that point I was primed to be enthusiastic whenever soundscapes of a Negativland or an Eric B & Rakim came upon me.


*You'd like to use this for a dramatic entrance or exit: Freezing - Nick Lowe

It's cold as hell outside, but the Jesus of Cool sends us home with some jazzy warmth.

***

Here are some tracks that regrettably didn't make my final cut:


*Boasting: Mama Said Knock You Out - LL Cool J

Great track, but I liked the transition from Al Jolson to PM Dawn better than the one from LL to PM. I'm that way.


*Food: Hot Dog - Buck Owens

Buck's last notable solo single (from 1988, around the time of the Dwight Yoakam duet) wouldn't download. Pity.


*Unexpected transition: What's The New Mary Jane - The Beatles

Too weird even for the White Album era, I guess. But that's a big part of its appeal for me. Also, the hook is the kind of thing I'd come up with stoned, and repeat in my head over and over until I memorized it -- for future songwriting reference.


*Mentions a superhero: Kryptonite - Three Doors Down

Namedrops the Man of Steel prominently. Also one of my daughter's '00s favorites, which would've brought my list a little more near the present.


*Weather: Rain - Madonna

It bothers me that there's no female performer represented on my list, save for a sampling of Elaine May on Negativland's "Yellow, Black and Rectangular." But unfortunately I had to cut both "Rain" and the disco-era "MacArthur Park" due to time.


*Shape: Colliding Circles - Mummery

I thought it'd be a kick to include this cut from my pal Rick's criminally underheard 1999 CD with his Seattle bandmates, Recordio. But the segue between Negativland and Fountains of Wayne worked much better, because this track cuts off suddenly (as part of a quick transition to the next Recordio track.)


*Song My Parents Liked: Cecilia - Simon and Garfunkel

From the 8-track Simon and Garfunkel's Greatest Hits, listened to over and over in the blue Datsun 610 station wagon.


*To play LOUD: Bonzo Goes To Bitburg - Ramones

Another obvious choice, but it almost always gets me going.

Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Manga

A couple samples of my son's work:



2006




2005


Also some pics of the artist:



Ten Years (1996-2006)




Andrew & Greg, 9-05


Click on images to enlarge.

Let's Do Links

More gold in them thar cyberhills...

For deliciously vicious celebrity gossip from both coasts, shallow starfuckers like myself needn't look further than Manhattan's Gawker and L.A.'s Defamer.

One celeb who probably won't often make the Gawker or Defamer pages (although you never know) is musical genius David Byrne, an opinionated and idiosyncratic fellow who's been keeping an online journal since 2004.

The two gossip sites and the Byrne blog have been added to the Peabody Award-winning WATP list o' links.

And speaking of musical geniuses, here's a fine tribute in the L.A. Times to the late great Go-Betweens singer-songwriter Grant McLennan, who died last week at the ridiculously premature age of 48.

It's only in recent years that I've become a Go-B's fan -- "Streets of Your Town," "Right Here" and "Going Blind" are three big earworms of mine -- and I look forward to picking up some comprehensive multi-CD compilations of the band's work.

Help Me If You Can
by Greg T. Hough
Fall 2005
Submitted for The High Hat #6

On issues of spirituality and metaphysics, my mental state has long been a tug of war between the objective, analytical left brain and subjective, intuitive right brain. And while my left brain often has the edge, thanks in large part to my growing up in a secular and freethinking family, and a relatively open and adventuresome 1960s-70s culture, my right brain does get its message across, sometimes emphatically.

I've settled into a loose agnosticism, with a tip of the hat to elements of Taoism, Zen Buddhism and Christian Gnosticism. Throughout, I try to always maintain utmost respect for the power of an open, analytical mind.

"Ism ism ism," scoffs my intuitive right brain. What of the limits of consciousness, the stubborn mystery of Essence, the always possible (if rationally unlikely) bogeyman behind the veil separating known from unknown? When I was a young adult struggling with fear and confusion about things beyond human comprehension, Pascal's Wager (the philosopher's theorem that a leap of faith makes one better safe than sorry) seemed tempting as a way to deal with the Unknown -- until I realized it could be turned on its head. As Jerry Billings put it in an online essay:

We can also imagine a totally evil god, one who would reward his followers within eternity in hell while rewarding skeptics with eternal happiness. The believer, then, is at risk in believing.

