When I began attending Chinese church gatherings several years ago, I noticed that many senior female members worn a small scarf on their heads. I didn’t know what that headgear was for but dared not ask them. That would be a quite silly question.

It was till I read Corinthians 1 when I understood the custom. They just followed the holy script.

But any woman who prays or prophesies with her head unveiled brings shame upon her head, for it is one and the same thing as if she had had her head shaved.
Corinthians 1, 11:5

According to Paul, the logic behind this custom is this: God is the head of man, and man is the head of woman. So woman should respect her husband by covering her head, thus indirectly worshipping the God.

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Recently, Chinese surgeons made a significant contribution to the plastic surgery. They successfully transplanted a penis for a man who injured his penis during an accident. However, after 14 days, the team regretfully reported that they had to cut the penis off because of patient’s psychological problems.

According to the report, the man complained that his quality of life was suffered greatly after the accident. He wanted to urinate in a standing position and have a satisfactory sex life.

Now he had what he had asked for— a new and young penis with which he can urinate in a standing position, and possibly have sex in the near future (God forbids). Why did he want to take aback what he had requested?

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This evening, I felt sleepy. My head was dizzy, my body was exhausted, and my mind went completely blank. I wanted to lie down right after dinner. But, as a family man, I couldn’t.

No, it is not because I ate too much. I am carefully controlling the amount of foods for each dinner. OK, I confess I have stuffed 80% of my stomach. But that is not the reason. I always ate that much. It was not because of foods, I was sure.

After about an hour’s doze, I figured that I was kind of in a blue mood.
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Tea is a drink. The art lies in how people prepare it and drink it. Unfortunately, the art of tea has been distorted.

The biggest tormenter is the invention of bagged tea. Western people, unable to fully appreciate the oriental culture, drink the tea like eating fast foods. You dip an ugly paper bag into the hot water and, bingo, without actually seeing the tea leaves, the smell of tea fills in the room, the water turns into brown or red, and the tea is done. You never know what is inside that bag. It is said that cheap tea bags may contain really low grade tea leaves and even dregs. The smell of tea and jasmine might be flavored, i.e., made by artificially additives. But people still drink it, enjoy it, and feel being invigorated by it.

Bagged tea is now a multi-billion business. Commercialized anything is a sure way to destroy its inherent art. On the other hand, the tea ceremony has been claimed to replay the old art of tea drinking. Thus, the tea ceremony in modern tea houses becomes popular in China recently. However, the tea ceremony also twists the art of tea in some subtle ways .

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Since his pontification, Pope Benedict XVI is diligently recasting his image from a rigorous traditional theologian to a flexible priest. During past few days, the Pope has expressed his regrets four times about a quotation in a talk he gave at the University of Regensburg on September 12.

The once obscure quotation from a 14th century text is now read by a lot of people, religious or not. It says:

Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.

To fully understand why the Pope quoted this paragraph, a responsible commentator must read the Pope’s original speech. This quotation is taken from a dialogue between a 14th century Byzantine emperor and his Persian guest. There the emperor made a point that violence is not what God likes. The Pope apparently shared this idea with him.

Things always go wrong when people take quotations out of context. Why did the Pope quote this paragraph but not others? There are numerous quotations which can illustrate the same point. Furthermore, when the Pope quoted this paragraph, did he endorse the view that Mohammed spread faith by violence?

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TASSC, the Advancement of Sound Science Coalition, is a defunct organization claiming to promote “sound” science. It sided with the tobacco industry and once played an important role in the tobacco war.

It all started in the earlier 1990s, when Phillip Morris Company (the PM Company, the maker of Marlboro cigarette) was in a battle against the EPA ruling on the environmental tobacco smoke (ETS the passive smoking).

The PM Company had long been contemplating to found third party organizations which could defense the tobacco industry. For example, through a public relation company, the PM Company founded the “National Smoker’s Alliance”(NSA) whose goal was to advocate the freedom and rights of smoking. The PM Company paid millions of dollars to NSA for newspaper ads, telemarketing, and other national activities.

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More than 60% Americans are overweight or obese. A big body is burdensome and not beautiful.

So a lot of people are obsessed in losing weight but most of them fail to achieve any success. They switch from the Atkins diet to the South Beach diet, from aerobic exercise to strength training, and from nowhere to nowhere. Even worse, the majority of them gain weight after the end of weight-loss program. People become frustrated about their weight, their confidence, and their ability. They feel ashamed about their bodies, and some unlucky ones get depressed.

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A netter recently informed me that the Atkins diet was effective in losing his weight. In each of the two week sessions, he successfully lost more than ten pounds without feeling too much uncomfortable.

How could this happen? The Atkins diet has been criticized by all kinds of nutrition societies and has gone bankrupted after Dr. Atkins died. Market has proved that the Atkins diet is a failure. So the netter’s story puzzles me.

When we eat something, to some extent, we intake nutrients because human body (except for stomach and intestine) doesn’t care about the shape or texture of foods. All the body wants are nutrients, and cells work on these small molecules.

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When I first dined in a US restaurant, I was a little bit puzzled by the two bottles on the table. It was kind of embarrassing to ask the waitress about them, but my wife and I quickly figured them out. They must be some sort of condiments. I tasted them. One is salt, and the other is pepper.

I saw a lot of people spread salt and pepper on their dishes, but to me, the US foods are already salty. Then I understood why there are so many research examining this salt issue. We need about 2 grams of salt per day, approximately one teaspoon. But regular folks like you and me are consuming 4-5 grams per day, more than double of the amount that USDA recommended.
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5000 years ago when Sheng Nung randomly grabbed a tree leaf to cure his wound, he instantly realized that the leaf worked magic. The leaf was passed on and the drink became known as “cha.” When Lu Yu wrote the definite bible of cha, Cha Jin, in 780 AD, cha had trickled from upper class down to common folks, and soon traveled to Korea and Japan. Cha became a characteristic of the oriental culture.

Although there are different teas such as green tea, oolong tea, and black tea, only green tea has been hailed as healthy drink. It can prevent heart disease and cancer, relieve arthritis and improve general health. For example, a group of Japanese researchers examined the effect of green tea on mortality among 40,000 Ohsaki people. They measured tea consumption at baseline and followed them for about 11 years. They found that drinking more than 5 cups of green tea was associated with lower total mortality, and in particular, it was associated with lower cerebral infarction death (hemorrhage stroke).

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