It isn't news!

It isn't news.  It isn't even factual.  It is, however, a humorous illustration of media editorial practices.

The CNN Health article suggests that husbands who share household chores have sex less frequently than husbands who stick with the traditional role. 

In fact, they say that there are three categories regarding husbands, chores, and sex.

• Husbands who don't do chores.  Most sex.
• Husbands who don't do girly chores.  Middle.
• Husbands who share doing chores.  Least sex.

And they say they're going to tell you why!  They don't.  If you'd like, you can read the article and draw your own conclusions, but you'll want to note a couple of things.

(1) the article is written to attract and perhaps hold an audience, not inform, and (2) the report behind their article doesn't actually support the headline.  There are conflicting studies, conflicting interpretations of the data, and a variety of unaddressed influences.

Much of what we're offered in these venues isn't news.  Often, it seems headlines and soundbites are not journalism, and they (the legitimate journalists themselves) may be disappearing.


Simplistic presentations of semi-sensational information (it's about SEX!) are perhaps revealing about news media in general.  The major players appear more concerned with ratings than with relevance or accuracy.  Entertainment rules.  Attempts at objectivity and balance are short-lived.

The media (and the administration, interestingly)  responded to the recent school mass shooting by joining the popular focus on gun control.  They do know better.  After Columbine, the father of two victims addressed a congressional subcommittee on the cause and solution.

Darrell Scott, father of 2 Columbine victims, speaks to Congress
May 27. 1999
Mr. Scott lost his daughter, his son is recovering.

"Since the dawn of creation, there has been both good and evil in the hearts of men and women, and we all contain those seeds: We contain the seeds of kindness and we contain the seeds of violence. And the death of my wonderful daughter, Rachel Joyce Scott, and the deaths of that heroic teacher, and the other 11 children who died, must not be in vain. Their blood cries out for answers. 

The first recorded act of violence was when Cain slew his brother Abel out in the field. The villain was not the club he used ... the true killer was Cain, and the reason for the murder could only be found in his heart. In the days that followed the Columbine tragedy, I was amazed at how quickly fingers began to be pointed at groups such as the NRA. I am not a member of the NRA, I am not a hunter, I do not even own a gun, I'm not here to represent or to defend the NRA, because I don't believe they are responsible for my daughter's death, therefore I don't believe they need to be defended by me. If I believed that they had anything to do with Rachel's murder, I would be their strongest opponent. I am here today to declare that Columbine was not just a  tragedy; it was a spiritual event which should be forcing us to look at where the real blame lies. Much of that blame lies here in this room - much of that blame lies behind the pointing fingers of the accusers themselves."

Mr. Scott goes on to say with clarity that guns are not the problem and gun control is not the solution.  The problem is a heart problem, not a law problem.   Neither the media nor the administration have yet risen to the larger issues or to acknowledged their shortsightedness.  Joe Biden admitted yesterday, "Nothing we're going to do is going to fundamentally alter or eliminate the possibility of another mass shooting ...," Biden told reporters.   We all knew that.  It's strangely quiet on the real issues.

Addressing the root causes remains 'out of bounds' for both the administration and the media.  There are no headlines about our cultural departure from character and grace, from fairness and honesty, from love and compassion.  From godliness, perhaps.  So who's left?  You, me, and perhaps the church, I suppose.  Meanwhile in the media ...  the debate over 'not the problem' gun control.

When they tell you it's 'THE NEWS', it probably isn't.  Just diversions.

A child's heart

Teach your children well ...

It's been awhile since we talked in the public forum about teaching character to our children. Recent decades are marked by the absence of critical focus on the issue.

Character development has perhaps not been adequately addressed at the family and community levels for more than a generation, with attendant outcomes including a progressive tendency to violence at the fringes and dishonesty in the marketplace. The nuclear family and inter-connected community have declined in cultural relevance.

New in our culture, many schools, school districts, and even states are now requiring that character education be addressed in the classroom.  Some are stipulating the traits to be taught.  Is their list a good one?

Government has again stepped in to pick up what the community has been unable or perhaps inadequately aware to address. It's a beginning, I suppose. Government does a number of large-scale things well. Is this one that government should handle on our behalf?

What might be the differences be if this is done by family, by community, or by government? Can government serve as an extension of community?

Interestingly, there are variations among nations and communities when it comes to the character of their children. The wealthiest aren't the most gracious, the most hospitable, or the most generous. Or the most noble. Not by an extraordinary margin.

Perhaps there's a lesson here for the current generation of parents.  And churches.  As busy as life is these days, this is just a small step below breathing in terms of importance.  It shapes the future for our child and what kind of person they might become.

Decisions based on evidence

Government serves the rich.  Not exclusively, but primarily. 

Business serves its own interests, the bottom line.  It does whatever is necessary to accomplish the goal.

The rich and their corporate counterparts exercise their not insignificant influence in favor of their continued success, of course.  All at the expense of the working class.

We've been told that reducing tax rates on the wealthiest would encourage the economy, but the evidence is otherwise.

Historical evidence demonstrates the United States has had some of its strongest periods of economic growth while taxes were high. As the graph shows, some of our most robust periods of growth in gross domestic product (GDP) actually occurred while taxes were very high:

During the 1950s the USA experienced some of the sharpest periods of economic growth with the top marginal tax rates for the richest Americans above 90 percent! Marginal tax rates were adjusted upward in the 1990s, again with strong economic growth.

If tax cuts worked, Bush should have had a great economic record.  The tax cuts never trickled down.

It was not a plan.  It was a play for the advantage of wealth.  It worked quite well; the gap between rich and poor in America has widened impressively.