But still the abstract notion of some benign, transcendent being (an Emersonian Oversoul, perhaps) has a continuing appeal to me, particularly at times of depression and desperation. To quote John Lennon, God is a concept by which we measure our pain.

"Help me if you can, I'm feeling down" is another Lennon line, and it reflects a feeling that sometimes leads me to consider the notion that prayer to a Higher Power is at least worth a try. At such moments I tend to contextualize such pleas not as a public petition to a conventional religious deity, but as a private request thrown into a mysterious void, a "To Whom It May Concern" message in a conceptual bottle on a conceptual ocean.

Since my moments of private prayer seem rather involuntary, I've wondered if there's something psychologically necessary, or even valuable, in the having the mental option to yell "Help me somebody!" at a mysterious universe. And whether that necessity and/or value transcends whether a person follows a secular rationalist path or a faith-based wisdom path.

Mohandas K. Gandhi said prayer is "a longing of the soul," and perhaps part of what he was getting at is that prayer itself is a healthy thing, no matter the religious view of the person praying.

Most are familiar with the traditional Protestant, Catholic, Jewish and Muslim notions of prayer as petition, penance and power. A common religious presumption is that prayer unaccompanied by specific faith in a Judeo-Christian or Islamic deity is potentially disempowering, even dangerous. But is there enough justification for a "secular prayer" that one who practices it need not feel intellectually ashamed nor psychologically (or spiritually) threatened?

There is plenty of written material available online and in books that express skepticism about any notion of a "useful" prayer. Even with prayer as placebo stratagem and self-therapy, the skeptical hardline is that prayer is begging, a pathetic groveling and self-denial that diverts attention from the potential to improve one's lot in life, without relying on irrational beliefs in abstract supernatural phantoms. In his online essay "The Folly of Prayer," Tim Kidd writes that prayer can help as a means of psychological conditioning for those prone to wishful thinking, but:

Of course, this only works on a few people who are simpletons enough to believe that God listens to and answers prayers...(G)enerally such individuals are so pitiful and stupid that they need all the help they can get.

Kidd seems to advocate transforming the "talking to oneself" that prayer amounts to, to a more "logistical and realistic" form, presumably one free of irrational piety. One centered on the idea that, in the words of noted freethinker Robert Ingersoll, "hands that help are far better than lips that pray."

So are my moments of asking for help from "To Whom It May Concern" ultimately the reflection of a "pitiful and stupid" mental state? Views will vary on this, but I would say my moments of prayer are not "pitiful," but rather...human. A reflection of how prevalent and dominant the human moments of breakdown and mystery are, and how a human brain copes as best it can. Perhaps "stupid" in some theoretical sense -- but life is generally not lived in the ivory towers of rational assuredness. It is mostly lived in the rough-and-tumble of spontaneous interaction and winging it. There, only the heartless would not cut some slack.

Alvin Boyd Kuhn, in his online essay "Prayer and Healing," says it is only the notion of prayer as "an asking for favors from deity" that deserves scorn as "infinitely degrading to the human ego." But as a mystical contemplation or communion with deity, the prayer process can enhance the mind and spirit -- as long as the term "prayer" is reserved for its dictionary definition, a "solicitation of benison from deity."

What Kuhn and Kidd seem to be looking for, is a process that can utilize whatever is psychologically valuable in traditional notions of prayer, without getting caught in an ego-degrading practice of begging to deity. (This is separate from the issue of whether there is some scientific basis for declaring that prayer has power and value, which I will get to shortly.)

