Here's an interesting study that suggests it's best to keep your prayers to yourself...
This article appeared in the Chicago tribune.

In this study, prayers aren't the answer

By Jeremy Manier
Tribune staff reporter
Published March 31, 2006

Praying for a sick cardiac patient may feel right to people of faith, but it doesn't appear to improve the patient's health, according to a new study that is the largest ever done on the healing powers of prayer.

In fact, the researchers from Harvard Medical School and five other U.S. medical centers found--to their bewilderment--that coronary bypass patients who knew strangers were praying for them fared significantly worse than people who got no prayers. The team speculated that telling the patients about the prayers may have caused "performance anxiety," or perhaps a fear that doctors expected the worst.

"Obviously, my colleagues were surprised by the unexpected and counterintuitive outcome," said Rev. Dean Marek, director of chaplain services at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., and a co-investigator for the project.

It was a strange end for the mammoth prayer study, which cost $2.4 million and enrolled 1,802 patients who had bypass surgery. The majority of funding came from the British-based John Templeton Foundation, which supports research at the intersection of science and religion.

Previous studies had examined the power of prayer for medical patients, with mixed results.

The new study, which appears in the April American Heart Journal, was designed to be large enough to see if patients who knew they were being prayed for had better recoveries.

The people who prayed for the patients were strangers--either Roman Catholic monks or believers belonging to other Christian denominations. Those who prayed were given the patients' first names and last initials. They were instructed to say a simple prayer for a quick recovery with no complications.

Bypass patients who consented to take part in the experiment were divided randomly into three groups. Some patients received prayers but were not informed of that. In the second group the patients got no prayers, and also were not informed one way or the other. The third group got prayers and were told so.

There was virtually no difference in complication rates between patients in the first two groups. But the third group, in which patients knew they were receiving prayers, had a complication rate of 59 percent--significantly more than the rate of 52 percent in the no-prayer group.

Researchers said the study was never intended to prove or disprove the existence of God or to settle theological questions. But they had expected that knowing someone was praying for the patients might help those patients relax and bring about a state of well-being, which can reduce strain on the heart.

"In this study we did not find that was the case," said Dr. Herbert Benson of Harvard Medical School, a principal investigator of the study.

The researchers were at a loss to explain the worsened outcomes in their study. An accompanying editorial in the journal criticized the study authors for taking "an almost casual approach toward any explanation, stating only that it `may have been a chance finding.'"

The editorial authors, led by Dr. Mitchell Krucoff of Duke University Medical Center, wrote that the study leaders had not anticipated that prayer might be harmful and had "allowed cultural presumption to undermine scientific objectivity."

In light of the significant findings, the editorial concluded, researchers "must be vigilant in asking the question of whether a well-intentioned, loving, heartfelt healing prayer might inadvertently harm or kill vulnerable patients in certain circumstances."

Any attempt to study the power of prayer objectively runs the risk of scientific and theological problems, said Dr. Daniel Sulmasy, director of ethics at St. Vincent's Hospital and New York Medical College.

"God is not just another therapeutic nostrum in a doctor's black bag," said Sulmasy, who is also a Franciscan friar. "It seems fundamentally sinful to conceive of God as our instrument."

Marek, a Catholic priest, conceded that it may be an unfair test of God to measure whether detailed prayers are granted.

"The best prayer probably is, `Thy will be done,'" he said.

I've written two columns about the movement to impeach President Bush. The following piece by William Goodman from AlterNet provides a clear idea of how this movement is finding its way into mainstream media.

    Impeachment Talk Reaches the Mainstream
    By William Goodman
    AlterNet

    Tuesday 14 March 2006

From the Wall Street Journal to MSNBC, talk of impeachment is no longer on the fringe.

    The groundswell for President Bush's impeachment is growing, and last week the establishment media finally took notice.

    The Wall Street Journal ran a story analyzing how a planned impeachment of President Bush will play out as an "election issue," including a helpful pie chart showing 51 percent of Americans support Congress in considering Bush's impeachment if he "didn't tell the truth about the reasons for the Iraq war."

    The Washington Post published a commentary acknowledging that support for impeachment is now "reaching beyond the usual suspects," and the Associated Press covered the spike in pro-impeachment resolutions from local officials across the country. Resolutions recently passed in Vermont and California, and this weekend Democratic Party officials in Michigan voted to urge local officials to pass another. Meanwhile, 14 Democratic candidates for Congress have announced their support for impeachment.

    These local efforts are beginning to advance impeachment at the national level. The resolution by Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., to investigate impeachment is slowly but steadily gaining co-sponsors, including three this month. It now has 29 co-sponsors - roughly one out of every seven Democrats in the U.S. House - a promising start that ensures that the legislation attracts more votes when it reaches the floor.

    These activist and legislative efforts helped finally push the "i-word" on to the notoriously conservative cable news last week. On Wednesday, Joe Scarborough aired an impeachment debate on MSNBC - one of the first times the subject has been debated this year on cable. Scarborough's producers invited me to make the case for impeachment after learning of the new book I co-authored, "Articles of Impeachment Against George W. Bush."

