Embracing the Risk

Attacking the First Amendment

2012-01-20T20:21:00.001-08:00

Just last week Obama's justice department experienced a 9-0 drubbing at the Supreme Court in which the administration tried to dramatically increase government control over religion. This wasn't just a decision that went against Obama's justice department on a technicality. The idea they were proferring (that the government can interfere in who religions appoint to teach their faith) was roundly criticized by even Obama's own appointees as "extreme," "remarkable" and "untenable."

And so, a couple days later, the Obama Administration issued a proclamation honoring religious freedom. One might be forgiven for thinking that they had heard the rebuke and the first amendment would be safe. Alas, such thinking would be naive.

Instead the Obama Administration turned around 9 days after the 9-0 defeat at the Supreme Court and 7 days after issuing the proclamation on religious freedom and finalized the next point of attack in their war on religious freedom in the US. This time they are targeting religious organizations that believe that either contraception is wrong or that life begins at conception and killing early embryos is immoral. Specifically, the Department of Health and Human Services is requiring that all employers, including religious employers, cover all HHS defined contraceptives including Plan B (the morning after pill) and Ella (the week after pill that is "chemically similar to RU-486" and according to the FDA clearly caused abortions in rats and rabbits.

Thomas Farr, director of the Religious Freedom Project at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs, had this to say. “Kathleen Sebelius says her decision to require Catholic colleges, hospitals and charitable associations to provide contraceptive and abortion-inducing drugs respects religious freedom. How so? They have a year to get in line, or get out of business.”

What does the Obama Administration have to gain by attacking the First Amendment once more right on the heels of a 9-0 defeat for the same thing? I don't see it myself.

References:
----------------------
Hosanna Tabor vs. EEOC
http://www.becketfund.org/eeoc-v-hosanna-tabor-evangelical-lutheran-church-and-school-michigan-2010-%E2%80%93-current/
http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/hosanna-tabor-evangelical-lutheran-church-and-school-v-eeoc/
http://www.pewforum.org/Church-State-Law/The-Supreme-Court-Takes-Up-Church-Employment-Disputes-and-the-%E2%80%9CMinisterial-Exception%E2%80%9D.aspx
*as a note, the Pew Forum got it wrong in their prebrief analysis when they said that the Obama Justice Dept. supported the ministerial exemption. That was the assumption based on the 6th circuit decision, but the Justice Dept. went off the rails in a later briefing and rejected the ministerial exemption outright. This is not covered in the Pew Forum's Sept. analysis of the case.
http://www.jewishtimes.com/index.php/jewishtimes/news/jt/national_news/jewish_groups_welcome_courts_ministerial_exception/29168
-----------------
Colorado Christian College vs. Sebelius
Belmont Abbey College vs. Sebelius
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/01/17/catholic-christian-colleges-challenge-contraception-coverage-clause

Merry Christmas, Everybody!

2011-12-22T21:15:00.000-08:00

From Stevie and Sophia Pinheads, and all the Pinhead Clan!

Origins of the Jewish Holiday Tree

2011-11-30T13:27:00.000-08:00

Lincoln Chaffee has offended some people by insisting on calling the Statehouse Christmas tree a “Holiday” tree. Now, some of us may be wondering why all the fuss? After all, lots of religions other than Christianity decorate trees with lights and ornaments and put them up in their homes this time of year. Now, thanks to the intrepid reporters at the Colbert Report, we have finally uncovered the true origins of the Hanukkah tree as seen in the picture below.

So, you see, calling our seasonal, coniferous, living room decoration a Christmas tree instead of a Holiday tree is really just WASPy prejudice. All religions are basically the same, right down to the little trees they decorate and place in their living rooms and their desire to pollute their most holy days with crass
commercialism while ignoring the true meaning of the holiday.

Next in our series on the origins of the Holiday tree: the Kwanza and Diwali trees. Because inventing history is far more interesting than pretending our culture appeared out of thin air 10 years ago.

Marriage and the Single Life in Theology and Practice

2011-11-23T17:33:00.000-08:00

In the past, I have attempted a tongue-in-cheek explanation for why so many women who want to marry end up single and frustrated. Today I'm going to attempt to critique a much smaller subset of the problem, though one that I think is important for several reasons.

By basically ignoring passages in Scripture such as I Corinthians 7:1-9 and never developing a robust theology and practice of the consecrated single life, Protestantism condemns numerous women to either 1) a lifetime of seemingly purposeless singlehood/second class life compared to married people or 2) marrying men who are entirely unserious about their faith.

Throughout history the percentage of men who are serious about their faith has always been smaller than the percentage of women, especially after leaving the home. In the Catholic and Orthodox worlds, offering the option of becoming a nun to young women helps to balance the marriage market and increases the odds of young women finding a partner with whom they can be "equally yoked."

It is incredibly ironic to me that a subset of Christianity which has accepted contraception, in practice even the kind that sometimes stops implantation, has no visible representation of the consecrated single life which Scripture and the early church recommend so highly. I suppose though, it makes sense that a society which finds it unrealistic for married people to practice periodic abstinence would also have difficulty creating a vibrant culture where the unmarried could enjoy a meaningful, joyful sexless existence while feeling just as valued in their churches as their married comrades.

Anyway, that's my reaction to having been on both sides of the Protestant/Historic Christianity divide and hearing far more Protestant women complain bitterly about the lack of Godly men than Catholic/Orthodox. While the pain of not finding one's spouse/vocation can be visceral and real on both sides of the 16th century theological divide (especially in today's culture where many men are still living the life of an adolescent into their thirties), in my limited experience, it seems to run deeper and to be more common on the Protestant side of things... and the only (mainstream) answer seems to be "Don't Give Up on Marriage," which strikes me as entirely inadequate.

Flat Tax? 9-9-9?

2011-10-20T10:52:00.000-07:00

Is this the year when a scrap-and-rewrite of the tax code will finally come to reality? It seems like a rite of passage in the Republican primaries for at least one less-popular candidate to get attention by announcing some version of tax simplification. This year we've got two. Herman Cain started the fun with his 9-9-9 tax proposal. Rick Perry is now trying to resurrect his campaign with a more "traditional" flat-tax proposal.

I can't imagine either plan ever being enacted, even in a modified form, and I'm not at all sure I would want either one, or anything like them. But, I've had a difficult time clearly understanding my hesitancy. Scott Adams (he of the Dilbert comics) helped me out today with a post on his blog.

Flat Tax

The quote that really stood out to me:

"I think most people like the idea of a simpler tax code. No argument there. But I've never met a person who would volunteer to pay higher taxes in exchange for simplicity."

He goes on to explain that these ideas play on a vague impression many of us have that the rich in our country pay a lower tax rate than the middle class, because they find some way to trick the system. That may be true for a few, but it is probably not true for most.

If we are going to simplify the tax code, I think we need to do it gradually over about 20 years, systematically removing tax exemptions, addon taxes, and other tax complexities, and compensating for each change with slight increases in the base tax rates.

Adams also makes a great point about the use of the word "fair", and how both sides of the argument use it for their own purposes. It has not real meaning in itself (it means whatever the hearer thinks it should mean), but it carries great emotional power. That gives it a unique power to be divisive.

What do you think? Do you have a great suggestion for revolutionizing our tax code? How would you define "fair" taxation? Flat tax? Progressive tax? Something else?

Mark

Abraham, Noah, Pain and Suffering

2011-09-23T22:47:00.000-07:00

Some people listen to music while at work. I've never been very musically inclined, but I like to listen to Radiolab while doing something that doesn't require my full attention. I was listening to Robert Krulwich's sermon on Abraham, Isaac and Mount Moriah this afternoon while putting together an FE model, and something struck me: well, lots of things actually. His telling of the story is probably the most thoughtful and impassioned I have ever heard in my life. While a Christian could not but say that Mr. Krulwich misses something by not being able to shed the light of Hebrews on the telling of the tale, still, it is moving, thoughtful and the best I've ever heard. Along the way, when telling the story of Abraham and Isaac on Mt. Moriah, he mentions a bit of the story of Noah that really caught my attention.

He tells of how Noah was the holiest man on the earth, how God spoke to him and told him to build an ark, and how Noah obeyed. Noah obeyed God in a way that I doubt I would ever have the faith to do. He obeyed in the midst of mocking from his peers while doing something that appeared to all rational creatures as a totally ludicrous and even stupid act. And he kept it up for a hundred years or so (I forget the exact amount of time). Anyway, then, with Noah and 2 or 7 of every animal in the ark, God kills everything else on the earth. If we think of the pleading that Abraham did for Sodom and Gomorah, and if we think of the pleading that we would do for our relatives and loved ones who have turned their backs on God, that had to have hurt. Noah had to have hurt. Robert Krulwich posits that you can't be a good man and not question "Why?!?!" at a time like that. No matter how much we trust in the omnipotence of God, he has made us to seek understanding, and a mark of the goodness of our humanity is to hurt and question why in times like that.

And so, it is that light which helps bring understanding to another of the most puzzling passages of Scripture I've run across in all my life. What did Noah do after he got out of the ark? Well, the first thing he did after sacrificing to God in thanksgiving for saving him and his family was to plant a vineyard. And with the grapes from that vineyard he made wine. And with the wine he went and got wasted. Not just drunk, but sloppy drunk. Not just sloppy drunk, but hammered, wasted, blasted, bombed and tanked: he passes out half naked in his tent. The holiest man on the earth. A man far holier and better than I will ever be. A man willing to obey God to a degree I doubt I ever will got hammered and passed out half naked on the ground: committing a sin that I swore to myself long, long ago I would never commit. How could he fall like that?

And then one of Noah's sons comes along, sees Noah passed out in his indecency and makes fun of him to his brothers. Noah, upon finding out about it, curses him. And apparently, God agrees. This was another part of the story that I've never understood. I mean, the man was hammered. I don't know how many readers out there have ever seen their own father drunk, but speaking for myself, I have never hated my father more, nor respected him less, than when he was drunk. Now, I know being disrespectful to one's parents is bad, but was it really that bad? Did it really deserve a curse not just for himself but for his descendants. I mean, look at what Noah did. The guy got drunk and made a darn fool of himself. He sinned, for crying out loud. Doesn't Scripture say that drunkards won't go to heaven? Doesn't it say that we are not to get drunk but to be filled with the Spirit? Doesn't it say, "Do not drink wine to excess or let drunkenness go with you on your way." Yes, it does. So, from my perspective, in my experience, the punishment does not fit the crime. At all. If God is a just God, if Noah was a just man, how could his son and all his son's descendants get cursed for one lousy slip, when his dad had so grievously sinned himself? The double standard invokes a palpable sense of outrage in so many people, especially those whose parents have struggled with drink.

So, for me, this is where Krulwich's sermon helps make sense of the story in a way that I had never seen before. Noah didn't just go out and get hammered one day. He saw and experienced the death and destruction of the entire world. He watched as his neighbors and relatives made fun of him for decade upon decade upon decade as he built the ark. Then he watched as they were all put to death by God via drowning or starvation: them, and their teenagers, and their toddlers, and their babies and their children in the womb, and their pets and every friggin' animal on earth that wasn't in the ark. He sat there in his safe little boat while they all suffered and died: every blasted one of them. Innocent or guilty. Past the age of reason, below the age of reason and incapable at any age of reason. He watched as God killed them all, and almost the first thing he did after he got out of that ark was to plant a vineyard. And the first thing he did after harvesting those grapes was to make wine and get wasted.

And that brought to mind another passage of Scripture that has always bothered me.

[4] It is not for kings, O Lemuel,
it is not for kings to drink wine,
or for rulers to desire strong drink;
[5] lest they drink and forget what has been decreed,
and pervert the rights of all the afflicted.
[6] Give strong drink to him who is perishing,
and wine to those in bitter distress;
[7] let them drink and forget their poverty,
and remember their misery no more.
Proverbs 31: 4-7

Is there anyone with more misery to forget than Noah?

Yesterday, I thought Noah acted like a stupid fool and sinned against God when he went and got wasted. I thought his son got a pretty raw deal when he and all his descendants got cursed for mocking the old man. Today, I'm not so sure. Today, I'm wondering if whether the reason Noah went and got wasted was precisely because he was a good and holy man who suffered unimaginable anguish when God killed all his neighbors and relatives, guilty or innocent. Today, I'm wondering of the reason his son was cursed was because he wasn't a good and holy man and his own anguish at the suffering of others was shallow or nonexistent. Perhaps, he was bitter and angry for all the times he had been mocked for obeying his father and helping him out in the crazy task God had given to Noah. Whatever the case, it is certainly true that he didn't understand the depths of his own father's misery and pain.

And so I thank Robert Krulwich for helping to shed light on a series of stories which had always puzzled me. It is hard to make sense of the pain and suffering in our lives. Even in the light of the suffering of God's own Son, it is hard. And it is helpful for me to realize that even the Giants of the faith, whom I could never measure up to, struggled with the same things.

What do you think?

Religion and Epidemics

2011-09-03T02:36:00.000-07:00

I found this article on epidemics and religion fascinating in light of Rodney Stark's theories in The Rise of Christianity.

An Interview with Shaun Groves

2011-08-25T00:18:00.001-07:00

Shaun Groves is releasing a new album called Third World Symphony with songs drawn from his numerous years working for Compassion International and leading blogger mission trips/tours to see the work that Compassion does in developing countries. If you want to learn more about how this album came to be, there is a brief video here. It's worth a look.

As part of the record promotion, Shaun is allowing bloggers to interview him and ask 3 questions. All my questions focus on Compassion's work, so if you want a background on what child sponsorship is, you can read about that here.

Switch Interview
Case {'Q1','Question_1'}
sprintf('%s',...
'Doug: Having been in several third world countries, do you ever
get the feeling that educational advancement is outpacing economic
development in certain countries? I’m not speaking about the value
of education in and of itself (my wife has a bachelors in
engineering and stays home with our 4 kids). I’m speaking of the
utilitarian quality of people being able to use their education
in the working world when they get a paying job.

Shaun: I haven't been traveling long enough to notice a change in
the value of education. So, I cannot answer the pacing portion of
the question. But I can speak to the value of education provided
by Compassion. In addition to receiving a standard education -
the kind I received, reading writing, social studies, science, math,
language, etc - child served by Compassion receive vocational
training. Every community, child and family is different. Some will
be able to put their science studies to use, go to college, work
in the sciences. Others will do the same with language, math, etc.
But some students will work as cobblers, repairmen, beauticians,
barbers, farmers - and for these jobs a basic education is
certainly valuable but the more technical vocational training they
receive because of Compassion's sponsorships program is priceless.

Compassion's aim is to develop the whole child, in part to
foster independence. In the cognitive and economic realms both
a basic education and a vocational training are essential to reaching
this goal.')

Case {'Q2','Question_2'}
sprintf('%s',...
Doug: How do the sponsored kids you've met refer to their
sponsors? I've heard many people refer to their sponsored
kids as "our kids" or "our grandkids" but that has never felt right
to me. I understand the sentiment, but the kids already have
parents, and I feel that would be a slight to their parents, many
of whom are working extremely hard to provide for their family in
circumstances I can't even imagine having lived my entire life in
the US. At the same time sponsored kid/sponsor, pen pal and other
titles seem impersonal and inadequate to describe the unique,
long-distance friendship that can develop over the many years of
sponsorship. How do kids you have met in Compassion's program
describe their sponsors? What sorts of titles and descriptions do
they use to describe the people and the relationship that develops?

Shaun: Almost every sponsored child I've ever talked to simply
calls their sponsor their "sponsor." But, once, when I was in
Ethiopia, I was at a Compassion child development center on the
day that a sponsor was coming to visit their sponsored child. A
party was planned with cake and balloons. And all around the
center were signs welcoming the child's "mother." It bothered me
so I asked the center's director about it and he explained that
in their culture caregivers are called "mother" or "father" - not
only the man and woman who conceived the child. So, culturally,
it was not at all strange that a sponsor, someone who had been
part of caring for a child, would be called "mother" or "father."
It was an honorable thing for the Ethiopian staff and child to do.')

Case {'Q3','Question_3'}
sprintf('%s',...
Doug: Does Compassion have numerical goals for sponsorship in
individual communities? If so, what sorts of factors go into
making that decision? For instance, does Compassion aim to
simply sponsor everyone who needs help, or do they aim for a
percentage of kids before moving on (e.g. 50% of kids in poverty,
etc.). Does Compassion prefer to spread out the help throughout
the many countries they serve or to saturate particular areas to
provide more concentrated help? What sorts of things go into
such the decision to grow a particular program or to start a new
program?

Shaun: As far as I know there is no percentage goal. Each country
arrives at measures to define the poorest of the poor. Church
partners in communities where these poorest children live are
sought after. And once the partnership exists, Compassion staff
work closely with the church to locate and register the poorest
children in that church's community.

For instance, Compassion's work in India and the Philippines
began in East India and Northern Philippines where there were
more church partners and plenty of impoverished children to
serve. But the long term goal is to grow out from these regions
into Western India and Southern Philippines where there is also
a great deal of poverty but where there are fewer churches with
which to partner. There is no percentage goal that I'm aware of
in place. The progression across the country is a practical one
- start where there are qualified church partners surrounded by
impoverished children and as progress is made in these regions
continue that work but expand to areas where the work will be a
bit harder due to there being fewer potential church partners.')

End % Switch Interview

If you've read this far, I hope you found that helpful and informative. Thanks to Shaun Groves for taking the time to read and answer my rather verbose questions. If you want to listen to or purchase Shaun's latest album, that would be fabulous. If by some miracle you want to change a child's life through Compassion's Child Sponsorship Program, that would be even better.

Fox News, That Bastion of Left-Wing Media

2011-08-17T17:12:00.001-07:00

Yes, you read that title correctly. Jon Stewart nailed this on Monday. I'll let him do the talking.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Indecision 2012 - Corn Polled Edition - Ron Paul & the Top Tier

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show Full Episodes

Political Humor & Satire Blog

The Daily Show on Facebook

Mark

Why the Apostles Didn't Read Their Bibles/Torahs

2011-08-16T01:16:00.000-07:00

Scott Kistler posted a month ago about efforts to evangelize people in oral cultures. There seems be be some amount of debate about the best methods to go about doing this. What struck me at the time was the total absence of reference to the early church's methodology. Here was a group of people with almost unparalleled success in evangelism. They literally took Christianity from a rag-tag band of at most 100 misfits to half the Roman Empire in just 300 years. While perhaps one can point to the evangelism of the New World in Spanish speaking territories as another highly successful example of evangelism to an oral culture (7 million converts in less than 10 years), that happened in the wake of the apparition at Guadalupe and was not something whose methods can ever be duplicated or used as a pattern. I really can't think of another outreach to an oral culture that was as consistently successful as what was accomplished by the Holy Spirit through the early Church, so I would think that people studying this would give it more attention than they do.

That got me thinking that perhaps the reason the early church gets short shrift is the extreme reliance in some Protestant circles on the extraBiblical doctrine of Sola Scriptura. People look at the book of Acts and say, "The Bereans went home and read for themselves what the Prophets said, and that is what we need to do." This is assumed to be taken as the pattern for what we should all do as individuals. Therefore, any evangelistic activity that does not bring the individual into close personal literary contact with the Scriptures is doing something dangerous and setting these people up for a fall.

However, I think if one looks at the passage closely, one sees that things were really quite different than what is conveyed in the popular imagination. The Scriptures say in Acts 17, "[10] The brethren immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Beroe'a; and when they arrived they went into the Jewish synagogue. [11] Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessaloni'ca, for they received the word with all eagerness, examining the scriptures daily to see if these things were so. [12] Many of them therefore believed, with not a few Greek women of high standing as well as men."

Notice where the preaching was done: in the synagogue. That is also where the examination of Scriptures was done. Ancient Jewish culture, Roman culture, Greek culture, and indeed all ancient cultures were oral cultures in very important ways. They had to be, because the cost of books meant only the most wealthy could own one personally. All reading and study of the Scriptures was done in community because books were scarce and extraordinarily expensive resources. People might ponder the Scriptures when at home or at prayer, but they didn't actually study them on their own. That's why we read in several places about Jesus going off by himself to pray, but we never read about him going off by himself to read the Scriptures. He couldn't have afforded it and neither could his disciples. Pretty much nobody, not Jesus, not the apostles, not anyone but the most wealthy could have afforded to have the Scriptures in their home. Incidentally, I haven't read this and don't know it for a fact, but I would doubt that any but the oldest and most established house churches could have afforded a complete set of the Scriptures. Given growth rates in the early church, I think this pretty much precludes a large percentage of congregations from obtaining a complete set of the Scriptures in the earliest years. They would have had to share and pass around well-worn copies until they grew enough to be able to afford a full set, which also strikes me as a great promoter of unity... but I digress.

The point is that the study of Scripture during the most sustained growth ever experienced in Christian history was entirely communal in nature, and this has tremendous repercussions on how they would have viewed interpretive authority. The primary reason for discomfort with oral methods among Protestants, I believe, lies in the difference conceptions of the place of interpretive authority between the early Church and Protestantism.

Protestantism says, "4. Will we clarify for them that, although all other holy books may have some helpful religious insights, nevertheless they do not have any final authority from God, but only the Bible does?"

