Man Survives 47-Story Fall

This is amazing.

Jan. 17 (Bloomberg) -- Alcides Moreno sat upright, barely conscious, amid the tangle of cables and twisted aluminum of his window-washing platform, a few feet from his brother's corpse. The pair had plunged 47 stories down the smoked-glass side of a Manhattan apartment tower, and one of them was alive -- for now.

His brain swelled against his skull, building pressure that could kill him. Blood gushed from rips in his internal organs, filling his chest. The temperature hovered around freezing, and hypothermia was setting in as New York City paramedics arrived.

The physics of a perfect fall, slowed by the platform's wind resistance, may have been the only reason Moreno survived, scientists say. Next it would take a flawless medical rescue to keep him alive.

"If you are a believer of miracles, this would be one,'' said Philip Barie, chief of critical care at New York- Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center, four blocks from the alley where the brothers landed. [more]

Yes, indeed. Mr. Moreno was saved by "physics" and "a flawless medical rescue." It couldn't possibly be a "miracle" unless you are one of those superstitious "believer" folks, says the doctor who works at a Presbyterian Hospital, which just happened to be four blocks away from the scene.

It is, of course, legitimate to ask what kind of miracle saves one man while letting his brother die. We cannot know the answer to that question. Maybe the laws of nature combined in such a way that Mr. Moreno survived without supernatural intervention. Yet to think that the laws of physics work in such perfect harmony by random chance is insane.

The universe itself is a miracle - so it's not hard to believe this was one, too.

Mr. Angry & Ms. Calm

If you look at these two images while sitting in front of your monitor, you will see Mr. Angry on the left and Ms. Calm on the right.

Get up from your seat and move back about 12 feet, and they will switch places. Amazing, isn't it?

We've all heard you can't judge a book by its cover. Can we judge people by their expressions? Not always. Sometimes people who look outwardly calm are seething inside. Or they may be hurting, physically or emotionally. Men, especially, are taught in our culture to not show pain, yet hiding the pain does not make it go away. It's a good reason to be kind and loving with everyone we meet. We never know what turmoil they may be feeling inside.

Likewise, when we find ourselves face to face with Mr. Angry, it often helps to remember that he hasn't always been that way. He can change quickly. As in the picture, whether someone is angry or calm often depends on our own position in relation to them. Move closer or farther away, and much can change.

Rise of the Wiggers

Bill Cosby, who in recent years is making it his mission to preach self-responsibility to black Americans, has a new book called Come On, People. On Sunday he appeared on Meet The Press along with his co-author, Dr. Alvin Poussaint of Harvard Medical School. They seem to have their work cut out for them.

MR. RUSSERT: One of the things that you did in “Come On, People” were—was to compile statistics, very hard-headed numbers.

DR. POUSSAINT: Mm-hmm.

MR. RUSSERT: And they are numbing when you read through them. You mentioned one. One out of three of homeless people are black. Blacks make up 12 percent of our population. And here’s a some—a few more that you cite which I think really does help us dramatize how critical this discussion is. And let’s read them through here.

“Homicide is the number one cause of death for black men between 15 and 29 years of age and has been for decades.

“Of the roughly 16,000 homicides in this country each year, more than half are committed by black men. A black man is seven times more likely to commit a murder than a white man, and six times more likely to be murdered.

“Ninety-four percent of all black people who are murdered are murdered by other black people.

“Although black people make up” “12 percent of the general population,” “make up nearly 44 percent of the prison population.

“At any given time, as many as one in four of all” black men, “young black men are in the criminal justice system—in prison or jail, on probation or on parole.”

Those are numbing numbers. They truly are. What can we do? [Full transcript]

What the transcript doesn't show is that when Russert said "What can we do?" there was a long, awkward pause before Cosby began to answer. My impression was that he knows full well that there are no good solutions. Two and maybe three generations are lost forever. It's very sad. Cosby has a few specific public policy ideas, which may help some, but what really needs to happen is a moral awakening in the black communities. There is only so much that outsiders can do to help.

