The Best and The Worst

Early in my first year of college, the chemistry faculty described their research in a series of short talks to the potential chem majors. I best remember Prof. JS. He fit the stereotype: dumpy, balding, thick glasses, and a short sleeve white polyester shirt half in and half out of his trousers. JS talked about his work on alveolar surfactants; the proteins that coat the tiny air sacs in our lungs and reduce the effort required to draw each breath. All of us, in 1971, remembered well Patrick Bouvier Kennedy's short life. He was born premature in the summer of 1963 to First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy. The baby lived only three days. Preemies are born before those air sac proteins develop. The babies struggle for each breath. In 1963, many, including Patrick Kennedy, died. And, there was JS, rumpled and completely uncool, telling us about his work to save those babies. The professor was a hero. Of all the descriptors, it was the most appropriate adjective. The one to endure.

I thought again of that day in 1971 when reading the latest New Yorker. An article by Jerome Groopman  covers oncology researchers who are trying with some success to drive cancer into remission by activating our human immune systems. A few pages further back Jill Lepore reports on America's gun fetishism. The two articles contrast the best and worst of humanity.

The cancer researchers are now making progress with methods once abandoned as ineffective. Cancer grows and spreads because mutant cells are too much like their healthy progenitors to trigger immune response. The new therapies super-charge patients' T-cells to induce that extra bit of activity that allows the T-cells to target cancer cells. The approach is not perfect. Supercharged T-cells, like more conventional chemotherapy, may also destroy healthy tissue. But, the research as explained seems like true progress. And the researchers? We don't get much insight about their psyches other than overriding perseverance. These men and women work hard. Are they motivated by ego? Probably. Do they view their research as a competition with other scientists? Certainly. Does it matter? No. Successful research will save many lives. It is hard, slow, grinding, frustrating work toward a heroic cause. The best side of humanity

Jill Lepore's gunnies, in constrast, are immature, diminished people. Their stories are all about emotional (and intellectual) defects without redemption. Gun fetishists use the 2^nd amendment as post-hoc justification for preset conclusion. The Bill of Rights is a cloth remnant. One-half of one tenth was carefully cut out and sewn by the NRA into a drum major's tunic. The rest was tossed on the ground; ignored, forgotten, unseen. Think of mafiosi pleading the 5^th, then cheering themselves as constitutional stalwarts and noble souls motivated exclusively by their love of the Bill of Rights and the Nation.  

Lepore interviews David Keene, the NRA's new president, whose son is doing time for shooting at a driver during a road rage incident. 

He was sentenced to ten years in prison for “using, brandishing, and discharging a firearm in a crime of violence.” I asked Keene if this private tragedy had left him uncertain about what the N.R.A. had wrought. He said no: “You break the law, you pay the price.” 

I asked Keene if any public atrocity had given him pause. He explained that it is the N.R.A.’s policy never to comment on a shooting. 

I asked him how he would answer critics who charge that no single organization has done more to weaken Americans’ faith in government, or in one another, than the N.R.A. 

“We live in a society now that’s Balkanized,” Keene said. “But that has nothing to do with guns.”

Gunnies exist in tiny rooms without mirrors or doors.  No chance for self-reflection or path forward.  They are the unwanted opposites of Groopman's scientists.

Blowback

Mitt Romney will likely be the Republican party's 2012 presidential nominee.  He is wealthy, dull, hypocritical, inconsistent, pandering, and mendacious.  Guess which adjective matters most.  Yeah.  It's the money.  And, now it's time to welcome the far right to the Citizens United blowback.  I hope they're happy.

Despite all talk about the GOP being dominated by ultra-conservative crazies, the Republicans have ended up with the guy without true right wing bona fides.  Romney's record in Massachusetts, his religion, his flip-flopping, and his demeanor all alienate the base.  How did that happen?  Guess what?  It was easy.  One not-Romney after another came charging out of the trenches, sprinted across no-man's land, and got blasted by a Gatling gun spew of money, and more money, and endless money.  The ammunition belts were fed some by Romney himself, but most were handled by masked men under super-PAC banners.  Once again, the biggest losers are all the dim rubes and nuts for Jesus whose votes gave America the five-ninths of a Supreme Court that tips the scales of justice using piles of cash.  The same tapioca brains cheering Citizens United because all they could feel was the tingle-up-the-spine joy from the SCOTUS-endorsed attack on Hillary Clinton, now are the victims.  Their hopes, their voices have been buried by millions and millions and millions of dollars.

