Babies, Boyscouts, and Drought: Ethical Dilemmas Abound
Today’s headlines threw me into a quagmire of philosophical indecisiveness: Octuplets were born to a woman who lives with her parents and already has six children, the Boy Scouts have engaged in massive clear-cutting of their lands, and the California drought continues to pit the livelihoods of farmers against conservationists. How do we decide right from wrong when no laws have been broken? Do we have any context to judge right from wrong if we remove the dictates of religion?
In the case of the unnamed mother from Whittier, CA… we have a woman who already has six children who receives fertilization treatments from a doctor who supported her decision to produce EIGHT more babies in one pregnancy. She will undoubtedly receive gobs of free crap from private and corporate donors who say the children are a miracle! and seek to capitalize on all the free publicity. Religious people will claim God gave her those babies, despite the drugs and who knows what unnatural methods used to produce babies in a woman who did not conceive under God’s normal rules. (I am not at all opposed to IVF or other methods, but she already has SIX children?!) Did the doctors ask how a woman with six babies could claim to have fertility problems? Nope. They collected the cash. Here’s another headline for today, Medical Needs of 6.2 Million U.S. Kids Go Unmet.
About the Boy Scouts… this organization has always claimed to be stewards of the land, but according to the SF
Chronicle:
the investigation – a nationwide review by five newspapers of more than 400 timber harvests, court papers, property records, tax filings and other documents since 1990 – also found that:
– Scout councils have ordered the logging of more than 34,000 acres of forests – perhaps far more, as forestry records nationwide are incomplete.
– More than 100 scout groups – one-third of all Boy Scouts councils nationwide – have conducted timber harvests.
– Councils logged in or near protected wildlife habitat at least 53 times.
– Councils have authorized at least 60 clear-cutting operations and 35 salvage harvests, logging practices that some experts say harm the environment but maximize profits.
According to the article, Boy Scout Councils lost money when they disallowed gays and atheists from joining the organization. Logging helps to replenish those funds. Ka-ching!!
On the California drought… Well, newsflash: California is semi-arid and wouldn’t exist in its current form without water being moved about and injected into the places where the loudest lobbyists live. Agriculture is hugely important here, for the state and for the country, but when does agribusiness stop getting its way? When smelt are endangered. This drives a lot of people crazy, that human enterprise suffer at the hands of a rotten little stupid fish that no one cares about. But we live in an ecosystem, and to claim that we understand the intricacies of interdependence in this system has been a human downfall for too long. Let the smelt die, and then what goes next? It comes down, yet again, to money. I can live without strawberries or pay more for bell peppers to save the fish. Because sustainability is important to me. But what if sustainability has cost jobs for farmers? Some of those same farmers probably objected to auto industry bailouts. At what point do we bite the bullet and let people suffer job losses? California’s water politics run far too deep for one little duhpookie post, but I do expect to hear more and more as state populations continue to increase and climate change continues to lead us into drought. Somehow, while all the farmers complain, I can’t help thinking about Mexican farmers and the Rio Grande that no longer reaches their land.
Self-interest, or the good of the few, versus grander interests like balancing the needs of the planet. This question seems to be coming up more and more often as our collective unconscious grapples with our new responsibilities as global citizens.
Obama Knocks ‘Em Down
For those of us who considered leaving the country when Bush, et al, were re-elected, it’s been a really good week. Obama has unflinchingly set out to overturn some of the more damaging policies set in place in the last eight dark years. Here’s a list of this week’s executive orders compliments of the awesome Harper’s Weekly Review:
- ordered all secret U.S. prisons closed immediately
- the detention center at Guantanamo Bay closed within a year
- stopped the torture of American prisoners
- granted access to all U.S. detainees to the International Red Cross
- ended the practice by which detainees could be sent to countries where they might be tortured
- froze the salaries of all White House officials making more than $100,000
- ordered all government agencies to “adopt a presumption in favor of disclosure” regarding Freedom of Information Act requests
- ordered all administration appointees to take an ethics pledge
- ended a government ban on funding for groups that provide abortion services or counseling abroad
- revoked Executive Order 13233, which placed limits on public access to the records of former presidents
Obama is whipping out the nostril-widening, heavy duty cleanser to remove the icky mold and fungus from national politics. I love a man who helps clean up, don’t you?