The pre-100 AD church said, "But I shall not be unwilling to put down, along with my interpretations, whatsoever instructions I received with care at any time from the elders, and stored up with care in my memory, assuring you at the same time of their truth. For I did not, like the multitude, take pleasure in those who spoke much, but in those who taught the truth; nor in those who related strange commandments, but in those who rehearsed the commandments given by the Lord to faith, and proceeding from truth itself. If, then, any one who had attended on the elders came, I asked minutely after their sayings,--what Andrew or Peter said, or what was said by Philip, or by Thomas, or by James, or by John, or by Matthew, or by any other of the Lord's disciples: which things Aristion and the presbyter John, the disciples of the Lord, say. For I imagined that what was to be got from books was not so profitable to me as what came from the living and abiding voice."

and the early 100's church said, "See that ye all follow the bishop, even as Jesus Christ does the Father, and the presbytery as ye would the apostles; and reverence the deacons, as being the institution of God. Let no man do anything connected with the Church without the bishop. Let that be deemed a proper Eucharist, which is[administered] either by the bishop, or by one to whom he has entrusted it. Wherever the bishop shall appear, there let the multitude[of the people] also be; even as, wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church. It is not lawful without the bishop either to baptize or to celebrate a love-feast; but whatsoever he shall approve of, that is also pleasing to God, so that everything that is done may be secure and valid."

and the late 100's church said, "It is within the power of all, therefore, in every Church, who may wish to see the truth, to contemplate clearly the tradition of the apostles manifested throughout the whole world; and we are in a position to reckon up those who were by the apostles instituted bishops in the Churches, and [to demonstrate] the succession of these men to our own times; those who neither taught nor knew of anything like what these [heretics] rave about. For if the apostles had known hidden mysteries, which they were in the habit of imparting to "the perfect" apart and privily from the rest, they would have delivered them especially to those to whom they were also committing the Churches themselves. For they were desirous that these men should be very perfect and blameless in all things, whom also they were leaving behind as their successors, delivering up their own place of government to these men; which men, if they discharged their functions honestly, would be a great boon [to the Church], but if they should fall away, the direst calamity.

2. Since, however, it would be very tedious, in such a volume as this, to reckon up the successions of all the Churches, we do put to confusion all those who, in whatever manner, whether by an evil self-pleasing, by vainglory, or by blindness and perverse opinion, assemble in unauthorized meetings; [we do this, I say,] by indicating that tradition derived from the apostles, of the very great, the very ancient, and universally known Church founded and organized at Rome by the two most glorious apostles, Peter and Paul; as also [by pointing out] the faith preached to men, which comes down to our time by means of the successions of the bishops. For it is a matter of necessity that every Church should agree with this Church, on account of its pre- eminent authority,6 that is, the faithful everywhere, inasmuch as the apostolical tradition has been preserved continuously by those [faithful men] who exist everywhere."

So, what's the point? Are the Scriptures not to be read by individuals, now that books are cheap and we have the opportunity? Of course they should be regularly read by individuals. The Scriptures are the Word of God, supremely authoritative for our lives. However, I think there is a danger in pridefully imagining that because we have personal access to the Scriptures, we actually understand the gospel better than those who relied primarily on congregational reading and preaching to learn about Christ, or better than the bishop God placed over us.

My main point in writing this is to point out how odd it is that people who acknowledge that the world of Jesus was an oral world and spend millions on conferences sharing the latest methods to spread the gospel in oral cultures have near zero interest in the most sustainably successful evangelistic effort to oral learners of all time. I suspect it is because what Newman wrote 100 years ago is as true today as it was back then, "And this utter incongruity between Protestantism and historical Christianity is a plain fact, whether the latter be regarded in its earlier or in its later centuries. Protestants can as little bear its Ante-nicene as its Post-tridentine period."

What's in a name?

2011-07-21T17:43:00.001-07:00

Glenn Beck recently commented on Campus Crusade for Christ's decision to change their name to Cru, saying,

"They decided Christ might be offensive. . . . They decided Christ could be offensive and Crusade has negative connotations. So what are they now? Campus? No. No, that was too focused; it was more global than local. So, after 60 years, what did the organization decide? The 3-letter word 'Cru.'"

He went on to joke about how they would no longer be talking about Jesus Christ or telling what He did because it might be offensive.

According to Cru's FAQs about the name change,

"Although the words Campus and Crusade served as hindrances, there was never any intentional decision to remove the word “Christ.” Yet as we considered hundreds of name possibilities, our experience confirmed that Cru would provide greater opportunity to connect men and women with the heart of Jesus, and to help them consider the good news of the gospel.

For those who may be concerned we have lost moorings, please rest assured that we are the same organization with over 6 billion exposures to the gospel through the JESUS film, and who on any given day counts up to a million exposures to the gospel via the internet and face-to-face contacts around the world.

As an organization, we exist for the sole purpose of helping individuals experience the transforming grace and forgiveness of the gospel through Jesus Christ."

and

"We were not trying to eliminate the word Christ from our name."

Yet on Glenn Beck's show, in the comments thread under his post titled, "Campus Crusade for Christ drops ‘Christ’ from the title" (which makes it sound like they just changed the name to "Campus Crusade" instead of completely changing the name), in posts from friends on Facebook and elsewhere, I have seen people in an uproar over what they believe to be a denial of Christ and a belief by the organization that the name and message of Christ is offensive.

Words like "apostacy" and "antichrist" are being used to refer to CCC/Cru, and many people have stated publicly that they are withdrawing their previous support for the organization--all over a name change!

People are quoting passages like "If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father's glory with the holy angels." Mark 8:38 and "But whoever denies me before men, I will deny before my Father in heaven." Matthew 10:33

As far as I can tell, the doctrine and mission of the organization has not changed.

My church doesn't have the word Christ in its name, but that doesn't mean it thinks Christ is offensive or doesn't teach the Gospel unashamedly.

What do you think about this?

Has anyone seen any evidence that anyone speaking for CCC/Cru has actually stated that they changed the name with the specific purpose of removing the word Christ and/or that they feel the name of Christ is offensive?

New rules regarding vaccine exemptions

2011-06-20T15:58:00.000-07:00

There are several new laws in various states regarding vaccine exemptions recently.

You can see the new and old versions of the vaccine exemption forms for one state here.

Previously, a medical provider was only required to sign the form for medical exemptions. Now, as of July 22, 2011, a medical provider has to sign the form for all exemptions except for one very narrow and strictly-defined type of religious exemption.

There is a limited list of approved health care providers, and all of them routinely charge for visits.

Some clinics are requiring separate appointments for each child to get the forms signed even if they have previously given the parents information about the benefits and risks of vaccines. So there may be a significant cost in money and time off work, etc. to fulfill this requirement.

The reality is that for many people this law is going to result in doctor appointments that otherwise wouldn’t have been needed in order to get their forms signed. Some families will not be able to afford this cost.

Even before this law was passed, health care providers were already required by law to give parents information about the benefits and risks of vaccines. The point of this law has nothing to do with making sure people are making an informed decision, and everything to do with simply making vaccine exemptions more difficult.

My child was not due for any doctor appointment this year (I actually called to make an appointment, and they told me she wasn’t due for her next well-child check until next year). But our pediatrician’s office said that they cannot sign the form without a well-child visit for that child in the current year.

So we had to make an otherwise-unnecessary appointment specifically to get the signature on the exemption form. We had already discussed it extensively with the doctor and received plenty of information, and agreed to hold off on one of the newly-required vaccines until the child is a bit older, although all the other vaccines are current.

Even with insurance, it’s costing me half a day and a copay just to get a signature saying that the doctor did what he was required to do.

Multiply that by the number of children, and it can become quite costly in missed work and/or school as well as financially.

Considering that medical providers were already required by law to discuss the benefits and risks of vaccines with parents, this seems unreasonable to me.

What do you think?

Apple Censors Historical Christianity as Hate Speech

2011-06-08T01:36:00.000-07:00

Apple has such a tightly woven and well designed suite of products. I've seriously considered getting one or more of their products recently, but one thing always holds me back. Apple has taken it upon themselves censor robust and intellectual expressions of historical Christianity as hate speech. Of course, they don't do this with all Christian apps, but they have done so with the Manhattan Declaration app. Honestly, I figured when this happened that Apple would get egg on their face and back off. However, it's been over half a year and Apple doesn't seem to be backing off. Further, they seem to be completely recalcitrant to rational efforts of persuasion. And thus my quandry. I really like Apple products, but I refuse to purchase from a company that labels historical Christianity as hate speech and censors the free, robust and respectful expression of that faith. It bothers me that a company like Apple can so freely censor peoples' respectful expression of faith and continue their march on to ever greater profits. It bothers me more that the media would be running nonstop coverage of a similar group of liberals had put together a controversial app, but journalists ignore censorship when the people being censored are their political and religious enemies, and it is Steve Jobs doing the censoring.

http://www.manhattandeclaration.org/home.aspx

Positive, Realistic Reform of the Sexual Revolution

2011-03-24T12:06:00.000-07:00

Ross Douthat has a couple of interesting articles recently on the sexual revolution and what recovering some restraint in this area does to society (e.g., it makes people happier). I'm too busy to comment much, so I'll mostly reproduce some extended quotes that capture some of the more salient points.

"Among the young people Regnerus and Uecker studied, the happiest women were those with a current sexual partner and only one or two partners in their lifetime. Virgins were almost as happy, though not quite, and then a young woman’s likelihood of depression rose steadily as her number of partners climbed and the present stability of her sex life diminished.

When social conservatives talk about restoring the link between sex, monogamy and marriage, they often have these kinds of realities in mind...

This is what’s at stake, for instance, in debates over abstinence-based sex education. Successful abstinence-based programs (yes, they do exist) don’t necessarily make their teenage participants more likely to save themselves for marriage. But they make them more likely to save themselves for somebody, which in turn increases the odds that their adult sexual lives will be a source of joy rather than sorrow.

It’s also what’s at stake in the ongoing battle over whether the federal government should be subsidizing Planned Parenthood. Obviously, social conservatives don’t like seeing their tax dollars flow to an organization that performs roughly 300,000 abortions every year. But they also see Planned Parenthood’s larger worldview — in which teen sexual activity is taken for granted, and the most important judgment to be made about a sexual encounter is whether it’s clinically “safe” — as the enemy of the kind of sexual idealism they’re trying to restore."
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/07/opinion/07douthat.html?_r=1

The treatment abstinence only programs get in the news media has always struck me as insincere. I've seen headlines that read "No Difference Between Abstinence Only and Regular Sex Ed Programs" that struck me as incredibly disingenuous. When you dig down, there were big differences. Besides, if there weren't differences in outcomes, why would the left be trying so hard to kill them when they account for such small portions of federal spending in this area? The STD incidence rates may be the same among both groups, but the number of sexual partners that the abstinence only ed groups have is measurably lower, and that makes a big difference in the quality of people's future relationships.

"Yes, an ethic of sexual restraint can be turned to patriarchal ends, but so can an ethic of sexual permissiveness, as anyone who’s hung out in a frat house for any length of time can attest. And the fact that smart feminists like Goldstein feel compelled to act all blasé about the pornography industry, lest they give an inch to the forces of reaction, seems like one of the more regrettable aspects of the contemporary cultural debate."
http://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/07/after-the-revolution/

The Nanny State Meets the Kid Bicyclist

2011-03-14T14:14:00.001-07:00

Last week I shared a laugh with a friend over a visit his wife received from the police. Apparently, a neighbor had called to report that his kids were riding their bikes in the street unsupervised. Oh the horror! Though the police couldn't actually ticket the family, they did show up to check on the situation and to warn the mother to make sure her kids were careful in their neighborhood wanderings. My friend and I had a good laugh, but I seriously wonder sometimes what has happened to our culture. As Anthony Esolen said, "you can deprive your child of a father and be cheered for it, but God help you if you let him ride a bike without a helmet"

Is it any wonder that obesity levels are rising in kids when the police show up over their riding their bikes in a rural neighborhood? Why the inordinate concern for suburban kids when ghetto kids walk can home from school surrounded by violence, drugs and prostitutes? We live in a society full of ludicrous dichotomies.

Increased Contraceptive Use Results in Increased Abortion Rates?

2011-01-23T03:04:00.000-08:00

From 1997-2007 Spain increased contraceptive use rates from 50% to 80%. They doubled the abortion rate over the same time period.
(Dueñas, et. al., Contraception, January 2011 - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21134508)

What gives? Apparently, people expected their contraceptives to work and planned their lives around that expectation. Apparently, they forgot that small risks taken repeatedly over long periods of time result in very large cumulative risks. A contraceptive method with a 1% failure rate results in a 70% chance of getting pregnant over 10 years. Or maybe they just don't understand the statistics of contraceptive use and most people who do are wedded to a theory of sexual freedom that doesn't allow them to point out such facts?
(Ross, Family Planning Perspectives, Nov/Dec. 1998 - http://www.jstor.org/pss/2135382)

As I see it, what matters most in a country's abortion rate is the attitude toward unplanned pregnancies. Are they welcomed or at least accepted? Are they viewed as unacceptable hindrances to one's goals in life? For too many people, children are an unacceptable hindrance. Yet, they are under the illusion that they can control their fertility, even over long periods of time, (e.g., from college through the establishment of one's career and marriage). No wonder New Yorkers have an abortion rate of 39%.

When it comes right down to it, abortion is just backup birth control half the time. That is to say, half of all abortions happen to women who were using contraceptives in the month they got pregnant. For the vast majority of the other half of abortion cases, it is the only birth control used. Hardly any abortions are due to the "hard cases."

As the Supreme Court noted in Planned Parenthood vs. Casey, "In some critical respects abortion is of the same character as the decision to use contraception." and "for two decades of economic and social developments, people have organized intimate relationships and made choices that define their views of themselves and their places in society, in reliance on the availability of abortion in the event that contraception should fail."

So, when I hear "experts" talk about increasing contraception use rates in the name of decreasing abortion, I gotta wonder if they know what they are talking about. If they don't, why are they the only "experts" one hears about in the MSM? If they do know what they are talking about, why don't they give the full picture. It's just not that simple. As Spain has reminded us once more, depending on the environment, increased contraceptive use can have exactly the opposite effect.

How Common is Muslim Extremism?

2011-01-14T21:45:00.000-08:00

Only 35% of Americans think that Islam encourages violence more than other religions? I guess that 65% must consist almost entirely of people who've never read about the widespread "radical" interpretations on waging Jihad against infidels. I can't imagine over 50% of the residents of any Hindu, Christian or Buddhist country supporting their own version of Osama Bin Laden or Al Qaida, yet over 50% of the population of several countries do just that. As of 2005, over 60% of Jordanians trusted Osama Bin Laden to do the "right thing" in international affairs.
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/26/where-terrorism-finds-support-in-the-muslim-world

Such viewpoints aren't merely violently extremist, they are characteristically Muslim and astoundingly widespread.

http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Opinion/2010/1014/War-on-terror-Obama-softened-the-language-but-hardened-Muslim-hearts

2010-11-16T21:10:00.000-08:00

I'd like to take this occasion to announce an addition to the Pinhead clan: not-so-little (eight pounds-plus and 20 inches) Sophia Ellen Pinhead, born at the birthing center at Group Health hospital on Capitol Hill, Seattle, on Tuesday, November 16, 2010, at 3:15 pm, Pacific time.

Steviepinhead's first grandchild.

Sigh.

A Mating Conundrum

2010-08-09T10:54:00.000-07:00

Here is my half-tongue-in-cheek theory on why so many men and women end up unmarried. In a nutshell, maturity lags eccentricity (especially for males). Also the way we socialize our youth focuses on entertainment, education and building careers when they are young which runs counter to our reproductive and mating needs as a species. For the average woman to marry, they must make a gamble on how the man will mature over time. If they delay doing this, their biological clock ticks ever more loudly, the pool gets smaller and smaller and they become even more set in their ways and inflexible on daily routines. For males, American bachelor culture teaches them all the wrong lessons and by the time they find out that being alone isn't all it was sold to them as when they were young, their lack of domestic influence has made them too slovenly/odd/socially clueless to attract a mate. They are left to either while away their time with a computer wishing they had grown up sooner or else find something mature and meaningful to do with their life. But what kind of meaningful life's work does society encourage or prepare slovenly/odd/socially clueless (i.e., undomesticated) men to do? For the most part, nada.

This plot is a slightly more hopeful look at the homo-sapien mating scene. Almost all men mature when they get married. Almost all men mature A LOT when they have kids. Men who stay unmarried for too long are often those who give up hope and regress or never matured in the first place.

The biggest takeaway from a plot comparing the ecentricity of married and unmarried men is that most people develop peculiar and tough to break habits as they get older. Getting married reduces this tendency dramatically among males but doesn't eliminate it. The best shot for women is to either be really flexible about this or marry young so they can have some say in how these peculiarities evolve.

Lastly, I've been told that I'm a poop for making a suggestion like this and criticized by both male and female. I'm not sure how to take that, except that I hit some slightly sensitive spots with some people who weren't married. This is humor. I'm not aiming this at any particular person. I do think that we have some serious problems as a society regarding our mating habits and how society doesn't encourage people to prepare well in this area. Anyway, if you want something impersonal to blame for the dissatisfaction on all sides, blame the pill or pornography or women's lib. Just, please, don't blame me. I'm more than willing to entertain alternative tongue-in-cheek theories(or even serious ones) as to the why of this situation, and I'm really not to blame for it in the first place.

Why Do the Kids Leave?

2010-08-03T08:16:00.000-07:00

"Our children and grandchildren are abandoning the faith because they perceive -- rightly -- that its demands are at fundamental variance with the lives we have prepared them to lead. We have raised them to seek lives characterized by material comfort, sexual fulfillment, and freedom from any obligations that they have not personally chosen. Should it surprise us that they fail to take seriously our claims to follow one who embraced poverty, chastity, and obedience to the will of God?"
-J. Peter Nixon

I'd probably add the term self-perceived in front of sexual fulfillment, though I'm not sure even that applies to most people. The point is a valid one nonetheless. We don't do a good job raising Christians as a subculture because we have adopted lifestyles and goals which make Jesus look like an self-oppressed freak to our children.

Legal Implications of Marriage

2010-07-27T18:40:00.000-07:00

In my response to Doug's post contemplating the pros and cons of ministers being agents of the state in performing marriage, I mentioned how nice it would be to have a list of the legal rights and responsibilities of marriage in the US.

I also mentioned that I'd never seen such a list which, as it turns out, was shamefully due to my own lack of looking.

In many respects, the list could be seen as the marriage contract itself, which makes me wonder how many people become aware of these before they marry.

"According to the United States Government Accountability Office (GAO), there are 1,138 statutory provisions in which marital status is a factor in determining benefits, rights, and privileges." In addition, there seems to be several hundred provisions in each state.

What may not be readily apparent is the core reasons why society allocates these various rights and responsibilities, and to what extent the government must be involved. There are a lot to go through and categorize, but I'm curious if any items stand out to you.

(1) Which items (should) discriminate by (differences in) gender? Is the act of sex or procreation relevant to any items?

(2) Which items (should) discriminate by count of spouses?

(3) Should individuals have the right to define membership in their union and family, with the government's rules merely respecting their definition?

(4) Should individuals and businesses have the right to discriminate based upon another's definition of "spouse" or "marriage" or "family" even if the government does not discriminate? e.g. based upon gender differences or sex or count?

Abortion: Coming to an OB-GYN Office Near You?

2010-07-19T11:53:00.000-07:00

The NYT writes about their future dream world, where abortionists are mainstream and their numbers are robust. They want this procedure to be done by OB-GYN's all over the country in the course of their regular practice. But how many pregnant women want to go to a doctor as comfortable with killing their offspring as delivering them live? Sure, some are comfortable with it, but not enough that this dream world will ever materialize. It just doesn't make good business sense to do both, especially in smaller communities that both trend conservative and also can't support a doctor who has been rejected by well over half his potential clients. Money drives decisions on how to arrange a medical practice, and this idea has lost profit written all over it. Of course, the abortion promoters at the NYT would never ask whether something like this makes actual business sense. Advocacy journalism doesn't ask the hard questions and has no qualms falsely accusing peaceful abortion protest groups of promoting violence.

Agent of the State, God or Both? -or- Why Gay Marriage is Potentially a Positive Development

2010-07-16T09:52:00.000-07:00

Who should officiate at weddings? Should civil and sacramental marriage be kept separate, or should they be synonymous? Currently, while a pastor can officiate, one still has to obtain the marriage license from the state. Is this a good thing? Stuart Koehl has an excellent essay briefly delving into these issues, especially as regards gay marriage.
http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2010/07/an-independent-witness-to-marriage

This conflation of roles strikes me as one of the key problems that the Church has had in maintaining a Christian view of marriage. If the Church acts as an agent of the State, then it is far too easy to cheapen marriage to conform to the broader cultural view of marriage, instead of that taught by Jesus. Coming up with juridical structures that can adjudicate a lawful "divorce" is terribly time and resource intensive. Much easier to simply let the state handle that messy business and officiate when one has a decent hunch that the marriage would be Christian... and that's when people bother to bring any form of Christian doctrine to bear at all on remarriage.

Are there risks in this separation of powers/duties? Absolutely. Currently, by combining State and Church, the State encourages married couples, albeit in a rather indirect way, to settle down and take their religion seriously. The formation of a family and presence of children is one of the best statistical indicators of religious attendance. If the Church is seen as less relevant to family formation, couples sitting on the fence regarding religious attendance will be less likely to give it a whirl and discover for themselves what life in Christ is all about. However, by conflating the roles of Church and State, Christians have also diluted the meaning and doctrine of marriage for the faithful. Is this trade worth it? Most often, people don't even consciously think about these decisions. It is just accepted as a byproduct of the culture we live in and given as much consideration as the air we breathe.