Historians will not argue this point.  Instead, it will be the English majors writing their senior-year projects who will debate Tragedy or Comedy?

A Message to Job Creators

Hey, All You Job Creators,

If you were really doing your job which is to create jobs for the rest of the country, our unemployment rate would be a lot lower.  So, here is my modest proposal.  The nation will give you people three months to bring the unemployment rate down to 5%.  You do it by creating lots of jobs.  Lots of jobs.  After all, that's what you say you do.  That's what justifies your low tax rates.  If you pull that off, Congress and the President make the Bush tax cuts permanent.  If not, it's Eisenhower time, with a 70% top rate for all types of income.

Seems reasonable to me.  A carrot and a stick, and a great opportunity for the wealthy to truly put their money where their mouths are.

Blog Against Theocracy 2012

Here is a recipe for catastrophe: Base your society on myth and superstition, and then claim those ideas are profound and immutable.  Nothing good can come from it.

Take, as one example, the "Personhood" idea.  I like the example because there is an easily-followed path from religion to politics to law to lunacy.  In other words, the consequences of theocracy.  "Personhood" grants to fertilized human ova all of the legal status of living people.  The failed amendment to the Mississippi state constitution gives a definition, "The term 'person' or 'persons' shall include every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning or the functional equivalent thereof."  My emphasis.  

 Religious zealotry crashes into physiologic reality.  Fertilization usually takes place in the fallopian tubes.  At least 50% of fertilized human eggs fail to implant in the uterus.  Those eggs have, typically, divided seven or eight times to form a hollow ball of about 150 cells called a blastocyst that is between 0.1 and 0.2 mm in diameter.  That is really tiny.  One hundred blastocysts can fit on the head of a pin.  All of the loser  blastocysts -- the ones that don't implant -- become part of the woman's menstrual flow.

The outflowing blastocysts are stillborn babies in a Personhood theocracy.  Deaths must be recorded, micro-corpses buried or cremated, and death certificates issued.  It gets ickier.  Lots ickier.  Every tampon and sanitary napkin used by every fertile, sexually active woman will need to be examined for dead blastocysts.  After all, you can't allow women to toss dead bodies into the trash. 

In math or science, we call it Reductio ad absurdum.  An idea is disproven by showing its consequences to be absurd.  I've not yet talked with a Personhooder about the absurd consequences of fertilized-eggs-are-people.  All I know is that the realities of human physiology have not yet deterred the zealots.  And, remember, the Personhood idea is just one sample of crazy intended by American theocrats.  

Global Warming. Part 1

Global warming is real.  It is caused by people and the consequences are likely to be devastating.

This is the first of several posts I will be writing about the basic science of global warming.  I hope to give readers useful tools for debating the deniers.  When your crotchety old uncle starts badmouthing Al Gore, you will be able to respond with scientific fact.  If someone next to you on an airplane sneers that winter storms are the death knell of climate change, you will be able to describe the basic science and some useful history.

The posts will answer three starting point questions.

1. What do we mean by the temperature of the Earth?  
2. What determines that temperature?  
3.  And, finally, why does adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere increase the Earth's temperature?  

Answering these questions requires explaining some physics plus a little bit of chemistry.  The science can be presented clearly without using much math.  I've discovered that blogging is a great environment for discussing science.  The give and take will allow me add wonkish detail when requested or to expand explanations to make them more suitable for non-scientists.

