Monday, January 31, 2011

Very Interesting Words of the Pope

Pope Benedict XVI, when he was still Cardinal Ratzinger, wrote a bit about the issue of literal interpretation of the biblical creation story in Genesis, particularly when a modern scientific view would seem to be in conflict with the Bible.

I think it's very interesting that he seems to show a much more reasonable point of view (i.e., less insistent on the literal truth of the Bible) than your average Protestant fundamentalist.

It [i.e., Genesis] says that the Bible is not a natural science textbook, nor does it intend to be such. It is a religious book, and consequently one cannot obtain information about the natural sciences from it.
………..
And so the suspicion grows that ultimately perhaps this way of viewing things is only a trick of the church and of theologians who have run out of solutions but do not want to admit it, and now they are looking for something to hind [hide?] behind. And on the whole the impression is given that the history of Christianity in the last 400 years has been a constant rearguard action as the assertions of the faith and of theology have been dismantled piece by piece. (Source: http://www.bringyou.to/apologetics/p81.htm)
Of course I tend to think it is "a trick of the church and of theologians" and a "rearguard action," etc.--but I must say, I'm impressed that he anticipates that point of view.

He also says, vis-à-vis the conflict between creation and evolution,
We cannot say: creation or evolution, inasmuch as these two things respond to two different realities. The story of the dust of the earth and the breath of God, which we just heard, does not in fact explain how human persons come to be but rather what they are. It explains their inmost origin and casts light on the project that they are. And, vice versa, the theory of evolution seeks to understand and describe biological developments. But in so doing it cannot explain where the "project" of human persons comes from, nor their inner origin, nor their particular nature. To that extent we are faced here with two complementary -- rather than mutually exclusive -- realities.

The view I am trying to express here is surprise: I don't think of the Catholic Church, and especially the present pope, as liberal.

On the other hand, over the centuries, the Church has shown a certain wisdom, or at least a well-developed survival instinct, in that it has managed to have the flexibility to change when confronted by successive challenges from science: First the Copernican revolution (even though they tried to suppress it; the story of the Church's silencing of Galileo is well known), which made the Earth no longer the center of the solar system, as the Church had taught. Then the advent of geology, which showed the great age of the Earth, as opposed to, for example, the reckoning by a certain English bishop that the Earth was 5400 years old. Then Darwin and his theory of evolution—all these seeming to contradict the creation story in Genesis.

Now the present pope, I think rather deftly—whether convincingly is up to the individual reader—endeavors to save the theological view once again.

Copyright (c) 2011 by Richard Stein

My Car Isn't Big Enough

I used to wonder why people drive SUVs. At one point I thought it was to be macho—but a lot of women drive them. (I think the macho factor might hold true for guys who opt for big pickups, muscle cars, etc.) With women, at least, I think the answer is that they feel safer in very large vehicles that put a lot of steel around them.

Admittedly it's true that, in a collision between a small vehicle and a larger one, the small one is likely to get the worst of it. That's simple physics. So the people who are driving monster vehicles are likely to inflict more harm—harm to the vehicle and maybe bodily harm to the driver—when they hit a smaller vehicle.

But they would say, I'm sure, Well, let them drive a big vehicle, like I do. I'd call that a kind of arms race. I'm glad not everyone thinks that way, or we'd all be in vehicles the size of a stretch limo or a tank—or one of those huge Hummers—that would hardly be able to make it around the corner in urban driving.

Well, the price of gas is rising again. It must cost $70—maybe even a lot more (I don't know how big their tanks are)--to fill some of those big vehicles. Let no owner of an SUV, large pickup (when it's not needed for business purposes or work), or van complain to me about the price at the pump, 'cause you know I'm the last one to sympathize with them.

Copyright © 2011 by Richard Stein

Friday, January 21, 2011

Just Leave Americans Alone and . . . .

Any terrorists or would-be terrorists: Just take a look at what's been going on in Arizona (yet another shooting since the one in which Congress woman Gabrielle Giffords was shot). You may just decide that there's no point in your plotting and scheming to kill Americans, since Americans are doing a fine job of killing one another. You can just sit back and watch that take its course.

By the way, I half expect to get in trouble with US security people if they see this message (and yes, they are watching) and mistake its intention.