Happy Ada Lovelace Day!
Ada Lovelace, daughter of Lord Byron, is generally credited for writing the first computer program. Back in Ada’s day, a computer was called an analytical engine. Today, we’ll celebrate Ada Lovelace day by thinking about all those famous inventors of technology who were female. Did you think of any yet? Can you even name one? THAT’S why were celebrating Ada Lovelace Day.
The average percentage of women filing patents in recent years is a paltry 5.5%. Poor women. You know, we’d love to invent more stuff, but it hurts our brains! Ouch!
Don’t lose all hope because here comes Janine Benyus, an asskicker of a thinking woman if I ever saw one. Janine wrote Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature and founded the Biomimicry Institute. As a female scientist, Janine comes from just the place you’d expect: her approach is a holistic view of systems, a sustainable view for future innovation, and a search for solutions to problems by observing the natural world. According to the Biomimicry Institute:
Biomimicry is the practice of developing sustainable technologies inspired by ideas from Nature. Energy efficient buildings inspired by passive cooling in termite mounds and non-toxic fabric finishes inspired by water repellant lotus plants are examples of biomimicry changing our world today. While humans have a long way to go towards living sustainably on this planet, millions of species – each with nearly 4 billion years of field testing – contain technological ideas to help us succeed in our all-important quest to become a sustainable species on a biodiverse planet.
You can 
watch a TED Talk from Janine Benyus or read about her on Wikipedia. And if you’d like to do your part in celebrating Ada Lovelace Day? Remind your daughters if yo have them that math, science, and engineering labs everywhere need them desperately. Give them giant hugs for high grades on math and science tests and remind them often that they should be proud to be brilliant.
The One and Only Reason to Love Bush
Leaving Bush behind, the old bedraggled Texan that he is now, will be easy and somehow just pitiful. Cheney, on the other hand, I’d love to see burn in hell. He’s the sinister force behind Bush’s (I’m being generous here) vulnerable ignorance. Cheney took the office of the vice president to new levels of executive control, at times even bypassing (“protecting”) the president from controversial executive decisions.
Past vice presidents have attempted to assume greater authority, with results that just look quaint next to Cheney. From Mark O. Hatfield and the Senate Historical Office:
In assuming substantive policy responsibilities, vice presidents often ran afoul of cabinet secretaries whose territories they invaded. As administration lobbyists, they also irritated members of Congress. My favorite example of this problem occurred in 1969. President Nixon had pledged to give his vice president a significant policy-making role and – for the first time – an office in the White House itself. Spiro Agnew was determined to make the most of that role and to expand his legislative functions as well. Since he lacked previous legislative experience, he had the Senate parliamentarian tutor him on the intricacies of Senate floor procedure. Soon he began to inject himself into the course of Senate proceedings, contrary to the well-worn practice that constrained his predecessors. During the debate over the Anti-Ballistic-Missile Treaty, Agnew approached Idaho Republican Senator Len Jordan and asked how he was going to vote. “You can’t tell me how to vote!” said the shocked senator. “You can’t twist my arm!” At the next regular luncheon of Republican senators, Jordan accused Agnew of breaking the separation of powers by lobbying on the Senate floor, and announced the “Jordan Rule.” Under his rule, if the vice president tried to lobby him on anything, the senator would automatically vote the other way.
What did Cheney do?
According to a 2004 Executive Intelligence Review article, Cheney was already, pre-2004 election, racking up impeachable offenses. Remember the invisible weapons of mass destruction? The author says:
Cheney, beyond all other Administration officials, was the Joseph Goebbels of the Iraq war. As recently as his media interviews in Switzerland and Italy in late January, he continued to lie about Iraq’s weapons, claiming that several trailers seized by American inspectors, following the March 2003 invasion, were mobile bio-weapons labs.
David Kay, the CIA’s chief weapons inspector in Iraq until his hasty mid-January resignation, made clear in interviews and in testimony at the Senate Armed Services Committee on Jan. 28, that these trailers had nothing to do with WMD. Former CIA chief of counterterrorism Vincent Cannistraro told Salon magazine on Jan. 29, “It’s disgusting. I just can’t find words to describe how horrible it is…. It just illustrates the peculiar worldview Cheney has and how distorted it is.