Author David Cortesi, in his book "Secular Wholeness: A Skeptic's Path's to a Richer Life" advocates an inner conversation, one that borrows from prayer the notion of communion between oneself and a higher power, but sidesteps the necessity of a Supreme Being. One stratagem, he writes, is to imagine an utterly distinguished and trustworthy "counsellor" that you'll be having an appointment with:

Organize the story you are going to tell and then, in your imagination, tell it...As you are telling the story to your wise, tranquil, sympathetic, imaginary counsellor, listen to it yourself. Hear it with the deep perspective of the person you've imagined. Ask the questions the counsellor might ask: Did you try that? Why not? That was a bit cowardly, wasn't it? What's an acceptable long-term outcome? Well, what's a first step toward that?

Cortesi writes that listening to your own story "with the ear of the most adult, most civilized person you contain within you is a way of mustering your own experience, knowledge and good sense -- what the Buddhists call your Buddha nature."

There's also a school of thought that sees "contemplative prayer," projected to an "emptiness" at the center of existence, as a healthy embrace of the true universal nature.

"Contemplative prayer," writes Dr. Raul Moncayo in his essay "Psychoananalysis and Postmodern Spirituality," "is a prayer of aspiration and realization of the sacred as the emptiness which lies beyond representation."

Moncayo declares a postmodern "intrinsic" spirituality, drawing on among others the the work of William James, that one can psychologically interact with:

From my point of view and that of intrinsic spirituality, doubt needs to be understood as fundamental not as a method, as in Descartes, or as an enemy of faith, but rather as a subjective position wherein knowing emerges from the void with the Real, from the not-knowing within knowing. Such not-knowing within knowing alludes to an authentic non-speculative intuition which is neither totally rational (as in Hegel), nor irrational (as in Jung), but transrational (a term coined by Ken Wilber.)

Within this "transrational" field, Moncayo says, "intuition becomes compatible with science and contemporary physics." Could it be then, that a prayerful reach into a void of not-knowing can reflect such intuition? Perhaps we always have access to a state that, as Moncayo puts it, is "beyond thought but not without thought."

Rupert Sheldrake, in his essay "Prayer: A Challenge for Science" (published in the Noetic Sciences Review in 1994), sees prayer in a context "where there is more to it than just what we know about chemistry and physics and clever mathematical models." Sheldrake introduces a "morphic resonance theory," where human minds are "field-like in nature":

I see mental fields as the basis for habitual patterns of thought. Mental fields go beyond, through, and interface with the electromagnetic patterns in the brain. In this way mental fields can affect our bodies through our brains. However, they are much more extensive that our brains, reaching out to great distances in some cases.

According to Sheldrake, these "morphic fields" create powerful connections between people -- connections that even "ordinary" Judeo-Christian prayer can effect:

When two people come into contact and establish some mental connection (perhaps experienced as affection, love, even hate) their morphic fields in effect become part of a larger, inclusive field. Then, if they separate from each other it is as if their particular portions of the morphic field are stretched elastically, so that there remains a "mental tension" or link between them. There has to be something like this that relates the two people."

Carl Jung famously theorized about a synchronistic and acausal connection between human events, rooted in a collective unconscious. And personally, I could share anecdotal evidence of meeting people at eerily symbolic times, or events happening at eerily symbolic moments, as if there were an established metaphysical connection between them. But my personal perception is usually not hard science, much as my ego sometimes likes to tell me it is.

One relatively quantifiable lesson I've learned over time is that straying too far from the realm of inquiry and verification is a Fool's Way. As Bertrand Russell put it, the good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge -- with love at its fullest a combination of two observable phenomena, delight and well-wishing. I can and do speculate and believe, but at some point my speculation and belief ought to be subject to a system of intellectual rigor.

So for the purposes of this article, it's best to try to keep the notion of useful prayer close to something scientifically verifiable, or at least something that conceivably could be.

There have been plenty of studies done to try to establish evidence of the power of prayer. Debra Williams, in her online essay "Scientific Research of Prayer: Can the Power of Prayer Be Proven?" points to a study on germinating seeds done by Dr. Franklin Loehr, a Presbyterian minister and scientist:

In one experiment they took three pans of various types of seeds. One was the control pan. One pan received positive prayer, and the other received negative prayer. Time after time, the results indicated that prayer helped speed germination and produced more vigorous plants. Prayers of negation actually resulted in germination in some plants and suppressed growth in others.