It would probably be useful to look at the example of the Orthodox churches in communist countries, as Church and State marriage were distinctly separate during that time and (I think) remain separate to this day. It isn't like this would be the first time such a separation has been maintained between State and Church recognition of marriage. Catholics have also maintained separate juridical structures and offered a distinctly different concept of heterosexual marriage from the state (think Henry VIII), and so the adjustment for them would in some ways be minimal. If this separation of powers were to be implemented, the biggest adjustment would be among Protestants, most of whom (in my limited experience) haven't thought deeply about what constitutes valid Christian marriage and the difficult, controversial and practical aspects of blessing Christian remarriage, for instance. The only thing a Protestant needs to do to get married after divorce is to change churches/states. Almost never is a denominational change required, because the structures/doctrines simply aren't in place to determine if one is "free" to marry, in the Christian sense. Shaking this complacency in letting the state make those determinations is no small feat, and it offers tremendous opportunity for Protestants to re-examine what Jesus really taught on marriage. Who knows, state recognition of gay marriage could end up being one of the best things that ever happened to Christians in this country.

Chinese Politics: Food for Thought

2010-07-15T09:43:00.000-07:00

http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20100714/cm_csm/314013

A Moderate Muslim Country Exemplifies Islam's Peacefulness

2010-07-13T01:17:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrjqyUQn3_s&feature=player_embedded

Bran Scans of Men Viewing Bikini Clad Women

2010-07-06T10:33:00.000-07:00

Shocking News... Images of women in bikinis turn off the empathy section of men's brains and turn on the section associated with using power tools, especially if the head/face has been digitally removed from the body. They associate bikini clad women with first person phrases like "I push" or "I handle", while they associated fully clothed women with third person phrases like "she pushes" or "she handles". This study is particularly puzzling. It goes against everything we know from personal and societal experience.

On a slightly more serious note: I wonder if the group of men studied distorted these results. It appears they were all undergraduates at Princeton, suggesting to me that they weren't married and were living in a particularly promiscuous environment. I doubt that college age guys are particularly representative of the male population at large, though they are likely representative of the male population at certain destination beaches.

And in the mildly humorous column: Most news articles reporting this have sample images, just so you know what they are talking about. They would hate for there to be any confusion on this. Their copy editors I'm sure will assure us that they actually take the Princeton researcher quite seriously when not trying to attract greater readership. wink, wink.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/02/090216-bikinis-women-men-objects.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/feb/16/sex-object-photograph
http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/02/19/women.bikinis.objects/

PS: Yeah, I know this is year and a half old news. Things tend to get by you when you live most of your life under a rock.

Phrase of the Day

2010-07-03T03:06:00.000-07:00

"American style, spill-your-guts-to-Oprah, emotional incontinence"
-Gerald Warner describing the new BBC series "Men's Hour"

"emotional incontinence" I can't wait to use that phrase.

Expectations and Their Implications

2010-07-02T10:23:00.000-07:00

I typically shy away from touchy-feely articles because they tend to be extremely floofy, and not terribly interesting to boot, but this one caught my eye, especially the following paragraph/sentence regarding a woman’s discussion with her husband about having another kid.

“During the evening’s conversation, I outlined all of my reasons and desires for having a third... He listened and expressed genuine feeling for my position. He said he would think about it. The following week he said ‘no.’ He hadn’t slept well all week, explaining he was terrified of what his answer would do to us - the resentment that would persist because of his choice. But he said he didn’t want another and he could never bring another being into this world that he didn’t want.”

Wow. That last phrase is pregnant with profound implications. It basically assumes complete control over fertility, as if one can have unlimited sex at will without consequences. In the “perfect world” promoted by Planned Parenthood, it’s possible. Of course, they are also the world’s largest abortion provider, and that’s the rub. In practice, contraception fails at pretty high rates. User effectiveness for the pill is about 80%, and that is by far the most common method of contraception. If people have emblazoned in their mind the idea that they should be able to maintain complete control over fertility, then abortion will always be legal and will never be rare. Reproductive systems are extremely complex, especially for females. Pumping humans full of pharmaceuticals until perfectly healthy biological systems malfunction in a “healthy” manner is an extremely complicated process. It is a process prone to failure on many fronts. Too much medication (especially for years on end) and one risks health complications (e.g., stroke, embolism, infertility, etc.) Too little and one risks pregnancy. For many, side effects like weight gain and loss of libido are inevitable. The drugs do mimic pregnancy for crying out loud. Like one couldn’t see those side effects coming from a mile away. Anyway, I digress. The point is that these drugs fail. All of them. Even with perfect use, and quite often the use is imperfect or not at all.

The expectation that contraceptives give us control guarantees that abortion will always be legal, because that expectation is false. When people plan their lives around false assumptions, they always demand that the government make available a backup plan, and they often don’t give a damn regarding how that backup plan affects other people.

Kind of reminds me of the social security/medicare crisis, but I’m getting off track again.

I really wonder where this is headed in 50 years. 90% of humans diagnosed with Downs’ Syndrome are currently aborted. Doctors now require a person who refuses the intra-uterine testing for D.S. to sign a waiver, because the doctor can be sued if they don’t diagnose the baby, giving the parents an opportunity to abort. How long will it be before infanticide is allowed for handicapped babies. There is no in-utero test for autism, and rates keep going up. If a child is born and doesn’t interact normally, why shouldn’t the parents be allowed to kill it? There is nothing magical about the trip down the birth canal, and many ivy league profs think that infanticide should be perfectly legal and normal for handicapped kids in the first few months of life. After all, newborns are just as dependent on adults after birth as they were in-utero. They just aren’t as dependent on one specific individual. Is the right to abortion solely dependent on the potential cost to one individual. Shouldn’t the costs to both parents and even society at large be taken into consideration? Why should an elderly person with dementia have a right-to-life, no matter the cost to family and society when the fetus does not? Caring for someone with dementia can takes years, if not decades off their caregiver's life. Does being born in to a family mean one is obligated to provide for another persons every need after they "lose their mind" and can't take care of themselves. If their own family members have no obligation to provide for their needs, can one say that it is society's responsibility with a straight face? How does mere biological existence impose unreciprocated obligations on other members of the same species?

Immigration Rates to Drop? Political Repercussions Tough to Predict

2010-06-23T02:21:00.000-07:00

I found this article fascinating, given the potential implications it has for future immigration in this country.
http://www.newsweek.com/2010/05/28/don-t-fence-them-in.html

Reflecting on it further, it seems to me that this could spell tremendous changes for the Democratic party. There probably aren't 10 congressmen/women who won't flop on 90% of the issues in order to save their jobs, so I would never predict the death of a party. That said, if immigration drops, not only will that be a tremendous blow to the economy, but it could push the Democrats in directions they've never gone before. The three biggest questions I have in that regard are...

1) Will Hispanics be a lock for future democrats. I live in a Hispanic state, and though I've seen a strong trend toward Democrats, Hispanics have never struck me as an ideal fit in the Democratic party. For one, they tend to be very conservative on social issues. They value family a lot. They have lots of kids. Statistically speaking, among whites, these are strongly correlated indicators of political conservatism. Also, most Hispanic immigrants do well economically (or at least their children do well), and there isn't the same level of social injustice/victim mentality/(insert pet cause) that seems to have wed the black community so closely to the Democrats.
2) Will Hispanic birthrates stay the same or drop? If they do drop, will there be a breakdown along political lines like we see in the white community? In 2000 George Bush famously carried the 19 states with the highest white fertility rates. In 2004, there was a 0.86 correlation factor with Bush's vote.
http://www.isteve.com/2000_Bush_Won_19_States_with_Highest_White_Birthrates.htm
http://www.amconmag.com/article/2004/dec/20/0004/
3) Given the current fecundity of white democrats (or rather the lack of it), how would their party change in the future in order to attract new members (assuming Hispanics are not a lock for the party). Democrats are fans of big government and, specifically, big social programs. Ironically, most of these end up being generational wealth transfer programs which are then dependent on both immigration and the increased fecundity of Republicans to maintain. If social programs are cut for Republicans, it will hurt, but many of them will be able to get by with the support of their social support networks (primarily family and religious). They likely won't starve to death. Democrats have much lower fertility rates and don't go to church nearly as often. If social programs are cut for them, they are more likely to be totally screwed. This is doubly true for older Democrats (at least those I know).
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2006-03-13-babybust_x.htm

All of this is highly speculative. It is most probable that the political divisions of today will be drastically altered in another 20 years, but it's fun entertainment for a political junkie like myself.

Greene Wins SC Primary:

2010-06-11T18:09:00.000-07:00

Alvin Greene is one audacious candidate, no matter how you slice it. Also, either South Carolina Democrats are really stupid or Vic Rawls is one hated politician/ asshole to lose to an unknown by 18%. I've written in Mickey Mouse or voted for a relative unknown when I didn't like any of the frontrunners, but I never thought any of my Hail Mary votes would actually win. Maybe Democrats in SC just don't like ugly, old white guys 1 year away from collecting SS checks representing them. Does anybody else have a better theory on why Greene won the SC primary? I find the whole situation incredibly amusing myself. That's partly because I can't imagine the GOP hijacking this election at the ballot box, so it strikes me that the dems shot themselves in their own foot. A coordinated get out the vote effort is too difficult to manage statewide without garnering tons of attention and negative publicity. Every party has plants in the other party and people on their opponents e-mail lists, plus plenty of people on their own side who despise dirty politics enough to blab to the press and buck a move toward sabotage. An 18% statewide differential translates into a massive get out the vote effort, if that was the driver in this election. At least, if some GOP operatives did engineer this, they will be easily found out and likely offered a job in Harry Reid's campaign. He could use that kind of miracle working.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/ynews_pl2544

Anyway, if reports like the below turn out to be true, it wouldn't be funny. I'm just skeptical people would be so stupid as to actually rig an election that would receive such scrutiny. It's practically a guaranteed jail term, as it should be.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0610/38433.html

Health Care Rationing is Responsible and Necessary?

2010-03-26T10:15:00.001-07:00

"Ultimately, even that (the VAT) won't be enough. As the population ages and health care becomes increasingly expensive, the only way to avoid fiscal ruin (as Britain, for example, has discovered) is health care rationing." - Charles Krauthammer
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/03/26/the_vat_cometh_104936.html

I reject that idea as a general principle, but it probably does apply to the position America finds itself in. What I like most about the statement is that it raises the difficult questions that our politicians are unwilling to broach. As a society we are getting older. Health care for the elderly is much more expensive than health care for the young. There are two ways to pay for health care in one's old age.

1) Place the burden of paying for your old age care on your kids and grandkids.
2) Save for health care expenses in your retirement planning.

Now, it's a no-brainer to me that #2 is the responsible choice in today's demographic environment. However, most American's seem to have chosen #1 a long time ago and never re-evaluated that choice. By choosing #1 and placing the burden of this wealth transfer on government taxation, we set up a system that was doomed to failure when dropping fertility rates caught up with rising benefits. The system functioned well with a rapidly growing population (e.g., it worked well for the WWII generation because they had a lot of kids). However, what works when there are 5 taxpayers for every retired person doesn't work when there are only 2 taxpayers for every retired person and health care for the elderly has come to cost far more than the average house. Even including government benefits (which cover far more than individual contributions) Fidelity estimates that health care will cost somebody retiring today a quarter million dollars.

The bottom line is that most people don't realize is that if you don't save for your health care expenses, your care will be rationed, and that's actually the responsible thing to do.

Either that or this country will destroy it's financial house through extreme deficits and hyper-inflation, leaving far fewer people with jobs and health care coverage in the long run.

I'm betting on financial ruin for this country, but I'm a pessimist by nature. I don't think our politicians have the courage to make necessary cuts. I think the elderly are too @#$# selfish to vote in people willing to make those difficult choices, and I think the young are too ignorant and absorbed in their own entertainment to worry about the future until it's much too late.

MB

Patristics at Wheaton

2010-03-11T01:11:00.000-08:00

Wheaton is going to start a center for the study of Patristics. In the words of George Kalantzis, "We are striving to create a center where discussions between Protestants, Catholics and Orthodox can happen. A place where we can come together and say, ‘What is this that we call our common faith, and how do we each contribute to a better understanding of that,’"

Can I get an amen, brother!

It appears that this program is tapping into a felt, yet unmet need, too. Kalantzis already has over 20 applicants to the brand new program, and he hasn't even begun to advertise it.

George goes on, "Our goal is to understand our common tradition, explore it, live with it, be with it, instead of just going back and plundering it - finding the eight quotes to justify whatever I want to do." or as he says in another interview, “Most Christians look at the early Church and find quotes that support their position and move forward from there. But that is not study. That is pillaging,” Kalantzis said. “We need to delve into it and truly live with [the Church Fathers] and understand them, where their conflicts were and what their thought patterns were. How else are we going to understand our faith if we don’t understand those who delivered it to us?”

Preach, it. This has got to be my pet peeve in discussions over Patristics with folks. Cherry picking somebody's words to make them say what they never intended is far too common, whether one is looking at Scripture or the earliest interpreters of the Word of God written.

It is this one statement in the Christianity Today article that I don't get.
"The Tradition belongs to Protestants as well, he reminds us. Without the story of the early church, the Protestant Reformation would make no sense. The Reformers appealed to the pattern of the early church. We cannot be true Protestants without knowing that history."

I get the first and third sentences. However, I don't see the 2nd and 4th as clearly. In my experience, most people who take the early church seriously end up converting to Eastern Orthodoxy or Catholicism. Perhaps one could study Patristics as an Episcopalian or Lutheran, but it is tough for me to imagine large numbers Evangelical Protestant taking this as seriously as a Presbyterian takes the writings of Calvin, et. al. and not having large numbers of conversions to Orthodoxy or Catholicism. In my experience, I've met numerous people who reach the early church fathers and decided that they were heretics (similar to George Barna/Frank Viola in Pagan Christianity) or cherry picked verses to support their ideas (all traditions, but more prevalent among evangelicals in my experience) or aligned their viewpoints more with the Catholic/Orthodox traditions (e.g., Robert Wilken, who gave the inaugural lecture at the opening of the center and is a Catholic convert). I've yet to read anybody who really took the study of the early church fathers seriously and remained an evangelical Protestant. That doesn't mean such people don't exist. I've just not familiar with anybody that fits that description. There is such a discord between the writings of Ignatius or __________ and evangelical theology/practice on subjects like the authority of bishops, I don't see this new center as being something that would encourage status quo theological thinking for most evangelical students.

Another interesting point, is that Wheaton doesn't allow Catholic or Orthodox professors on staff (at least, I think that's why Prof. Hochschild was fired). Given that the experts in this field often hail from non-evangelical backgrounds, it will be interesting to see what kind of faculty they pull in. My guess is that there will be close collaboration with faculty of other universities, without actually hiring them (e.g., the Prof. Wilken inaugural lecture).

http://blog.christianitytoday.com/ctliveblog/archives/2009/04/eager_to_study.html
http://www.marksullivanwritings.com/?p=44

Religiously Disconnected Young Adults

2010-03-09T11:39:00.000-08:00

I found this paragraph particularly interesting, because it put the phenomena of an increasingly agnostic/religiously indifferent young adulthood in perspective.

"This should come as little surprise, however, when we step back from the religious lives of today's emerging adults and look at the larger social milieu in which they find themselves. Their connections to education and work tend to be fragile and unstable. They live much of their lives in an isolated, electronically mediated world in which iPods, personal computers, and cell phones link them to their preferred music, movies, and friends and not much else. They are largely indifferent to the great causes of the right and the left. And, most importantly, for most of these emerging adults, marriage is not on the horizon. It is little wonder, therefore, that the members of this lukewarm generation are largely disconnected from American religion, given that they are also disconnected from stable long-term employment, civil society, and family life."
http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2010/03/the-lukewarm-generation

Blogging from Kenya

2010-03-05T14:42:00.001-08:00

It's that time of year again. Compassion International is taking bloggers with large followings to an exotic part of the world to show them what life is like for people on the edge of existence. Please, take some time to read a bit about life in Kenya, and ask God whether he might want you to help provide food, clothes, education and basic healthcare to a child for about $1/day. I've sponsored a kid through Compassion for nearly a decade now, and though I have yet to get anything but no response or an evasive answer from them on the approach of their staff to Catholics, they do good work overall.

I've sponsored kids through all 3 of the top rated child sponsorship agencies according to the American Institute of Philanthropy, and Compassion does the best job of facilitating communication between the kids and their sponsors as well as promoting their work to those unfamiliar with the concept of child sponsorship. This makes them the most expensive organization, but allows them to help far more kids than relying on word of mouth.

Incidentally, if one is ever considering visiting their sponsored kid, one might consider CFCA, since the costs run about 1/3 or less of the cost of visiting a Compassion Project. But if one is really new to the concept, a Protestant, and looking for an organization that values your time and makes everything convenient, Compassion is probably the way to go.

Below is a my own quick overview of the three highest rated child sponsorship agencies. Feel free to make corrections, if you spot anything outdated or inaccurate.
1) Christian Foundation for Children and Aging (CFCA)
$30/month - 94.6% goes toward program work. Lowest fundraising and management expenses of any large child sponsorship organization. Quite amazing, actually. Founded by Catholics, but accept kids of all religions and there are no hard sells regarding religion. Nobody is required to learn the Christian faith as a condition of receiving aid. Very low rates for sponsors visiting kids ($450 to visit Latin America for a week, not including airfare to the country). They are the only group to have specific programs dedicated to sponsoring teenagers, the elderly and the handicapped. Some sponsorship agencies are focused on young kids because they area more easily converted to your religion, among other reasons. However, it is in the teen years when sponsorship is often more necessary as education costs increase dramatically and the child becomes a potential wage earner, making their continued education all the more difficult. Also, living in the US, with its robust elder care system, we forget how destitute many elderly in the third world are. Sponsoring grandma in diapers isn't nearly as glamorous as sponsoring a bright-eyed 5 year old.
2) Compassion International
$38/month, 82% for program expenses, including sponsor/donor relations. I think other groups include sponsor/donor relations in this percentage, too, but am not sure.
Largest organization reaching over a million kids. All outreach is done through local Protestant churches and every kid is taught and sometimes required to learn a Protestant version of Christianity from what I gather. It appears that the group has actively evangelized the Catholic kid I sponsor into the small Guatemalan sect that they work through. I haven't been able to get a straight answer on their approach to Catholics, so I don't recommend them to Catholics, agnostics or people for whom sheep stealing and Proselytization into sects through monetary gifts is a problem, but many Protestants wouldn't consider sponsoring a kid through a Catholic or secular group, so this would be the best fit for them.
3) Save the Children
$28/month, 92% goes toward program services
One of the oldest and most revered aid agencies in the world, Save the Children is based out of the UK. They are strictly secular and forbid people to mention religion in their correspondence. This is a big part of my life, so I felt like I was hiding part of my life from the kid we sponsored, and this group wasn't a good fit for me. They also offer child sponsorship as part of a much larger approach to aid, as opposed to being focused primarily on child sponsorship, as Compassion and CFCA are.
4) World Vision
$35/month, 89% goes toward program services
B+ rating by the AIP and I have no personal experience with child sponsorship through this group, but they have such devoted fans I would be remiss if I failed to mention them. A cross between all of the above groups, they offer child sponsorship as part of a much larger aid program. They are Christian in character, but similar to CFCA don't do the very active (and some would argue disrespectful) proselytization that Compassion does. The only group to have a program dedicated to sponsoring children affected by AIDS, which is an incredible need in some parts of the world.

Water on the Moon

2010-03-02T10:00:00.000-08:00

Very cool discoveries keep on being made about the moon. It's an exciting time to live in. Now, if we could just figure out how to go back there again...

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/water-moon-north-pole-100301.html

Religious Freedom Violation or Just Jail Time

2010-03-01T15:55:00.000-08:00

So, a father may spend 60 days in jail for violating a court order barring him from exposing his child to a religion other than Judaism (the mother's religion).

Below is a summary of the facts, along with references. Please, correct me, if you feel I am misinformed.
1) A Jewish gal marries a Catholic guy. Neither is practicing, except occasionally. He's an Afghanistan veteran. She's a law school student. Her family has money (her dad is a lawyer for Playboy). His family doesn't have money.
2) Guy marries gal in Jewish ceremony.
3) Gal's parents provide pecuniary support in the early years of marriage while the gal goes to law school and the guy tries to get a job and figure out what to do for a living as a civilian.
4) Guy and gal have kid. Still, no regular church practice in the home according to him. They only attend synagogue or mass on high holy days. Gal claims more regular practice as Jewish family, but this is unspecified, as near as I can tell.
5) Guy converts to Judaism in order to smooth things over with the in-laws (his version). Gal claims no pressure. Guy says he never stops practicing his faith (praying, attending mass on high holy days, etc.)
6) Gal changes cell phone contract to cut off guy from info as well as how she dresses for work. She cheats on husband and is caught with numerous incriminating e-mails.
7) Gal leaves guy and goes to her parents' place. Guy shows up with police accusing gal of kidnapping their child.
8) Gal cuts off husband from child for 7 month stretch at one time. (Only one reference for this.)
9) Guy sues to obtain some visitation rights to his daughter.
10) Guy is said by court to have psychological problem. I don't quit know how to describe this, since no evidence of such a problem is given that I could find.
11) Gal gets the house, car and primary custody of the kid. Kid attends private Jewish preschool which gal or her parents pay for.
12) Guy has child baptized.
13) Guy sends pictures of ceremony to mom. He says it was because she had asked for pictures. She says it was retaliatory and vindictive.
14) Court forbids guy from exposing his daughter to any religion other than Judaism. Judge in case is former President of Decalogue Society, the Jewish bar.
15) Guy defies court order. Says it is a violation of his basic religious freedoms and invites news cameras to accompany him to a mass at the Chicago archdiocesean cathedral.
16) Court slaps guy with 60 days in jail.
17) Guy successfully files to have judge removed from case. New ruling is pending (due tomorrow, March 2, I think).

