October 2007 Archives

Or not:

"The idea that we can control illness and death with our minds appeals to our deepest yearnings, but it just isn't so," she tells WebMD. "It is so sad that cancer patients are made to believe that if they aren't doing well it is somehow their own fault because they aren't positive enough."

Holland does acknowledge the benefits of staying positive during cancer treatment, and she is an advocate of techniques like relaxation, meditation, support groups, and prayer to help patients cope with their disease.

But she says there is no credible evidence that positive thinking alone directly influences tumor growth.

Source

Don't know where I stand on this one, given that I've long credited my own survival not only to positive thinking, but to the ceaseless support of family and friends. But science tells me that ain't so...

Happened across this news article:

Karate Lessons Give Child Self-Confidence To Quit Karate

ENGLEWOOD, CO--After months of being taught to develop courage, inner strength, and other values of the martial arts, Daniel Finkelstein finally achieved the self-confidence necessary to stand up to his parents and quit taking karate lessons, the area sixth-grader reported Monday.

Source

Heh. Good stuff.

The level of competition increases dramatically when you start going up against black belts, even eleven-year old ones. While these videos aren't from the tournament our girls participated in this past weekend, they are the winning routines that both of these prodigies used at that tournament to ice their "13 and under" Grand Champion titles, with and without weapons. They're both crazy good.

Dayna Huor competed in two of the same events as the oldest daughter and won them both with straight 9.99 scores from all the judges. It wasn't even close, how much better she was than even the second place finisher (who scored all 9.98's).



We saw Tyler Weaver at the night show, where they give three or four finalists in several categories an opportunity to compete for the Grand Champion title. Notice how his headband becomes a blindfold. And then the backflips. And the spins. He got a standing ovation from the judges on Saturday night, and plenty of 10.0's.

Amazing performance by the Viking's rookie running back. Sorry. Backup rookie running back.

Kid has 20 rushes for 224 yards and three touchdowns (all longer than 30 yards) in only his fifth professional game. A Vikings team rushing record. The most rushing yards ever by a single player against the Bears. When you factor in his kickoff returns, he had the third most all-purpose yards in NFL history. What else? Did I mention he leads the entire league in rushing with 607 yards, on only 96 carries? And even that's not very close: the rest of the top five running backs have all played one more game than Peterson. In every game he's played so far this season, he's outrushed the opposing team.

And once again it's worth mentioning that on the official Viking's depth chart, Peterson is #2. In yesterday's historic game, he rushed two fewer times than Chester Taylor. No matter how stubborn the head coach, and no matter how "balanced" he wants his rushing game to be, you simply have to start featuring this kid. Rest him, of course, spell him every now and then, but get him the ball more than anybody else on the team. And forget Rookie of the Year (which he should be delivered to his house immediately). If he keeps carving up defenses like he did against Chicago, you have to start considering him for league MVP.