The broader point I wish to make is that I fear the trends we see among young blacks are finding their way to white youth, through the conduit of rap music. More from the MTP interview:

In fact, the audience for gangsta rap is made up predominantly of white youth, who get a vicarious thrill from participating in a black thug fantasy, including the degradation of women. Black youth, as well as some misguided adults, have defended the use of the N-word, suggesting they are somehow making it a positive term...

If you’re going to use those words and the white male is buying the CD, then they’re buying into those words, and those words are being used on their women. Hint, hint. Domestic violence in the police department. Now they also share in the N-word. And it’s OK to say it, according to them, because it’s on the record...

Remember, too, that for a while that white kids who were into some of this rap and so on started calling themselves “wiggers”? ...

... the young, young girls will be dancing to words that degrade women and degrade them and they’re dancing to it. It shows you how much values have been corrupted, you know, by some of the media influences, and the young people can’t distinguish between what’s right and wrong. It’s like the, the bad stuff has become normal, and then they even see it as part of their culture instead of something that’s abhorrent and, and, and, and hurtful to their, to their lives and to their community.

Now, I know plenty of white parents who either don't mind or don't know that their kids listen to the vile lyrics of gangsta rap. I suppose it is possible, in a family situation that is otherwise healthy and stable, that this kind of music won't cause any harm. On the other hand, it's insane to suggest that music has no effect on us at all.

Music is processed by our brains differently from spoken or written words. It makes us feel good, and we retain information better when we acquire it musically. Kids who would never read poetry in English class love to hear the same words set to music. Properly used, this can be a good thing. Use it to spread misogynistic, violent, and hedonistic thoughts, and it should surprise no one if we end up with misogynistic, violent, and hedonistic youth.

White Americans need to hope and pray that people like Cosby and Poussaint are successful in their mission - not only because blacks are fellow citizens and humans, but because whites are vulnerable to the same disorders. The trends you see in black youth today will overtake white youth. When white kids begin calling themselves "wiggers," you know it's already starting. The violence and chaos that prevail in inner cities are spreading to white suburbs.

Think I'm wrong? I hope I am. Let's talk again in twenty years.


UPDATE 10/16/07: Mark Gordon has a post about the Cosby book. Otherwise not much reaction in the blogs I read.

Can Gays Go Straight?

I recently heard a radio interview with Dr. Joe Nicolosi, a psychologist who runs a group called NARTH - National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality. He takes the politically-incorrect position that homosexuality is a condition that can, with the correct kind of therapy, be treated and reversed.

In the interview several callers challenged Dr. Nicolosi on this belief. Their point: they were born gay, they didn't choose it, it is simply who they are.

His response: first, there may be some kind of genetic predisposition to homosexuality. The research isn't conclusive yet. Nonetheless, his experience is that early childhood experiences are the immediate cause of this condition. Specifically, people who become gay almost always had some kind of disordered relationship with the same-sex parent. Sons with absent, inattentive or abusive fathers are more likely to become gay. Likewise for daughters who have problems with their mothers. (If this is true, it is no wonder there seem to be more gay people now than in the past. Think of how many single mothers are trying to raise boys without much help from the father.)

Dr. Nicolosi was careful to say that he doesn't think homosexuality is a voluntary choice. No one asks to be placed in the circumstances that make them gay. He simply says that it is not mandatory. He is, in a strange kind of way, "pro-choice" about homosexuality. Even if you didn't choose to be gay in the first place, you can choose to change. Read this story if you don't believe it.

Unfortunately, the psychological establishment does not believe this so it can be hard to find the right kind of help. The NARTH web site has a lot of information. Groups like Courage and Exodus International are also good resources.

Some gay people will argue that they have tried to change and failed. They are probably right - no one says it is easy. Dr. Nicolosi simply says that change is possible. In this regard, changing a gay inclination is no different than any other type of abnormal behavior. Some people have an inclination to steal, or gamble, or drink too much, or whatever. We all have some kind of weakness. I know I have many of them. I try to do better, maybe I succeed for awhile, then I fall back into the same bad habits. It's easy to get discouraged and give up. An alcoholic could say "this is who I am, I might as well accept it and drink myself to death." The better choice, however, is to go to AA, try to change, and never give up no matter how many times you stumble. Ditto if you are gay and want to change.

Go here and change the calendar to 8/27/07 to download or listen to the interview with Dr. Nicolosi.

