Best-selling author and New York Daily News Editor-in-Chief, Pete Hamill shared his thoughts at a Barnes & Noble book reading.
On the aftermath of September 11th: "There's a saying in Brooklyn, 'Never live higher than a fireman's ladder'...I hope we live as if it's the last day of our lives, which it could be. To live our days intensely, generously, and with as much kindness as we can."
On journalism: "I like the classic line, 'Journalism is history in a hurry'... and Ezra Pound, who was a lunatic on most other things, said, 'Literature is news that stays news'... Poetry will probably deal with the tragedy the best over the next 2-3 years, more so than literature."
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The National Book Award winner for best non-fiction was Andrew Solomon for The Noonday Demon, a personal account of his experience with depression and extensive information on how the illness is treated around the world. In his acceptance speech, Solomon said that to counter depression, he would recommend winning a National Book Award.
* * * Evidence Favors Effectiveness of Prayer
Hard Data too Compelling to IgnoreAmong the recent prayer-in-medicine studies, this is considered the hottest one:
Columbia Medical School reports that a study was conducted on couples trying to get pregnant using in-vitro fertilization. The group of men and women who were prayed for (but did not know it) had a 50% pregnancy rate compared with a 26% rate in the group that wasn't prayed for. This is what medical researchers call, "big data...huge outcome."Dr. John Austin, a researcher from University of Maryland's School of Medicine, comments, "Maybe we will discover some nature of the universe that we don't understand. Maybe it suggests that our intentions and consciousness have some capacity to extend beyond ourselves and impact the world around us. By directing our prayers...our consciousness is in some way touching the life of another human being. These are interesting metaphysical questions, theological questions, religious questions. But I also would say there is no reason why they are not scientific questions."
According to Dr. Larry Dossey, best-selling author and former Chief of Staff of Medical City Dallas Hospital, "Eight years ago, out of 125 medical schools, only three were studying spirituality's effectiveness on medical conditions. Today, 80 out of 125 schools are involved."
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