Williams refers to the work of physician Larry Dossey, who in his 1990s books Prayer Is Good Medicine: How to Reap the Healing Benefits of Prayer and Healing Words: The Power of Prayer and the Practice of Medicine, attempted to further popularize the notion that there is scientific evidence that prayer works.

She points to Dossey's analysis of experiments on microorganisms:

He states, "Skeptics who do not believe in the effect of distant intentions say that any observed result must be due to the expectation of the subject -- or the power of belief and thought." Dossey argues that if bacteria respond to outside intentions by growing more slowly when prayer over, than control groups not receiving prayer, then one cannot dismiss this result to negative suggestion.

Williams also refers to studies done in 1982-83 at San Francisco General Hospital's Coronary Care Unit, where nearly 400 patients participated in a "double blind" study to assess the therapeutic effects of intercessory prayer.

"Patients were randomly selected by computer to either receive or not receive intercessory prayer," Williams writes. "To guard against biasing the study, the patients were not contacted again after it was decided which group would be prayed for and which group would not."

Williams says "the results of the study are not surprising to those of us who believe in the power of prayer":

The patients who had received prayer as a part of the study were healthier than those who had not. The prayer for group had less need of having CPR performed and less need for the use of mechanical ventilators. They had a diminished necessity for diuertics and antibiotics, less occurrences of pulmonary edema, and fewer deaths. Taking all factors into consideration, these results can only be attributed to the power of prayer.

Separate from the issue of whether the several experiments that Williams mentions "can only be attributed to the power of prayer," which would require an extended analysis of the minutiae of the experiments which is frankly beyond my layman's ability, is how Williams tips her hand early on with comments like "The results of the study are not surprising to those of us who believe in the power of prayer" and "Although most of us, who possess the belief that prayer can and does work, do not require physical, quantitative proof of the power of prayer..."

Seems to me that those who don't require physical, quantitative proof of something ought to be suspect of being biased and slack, in their attempts at science regarding said thing. But perhaps the real (and somewhat cloaked) point of such attempts is simply to sound credible and plausible enough that it triggers belief among half-converted souls, people who don't require scientific rigor as much as a feeling of reassurance.

Hector Avalos, an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Iowa State University(and a former Pentecostal faith healer), wrote of Dossey's works: "While Dossey sometimes denies that he would impose his spiritual beliefs on his patients, his favoritism toward the supposed efficacy of prayer in the Judeo-Christian traditions is evident."

In Avalos' article "Can Science Prove that Prayer Works?" (originally appearing in Free Inquiry magazine), he writes of "fatal flaws with so-called scientific experiments used by supporters of prayer, and there are even greater philosophical and theological problems with verifying scientifically that the Christian god answers prayers."

Among the philosophical and theological problems, according to Avalos, is the clash between the idea of God as one who answers prayers and that of a God who is all-knowing, all-good and all-powerful. Prayer would be "unnecessary" with such a God, Avalos writes, yet those in the Judeo-Christian faith insist on trying to reconcile two irreconcilable notions.

"Every single case of a supposedly answered prayer that I witnessed," Avalos writes, "can be explained by one or more of the following factors: (1) false assumptions, (2) erroneous information, and (3) wishful thinking," And the main problem, Avalos says, with the idea of "controlled experiment" regarding prayer is that there can be no such thing:

You can never divide people into groups that received prayer and those that did not. The main reason is that there is no way to know that someone did not receive prayer. How would anyone know that some distant relative was not praying for a member of the group that Byrd (Dr. Randolph C. Byrd, the cardiologist who ran the 1982-83 San Francisco hospital study) had identified as having received no prayer? How does one control prayers said on behalf of all the sick people in the world? How does one assess the degree of faith in patients that are too sick to be interviewed or in the persons performing the prayers?

"Even Byrd," Avalos writes, "acknowledges these problems and admits that 'pure' groups were not attained in this study." (Something that, if true, would have scientifically useful for Williams to mention in her essay.) And, Avalos adds, since control groups are not possible, such purported scientific experiments as Byrd's are not possible.

