Month: January 2005

Let's Suppose . . .

. . . that there are two guys running for president. Call them Candidate X and Candidate Y.

Suppose further that there are parties attacking the military records of Candidate X and Y and bringing up all kinds of allegations about what they did or didn’t do during the Vietnam War.

Suppose that there is a TV network that at first refuses to cover the allegations made against Candidate X by a large number of sources and then, when the story becomes too big to ignore, heaps scorn on those making the allegations, trying its best to shoot holes in their account.

Suppose finally that the same TV network eagerly hops on the allegations made against Candidate Y by a single source and, when virtually the entire blogosphere shoots holes in the allegations, the network stiffly and rigidly defends the allegations.

Could you fairly conclude that the TV network and the people at it who were involved in these stories were biased against Candidate Y in favor of Candidate X?

How then can the CBS Rathergate pannel say something like this?

The question of whether a political agenda played any role in the

airing of the Segment is one of the most subjective, and most

difficult, that the Panel has sought to answer. The political agenda

question was posed by the Panel directly to Dan Rather and his

producer, Mary Mapes, who appear to have drawn the greatest attention

in terms of possible political agendas. Both

strongly denied that they brought any political bias to the Segment.

The Panel recognizes that those who saw bias at work in the Segment are

likely to sweep such denials aside. However, the Panel will not level

allegations for which it cannot offer adequate proof [LINK–Evil file format (.pdf) warning!].

I don’t think there’s anything "subjective" here. I think the bias is blatantly obvious. Viewing the Rathergate sandal in the context of the overall election, it is obvious what was happening: This was a desperate attempt to get a military record story on Bush to neutralize the effect of the Swiftvet story on Kerry. Only a "myopic zeal" for focusing on the Rathergate story in isolation from the Swiftvet story could lead one to think that there is not adequate proof of bias in this case.

Let’s Suppose . . .

. . . that there are two guys running for president. Call them Candidate X and Candidate Y.

Suppose further that there are parties attacking the military records of Candidate X and Y and bringing up all kinds of allegations about what they did or didn’t do during the Vietnam War.

Suppose that there is a TV network that at first refuses to cover the allegations made against Candidate X by a large number of sources and then, when the story becomes too big to ignore, heaps scorn on those making the allegations, trying its best to shoot holes in their account.

Suppose finally that the same TV network eagerly hops on the allegations made against Candidate Y by a single source and, when virtually the entire blogosphere shoots holes in the allegations, the network stiffly and rigidly defends the allegations.

Could you fairly conclude that the TV network and the people at it who were involved in these stories were biased against Candidate Y in favor of Candidate X?

How then can the CBS Rathergate pannel say something like this?

The question of whether a political agenda played any role in the
airing of the Segment is one of the most subjective, and most
difficult, that the Panel has sought to answer. The political agenda
question was posed by the Panel directly to Dan Rather and his
producer, Mary Mapes, who appear to have drawn the greatest attention
in terms of possible political agendas. Both
strongly denied that they brought any political bias to the Segment.
The Panel recognizes that those who saw bias at work in the Segment are
likely to sweep such denials aside. However, the Panel will not level
allegations for which it cannot offer adequate proof [LINK–Evil file format (.pdf) warning!].

I don’t think there’s anything "subjective" here. I think the bias is blatantly obvious. Viewing the Rathergate sandal in the context of the overall election, it is obvious what was happening: This was a desperate attempt to get a military record story on Bush to neutralize the effect of the Swiftvet story on Kerry. Only a "myopic zeal" for focusing on the Rathergate story in isolation from the Swiftvet story could lead one to think that there is not adequate proof of bias in this case.

Cold & Flu Redux

A reader writes:

I recently found your site and have thoroghly enjoyed

reading it.  Your websites awsome!   I wanted to comment on

your article Cold and Flu People at Mass.  Thank you for pointing out

that sick people should be content with recieving Him under the

appearance of bread -rather then share their germs on the chalice.

Also, holding hands during the Our Father or shaking hands during the

kiss of peace should not be done if someone has a catching sickness.  Children, and as you pointed out adults, need to cover their

mouths when the cough and not coughing on someone else is always a good

thing.