References for facts of case at bottom:
-------
There are so many places to go with this case, it is tough to know where to begin. I will start by laying out the big questions, as I see them.

A) Under what circumstances would the court be able to justly forbid exposure to any religion but one single parent's religion?
B) What would could justly constitute unlawful exposure? Examples listed in what I presume would be least offensive to most offensive.
B1) Prayer before meals?
B2) Prayer before bed?
B3) Attending church as a family (is this a babysitting requirement if the guy wants to go himself?)
B4) Reading a particular religion's Scriptures to the Child?
B5) Having the child circumcised or baptised, in the context of a religion that teaches such actions are indicative of the parent's faith?
B6) Having the child go through some ceremony that is supposed to be indicative of the child's faith?
B7) Exposing the child to propaganda aimed at denigrating the other parent's faith?
C) Does the guy's conversion count for anything? If so, who determines this? His is certainly never considered by the Catholic Church to lose his standing as a Catholic and continues his practice pretty much as before. The Jews consider him one of their own, I suppose, too. He occasionally practices both faiths.
D) In the case of dual-religious homes, what is healthy? Is it healthy to only have the child exposed to one religion? Is it healthy to have the child exposed to both religions? Who has the right to determine this?

I'd ask whether the father was justified in his actions, but there's so much he-said/she-said in this case, that it would be pointless to do so until a basic understanding of underlying principles and the facts of this case was established. It would probably also be more informative to ask people, what the facts would have to be for the man to be justified or not justified in his actions. I posted this first on Facebook gave it up for Lent and was actually pretty disappointed in some of my "friends' comments", one of which I had to delete because it totally misrepresented and twisted what I had stated. I think this is probably a better forum, since the people who post here tend to be much more thoughtful in their responses. My apologies for any overlap, to those who are (semi-)active in both forums.

-----------
References in no particular order:
http://www.ocaladivorcehelp.com/
http://www.chicagojewishnews.com/story.htm?sid=3&id=253609
(20/20) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jK75ZqmPNg
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-met-interfaith-divorce-20100216,0,2673258.story
http://www.christianpost.com/article/20100217/catholic-father-jewish-mother-battle-over-daughter-s-faith/index.html
http://cbs2chicago.com/local/Joseph.Reyes.daughter.2.1432557.html
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/feb/19/nation/la-na-divorce-religions19-2010feb19
http://chicagopressrelease.com/press-releases/taking-daughter-to-church-could-land-dad-in-jail
http://www.christianfatherdefensefund.com/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/16/joseph-reyes-dad-faces-ja_n_464567.html
http://www.wgntv.com/news/wgntv-reyes-custody-battle-feb16,0,1524782.story
http://www.wbbm780.com/Taking-Daughter-To-Church-Could-Land-Dad-In-Jail/6374694
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/feb/19/nation/la-na-divorce-religions19-2010feb19

Tempora Christiana

2010-02-26T17:25:00.000-08:00

Since last year I've been meaning to post about my friend Scott's blog: Tempora Christiana

His eclectic tastes bring forth some interesting topics related to history, politics, and religion. I periodically object and we've had some good discussions. Please join in if it interests you!

Kevin

Getting Things Done Better

2010-02-26T17:23:00.000-08:00

The busier I am the more interested I become in efficiency.

I've known about Getting Things Done (GTD) for a while, but it always seemed like too much work. Then I lose track of a couple of ToDos and I suddenly take a renewed interest in capturing and planning everything. :)

Likewise for Some Techniques for Learning by Connections. It's kind of a verbose article, but the list of techniques are a good reminder and make sense to me, so I thought I'd share them.

Of course, now I'm blogging about doing things rather than doing them, so off I go. :)

Kevin

update: P.S. if you have any tips or techniques for getting things done, please mention it! Thanks. :)

Sloppy Theology

2009-11-22T19:00:00.001-08:00

The National Association of Evangelicals and Compassion International have the following in their statement of faith.
"We believe the Bible to be the inspired, the only infallible, authoritative Word of God."

Really?!?! Do they really believe that? If so, I would be surprised. I've yet to meet an evangelical pastor who would deny that Jesus is the infallible, authoritative Word of God, Incarnate. To limit the infallible, authoritative Word of God to just the Bible is idolatry, Bibleolatry, if you will.

As I see it, much of this sloppiness stems from a deviation from the way creeds have been formulated for most of Christian history. For most of Christian history, creeds were viewed as minimalist statements, with negatives and words like "only" practically nonexistent. One prominent exception to this rule would be in referring to Jesus as the "only" Son of God in the Nicene and Apostles Creeds, which unlike the above statement is a quote from Scripture itself.

The Evangelical Theological Society does a much better job, stating in their "doctrinal basis" that "The Bible alone, and the Bible in its entirety, is the Word of God written and is therefore inerrant in the autographs."

What I wonder, though, is how such a prominent association of evangelicals can get away with such sloppy theological statements regarding such an obvious and important point. Taken literally, their statement is heretical. Isn't anybody in these groups paying attention?

Dirty Jobs' Mike Rowe on Lamb Castration, PETA, and American Labor

2009-10-01T13:15:00.000-07:00

Here's a video I came across that I found fascinating. It made me realize how out of touch I am (and perhaps most of us are) with... well, aspects of reality, I guess -- what we expect to be true and what really is -- and finding joy in life and satisfaction in work.

It's long at about 21min but you can probably judge whether it interests you by the first several minutes. At once I greatly envy all the stories Mike must have, and yet... I have to draw the line somewhere in terms of new experiences, and I think it is here. :) Enjoy.

Truthtelling Regarding Funding for Abortion in Health Care Reform Bills

2009-09-09T18:28:00.000-07:00

Lies, demagoguery and distortion, misinformation. These charges wouldn’t be so bad if Obama wasn’t lying himself in calling others liars, at least according the Annenberg Foundation’s Fact Check website.

“…we take no stand on whether all abortions should or should not be covered. As for the House bill as it stands now, it’s a matter of fact that it would allow both a "public plan" and newly subsidized private plans to cover all abortions.”

http://www.factcheck.org/2009/08/abortion-which-side-is-fabricating/

Honestly, I liked the ideas Obama presented at first and thought if he could have just been honest about the facts of the bills presented, then his speech would have been much more effective. Especially disconcerting is Obama saying his door is only open to those who are honest about the facts… while calling people who are honest according to third party sources liars. He sounds as bad to me as the scaremongers on the side when he stoops so low… of course, nobody at PBS could catch that misinformation because they are pretty much just a bunch of misinformed liberals who don't expose themselves to enough conservative commentators or even nonpartisan fact checkers to spot a lie. As the PBS commentator just stated to her national audience, “If the goal if this speech was just to clear up misperceptions, he at least succeeded in that.” Well, for some things yes. When it comes to public funding of abortion, hogwash, to put it nicely.

Quote of the Day

2009-07-26T23:42:00.000-07:00

"Sometimes I think we're such a dumb species, we don't deserve to survive on this planet."
Ellen Silbergeld, PhD (or was it necessary to add that last bit)

Ironically, I agree with the first phrase often-times, and think she's probably onto something with the research on drug-resistent bacteria. It's the "we don't deserve to survive on this planet" bit that makes me shake my head at the arrogance of some professors.

MB

Adoption and HIV

2009-07-20T04:59:00.000-07:00

I found this interview about adopting kids with HIV fascinating.

Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3

How Children Learn Manners

2009-07-03T11:17:00.000-07:00

This article has some interesting food for thought.

I remember hearing, quite some time ago, that the best way to teach children to allow others to go first is not by forcing them to let everyone else go first all the time, but by seeing others model the "after you" attitude. I think of our family gatherings . . . The youngest children are almost always served first, followed by the oldest people in the gathering (i.e. grandma).

It seems that as the children grow older, they naturally gravitate from being the one stepped aside for, to stepping aside for others. Sometimes, though, they do get some reminders or encouragement.

The thought about it not being polite to tell others what to say has me thinking. I do think that, as parents, it is our job to coach our children and instruct them. But I do also think that kids naturally tend to reflect the tones and attitudes that are used toward them, and this is definitely something worth being aware of.

Right now we're dealing with the issue of our kids correcting others or telling them what to do a lot. I realized last night that when one of my kids is rude and judgemental toward someone, my responding in a rude and judgemental tone is not exactly helpful. So, I've been working on my response to this.

If I respond by saying something like, "[Child's first and middle name], that is NOT the way you talk to someone! How rude!" then I'm really modeling exactly the type of behavior I am trying to correct--harsh, rude and shaming.

Instead, I'm trying to come up with an approach that is instructive while modeling the respectful, polite tones that I want them to learn--something like, "Oops, that didn't come across very politely. Can you think of a kinder way to say that?" And then helping them with some ideas to rephrase it.

I'm also realizing that I need to teach my children not to interrupt and to listen politely when someone else is talking not just by instructing them in those skills. I also need to make a concerted effort to give them my full attention and listen politely without interrupting when they are talking.

What do you all think, and how do/would you approach these kinds of issues?

Conservative is to Liberal what Republican is to Democrat... or is it?

2009-06-17T09:22:00.000-07:00

I remember those word association questions on the SAT, and if the test designers had put the above question in the test, I would have certainly gotten it incorrect, according to Gallup.

I've always associated conservatism with the Republicans and liberalism with the Democrats, so I've found this poll by Gallup to be quite counterintuitive. At a time when the Republican party seems to be trying to find it's voice, has gotten it's arse kicked in a few recent elections and when various pundits are writing it off, people who self identify as conservatives match the highest recorded level going back to 1992.

For me, the only part that makes sense is that the number of self-identified liberals has gone up 4 percentage points since the low in 1992... but that's still only half the number of self-identified conservatives and not much more than the rise in the number of people self-identifying as conservatives in just the last year. Do liberals just prefer to call themselves moderates because of some stigma attached to the word "liberal?" Has the Democratic party become the "big tent" that all the folks in the middle want to flock to? Has the Republican party lost it's bearings so that conservatives no longer feel welcome? Is the idea of conservative so broad in the vernacular, that it offers relatively little in predictability of people's political ideology? Off the top of my head, those seem like obvious potential reasons, but I'm sure there are more and I have no idea which reasons are the primary drivers in this phenomenon.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/120857/Conservatives-Single-Largest-Ideological-Group.aspx?version=print

No Ambiguity Regarding Notre Dame's Pro-Life Position

2009-05-19T14:37:00.000-07:00

The WSJ had a great article about Notre Dame's perception problem among faithful Catholics.

"In the National Portrait Gallery of the Smithsonian, there is a wonderful photograph of Father Ted Hesburgh -- then Notre Dame president -- linking hands with Martin Luther King Jr. at a 1964 civil-rights rally at Chicago's Soldier Field. Today, nearly four decades and 50 million abortions after Roe v. Wade, there is no photograph of similar prominence of any Notre Dame president taking a lead at any of the annual marches for life.

Father Jenkins is right: That's not ambiguity. That's a statement."

So, when ND decided to ignore the US Bishops, and become their own little magisterium, is it little wonder that 35% of the bishops grew some balls and said enough is enough?

Most of you probably don't care about this, but I went to a sister school of Notre Dame, run by the Holy Cross order. It was with surprise that I eventually found myself drawn to the Catholic Church, because my experience among relatives and priests/religious at my university had been entirely dissatisfying. It was obvious that many, if not most, weren't faithful to the faith they claimed to have, and would even admit it in more candid moments. I figured that if this was the devotion Catholicism inspired, then it must be a bunch of BS. However, I was still grateful for the solid engineering education I received. I went to college and was able, through generous financial aid, to graduate without any loans. I fully expected to be a regular donor when I graduated, in order to help other young men and women. However, when I became Catholic and realized how unfaithful some Catholic universities are to the Church they claim to represent, I couldn't bring myself to donate. It would be easier for me to donate to a public university than my alma mater. At least most public universities are faithful to their secular mission. The tragedy of Judas' betrayal was his espoused friendship.

MB

Worthwhile Social Science

2009-05-12T22:56:00.000-07:00

The fascinating arch of narrative. A longitudinal study that looks at 268 men who entered Harvard in the late 1930's. Perhaps Harvard men tend to be more unpredictable because of the expanded opportunities in life that they have relative to the average Joe, but that's one thing that struck me most about the study. Another is the sometimes tragic complexity of human existence and relationships. It's a long read, but if you do get to it, I hope you will post your own observations/comments.
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200906/happiness

Government Enforced Helicopter Parenting? Throw Me in the Slammer Now

2009-04-21T22:39:00.001-07:00

Ever wonder why we have so many obese kids in the good old US of A? How about this. A mom gets fed up with her daughters arguing and decides to teach them a lesson by dropping them off 3 miles from home to think about their behavior on the walk home, and hopefully work things out between the two of them.

Her reward? A child endangerment charge and a court order barring her from seeing her daughters. It's not like this family lives in Harlem or the Bronx. They live in a 2 million dollar house in Scarsdale, NY. Their mother, the epitome of irresponsibility, is a partner at a law firm. If the family was poor and actually lived in a dangerous part of town like Harlem or the Bronx one might be able to make the child endangerment argument. However, there's a good chance walking would already have been an everyday part of her kid's lives, since cars and parent shuttles aren't nearly as ubiquitous outside the burbs. She made her kids walk a whopping 3 miles, for crying out loud. That is a one hour brisk walk or an hour and a half slow walk. I was doing that with my younger siblings when I was 12. Have kids suddenly lost their ability to engage in bipedal locomotion If so, maybe the Planet of the Apes wasn't so science fictiony after all. Backwards evolution really does occur, and is even encouraged by the US government. The thing is, kids all over the world walk 3 miles every friggen day, especially in barbarian, backwards countries like France and the Netherlands. My coworker had to walk 2 miles to get to the bus stop, so maybe somebody should sit down and talk with some public school officials about how they are endangering kids lives by making them walk so much. Getting back to the subject of the story, the woman's daughters weren't hurt. In fact, I bet it was statistically safer for them to be on the streets of Scarsdale 3 miles from home than in an inner city public school. Are we going to start throwing parents in jail for sending their kids to our dysfunctional and incredibly dangerous inner city public schools?

My opinion. The cops and judge who pushed it to this level and have prohibited these children from seeing their mother ought to be thrown in the slammer with some pervs so they can think about what child endangerment really looks like. Because if it looks like this, then you might as well throw my parents, my coworkers parents, and me in jail (not to mention 90% of parents outside the US), because letting your kids wander three miles from home is common among responsible parents, especially in previous generations and outside of car obsessed America.

In fact, I'll up the ante. Here is my message to the NM Children, Youth and Families Department. There's no way on God's green earth that I'm gonna keep my kids on a leash that short, so go ahead and just get it over with. Charge me with child endangerment and take my parental rights away now before it's too late... fatso. The well-being of my children is at stake... chunky monkey. Act now before before my poor, endangered children grow up as fit, yet mal-adjusted morons... and your stock in McDonald's plummets.

You almost can't make this stuff up.

MB

Friend of the Emperor

2009-02-24T23:35:00.000-08:00

Friend of the Emperor? Guilty as charged.

MB

PS: Not that it's exactly hopping around here, but I'll be taking a break from blogging this Lent (and longer if my wife has anything to do with it). Have a happy Easter y'all.

Rape as a Tool of War

2009-02-12T00:48:00.000-08:00

Some things are too sickening to fully comprehend. Can you imagine a town where 70% of the women have been raped. I can't.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/07/world/africa/07congo.html

http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0127/p09s02-coop.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/13/congo-bemba-war-crimes-trial-hague

http://hotzone.yahoo.com/b/hotzone/blogs1152

http://healafrica.org/cms/

Melted Cheese on Chinese Food...

2009-01-23T00:10:00.001-08:00

To understand the title, you've got to watch this.

It's funny... as Jon Stewart normally is. It's also the first time I have seen Jon Stewart apologetic about his biting satire (and I expect his cringing apologies were genuine). But that's not the main reason why I'm posting it here.

I want to be clear that I'm not posting it here because I think it is any reflection on Obama. I don't think it tells us anything one way or the other about our new president.

I post it here because it so fittingly encapsulates my opinion about political speechifying. It's why I hate the campaigns so much. It's why I didn't watch the inauguration. It's why I generally skip State of the Union addresses. It's all canned, processed, filtered, and generalized. No troublesome specifics or details of implementation ever get in the way. Where any specific action is mentioned, you can be sure that within a week it will have been modified, lessened, softened, or scrapped altogether. It's all a show, and a tediously predictable one.

In my office, one of my bosses canceled a meeting on the morning of the inauguration so he could focus on watching the event. Some people set up a TV in one of the conference rooms, and stood around watching. My other boss had the speech playing on his radio as he worked (he at least was getting something done). This was a major event to a great many people... and frankly, I still can't figure out why.

Was it because Obama is the first African-American President? I can see that that's historically significant, but it doesn't make the inauguration ceremony itself more gripping for me. (I can see how people who grew up in the midst of the fight for civil rights, whichever side they were on, would find much more symbolic significance in the event, but none of my coworkers fit that description.)

Was it because people expected to hear something new and different? If so, then they haven't been paying attention to the campaigns for the last year. Obama speaks a great deal about change (and in reading the transcript of his speech, he must have used that word 100 times!), but his actual policies aren't particularly novel. He'll spend money to help the economy, the same approach we've been taking now for over a year. He'll surge our troops into Afghanistan instead of Iraq, which may be a wise move, but isn't quite cataclysmic policy change. He supports civil unions for homosexuals, which is pretty much the middle-of-the-road position that everyone is taking these days. He will aggressively support abortion rights, which has been pretty much the position of every prominent Democratic politician as long as I can remember. Were people expecting to hear something new or different in his speech?

Or is it just that people enjoy hearing him give speeches? Is he that popular? That inspiring? Are his speeches that moving? I don't find them so, but that doesn't mean that others can't.

I'm not sure what it was, but I skipped the speech... and even as I skipped it, I could have told you almost exactly what was in it. And I could have told you that it would sound shockingly similar to every big political speech we've heard recently, from either side of the political aisle. And, it appears, I would have been right.

At least Jon Stewart provided me some nice humor out of the occasion. :)

Mark

More Demographic Trivia

2009-01-12T22:09:00.000-08:00

I was reading an article the other day in which an self-titled "mother" of the Pill, Carl Djerassi, bemoaned the demographic crisis gripping Europe (and his home country of Austria in particular). One particular sentence stood out to me. Cardinal Schonborn of Austria said, commenting on Dr. Djerassi's statements, ""Somebody above suspicion like Carl Djerassi ... is saying that each family has to produce three children to maintain population levels, but we're far away from that," he said."

Now, my first reaction when reading a statement like that is bullshit. The average woman needs to have ~2.1 children (assuming typical infant mortality, etc.) for a population to achieve zero growth/decline in the long run. However, Mr. Schonborn didn't relate the population stability to the typical statistic. He referenced it to the the number of children within given families. That's really an entirely different statistic, with a whole host of subtle factors affecting it.

1) The marriage rate
2) The rate of illegitimate births
3) Sex ratios
on top of the usual factors
4) average age of first childbirth
5) mean pregnancy intervals
6) infant mortality
7) mortality rate of child bearing aged women
8) I'm sure there are more that I'm missing...

All of these factors mean that the average woman who ends up having children, needs to have even more than 2.1 in order for the population to remain stable. However, what is the number? Could it possibly reach even 2.5 (for which one might forgive Mr. Schonborn for rounding up to three)? Personally, I'm skeptical, but I suppose it's not outside the realm of possibility, especially in developed countries where more and more women choose not to have any kids whatsoever, leaving a large tail on the bell curve. Actually, come to think of it, it would probably be more like an F- distribution than a Gaussian distribution, but I digress.

If anybody knows what this number should be, I'd appreciate them passing it along. I couldn't find it, and I find the question intrigueing: how many children does the average woman who has any children need to have to maintain stable population levels.

Getting to the crux of Dr. Djerassi's concern, Austria has been below replacement level fertility since the early 1970's (Table A.15), and is currently experiencing a net reproduction rate of 0.66. That number astounds me. It basically means the potential (barring immigration) for a society to replenish its population falls by 1/3 in each generation. One third decrease in population per generation if the rate remains unchanged... Incredible. It basically spells the death-nell for the nanny state in Austria, barring some radical changes to birth or immigration rates. Luckily for Austria (and the US), it takes decades for fallen birthrates to trash the economy and have a significant effect on the ability of the government to provide benefits for the retired. Unfortunately, it's a much harder nut to crack. Once a significant proportion of the young realize that they can live the high life without kids, marketing companies get in there do their best to perpetuate/grow that lucrative market. It's tough to convince the next generation that what they really need to do is sacrifice and have more kids to pay for the retirement benefits of past generations that lived it up, when there are marketing companies working night and day to convey exactly the opposite message.