Wrong Twin Aborted

When prenatal tests revealed that one of her unborn twins had Down's Syndrome, a woman in Italy decided to abort the "defective" child and keep the healthy one. Doctors proceeded to abort the wrong child, apparently because the unwitting masses of fetal tissue changed position between the time of the ultrasound and the abortion procedure.

Now, some people would have interpreted this horrible event as a sign from above and amended their life. This mother did not; upon being informed of the mistake, she returned to the hospital and had the remaining child aborted, too. She now says her life has been ruined, and I'm sure it is. So were two other lives. We can trust they are now in a better place - no thanks to their earthly parents.

While all abortion is unacceptable, abortions undertaken for the specific purpose of killing children who are somehow disabled is particularly disgusting. People with Down's Syndrome are still people. If we permit people to be killed before birth because they are inconvenient and imperfect, by what logic do we forbid them from being killed after birth?

You may recall a similar case last March, also in Italy, where an infant thought to be deformed was aborted, only to be born alive and without the defect that inspired the abortion in the first place. The child died after six days.

Such efforts at population purity are nothing less than eugenics. This same mentality allowed the Nazis to define entire categories of people as non-human and systematically exterminate them. It's all a big word game. "We value all human life," they will say, without being too specific about how they define "human." For example, will these organisms be human? How will we know?

Think it can't happen here? Wrong; it already does. Watch this video. It is the only time I've ever seen Bill O'Reilly rendered speechless.

Hat tip: Leticia

Earth Daze

I've just learned that Sunday was Earth Day and I missed it. I feel bad now. Sorry, Earth. I hope you had a nice day.

While I have the utmost respect for nature and believe we should preserve and protect it, the people who make environmentalism into their religion bug me. The logical end of their arguments seems to be that this would be a great planet if we could just get rid of all the people.

It is no accident that the folks who are so eager to protect the planet are often the same ones who want to restrict population growth, use abortion as birth control, promote euthanasia and encourage gay and lesbian relationships. All have the same end result: fewer people wandering around the planet messing it up.

Of course, they never include themselves in plans to reduce the population. It's always the other guys whose existence is deemed unnecessary. Jen has a great post about an Sierra Club member reacting to a pregnant woman with several kids in tow who came upon his Zero Population Growth display:

The man behind the table was pacing and silently counting heads. He looked at my children like they were sucking his air. As the message his organization was presenting sank in I said, "My goodness! We must be your worst nightmare then, huh?" He didn't say no. In fact what he did say, looking at my belly, was, "It's not to late to stop!" I try not to think of what he was implying.

I think it is clear what he was implying: "Kill that kid before he gets out, lady!" No doubt he would also suggest that handicapped people are also an unnecessary drain on the planet and should be eliminated.

Fortunately it is possible to care for the environment without going to such extremes. The Nature Conservancy has a good strategy: buy the land you want to preserve. Then let nature take its course. Simple, effective, and no one has to be coerced into cooperation.

Cho's Coin Toss

The media and blog world is breathlessly trying to figure out what drove Cho Seung-Hui to kill so many people at Virginia Tech, and what to do about it.

First, as tragic as it is let's keep this incident in perspective. This morning on Fox News I heard that in a normal year about 20 people a year die violent deaths on American college campuses. This year's total will be higher, obviously. Meanwhile about 1700 college students die every year from alcohol-related incidents. If the goal is to save as many lives as possible, which problem should we focus on - guns or booze? For that matter, how many babies are aborted by Virginia Tech students each year? I'm guessing it is more than 33.

I've come to the conclusion that Cho's killing spree resulted from a series of coin tosses. Can you flip a coin and get heads ten times in row? Probably not. However, if we put a thousand people in a room and have them all start flipping coins, we can say with statistical near-certainty that one person will get ten heads in a row. The rub is we can't know in advance who it will be.

So what were Cho's coins? Here's what we know.