    Since impeachment rarely receives any consideration on television, I took the opportunity to explain our case, even if it meant going on Joe Scarborough's turf. Scarborough, a former Republican congressman who opposes impeaching President Bush, said during the show that he was "fascinated" by some arguments for impeachment. He accurately described the groundswell:

    There's a movement out there right now calling for George W. Bush to be impeached. Just take a look at how many cities and towns across America have either drafted resolutions calling for the president's impeachment or are considering doing so. Not only that, but 11 candidates for the House of Representatives and three for the U.S. Senate are all running on the impeachment platform. Why do they want the president gone? Well, here are the common reasons cited. The war in Iraq, which they say Bush lied to get us into; warrantless eavesdropping, authorized by the president; the torturing of prisoners; and the president`s response to Hurricane Katrina.

    It is significant that impeachment activists have received Scarborough's attention. When we debated the topic, Scarborough even conceded that the arguments for impeachment in our book were "intellectually honest." That's because it's easy to make an intellectually honest case for impeachment: President Bush has publicly admitted to breaking the law. Here is how I explained the clearest example of the president's multifaceted illegal conduct - spying on Americans:

    The fact is that the law provides a clear-cut way that the president has to do these things. He has to go to the FISA court. He knowingly violated that law. And the law says - there are two laws, in fact, that say that when you do that, you are guilty of a crime. There it is. That is one of the high crimes and misdemeanors.

    Pat Buchanan was quick to argue that even Senate Democrats weren't supporting impeachment. While many Washington Democrats appear to be spineless these days, a growing number of House Democrats are supporting a resolution to investigate impeachment. This debate is the start of many to come. Impeachment is finally out of the bottle, and it is not going away. C-SPAN plans to televise a discussion of our impeachment book, moderated by Amy Goodman in New York on March 28, and our attorneys are receiving more requests to explain the legal case for impeachment from grassroots groups and reporters.

    This week the Senate will also consider censuring President Bush for illegal wiretapping, a rare move that shows even the conservative upper house may be realizing that President Bush is out of control. But we must remember that a censure resolution won't remove a single wiretap from Americans' phones. Congress and the American people must take real action to address President Bush's illegal policies in wiretapping, Iraq, torture and undermining the constitutional principle of separation of powers.

    President Bush has repeatedly broken the law and brazenly promised to continue to betray his oath of office and our Constitution - clear impeachable offenses. We must grow the impeachment movement across the country and in the halls of Congress to catalyze a substantive debate over illegal conduct, not politics.

    --------

    William Goodman is the Legal Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights where he supervises an active docket of over 80 cases, including representing the Guantánamo detainees before the Supreme Court, challenging the NSA domestic spying program, filing the first case to challenge the Bush Administration's " extraordinary rendition," and representing Muslim and Arab men caught up in the post-9/11 immigration dragnet.

A good idea from a surprisingly humorless source...

CHILDREN'S AUTHOR: TEACH KIDS TO LAUGH AT CELEBRITIES

The Oscars may be over, but parents still need to teach their kids to laugh at Tinseltown's left-wing celebrities, says best-selling children's author Katharine DeBrecht. Her highly-anticipated new book lampoons stars Streisand, Madonna, and Cruise, and was given out in Oscar gift bags. It is available in stores today.

Los Angeles, CA -- With Academy Awards being handed out to movies about racist cops, gay cowboys, and communist sympathizers, Hollywood has declared an outright war on traditional values. But instead of getting angry at the movie business, parents should teach their kids to laugh at it, this according to best-selling children's author Katharine DeBrecht, whose new illustrated book "Help! Mom! Hollywood's in My Hamper" (Kids Ahead; hardcover: $15.95; ISBN 0976726912), mocks Hollywood's leading stars and arrives in bookstores today.

DeBrecht -- whose book turned heads in Hollywood after being given out in Oscar party gift bags on Sunday night -- satirizes Barbra Streisand, Madonna, Tom Cruise, Britney Spears, Jack Nicholson, and Sean Penn with cartoon look-alikes who appear in the hamper of two young sisters to tell them how to behave and to sell them useless trinkets. The girls meet a number of other goofy celebrities along the way and in the process come to realize that stars don't always know best.

"The liberal elites running Hollywood have no intention of ceasing their relentless attack on traditional values," claims DeBrecht, a mother of three. "It's almost impossible for parents to block out all of the left-wing messages that Hollywood and its media friends are bombarding our kids with. The solution is for parents to teach their children to laugh at Hollywood and to regard celebrities as silly people."

The book reunites DeBrecht with award-winning illustrator Jim Hummel in their highly-anticipated sequel to last fall's surprise hit "Help! Mom! There Are Liberals Under My Bed" (Kids Ahead; hardcover; ISBN 0976726904). The book reached #1 on Barnes & Noble's website and was profiled in publications ranging from US News & World Report to Publishers Weekly, but it drew fiery criticism from liberals for its portrayal of Hillary Clinton and Ted Kennedy as cartoon villains who tax and regulate a child's lemonade stand.

"Know-it-all liberal celebrities are in our faces every day, telling people how to live, what to buy, and often how to vote," says DeBrecht. "Children need to understand that just because these people show up on television doesn't mean they know what's best for the rest of America. In fact, it's usually quite the opposite!"

Here's a great analogy, written by Michael Kimmelman of the New York Times in his review of the Whitney Bienniel. Very, very apt:

"The Peace Tower" is ad hoc. The whole ethos of the show is provisional, messy, half-baked, cantankerous, insular — radical qualities art used to have when it could still call itself radical and wasn't like a barnacle clinging to the cruise ship of pop culture.