 
One comment in your article concerned me however.  I

was surprised to read that having a contagious disease is a valid

excuse to miss Mass.  While in the case of small pox or something of

that sort I would agree, are you sure that a cold validly excuses a

person from their sunday obligation?  Worshiping at Mass is the  most

important thing any of us will ever do.  We do have an obligation not

to spread disease, but this can be done by following a few common sense

steps (which you mention in your article).  Also, if one is severely

ill and absolutly cannot make it to Mass they should have someone bring

them communion.

 
I only mention this because people can be inclined to

take the ‘easy way out’.  A mere case of the sniffles (or the

perception that they are going to get sick) will offer enough excuse to

stay in bed on a Sunday morning under the pretext that it is better to

miss Mass then spread their germs. 

 
Please don’t be angry with this note.  I respect that

you sacrifice your time to promote the Catholic Church in your website

and will keep your ministry in my prayers.  Like I said above, I’ve

thoroughly enjoyed what I have read on your site.

Several thoughts:

  1. Don’t worry. I’m not a bit angry. I operate on the principle that not everybody has to agree with me.
  2. Also, thank you for the kind words about my blog! I hope you’ll keep coming back and be a regular part of the group!
  3. If anybody at Mass actually had small pox then he not only should be not be at Mass, he should be reported to the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta. Small pox is considered to be a disease that is extinct in the wild, with only a few cold storage stocks of it kept on hand by governments. An actual case of small pox in the population would be a likely sign of a terrorist attack. That being said, I know you were just using small pox as a more serious disease and that I’m being overly literal. 🙂
  4. I’m quite sure that people who have contagious diseases should stay home and not go to Mass.
  5. First, it is not practically possible for a great mass of people to be together and have cold and flu sufferes without these diseases jumping from person to person. The stopgap measures I mentioned for preventing its spread are not infallible and will not be used by many people. People will forget and make slips. They will cough in their hands and then–even omitting shaking hands at the sign of peace–they will forget and put their hand on the seat or on the back of the pew in front of them and the cold virus will remain there and able to infect others for up to two weeks.
  6. Colds and flu make people miserable and force them to take time off from work or to go to work and infect other people. If a person is elderly or in frail health (like many at Mass), a cold or flu can kill them. That’s why they try to get all the elderly to have flu shots every year. Influenza kills 20,000 people in the U.S. alone every year on average.
  7. It is, in my opinion, an act objectively contrary to the virtue of charity to show up at Mass (or work) with a contagious case of cold or flu or any other similar illness (e.g., strep throat) unless there is a specific, counterbalancing factor of proportionate weight (like, "I’m supposed to get married at this Mass" or "I’ll get fired if I don’t clock in today").
  8. Because it is objectively contrary to the virtue of charity if done without a proportionate reason, in my opinion showing up at Mass with a contagious disease of this nature is sinful, with the gravity of the sin being proportionate to the likelihood of communicating it to others and the likely health effects in the people who would catch it. (Thus it would be worse to show up with a contagious disease at a Mass held in an old folks home than in a college young adult center.)
  9. We most certainly are not bound to show up at Mass with contagious diseases. While I people should not lightly excuse themselves from Mass, having a contagious disease is an instance in which they should. This applies even to the first phases of a the disease, when they may be most contagious.

Having said all that, I want to assure you that the attitude motivating your question is quite commendable, especially in a day when so many people fail to show up at Mass.

Americans have a tendency to take rules of this much more strictly than Rome intends, and they don’t realize how many exceptions Rome sees in the law. Thus they end up dragging themselves to Mass and infecting those around them, which is not Rome’s intention. Indeed, if you read older moralists, they name all kind of reasons as valid excuses for missing Mass that seem quite light to Americans–e.g., Alphonsus Ligouri considered it a valid excuse not to go if you would have to ride a donkey for more than fifteen minutes.

While worship is the most important thing we do in life, one can worship at home when one is sick. Indeed, if done for a motive of charity, staying home and not infecting others is itself an act of worship toward God. Thus, for God’s sake (in the literal sense), one should stay home.

Hope this helps, and God bless!

Cold & Flu Redux

A reader writes:

I recently found your site and have thoroghly enjoyed
reading it.  Your websites awsome!   I wanted to comment on
your article Cold and Flu People at Mass.  Thank you for pointing out
that sick people should be content with recieving Him under the
appearance of bread -rather then share their germs on the chalice.
Also, holding hands during the Our Father or shaking hands during the
kiss of peace should not be done if someone has a catching sickness.  Children, and as you pointed out adults, need to cover their
mouths when the cough and not coughing on someone else is always a good
thing.
 