• He was, according to relatives, afflicted with some sort of mental illness from early childhood. After the family came to the U.S. he was diagnosed with autism.
• For whatever reasons, the family did not get Cho any treatment for this condition.
• He had to make a transition from Korean culture to American culture.
• He was unable to relate to his peers during his school years. He may have been shunned and bullied.
• Both his parents worked long hours trying to establish new lives in the U.S.
• Cho's older sister graduated from Princeton, maybe creating unrealistic academic expectations.
• His creative writing involved dark, violent themes.
• At college his social awkwardness continued and intensified.
• He was referred for psychiatric care, but a judge determined he was not an imminent threat to himself or anyone else.
• From what we know, he was not given (nor did he ask for) any psychiatric medications that might have helped his condition.
• He was able to buy two guns and learn how to use them.
• He did not have any sort of religious faith or firm moral principles.
• He was surrounded by the violent, relativistic modern American culture.

Many people face several of these challenges and do not become killers. We can't pull out one of them in isolation and say that it was the deciding factor. Lot of kids have trouble adjusting to a new school; usually, they get past it. Kids is creative writing classes often write creepy stories; should every young Stephen King be hospitalized? The vast majority of people who buy guns do not use them to kill anyone.

Most of these conditions are innocuous until they combine to strike the same person. All the coins came up heads for Cho. If one or two of them had rolled the other way, maybe 33 people would be alive right now. We can't know.

I'm not suggesting it was all just fate, and none of this relieves Cho of moral responsibility for what he did. My point is that the frantic search for "answers" is ultimately pointless. The answers are clear. We just don't want to hear them, and we don't want to accept that these events can't always be stopped. We want a perfect world.

Our efforts to prevent such incidents in the future will probably have unintended consequences and ultimately not accomplish the goal we want. Yes, there are lessons to be learned and things we should change: better mental health care, for one. At the end of the day, however, we have to accept that we live in a fallen world and evil will always be with us.

Evil came to Virginia Tech this week. It will strike again.

Who Wants To Live Forever?

FOR four days last December, America’s pleasure dome in the desert, Las Vegas, played host to a convention dedicated to the proposition that growing old is “a treatable medical condition.”

Booths advertising vitamins, hormones and pharmaceutical drugs, along with an array of oxygenating or detoxifying paraphernalia, filled the exhibition hall of the Venetian Resort Hotel Casino. Lectures and workshops were offered on a bevy of “wellness” topics, including the alluring idea that human growth hormone could be deployed to beat back old age.

Several thousand attendees, mostly physicians, crowded the Venetian, a testament to what analysts say is now an industry that snares $50 billion a year in sales by catering to Americans’ obsession with looking and feeling younger. MORE

We all want the fountain of youth, don't we? I, for one, am being dragged into middle age kicking and screaming. This is an area where it's hard to find the right balance. If you are a Christian, you believe life is a gift from God. It follows that we must take care of this gift and do all we can to preserve it. Exercise, eat well, take vitamins, see the doctor, etc. All well and good.

On the other hand, we have to recognize that life isn't forever. Nor should we want it to be, if we have faith that something much better awaits us after we die. We know this intellectually; but practically speaking, most of us still fear death. This drives some people to extraordinary effort to extend their lives as illustrated in the article above.

This unwillingness to accept the death sentence we are all given at birth can drive people to commit all kinds of evil acts: harvesting unborn babies to provide nutrients they think will extend their lives, for example. Exactly how this differs from cannibalism is not clear.

I think most people, even atheists, know that death is inevitable. There are those, however, who somewhere deep down think they can beat the odds. If we can just cure this disease, if we can just regenerate these organs, if we can just continue our research, maybe we don't have to die. Maybe we can live forever. Maybe we can be gods.

They will never admit it, but I'm convinced there are people who follow this line of thinking. These folks are destined for disappointment. Science will not save them, and they will not accept the One who can save them.

Someday they will listen, of course. By then it will be too late.

The Useful Dead V

Another creative use for the remains of your dearly departed: donate them to Body Worlds so they can be plasticized and then posed for public viewing in a variety of imaginative positions. What better way to teach the kids about anatomy?

What remains unclear is where these bodies came from. One report says that many of the bodies at the Body Worlds exhibition in Chicago appear to have bullet holes at the base of the skull. This makes me suspect they are probably Chinese prisoners who were executed. Criminal though they may have been, somehow I doubt these people volunteered to have their remains paraded in front of the world in this way. Nor did they want their organs sold for profit.

