Bright Moments

Indeed!!!

not as good as the first cd (which was really excellent!) but still very good IMHO.

happy birthday!!!!!

happy belated birthday (took the kids camping yesterday). hope it was a good one!!!

i KNEW i could count on you all!!! thanks!!!

ugetsu is a good 'un!

hello all! i need some recommendations for a delicious hot sauce. the hotter the better!!! thanks!

Can Prayer Heal? Does prayer have the power to heal? Scientists have some surprising answers. By Jeanie Lerche Davis WebMD Feature Reviewed By Michael Smith Could it be possible? Could the prayers of a handful of people help someone -- even someone on the other side of the world -- facing heart surgery? A few years back, Roy L. was heading into his third heart procedure -- an angioplasty and stent placement. Doctors were going to thread a catheter up a clogged artery, open it up, and insert a little device, the stent, to prop it open. It's a risky procedure under the best of circumstances. "The risks are the big ones -- death, stroke, heart attack," says his doctor, Mitchell Krucoff, MD, a cardiovascular specialist at Duke University School of Medicine in Durham, N.C. "You're mighty thankful you came out of it," Roy tells WebMD Though he didn't know it, Roy may have had some help getting through the procedure, some nonmedical help. Later, he learned he was on the receiving end of prayers before, during, and after the procedure -- prayers sent from nuns, monks, priests, and rabbis all over the world, with his name attached to them. "I'm not a church-going man, but I believe in the Lord," he tells WebMD. "If somebody prays for me, I sure appreciate it." And he's doing well now, with his heart problems anyway. The only thing plaguing him presently is the onset of diabetes. Roy was part of a pilot study looking at the effects of "distant prayer" on the outcome of patients undergoing high-risk procedures. But did prayers help Roy survive the angioplasty? Did they help ameliorate some of the stress that might have complicated things? Or do a person's own religious beliefs -- our personal prayers -- have an effect on well-being? Is there truly a link between mere mortals and the almighty, as some recent neurological studies have seemed to show? Those are questions that Krucoff and others are attempting to answer in a growing number of studies. God Grabs Headlines Research focusing on the power of prayer in healing has nearly doubled in the past 10 years, says David Larson, MD, MSPH, president of the National Institute for Healthcare Research, a private nonprofit agency. Even the NIH -- which "refused to even review a study with the word prayer in it four years ago" -- is now funding one prayer study through its Frontier Medicine Initiative. Although it's not his study, Krucoff says it's nevertheless evidence that "things are changing." Krucoff has been studying prayer and spirituality since 1996 -- and practicing it much longer in his patient care. Earlier studies of the subject were small and often flawed, he says. Some were in the form of anecdotal reports: "descriptions of miracles ... in patients with cancer, pain syndromes, heart disease," he says. "[Today,] we're seeing systematic investigations -- clinical research -- as well as position statements from professional societies supporting this research, federal subsidies from the NIH, funding from Congress," he tells WebMD. "All of these studies, all the reports, are remarkably consistent in suggesting the potential measurable health benefit associated with prayer or spiritual interventions." Wired for Spirituality? For the past 30 years, Harvard scientist Herbert Benson, MD, has conducted his own studies on prayer. He focuses specifically on meditation, the Buddhist form of prayer, to understand how mind affects body. All forms of prayer, he says, evoke a relaxation response that quells stress, quiets the body, and promotes healing. Prayer involves repetition -- of sounds, words -- and therein lies its healing effects, says Benson. "For Buddhists, prayer is meditation. For