One comment in your article concerned me however.  I
was surprised to read that having a contagious disease is a valid
excuse to miss Mass.  While in the case of small pox or something of
that sort I would agree, are you sure that a cold validly excuses a
person from their sunday obligation?  Worshiping at Mass is the  most
important thing any of us will ever do.  We do have an obligation not
to spread disease, but this can be done by following a few common sense
steps (which you mention in your article).  Also, if one is severely
ill and absolutly cannot make it to Mass they should have someone bring
them communion.
 
I only mention this because people can be inclined to
take the ‘easy way out’.  A mere case of the sniffles (or the
perception that they are going to get sick) will offer enough excuse to
stay in bed on a Sunday morning under the pretext that it is better to
miss Mass then spread their germs. 
 
Please don’t be angry with this note.  I respect that
you sacrifice your time to promote the Catholic Church in your website
and will keep your ministry in my prayers.  Like I said above, I’ve
thoroughly enjoyed what I have read on your site.

Several thoughts:

  1. Don’t worry. I’m not a bit angry. I operate on the principle that not everybody has to agree with me.
  2. Also, thank you for the kind words about my blog! I hope you’ll keep coming back and be a regular part of the group!
  3. If anybody at Mass actually had small pox then he not only should be not be at Mass, he should be reported to the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta. Small pox is considered to be a disease that is extinct in the wild, with only a few cold storage stocks of it kept on hand by governments. An actual case of small pox in the population would be a likely sign of a terrorist attack. That being said, I know you were just using small pox as a more serious disease and that I’m being overly literal. 🙂
  4. I’m quite sure that people who have contagious diseases should stay home and not go to Mass.
  5. First, it is not practically possible for a great mass of people to be together and have cold and flu sufferes without these diseases jumping from person to person. The stopgap measures I mentioned for preventing its spread are not infallible and will not be used by many people. People will forget and make slips. They will cough in their hands and then–even omitting shaking hands at the sign of peace–they will forget and put their hand on the seat or on the back of the pew in front of them and the cold virus will remain there and able to infect others for up to two weeks.
  6. Colds and flu make people miserable and force them to take time off from work or to go to work and infect other people. If a person is elderly or in frail health (like many at Mass), a cold or flu can kill them. That’s why they try to get all the elderly to have flu shots every year. Influenza kills 20,000 people in the U.S. alone every year on average.
  7. It is, in my opinion, an act objectively contrary to the virtue of charity to show up at Mass (or work) with a contagious case of cold or flu or any other similar illness (e.g., strep throat) unless there is a specific, counterbalancing factor of proportionate weight (like, "I’m supposed to get married at this Mass" or "I’ll get fired if I don’t clock in today").
  8. Because it is objectively contrary to the virtue of charity if done without a proportionate reason, in my opinion showing up at Mass with a contagious disease of this nature is sinful, with the gravity of the sin being proportionate to the likelihood of communicating it to others and the likely health effects in the people who would catch it. (Thus it would be worse to show up with a contagious disease at a Mass held in an old folks home than in a college young adult center.)
  9. We most certainly are not bound to show up at Mass with contagious diseases. While I people should not lightly excuse themselves from Mass, having a contagious disease is an instance in which they should. This applies even to the first phases of a the disease, when they may be most contagious.

Having said all that, I want to assure you that the attitude motivating your question is quite commendable, especially in a day when so many people fail to show up at Mass.

Americans have a tendency to take rules of this much more strictly than Rome intends, and they don’t realize how many exceptions Rome sees in the law. Thus they end up dragging themselves to Mass and infecting those around them, which is not Rome’s intention. Indeed, if you read older moralists, they name all kind of reasons as valid excuses for missing Mass that seem quite light to Americans–e.g., Alphonsus Ligouri considered it a valid excuse not to go if you would have to ride a donkey for more than fifteen minutes.

While worship is the most important thing we do in life, one can worship at home when one is sick. Indeed, if done for a motive of charity, staying home and not infecting others is itself an act of worship toward God. Thus, for God’s sake (in the literal sense), one should stay home.

Hope this helps, and God bless!

Is B5 Kiddable?