I haven't been to this exhibit. Maybe it is tastefully done, though it's hard to imagine how. In any case, it's more evidence that we live in a ghastly reincarnation of the Roman Empire. What will be next?

Brilliant Minds

As I have noted before, there is a newly aggressive atheism and anti-Christian movement afoot in the U.S. Jennifer, who is a converted atheist, just had an interesting post after seeing some books by this bunch at the local Barnes & Noble.

I can't call them out too much since I used to be one of these people. But what jumps out to me about these sorts of statements now is the lack of wonder and curiosity about what made such a large percentage of the great minds of history believe in God or some sort of other spiritual realm.

Socrates, Plato, Newton, Copernicus, Galileo, Michelangelo, Einstein, and all the other brilliant minds who believed in the soul, in God or gods, in a designed universe: these people were not idiots. They also don't strike me as delusional, irrational, or the type of people to unquestioningly swallow fairy tales just because it was their culture or the way they were raised. And though they didn't have electron microscopes or the Hubble telescope, they had good heads on their shoulders when it came to understanding the world and weren't timid wallflowers who feared questioning things. I really doubt that any of these men believed in a "God of the gaps," where they decided that God must exist simply because they didn't know where the stars came from. Many of them are the founders of the modern sciences that we prize so much today. I can't picture any one of them reading The God Delusion or God: The Failed Hypothesis and renouncing their beliefs after being dizzied by the intellects of Dawkins and Stenger. MORE

Well said. Militant atheists would have us believe that only simpletons with IQ scores below room temperature can believe in a silly concept like "God." It isn't so, as Jen explains. This is not to say that Christians have a monopoly on scientific knowledge. Without a theological foundation of some kind, however, most of science doesn't make much sense. At the end of the day, we all believe in a God. The only question is which God we choose to accept.

Illegal Aliens Vote

News is just now emerging of an apparent alien spacecraft that visited Chicago O'Hare Airport on November 7th. This from the Chicago Tribune:

The Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (the term that extraterrestrial-watchers nowadays prefer over Unidentified Flying Object) was first seen by a United ramp worker who was directing back a United plane at Gate C17, according to an account the worker provided to the National UFO Reporting Center.

The sighting occurred during daylight, about 4:30 p.m., just before sunset.

All the witnesses said the object was dark gray and well defined in the overcast skies. They said the craft, estimated by different accounts to be 6 feet to 24 feet in diameter, did not display any lights.

Some said it looked like a rotating Frisbee, while others said it did not appear to be spinning. All agreed the object made no noise and it was at a fixed position in the sky, just below the 1,900-foot cloud deck, until shooting off into the clouds.

Of course, the government denies all knowledge:

Like United, the FAA originally told the Tribune that it had no information on the alleged UFO sighting. But the federal agency quickly reversed its position after the newspaper filed a Freedom of Information Act request.

An internal FAA review of air-traffic communications tapes, a step toward complying with the Tribune request, turned up the call by the United supervisor to an FAA manager in the airport tower, Cory said.

Cory said the weather might have factored into what the witnesses thought they saw.

"Our theory on this is that it was a weather phenomenon," she said. "That night was a perfect atmospheric condition in terms of low [cloud] ceiling and a lot of airport lights. When the lights shine up into the clouds, sometimes you can see funny things. That's our take on it."

Hmmm, the sighting was at 4:30 PM, which is not exactly "night" even if it is cloudy. What were these visitors doing? My theory is they were here to tamper with the voting machines, since this occurred on election day. Chicago has a long tradition of allowing dead people to vote, so alien voting isn't so hard to believe.

Too Many Mommies, Too Many Kids

Last month we learned that Mary Cheney, the lesbian daughter of Vice President Dick Cheney, is pregnant and expecting a child with her longtime partner, Heather Poe. It is unclear exactly how this child was conceived; presumably it was a result of in-vitro fertilization.

Conservatives reacted mainly with embarrassed silence. Since the VP is one of their heroes, the fact that he has a lesbian daughter is something they would prefer not to think about. Dick and Lynne Cheney are obviously in a difficult situation; they don't approve of Mary's lifestyle but she is still their daughter.

