Maybe we need more Marsupials??

This week there was another horrible mass shooting (in Oregon). So far in Yr-2015 we have had 274 days and 294 shootings (List of Yr-2015 Mass Shootings as of Oct 2nd)

We have been having this debate for a while now and the talking points for the gun ownership side is getting stale. Same talking points same reactions but the number of Mass Shootings continues unabated. 

After this most recent horrific shooting if we would like to revisit the gun control issue, the overwhelming answer from the right is:
a) This is NOT the time to talk about gun control this is the time to grieve (as stated by Louisiana Governor Jindal when questioned after the Lafayette shooting)
b) We should not politicize the issue as it it is the time to mourn

So let's unpack that:
- "When"? is it the right time to talk about gun control? At 294 shootings in YR-2016 is our Republican leadership saying that we literally don't have any time to have a conversation since we are in "constant" grief and mourning mode? That is ridiculous beyond any realms of rationality.
- How come the horrific Bengazi killings CAN be politicized with not one, not two but NINE hearings and counting but we cannot have a meaningful conversation in the Congress about gun control?

President Obama in utter frustration actually called for the politicization of this issue. I guess this was his way of telling people that he cannot do it all alone, the public must exert their influence in the voting booth. (LINK)

I have covered the whole issue of how the NRA influences this issue in a previous posting . But the broader issue is how do we do what Australia and Great Britain have been able to do with sensible gun control (granted they did not have a "Second Amendment" to deal with). The statistic below is very sobering and should really put the gun debate in perspective:

NBC News summarized the data this way:

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 153,144 people were killed by homicide in which firearms were used between 2001 and 2013, the last year that data are available (that number excludes deaths by “legal intervention”).

The Global Terrorism Database – which uses a criteria to determine terrorist attacks but also includes acts of violence that are more ambiguous in goal – estimates that 3,046 people in the U.S. died in terrorist or possible terrorist attacks between 2001 and 2014.

The top number doesn’t even include suicides and legal police killings (which boost the number to 394,912). Still, just counting homicides alone, 11,780 Americans were killed by guns a year on average, in that time period, while 219 on average were per year killed by terrorism – although of course the 9/11 attacks are the bulk of the deaths.

Obama in his address - "“We spend over a trillion dollars, and pass countless laws, and devote entire agencies to preventing terrorist attacks on our soil, and rightfully so. And yet, we have a Congress that explicitly blocks us from even collecting data on how we could potentially reduce gun deaths.  How can that be?”

So why can't we do what Australia did after the mass shooting in Tasmania. How was a conservative President in Australia able to mobilize a national cause and address this issue in one fell sweep? 

We need a social movement on gun control. The second Amendment gives us the right to bear arms. But we also have the right to NOT bear arms.

In this article here the author references a colleague who states - "This is not about the government saying you cannot own a handgun. This is about society saying you should not have a gun, especially in a home with children."

Source:http://otherwords.org/automatic-congressional-allegiance/

The bottom line is we need to do something fast as trusting our elected officials to mobilize a solution has been a bleak proposition for quite sometime.

 (bad pun intended) - we need a call to arms!

Pope Music

The new Pope has been on a tear for the past two years. If ever the term "Hope and Change" can aptly be used, it would be for His Holiness. He is fundamentally transforming the Roman Catholic institution' thinking (not doctrines but attitudes) with some of the most liberal and progressive views. Here are a sample of his recent stances on various issues:

a) Global Warming - Pope Francis has blamed human selfishness for global warming in his long-awaited encyclical calling for action on climate change (Reference - Link )

b) in July 2013,  “If a homosexual person is of good will and is in search of God, I am no one to judge… it is not right to interfere spiritually in the life of a person.” (Reference - Link )

c) On Atheism - Pope Francis rocked some religious and atheist minds when he declared that everyone was redeemed through Jesus, including atheists (Reference - Link )

d) Abortion - Pope Francis opened a special, temporary, "mercy" window to make it easier for women who have abortions and confess to get back into the full good graces of the church (Reference - Link )

Don't get me wrong he is NOT a liberal, and the softening of his positions on key issues opens up an opportunity for a conversation in change within an institution that has been long criticized as anachronistic. He still has to make significant changes in multiple areas such as improving the response to the pedophilia charges, contraception, female priests to name a few. As Jorge Ramos of Univision put it, " He has delivered style but not substance (yet)"

That brings me to Free Market Capitalism. Here is a quote from Yr-2013:
[S]ome people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world. This opinion, which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naive trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacra­lized workings of the prevailing economic system.”