Here’s a quote from an NPR article in which Washington Post reporter Bart Gellman, author of Angler, discusses Cheney:
“Cheney created a new doctrine in which the president was accountable to no one in his decisions as commander in chief,” Gellman said. “What was new and innovative here, and quite radical, was the notion that the president’s interpretation could not be challenged, that because the executive is a separate branch, courts and Congress could not tell the president, in any way, how to exercise his powers as commander in chief.”
Indeed, so pervasive was Cheney’s control that when lawyers from the National Security Agency, which was conducting the domestic surveillance, went to the Justice Department to look at the legal opinion authorizing the warrantless surveillance, Cheney’s lawyer, Addington, showed up and angrily told them they had no right to see it.
On keeping Bush in the dark about the surveillance program, Gellman says:
“You had the FBI director, attorney general, the next five levels of officials — which is a couple of dozen people — in the Justice Department, the general counsel of the CIA and the FBI, were all going to resign, in principle because they believed this program was unlawful,” Gellman said. “And George Bush didn’t know it until an hour before it was going to happen.”
And are you ready for this? The New York Times reported last week that Bush rejected Israel’s request for bombs to drop on Iran. According to the NPR article:
When the president refused to give bunker-busting bombs to the Israelis for use against Iran’s nuclear sites, the president’s decision was made over Cheney’s objection, according to a high-ranking former administration official.
The Bush legacy is not pretty. But PROPS to Dub because in the end, he saved us from Cheney.
Food Additives and Hyperactivity
One of my kids has always fallen into the pretty-darn-active category, as in constantly moving, talking, and looking for entertainment. Then we started seeing some bizarre tantrums, and ALWAYS after she’d eaten artificial colors. I’ve asked random pediatricians and therapists about this. They all report that the research is inconclusive. They all more or less considered it hearsay, and somehow I felt like one of those freaky paranoid parents who thinks the tap water is full of carcinogens and that only raw food is healthy. I’m not really like that. We noticed an absolutely predictable. obviously causal, reaction. So why doesn’t the medical industry or the FDA do something about these chemical additives in kids’ food? Why isn’t there any reliable research on this?
Well, we know that these days, testing is sponsored by corporations to ‘prove’ that a product does something, to aid in the sale of their products. Independent and government agencies rarely test for bad effects from chemicals that are already in wide use. Why rock the boat for food corporations if you don’t have to? It doesn’t make money for anyone, so why would you want to do it? Thankfully, European agencies have done further research and determined that there is a definite link between food colorings and hyperactivity in children.
According to a recent CBS News article:
In 2007, a British study published in The Lancet concluded that consuming artificial coloring and preservatives in food can increase hyperactivity in kids. Scientists have been studying the link between food additives and hyperactivity in children for more than 30 years, with mixed results. But the results of the 2007 study compelled the European Food Standards Agency to urge companies to voluntarily remove artificial coloring from food products. The FDA, however, hasn’t changed its opinion on the use of FDA-approved artificial food colors
Thanks, FDA!
The good new is you don’t have to eat this junk. Though, according to this summary of an industry market analysis, the use of additives is only predicted to increase over the next few years:
Increased food production and gains in value-added sweeteners, nutraceuticals and natural additives will drive US food additive demand up 4.8 percent annually through 2008. Flavors and flavor enhancers will remain the largest segment, while alternative sweeteners grow the fastest. Grain mill products, pet food and snack food show best market prospects. This study analyzes the $4 billion US food additive industry. It presents historical demand data for 1993, 1998 and 2003 plus forecasts to 2008 and 2013 by product (e.g., flavors and flavor enhancers, texturizers and fat replacers, emulsifiers, preservatives, nutraceuticals, colorants, enzymes, alternative sweeteners, acidulants, phosphates). [EEEWWWW!!!]
Here’s another quote from MayoClinic.com, where they hedged their bets and refused to come down on the side of agreeing that chemical additives in food are BAD:
The issue of whether food additives affect children’s behavior has long been controversial. Some research suggests that artificial colorings and preservatives may be associated with hyperactivity in children. But an association is not the same as a proven “cause-effect” relationship. There is no proof that food additives cause attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). ADHD is most likely due to a combination of changes in the structure of the brain and certain environmental factors.
