Category Archives: ethics and morals

Aaron Swartz

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I found this interesting post on Aaron Swartz, which raises more questions than it answers…

I found another post on this site Saturday, but couldn’t find it again looking today.  It mentioned a post by Marcy Wheeler on what was going on with Aaron Swartz and his suicide after being hounded by authorities.  (Be sure to click on the NY Times link, which explains a little better.)  More here.

This chills one to the bone.  And what exactly was he downloading that caused such concern?  The articles dance around it. Anyway, Aaron Swartz believed that the information out there that was paid for by taxpayers deserved to be easily accessed–that is, without paying high $$ to join JSTOR or any other program to gain access.  It was noted that many documents are being electronically copied with limited access to the public.  This is incredibly disturbing, as everyone knows that Information is Power. And knowledge can inform the American citizen what their government is doing. (This is why stuff like Kindle worry me–taking information off of physical books and putting them in electronic gadgets that require a battery and software to view is dangerous in that if either of those fail to work, the information is inaccessible.  One can easily see how this can turn into denial of information–book burning a la the information age.)

The thing is…Swartz had legal access to the information, via Harvard!  He had the legal right to access. He was trying to make a point that the copyright laws protected electronic information that the taxpayers paid for, but were denied access to.  Now, think of the library books one checks out…they are copyrighted materials, but one can still access the information via a library card.  I think Swartz was applying those same principles to his providing this information.  Note that JSTOR refused to prosecute him once they learned he had legal access.

 

Martin Luther King, Jr. and Beyond Vietnam

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Susie Madrak has a post up on MLK’s birthday celebration.  This is my view, too, on how everybody brings up “I Have a Dream” speech, and then fail to acknowledge his “Beyond Vietnam” speech (which he gave a year to the day before his murder).

He was expanding from the Civil Rights protests towards protesting the condition of the poor and of the terrible consequences of war.  This was more of a threat to the status quo than anything he had done prior.  Indeed, even his friends that had supported him during the Civil Rights era were abandoning him when he started advocating for the poor and protesting against war.  According to those that knew him, he never felt so alone.

He knew that advocating those positions was dangerous.

And he did it anyway….

 

More compelling evidence…

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Good Grief, how many children/adults have to suffer?

Why isn’t the evidence is for public viewing.?  Pretty evident that Big Pharma is culpable, and getting away with it because if you can keep the information from being in the public sphere, more folks will be unaware and less likely to realize their child or their selves have symptoms caused by vaccination.  And as this story illustrates, the court cases can have motion after motion filed and be dragged on for years, and only someone of means could afford to pay an attorney to fight their case.  In other words, more profits for Big Pharma…

The susceptibility to disease

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I was thinking about my post here over the weekend, and thought I should expand on it.  I write what I know (which is what they tell you), but perhaps I was being myopic.

I did a search on susceptibility and African Americans, but had very few articles to choose from.  I found this. 

Here are some of the issues I have with this article–

One is that pollution stays in one place, so it affects just the nearest geographical area.   It spreads all over.  Articles on it here and here and here.

Air pollution in FW is particularly bad–there were many, many ozone days last summer where I could not go outside for any length of time.  I thought I could at least jog in the morning of an ozone day, but was sadly mistaken when I started wheezing as I climbed the stairs to my apartment afterward.

The lung disease thing I am confused about because in my building, the only folks with oxygen tanks are whites–several of them.  And nearly all the ones in wheelchairs are white.  At one time, there have been seven whites in wheelchairs, several more using walkers  but only one black gentleman in a wheelchair.  Just my own little world….

I suspect that heavy metals are affecting African Americans, but like whites, are not being noticed or investigated.  The information may be out there, but I didn’t see it in my research.  I would love to explore this more.

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And no, I don’t think that nuclear energy is the answer (if one wants to reduce coal production to lessen the impact of lead, arsenic and mercury in the environment).  Nuclear has many, many problems, one of which is thyroid cancer levels go up around nuclear power plants.  I think one of the first things that has to occur is for Americans to stop wasting so much energy and going off grid would be the first step–one has to be more conscious of the energy they use if they are responsible for that energy. Another step would be to build sustainable housing, like earth ships. Gotta love that name.  And I love the design on this page—Isn’t that cool? Who would think such an artsy design is also sustainable?

A paper here by Joseph Mangano on the rising thyroid cancer rates and nuclear energy. (PDF)

A map on disease clusters here.

Yep, the evidence is out there that we are killing ourselves with the toxic environment.  I’d rather sacrifice a little and be able to breathe than have the conveniences of modern life that are killing us, slowly.