Over the past two years, on numerous occasions the Pope has been very vocal of the "evils of capitalism" and the "Free Market" comparing "Unbridled Capitalism" as the "Dung of the Devil"

So what does all this mean to our stateside Conservatives. Clearly such positions are in conflict with our country's right wing/conservative viewpoints. From a fiscal standpoint clearly his positions on Free Market makes our conservatives squirm, but his take on social and environmental issues really has the conservatives in an uproar.

As an outside observer of this there is a certain element of schadenfreude in watching this unravel. For years the conservatives felt they had the backing of the Church on key social issues (read - marriage, abortion, contraception etc.). Now here comes a Pope who is no longer interested in having the traditional conversations on social issues but rather would like to bring wealth inequality and climate change to the forefront of the conversation. In other words (quoting the right wing talk radio clowns) he is a "Marxist"

So here is how a typical conversation goes:
- "Climate change is a fact" there is a broad consensus amongst almost all scientific institutions around the world
- " How can u say that? there was a scientist in the UK who was "fudging" his research and it has been proven to be a hoax
- "Yes! that was one person and he was discredited BUT there still remains the fact that there is broad consensus"
- I don't believe it for the following reasons - climate has changed before; it has actually been colder in the past few years; increasing CO2 has no effect; they said we will pass point of no return but we didn't...."
- "OK but let me reiterate - consensus is broad; proof is real and even the Pope has called it out as one of the most important issues of our time"
- (quoting Santorum)" “The pope ought to stay with his job, and we’ll stay with ours,”

Rick Santorum, a devout Catholic and a long-shot contender for the Republican nomination, told a Philadelphia radio station: “The church has gotten it wrong a few times on science, and I think we probably are better off leaving science to the scientists and focusing on what we’re good at, which is theology and morality.”

So riddle me this:
- We cannot take direction from the Pope on matters related to science since that should be left to the scientist. 
- We cannot take direction from the Pope on matters of wealth and free markets since that should be left to the Economists
- But we should take direction from the Pope on contraception related matters since that cannot be left to the doctors or health care specialists?

The answer cannot be cause it is in the good book....cause the good book is very specific about charity; greed and wealth. So then where does this hypocrisy originate from?

The answer - it is the conservative "bubble". The beauty of this bubble is it is impenetrable to logic, reason and rational thought. The bubble is fed by a steady diet of talking points from the right wing radio and television outlets. While the so called conservative pundits are getting rich pandering the same weak talking points, the poor saps who listen to them are struggling to enter or stay in the middle class. Actual Example - One of the conservative talk show hosts allege that Boehner's resignation was timed to coincide with the Pope's arrival so he can spend the last month of his term executing Obama's remaining Marxist agenda. All this because Boehner was instrumental in bringing the Pope stateside. 
How do you argue against such idiocy?

Maybe the Pope's visit to the US is a positive harbinger of change to conservative attitudes. Or maybe I should look out the window and see if pigs are flying.

ISIS, Spieses a Davises

The Davis phenomena has given us a lot to think about. On the one hand we have Huckabee (aka the White Sharpton - quoted by Bill Maher) who implored to put him in jail instead of Davis and on the other hand we have the right wing cavalcade making statements that "God's Law supersedes the Supreme Court Laws" (Mike Huckabee Article )

Now let's ponder on that point for a moment - "God's law supersedes the Supreme Court Laws". I wonder....wonder if this parallels another group in the middle east that is currently on the quest to create a Caliphate. So how is this different from the implementation of Sharia Law?

This is cognitive dissonance at it's purest!

Ah! but I am sure I will get the "sanctity of marriage" argument. Am sure her three ex husbands agree with her on the sanctity of marriage. For Pete's sake we let Michael Jackson get married (not to speak ill of the dead)
I love the internet meme on Kim Davis - Sorry we can't give our marriage licenses, I used them all on myself!

But I come to a broader point..religious persecution. Christians constitute the majority of this country's population and yet if you listen to Fox News or the right wing nut jobs apparently catholisim is under attack. Further more Christmas is under attack! Marriage values are under attack! being able to practice religion is under attack!
My question is where? For a majority group why do they always feel the victim?

In a recent Real Time with Bill Maher episode Salman Rushdie nailed this as follows:

" It is the classic trope of the religious bigot.While they are denying people their rights they claim that their rights are being denied. While they are persecuting people they claim that they are being persecuted. While behaving colossally offensive they believe that they are being offended"

Rushdie continues, "But everybody does this. In India right now, which has a 85% Hindu majority, leaders are always saying Hinduism is being threatened. In the Islamic world, the paranoia is routine; 'The world is anti-Muslim.' and so this is a trope that they are stealing from other bigots".

