contrasts can be more valuable than comparisons...

The Questionable Authority : War isn't hell.:

Hawkeye: War isn't hell. War is war and hell is hell, and of the two war is a lot worse.

Fr. Mulcahy: How do you figure that, Hawkeye?

Hawkeye Simple, father. Tell me, who goes to hell?

Fr. Mulchay: Sinners, I believe.

Hawkeye: Exactly. There are no innocent bystanders in hell. But war is chock full of them. Little kids, cripples, old ladies, in fact, except for a few of the brass almost everybody involved is an innocent bystander.

lifestyles don't change so easily...

The Science Creative Quarterly » MALCOLM GLADWELL WRITES THE INTRODUCTION TO A NEW EDITION OF THE HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY:

Most people, upon finding themselves riding the curb in a vast inky blackness, tend to solve the problem by seeking a vehicle. Call it the “not enough rocketships” approach. But these people, in their final moments, are ignoring a second key insight: the “plenty of space” angle. Typical of the imprisoned thought processes that all too often dominate our brains, the not-enough-rocketships approach focuses only on vehicular solutions. By contrast, people who perceive an abundance of space rarely attempt to remedy the situation. They don’t even see it as a problem.

In the late 1980s a team of psychologists from Virginia Polyamorous Institute conducted a fascinating experiment. They dropped study subjects at random in deserted parking lots. Half of the subjects were from Richmond (they were city folk) while the other half were members of the A’capa’capa tribe of the Central Amazonian Republic.

The results were startling. Urban subjects responded uniformly, slapping their sides in frustration, rummaging in their pockets for cell phones, and eventually returning - via taxi - to their townhouses and condominiums to slurp take-out chow mein and vent their frustrations by posting venomous music reviews on Amazon.com.

And the A’capa’capa? By nightfall, they had erected makeshift shelters constructed from free weekly newspapers and had begun trading jewelry made from carved pigeon bones. By daybreak they had been listed by Fortune 500 and by noon their supple-limbed leader was eating sushi with James Cameron in L.A., discussing the movie rights to his ordeal.

when knowing what it does is more important than knowing what it does

BBC NEWS | UK | England | Tyne | Viagra used to save baby's life:

Lewis Goodfellow was born at 24 weeks weighing just 1lb 8oz. One of his lungs had failed and not enough oxygen was able to get into his bloodstream.

Doctors at Newcastle's Royal Victoria Infirmary then tried Sildenafil, also known under the trade name of Viagra, and Lewis is now home with his parents.

The drug opened up tiny blood vessels in the baby's lungs.

Parents Jade Goodfellow and John Barclay, from Walker, Newcastle believe the drug - more usually associated with anti-impotence - saved his life.