MONDAY, JUNE 12 This week of incriminating cannibalism, revamped Catholicism, and fought-over foreskin kicks off today with news on the breakout star in the nutritional galaxy, vitamin D. Since its Nobel Prize–winning debut as a cure for rickets in 1926, vitamin D has maintained a steady but unremarkable presence among the essential nutrients—residing in fatty fish and fortified milk, enjoying spontaneous production in fair-skinned, sunlit humans, and as always, keeping rickets at bay. But thanks to the findings of U.S. scientists, vitamin D has leapt off the nutritional C list to become an A-list superstar. Details come from the Los Angeles Times, which finds scientists ready to credit vitamin D with everything from infection-fighting superpowers to the ability to prevent diabetes, multiple sclerosis, and schizophrenia. And while researchers remain cloudy on the exact secret of D, numerous studies point to the vitamin's wide-ranging effects on a vast array of the body's processes, with scientists finding vitamin-D receptors in practically "every type of human cell, from brain to bones." Most impressively, this includes cancer cells, which reportedly bond with vitamin D, and then receive the command to stop growing. So how does the average American harness the power of this allegedly cancer-killing, immunity-enhancing, diabetes-preventing supercompound? Strategically, say researchers, many of whom believe the FDA should consider a "radical increase" in the suggested daily intake of the vitamin, which is currently set between 200 to 600 IU depending on a subject's age. Instead, scientists are proposing a minimum of 1,000 IU per day for all ages, with citizens encouraged to aim for between 1,000 and 2,000 IU a day from a combination of fish, fortified food, and supplements. As for D's almost impossible promise as a 21st-century miracle drug: "Even if two-thirds of these things don't pan out," says Dr. Robert Heaney, a professor of medicine at Creighton University in Omaha, "it's still a blockbuster."

TUESDAY, JUNE 13 Speaking of potential blockbusters: Among the many placidly presented horrors of Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth is footage of a polar bear swimming through ice-free waters, while our narrator shares statistics on such bears drowning due to an increasing lack of terrain. Today this upsetting tale received a hideous twist, thanks to a new study conducted by scientists in the U.S. and Canada, which found that longer seasons without ice may be driving polar bears in the southern Beaufort Sea to cannibalism. As the Associated Press reports, longer ice-free seasons prevent bears from getting to their natural food (primarily ringed seals) and limit the time bears can spend feeding, mating, and giving birth (all of which is carried out on sea ice). "This is not a Coca-Cola commercial," said Deborah Williams of Alaska Conservation Solutions to the AP. "This represents the brutal downside of global warming."

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 14 The week continues with a creepy court battle between divorced parents in Chicago, details of which come from the AP. On one side is the mom, who longs to have the ex-couple's 8-year-old son circumcised, to prevent the "recurring, painful inflammation" the boy's reportedly experienced over the past year. On the other is the dad, who insists on keeping his son's foreskin intact, and who blasts his ex-wife's claims of inflammation as hooey. Earlier this year, Cook County Judge Jordan Kaplan ordered the mother not to have the boy circumcised until he could hear from both parents and doctors who've examined the boy, and today Judge Kaplan heard from everyone, including the mom (who stuck by her inflammation claims), the dad (who blasted the proposed procedure as "butchery"), and a handful of doctors and lawyers (who contradicted each other to no great end). Unseen and unheard: the unfortunate 8-year-old, the fate of whose penis now rests in the hands of a Cook County judge.

THURSDAY, JUNE 15 Speaking of dicks undergoing renovation: Today brought official confirmation of the hot, Latin-flavored makeover soon to be administered to the Catholic Church. Today in Los Angeles, a group of Roman Catholic bishops voted 173 to 29 to change the wording of many of the prayers and blessings that make up daily Catholic Mass, thus honoring a 2001 Vatican directive issued by Pope John Paul II demanding a Mass that more closely adhered to the Latin text. As the New York Times reports, the new dash of Latin spice is sure to upset many Catholics, who "have committed the current prayer book to heart and to memory and who take comfort in its more conversational cadences." And while some of the soon-to-be-adopted changes are minor and even kinda nice (the familiar reciprocal blessing "The Lord be with you/And also with you" will become the more poetic "The Lord be with you/And with your spirit"), others are indeed clunky downers. To cite one NYT example, the familiar pre-Communion prayer "Lord, I am not worthy to receive you" will become the even more hair-shirty "Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof." (Which is why God comes down the chimney.) To their credit, the bishops rejected about 60 of the proposed changes, including the tweaking of the Nicene Creed phrase "one in being with the Father" to "consubstantial with the Father." ("'Consubstantial' is a theological expression requiring explanation for many," noted the bishops, who clearly resent being required to explain anything.) Still: "The priests are going to be the ones on the firing line who will have to explain this [to the congregants]," said Reverend Thomas J. Reese to the NYT. "They're going to have to defend something they don't even like." (Considering they've been doing it for centuries with celibacy, this shouldn't be too hard.)

FRIDAY, JUNE 16 Nothing happened today, unless you count the 14,880 seconds spent in Seattle by President Bush, who used his four hours and eight minutes to meet with two military families who'd sacrificed sons to the Iraq war, and attend a private reception in Medina to raise money for the reelection campaign of Republican Representative David Reichert, where people paid $10,000 a pop to be photographed with the dumbest fuck to ever stink up the Oval Office.

•• Meanwhile in Iraq: A suspected shoe bomber blew himself up inside one of Baghdad's most prominent mosques, killing 13 people.

SATURDAY, JUNE 17 Nothing happened today, including the destruction of anything by Hurricane Alberto, which was mercifully downgraded to a tropical storm.

SUNDAY, JUNE 18 The week ends with Father's Day, the annual commemoration of those men who've sacrificed their independence for one of the most challenging jobs in the world, for which anyone with a penis can apply. Three cheers for the men who manage to do the job well (such as Last Days' father, Walter, who taught us everything we know about beer, manual transmissions, and the art of the affectionate insult), plus a kicky bit of trivia from The Book of Useless Information, which contends that more collect calls are made on Father's Day than any other day of the year. Is this proof of men's continued reliance on their dads, or just a byproduct of so many young dads residing in the collect-calling hell of prison? Ask your father.

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