For me Rushdie summed up a feeling that I have had for years. Back to the original point how can anyone even state that God's Law rules over Supreme Court law? The egregiousness of this argument is mind boggling.(Louie Gohmert weighs in).  One wonders if these people really believe this or is this grandstanding to pander to the base that can get them the vote.

Interestingly when the Pope weighs in on Gay Marriage; Atheism and Climate Change ...that is NOT God's Law. So at best what we have here is God's (Selective) Law that goes something like this:

- Marriage has to be between a man and a woman (or many men and many women OR as the Bible stated one man and many women). But just not between man and man or woman and woman.
- There is no pro choice and abortion under any circumstance is evil
- This is a Christian Nation built on Christian values

It is very difficult to debate such idiocy. Specifically if you consider the last point. While no one can argue against the impact of Christianity in the formation and development of this country, the founding fathers went to great length to separate church from state for the very same reason.
(A great article breaking down the details of our founding documents can be found here - LINK )

Oh well...... as long as the "trope" continues to be perpetuated the likes of Davis will have a fan club. 

Separation of Church and Confused State

On May 5th, the Supreme Court delivered a historic verdict when it upheld the right for government institutions to have Christian prayers, prior to the start of local city council sessions. The issue, originally raised in Greece NY, relied heavily on a prior 1983 decision where the court upheld the Nebraska Legislature to having prayer sessions prior to starting sessions.

Never mind that in the town of Greece NY, more than 90% of the sessions were catholic prayers and the plantiffs on this case were a Jew and an Atheist. The larger issue is how does this infringe upon the separation of church and state and the original intention of the founding fathers.

This is an interesting decision, since if you look at the religion split across the US, based on the recent Pew Poll, there is a significant increase in the "unaffiliated" group.

SCOTUS ruled 5-4 on this issue and the main reasons given were as follows: "Defending a practice used by the town of Greece, N.Y., the majority ruled that opening local government meetings with sectarian prayers doesn't violate the Establishment Clause as long as no religion is advanced or disparaged, and residents aren't coerced".

In her dissent Justice Kagan wrote  - ""When the citizens of this country approach their government, they do so only as Americans, not as members of one faith or another,"

There my fine feathered friends is where the rubber hits the road. This is one where the conservative majority of SCOTUS tipped this decision. But this interpretation is just plain wrong, akin to working back to the question from an answer.

What this means now is any town council can start their session with a prayer and not just any prayer but a Christian prayer. This violates the basic constitutional rule that the government should be impartial to matters of religion and not favor one over another (even if it is as trivial as starting a session with prayer).

Town supervisor of Greece NY, whose town board meets once a month said, " Prayer was not intended to isolate or convert anyone. If they feel comfortable with joining us in the prayer, they can have a moment of silent reflection while the prayer is offered"

Let's take this example and work it another way. Let's say that the city council was predominantly made of Atheists and prior to start of a session assume they had a brief discourse where they thanked science and debunked faith and god (not specifically coercing anyone as stated by SCOTUS) what do you think will be the logical outcome?

In the words of the great George Carlin - ” I’m Completely In Favor Of The Separation Of Church And State. My Idea Is That These Two Institutions Screw Us Up Enough On Their Own, So Both Of Them Together Is Certain Death ”.

Realize that SCOTUS is the law of the land but this ruling amongst a few others in the recent years makes you wonder if it is time to the conversation of "non partisan" judges or term limits for SCOTUS.  

Cash Rules Everything - Dolla Dolla Bill y'all

Yeah reminds me of the Lil Wayne/Akon/Wycleaf Jean Song - Sweetest Girl - "Cause I'mma tell you, like Wu told me, Cash Rules Everything Around Me....singing dolla dolla bill y'all"

I am not for one to take my cue from a rap song especially from one that that has a controversial subject like the "Sweetest Girl" song. But somehow this chorus line kept ringing in my head recently after the Supreme Court decision on campaign finance.has left a LOT of citizens shaking their heads.

“The government may no more restrict how many candidates or causes a donor may support than it may tell a newspaper how many candidates it may endorse,” Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote in the majority opinionn.

This is illustrated below from the NY Daily article

So this is basically become a PAY & PLAY democracy. The Supreme Court's decision was based on ensuring the protection of the First Amendment i.e. Free Speech. But as described by this article  there is strong reason to believe that the judges are out of touch with reality.