Addressing Dossey's emphasis on experiments on bacteria and mice as being "more convincing" because psychological factors of patients are eliminated, Avalos says:

(E)xperiments on nonhuman subjects will not help Dossey because these experiments can encounter the same theological and scientific obstacles that plague experiments on human subjects. For example there are people praying for the well-being of all life on Earth, and so you would not be able to divide bacteria, fungus, mice, or any other living thing into prayed-for and nonprayed-for groups.

Avalos notes that "none of these experiments (human and nonhuman) have been replicated by those who are generally skeptical of scientific studies of prayer. In general, such experiments will probably not inspire confidence until they are at least performed by teams of scientists that include both skeptics and supporters of the efficacy of prayer."

A 2001 article in The Atlantic Monthly by Cullen Murphy, "Thy Will Be Done: Blind studies and unanswered prayers" writes of the efforts of one scholar, Dr. Herbert Benson of the Harvard Medical School, to undertake scientific studies of prayer that avoid shortcomings of previous studies. Benson's belief in God, Murphy writes, is rooted in a religious background in Judaism, and a speculation expressed in his writings that human beings are "wired for God," with belief in God and an afterlife conferring a survival advantage.

Benson seeks to avoid the flaw of "background prayer" in his studies. As Murphy puts the problem: "The scientific distinction between prayed-for groups and not-prayed-for groups is probably impossible to maintain: people who don't receive formal intercessory-prayer treatment may be getting it in other ways -- from relatives, for instance, or as spillover from general prayer by the devout for the sick."

The studies on prayer will continue to multiply: According to a February 2005 report in Spirituality & Health magazine, at the 2004 summer’s Parliament of World Religions in Barcelona, Spain, "the Unity Church announced the opening of the Office of Prayer Research, a new prayer center outside Kansas City, Missouri. Directed by the Rev. Bob Barth, a minister with a degree in physics, the office will oversee the worldwide exchange of prayer research information."

Postscript (5-06): The results of another major study on intercessory prayer were released in March of this year, and the study failed to establish any scientific connection between prayer and healing power.

“Smithers, have the Rolling Stones killed.”

He believes in free speech, and enjoys a drink now and then. Here for another round is Chester Magpie, underground pundit:

"My god what a weird culture America is. Watching Valerie Plame laughing at Stephen Colbert’s routine like it's all some practical joke. Maybe the joke is really on us, y’know? We think there are forces in a struggle for power, but in fact it looks like one big happy family. Yeah sure Colbert is funny…but funny like a bleeding Iraqi? America loves to detach from the world, and on both sides of the 'argument,' even as Bush is practically a dictator and the police state is being put in place. We all just want a good laugh and a drink. Wow!

Somehow I just can’t picture Hitler and Mussolini putting up with this kind of shit. Maybe the whole drama of Big Brother against the man or the man against Big Brother has simply become Big Brother and the man who gets a bone thrown at him to act like he's defiant. (The key word here is 'act.') If there is such a thing, the man lives this act inside of his holding cell, a scene not unlike the movie The Matrix.

Oh I know…just lighten up, you'll say. Laugh at it all for awhile. Randi Rhodes said Colbert made Bush squirm in his chair. Oh really?"

Coming Up On The Outside

Another year, another Kentucky Derby. This Saturday's Derby at Churchill Downs will be the seventh that I've been involved with, ever since I got my current job at a horserace wagering service call center in '99. And with big tracks such as Churchill, Belmont and Hollywood now running, it'll be another busy Triple Crown season at the ol' workplace.

So why don't I get to sharing my latest list of horse names already? Thought you'd never ask...

Ghetto Smurf
Positive Cash Flow
Red Sox Nation
Sleetwood Mac
Galloping Grocer
Possibilitarian
He Went AWOL
Tommy Shanks
Grog
Hemingway's Key
Cooking The Books
Lebron
Goddess of Chaos
Boring Blues
Sinister Minister
Did He Biteyou
Ethel Redneck
Global Crisis
Procreate
Highly Arrogant
Little Arson Annie
Hoss Cartwright
Sir Fidgity