Catholics, it's the rosary. For Jews, it's called dovening. For Protestants, it's centering prayer. Every single religion has its own way of doing it." Benson has documented on MRI brain scans the physical changes that take place in the body when someone meditates. When combined with recent research from the University of Pennsylvania, what emerges is a picture of complex brain activity: As an individual goes deeper and deeper into concentration, intense activity begins taking place in the brain's parietal lobe circuits -- those that control a person's orientation in space and establish distinctions between self and the world. Benson has documented a "quietude" that then envelops the entire brain. At the same time, frontal and temporal lobe circuits -- which track time and create self-awareness -- become disengaged. The mind-body connection dissolves, Benson says. And the limbic system, which is responsible for putting "emotional tags" on that which we consider special, also becomes activated. The limbic system also regulates relaxation, ultimately controlling the autonomic nervous system, heart rate, blood pressure, metabolism, etc., says Benson. The result: Everything registers as emotionally significant, perhaps responsible for the sense of awe and quiet that many feel. The body becomes more relaxed and physiological activity becomes more evenly regulated. Does all this mean that we are communicating with a higher being -- that we are, in fact, "hard-wired" at the factory to do just that? That interpretation is purely subjective, Benson tells WebMD. "If you're religious, this is God-given. If you're not religious, then it comes from the brain." The Impact of Religion on Health But prayer is more than just repetition and physiological responses, says Harold Koenig, MD, associate professor of medicine and psychiatry at Duke and a colleague of Krucoff's. Traditional religious beliefs have a variety of effects on personal health, says Koenig, senior author of the Handbook of Religion and Health, a new release that documents nearly 1,200 studies done on the effects of prayer on health. These studies show that religious people tend to live healthier lives. "They're less likely to smoke, to drink, to drink and drive," he says. In fact, people who pray tend to get sick less often, as separate studies conducted at Duke, Dartmouth, and Yale universities show. Some statistics from these studies: Hospitalized people who never attended church have an average stay of three times longer than people who attended regularly. Heart patients were 14 times more likely to die following surgery if they did not participate in a religion. Elderly people who never or rarely attended church had a stroke rate double that of people who attended regularly. In Israel, religious people had a 40% lower death rate from cardiovascular disease and cancer. Also, says Koenig, "people who are more religious tend to become depressed less often. And when they do become depressed, they recover more quickly from depression. That has consequences for their physical health and the quality of their lives." Koenig's current study -- conducted with Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the first to be funded by the NIH -- involves 80 black women with early-stage breast cancer. Half the women will be randomly assigned to participate in a prayer group, and will choose eight women in their church to form the group. In the prayer group, he says, "[the support team] will pray for her; she will pray for them," Koenig says. "They will offer each other psychological support, talk about things that are bothering them." During the six-month trial period, each patient will be monitored for changes in immune function. Religion provides what Koenig calls "a world view," a perspective on problems that helps people better cope with life's ups and downs. "Having that world view helps people integrate difficult life changes and relieves the stress that goes along with them," Koenig says. "A world view also gives people a more optimistic attitude -- gives them more hope, a sense of the future, of purpose, of meaning in their lives. All those things get threatened when we go through difficult periods. Unless one has a religious belief system, it's hard to find purpose and meaning in getting sick and having chronic pain and losing loved ones." "Nobody's prescribing religion as a treatment," Koenig tells WebMD. "That's unethical. You can't tell patients to go to church twice week. We're advocating that the doctor should learn what the spiritual needs of the patient are and get the pastor to come in to give spiritually encouraging reading materials. It's very sensible." When We Pray for Others But what of so-called "distant prayer" -- often referred to as "intercessory prayer," as in Krucoff's studies? "Intercessory prayer is prayer geared toward doing something -- interrupting a heart attack or accomplishing healing," says Krucoff, who wears numerous hats at Duke and at the local Veterans Affairs Medical Center. An associate professor of medicine in cardiology, Krucoff also directs the Ischemia Monitoring Core Laboratory and co-directs the MANTRA (Monitoring and Actualization of Noetic Teachings) prayer study project at Duke. Long-time nurse practitioner Suzanne Crater co-directs that study. Noetic trainings? "Those are complementary therapies that do not involve tangible elements," says Krucoff. "There are no herbs, no massages, no acupressure." The goal of prayer therapy is to accomplish healing, yet "there are a lot of questions about what healing means," Krucoff tells WebMD. "At this level of this work, there are many philosophical debates that can emerge. The basic concept is this -- if you add prayer to standard, high-tech treatment -- if you motivate a spiritual force or energy, does it actually make people better, heal faster, get out of the hospital faster, make them need fewer pills, suffer less?" Roy L. and 150 other patients took part in MANTRA's pilot study. All suffer from acute heart disease, and all needed emergency angioplasty. The stress of the procedure -- because it is done on patients who are awake -- has its own negative effects on the body, Krucoff tells WebMD. "The heart beats faster, beats harder, blood vessels are constricted, blood is thicker and clots more easily. All that's bad." But if an intervention could mediate that stress, it would potentially be a pretty useful adjunct for people coming in for angioplasty, he says. In the pilot study, the patients were assigned to a control group or to touch therapy, stress relaxation, imagery, or distant prayer. A therapist came to the bedsides of patients in the touch, stress-relaxation, and imagery groups, but not to the bedsides in the control or distant-prayer groups. Like Roy, people in those two groups didn't know whether prayers were being sent their way or not. Those early results "were very suggestive that there may be a benefit to these therapies," Krucoff tells WebMD. Krucoff and Crater are now involved in the MANTRA trial's second phase, which will ultimately enroll 1,500 patients undergoing angioplasty at nine clinical centers around the country. Patients will be randomly assigned to one of four study groups: (1) they might be "prayed for" by the religious groups; (2) they might receive a bedside form of spiritual therapy involving relaxation techniques; (3) they might be prayed for and receive bedside spiritual therapy -- the "turbo-charged group," as Krucoff calls it; or they might get none of the extra spiritual therapies. "We're not looking at prayer as an alternative to angioplasty," he adds. "We're very high-tech people here. We're looking at whether in all of the energy and interest we have put into systematic investigation of high-tech medicine, if we have actually missed the boat. Have we ignored the rest of the human being -- the need for something more -- that could make all the high-tech stuff work better?" Originally published July 23, 2001. Medically updated March 25, 2004. http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art...rticlekey=50874