Even though this ruling will affect a few HNW (high net worth) donors, here are specific reasons why this is really really bad for our democratic process:

a) The Golden Rule - the man with the Gold makes the rules. Agree this is a bit of an oversimplification but as the above article quoted, the person with the most money gets to "buy the most free speech that is often enough to drown the opposition". 
Exhibit A - All GOP candidates flying to Las Vegas a few days ago to court Sheldon Addleson (including the apology of one Mr. Christie).
From Jon Stewart Friday April 04th Episode: I would respectfully like to approach the bench, and remind the Court that when the media refers to Sheldon Adelson as a super-donor, they're not talking sperm. 

b) More money means more lengthy primary cycles. As much money can be given to campaigns that much will be taken by them. With no more limits there there is a possibility of a huge list of candidates who could all be potentially well financed and drag the primary out.

c) Refer to my previous post on One Percenters. This ruling has a lot of unintended consequences. A major one being the impact to income and wealth distribution. More money buys more speech which in turn buys more money and the wealth continues to get concentrated within a small slice of society.

It is going to be very interesting to see how the 2016 elections play out especially from a spending perspective. How much super PAC and lobbyist money will be  spent and how will that influence the electoral process remains to be seen. 

Maybe the answer is with how our Supreme Court works? 

- Why do Judges have to be partisan? and if that is the case why aren't Libertarian or Progressive judges ever nominated. 

- Why do we need appointments for life which results in these judges who are not in step with the times? (yeah yeah I am aware of the obvious reasons).Obviously none of that is going to change anytime soon. 

As stated in the same Jon Stewart episode........ 

JEFFREY TOOBIN (4/2/2014): Basically, it gives people who have a lot of money at their disposal the chance to spread their influence even more widely.  If you have a million dollars now, think how many chunks of $5,200 that makes.  It's a lot.  You could write a lot of checks.

Yep!  Lots and lots of $5,200 checks.  The last great hope of preserving our democracy from the corrupting influence of money is carpal tunnel syndrome.

Maybe like the Legislative section our Judicial section also needs a reboot.  I for one am hoping to win the lottery cause I badly need the "speech" to stop the idiots from teaching intelligent design in our school curriculum. 

You got to have Faith! Faith!

This topic has been a subject of study, debate and analysis since antiquity. My interest is NOT to examine if there is a positive merit to faith and religion. That is a vast and very contentious subject and can be deferred to another day. My specific interest is to understand whether Faith exposes the limits of Scientific Inquiry and if there is in fact an opportunity for coexistence in the scientific forum.

We are all painfully aware of the numerous struggles scientists had to go through, during the Middle Ages to be able to overcome religious dogmas and present conclusions about the universe that shattered religious world views. Neil Degrasse Tyson has an interesting article about Sir Issac Newton called The Perimeter of Ignorance. The video below makes for a fascinating viewing:

Sir Issac Newton discovers, gravitation, optics, light spectrum, the laws of motion and on a "dare" invents Differential and Integral Calculus just so that he could explain the nature of planetary orbits. However, Newton cannot explain how adding objects to this gravitational law still keeps the solar system stable. 

He is able to explain Moon and Earth, Sun and Earth all the two body gravitational models. However he is not able to account how the system is still stable with multiple bodies (Earth and Sun pulling but also Saturn pulling Earth, Mars pulling Earth and so on).
So Newton invokes Faith since he has reached his limit.  From Neil Degrasse Tyson's article, "A century later, the French Astrologer and mathematician Pierre-Simon de Laplace confronts Newton's dilemma of unstable orbits head-on. Rather than view the mysterious stability of the solar system as the unknowable work of God, Laplace declares it a scientific challenge and solves the issue using Perturbation Theory

Dr. Tyson provides a few more interesting examples of illustrious scientists who reach their limits and invoke faith only to have someone solve the issue later.

Let's review the recent past where there have been a few specific cases where famous scientists such as Dr. Francis Collins (who let the decoding of the Human Genome Project) has been vocal about his faith, having written books and articles on this faith. By the way he is also the chair of the National Institute of Health. For a detailed analysis of Dr. Collins' positions, Sam Harris' article makes for good reading. 

Harris asks a very germane question: Imagine: the year is 2006; half of the American population believes that the universe is 6,000 years old; our president had just used his first veto to block federal funding for the most promising medical research on religious grounds; and one of the foremost scientists in the land had that to say, straight from the heart (if not the brain).

What we have understood about ourselves and the universe around us in the last 100 years has been more than the previous 50,000 years combined. Science has debunked, defeated and demonstrated so many cherished myths, superstitions and beliefs which is all due to the "scientific inquiry". Science continues to attack the "God of the Gaps" theory.