This series of posts is motivated by a recent conversation with an environmental activist.  I wanted to know how he stayed optimistic against so much anti-science and anti-environmental propaganda.  How does someone working on a shoestring budget compete sanely with the moneyed forces of darkness?  I just loved his answer. Only history can identify truly significant events, he explained.  We will not know which book or film or speech or song or street protest will be a turning point until after -- sometimes long after -- the event.  Rosa Parks was not the first person to defy segregation laws; but, when she sat down the whole world stood up.  The Vietnam war included many, well-documented brutal events, but Ernest Faas' photo of a street execution of a Vietcong prisoner and Nick Ut's picture of a naked, burned Vietnamese girl running from a napalm attack are forever linked to that war.  I doubt if Rachel Carson predicted the impact of "Silent Spring."  Nor did Harriett Beecher Stowe anticipate the response to "Uncle Tom's Cabin."  I could continue with a long list of examples.

So, my environmental activist friend advised me to just write.  Get my message out and encourage everyone else to do the same.  I probably won't find the right words to change history.  Very few people do.  But, nothing is gained by fretting while hoping to hit the longest home run ever.

In Pain

I hurt my right shoulder seven weeks ago.  Pain, as measured on the 10-point scale, started in the 7 to 8 range and has mellowed into 2's and 3's.  That's bad enough to wake me several times a night.  My medical insurance coverage is OK, though more pricey and less comprehensive than what I had a decade ago.  Out of pocket expenses are now a little over $900.  In one sense, yes, I can afford it which means that I don't have to choose between physical therapy or groceries, haven't been late on the mortgage in order to pay a doctor bill, and have kept up with utilities and health insurance.  But, pain does wonders for focusing the mind and, in my case, for examining ideas about fairness.  Here is my radical idea:  Mitt Romney should pay my medical expenses.  So should Donald Trump, Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich, and Ron Paul; also the Koch brothers, Hunt brothers, and Baldwin brothers.   Add Michael Moore, Jane Fonda, and John Kerry.  And, my neighbors, cops on patrol, and the county firefighters.

Because, here's the deal.  Pain is awful.  Cancer and heart disease are worse.  And, we the people have a moral obligation to help each other.  Sometimes we have to grit our teeth like when a drinker needs a liver transplant or a motorcyclist riding without a helmet requires brain surgery.  We may not like their behavior, but that's just too bad.  Health care is a human right, not an entitlement.   My injured shoulder gets treated and my taxes help pay for everyone else's health care.  Anything less is grotesque cruelty.

Former Senator Rick Santorum thinks he should be President and tens of thousands – perhaps hundreds of thousands – of Americans agree. This is Santorum at a campaign stop yesterday or the day before:

Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum told the mother of a child with a rare genetic disorder on Tuesday that she shouldn't have a problem paying $1 million a year for drugs because Apple's iPad can cost around $900.

Speaking to more than 400 people at Woodland Park, Colorado, the former Pennsylvania senator said that demand should set prices for drugs.

"People have no problem paying $900 for an iPad," the candidate explained. "But paying $900 for a drug they have a problem with — it keeps you alive. Why? Because you’ve been conditioned to think health care is something you can get without having to pay for it."

The mother replied that she could not afford her son's medication, Abilify, which can cost as much as $1 million a year without health insurance.

"Look, I want your son and everybody to have the opportunity to stay alive on much-needed drugs," Santorum insisted. "But the bottom line is, we have to give companies the incentive to make those drugs. And if they don't have the incentive to make those drugs, your son won't be alive and lots of other people in this country won't be alive."

"He’s alive today because drug companies provide care," the candidate continued. "And if they didn’t think they could make money providing that drug, that drug wouldn’t be here. I sympathize with these compassionate cases. … I want your son to stay alive on much-needed drugs. Fact is, we need companies to have incentives to make drugs. If they don’t have incentives, they won’t make those drugs. We either believe in markets or we don’t."

I do not know what caused Santorum's emotional disfigurement. Just get him the hell away from me and everyone else. There aren't enough therapists or enough couches in this land to repair his twisted psyche. Has Santorum or any of his cohort ever responded to a question or comment with, “Oh. Wait a moment. You've got a good point there. I may have been wrong/hasty/ill informed/misguided about that idea. I guess I just didn't think it through. Thank you.”? 

Only this one datum – a family can't afford extraordinarily expensive medication for seriously ill child – should smash forever the idea that unfettered markets solve all problems.  Anyone who can't understand that or cannot have a sophisticated discussion about expensive on-going treatments should leave politics.  They have chosen the wrong career.