Reaching out

Lisa Rokusek often writes for Dangerous Intersection. She also writes for her own website, The Rhino and the Buddha. Lisa and her partner have made a cottage industry of reaching out to help others, including cats, and dogs, but mostly to other human beings. Lisa is a good friend of mine and she never ceases to impress me with her willingness to keep trying, sometimes against all odds. I'm not trying to embarrass her by saying this, but merely indicating that some of Lisa's bouts of empathy are endeavors that I would be hesitant to attempt. Framed with quotes by Pema Chödrön, Lisa's most recent post, "No Guarantee," is a charmingly well-written but less-than-satisfying episode that ends with several important observations:

Sometimes we sow seeds we don't get to see grow. Sometimes we expend effort and it has no impact. Sometimes little things we do without noticing make all the difference.

Continue ReadingReaching out

On the current attempts to bludgeon innocent children with a Constitutional Amendment

The arguments for the proposed amendment to strip innocent children of citizenship by altering the Fourteenth Amendment do not pass muster from the viewpoint of long-standing American values. An unspoken and insidious agenda is being pursued under the alleged concerns of “saving tax dollars” or “protecting our borders!” Most of the 27 Constitutional Amendments passed so far limit the powers of the government or expand or protect the liberties of the people. The proposed anti-immigrant change does neither of these things. I would also oppose the proposed changes to the Fourteenth Amendment as unnecessarily cruel and punitive to an innocent class of persons, infants and children who have done no one any wrong. Yet some are now arguing for a Constitutional change to exclude from U.S. citizenship those children born to one or more illegal aliens (or to foreign visitors). For this reason some supporters of the constitutional amendment call the children “anchor babies.” To be sure, this term is a code word most often referring to children of Mexican descent. The process of becoming a citizen based on the fact that at least one of your children is a US citizen is lengthy and it cannot begin until the child is 21 and makes earnings of at least 125% of the US poverty threshold. [More . . .]

Continue ReadingOn the current attempts to bludgeon innocent children with a Constitutional Amendment

Egg recall shows (again) how broken our industrial-foods model has become

How many times will it take for the consumer to wake up? Back in May, I wrote a post about the generally dismal state of regulation in matters of food safety, which allows large producers all the slack in the world at the expense of the consumer. I wish I could say that the state of affairs had changed dramatically in the meantime, but the current recall of over half a billion eggs reveals that nothing has changed.

Continue ReadingEgg recall shows (again) how broken our industrial-foods model has become

Animal cultures and overimitating

In the July 16, 2010 edition of Science (available online only to subscribers), Michael Balter opens his article, "Probing Cultures Secrets," with words that would have been considered blasphemous by scientists only a few decades ago:

Scientists once designated "culture" as the exclusive province of humans. But that elitist attitude is long gone, as evidenced by the recent meeting here on how culture, usually defined as the passing on of traditions by learning from others, arises and changes. The 700 attendees [of "culture evolves," held in London], a mixture of researchers and members of the public, heard talks on cultural transmission in fish, meerkats, birds, and monkeys, as well as in extinct and living humans.

Balter's question is "why do certain cultural trends, such as fashions, begin and catch on? To illustrate his answer, Balter refers to the work of anthropologist Susan Perry who described some unusual behavior of white faced capuchin monkeys in Costa Rica. Balter writes that some of these monkeys have adopted various traditions with "no clear survival purpose, such as sniffing each other's fingers and inserting them into a companions nose, or biting off a big chunk of another monkeys for and holding it in the mouth while he or she playfully tries to get it back."

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