A young gentleman writes:

Jimmy,
   

Hi!  I was thinking of trying out the TV series Babylon 5, and I was just wondering if there’s any objectionable content that I might want to be aware of.  I’m 16 right now, and I have a sister who’s eleven who would probably end up watching whatever was being viewed in the house.  Is the show appropriate for children, or should I wait a few years?  Thanks!

Though most episodes of B5 are quite kid friendly, there are some scenes in some episodes that are not kiddable, particularly for someone as young as eleven. If your parents were interested in watching the series and skipping over these bits, it would be possible to watch them, but this would require a good bit of effort on their part and they likely wouldn’t have the time to devote to such a sustained effort. Therefore, I would just wait a few years.

Hope this helps and that you enjoy the series when you do see it!

NOTE: B5 fans, do not spoil what the unkiddable parts are in the comments box.

 

Have you noticed?

Advertising is changing.

No, I’m not referring to the advent of spam and noxious pop-ups. I’m referring to standard TV and radio advertising. One particular element that had been a staple in such advertising is going the way of the dinosaur. According to some,

THE JINGLE IS DEAD.

And good riddance.

The jingle actually isn’t completely dead yet, but it is present in ads a lot less than it used to be. Advertisers now are not trying so much to create a short, memorable melody that they can drill into your brain with such ferocity that they can create a legion of zombie shoppers (Supermarket of the Living Dead).

But what are they doing?

Well, they’re licensing a lot of songs that I have never heard of and have no interest in hearing as I’m totally checked out from the junk that passes for popular music these days. They’re also licensing some old standards (and by that I mean Beatles tunes). The idea seems to be to create advertising that is less offensive, that has music people actually like (as opposed to can’t extirpate from their brains).

As far as I’m concerned, that’s a good thing. Obnoxious advertising, bad. (But fire, good!)

What I find odd is that they barely mention their products in many ads now, leading me to wonder whether this kind of advertising works and, thus, whether it will last.

In any event, I’m enjoying the less-obnoxifying trend in many ads.

I do have a question, though: Right now Cox has an ad out whose background music is a really catchy tune that seems to consist entirely of different kinds of phones ringing in an office environment. I don’t know if this is a jingle or one of those many, many recent songs that I haven’t heard before.

Anyone know what it might be?

Pocketphone vs. Pocketcomp

The Mote In God’s Eye is considered by some to be the greatest science fiction novel of all time. It’s certainly a great read.

It was first published in 1970 and written by the dynamic duo of Larry Niven (who imagined Ringworld) and Jerry Pournelle (who invented the blog). The novel is set 1000 years in the future, where an interstellar human civilization is putting itself back together (as "The Second Empire of Man") following a dark ages that temporarily separated many worlds when the Empire of Man fell apart.

At the time the novel is set, people are walking around with pocketphones and pocketcomps.

The realization that those were coming was pretty prescient for Niven and Pournelle, especially back in 1970.

What they may not have realized was how soon those two items would be coming.

What they also didn’t appear to realize was that, just a few years after their appearance, the two devices would be merged so you only have to carry one doo-dad around in your pocket. Hence, many portable computers are also cell phones now.

I don’t have one of those, but I do have a cameraphone.

What else are cell phones likely to do for us in the near future?

FIND OUT.

At least we won’t have to wait for the Second Empire of Man to get these goodies.

June 3, 2004 Show

First results of the VOLUNTEER PROGRAM are in! Thanks to Al for mapping the shows in June, 2004. Here’s the first:

LISTEN TO THE SHOW.

DOWNLOAD THE SHOW.

Highlights:

  • Is there such a thing as a conditional confirmation?
  • Is it possible for a baptized person to be possessed?
  • Will a person brought up Catholic who leaves the church go to Hell? What if they leave because of bad experiences in the church?
  • Is the anointing with fish gall in Tobit 11:8 a physical or spiritual healing? In Matthew 27:34, were the soldiers trying to poison Jesus with the wine mixed with gall?
  • Was incest practiced at the origins of humanity?
  • Was there a time when the Son did not exist if he proceeds from the Father? How is this different than the angels?
  • In the early church, was the jurisdiction of Rome over the entire church or just a territory around Rome?
  • Do you have to be confirmed to get married in the Catholic church?
  • The rubrics for the Mass of the Lord’s Supper say it should be celebrated with the full participation of the whole local community. Does that make it obligatory?
  • Why is the observance of Ascension Thursday transferred to Sunday?
  • What can be done to educate parents and voters on Catholic Moral theology?

