Headline writers (even TIME’s) might be tempted to advertise a grudge match between the Holy Father and the high priest of natural selection. But look again. Our title promises the Pope AND Darwin, not the Pope VS. Darwin. Benedict XVI will indeed be hosting a scholarly powwow this weekend at his summer residence at Castel Gandolfo, south of Rome, to debate evolution and creation. But don’t expect the Catholic Church to start disputing Darwin’s basic findings, which Pope John Paul II in 1996 called “more than a hypothesis.” Moreover, advocates of the teaching in U.S. schools of intelligent design — which holds that nature is so complex that it must be God’s doing — should not count on any imminent Holy See document or papal pronouncement to help boost their cause. This weekend’s private retreat is an annual gathering of the Pope’s former theology students to freely discuss one topic of interest, without the aim of reaching any set conclusion.

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In Paris, on a Friday 13th in 1307, Brother Jacques de Molay, the Grand Master of the Templar Knights, was burnt at the stake for being gay and a heretic. This has given Friday the 13th a bad name ever since.

ABOUT says: The day of Friday the Thirteenth, 1307, which began so uneventfully, was the beginning of one of the world’s most enduring mysteries, and one of its greatest tragedies. On that morning, Philippe le Bel, the King of France, in collusion with the Pope, gave orders for the arrest of over one hundred knights of the Order of the Temple, on charges of heresy. Over the next seven years, dozens were tortured, tried, and executed. Many more were imprisoned. The Grand Master of the order, Jacques De Molay, was broken and burned at the stake.

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Lest We Forget!

Many people do forget that thousands of young gay soldiers have given their lives for Australia in every single battle in every theatre of war that we have fought in, since Federation. Yet Australia still has a high score amongst the world’s homophobic countries.

We can paraphrase The ANZAC Ode as follows:

Thousands of young gay Australian soldiers, sailors and airmen and women shall not grow old

as we who are left, grow old.

Age shall not weary them. Nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we shall remember these thousands of young gay Australian soldiers, sailors and airmen and women.

Lest We Forget.

While in Sri Lanka recently, working with Marie Stopes International, the Founder, Dr Tim Black CBE, introduced me to TED. Tim said, “I promised to send you the details of the TED–Technology Entertainment Design–web site that I think you should contribute to. See for example the brilliant talk by Sir Ken Robinson on creativity .”

Each year, TED hosts some of the world’s most fascinating people: Trusted voices and convention-breaking mavericks, icons and geniuses. The talks they deliver have had had such a great impact, we thought they deserved a wider audience. So now - with our sponsor BMW and production partner WNYC/New York Public Radio we’re sharing some of the most remarkable TED talks with the world at large. Each week, we’ll release a new talk, in audio and video, to download or watch online. For best effect, plan to listen to at least three, start to finish. They have a cumulative effect…

As we yawn and open our eyes in the morning, the brain stem sends little puffs of nitric oxide to another part of the brain, the thalamus, which then directs it elsewhere.

Like a computer booting up its operating system before running more complicated programs, the nitric oxide triggers certain functions that set the stage for more complex brain operations, according to a new study.

In these first moments of the day, sensory information floods the system—the bright sunlight coming through the curtains, the time on the screeching alarm clock—and all of it needs to be processed and organized, so the brain can understand its surroundings and begin to perform more complex tasks.

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CONTINUOUS TRAINING
When it comes to training, continuity gets the best results. The great Samurai, Musashi, wrote, “The essence of strategy is to train day and night”. Most of us don’t need to be trained at the level of the Samurai but in a competitive world we do need some edge. The best way to secure that ‘unfair advantage’ is daily training.

Even 10 minutes a day, every day, will put you on top. If you have a continuous training system that gives you the opportunity for daily training you have a guaranteed strategy for success. The School of Thinking’s daily training system is a simple example of continuous training.

A person has two hands, two legs, two eyes, two cerebral hemispheres. But it is only at first sight that a human being is a symmetric creature. Firstly, we have a leading hand, the right one with the majority of people, secondly, we have a leading eye. Thirdly, the brain is functionally asymmetric: the left hemisphere (with the right-handers) is mainly connected with abstract-logical thinking and to a larger extent - with speech, the right hemisphere – with image sensitivity. See rest of article …