Monday, January 17, 2011

The Four-Year-Old Football Fan

In spite of how hard I try to keep my head in the sand where sports are concerned, I am attuned to what's going on in general, so I often can't remain totally unawares of even sports news. So I know that, for people here in Chicago, there is a big football game coming up between the Chicago Bears and the Green Bay Packers.

Our local TV news reported from the Illinois town of Antioch, which is near the Wisconsin border. Evidently because of Antioch's proximity to Wisconsin, some of its denizens are Packers fans—and some are Bears fans. Friends and relatives are divided.

The news segment focused on a four-year-old girl, a Packers fan. The reporter asked her what she thought of the Bears. She said "Boo, Bears!" Clearly this little girl has to have gotten her views from somewhere, and probably not from intelligently following the sports scene. Children this young pretty much have the views and perspectives that are instilled in them by their parents.

It seems wrong to me to instill what, for a lack of a better term I have to call a kind of partisanship (although in this case in sports and not in politics) in a child who is too young to really know very much about the whole thing. Maybe it's part of the kind of pushing of children by their parents that you see in the very young "beauty pageant queens" (made famous or infamous when one such, JonBenet Ramsey, was found murdered a few years ago). I wonder what other precocious yet strong views her parents have instilled in her. Similar parental teaching has turned children into little racists and other kinds of bigots.

In this child's simplistic view of things, what can her view of Bears fans be but that Bears fans are bad people? Maybe right up there with potential child molesters.

In connection with one thing that's going on here--that is, loyalty to or identification with sports teams--look at my May 11, 2010 posting titled "Patriotism, Identity, and Self-Worth."

Update, August 2, 2011
I was reading an update on the case of Brian Stow, who was beaten outside a Dodgers-Giants game in San Francisco and has been in a coma ever since (for four months). A man named Sanchez is charged in the beating. I wonder whether Sanchez started (started his strong sports-team feelings, that is) like the four-year-old whom I posted about above.

Copyright © 2011 by Richard Stein

Sunday, January 16, 2011

Responsibility for Shootings: It's Not Just a Guns Issue

Lest anyone say I'm not fair minded, I'm going to give some credence to the other side of the gun-ownership debate.

The gun-rights advocates are fond of saying, "Guns don't kill people, people do." Well, it's true that before there were guns, people could and did kill other people.

I can't even say that the invention of guns made it easier to kill people at a distance, because bows and arrows and even spears meant you didn't have to be face-to-face with a person to kill him or her. And Homo sapiens has had spears for a long time.

Okay, so if we take the position that people kill people, then this is what logically follows: When, as in the case of many of the killings of multiple people that the U.S. has suffered in the last few years, it seems that the shooter was suffering from mental illness, we have to say that there was a lack of action, a lack of responsibility on the part of those persons around the shooter before he tipped over the edge and killed people.

Parents, friends, boyfriends and girlfriends, schoolmates, neighbors, teachers. All these are people who had some opportunity, at least, to observe the developing erratic behavior in the person. And too often, they did nothing. I think it's especially important to point out that parents should urge troubled children to get help. Easier said than done, perhaps. But if the person in question is seriously troubled, parents can ultimately have recourse to their power to have the person committed to a mental institution.

I know that many parents, friends, etc., in retrospect have said, Yes, they saw the signs. They saw the erratic behavior. They saw the progression into irrationality. Yet they did nothing. I don't want to lay a burden of guilt upon any individual. It is more a matter of a collective responsibility on the part of whole communities that was abrogated. People need to be more vigilant and more willing to take action when they know of a person who might become dangerous to himself and to others.

Copyright © 2011 by Richard Stein

Monday, January 10, 2011

I Have to Speak Out on Guns Again Because the Problem Is So Dramatic

Yet another of those tragic, shocking shootings. When, when, WHEN will there be a loud outcry from the public saying that this has to stop?

As I have said before, the problem as I perceive it is that there are too many guns around, and guns are too easily obtainable, to the extent that mentally unstable people can (and do, very sadly) get their hands on guns.

It's terribly tragic that a recent US Supreme Court decision has undermined attempts of government jurisdictions to have gun control laws (this reverses years of jurisprudence that had held that some degree of regulation of firearm ownership was permissible).