MB

Update: This article says that nearly 20% of women aged 40-44 are childless in the US. I ran across another article that put the childless rate of all German women at 30% (40% for college grads). Given that our birthrate is light years ahead of Austria's, there might be something to Schonborn's statement. I found this article about Austria in particular, detailing the changing birthrate levels and distributions, but honestly, it's too detailed and I'm too tired to understand it. http://www.demogr.mpg.de/papers/working/wp-2004-028.pdf

g'night.

Anti-Science Bias in the Media

2009-01-02T14:27:00.000-08:00

I wish that I had written this.

What Did She Do To Deserve This?

2008-12-24T22:26:00.000-08:00

A couple of days ago I was browsing the Yahoo newsfeed, and started reading through an article about the financial bailout money. Here's a link to the article. The article seems a bit less like news and more like commentary, but it does tell an interesting story. But then I read an inconspicuous paragraph in the middle of the story that blew my socks off. I can't figure it out. Here it is, in its entirety:

Others, such as Morgan Stanley spokeswoman Carissa Ramirez, offered to discuss the matter with reporters on condition of anonymity. When AP refused, Ramirez sent an e-mail saying: "We are going to decline to comment on your story."

So, let me get this straight. A spokeswoman for Morgan Stanley was approached by an AP reporter, asking her to give information about where the money had gone. Ramirez says, "Hey, I can tell you about that, but my bosses will burn me for it, so you can't use my name." The AP says, "No thanks, we don't want the secret information" (since when does the AP turn down anonymous reports about anything), "and not only that, we're going to publicly tell everyone that you offered to squeal on your bosses. Good luck with your next promotion."

Why in the world would the AP, or maybe more specifically Matt Apuzzo, do such a thing? It's incomprehensible. Apuzzo had so many other options. He could have made no mention at all of the offer to share information anonymously (it wouldn't have significantly altered his story). He could have mentioned that the offer was made and refused, without mentioning the name of the person who made the offer. But, instead, he makes a point to mention her full name, mention that she offered to speak anonymously, and in so doing, without advancing his story at all, destroys her career.

And also, it seems, hurts the AP's chances of getting offers of anonymous information from similar whistle-blowers in the future.

I did a Google search for "matt apuzzo" "carissa ramirez", to see if there was anyone else commenting on this. I turned up about 2 million links pointing to the original article. It was obviously a popular piece with wide circulation. I found one link to another blog (Happy Jihad's House of Pancakes), commenting on the same thing I noticed. It even provides a potential alternate explanation. Not a convincing one, but an explanation all the same.

I half expect to find that Ramirez unceremoniously dumped Apuzzo's brother or something, and that sneaking that in was Apuzzo's way of getting childish revenge. But I figure we'll never really know.

Mark

A Warm Seasonal Embrace...!

2008-12-24T12:17:00.000-08:00

That is, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, to Mark and MB and Kevin and Purple Kangaroo and all you other, um, embraceable ones out there in Embracing-the-Risk land!

Your usual provocative, challenging, and risky topics will return after the holiday break (and after those of us in the Pacific Northwest dig out from under the more-than-usually seasonal weather conditions...!).

Goodwill to all, Stevie.

Immigration Reform and Politics

2008-12-02T22:54:00.000-08:00

While I strongly believe there needs to be some way to give illegal immigrants legal protection and there should be a way to keep terrorists from setting up shop in the US, I'm not sure much of what passes for immigration reform these days is very helpful to the situation.

* On the one hand, I'm concerned that if we were to greatly limit immigration to this country, we would be losing out on some of the greatest risk takers and innovators to this country. I don't think the immigration rate is too high. On the contrary, I think it would be a travesty to see it cut in half.
* On the other hand, if we were to just let people in in the same numbers that we do now through some legal means, I'm afraid that it would create a huge bureaucracy and eliminate some beneficial weeding out. It is risky to come to the US now. That weeds out many people who would likely become free-riders.
* On the other hand, people lose their lives unnecessarily, a culture of lying is encouraged and people without legal status have by definition a precarious legal situation and are often taken advantage of by employers.
* The current situation is awful in many respects, but I'm honestly not sure that creating a bureaucracy capable of dealing the current numbers of immigrants would be much more effective in attracting a better mix of people to this country.

Border control used to be done culturally as tribes rejected all outsiders. However, this forced immigrant groups to congregate together in ghettos with little hope of breaking the cultural barriers and succeeding in the way that our open society allows today.

I guess my immigration ideals are
1) Maintaining high immigration numbers through legal means
2) Keeping the standards for entrance high enough to weed out the unmotivated and freeriders, while keeping them reachable by the hard working poor. Is this even possible?
3) Giving the vast majority of participants a path to citizenship.
4) Instituting real penalties for illegal behavior (e.g., if you are convicted of a crime while in the guest worker program, even once, you can never become a citizen and your allowed time in the country is greatly shortened).

Honestly, though, I don't hear politicians of either party talking about this sort of thing. Am I just spending too much time under my rock these days? Are there any serious politicians who are pro-immigration and yet want to see fundamental changes to the status quo? Surely greater minds than mine have thought about this situation from a pro-immigration perspective.

As a side note...
Some people think that it is the social policies of the GOP that cost it the last election (and will cost it future elections until it changes). I say hogwash. It was congressional corruption that cost it the Senate and House several years ago, and it was the economy that cost it the current election. Also, I think it is nativist tendencies by many in the GOP that are one of the greatest threats to its future. Immigration isn't going to slow much, no matter who is in office. Their importance in the electorate is only going to grow. Also, immigrants are some of the people most open to free-market ideas. The dream of most immigrants is to come to a land of opportunity where corruption and lack of basic infrastructure does not stand in the way of success through hard work. Immigrants also tend to be conservative socially. As I see it, it is history and tradition more than policy (outside of immigration friendliness) that ties the immigrant community to the Democrat party. For instance, McCain had much more history than Obama with Hispanic communities, and it was overall very positive, yet he lost their vote. I know of numerous Hispanics in my community that thought that was a travesty. In my experiences with immigrants (legal and illegal), they have far more in common with the free-market ideas and social values of conservatives. Personally, I think they are a much better fit in the GOP than in the Democrat party... on all fronts but immigration. The sad thing is, the congress is controlled by Dems, and I really don't see them working to help the immigrant any more than the GOP. As I see it, the immigrant friendliness is in many ways a facade for the Democrat party.

I've thrown out a lot of ideas here and was in many ways thinking out loud. I would encourage discussion, especially if you disagree.

MB

Poverty, Race and the Role of Government

2008-12-02T22:24:00.000-08:00

"People don't change because the government intervenes with a social program. It never happens. They change when they become exhausted with their suffering. The civil rights movement was the greatest of reform, certainly in my lifetime. It happened when people said, 'That's it. Kill us if you want, but we're not going to live the segregated life anymore. We're exhausted with this. Enough. And then change happens.'" - Shelby Steele (around 4:45-5:30 in part 5/5 of his interview with Peter Robinson)
http://tv.nationalreview.com/uncommonknowledge/post/?q=NTczYTIwZDFmYTZjODM5NmNiOTEzZjM5NzYxOTZkMTQ=

In some ways, I'm conflicted about the above quote (and certainly disagree with many other things throughout the interview). I certainly think that people don't overcome pathologies like illegitimacy that keep people poor through great society programs, but I think Mr. Steele is perhaps discounting the role of the government in instituting policies that make it possible for people to overcome their poverty. Child labor laws and general support of good education is essential to families overcoming poverty. Children need to be at school and not at work if their family is to ever overcome poverty. Also, education needs to matter. An embedded racism that looks at the color of one's skin instead of one's qualifications keeps people in poverty. Racism wasn't a part of my upbringing. There are several biracial marriages among my extended family and friends, and nobody thinks twice about it. However, I'm not sure that is as common as one would hope, and I have met some racist (and otherwise seemingly respectable) people over the last 30 years who would never marry or hire a person with a different skin color.

So, how far has America come and what remains to be done in eliminating racial inequity? What role do you think the government has to play in the change that still needs to happen? What is the role of individuals?

MB

Marx's Lack of Appreciation for Monogamy

2008-11-16T23:38:00.000-08:00

Every once in a while I come across a statement or a turn of phrase that makes me go back and read it again. This quote from Dr. Lionel Tiger of Rutgers did that to me today.

“One of the triumphs of Western arrangements is the institution of monogamy, which has in principle made it possible for each male and female to enjoy a plausible shot at the reproductive outcome which all the apparatus of nature demands. Even Karl Marx did not fully appreciate the immense radicalism of this form of equity.”

Even Karl Marx didn't get how radical that idea was. That's the phrase that caught my eye, because, to be honest, I hadn't thought much about it myself. I suppose for Marx, the neglect had something to do with heterosexual monogamy being the accepted norm during his time. It's interesting how things rarely come into focus or receive our full attention until they are questioned.

Dr. Tiger was speaking about the polygamous tragedy in Texas involving the separation of over 400 kids from their mothers. He was also speaking of the Western/Christian idea of heterosexual monogamous marriage, and how radically it transformed society. Fascinating food for thought. I dug up the original article if anybody is interested in reading it. Yeah, it's over 6 months old, but life under the rock can be comfortable sometimes.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121132858677808907.html?mod=opinion_main_commentaries

MB

Benefit of the Doubt

2008-11-10T11:03:00.000-08:00

I have a number of friends and family who are supporters of Obama, and a number who are opponents of Obama. Very few people in my acquaintance seem to be anywhere near the fence.

In the aftermath of the election, one group of my friends was jubilant, even exuberant. There were tears of joy. They couldn't sleep they were so excited. The world was finally going to be a better place. The other group of my friends was despondent. They had a hard time getting out of bed. America was going to get the punishment it deserved for electing such a terrible president. The situation couldn't be more dire.

I think both response are WAY out of proportion, and I think both groups (if they choose to pay attention) will find that their hopes/fears will not be realized in anything close to the proportion they have in mind.

Today, I saw some news on Yahoo that makes me think I'm on the right track. Obama, it appears, is planning to close Guantanamo and move its prisoners onto American soil. However, many of the high-security prisoners will NOT be put into the civilian courts. Instead, they will be put into some undefined new court proceeding. It's not a military tribunal, of course, no, not that... just something else that we haven't named yet that works a lot like a military tribunal. :)

Here's the key quote, from Laurence Tribe, who is advising Obama on this issue:

"It will have to both be and appear to be fundamentally fair in light of the circumstances. I think people are going to give an Obama administration the benefit of the doubt in that regard."

The benefit of the doubt. Yes, that is probably true... for a while, Obama will get the benefit of the doubt. And, in reality, that will probably be the main functional difference between Bush's plan and Obama's (though Obama will apparently also put some of the prisoners into the civilian court system... I have no idea how he will determine which ones are low-priority enough for that treatment, and which require the special handling of a very-much-different-from-Bush tribunal system).

How much will Obama get this benefit of the doubt? And how far will it go? Those are difficult questions to answer. I expect he will get a little bit more leash than Bush got, in that the major media outlets are more favorable to Democrats than to Republicans. On the other hand, he will probably get a little less leash than Bush, since Bush had a great deal of leeway granted to him in the aftermath of 9/11. I will be very interested to see how this "benefit of the doubt" plays itself out over the next year.

Mark

Chris Matthews Just Wants to Help

2008-11-06T16:02:00.000-08:00

Reading through my RSS feeds today, I came across a post on RedBlueChristian that linked to a snippet of an interview with Chris Matthews posted at Eyeblast.tv. The snippet focused on a statement from Chris Matthews that his job (as a journalist) was to help the Obama presidency succeed. But the snippet didn't provide any real context for the comments, and I tend to distrust short snippets of interviews pulled out of their context.

So, I went looking, and found the entire interview segment on MSNBC's site. The clip was from a show called Morning Joe, I believe from this morning, and I found the segment right on MSNBC's Videos page. I've extracted a direct link, but if it doesn't work, you can probably find the clip with a little digging on the MSNBC site (at least for a while).

In this case, the extended viewing generally confirmed the original impression of the shorter snippet, and also added a good deal of commentary. After Matthews made his comment, the other hosts on the show took him to task for it, and a fascinating dialog followed. Matthews expanded on what he had said, qualified it to some degree, but basically held to it. At the end, one of the hosts of the show (I don't know his name, unfortunately) gave what I thought was a very pertinent and stinging rejoinder.

Anyway, give it a listen. I found it fascinating, and I will be curious to see if this plays out as Matthews has described it... if the media (in contrast to how they have interacted with Bush and other recent prominent political figures) gives Obama the benefit of the doubt, tries to avoid stirring up controversy (!), and generally restricts itself to clear questions about specific policies, otherwise doing what it can to be helpful to the administration.

Frankly, I don't think that will last long. The public has an insatiable hunger for controversy and scandal, and the major media won't be able to keep its fingers out of that pie. But, it's telling that someone as prominent as Chris Matthews has that desire and intention.

Mark

What Would You Change?

2008-10-17T12:09:00.000-07:00

I've got a simple discussion question for you.

If you could single-handedly amend the Constitution, what amendment would you choose as your top priority? If you could choose second and third choices, what would they be?

If you're short on ideas, here's a list to get you started.

Mark

Roe, Meet Casey

2008-10-07T23:38:00.000-07:00

Throughout this election season, I've been following a blog called 2008Central.net, which posts press releases from the candidates, important news items, poll results, and other information pertinent to the upcoming Presidential election. Occasionally, the blog's author will also post editorials or observations about various developments, and I've found him to be knowledgeable, even-handed, and enjoyable to read.

Earlier today, he posted one such editorial which branched off of the usual topics he covers. It's called "Enough on Roe; Let's Talk About Casey", and discusses how the Planned Parenthood v. Casey decision from 1992 overruled most of the framework built in Roe v. Wade, and substituted a legal framework that allowed somewhat more restriction of abortion than was previously allowed. The legal information and opinion about the decision was interesting, and helped me understand a bit better the state of abortion law.

He closed his editorial with this paragraph, directed at opponents of abortion rights:

"And if you want fewer abortions? Change people’s minds. That will take care of the law in good time. If an overwhelming amount of people believe all abortion is murder, the law will change. The Supreme Court will not do the work for you."

I responded to him, and was pleasantly surprised when he answered my reply in short order. We've gone back and forth a few times through the day, and he has pushed me to learn more about the history of abortion law, and helped me to clarify my opinions about the issue. I won't attempt to copy any of that discussion here, or even summarize it... but if you are interested in abortion law, I think it would be worth the read.

And, I'd love to hear what you think. Is Casey a significant change from Roe? Is it enough of a change? Is it, as John from 2008Central.net described it, "the great moderate standard of abortion law that the public has been clamoring for"?

And, getting deeper into the comments, do my comparisons and contrasts between the current abortion-law situation and previous situations with women's suffrage and civil rights make sense? Or am I way off base?

Mark

Bailout Bill Politics

2008-10-03T09:39:00.000-07:00

Maybe a good argument can be made that the Senate should be allowed to originate a taxing bill, but as it stands Constitutionally, they cannot. So how did the Senate pass the recent "bailout bill" before the House? Enter RI-D Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy's "Paul Wellstone Mental Health and Addiction Equity Act of 2007". From The Providence Journal:

In order to get around the Constitution, the leaders turned to the time-honored stratagem of finding a live but dormant House bill -- Kennedy’s mental-health parity bill -- to use as a shell.

"They take out the entire text" of Kennedy’s old bill, "and then, by amendment, they substitute the other bill," said Don Ritchie, an assistant Senate historian. Two bills, in this instance: the emergency rescue bill and the tax provisions and the final version of Kennedy’s mental-health parity wrapped inside.

And that is how Kennedy of Rhode Island became the original lead sponsor — in name only — of one of the most hard-fought financial bills in congressional history.

Add to that the fact the bill is being pushed through and it becomes very attractive for earmarks. From "Billions in earmarks in Senate's bailout bill" (with more details at TCS):

Wooden arrows: This tax break, backed by Oregon's two senators, would benefit an Oregon manufacturer of wooden arrows for children by $2 million over 10 years.

Racetracks: Earmark would allow auto racetrack owners to depreciate their facilities over seven years, saving the industry $100 million over two years.

Rum: Offers rum producers in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands a rebate on excise taxes worth $192 million over two years.

Wool: Reduces tariffs for U.S. makers of wool fabric that use imported yarn, worth $148 million over five years. The measure was pushed by Reps. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., and Melissa Bean, D-Ill.

Exxon Valdez: Plaintiffs in the suit over the 1989 oil spill could spread their tax payments on punitive damages over three years, cutting their tax bill by $49 million. The measure was backed by Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska.

American Samoa: Allows certain corporations to reduce their tax liability on income earned in American Samoa, at a cost of $33 million over two years.

Hollywood: Extends a tax break for film and TV companies that keep their production in the United States, worth $478 million over 10 years. The provision was originally pushed by Rep. Diane Watson, D-Los Angeles.

In case you're curious, here's the latest version of the bill as of 10/2/2008, and a section by section analysis.

I know this stuff happens all the time but it just seems wrong. What's more, I would imagine that the vast majority of people would agree that it is wrong, yet it continues.

My question: Is this just reflective of the nature of negotiation and compromise? Is there no better way? Should we just accept these tactics? Am I just being too persnickety in letting this annoy and frustrate me? :)

btw, I'm still struggling to understand the economics, but this looks like a decent summary: Making Sense of Our Financial Mess.

Kevin

P.S. Both McCain and Obama voted for the bill. I think this reflects the difficulties that McCain will have in keeping his remarkable promise to veto any bills with earmarks as President when he believes the bulk of the bill is vital.

Mandatory Abortion for those 25 and Younger

2008-09-16T16:45:00.000-07:00

Ted Rall had some interesting quotes in a recent article.

"Even pro-choice liberals are afraid to speak the truth: teen marriage and parenthood are disasters for everyone concerned. I have serious problems with well-off married couples who decide to terminate their pregnancies for frivolous reasons. Conversely, abortion ought to be mandatory for people under 18. Twenty-five would be better. Teen marriage should be banned."

In case we didn't get the point, he closes the piece with this.

"Congress should act to protect these kids from themselves--ban teen marriage, mandate teen abortion."

Question: Since when did a individual's/couple's "right" to control their reproduction become someone else's "right" to mandate when they should marry and reproduce?
Answer: Quite a while ago.
* A side note about Dr. Connelly's book, linked to above. While I take umbrage at his misrepresentation of Catholic theology and practice, you kind of have to do that if you are writing a book which criticizes the population control ideologues as severely as his book does. As a prof. at Columbia University, it was the only way to save face and gain acceptance of his work in academic circles.

Honestly, I wonder how prevalent this idea or its variants is among the elite in US society? My aunt's a big proponent of forced abortion/sterilization for the "stupid"/underclass, but I haven't personally met too many others who hold (or at least widely admit to holding) such radical opinions. Yet, it seems from my reading that such a philosophy must hold sway with at least a large minority of ruling classes around the world, or it wouldn't have been so prevalent in policy over the last century. Given the tremendous advances in biotechnology in the last decade, with more certainly to come, I find that thought more than a little disconcerting.

MB

Commie Americans - Capitalist Europeans

2008-09-16T01:49:00.000-07:00

I know the post title is a major oversimplification of the situation, but I do find the subject of this article linked to below more than a bit ironic. It also raise some good questions. Does more front-end regulation lead to more stable financial systems overall? Were European investors simply less greedy than their American counterparts (excluding the UK and Spain)? Is our political system so infused with greed, that the politicians will use taxpayer dollars to bail out almost any group that has enough money? Is the assumed greater stability of Europe more conducive to long term growth of financial markets than the riskier/greedier US market?

EU Shuns U.S.-Style `Active Role' on Growth, Banks (Update2)

I don't know the answers to all those questions conclusively, but I do know that widespread corruption and greed can be a bigger drag on an economy that pretty much anything else and eventually, perhaps inevitably, leads to economic collapse (e.g., the former soviet union).

MB

Community Service

2008-09-05T22:40:00.000-07:00

Jim Lindgren at The Volokh Conspiracy has some interesting posts which consider what Obama meant when he stated in his July 2, 2008 speech that:

We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we've set. We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.

Lindgren suggests that the "civilian national security force" comes from Obama's "unprecedented plans for universal community service for young people and for hugely increased funding for a myriad of voluntary service programs for the rest of us." The highlights seem to be:

- 50 hours per year of mandatory community service for middle and high school children.

- a $4,000 yearly tax credit toward college tuition in exchange for 100 hours per year of community service for 4 years.

- converting work-study jobs into serve-study jobs.

- forming additional service corps, doubling Peace Corps, tripling AmeriCorps.

The issues which popped up at VC (which tends libertarian) include concern over the government's inefficiency, logistics, reinforcing the cycle government dependency, defining what is and what is not "community service", ensuring effective service, and generally mandating or coercing good behavior.

I found that last one to be particularly interesting. The argument for the children's program seems to be that since the fed already mandates educational curriculum, and since community service is generally regarded as good (some private schools or organizations already require it), why would federally mandating community service be any different?

But if it is acceptable, what other good behavior should be mandated? How about giving blood? Is there a limit? And if it is good for children, why not mandate it for adults as well? What are the criteria for such mandates?