OMG this is getting ridiculous! Hello Pal, I hope my email meets you well. I am in need of your assistance. My name is sgt jarvis reeves jr . I am a military attache with the Engineering unit here in Ba'qubah Iraq for the united state, we have about $25 Million dollars that we want to move out of the country. My partners and I need a good partner someone we can trust to actualize this venture.The money is from oil proceeds and legal.But we are moving it through diplomatic means to your house directly or a safe and secured location of your choice using diplomatic courier services. But can we trust you? Once the funds get to you, you take your 40% out and keep our own 60%. Your own part of this deal is to find a safe place where the funds can be sent to. Our own part is sending it to you. If you are interested reply to Email:sgtjrjarvisreeves_8@yahoo.dk I will furnish you with more details. Awaiting your urgent response. Your Buddy. sgt jarvis reeves jr

i enjoyed his cd bebop bassoon, but frankly this is not an instrument IMHO meant to lead. keep it on the side.

i thought uncle chuck was the welcome wagon! in any event welcome to the forum. don't try to sell us anything until you log 50 posts!

and now this! From:MISS ELODI WILLIAMS ADDRESS:03 BP 25687 ABIDJAN 03 AVENUE 23 RUE 33 BARREE COCODY ABIDJAN, IVORY COAST WEST AFRICA. Tel:+22501336438 Hello dearest one, It is my pleasure to write you after much consideration since I can not be able to see you face to face at first.Being the first and the only child of my father, late Mr Mokun Williams from Freetown in Republic of Serielone a country in West Africa I am 18years of age. My father was Diamond and gold merchant in Freetown before his untimely death after his business trip to Europe,to negotiate on a business. A week after he came back from Europe, he was shot with my mother by unknown assassins. Which my mother died, instantly, but my father died after five days in hospital, on that faithful afternoon. I didn't know that my father was going to leave me after I had lost my mother. But before he gave up the ghost, it was as if he knew he was going to die. He my father, (may his soul rest in perfect peace) he disclose to me that he deposited the sum of $5.7 million U.S dollars in a Bank in Abidjan the capital of Ivory Coast.That the money was meant for establishing a branch of his business in Abidjan - Ivory Coast. Though, according to my father he deposited the money in his own name and mentioned me in the documents as the next of kin .Before his death he adviced and instructed me to seek for a trust worthy person abroad who will help me invest and manage this money for me until i am capable to handle it. Now I have succeeded in locating the bank in Abidjan and also confirmed the fund is in there , most honest and confidentiality. Now I am soliciting for your assistance to help me transfer out this money out from the bank to your account abroad so that you can be able to manage and invest it in any lucrative business in your country and also help me to move out from here so that I can contiune my education which stopped since my parents death.I am Waiting anxiously to hear from you so that we can discuss how you can assist me on this as my guradian since it is the only condition that the bank said this my inheritance can be release to me at this my present age or i can wait until i am upto 25 years and above. Thanks for your kind attention and i will appreciate to receive your reply to know if you will be able to handle and manage this my inheritance for me as my guradian.Please i am on my kneelsing begging you to accept standing as my guradian so that this my inheritance be transfer out from here. Best regards Miss Elodi Williams

UPCOMING EVENTS!!! Oct 3 - South Florida Jazz Orchestra Oct 4 - Gabe Evens Trio w/ Wendy Pedersen Oct 5 - Dana Paul Oct 6/7 - The Yellowjackets Oct 10 - Arturo Sandoval Oct 11!2 - Gary Burton/ Makoto Ozone Oct 13/14 - Danilo Perez Trio Oct 17 - FIU Big Band Oct 18 - Federico Britos & Jorge Garcia Oct 19/20 - Diane Schuur Oct 21 - Jazz Brunch Oct 24 - South Nine Ensemble Oct 25 - Nicole Henry Oct 26/27 - Kim Waters Oct 28 - Jazz Brunch Nov 2/3 - Keiko Matsui Nov 8 - Michael Melvoin Nov 9/10 - Chuck Loeb and Eric Marienthal Nov 16/17 - Carol Weisman Nov 23/24 - Kevin Mahogany Nov 30/Dec 1 - Kurt Elling

Bond's Moneypenny, Lois Maxwell, Dies Sunday September 30 10:22 AM ET LONDON (AP) Lois Maxwell, who starred as Miss Moneypenny in 14 James Bond movies, has died, the British Broadcasting Corp. reported Sunday. She was 80. The Canadian-born actress starred alongside Sean Connery in the first James Bond movie, "Dr. No," in 1962 as the secretary to M, the head of the secret service. She died Saturday night at Fremantle Hospital near her home in Perth, Australia, the BBC cited a hospital official as saying. ADVERTISEMENT Bond star Roger Moore said she was suffering from cancer. "It's rather a shock," Moore, who had known her since they were students at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in 1944, told BBC radio. "She was always fun and she was wonderful to be with," he said. Born Lois Hooker in Ontario, Canada, in 1927, she began her acting on radio before moving to Britain with the Entertainment Corps of the Canadian army at the age of 15, the BBC said. In the late 1940s, she moved to Hollywood and won a Golden Globe for her part in the Shirley Temple comedy "That Hagen Girl." After working in Italy, she returned to Britain in the mid-1950s. In addition to her 14 appearances as Miss Moneypenny, she also acted in Stanley Kubrick's "Lolita" and worked on TV shows including "The Saint" "The Baron, Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased)," and "The Persuaders!," the BBC said. She was 58 when she appeared in her final Bond film, 1985's "A View To A Kill." She was replaced by 26-year-old Caroline Bliss for "The Living Daylights." Her last film was a 2001 thriller called "The Fourth Angel," alongside Jeremy Irons.

a HUGE thanks!!!!!

can i get a copy.