That's the productivity of individuals being converted into wealth for the few.  The working individuals received none of the benefit, and in fact, lost ground financially.

have been disenfranchised by the wealthy, by the corporate, by the political; at least the evidence suggests that to be the case.  What decisions remain to us?

The touch ...

It's a simple world for many folks.  

We did that. 

Without a second thought, Wall Street plunged the world into the Great Recession, and along with the ethanol industry, pushed people across the line to starvation the following year.  The U.S. and U.K are complicit as is the E.U. in activities with similar unmitigated risk and impact.

This is globalization.  We didn't mean to, but we've connected this father in Africa and billions more to the world marketplace.  When our Wall Street marketplace hiccups, prices respond around the world sometimes, and our African friends suffer.  For them, the fluctuating price of a commodity like corn meal can have a significant impact.  They spend perhaps half of their budget on corn meal.  If the price changes, they have little capacity to adjust.

For an actual case example, a family with 6 members has an aggregate income of about $95 per month; $45 is dedicated to corn meal, the staple for everyone here.  When the price rises as it did, they can't afford to eat.  The dilemma leaves the family undernourished for more than a year before they can adjust.  They cannot afford school fees, so the children lose another year. 

In the lowest quintile for income, they were coping; they were balanced however precariously on the good side of the survival line.  Then the developed world reached over and touched their community ever so slightly, and people went hungry and began to die.  The economic recovery for the poor in their part of the world will take perhaps a decade, but you don't recover the years lost.

Now, in the west, we're not terribly afraid of such things, of what the economy will do; annoyed, perhaps, but not afraid.  Perhaps we didn't really want to retire anyway.

Similarly, we're not overly fearful of climate change, government upheaval, political flailing, ...

Westerners are not particularly afraid because they live up in the rarefied atmosphere of the developed world where they're insulated from the worst of such things.  Not that they deserved having it easier than others might, and certainly not that there was any superior worth in their lineage while another fell short.  They're fortunate, extraordinarily blessed.  And protected from minor changes.

Our friends in Africa have no such protection, no such defense.  They're more wary than I of big government, big marketplaces, of big countries with good intentions.  Their experience so far is mixed.

Welcome to the 21st century and the reality of globalization.   Either we'll refine the way we'll do things globally or "bull in a china shop" will take on a whole new meaning.

While many aspects of the global market are beneficial, it's still a moderately risky and volatile process.  Much of the world has benefited from globalization with notable reductions in area poverty, but sub-Saharan Africa has not.  International discussions with such concerns in mind are barely begun.  Theories abound but for the moment, facts remain scant, and everything we touch carries a measure of risk for others.

A Sovereign Fiscal Responsibility Index

The Global Village: Connect World Drives Economic Shift

The World Bank: Data and Research



Meanwhile, dozens of organizations try to fill in the gaps.

World Vision is at the top of my list.

Things I like about government ...

Good government isn't automatic.  

• It's a science and task for dedicated folks.  There are skills needed along with vision and character to do it well.  True?   
• Of course, recreational complaining is included for us armchair quarterbacks.   
• From the list I've collected below, note the ones you like.  There don't seem to be many that I'd like to do without, really.  
• And I'm begrudgingly thankful for those who have dedicated their skills and careers to doing these things well.  Even Obama.  Romney, not so much.  Or Coolidge.
• God bless them each one.  Even this pig-headed, polarized, and seemingly foolish Congress.

Complaining can be both sincere and recreational.  Things in general or something in particular, our government needs to hear about it when they're off the mark.  And we should enjoy participating in the processes. It is, after all, our government.

Government is what 'we' do in this country to get along.  At least, that was the original intent.

Supreme Citizenry

The world changed on January 21, 2010, three years ago today.   With little fanfare, corporations became people. 

On that date the Supreme Court of the United States decided that corporations, be they American or foreign, are afforded the same rights as a single individual when it comes to contributing money to a political cause or candidate.

For about a hundred years, the sanctity of a citizen's vote and participation in the government was protected by law.  One citizen, one vote, one voice.  The supreme court changed that by giving corporations unlimited freedom to buy the support of candidates and to influence the process of law.  It's done now, and there's little we can do about it.

We should note that the Wall Street crimes leading up to the Great Recession of recent memory weren't actually illegal.  They had been legalized a few years prior.  The Wall Street play on derivatives was classified as gambling and illegal until the federal government changed the law at the request of ... Wall Street.  The world-wide crash that followed was paid for by everybody except the perpetrators.  The recovery for all but the wealthy will take another decade or more at best.  Neither the financial industry nor the federal government acknowledge their culpability in the matter. 

Now that corporations have been given unrestricted freedom to influence the process of government, we can expect other such interesting occasions.  Government now serves the rich almost exclusively, and by extension, they serve the business interests who sponsor legislation and prophesy prosperity. The two major parties are equally owned and influenced by their wealthy constituents now.

How might a corporation wield their influence?  In favor of legislation that restricts their business or imposes on their profitability?  Hardly.  Even when the risk is borne by the consumer and otherwise unmitigated, corporations have historically chosen their bottom line over the good of the consumers.  The Ford Pinto's explosive tendencies come to mind as neither the first nor last such amoral activity in the business world.  Businesses work from and for the bottom line; little if any altruism intrudes; morals and ethics are more matters of regulatory compliance than of desire to do rightly.  It's a result of the rules that govern the marketplace in which they must participate to exist. 

Our individual vote is no longer the tool of influence that was originally hoped.  So what's next?

How might we, in good conscience, express our concerns with the direction the nation has taken?  Should we?