Liberal and gay-rights groups used this news to attack VP Cheney as a hypocrite. This strikes me as misguided. Clearly he did not ask Mary to become a lesbian, and there is not much he can do about it. I guess he could banish Mary from family events, have no contact with her, and proceed with his conservative social agenda. Then he wouldn't be a hypocrite any more. Of course, then he would be attacked for being cold and heartless. It's a no-win situation.

As I wrote here and here, I think gay couples should not attempt to become parents in this way. They are creating a new life in the full knowledge that this child will be deprived of either a mother or a father. This is not right. Kids need parents of both genders.

Sadly there are thousands of children in the USA who do not have even one parent, and languish in foster care, orphanages or other institutions. This isn't right either. Many of them have been abused, suffer from some kind of disability, are no longer infants or are otherwise less than ideal. Most of them are non-white in race. Yet they are still children of God and deserve better.

Now, if Mary Cheney and her partner wish to take on the lifelong emotional, spiritual, and financial burden of raising one of these parentless kids, I would be ok with it. As flawed as their home life may be, it is probably better than the conditions the child is in now. Likewise for anyone else who is truly sincere and capable of being an adoptive parent.

That's not what is happening in this case. These sort of children are not good enough for Mary Cheney and the other couples who use IVF to create "their own" babies. This is not an act of generosity and love. It is an act of selfishness. They must have a baby that is genetically theirs. They want the pleasure of bearing the child, going through delivery and coming home from the hospital with their lovely new baby. If the pursuit of this pleasure means passing up the chance to adopt another poor child, then so be it. What we want for ourselves is the most important thing.

If you are a parent who made this kind of choice, I don't mean to condemn you. I think you made a mistake and did not fully consider the implications of your decision. Now you have a child to raise, and you need to give that job your full energy. There is one thing you can do, though...

Late at night, when you put your baby to bed and look down at that angelic little face, stop for a minute. Think about the other child who could have been yours. He's still out there, somewhere. Pray for that child. Pray for all the others who remain homeless and parentless. Pray that the God of compassion will take them in His loving arms and bring them Home, forever and ever.

Mystery of the Missing Girls

From Paul Kedrosky, I learned today of some new population data from the government of Canada. There is a lot of detailed info but this little stat jumped out at me:

"At birth, boys still outnumber girls by a ratio of about 106 to 100 in Canada."

It has been a long time since I took biology, but I seem to recall that gender is determined by chromosomes that operate randomly. Therefore, over a large population the number of male and female children born should be exactly equal. In Canada it appears that 51.4% of babies are male. This is too big a difference to be random.

So what is going on? Maybe a virus or genetic mutation is causing Canadian women to produce more boys? This seems unlikely. Something about the cold weather? Hard to believe. What could it be?

I have another theory. The key words in the quote above are "At birth." So it's not the case that more boys are conceived. Instead, more boys are born. What happens to the girls? Well, thanks to modern technology parents can now know the gender of their child long before it is born. And thanks to modern ethics if that child is not the desired gender, the parents are allowed to destroy it and try again.

What it looks like is that Canadian mothers are more likely to have an abortion if the child is a girl. Why? I have no idea. I think all children are a blessing. There are other examples of this tendency, though. China's one-child policy causes the death of many infant girls whose parents wanted a boy. The same thing happens in India. Apparently Western parents are not immune from this evil.

The full report from Statistics Canada is here. Warning: 86-page PDF download.

Jen and her readers have some sage comments here.

A Parent But Not A Dad

The Washington Post carries a sad story by a young woman conceived with the help of an anonymous sperm donor. (Hat tip to Gazizza).

When she was 32, my mother -- single, and worried that she might never marry and have a family -- allowed a doctor wearing rubber gloves to inject a syringe of sperm from an unknown man into her uterus so that she could have a baby. I am the result: a donor-conceived child.

And for a while, I was pretty angry about it.

I was angry at the idea that where donor conception is concerned, everyone focuses on the "parents" -- the adults who can make choices about their own lives. The recipient gets sympathy for wanting to have a child. The donor gets a guarantee of anonymity and absolution from any responsibility for the offspring of his "donation." As long as these adults are happy, then donor conception is a success, right?