By LINDA DEUTSCH, AP Special Correspondent 1 hour, 7 minutes ago LOS ANGELES - A mistrial was declared Wednesday in the murder case against Phil Spector when the jury reported that it was deadlocked 10-2 in favor of convicting the music producer of killing actress Lana Clarkson more than four years ago. The prosecutor's office announced it would seek to retry Spector, and the family of the actress also pledged to press on. "We will not rest until justice is done," said John C. Taylor, a lawyer for the family. Spector and his wife, Rachelle, left the courthouse shortly after the mistrial. The producer's attorneys later met with the jury. "We thank the people of Los Angeles for keeping an open mind and the jury for their very hard work and their willingness to share their thoughts with us," defense attorney Linda Kenney-Baden said after the meeting. The mistrial came after months of a trial in which jurors had to decide who pulled the trigger of a revolver — leaving no fingerprints — that went off in Clarkson's mouth early Feb. 3, 2003. The jury had met for about 44 hours over 12 days since getting the case Sept. 10. A week ago, the jury foreman had reported a 7-5 split. After that, Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler withdrew a jury instruction that he decided misstated the law and issued a new one giving examples of what panelists could draw from the evidence, including the possibility that Spector forced Clarkson to place the gun in her own mouth. Fidler polled the jury, and each member agreed that a unanimous decision was not possible. Some jurors agreed to talk to reporters at the courthouse but did not give their names. The foreman would not say which way he voted; the other two said they voted for guilt. One juror said that the holdouts argued over whether Clarkson was suicidal and that the entire jury would have liked to see a psychological profile of the actress. Another juror was troubled by what Spector, who did not call 911, did in the 40 minutes between the death and the time police arrived. "He acted like a guilty man," the juror said. The foreman noted that the "inability to reach a decision is controversial to most." "Even on the jury there's deep regret that we were unable to reach a unanimous verdict," he said. The mistrial also disappointed prosecutors. "We will seek the court's permission to retry the case and begin immediately to prepare for a retrial," prosecutor Steve Cooley said in a statement. A hearing was set for Oct. 3. Prosecutors had charged Spector under a second-degree murder theory that did not require premeditation or intent. They called women from his past who claimed he threatened them with guns when they tried to leave his presence, and a chauffeur who testified that on the fateful morning Spector came out of his home with a gun in hand and said, "I think I killed somebody," while Clarkson's body sat slumped in a foyer chair behind him. The defense countered with a scientific case, suggesting Spector did not fire the gun and offering forensic evidence that she killed herself — either intentionally or by accident. Gunshot residue on her hands, blood spatter on his coat and the trajectory of the bullet were the subjects of weeks of testimony from experts. Spector, 67, rose to fame in the 1960s with the "Wall of Sound" recording technique, which revolutionized pop music. Clarkson starred in the 1985 cult film "Barbarian Queen." Their life stories reflected different sides of the pop culture landscape. The breadth of Spector's contributions to popular music in the 1960s and early 1970s was astounding. Early in his career, he produced hits including "He's a Rebel" and "Be My Baby," which made pop stars of the Crystals and the Ronettes. Later, after the Beatles shelved the tapes from some of their last recording sessions, he turned them into their final album, 1970's "Let it Be." From there, he went on to produce critically acclaimed solo albums by John Lennon and George Harrison. He also co-wrote and produced the Ben E. King standard "Spanish Harlem" and the Righteous Brothers' "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'," cited by BMI as the most-played song in the history of American radio. But by the time he met Clarkson, the music industry wunderkind who struck it rich in his teens and changed the face of pop music had aged into an eccentric, reclusive millionaire with a castle in the suburbs. Clarkson, 40, was an ambitious dreamer, a statuesque beauty who idolized Marilyn Monroe and chased fame but was beaten down by rejection. Friends testified that she was at the end of her rope financially and humiliated by having to take a hostess job at the House of Blues, where she met Spector. Jurors heard of her decision to go home with Spector for a drink after the club closed at 2 a.m. Little more than three hours later, she was dead. What happened in those three hours was never clear. Spector did not testify, and prosecutors stated no motive for him to kill her other than her apparent decision to leave the house. No prosecution forensic expert was able to place the gun in Spector's hands. But blood spatter on his coat and in his pants pockets were analyzed by prosecution experts to suggest that showed he was the shooter. Defense experts said he stood too far away to have shot her. Blood spatter, they said, can travel up to 6 feet. The defendant's changing appearance during the case was a reminder that this was a show business figure on trial. During pretrial, Spector arrived in a stretch Hummer, his hair frizzed out. For trial, he adopted a blond pageboy reminiscent of the early Beatles. But his wife, who said she styled his hair, later changed it to a short, tousled and darker look. Rachelle Spector, 27, whose Web site says she is a singer, songwriter and trombone player, married Spector nearly a year ago and was with him every day of the trial. The couple usually dressed in color-coordinated outfits. Spector wore long, foppish frock coats with vests, colorful shirts and ties. A diminutive figure, he always wore boots with high Cuban-style heels. Rachelle Spector wore stiletto heels, and the couple appeared to totter as they walked down the hall flanked by bodyguards. Jurors saw a different side of the couple when they visited Spector's home for a court-supervised jury tour. The Spectors stood silently arm in arm, dressed in casual clothes, as jurors surveyed the scene of Clarkson's death. In the last days of the trial, Rachelle Spector gave a TV interview defending her husband and was scolded by the judge and told to stop talking or face contempt charges. On Tuesday, authorities revealed they were investigating a posting on a "Team Spector" page on MySpace.com that said "The EVIL Judge should DIE!!!!" and was signed "xoxo Chelle." A Spector defense attorney said Rachelle Spector denied having anything to do with the posting. ___ Associated Press writers Robert Jablon and Raquel Maria Dillon contributed to this report. (This version CORRECTS that juror troubled by Spector's actions after the death is not same juror who discussed the holdouts' views)