What do you folks think? Is this a good or a bad idea? Is it something worth trying?

Kevin

Obama Lies about Voting Against Bill Outlawing Infanticide while in the Illinois Senate

2008-08-29T22:01:00.000-07:00

I prefer to stick to issues and don't like to bash politicians on this blog, but Obama has pushed me to my limit. When confronted about his vote against the Born Alive Infants Protection Act, Obama stated that he voted against the bill because it was significantly different than the Federal Bill and undermined Roe vs. Wade. You can see his response on youtube. He further went on to call call the National Right to Life Committte who had claimed that he misrepresented his vote "liars."

It's one thing for Obama to misrepresent how he voted in the Illinois senate. It's another thing to call people exposing his misrepresentations liars and to further refuse to apologize for it or take them up on their offer of claiming that their evidence are forgeries. Personally, I think Obama is counting on not enough people hearing about this evidence and taking his bluff at face value instead of researching the facts. The honorable thing would be to admit that he was wrong and made a mistake. One of the biggest Democrat complaints about Bush is that he can't admit a mistake, and this is who they nominate? This is practically unbelievable. Surely, there was somebody better out there than Obama... I refuse to believe that this is the best they've got.

Anyway, if you want proof that Obama is lying, here it is.

Here is the text of the Illinois bill before the amendment.

Here is the text of the amendment that Obama voted for. This amendment makes this bill practically identical to the federal bill, unless you think a comma is huge difference.

Here is the text of the federal Born Alive Infant Protection Act.

Here is a side by side comparison of the Federal and Illinois bills highlighting the wording differences (all of which I think we can agree are minor).
http://www.nrlc.org/obamaBAIPA/2003AmendedILBAIPAandFedBAIPA.html

Here is a copy of the voting record for Obama showing that he voted against the bill as amended. He didn't just vote present, he voted, "NO."
http://www.nrlc.org/ObamaBAIPA/ObamaKills2003amendedBAIPA.htm

Here is a timeline with lots of links to the various lies Obama has told regarding this issue.

So, does anybody think the son of a b@#$ will every admit that he voted against a bill that is practically identical to the Born Alive Infant Protection Act, that he voted against outlawing infanticide for survivors of abortion? To this date, Obama hasn't admitted his factual errors nor apologized to the NRLC for calling them liars. In fact, he is still spouting off the same spineless bulls*%!. If you don't think Obama will ever admit his error, do you he will get away with this deceit or that most people will become informed about it?

I'm sorry if I come off a bit hot about this point. This is probably the most spineless, dirty thing I've seen a candidate do this election cycle, and it happened to touch on an issue I care a lot about.

Easing out... if making even a general comment about on when human life begins is above a constitutional lawyer's pay grade, how will that person ever be able to decide on what constitutes torture of enemy combatants?

To end this, there are a lot of links here, if anybody finds that one is broken, please, comment about it and they will be fixed. Honestly, I doubt the Obama campaign link will last long, but we'll see.

Church Attendance = Higher GPA :: But :: Importance Attached to Religion has No Effect?

2008-08-19T15:46:00.000-07:00

There was an that I read today which says that church attendance had more of an impact on a kid's GPA than whether their parent's went to college. Here's the kicker, though. Apparently, the importance a kid attaches to religion is not a factor.

"The study also showed whether the teens said religion was important to them.

"Surprisingly, the importance of religion to teens had very little impact on their educational outcomes," Glanville said. "That suggests that the act of attending church -- the structure and the social aspects associated with it -- could be more important to educational outcomes than the actual religion.""

That's one explanation. I haven't read the survey for myself, but I would posit another possibility. Within evangelical Christian circles, religion often has a peculiar definition. Instead of being defined as 1) "The service and worship of God or the supernatural," 2) "Commitment or devotion to religious faith or observance" or 3) "a personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices" it is defined as "earning one's way to God" and classified as bad. Sometimes elements of 3) come into play in this definition (e.g., an institutionalized system of religious practices), but never the entire definition. Thus, I've met some extremely religious people who will adamantly claim that they are not religious. To be honest, I think this kind of linguistic gymnastics is a bit bizarre, but it is not uncommon in certain evangelical circles, and I think it potentially screwed up the above survey. In order to measure the importance people attach to religion and capture this particular subculture, I think one would need two questions: one which asks, "How important is religion to you?" and the other which asks, "How important is a relationship with God to you?" Taking the higher of the two scores would would then offer a way to accurately measure the importance people place on religion.

The War is the Cause of our Budget Deficit and Other Myths

2008-07-30T12:38:00.000-07:00

Do you ever get tired of hearing how the wars in Iraq and/or Afghanistan are bankrupting our country? I sure do. I'm not saying the wars have absolutely nothing to do with the deficit, nor am I saying either or both of them are just, but the idea that they are primarily responsible for the economic state of this country is based on myth and Democrat party propaganda, more than anything else.

In particular, I would like to point to Figure 4-1 in the Congressional Budget Office Long Term Forecast, which shows that compared to historical levels, current defense spending is much, much less than during the mid 80's and a little more than half of what we spent throughout much of the 60's as a percentage of GDP, which is the real measure of government spending.

The real question is then, obviously, why is our budget deficit so high? The answer to that question requires far more time than I have right now, so the CBO LTBO link is my teaser. Ross Perot also has some charts that can serve the purpose of a teaser to stimulate thought on the real causes of our federal budget deficit.

MB

Hypocrisy in Politics? No....

2008-07-22T21:12:00.000-07:00

I hesitate to post this, because I'm a Republican, and this example reflects negatively on the Democrats. But, I'll do it anyway, with the caveat that I expect nothing less (or more?) from the RNC. It's much more surprising, these days, to find a politican or political group that isn't hypocritical... and I've become jaded enough that I just figure we haven't discovered their hypocrisy yet.

Mark

A Swastika--call CPS!

2008-07-22T13:43:00.000-07:00

Here's an article about a mother whose children were removed because she helped her daughter draw a swastika on her arm and had white pride symbols in the home.

To me, this seems like a dangerous abuse of CFS authority. Although I disagree with the family's beliefs, I think they should be allowed to teach them to their children. As long as they are not abusing their children or causing them to participate in a crime, they have every right to teach their children whatever they believe.

Discussion?

Title IX for Science and Engineering Departments

2008-07-15T21:59:00.000-07:00

"Instead, they complained of being pushed so hard to be scientists and engineers that they ended up in jobs they didn’t enjoy. “The irony was that talent in a male-typical pursuit limited their choices,” Ms. Pinker says. “Once they showed aptitude for math or physical science, there was an assumption that they’d pursue it as a career even if they had other interests or aspirations. And because these women went along with the program and were perceived by parents and teachers as torch bearers, it was so much more difficult for them to come to terms with the fact that the work made them unhappy.”"

This paragraph resonated with my own personal experience. My wife would seem to be a poster child for women in engineering. In fact she was. She was featured in an article for a university publication. She was good at math and science in high school and got funneled down the engineering path by various advisers. She had great internships, great science, math and engineering grades throughout high school and college, and got a good job after college making good money. The only problem was she never liked school or her jobs, and eventually she quit engineering to work in health care. What a waste of 6 years of her life. I tried to convince her otherwise, even getting her an offer for a research position in the engineering department where I was getting my own master's degree. It sure would have been nice if she had remained an engineer, from our pocketbooks perspective, but perpetuating a career where one is miserable is a ludicrous waste of potential.

Applying Title IX to engineering and the sciences worries me. College sports are over-rated, and ancillary the fundamental mission of a university to educate young adults. But science is right in the heart of a universities educational mission. Are we going to drop programs that have difficulty attracting females in order to keep the ratio of women to men in science programs the same? Honestly, I don't think it will ever be implemented on the same scale as in sports. People will talk about changing things. Studies will be done. Recruitment efforts will be launched. Minor changes will be made here and there. Tons of money will be spent. Heads will roll if they question the prevailing feminist doctrine. More women like my wife will end up with miserable careers, but in the end all the efforts won't actually change much and programs won't get cut. 20 years from now, there will still be large imbalances in gender ratios for nursing and engineering careers. Despite (what I hope are) sensationalist claims otherwise, I believe the costs are too great and too many women see through the bullshit to foist Title IX off on engineering/science departments in a form anywhere near what has prevailed in sports.

MB

Opposition to Outlawing Sex Selective Abortion or Why Killing Females Because They are Females is Acceptable Collateral Damage to Some Feminist Groups

2008-07-15T17:29:00.000-07:00

My favorite website this week is http://yaleglobal.yale.edu. If you haven't seen it yet, it's well worth a perusal.

I found this quote which struck me for both its frankness, the despicableness of the faulty moral reasoning, and the source. The author was the former director of the UN Population Fund, and Yale isn't exactly a bastion of pro-life thought.
"Others, however, while acknowledging that sex-selective abortion is a morally reprehensible practice, stress a woman’s right to choose her reproductive outcomes as paramount. Many pro-choice and feminist groups are convinced that outlawing sex-selective abortion will undermine the reproductive rights of women."

Another quote that I found scary was this one: "Higher (male-to-famale sex) ratios are observed in urban areas, 111, and in the wealthier Indian states of Punjab and Haryana, 126 and 122, respectively." I've been told by Indian friends in the past that sex preferences are mostly limited to the backwoods provinces in the NE. This seems to directly contradict such claims and does not bode well. If the wealthier (presumably better educated states) have the highest sex ratio imbalances, that implies to me that rooting out such deep seated prejudice is going to be very difficult and won't occur automatically with development and a better educated female populace. Indeed, even immigrant communities in the US have measureable sex ratio imbalances. "Increasing evidence suggests that the practice of sex-selective abortions is occurring among Chinese and Indian immigrant communities living abroad. In the US, for example, figures from the 2000 census indicate US-born children of Chinese, Indian and Korean parents tended to be male."

The article on this "dilemna" underscores for me the logic behind denying US funding to the UNFPA which helps to administer China's draconian one-child policy (including forced sterilization and forced abortion) and which leads to terrible consequences such as the kidnapping and sale of children. Organizations which have lost their moral bearings to the point that outlawing sex-selective abortion is considered to be a "dilemna" don't deserve taxpayer dollars.

MB

Sponsoring the Elderly through CFCA

2008-07-04T17:04:00.000-07:00

Today, July 5th, is my day for the 40 Day Fast. Please, check out Andira's blog about clean water as well. Without further ado...

Emy has been staying with my family for the last week. She will be with us for two weeks while her family is in Chicago vacationing and wrapping up the affairs of a deceased family member. Emy is a wonderful Filipino grandmother in her 70’s. She is also very lucky in that she has a daughter and son-in-law who can take her into their home and take care of her in her old age. Watching her shuffle around our house reminds me of all the people in the developing world who don’t have children who can take care of them.

In the US, we have Social Security and Medicare to provide income and health care for the elderly. As a society, we take pretty good care of them materially, and children are much more likely than the elderly to go hungry and live in extreme poverty. In the developing world, though, there are no governmental safety nets. The elderly must rely entirely on their families or community organizations. While this works out well for many people, since they have children who can take care of them, some elderly people fall through the cracks. Perhaps their children have emigrated to look for work and are unable to do more than send an irregular check. Perhaps their child died. Perhaps they never had children. There are a myriad of reasons why people end up in extreme poverty in their old age. Probably the most terrible thing about material poverty among the elderly is that it is often the result of a lack of social connections. Because of this, it can be accompanied by great loneliness. As Mother Teresa said, “Loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty.”

The Christian Foundation for Children and Aging provides an opportunity for people in the first world to connect with an elderly person in the developing world to provide them with food, clothes, medical care, the opportunity to be involved in social programs and (most importantly) to provide them with the knowledge that they are loved and valued.

Sponsoring elderly people isn’t sexy. I sponsor several kids through various aid organizations. The kids draw pictures and write letters telling us about their plans for the future. One gal who has been sponsored by my wife since before we were married is nearly grown and wrote last month asking for advice on career and college choices that she’s been pondering. It’s a pretty awesome experience. You know you are making a difference and that someone’s life will be changed for many years to come. You can see their handwriting and social abilities improve as they get older. You can see their dreams come to fruition. The elderly are different. Many are losing their eyesight and are unable to write letters for themselves. They soil themselves. Their goals are modest: they have no plans for college, marriage and family. They have trouble getting around. They are set in their ways: if your primary purpose in sponsoring somebody is to convert them to your religion, you’re probably wasting your money. Yet, none of that matters to God. He loves them no less than any child, and if we are to imitate His love, we cannot overlook them in our efforts to combat poverty and spread His love around.

Today, I would ask that you read the stories of these people and consider sponsoring an aging person through CFCA. It costs just $30/month and provides so much more than food, clothes and medical care. It provides someone with hope and love. It also reminds your kids that the elderly are important and that they had better make darn sure to take care of you in your doddering years. 

As for myself, I think I’m gonna go sit down next to Emy and chat for a spell. I enjoy hearing her stories about her years as a singer, about growing up as a musician’s kid at the Peninsula Hotel in Hong Kong before and after the Japanese invasion of WWII, and about the farm back in the Philippines.

The obligatory financial stuff
CFCA is a fantastic organization: 93.8% of donations go to program support. CFCA has received seven consecutive 4 star ratings from Charity Navigator (less than 1% of charities make this cut) and is the ONLY child/aging sponsorship organization to receive the A+ rating from the American Institute of Philanthropy.

Addendum
Poverty among the elderly is not an issue that is going to go away. The UN Population Division projects that by 2050 the proportion of elderly people to working people in the developing world is set to rise by over 250%. As of 2005, the dependency ratio was 8.7%. By 2050, the UN projects that the dependency ratio will climb to 22.6%*. The world is set for an unprecedented growth in the percentage of elderly people, and it is very unlikely that social structures and services are going to keep pace with this change.
* Statistics taken from TABLE II.1. AGE COMPOSITION AND DEPENDENCY RATIO, BY DEVELOPMENT GROUP AND MAJOR AREA, ESTIMATES AND MEDIUM VARIANT, 2005 AND 2050 in World Population Prospects: The 2004 Revision, Volume III: Analytical Report

40 Day Fast

2008-06-28T22:56:00.000-07:00

I will be participating in the "40 Day Fast", basically just a bunch of people sharing about various charities and ways to help make this world a better place to live. I think I'm up July 5, but here is a list of others, if anybody wants to follow along.

It would be better to have this list in the sidebar, but alas, I do not have access to that. So, don't forget to comment on Steviepinheads post on human rights for the great apes.

MB

The 40DF Bloggers

6/23	Brant
6/24	Amy	April
6/25	Brian	Rick
6/26	Annie	P.D.
6/27	Autumn	Kelly
6/28	Scott	Gene
6/29	Lorijo	Fay
6/30	Licia	Chris
7/1	Jason	Ambre
7/2	Laura	Beth
7/3	Steven	Sarah
7/4	Tim	Leslie
7/5	Mama's	Andira
7/6	Shawn	Stephanie
7/7	Shaun	Polly
7/8	Prairie	Charley
7/9	Mark	Kat
7/10	Crystal	Davida
7/11	truvyne	Valerie
7/12	Pete	Brent
7/13	Jonathan	Jeanine
7/14	Brody	Lori
7/15	Natalie	Kjaere
7/16	Adam	Jacquelynne
7/17	Euphrony	Dan
7/18	Todd	Rodney
7/19	Mandy	Randel
7/20	Brad	Shawn
7/21	Stephen	Blake
7/22	Brandy	Michael
7/23	Annie	Joel
7/24	Ryan	Maryann
7/25	Kristin	Alex
7/26	Melissa	Clint
7/27	Emily	Erin
7/28	Bart	Doug
7/29	Liz	Mike
7/30	Nancy	Kristi
7/31	Jessie	Jane
8/1	Tressa	Toby

*Click for full List
Learn more...

Human Rights for Great Apes?

2008-06-26T12:18:00.000-07:00

I suspect most of you have heard the news that Spanish legislators are considering conferring certain rights on great apes (which, in common parlance, would include the two species of chimpanzees (common and bonobo), the various species or subspecies of gorilla, and the orangutans; whether the "lesser" great apes (gibbons and siamangs) are included, I don't know).

I'm also beginning to see various hoots and cries and expressions of amusement, astonishment, and incredulity about this Spanish venture, and I'm interested in the reaction of you folks.

One of the (more reasoned) criticisms that I've heard involves the supporters' argument that apes should be accorded rights, at least in part, because their DNA makes them "99.4% human." This figure, if it is the one being used (and it was the one used, IIRC, by the particular supporter I mention below), does sound overstated. Depending on which aspects of the genomes are being compared, for example, we may share with chimpanzees somewhere between 94% (taking into account gene duplications), 96% (the "official" 2005 Human Genome Project figure, which takes into account what are called "indels," insertions and deletions in otherwise-corresponding gene sequences), or 99% (an earlier figure, calculated prior to having the full transcripts of both the human and chimp genomes available) of our DNA with chimpanzees -- and less, presumably, by at least a little, with the other great apes.

I heard a BBC interview with one of the supporters of the Spanish legislation on NPR last night. While she did rely on (what sounded like the inaccurate, or at least outdated) percentage of genetic similarity between the other great apes and ourselves mentioned above -- and I would agree that establishing some sort of a percentage test or cut-off for the extension of "human" rights has various moral, practical, and philosophical problems -- she did make a different point, and the one that I mainly wish to discuss here: the legislation does not, she claims, confer legal "humanity" on great apes.

Instead, said she, it confers a limited sort of legal "person"-hood. Lest you now shake your head -- or expectorate, or however your cultural subset of apes expresses dubiety -- and cluck about "those darn lawyers," please first consider that there is some support for making the "human being"/"legal person" distinction: corporations, for example, are legal "persons" (they can sue and be sued; own, sell, and lease, etc., real and personal property...), but are clearly not human beings.

The nice lady gave an example of the kind of conundrum in which apes currently find themselves without "person"-hood protections. An aging chimp (let's say -- I forget the actual species) has been humanely cared for by an organization in Austria for many years. Now the organization has gone bankrupt and its assets -- including the chimp -- are being sold off, with at least the possibility that the chimp will wind up in the hands of less-than-ethical medical researchers (let's sidestep, for the moment, the question of whether it's ever justifiable to utilize great apes in medical testing by positing that there are such things as humane and ethical and well-regulated/ inspected medical research facilities...) or will simply fall out of adequate care altogether and wind up being a victim of (what we all might agree would be) abuse, neglect, or ...

Apparently there are donors willing to provide for the further care of this ape. But they can't just give the money to his current owner -- the bankrupt facility -- because that money would then fall into the hands of the creditors. And they can't give the money to the ape itself, in part because the ape isn't a legal person -- not even a "person" with tightly-delimited rights (such as a mentally-challenged or senile or comatose person, who might well be the ward in a guardianship situation, lacking his or her own right to manage money, vote, own -- ahem! -- handguns, drive, etc. ...).

Now, one can of course imagine ingenious ways around the Austrian situation (though one doesn't know enough about Austrian bankruptcy and non-profit law to know if they would actually work...): perhaps the donors' funds could go to organize a non-profit with the purpose of purchasing and caring for the poor critter. This might have the advantage of not leaving the (otherwise-innocent, so far as we know) creditors of the old facility out in the cold -- the new facility would simply purchase the ape from the creditors of the old. But the lady's point -- to the extent that this pinhead grasped it -- is that there are always going to be situations without convenient legal workarounds, where the most direct and effective way to protect arguably-sentient (if still non-"human") creatures like these is to allow for them a limited sort of legal personhood, but not fully "human" legal status...

Below all this lies the moral argument, of course. Even though we all might agree that the other great apes are not, in all respects, entitled to the full panoply of rights that us "human" great apes may be entitled to, may they not they share enough of key "human" qualities -- empathy, self-consciousness, family feeling, awareness of pain and loss, intelligence, capacity to communicate, etc. -- to be deserving of some more limited form of rights and protections?

Needless to say, we quickly come to the 'slippery slope' concern: where's it all gonna end? To my mind, that's a better argument for a situation where there's an indivisible slope or spectrum -- one where there's no point on the gradient which can, in any sort of principled fashion, be distinguished from any other. We might face such a situation if all of our pre-hominid brethren (or at least a representative and overlapping sampling), going right back to our most recent common ancestor with chimps, were still alive and kicking... But they're not. (And I recognize that some of you may not be persuaded there even IS any such ancestral kinship, but note that that doesn't necessarily resolve the other questions raised by our increasing grasp of the intellectual and emotional sophistication of some of our fellow travelers on the planet, even if they're not our very close kin.)

So we've got humans. And we've got some definable set of characteristics upon which to base a separate category of animals to whom we might accord a limited quasi-personhood. And then we've got other animals who lack one or more of whatever that definable set of characteristics might turn out to be -- who we continue to assign to the traditional "feral" or "property" categories, about whom we might erect various overarching protections -- hunting laws; protections from certain kinds of abuse; ecological protections; import/export and trafficking laws; and so forth and so on.

Of course, once we start listing the characteristics for this intermediate status of not-human, but not mere-property kind of animal, we do risk a limited "slippery slope" problem: who else gets in to this charmed circle? Some of the cetaceans? The lesser apes? Some of the "higher" non-ape primates? Elephants? Those raucous and annoying, but oh-so-clever corvids (ravens, crows, jays, magpies), about whom I reading right now? ("In the Company of Crows and Ravens" by John M. Marzluff and Tony Angell
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=ravens+crows+angell&x=16&y=23)

Are we actually "evolved" enough to start concerning ourselves morally with "every crow that falls"?