However, a recent study funded by the United Kingdom’s Food Standards Agency is sure to throw more fuel on the heated debate about food additives and hyperactivity. Researchers tested 300 children between the ages of 3 and 9 years old. Results published in September 2007 showed varying degrees of hyperactive behavior in the children after they consumed fruit drinks containing a mixture of food colorings and preservatives. The additives assessed in the study included sodium benzoate, sunset yellow, carmoisine, ponceau 4R, tartrazine, quinoline yellow and allura red. The study was unable to determine which of the additives may have affected behavior because all of the children were given a mix.
That’s just weak.
A last quote from a 2008 paper published by the American Academy of Pediatrics:
“Thus, the overall findings of the study are clear and require that even we skeptics, who have long doubted parental claims of the effects of various foods on the behavior of their children, admit we might have been wrong.”
If your child seems cranky, irritable, bossy, or just plain unhappy after eating any of the myriad foods that contain colorings, preservatives like sodium benzoate, or other additives, consider changing your shopping habits. Your child will love you more. It’s worth it!
Time for a New Capitalism? Germany, France, and England Say Yes
When I think of Obama’s coming stimulus package and the massive billions spent on bailouts, I can’t help feeling like someone is throwing an extravagant party while the mortgage goes unpaid and there are no diapers for the baby. It seems mysterious and weirdly ominous that no one is asking us to change how we think, or to imagine a different way to do business. It feels like the message so far is, “Sit tight. It’ll all be over soon.” Hmmm, sounds to me like some heavy denial. After all, we’ve just been through a catastrophic failure of a core aspect–investment banking!–of our capitalist system. Why is no one asking us to sacrifice? Instead, it seems like we’re so hooked on the easy money drug that we just expect government to fix it all.
According to an AP report from Paris:
Merkel said the International Monetary Fund has not managed to regulate global capitalism, and she called for the creation of an economy body at the United Nations, similar to the Security Council, to judge government policy. Speaking at the conference, European Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes said “global rules” on government aid to companies would be helpful. “A closer network of competition systems is slowly emerging after decades of work,” she said.
Sarkozy blamed financial speculators for encouraging a system fueled on debt. He called financial capitalism based on speculation “an immoral system” that has perverted the logic of capitalism. “It’s a system where wealth goes to the wealthy, where work is devalued, where production is devalued, where entrepreneurial spirit is devalued,” he said.
But no more: “In capitalism of the 21st century, there is room for the state,” he said.
There’s a huge distinction in Sarkozy’s view of the role government plays in capitalism. Here in the US, we see the government as serving capitalism, creating an environment conducive to healthy markets. In Sarkozy’s view, the state serves the needs of people first. I don’t see the US becoming socialist anytime soon, but it would be nice to know that government at all levels serves people first, and ready for this??? Serves each according to his needs, from each according to his means. Youch! Did I just dare to say that? It’s Karl Marx talking, but it’s also humanitarian. We still have a huge number of people in this country who don’t want to help poor, sick, or otherwise needy citizens. Think of the number of wealthy people collecting Social Security while so many elderly people live in poverty. But then, no one in government has asked those well-off people if they’d rather transfer their benefits to help those who might need it more. What would the budget look like if we decided on an individual basis where our taxes went? Would the military be funded so highly? Would social programs fail outright if the taxes that support them weren’t mandatory? Why is there no polling on how federal monies are spent? (State budgets down to the local level seem more represented by votes than the massive federal budget.) Are there benefits that some people would be willing to give up? Are there people who’d be willing to pay higher taxes? Unfortunately, communication to federal lawmakers is grossly distorted by lobbyists and PACs. (I’m so happy when “the blogosphere” is taken into account!)
It’s time to make a shift away from our status as spoiled Americans. It’s time to give back, time to get lean and green, assiduously plan for our own retirement, work hard, be grateful. I love this country and want to hand it over to my children in good shape. I’m even willing to pay higher taxes to get there. Our job is not to spend ourselves silly and acquire. Our job is to be good people, good citizens of the planet. Let the change come.
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