get this one - NOW!!!

just got this email - who would believe such garbage! THE LOTTERY DEPARTMENT BMW Automobiles 22 Garden Close, Stamford, Lincs, PE9 2YP, London United Kingdom. Email: info_jameseric@yahoo.de Tell: +44 704 573 9212 Dear Selected winner, This is to inform you that you have been selected for a cash Price of £550,000.00 (Five hundred and fifty thousand Great British Pounds) and a brand new BMW car model 530iA from the International programs held the Today in London UK. Description of Price: Car model 530iA Year: 2007 Amount: £550,000.00 The selection process was carried out through random selection in our computerised email selection system(ess) from a database of over 284,000 email addresses drawn from all the continents of the world which your email was among the {95} winners of £550,000.00 (Five hundred and fifty thousand Great British Pounds & BMW car). The BMW Lottery is approved by the British Gaming Board and also Licensed by the The International Association of Gaming Regulators (IAGR). This promotional lottery is the 2nd of its kind and we intend to sensitise the public. To begin the processing of your Price you are to contact our claims department for more information as regards procedures to claim your Price. ===================================================== Contact Person: Mr.Jaes Eric. Contact the claims Department Via email :info_jameseric@yahoo.de ===================================================== Contact him by please providing him with your secret pin code x7pwyz2007 and your Reference Number BMW:2551256003/23.You are also advised to provide him with the under listed informations as soon as possible. Name in full, Address in full, Nationality & Present Country,Age,Phone /Fax /Sex e.t.c. ====================================================== Mr Kalvin Westwood. On-line Co-ordinator.

I caught part of the fourth quarter. I feel your pain; I can't even bring myself to make a smart-ass comment. ...........just yet. hopefully the CANES are back on track!!!

Keep her around, Jim. Please. Mocking her constant focus on relaxing is very relaxing to me. So much so, in fact, that after I read her posts, I have no need, much less urge, to buy the music she's pimping in order to relax.