And, as with every extension of "rights," how meaningful is it if it simply becomes another "unfunded mandate"? A "right" that goes, all too often, unremedied? Why create a new set of rights, when we can't even meaningfully enforce or guarantee over wide swaths of the planet the rights we've already extended to our (arguably) even more-deserving fellow humans? The old, why-should-we-spend-money-on-a-space-program-when ... problem, dressed up in King Kong habiliments.

There's certainly no reason not to have some fun with this notion, but I don't find it an entirely silly one.

What Would My Grandfather Think?

2008-06-20T16:06:00.000-07:00

I’m not sure what I would do if my kid decided to sue me, and won… but whatever I would do I’m sure the Canadian senate wouldn’t approve.

If this doesn’t make the SNL top ten list, I don’t know what you need to do to make it…

HT: SDG/Jimmy Akin

I wish my grandfather were alive to talk to about this. He had a wonderful sense of humor and used to tell great stories about growing up in Alberta, CA and Montana. His father used to wake up the boys by slapping the headboard of the bed while saying, "Come a runnin'!" If the boys weren't up in rather short order, the entire bed got flipped and they were dumped on the floor. Friggin' child abuser! If only my grandfather had the option in the 1920's/30's of suing his parents, imagine how much better he would have turned out.

High Energy Density Alternative Fuel

2008-05-13T10:21:00.000-07:00

If this is true (and oil prices don't drop tremendously), then someone is going to get very, very wealthy.

Energy density has always been the bane of the biofuel/ethanol from corn industry. If your mileage drops, it can really cut into the emissions and cost savings. But if energy density can be increased while cutting emissions and cost, somebody is going to make bank. The innovation and money being poured into energy research are the only upsides I see to the increased gas prices. Premium is pushing $4/gallon in my locale. Back 4 years ago when gas prices were really high at $1.50/gallon, I didn't think I'd see this day before I turned 40/50.

MB

The Cost of Raising Children

2008-03-25T08:18:00.000-07:00

How much does it cost to raise kids in today's dollars? Every year I see estimates in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, and it makes me scratch my head. It seems to that the people putting together these statistics pull these numbers out of ~~their ass~~ thin air. Today I went and read some of the actual FDA report upon which these news articles are based (pdf warning).

I still don't get it. If this is true (and that in my mind is a big if), then Americans pay a hell of alot of money to raise (on average) relatively stupid kids compared to the rest of the first world, a significant portion of whom (nearly 30%) don't even graduate from high school.

According to this survey, the cost of raising a kid through age 18 (note that this does not include college expenditures) for a middle income bracket family is $197,700. This is about $11,000/year/child. According to this report, the cost of raising my 2 kids is more than double the cost of my home in today's dollars.

Below are two figures from the 2006 FDA report. My apologies for how small they are. You can pull them up in a separate browser tab or just look in the pdf report to find them if you want to look at them closely.

From my perspective, the only way to come up with a number close to this is to consider lost opportunity costs for working wives who are staying at home. If one does that, the numbers don't come close. A woman missing out on 20 years of work at $30k/year is losing $600,000 in today's money. Give her a college degree and a family is easily passing up a cool million dollars by having a mom stay at home.

But the FDA doesn't consider lost opportunity costs. They are solely interested in how much a family pays for housing, food, transportation, clothing, healthcare, education, child care and miscellaneous items like personal care and entertainment expenses.

So what goes into these bigger numbers? What percent of parents vs. non parents pay more to live in a nice school district? That can be a big expense, but can it explain an average cost/kid of $66k ($132K for two child families). That sure doesn't apply to me. Some people might get a slightly larger house, but how many people would get a 1 or 2 bedroom house vs. a 3 or 4 bedroom house if they didn't have kids? For me a 3 bedroom home is probably the smallest I would go, even without kids. The total education costs are high for public schooling and home schooling, but they are low for private school. The food costs for children in the 0-2 age range are ridiculous in my opinion, but then again my family didn't buy formula or baby food. A average teenage boy can certainly put the food away, so maybe $50/week/kid is justified. The clothing costs seem ridiculous to me, but then again with few exceptions I don't shop for new clothes for my kids (or for myself for that matter). Overall, to me these numbers look greatly inflated.

Looking at the big picture, according to this study a family which grosses $59,600/year will spend $197,700/kid. Multiplying this by the family size factor and taking it out to eight kids, one can see that large families are quite expensive. The biggest question this raises for me is this: are families with 8 or more kids all con artists with drug/forgery businesses on the side?
# Kids: % Income Spent on Kids
1 Kid: 23% of gross income (124%)
2 Kids: 37% of gross income (100%)
3 Kids: 43% of gross income (77%)
4 Kids: 57% of gross income (77%)
5 Kids: 71% of gross income (77%)
6 Kids: 86% of gross income (77%)
7 Kids: 100% of gross income (77%)
8 Kids: 114% of gross income

Clearly, this equation breaks down soon after 3 kids, so why do the report authors even bother saying the numbers should be multiplied by 0.77 for when the family has "three or more" children. Did I miss the disclaimer for families with more than 3 kids? I certainly don't believe 0.77 is the correct factor for 4 kids, because there is no way on earth that a middle income family spends 60% of their gross income on their 4 children.

The only way these numbers make any sense to me is if I imagine that two working parent families have very extravagant lifestyles compared to my own. I didn't see anywhere in the report where two working parent families were broken out from two parent families with only one person in the workforce. Even then, though, the results seem rather dubious.

So, what's wrong with my analysis? Did I miss the fine print by only skimming the report over my lunch break? Am I just a whacked out cheapskate who can't relate to the average Joe? Does anybody think that on average a middle class family spends 37% of pre-tax income to raise 3 kids? Enlighten me, please!

MB

CO2 to Gasoline

2008-03-14T11:19:00.000-07:00

While I still have some lingering doubts regarding the certainty and extent of anthropogenic Global Warming and its implications, I found this NY Times article to be interesting: Scientists Would Turn Greenhouse Gas Into Gasoline.

Essentially, they extract CO2 from the air and use it to create hydrocarbon chains from methane to gasoline and jet fuel. In a sense, they seem to be making a case for a sustainable hydrocarbon fuel economy that would be compatible with the existing infrastructure.

While this is not a new idea, Martin and Kubic claim to have made significant progress in making the process more efficient such that the consumer cost may be $4.60/gal or even $3.40/gal with some (presumably foreseeable) technological advances. Their Green Freedom (pdf) system proposes the use of a nuclear reactor to provide the energy required for this conversion, though any source would do.

The question seems to be, how efficient is the energy conversion to gasoline as compared to other similarly feasible and safe fuels or storage? Relatedly, is gasoline inherently unhealthy (e.g. cancer, respiratory diseases)? If so, what alternatives are safer, healthier, and feasible?

It seems to me that this would also have significant implications for our foreign dependence upon oil and create a sort of upper limit on the price of oil world wide.

This development is also notable as an alternative to present solutions to removing CO2 from the atmosphere, such as burying it (Michigan well gets carbon dioxide out of air, into ground).

Hat tip to Jonathan Adler at Volokh Conspiracy.

Kevin

Time Zones and Other Questions

2008-03-11T23:16:00.000-07:00

Sunday I was sick and forgot to change the time on our clocks. I was reminded about how on my 5th trip outside of the two states I grew up in (at age 25), I was driving through Indiana and asked a lady at a gas station what time zone I was in so that I would know whether or not I needed to change the time on my watch. The lady said she didn't now what time zone she was in and just gave me the time. As I walked out of there, I thought to myself, "Boy, is that lady stupid."

While perhaps she should have known what time zone she was in from a geographic sense, at a practical level, I was the one being stupid. Since Indiana is one of only two states to not use daylight savings time and effectively changes time zones relative to the rest of the country, it was unimportant and probably unknown by most folks in Indiana. I was being the stupid one by asking what I thought in my ignorance was an obvious question.

This story always reminds me about how I go often through life asking what I think are obvious questions to get at answers to questions and forget that my underlying assumptions and ignorance may be blinding me a better way to approach the subject. With that in mind, thanks to all the bloggers and "real world folks" out there who challenge me to think about things differently and to reevaluate my unquestioned assumptions.

MB

Can you (Literally!) Smell Divorce?

2008-02-11T10:24:00.000-08:00

I don’t have time to blog extensively on this too much, nor have I had much time to think about it, but the broad sociological consequences of recent research into human attraction and smell are mind boggling.
http://psychologytoday.com/articles/index.php?term=19960301-000030&page=1

Here are some initial reactions/questions that I have.

1) How big a player is the sense of smell in the overall picture of human attraction? Is it a major player, even when subconscious? Is it a minor player, perhaps only making a difference when other means of mate selection are inconclusive?

2) What is the effect of deodorants and fragrances on this function? The obvious answer is that they interfere. How much do they interfere and how often do they influence the end result?

3) How did past cultures with arranged marriages handle this (or present ones for that matter)? Was there much enough interaction between the sexes to allow the physiological process to work? Were there means for the girl to communicate these preferences (through her mother perhaps)?

4) It appears that not only do hormonal contraceptives interfere, but they actually reverse the natural preferences in mate selection from dissimilar MHC profiles to similar MHC profiles. The explanation for this is that BCPs artificially turn off fertility by simulating pregnancy. Scientists speculate that a woman wants family around when she is pregnant. Perhaps it is also the worst of times to be looking for a mate. There are many angles to take this one, given the widespread use of hormonal contraceptives.

4A) Quite often, even when a woman is not sexually active prior to marriage, she begins taking hormonal contraceptives in anticipation of marriage and the desire to postpone children. I wonder if there is a higher incidence of cold feet among this demographic?

4B) It is quite common in American culture for serious decisions regarding mate selection and engagement to take place after the initiation of regular sexual relations. Most often when this happens, the female is on hormonal contraception. This opens the door to vast numbers of women in our society to have their brains interpreting their potential mates smells the exact opposite of how they would if they were not taking the pill. What are the consequences of this? How does it impact the future of the marriage? The article mentions people with similar MHC have more miscarriage and infertility problems. Given the decreased attraction and increased stress due to infertility and miscarriage, it would seem a reasonable conclusion that there would be a higher incidence of divorce among this demographic.

Thoughts anyone?

MB

What determines modesty?

2008-01-28T20:28:00.000-08:00

I've been having an interesting discussion on another group about women covering or trying to reveal as little as possible of their breasts while breastfeeding.

There seems to be quite a large cohort that feels that thinking a woman should try to be as "discreet" as possible is an innately "anti-breastfeeding" view. Some even think that by covering up while nursing, women are prolonging the culture's view that the act or at least the body part is somehow dirty or shameful.

This has got me thinking about modesty in general.

Modesty varies so much from culture to culture, and obviously from gender to gender. In some cultures showing one's hair or an ankle is considered racy, while in other cultures nudity is the norm and is not considered sexual at all.

I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on a few things:

1. What determines modesty in a given culture?

2. What factors bring about changes in the culture's standards of modesty?

3. Should we, in general, try to remain within the standards of modesty of the culture in which we find ourselves, or are there sometimes good reasons not to do so? What would be some examples of good reasons not to, if you think they exist?

4. Is there ever an absolute right and wrong for standards of modesty (i.e. are some standards wrong because they result in abuse or discrimination or because they are simply unreasonable and/or unfair, or is showing certain body parts always wrong regardless of culture)?

5. How much does context determine whether showing a certain body part is appropriate or not, within a given culture? Does the attitude, reason and intent for showing a body part make a difference, or is there purely a clinical, quantifiable standard based on what body part is being shown? Are there situations where unavoidable or necessary exposure of a particular body part would be fine, while purposefully and unecessarily exposing that body part would not be ok? If so, where and how would you draw a line?

6. Why do you, personally, make the choices you do when it comes to modesty?

If you have any other ideas of points to discuss on this topic, feel free to add them. BTW, I'm not necessarily discussing law so much as common practice or what people think "should" be done, but I wouldn't be opposed to a discussion of the ethics of legislating modesty.

Giving to Charity is Profitable?

2008-01-01T03:00:00.001-08:00

http://finance.yahoo.com/banking-budgeting/article/103816/Giving-Makes-You-Rich

I have barely read the entire article, let alone tried to find holes in their statistics/logic, but I find the possibility intriguing.

It reminds me of an article I read not too long ago that looked at the differences between the way the rich give and the way poor and middle class people give. The basic premise was that rich people give to preserve their way of life (e.g., symphony and museums) while middle class and poor tend to give to help others with more immediate/tangible needs. Sadly, I don't have a link to that article to see if there is any overlap and perhaps there wouldn't be, since the first study also looked at the giving of time (in addition to money) to see if the correlation held.

MB

2008-01-01T02:05:00.000-08:00

Awhile ago I blogged about Russia's population crisis and the bizarre holiday that resulted from this problem. I wrote at the time that I was skeptical the holiday would have any effect because I saw the problem as "a fundamental lack of hope in society and an unchecked march toward cultural suicide."

Apparently, I was seeing the glass as simply half empty while others see this attitude as portending great hope for our planet. Silly me.

Even though I profoundly disagree with these folks' assessment of our situation here on planet earth, I found their ideas interesting to read about. Honestly, though, I have much more respect for the second couple than the first. The first couple strikes me as hypocrites and probably dishonest, while the second couple strikes me as much more sincere and consistent in applying their philosophy.

Reading this article again raised the question for me of why Russia is implementing these featured couple's ideal demographic situation on a nation-wide scale? Personally, I doubt the average Muscovite is truly out to save the planet. Here is my list of possible causes.
1) Saving the planet
2) Improving one's standard of living
3) Not seeing children as worth the hassle
4) Not being confident of one's ability to provide
5) Not seeing hope for the future and not wanting to bring a child into a hopeless world.
6) Your idea.

What am I missing? Are there other reasons that you can think of? Which reason/combination of reasons do you think is driving the drop in fertility in A) Russia and/or B) Western society? Honestly, I have a tough time imagining what would drive such societal trends, since I see children as the greatest joy/hope on earth and wouldn't mind having a whole passel of them. So, please, those of you closer to this pulse (or more able to imagine/envision what would drive it), clue me in. I just don't get it.

MB

HT: Mission Territory who also has a great review up about the book "The Design Matrix: A Consilience of Clues"

The Santa Dilemma

2007-12-14T11:02:00.000-08:00

With Christmas approaching, I've been giving some thought to Santa Claus. Having young children, and being surrounded with friends who have young children, I am looking at the Santa Claus story in a new light... and it is disturbing to me.

First, let me set the stage a bit. I cannot remember a time when I believed in Santa. I grew up surrounded by older siblings (eleven of them), so I was filled in on the real situation very early on. I can't remember ever sitting on the lap of a mall Santa, and if I did I certainly knew that it was a silly farce. I never wrote a gift list for Santa, even in pretend... I wrote my list for my parents. So, I have never personally had the experience of believing in Santa that most American kids seem to have.

I have also chosen not to sell the Santa story to my kids as a reality. They know about Santa, they know that Santa isn't real, and we incorporate the Santa story as little as possible in our holiday celebrations. So, I have never had the experience of watching my kids believe in Santa.

A close friend of mine also has young children close to the ages of my children. He fondly remembers believing in Santa as a child, and loves perpetuating the story with his children. He loves to see the excitement in their eyes and the joy they experience thinking about Santa. As he describes it, giving up Santa would be to give up the "magic" of Christmas.

I don't know the experience of that feeling of "magic", but the more I think about the Santa story, the less I want to share it with my kids. I have a few reasons.

* If I sell my kids a lie at this age, if I am adamant that Santa is real and go to lengths to deceive them into thinking that Santa is real... but later they inevitably learn that it's all just a society-wide deception (just as they're entering their years of growing intellectual independence)... then why would they stop there? Why would they trust me about the other things I'm trying to teach them that they can't see, touch, and feel? Why would they think my religious views have any credibility? Why would they believe me when I say that immoral behavior will have negative consequences down the road? It seems that it would throw my credibility out the window.

* Much of the Santa story seems like a gimmick to trick kids into good behavior. As parents, relying on gimmicks like this is a cop-out that doesn't serve us or our kids well. We need to do the hard work of teaching our kids to care about others, and to live well for the right reasons. I hope I never use the "Santa's watching" line (or similar gimmicks) to get my kids to behave.

* Santa's role in Christmas (as it is currently understood in American folklore) encourages kids to be intensely selfish and materialistic. They can make long lists of stuff they want, and expect to get most of it. If they behave because of the Santa story, it will be in order that they can get more stuff. The highlight of Christmas day is seeing what stuff they got. Nobody GIVES gifts to Santa... it's not an exchange. You only GET. It seems to me we're training our kids through the Santa story to care far more about what they can get than what they can give.

* This may seem silly, but the Santa story really undermines teaching fiscal responsibility. How? The stuff kids get from "Santa" is from some magical source that has no cost, and requires no sacrifice (from the kid's perspective). Kids don't see the after-Christmas credit card bills... until they grow up and become parents. There is a sense of entitlement, that if you want something you will somehow be able to get it (wthout working for it), that seems to carry over into much of the rest of American society. (Which is the chicken, which is the egg? Who knows.)

I don't begrudge anyone the fun they have with Santa. I work hard with my kids to make sure that they don't spill the beans about Santa to their Santa-believing friends. And, really, I have a feeling I must be missing something important. I'm hoping someone here can help me understand. What is the value of the Santa story? What is the "magic" that makes it worth while? If you have (or have had) young kids, how do (or did) you handle the Santa story with them?

Mark

Are All "Families" Created Equal? When it Comes to Child Abuse, No.

2007-11-19T19:42:00.000-08:00

This article hit home for me, given that I have two cousins who were raped by stepfathers. I'm admittadly a bit biased, when I say that divorce and remarriage sucks. Funny today, how the divorce rate among "born again Christians" is the same as for the rest of society. Sometimes you wonder if Jesus and the early church had an opinion on that.

MB

Medical Competition

2007-11-05T11:13:00.000-08:00

Continuing the debate on capitalism to the field of medicine, the question was raised, why has the free market failed to reduce costs in the US health care industry?

That is a large question, but I think John Stossel makes a compelling argument that the current health care system can, in some respects, occlude and stifle the free market in his brief article Control Your Own Health Care and the follow-up Medical Competition Works for Patients.

The first article describes consumer driven health care and mentions Whole Foods's use of Health Savings Accounts.

John Goodman, the ostensive "Father of Health Savings Accounts", provides a brief rundown of his views on our current political options in Grading the Candidates.

Back in February 2007, Mark raised encompassing issues in more detail that also compares plans and discusses practical difficulties: Universal Health Care and Health Care: What's the Current State?

Some deliberations on this topic couple government charity with mandating a more static market, but I wonder if this is necessary or if it's possible to consider these aspects more independently. Is it feasible for the government to be a source of charity while also maintaining a free market?

Of course, the free market is not a simple panacea. I think it is often easier to imagine, particularly in specific cases, that a government edict fixing prices could do a better job -- especially better than the patchwork we have now. The simple rule of such universal health care is attractive because it is so encompassing and absolute, and it seems to most directly match our morality. But its failures may not be so readily apparent and accounted for -- failures of wasted time, resources, innovation, responsibility, health and lives that might actually amount to a poorer system.

What do you think?

Kevin

Update 11/7: N. Gregory Mankiw wrote an interesting NYT article on 3 common health care statistics which are factual but misleading. Thanks to Jonathan Adler:

1. The United States has lower life expectancy and higher infant mortality than Canada, which has national health insurance.
2. Some 47 million Americans do not have health insurance.
3. Health costs are eating up an ever increasing share of American incomes.

According to Mankiw, these statements are "dangerous" because they are true, yet "don’t mean what people think they mean."

Update 1/1/08: MB provided an excellent summary of HSAs. The comments which follow the summary are also very educational. Thanks, MB!

Owning Water

2007-10-31T14:35:00.000-07:00

Capitalism and its alternatives are vast topics that Sarah and I have been discussing and which I hope to continue in this thread and open for wider discussion.

One particular example that Sarah raised was the Bolivian government's 1999 $2.5 billion, 40-year concession of the water supply in the city of Cochabamba to Aguas de Tunari (AdT), a consortium which was the sole bidder and wherein Bechtel was the controlling partner. Such privatization is part of the conditions of loans from the World Bank, which Bolivia had turned to since its economic difficulties in the 1980s. In accordance with World Bank policies, Bolivia privatized railways, telephone systems, national airlines, tin mines, and in this case Cochabamba's water supply.

The contract guaranteed Aguas de Tunari a minimum 15% return on investment for providing water, sanitation, irrigation, electric generation, completion of the stalled Misicuni dam, and for paying down the $30 million in debt accumulated by Cochabamba's previous municipal water supply SEMAPA. It was legally affirmed by Bolivia's Law 2029 which ostensibly gave AdT a broad monopoly over all water resources in the city, potentially even including those which were independently built and not part of SEMAPA. The breadth of Law 2029 may have even included the collection of rainwater.

Aguas de Tunari quickly imposed a large rate increase averaging 35% (potentially as much as 30% of the minimum wage) and massive protests erupted in 2000, including a general strike that halted Cochabamba's economy for four straight days. Martial law was declared amidst violent conflict between protestors and police. Bolivia eventually withdrew the contract, repealed Law 2029, was sued by and settled with Bechtel, et al., for 30 cents, and the water supply returned to local SEMAPA control. Rates returned to their pre-2000 levels but as of 2005, service remained poor and intermittent.

