The GAP - Part VIII: Competition

The list of differences between man and animal includes conscience and choice as perhaps most definitive.

We understand how the animal world is free to live by nature where only the strong survive and persist.  It's a competition for survival.

We hope for better from mankind, perhaps for nobility and courage, for meaningful relationships, for generosity and compassion.

At least, some of us do.

The increasing gap between rich and poor suggests an animalistic mind where little thought is given to the impact of our actions on others.  It's almost as though there were no conscience at play, no willingness to help, to share, to make a way for others.  It's the easier path, of course.

For each of us then, there remains the opportunity to respond to conscience and to choose.  We can each make the difference for another, perhaps even for many.


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Selling Baby Parts

In case you were wondering, it is true and apparently somewhat legal.  This Snopes article like many others points out that what was revealed in CMP videos was/is in fact happening.  The laws governing such practices are ambiguous at best, and the industry's common practices are troubling.

George J. Annas, a law professor and bioethicist at Boston University, said, “What's going on now is probably legal, but Congress won't like it."

Regarding the companies, Mr. Annas said: "They won't be real happy that this is all out in the public. This threatens their business. Even if what they're doing is legal, the law can easily be changed."

Do they sell baby organs?  Yes.  

Do they profit?  Perhaps, perhaps not.  

Is it legal?  Perhaps.  

Are the mothers truly aware?  Is there full, appropriate consent from patients and under the highest ethical and legal standards?  Perhaps, some of the time.  

All that and the reality of the industry's practices are troubling when viewed and considered publically.

More on the subject at Life and Conscience Issues and at PolitiFact

Climate Does Change

The scientific inquiry continues and contrarians still get the best media coverage.  

Fox News is all the way up to 28% accurate on the issue in 2014, and 72% misleading. They were only 7% accurate the year before.

• Fox News covered climate science 50 times in 2013. Of these segments, 28 percent were accurate, while 72 percent were misleading portrayals of the science.
• More than half of Fox's misleading coverage (53%) was from one regular program, The Five, where the hosts instigated misleading debates about established climate science.  Fox hosts and guests were more likely than others to disparage the study of climate science and criticize scientists.

Uninformed is only eclipsed by misinformed.  The issue deserves better from us.  Our children deserve better.

Are there reputable resources?  For a good 'bad example', note the graphic here:

"It just happens" from a popular site, globalresearch.ca.  Despite presenting itself as a source of 

scholarly analysis, the site primarily consists of conspiracy theories, pseudoscience and propaganda.

It's fairly easy to find appealing articles to support almost any preferred conclusion.  This isn't science, of course.

In the last 650,000 years, there have been seven cycles of glacial advance and retreat, with the abrupt end of the last ice age around 8,000 years ago marking the beginning of the modern climate era - and according to the archeological record, of human civilizations.

The variations are generally attributed to orbital variations on a 100,000 year cycle that change the amount of sunlight we receive.  The solar energy changes are quite small, but enough to bring significant climate change.

If it were that simple, though, we wouldn't be in the intense debate we find these days.
We're stuck with some facts:

NASA analysis of CO2 levels, now higher than at any time in the previous 650,000 years.


• CO2 levels are at historic highs and it appears we did that, we humans.
• Sea levels have risen about 17 centimeters (6.7 inches) in the last century, and are rising faster as the years pass.
• The global temperature rise since 1880 has the 20 warmest years occurring since 1981 and the 10 warmest occurring in the last 12 years.
• The oceans are warming, up about 0.3 degrees since 1969.  Okay, that's not particularly persuasive.
• Glaciers are retreating.  Greenland alone lost around 60 cubic miles of ice per year, 2002-2014.
• Arctic ice is declining in both thickness and extent.  The decline is caused by and also contributes to climate change.
• Extreme events ... consider the ten coldest and warmest years on record.

"The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a group of 1,300 independent scientific experts from countries all over the world under the auspices of the United Nations, concluded there's a more than 90 percent probability that human activities over the past 250 years have warmed our planet.

Monthly mass changes in Gigatonnes (Gt) for the

Greenland ice sheet since April 2002. The anomalies

are plotted against the 2002-2014 average. From NOAA.

The changes indicate a loss of around 2,800 gigatonnes

of ice for the period. That's about 20% more loss than

gain from snowfall each year.