Aside from this unfortunate Supreme Court ruling, most of the remainder of the problem is the NRA, the National Rifle Association, which, despite its name, seems just as concerned that there be completely unrestricted access to handguns and even assault weapons as it is with rifles.

The NRA is a very powerful, well financed, and vocal special-interest lobby in the U.S. Congress. According to a 2009 article, "The group's political action committee spent $15.6 million on campaign donations during the past two years, according to disclosures filed with the Federal Election Commission." (Source: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/03/30/nra-lobbyists-hold-strong-influence-policy-agenda#ixzz1AeRrW2FG) Read more of this article for information on just one instance of the influence of the NRA, which ended up killing voting rights in Congress for the District of Columbia because the NRA wanted the abolition of DC's gun control laws to be a part of that measure.

To tie in with another posting of mine on this blog, if the U.S. did not incorporate the South, we would not have as much influence by the NRA. This is because support for the NRA comes largely from rural areas and from the South.

Those who want to see some restraint on gun ownership have not only the NRA in the way—a not insignificant obstacle—but also the Second Amendment to the Constitution. As I said above, a recent Supreme Court decision lends greater influence to that amendment, or at least a certain interpretation of it. The Amendment itself is quite concise, but (despite what some people think), the interpretation of law (or of anything else written) is never simple and self-evident. I won't go into issues of interpreting the Second Amendment here; I'm not a law professor or a Constitutional scholar. However, I'd even go so far as to say that if gun ownership cannot be curbed because of the Second Amendment, the Amendment should be repealed. But I'm pretty sure that can't happen in today's America.

Copyright © 2011 by Richard Stein

Friday, January 7, 2011

Fluoridation of Our Drinking Water

Today's news mentions that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recommends that the level of fluoridation of our drinking water be reduced.

I remember when fluoridation was still pretty new and it was not without controversy. Since the chemical element fluorine is poisonous (in sufficient quantities), some people claimed that fluoridation was a Communist plot to poison America. In all the years since—some 60 or more years—it has proved itself one of the major triumphs of public health policy and has reduced tooth decay.

However, nowadays almost everyone uses toothpaste that contains fluoride, so our tooth enamel may be being exposed to more fluoridation than is needed to minimize tooth decay. This causes mottling of teeth, or even more harm to teeth than just a cosmetic effect, specifically a weakening of the tooth. (These effects have long been known to occur in areas where drinking water naturally contains high levels of fluoride, more than is artificially added to water in those places where it is not naturally occurring.)

Still, I expect all the anti-fluoridation crackpots, who have been maintaining a low profile for 60 years, to come out of the woodwork now and use HHS's new guidelines for a lower level of fluoridation as proof that they were right all along, that fluoridation is a bad thing.

Maybe this should be perceived along with the idea that vaccines cause autism in children—an idea now shown to be without basis since, as reported in the U.K., the research on which the association between vaccination and autism was based is now shown to have been basically fraudulent, with forged research data.

But, as has been shown, Americans have a particular propensity to believe in conspiracies. So those who believe fluoridation was a conspiracy, way back when; those who think that vaccine makers, public health officials, etc., who urge vaccination upon parents, are somehow malicious and have been ignoring the harm that vaccination does—all these types, who have made up their minds, will not change their minds easily. Their motto is, "Don't confuse me with the facts."

Copyright © 2011 by Richard Stein

Some New Words Needed in English

The English language certainly has lots of words. No one knows exactly how many—there are reasons you can't really count, such as uncertainty over what is to be counted as a word. But one estimate is one million words.

Still, new words enter the language continually. New words are coined, supposedly in response to a felt need--although often a perfectly good word for the meaning already exists.

So, in response to some gaps in our vocabulary that I have noticed, I want to suggest some new words.

First, healthierize, meaning to make more healthy. Example: I healthierized this recipe by cutting the fat and salt.

Second, operate (in a new sense, namely to make an opera out of). Example: Mozart operated Beaumarchais' play The Marriage of Figaro.

Third: middle classify and middle classification. Example: Egg McMuffin is a middle classification of Eggs Benedict.