A trail of bullets…

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C.J.Chivers of the New York Times had this up over the weekend–a post on ammunition being supplied to Africa.  I thought I’d post it because of the focus on Africa.  Perhaps it’s just me, but it seems that Africa is becoming a focal point…or perhaps it was always there, but ignored?

Anyway, I thought that it’s striking that a lot is said about Iran’s nuclear capabilities, but not of small arms ammunition and shipping it to other countries.

The question one has to ask is…why?  What do they hope to gain?  Is it for their political benefit or just plain guns profits?

 

And my new favorite Twain quote is…

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“If Christ were here,  there is one thing he would not be…A Christian.”  Brilliantly said.  Trying to act like Christ is a little too much work…as it requires following “Do Unto Others…”

Diane Sweet has a post up on the fundamentalist Pat Robertson, doing what fundamentalists do:  putting women beneath them…

I disagree with one of the commenters who said that this kind of thinking was dying out.  It’s a dangerous assumption, and from what I’m seeing, far from being a thing of the past.  This crap has been going on for thousands of years, in different forms and won’t “die out” until women are seen and treated as equals. Women are a still not thought of as having equal value in whatever they do–if they stay home to raise the children and care for the house, or if they work outside the home.

The issues with rape and the degradation of the young woman in Steubenville are classic examples of treating women as “less than” and making moral judgments against her that are not made against the men.  She’s a slut to be peed on.  He’s just having a good time.

 

 

And the violent mindset escalates…

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My first impression of listening to Carolyn Cain is that she sounds waaay too much like Sarah Palin.  It was just a first impression I got…(and a side note~the eye movement?  That is a sign of mercury/heavy metal poisoning…I kid you not.)

Where to begin??

My God, can you imagine a child getting a hold of a gun and killing his/her classmates?

Or a child, say a middle schooler, that was in one of those pissed-off-at-the-world moods who gets the teacher’s gun and shoots her?

The gun can (and will) be used in so many ways that are unintended…that is, they won’t be protecting people’s lives, but ending them.

I mean, really, schools that I taught in were safe–all doors were locked and you had to be buzzed in to enter the school.  They go through exercises to practice the drill for any emergency, including this, so I’m at a loss as to how Sandy Hook even happened.  I do know that the nurse was given a moment in time when she could have tried to stop Adam Lanza–he was right next to her as she hid under a desk (if I recall correctly).

If she had a gun, would she have used it?  I know that I wouldn’t.  I’d try to find some other means to stop someone from the rampage.  I would have tried to tackle him once his back was turned…I may have died in the process, but at least I would have tried to stop more from being killed…and at the very least, it would have bought more time until police could arrive.  Just my thoughts on it…

Looking at the comments, the first one on the Ed Show website is brilliant:

If she wants to carry a gun at work, she should quit teaching and become a cop.

Amen.

Also, if I were still substitute teaching, I would not want to be in a classroom with a gun in it. Period.  I would refuse to teach or have the gun taken by the principal.

I’m not being dragged into the fear.  And the kids need to see the adults not being manipulated by fear.

 

 

More on the lead and crime connection

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George Monbiot weighs in on the lead/crime connection.  As usual, folks disbelieve that there could be a connection…until the evidence continues to mount.  Again, though, I wish they would have mentioned leaky gut (which lead can either cause or contribute to, according to one’s personal theory) and the devastating effects of mercury.

But hey, I’m glad to see this being picked up…hopefully, hopefully, this will get people who can do something about it off their arses.

One thing that leaps out at me as I read this a second time–they mention that lead is unsafe at any level, and African Americans, by being exposed to lead because of it being in older homes, etc., means that it affected them more.  Now, with my own experiences with the mercury, I don’t know whether exposure alone is the sole factor to be considered.  The reason being is that my hypothesis is that whites are more affected by heavy metal poisoning…especially we Irish, who are known to lack the genes responsible for ridding the body of heavy metals.  Think about it:  all the mass killings were done by white boys.  The article makes the point that boys are more severely affected.  (I would question that assumption, too, because what shows up in girls may be different than boys, but that doesn’t mean they are less affected, but just affected in different ways.)

 

The Flu scare is on….

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(sigh) Once again the scare tactics are on for the flu vaccine.