Greenland holds about 10 percent of the total global
 ice mass.  If it were to all melt, sea levels should
rise by around 20 feet.  No one knows how long
 that might take, of course.

The industrial activities that our modern civilization depends upon have raised atmospheric carbon dioxide levels from 280 parts per million to 405.1 parts per million in the last 150 years. The panel also concluded there's a better than 90 percent probability that human-produced greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide have caused much of the observed increase in Earth's temperatures over the past 50 years.

They said the rate of increase in global warming due to these gases is very likely to be unprecedented within the past 10,000 years or more. The Summary for Policymakers is online at http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/syr/ar4_syr_spm.pdf."

The facts here are from NASA, NOAA, and others, peer reviewed and independently supported.  The discussion continues among scientists, but little exists to support those who discount the basics.  The information available is continuously being updated.  Perhaps we should stay informed rather than media-formed.







More controversy - here - regarding Antarctica's ice.  :)

Original Copy, and other (oxy)morons

It's easy to spot the big issues in hindsight, but it's difficult when you're in the middle of them.

On a wrongness scale of 1 to 10, Hitler's Third Reich was a 10.

We can see that now, and we're impressed by the fellow in the picture who perhaps had reservations about joining in with the popular movement.

Most folks followed along with little critical thought being part of their decision to do so.  They became copies of a proffered norm, and participants in extraordinary wickedness.

Noel Jones, in “The Battle for the Mind” offers that once a man accepts the world’s ways, that becomes the character and core of who he is.  We are giving someone else control of our choices and future.  Fitted to the norm, we are no longer an original, but a copy.  We are not in control of our own mind, we are being shaped by something or someone else. It means we are living a scripted role, having 'cut and pasted' the world’s ways and thoughts over our own; we are conformed to the world, a moron (foolish, thoughtless, senseless).

It is better, but not easier.

Are we originals?  How often do we notice the inner conflict that comes with being an original?  Or are we comfortable with what we see.  Truth be told, we're all tainted to some degree.

It's not an easy path, accepting some but not all parts of our culture, supporting some but not all of a candidate's positions, questioning 'fair and balanced' reporting. And how about teaching our kids to think clearly and for themselves, to lead rather than follow.

We face difficult tasks today, and we're right in the middle of it all.  We get to choose, of course, but it will take some deliberate thought and work every day. The hardest question, perhaps, is not 'what am I against' but 'what is my hope for my own character and that of my children'.


A clue to our own battle: a typical day will be marked with occasions where we say to ourselves, "no, that's not what I hope for," and adjusting our behavior.  It may be a television show, a sexually exploitive advertisement, our own anger while driving, a harsh conversation, ....

Everything

As a youngster, I was told with a smile ...

 Things are not as they seem.

    You were born into a world at war.

       Everything you do counts. 

Life is filled with choices; right and wrong are often politically obscured.  Our difficult task, discerning what is right and standing firm.  It requires grace, broad understanding, and an open mind to the thoughts and needs of others, and it requires courage in the face of personal loss.  The world our children will inherit is shaped by our choices.

There is no easy path to what is right and good.

(occasioned by a clash of ethical concerns; not the first.)

A Peacock's Tail Feathers

A Corvette serves the same purpose as a peacock's tail feathers.  True?  Perhaps at least partly true.

A Ferrari or a super lux pickup truck for a guy who never hauls anything, however, is an entirely different matter.  Oops, no they're not.

Opulence, luxury, and excess all may stem at least in part from a need for significance in comparison to others; e.g., fancy tail feathers.  So if we know that, why do we play the game anyway? There's more.

It's unlikely that we would say to ourselves, "I want to look really cool, so I'll spend the extra $30K for a really cool-looking car."  More likely, we'll generate a list of reasons for why this or that more prestigious brand-name item is a better choice than the reasonably priced equivalent.  We justify such choices more on our wants than on our need, perhaps.  Enough isn't enough, more is better.  True?  Yes, that's another part of the equation.  We all do our version of that sort of thing.

A favorite fellow in Spain recounted for us how his stateside sponsors had raised money and bought him a nice Volvo.  He drove it briefly, but noted that it set him apart from the regular folks he wanted to serve; they didn't know what it meant that he had this really exotic (to them) car, but it was a wedge between him and their world.  He sold it immediately and bought a normal, boring sedan for his family and went back to being among those he served.  Interesting choice.
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