My first reaction is that this case might be more aptly compared to a government mandated monopoly rather than a good example of capitalism in general. Nevertheless, it is ostensibly a failed attempt to foster a more capitalistic system based upon the loan requirements of the World Bank.

Of course, capitalism exists within some "regulatory" legal framework that protects property and human rights. Sarah points to the illegality of human trafficking and asks, if another human cannot be owned, "Can rain water be private property, owned by a foreign company? Is it ethical? Can the genome of thoroughbreds be patented? Can biological life be patented and become private property?"

I don't think the government should have the right to sell the rain or seize private wells as Law 2029 may have mandated. I also don't think it is immoral to own and sell water, whether it be by individuals, corporations, or cooperatives.

What do you think? Should the essentials of life, such as water, be government owned? If so, how should Cochabamba solve their water crisis?

What lessons should be learned from Cochabamba? Is this exceptional or typical of globalization? Is it an indictment of globalization? of capitalism? of government control?

Beyond water, what should be the moral bounds of capitalism? Should the patent system encompass the creation of genomes?

Kevin

UPDATE: In May 2006, Gary Becker and Richard Posner provided some broader context and brief (and perhaps loose) analysis on Latin America that I found interesting. In particular, Becker makes the sensible distinction between "crony capitalism" and "competitive capitalism".

(1) Moving Left in South America-BECKER
(2) The Left's Resurgence in Latin America--Posner's Comment
(3) Response on Moving Left in Latin America-BECKER

Exposing Yourself On The Net

2007-10-23T12:29:00.000-07:00

Privacy is an important and imposing topic with an overwhelming scope.

The sub-topic of volunteering too much information is touched upon in Sarah's recent Word To The Wise post that originates from a post by Dan at Cerulean Sanctum which considers the ramifications of comments placed on the net.

Of course, we are pretty open here and fearless of negative repercussions. I think Mr. C, Mr. Boy, Mrs. Kangaroo, and Mr. Pinhead can back me up on that. :)

Apparently, we've given this some thought and, despite the dangers, it seems we've found value in keeping our discussions public, both in the respectful dialectic and in the associated friends we could not have otherwise made.

Nevertheless, there is an unknown risk. I think using pseudonyms and anonymizing personal details is a good first step. I often consider becoming more anonymous myself. By the same token, I want to be proud of what I write, so I try to be careful and respectful.

Humor can be disastrous. Woe to he who judges me by my failed attempts at humor! :) Of course, if it's funny or good, I want the credit. My bad comments do not define me, only my good ones do.

When considering privacy in general, some make the argument, "if you aren't doing anything wrong, then you have nothing to hide." I think Dan exhibits the flaws in that argument and highlights the value of pseudo- and ano- nymity. The comments in reply to Dan's post are also fascinating as they contend for the proper balance.

What do you guys think? Any additional thoughts on the risks of blogging? on the balance between privacy and publicity or secrecy and honesty? on the business aspect? on the emerging culture of totally open lives?

niveK

Sarah on Parenting

2007-10-17T17:58:00.000-07:00

As my way of welcoming Sarah to this discussion of ours, I figured I'd link to an excellent discussion she started on her own blog. The nature of good parenting, and in particular what part discipline should play in that parenting, has been an active discussion in my own household for a few months now. Sarah frames the question well, and has already generated some interesting discussion.

Welcome, Sarah! We're glad to have you around.

Mark

Depression Rates and Career Choices

2007-10-14T22:55:00.000-07:00

A study came out ranking jobs by depression rates. At the top of the list (of fully employed people) were people in personal care fields like child care and care for the elderly. Second were food service workers and third were health care workers. The bottom of the list was occupied by engineers and architects.

I'm particularly interested in why engineers and architects have such lower depression rates, seeing as I fall in that category myself. Why is this? Is this because we are much less emotional overall? Is it because our jobs do not require much empathy for others? This would seem to correlate well with the personal care workers and health care workers being at positions 1 and 3, but I'm not sure food service workers need to have that much more empathy than engineers or health care workers. Having never worked in food service, though, perhaps that impression is way off base. I doubt it is correlated too strongly with intelligence or education level, since health care workers tend to be a bright lot, though perhaps doctors and the like are a small minority in the overall field. This study reminds me of studies Mark has blogged about in the past that looked at traits which are associated with human happiness. Overall, it is a fascinating field. It would be interesting to see the actual study and not just an AP article.

MB

What We Can Learn From Lap Dancers

2007-10-13T21:34:00.000-07:00

I doubt learning that lap dancers make less when menstruating comes as much of a surprise to folks, but lap dancers making 40% money more during the fertile phase of the cycle vs. the luteal phase is quite a difference. I doubt they need the money more then. I remember seeing a study in which men were asked to rank women's attractiveness in pictures and this was correlated with their time of the month. Women who were around the fertile time came out ahead. Maybe I'm just weird, but this stuff fascinates me, mostly because it is so subtle and seemingly unnoticeable. Ask 10 guys to tell you if a given woman off the street is fertile and they will look at you like you are off your rocker (at least I would). Yet, the effect of a woman's seemingly hidden fertility is measurable in such an amazingly dramatic fashion. Somehow men must subconsciously know this. My guess is that somehow women are subconsciously communicating this information as well. Bizarre.

MB

PS: I wonder if there are any wise old matchmakers out there who have known this for eons and kept all of us technologically advanced and culturally disconnected societies in the dark.

Importing Poverty

2007-10-01T14:17:00.000-07:00

The Washington Post had an article last month which provided an interesting perspective on a fairly stagnant poverty rate: Importing Poverty.

Thanks to Citizen Pamphleteer which has some additional commentary. I find the idea of a dynamic rather than stagnant poor to be appealing, and perhaps ideal if there truly is an irreducible minimum for poverty within a free system.

Kevin

When Information Isn't Informative: Plus Some Notes on Demographics

2007-09-26T13:55:00.000-07:00

Does anybody see a problem with the graph on the left?

Here is another graph of the same information (with a few extra years tacked on at the end and the US population added as reference). Do they look at all similar?

The first graph is terribly misleading because the abscissa/x-axis is nonuniformly scaled. I'm not sure more than two consecutive tick marks have the same scale. I've redone this graph using a uniformly scaled abscissa to show true trend. China for some reason cuts their graph off just before their population is projected to begin shrinking. Maybe its just that I'm an engineer, but this sort of wacky scaling drives me up the wall. The benefit of a graph is that it can convey alot of information intuitively. For that reason, if people aren't careful, uneven scaling can be very misleading. This above graph almost makes it look like China had a lull in population growth that has started to pick up again at a rather dramatic pace. This is not the case at all, as the second figure shows. It doesn't take very long to look this information up and create one's own graph. You would think that a reporter would be educated enough to do something like this, especially when they are working for the BBC and not merely some local rag.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7000931.stm

************
Update/Supplementary Material
************
The question came up as to why there is such a lag between when fertility rates drop below replacement levels and when population begins declining. Because population growth is the sum of fertility rates and death rates, there is a lag due to the human lifespan. However, this lag is exacerbated because factors associated with more rapidly declining fertility rates are also associated with increased lifespans, namely increased urbanization and development.

The typical age/sex population distribution for an undeveloped country looks like a pyramid. There are lots of children and relatively few adults. However, as fertility rates decline and lifespans increase, the pyramid begins to morph into a rectangle. Zimbabwe, like most underdeveloped countries has recently begun to reduce its population quite dramatically. One can see that 25 years ago, population was still growing exponentially, but great reductions in fertility rates have come since then. One thing that has surprised demographers over the last 25 years is the rapid pace at which fertility rates have declined in the developing world. They have declined much more quickly than they did in the developed world. Now, the population distribution histograms of even underdeveloped countries like Zimbabwe are starting to morph into the rectangle shape indicative of stable population.

Italy is an example of a country that has experienced the transition from increasing population to decreasing population. Instead of transitioning to a rectangle, they are in the process of transitioning to an inverted pyramid. Not only is population growth an exponential function, but population decline is exponential as well. Unless they can reverse this trend in fertility rates or increase their immigration rates, their population will decrease exponentially to a fraction of what it is today.

The US and China are both countries that are in between the pyramid and rectangle stages. The difference between the US and China is that China has experienced more drastic fertility rate reductions and is beginning to transition into the inverted pyramid stage like Italy. However, the US is beginning to look more like the rectangle with a relatively stable population distribution by age and sex. These plots are also interesting, because they can highlight the sex ratio disparities in countries like China and India.

These plots become even more fascinating when one compares one country today to the same country +/-50 years. I think a short course in demograhics should be required for policy makers dealing with plans like social security and medicare, that take from today's worker to pay for today's retirees benefits instead of investing the money.

One last note because the figures ended up being rather small. The horizontal axis is population with zero in the middle and female population in blue increasing to the left and male population in red increasing to the right. Each horizontal red and blue line represents a histogram of the population for a specific age category. The age categories are 5 year age spans proceeding from 0-5 years old on up to 95-100 years old. I'm sure there's a much simpler way to explain this, but I'm tired and it escapes me right now.

Zimbabwe

Italy

China

US

Source for my Population Graphs: Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations Secretariat, World Population Prospects: The 2006 Revision and World Urbanization Prospects: The 2005 Revision, http://esa.un.org/unpp, Wednesday, September 26, 2007;

May the Souls of the Faithfully Departed, Through the Mercy of God, Rest in Peace. Amen.

2007-09-12T01:14:00.001-07:00

But when are they departed? What is death? Is it simply when one is brain dead, as indicated by "fixed and dilated pupils, lack of eye movement and the absence of respiratory reflexes." Can a pregnant woman be dead. When should the harvesting of organs begin? Would knowing that 1 in 1000 "dead" people survives after life support has been switched off affect your decision to harvest the organs? Interesting questions about death and its diagnosis are raised by Dr. Kellehear in this BBC article.

I remember being in middle school and reading similar questions being raised by Dr. C. Everett Koop. It all seemed like science fiction at the time, especially when I later read an article in the paper about a guy in a body bag waking up and giving a fright to the mortician who promptly got him to the doctor. I'm not sure what the answers to the questions above are, but it isn't reassuring that doctors seem to have have their own debates without (for the most part) informing patients of them.

New Holiday: Day of Conception

2007-09-09T23:40:00.000-07:00

Get a free vacation day September 12 to tango with your spouse and be entered in a contest to win thousands of dollars in cash or even a car if you are successful!! When will this idea catch on in the US? I'd sign up. :-) Perhaps, it would take similar cultural circumstances being replicated in the US; circumstances like our abortion rate topping 50%, and our population being predicted to potentially decline by 25-30% over the next 50 years instead of the predicted 50%+ increase. In the US, that would be the equivalent of our population decreasing from the current 300 million to 210/225 million over the next 50 years instead of increasing to over 400 million. Talk about a social security/medicare nightmare. On the other hand, think of all the great deals on real estate that could be had in such a climate! I think I'd have more confidence in my children being able to afford a house in 20 years than I do now. The hitch is, I have this very strong suspicion that population decline of that magnitude indicates a fundamental lack of hope in society and an unchecked march toward cultural suicide.

I guess I don't need a vacation day that badly. My wife and I just might be able to pull of procreating without a government holiday complete with bribes (oops, prizes).

------------
Random thought for the day (only tangentially related). Conception Day and Russia Day are 9 months apart on the calendar. The only other holidays that I can think of that are specifically 9 months apart are Christmas and the Feast of the Annunciation. Can anybody else think of another pair of holidays/holy days with specific 9 month spacing? The valuable prize being offered for winning this contest to to lay claim to the esteemed title of "calendar wonk."

MB

It's the End of the World as We Know It, and I Don't Care

2007-09-05T13:52:00.001-07:00

Actually, it's not the end of the world. Just Anglicanism... and we don't know it's the end of Anglicanism as we know it, it's just a distinct possibility. And, come to think of it, I do care. So to heck with the title.

Anglicanism has some tough days ahead. Will they stay together or fracture into little pieces? Anybody care to prophesy about this one? I sure won't, but I do hope they can pull this off and stay together.

Vaccines

2007-09-04T23:57:00.000-07:00

Forward/disclaimer: I don’t currently have internet access at home, so I am writing this from work, and it will have a pronounced lack of documentation. I’m sure others have done more research on this and can add some sources at their leisure. As a result, this will also have a more personal flair than I would prefer for something medical in nature.

To give some history, someone inquired about me starting a discussion on vaccines, so I thought I’d jot down some thoughts off the cuff. Much thought has gone into this, but I’m time limits me here to summarizing my opinions and experiences. I had thought this was discussed previously on this blog or my old one, but couldn’t find anywhere.

First, are vaccines good for society and our children? Though others would disagree, the answer seems to me to be a resounding, “Yes!” They have helped eliminate or nearly eliminate several formerly common deadly diseases. There are still risks with this medical procedure, as with any. I know my grandparents both got terribly ill from the flu shot a decade or so ago. However, undoubtedly, on the whole the flu shot and other vaccines save many lives each year.

That said, are there any concerns regarding vaccines? This is where the discussion gets more nuanced and much more interesting.

Autism
Several people (I know one family in particular) blame vaccinations on their child’s development of autism. Personally, I don’t think the evidence supports this, but I’m not ready to completely rule it out. Even without the autism link, it just makes sense to me to avoid putting a known toxin such as mercury into a young infants system. My family avoids vaccines with thimerisol and pharmaceutical companies have realized that they can sell lots more vaccines without it so alternatives are readily available.

Is the Schedule Healthy?
Studies years ago showed that people quit taking their kids to the doctor for regular checkups after they got past their toddler years (sometimes before). This left a very large percentage of the population unvaccinated. Part of the solution, doctors decided, was to vaccinate kids earlier while they were still receiving regular checkups in order to inoculate as much of the population as possible. However, is it really in the best interest of the child to vaccinate for say Hepititus B at so early an age? Many doctors will readily admit that they don’t really need this vaccine at a young age and if made to choose between Hep B and other vaccines will recommend that it be delayed until the cycles (including boosters) for other more important vaccines are completed.

Are all the vaccines the best way to acquire immunity?
Personally, I’d rather have my young kids get chickenpox than get vaccinated, and we’ve done that. The median age for chickenpox has risen dramatically in recent years, since the original decision to only give one shot has left numerous vaccinated people with insufficient immunity to resist the disease. They are vaccinated, but not inoculated. It’s a personal decision, but given the ethical considerations later posted, this is a rather easy decision for me. More immunity and no ethical issues. We’ll take the real disease, thank you very much. Comparing my kids experience with chickenpox (even when covered and at their itchiest) with my friends’ experience with an extremely upset infant who was sick and couldn’t sleep the day after being vaccinated (on our shared vacation at a cabin in Colorado), I’ll take chickenpox any day.

Are all vaccines ethically produced?
Sadly, no. Some are produced using cell lines from aborted fetuses. This is a very contentious issue and most doctors will tell you it isn’t true. EVERY single doctor we’ve ever visited has told us it isn’t true. My wife and I have been told that you can’t believe everything you read on the internet (even on the CDC’s website?), that they know so and so who lectures around the world about vaccines and this isn’t true, they are grown in chicken embryos (true for some, not all vaccines) and many other things. The reaction has been quite varied when we have stuck to our story and brought in proof. Some Doctors have accepted the evidence without bluster. Others have been offended. This always amazes me, since in my profession as an engineer, people are much more open to being given new information by a customer. In fact, it is most often greatly appreciated. After this, we’ve been told that alternatives to chickenpox and MMR are unavailable (only partly true, since measles and mumps are available separately from Rubella and alternatives to Rubella using ethical production methods are only available in Europe and Japan). The latest response has been that we will need to pay for a whole shitload of the stuff, since they buy it in bulk and insurance won’t pay for an order of only one or two dosages. We’re currently waiting out our pediatrician on this one and seeing if how much would need to be ordered. After giving us an original response that only one was available, she was very vague on the actual cost and number of dosages (hundreds of dollars, I think was all she said). We’ll see if we can get more specific information out of her. We know a few other people in our shoes and might be able to pull together enough folks to make a bulk order and get the measles and mumps vaccines separately.

Is there a moral obligation to avoid vaccines with manufactured with aborted fetus tissue?
Would there be a moral obligation to avoid vaccines manufactured using martyred Christians or Jewish victims of the holocaust? I don’t think there necessarily would, though to ignore the problem and not seek ethical alternatives would surely be an ethical problem to a pro-life person. The reasoning of my wife and I has run something along these lines. A) Our medical system is run entirely by profits. The pharmaceutical companies will only change if there is a large enough market to make it such change profitable. Ethical alternatives exist. All we need is a large enough market to make pushing them through the FDA approval process profitable. B) Because most people are completely ignorant on the issue as it stands, the pharmaceutical companies have figured that they can get away with this at will and are developing new vaccines using aborted cell lines. This type of research will continue, unless the companies realize that they won’t be able to sell to a significant enough portion of the population to make taking other tracks profitable. C) There is so much ignorance on the issue this is the most effective means of education I know of for informing people about the problem, especially doctors. In my experience, doctors don’t listen to engineers unless that person is their patient and their patient’s care is affected by this idea. It’s the only way I know of to educate doctors, honestly. The pharmaceutical companies certainly haven’t been doing too great a job with this issue.

Resources for vaccines using cell lines from aborted fetuses.

Coriell Cell Repository. Are you a member of a research institution/related commercial company and want to buy your own aborted fetus cell lines? Step right up and give them the cash. http://locus.umdnj.edu/

Children of God for Life. I think their response is too strident, but I’ve yet to find a mistake in their documentation. Best summary out there of *which* vaccines use aborted fetus tissue in their production. Using this website and the sources they reference, I’ve figured out in 5 minutes what my doctor’s staff couldn’t figure out after “much research.”

http://www.cogforlife.org/fetalvaccines.htm

NASA Climate Calculation Error

2007-08-14T23:18:00.000-07:00

My brother sent me this week a copy of an article in the NY Sun that was hard for me to believe. It seemed incredible, and I figured there must be some mistake. So I looked it up. And, there appears to be no mistake.

First, the article, titled An Inconvenient Truth. Seems that NASA climate research department publishes temperature data, and has been for the last few years pointing out that each year in the 2000's has been very hot in the US in comparison to the last millennium. This was big news in January of this year, when they reported that 2006 had been the hottest year in the US of the previous 112 years (see, for example, this Washington Post article).

Turns out that the numbers were wrong. Earlier this month, Steve McIntyre, a climate researcher in Toronto, got suspicious about the numbers because of some peculiar anomalies that showed up out of the blue in 2000. He did some checking, some reverse engineering, and determined that the US numbers had been significantly off since 2000 (which, in some way that I don't understand, affects previous numbers as well). About a week later, NASA acknowledged the change and quietly adjusted their numbers.

I've been digging into this this morning to find more detailed information, and I'll pass along what I've discovered.

Anthony Watts has the best technical summary of the situation I've found. (Steve McIntyre's site is down, possibly because of a DOS attack.)

Roger Pielke also has a writeup, and the comments section has quite a bit of opinion and links to other information.

If you're interested in the raw data, here's an archived copy of the data before the update, and a direct link to the updated data. Note that you won't find any mention of the update on the NASA site itself.

The RealClimate blog has a post from Gavin Schmidt, a climate scientist at NASA, arguing that the differences are statistically insignificant and not worth mentioning.

So, what do I think?

Well, in the first place, it seems that the bulk of the comments on the Watts and Pielke blogs are taking this form: "See, global warming is disproven, because temperatures aren't rising! No hockey stick!" Well, not really. I mean, it's not like before this adjustment, NASA was saying that 1998 or 2006 were huge amounts hotter than 1934. They were pretty much in a dead heat even then. So, this doesn't seem to "disprove" anything.

On the other hand, there a number of responses that take this form: "If they can't see this type of problem, how reliable is the rest of their data"? I think there's some validity there. This isn't the first time that McIntyre has found data and calculation problems in widely-accepted (and widely propagandized) climate numbers. Every time something like this happens, my confidence in the reliability of the scientific research drops a bit.

I'm not convinced by Gavin Schmidt. I agree with him that the change in 1998 is statistically insignificant. However, it seems to me that the changes from 2000-2006 are much more noticeable. Quoting Gavin: "The net effect of the change was to reduce mean US anomalies by about 0.15 ºC for the years 2000-2006." Over a tenth of a degree is extremely significant for short-term climate change. Those sorts of changes have been used very recently (as I pointed out in my Washington Post example) to raise concerns of accelerating changes and impending doom. More than a tenth of a degree difference? That changes the picture in a big way.

It is worth mentioning that these are only US numbers, and they don't seem to make any significant difference in the global numbers.

But I would feel quite a bit better about the scientific honesty of the NASA scientists if they would publicly and prominently acknowledge this flaw in their numbers, and try to explain how they could make such a ridiculous mistake and not catch it for 7 years. Their dismissive attitude makes sense to me only from a political perspective, trying to control the media presentation of the information... and that does not make me confident about the impartiality of their science.

It also surprises me that the purportedly ultra-effective Bush administration politics-overriding-science machine wasn't able to catch this one and use it. Strangely, it seems that NASA (which, I believe, is part of the Bush administration) isn't taking the correct conservative political line here. Interesting.

Mark