Fourth: cattlectomy, meaning to stop eating beef. Example: Since I underwent my cattlectomy, I have not been in McDonald's at all.

Fifth: Did you know that there is no word for a person who plays the horn (such as the French horn in a symphony orchestra)? A person who plays the violin is a violinist. Someone who plays the piano is a pianist. But there is no word hornist. I propose--again simply creating a new sense for an existing word, as I did with operate—that someone who plays the horn be called a horny.

Copyright © 2011 by Richard Stein

Sunday, January 2, 2011

If Abe Lincoln Had Let the South Secede

Sometimes I like to imagine what would have happened if Abraham Lincoln had let the Southern states secede from the Union, instead of making war on those Southern states who declared themselves the Confederacy, to stop the secession. Or if the Confederacy had won, which I imagine would have had much the same effect (except that letting the secession proceed would have spared the enormous loss of life and mutilation that the war caused).

For one thing, we would not have had the conservative Southern states doing their best to stop social progress, such as equality for African-Americans, for these 150 years. [Note added 1/10/2011: My regular readers know my ideas on the proliferation of guns. I recently read that much of the support for the NRA, the leading obstacle to gun control, comes from the South.]

I still would like to see the U.S. rid of at least a few of those states. Let them be another country, and then I don't have to care very much what they do. Let them have school prayer. Let them post the Ten Commandments outside their courthouses. Let them teach creationism. (They probably do.) Let them be mocked by most Western countries. (They are.) Let them continue to imprison and execute a ridiculous percentage of their populations. Let them all have their guns and shoot one another. Of course it would still be deplorable, but at least I could look at all that with more distance, like we think about what goes on in Africa. They would be "they" and not "we"--at least not we in the eyes of the world.

(A couple years ago there even was some talk, presumably not very serious, about splitting the U.S. between the "Red" and "Blue" states. Unfortunately one difficulty--a serious one--with this idea is that the Red states are not contiguous. Splitting them off would create a country like the original Pakistan, with two separated areas. Pakistan could not survive that way, with two separated parts, and what was East Pakistan became the country of Bangladesh.)

Here are my candidates for the states I'd be perfectly willing to see gone from the United States, though I might diddle with this priority a little bit:

1. (tie) Texas and Mississippi
2. (tie) Arkansas and Alabama
3. Arizona, especially to be rid of its Senator, John McCain (and to think that, during the last presidential campaign, he almost had us convinced he was a moderate)
4. (tie) Kentucky (to be rid of Mitch McConnell) and Louisiana

Although I have had these thoughts for quite a while, my posting them now coincides with the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War and hence a renewed focus on the issues behind the Civil War (which the South views as having happened yesterday). Southerners want to view the war as over issues of states' sovereignty and not slavery.

Mark Simpson, the commander of South Carolina's division of Sons of Confederate Veterans, says, "Look at the way the elections have just gone. There were two dozen states that passed sovereignty resolutions. South Carolina passed it, and it stems from an unconstitutional mandate from Congress over the health care bill."

You know what I say, Let 'em secede. Now if not then. I'm not sure I'd be sorry to see most of them gone.

But back to what would have been if they'd seceded in 1861: The main question one would wonder is, How or when (if ever) would slavery have ended? Well, certainly it would have lasted longer. But to look at the example of some other countries, it probably would have ended in a few more decades. There would have been international pressures and perhaps even pressures from within.

Copyright © 2011 by Richard Stein

What to Expect from Republicans in the New Congress

The Republicans' aims for the new Congress include convening many hearings in which government department heads will be asked to justify their regulations and their spending.

Well, the spending part certainly is going to sound okay to most Americans and be hard to object to.

But, according to an article entitled "GOP Agenda May Have Bigger Impact on 2012 Than on Daily Life" in AOL News: Politics,

The next chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Republican Fred Upton of Michigan, says he'll work to stop over-zealous government regulators. A big target for him is the Environmental Protection Agency.

So here we have the Republicans again showing that they favor business (industry), which wants to go on polluting with no regulation, over the environment and over the health of the American public. Do they need any more proof than what has come to light over five or six decades, that air and water pollution is not good for people or for any living things?

Copyright © 2011 by Richard Stein