That isn't to say there is no room for spirituality and faith. There has been numerous cases of sages and saints who have experienced great revelations via meditation, self inflection and contemplation. People use faith to cope with adversity, tragedy and loss.

That is however very very different from when posed with a limit of sceintific inquiry the answer is to outsource the explaination to a divine creator.

There is an alarming groundswell in this country where faith is now starting to be used to question the scientific process. This is going to have long term repercussions in our ability to continue to be a world leader in innovation.

Here is an example: If there is an argument on the quality of evidence regarding Evolution that is a worthy debate to have. If one comes to the stage with a book written a few thousand years ago about a world view from even far back it is not even worth having a conversation. It is like howling at the moon.

I am hoping that we will be able to improve the discourse where a sense of inquiry and reason guides our evaluation and not a reliance on bronze age literature and practices.

The Right to Arm Bears

Jon Stewart had a segment on his show this week detailing why the Republicans were blocking the confirmation of Dr. Vivek Murthy for the post of Surgeon General.- Daily Show - America Stands it's Ground. The source of the issue came from the NRA and Senator Rand Paul who started a campaign against the confirmation of Dr. Murthy.

The crux of this is NRA's apprehension that Dr. Murthy's outspoken views on "sensible" gun control which in fact are not that radical and in line with what most Americans want, from a reform perspective. So then why IS the NRA worried about this specific nomination to the point that their campaigning has caused the White House to put a halt on the nomination till the elections are completed?

The answer as "control". The NRA has been very successful in advancing the "fear" propaganda. Guns are safe,  there are a myriad of unseen terrors lurking that can get us and being armed is the best recourse for our personal safety. In addition they have been very successful suppressing data on gun violence.

The Second Amendment provides the right to bear arms and this has been debated ad nauseum regarding the historical relevance of the Amendment. If our forefathers had the "fore"sight that a person, 225 years later would be able to go on the web and buy an AR-15 maybe they would have done a double take on the "right to bear arms" amendment. I get that you need guns to hunt but c'mon semi automatic and sophisticated handguns? These are the same nut jobs that need to buy a Hummer - since the terrain from the gated community to the super market is like Fallujah.

Almost every other advanced country have either no gun ownership or some form of restricted gun ownership and that has had obvious positive impacts on gun related violence. So why is this hard for our country to grasp? What is the fetish with gun ownership that lets our brains go through a cognitive dissonance every time we see a mass shooting in the news? It is always the same three points:

a) It is protected by the constitution - Fine. No argument there.

b) Guns don't kill, People do - really? that is a viable argument? So if the gunman in the Newtown, CT killings had a bunch of knives (and killer ninja stars) he would be able to kill those poor innocent children at the speed, that he did?

c) I am a law abiding gun owner and I should have the freedom to own the guns I want - That is circular logic. If it has been proven via data and polling that there are certain types of guns (if regulated) will greatly reduce the number of violent gun crimes, isn't a little bit of sensible regulation good?

Source: http://ksmleadership.com/gun-control/

So what is the solution. It is not attacking the NRA as the boogieman. The NRA is a non profit organization and lobbyist. It is protected by the First Amendment and should be commended for their effectiveness in driving the gun ownership agenda in this country with a maniacal focus.

The obvious answer then becomes our elected representatives doesn't it?. Here is Obama's proposed Gun Control measures that were put together post the Connecticut Mass Shootings.Universal Background checks and Assault Weapon Bans are really items that the Congress can do to positively influence gun crime. But that is not happening anytime soon.

And that brings us back to our circle jerk. As Jon Stewart states in his segment, Dr. Murthy is standing for the nomination of Surgeon General - best he can do is put warning labels on bullets! 

Lobbyists will lobby that is what they do. There must be a greater conviction amongst our elected officials to be pragmatic, rational and logical. Else we are doomed. We can't let the rhetoric crackpots influence elected officials. 

You know the folks that traverse this arc on a minute by minute basis - Freedom->Guns->Greatest Country->Liberty->God (I know I am missing a few more from the Fringe Bingo Card).

Source:http://aragonhitchhikers.blogspot.com/2013/01/chaos-in-gun-control-debate.html

Would taking the "obvious" baseball bat and hitting our elected officials on the head, result in them:

- Appointing or Not Appointing Dr. Murthy based on his experience and qualifications for the position - not because of his views on gun control?
- Passing sensible gun control regulations like background checks and assault weapon ban?

I don't know...time will tell. Common sense is not so common these days!