Not so. The children born of these transactions are people, too. Those of us in the first documented generation of donor babies -- conceived in the late 1980s and early '90s, when sperm banks became more common and donor insemination began to flourish -- are coming of age, and we have something to say.

I'm here to tell you that emotionally, many of us are not keeping up. We didn't ask to be born into this situation, with its limitations and confusion. It's hypocritical of parents and medical professionals to assume that biological roots won't matter to the "products" of the cryobanks' service, when the longing for a biological relationship is what brings customers to the banks in the first place. MORE

As I said here, the act of donating (or receiving) sperm does not make you a mom or a dad. Those titles have to be earned. Children of these artificial mechanisms are being robbed of their humanity. It needs to stop.

Be Kind To Lobsters?

Mark Shea links to a story about efforts to reduce the pain lobsters feel before we cruel humans consume them. Then he adds this commentary:

Sin Doesn't Just Make You Stupid. In it's extreme forms, it makes you crazy.

That's why a culture that murders 1.5 million of its kids each year and struggles to preserve the God-given right to stick scissors in a baby's brain obsesses over how to mercifully kill a lobster.

I think it's displacement: "Oh, but I'm not an inhuman monster! Sure, I approve of sticking scissors in a baby's brain. But look how tenderly I fret about lobsters! I'm really quite a lovely person!"

Well said.

The Useful Dead, Jr.

Just yesterday I wrote about the apparent Chinese practice of harvesting organs from executed criminals. Now BBC Television is preparing to air a report about a hospital in Ukraine where newborn babies are mysteriously dying. Parents charge that the infants are killed and dismembered in order to harvest stem cells. The cells then go to a private clinic in Barbados to be used in cosmetic and anti-aging procedures.

Suspicious families in the Ukraine succeeding in ordering the exhumation of 30 newborn infants who died in the hospital. Arms and legs had been removed from some of the bodies. Doctors interviewed by BBC suggested this may indicate an attempt to remove stem cells from the bone marrow. A more detailed story is here. Warning: it's very graphic.

This is so disturbing I don't know where to begin. Let's start with the wealthy Americans whose vanity and desire to appear youthful is so overpowering they must fly to Barbados for surgery. Fine; they can spend their money however they want, but I can think of much better uses for it.

When recapturing one's youth requires the death of another youth, we have a problem. Sometimes the stem cells come from aborted babies. Patients who use these cells either don't care, or more likely have convinced themselves that the dead baby is less than human. Deep down, however, I think they know what they are doing. They are simply insulating themselves from a truth they don't want to face.

Suppose you are one of these patients. It doesn't have to be cosmetic; suppose you have some fatal disease. Your doctor shows you a baby in an incubator. You are told that your disease can be cured, but in order to do so this baby must die. What would you do? For many people, this would pose quite an ethical dilemma. Yourself or the child? The answer for any adult with an ounce of decency should be obvious: you don't harm a child, even at the cost of your own life. Period, end of story. That people even have to think twice about this tells you how low our society has fallen.

Wait, you say: these babies are going to die anyway via abortion. Regrettable, but perfectly legal. We might as well make something good come out of it. Not so fast. Yes, abortion is legal. Does that make it right? No. It is still an evil act no matter what status the civil government gives it. Using that evil because you think something good will result is still evil.

Anyway, in the Ukraine case it seems likely that many of these babies were healthy and killed for the express purpose of procuring stem cells:

"I gave birth to a healthy girl," Olena told me. "She was crying and moving her hands and legs. I was shown the baby. After that the girl was taken away. They told me everything was OK and I could see her the next day."

But that never happened. Olena was told the following day that her baby had died. But when she asked what had the death, the answers were inconsistent. "They told me three stories. One, she didn't have enough air to breathe; two, the lungs didn't open; and three, that her heart failed."

This doesn't sound like a mom who wanted her baby used for spare parts. Let's hope BBC and other media follow up on these allegations. It's a horrifying story that ought to exist only as a movie, but it's real. This is the world we live in.

The Watchmaker

Click here to see a wonderful little video about life, creation, and evolution. It's only about 3 minutes long. Check it out. (Hat tip to Steve Ray.)