News reports have been blasting on every news station I’ve listened to: radio, TV and newspapers.  Local coverage here:  http://www.fortwayne.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130109/NEWS/320139235?mytabsmenu=

On the rightwing radio station here, the head of the health dept. was pushing for everyone to get the vaccine, using a coercive technique of saying that “you may be healthy, and survive the flu, but you may expose someone else to the flu…” (if you don’t get the vaccine).  Of course, the talk show host did not question this line of thinking nor if there were repercussions to getting the vaccine itself.  This is one of the issues I had with the health dept–they don’t tell both sides of the story and reveal the downsides of vaccine to allow people to make their own decisions of whether they want to get the vaccine.

Here’s a blog disputing the numbers the CDC is using to scare the public into getting a vaccine that is not safe nor necessarily effective.  (Keep in mind, folks, that the CDC is now being run by the Dept. of Hysterical Security.)

People have such short memories on the swine flu “pandemic”...and all the hysteria that involved.  The key sentence in this report is this:

Most reports coming from the Southern Hemisphere in late August (the end of winter there) suggested that the swine flu is highly infectious, but not particularly lethal.

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The swine flu was contagious, but not particularly lethal–so the hysteria was just that–being terrorized over something that was not likely to cause severe health problems.

The story does say that whooping cough has been contained by vaccines, but from everything I’ve read, that is not true.  They have been saying that whooping cough is increasing in numbers, even though people have been vaccinated!

Another telling sentence in the above report is this:

Education, lifestyle, income, and many other “confounding” factors can come into play, and as a result, cohort studies are notoriously prone to bias.

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Bias. Bias. Bias.  Scientists have inserted their biases into research to obtain a certain result or support their own prejudices.  This has been demonstrated over and over and over again….and yet reporters and the public don’t question scientists or their research.

For instance, those who don’t see doctors and don’t get the flu (such as myself) are not going to be counted.  I should be getting the flu because of my compromised immune system and exposure to all sorts of germs at the library and my building…so where is the science in that??

(A side note ~ I heard or read somewhere that keyboards were filthier than toilet seats, so I began using the sanitized wipes on the keyboard before I type a letter. And in relation to that, you men need to wash your hands after using the toilet!  I did my own little “survey” when I worked (Gah, I once worked…)–the company’s break room was situated near the bathrooms, and I’d listen for the water to run after someone used the toilet.  All the women washed their hands…half of the men did. Blech.)

Link to the vaccine injury page.  Good info here.  Be sure to click on the link of the unvaccinated children.  There’s a particular statement by a speech pathologist who notes that children have seizures and their development is arrested after receiving the vaccines.  This makes sense to me because of all I know about the immune system (the gut) and the interference with brain function (migraines, seizures, ADD, clumsiness) when one has leaky gut (Celiac).  But you won’t hear this on the radio or TV or newspapers…

Also on the page is a link to the state of health of vaccinated children.  Two-thirds of the parents who had their children vaccinated would not continue.  Link here to the health effects after vaccination.

A good website here on the 1986 law effectively putting the burden of vaccine injury onto the taxpayers and allowing the pharmaceutical industry and doctors to avoid responsibility and accountability for the harm that vaccines cause.  (Note that this is during the Reagan administration.)

From the webpage:

There is a long list of things that are wrong with the VICP. First and foremost, while it is referred to as a court, it simply is not a court. There is no judge, no jury, no right to require the adversary to provide information, and no formal rules of evidence and civil procedure.

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This illustrates the lack of justice for the victims of vaccine injury.  A pharmaceutical company does not have to show their face in a court of law, to a jury, and most importantly, to the victim whose life has been altered due to their product, as the page states.  The hidden data of the Vaccine Safety Datalink was allowed to be viewed by the Justice Dept, but not the attorneys for the victims.

The page states that they only have a three year statute of limitations to file the case.  They feel, and I agree, that this is too short a time period.  For one, you have so many so-called professionals who will dispute the vaccine injury.  This is parallel  to my mercury injury from the amalgams–even though my migraines started one year after placement, it wasn’t until nearly ten years later that I discovered the link between them and the symptoms I was having.  All the professionals I had seen never considered amalgams as a source of health issues.  They still don’t.

And the biggest empty hole missing from this conversation is: DIET.  Not a word about how diet affects us and our immune systems and how a healthy immune system will successfully fight the flu bug and any other nasty stuff that comes our way.  Folks don’t die from the flu–they die from pneumonia, because of a compromised immune system that can’t fight it off.  Not a word about gluten intolerance and how that can lead to the gut’s inability to effectively kill the flu virus or the pneumonia bacteria.

The next biggest empty hole is: ENVIRONMENTAL TOXINS.  This being another devastating effect on the immune system.

But that would actually take using more than a myopic view, and we just can’t have that. /snark