Shoggoths!

ShoggothEarlier I blogged about a new proposal to get around the impasse in the stem cell debate.

THIS PROPOSAL, AND ANOTHER, WAS DESCRIBED IN AN ARTICLE IN SLATE.

Now I want to talk about the second proposal. It is this: We create human shoggoths.

The idea is that you disable one of the genes that controls organic development so that what develops isn’t an embryo but something that, if left to its own devices, will become a tumorous mass with jumbled up body parts. You then turn the gene back on in time to let it generate stem cells for harvesting.

According to the author for Slate:

It sounds perfect, until you look up at the projection screen.
Hurlbut has modeled his recipe on "aberrant products of fertilization"
and teratomas, which, he explains, are "germ cell tumors that generate
all three primary embryonic germ layers as well as more advanced cells
and tissues, including partial limb and organ primordia." Limb and
organ primordia? Yep, that’s what’s on the screen: a ball of tissue,
grown inside some poor creature, full of bits and pieces of what would
have been a body. Another slide shows an X-ray image of somebody’s
back. To the left of the spine, you can see a cluster of white spots
that look like teeth. And that’s exactly what they are, all dressed up
and no place to chomp. You wanted disorganized development? You got it.

This does not sound perfect to me at all, and I don’t need to look at a screen to get creeped out by it. Several problems immediately occur to me:

  • First there is the problem of when you disable the gene. If you disable it after the germ cells have come together and formed a zygote then the act would amount to an assault on a living human being that is intended to cause gross bodily deformities. To avoid assaulting a human being you would have to turn off the gene in one of the germ cells before they come together and form a human zygote (a one-celled human being).
  • If you only deactivate a single gene, have you really kept something from being a person? If it has a full human genetic code (I’m not talking about something with only one or two chromosomes instead of the usual forty-six) and you’ve simply turned off a gene (many of our genes are already inactive) does that really deprive the creature of humanity?
  • Assuming that you did deactivate the gene in one of the germ cells, it seems to me that one could argue that what you have done in this case is genetically engineered a child that has a grave medical condition that will result in his life being very short. True, he will not have the bodily shape of a normal child, but then having a particular body shape is not needed to be a child. People do have bodily deformities and yet remain human beings. A human can be even a single cell, as with a zygote. True also, the child will not live long, but having a long life also is not needed to count as a human. If the creature has an otherwise intact human genetic code, I am not comfortable saying that if you switch off a single gene that you have deprived the creature of humanity.
  • Even assuming that shutting off the gene deprived the creature of
    humanity, if you then switch on the gene so that the creature can make
    suitable stem cells for you, have you–by restoring its genetic code to
    normal functioning–are you then creating in it the property of being human? It now has a fully functional human genetic code. You’ve just severely interfered with its development such that it has a mangled body and a short life.
  • Having said that, let me offer a counter argument: Scientifically, a human being is a living human organism. If something isn’t an organism then, even if it is made of human cells, it isn’t a human being (as is the case when someone has an organ removed; the organ isn’t a human being). If, therefore, you really can do something to the germ cells that prevents the development of an organism then what you are dealing with is not a human being and could be harvested without it being murder.
  • The question is thus: If you create a zygote that cannot develop normally, have you created an organism with a grave genetic defect (in which case it’s a human with a grave genetic defect) or have you created something that’s not an organism (and thus not a human)?
  • The problem is figuring out whether something constitutes an organism or not. In some cases (as with a normal embryo) it clearly is. In other cases (like a single ovum) it is clearly not. But when you start to get outside the clear categories that God set up, things get very blurry very fast. Body shape and length of life are not necessary conditions for something being an organism and we must at least proceed with caution here.
  • In the absence of body shape and length of life being necessary conditions for the presence of humanity, we must assume that humanity remains present as a failsafe against taking innocent human life. This failsafe mentality in favor of life is mandatory. You have to be able to prove that humanity is not present. "Human until proven otherwise" is the rule when you’re monkeying in these waters.

It therefore seems to me that we have to proceed with caution and can’t go rushing off willy-nilly to create human shoggoths.