Gunk or No-gunk?

This information is easily obtainable online, but thought I'd post it here as a quick summary in case anyone needs it:

I woke up last Saturday morning with pink-eye in my left eye -- have no idea how I contracted it, of course. Eyeball was red and it felt like there was something in my eye, and it hurt to rub the eye. I knew what it was, but couldn't remember the details, so here's the summary of what I found:

There are two types: bacterial and viral. Bacterial is the kind of pink-eye that glues your eyelid shut overnight with the crusty junk and is pretty uncomfortable. Because it's bacterial, it requires an antibiotic and thus a trip to "the doctor" for a prescription.

The other kind (what I had) is viral -- no itching or crusty junk, just red and mildly uncomfortable. Because it's a virus, it pretty much just has to run its course. But all drugstores carry generic pink-eye drops that will help with the viral kind. Their purpose is not to kill the virus but to do "other stuff" that makes the pink-eye less uncomfortable. I picked up some of these drops early Saturday morning and used them 3-4 times a day on Saturday and Sunday. They definitely helped the discomfort (which was mild to begin with) -- they reduce the feeling of having something in your eye that you can't get out. By Monday mid-day I had pretty much forgotten about it (very little discomfort) -- used the drops a couple time anyway -- and by today things seem about 80 percent back to normal -- just a little pink left.

So -- the flow-chart model would say: If you have a pink eyeball and the crusty gunk around the eye it's probably bacterial and may require an antibiotic. Without the gunk and no itching or pain, it's more likely viral and will run its course. The OTC drops definitely seemed to help, though I don't know how or why.

Gunk or no-gunk -- that is the question.

(No, that's not my eye in the picture -- though that's about how my eye looked.)

Tears for America

I couldn't stop the tears from flowing this weekend watching and reading the reports surrounding the shooting of the Arizona congresswoman and other bystanders. As badly as I feel for those killed and injured, and pray for the recovery of the survivors, the core of my grief is for the America that has given rise to these increasingly frequent events. The country has never been perfect, of course—I don't have any such romantic misconceptions. But it seems that, in recent decades, we have changed a lot.

And I don't mean what it seems most commentators are talking about—that it's the vitriolic screeds from the Right and the Left that have created, and are nurturing, senseless acts of violence to convey a political message. The shooting in Tucson was less a political act than a spiritual act; the act of a young man with no moral compass to keep him from veering onto an immoral path.

But how does any modern American find and follow a moral compass, given the schizophrenic, double-minded messages that our culture conveys? The country's lawmakers say "In God We Trust" and fund chaplains for our lawmakers using taxpayer funds, but forbid the same spiritual influences for children and young people in pubic schools or officials in other public institutions.

We hold unaccountable a mother who chooses to kill her infant in the womb yet hold accountable those who kill people outside the womb. While I decry the horror of both, I find it a bit of a double-standard to be horrified at one and not the other when our culture has established dual standards for killing vis-a-vis one's proximity to the womb.

We applaud the commercial success of movies, television shows, and video games that use violence—shooting, maiming, killing—as their drawing card. I know the arguments for using art to portray the human condition, but when young people grow up in a culture that glorifies mayhem as we do, should we be surprised when they decide to to act out the fantasies they have grown up watching? (I was shocked recently to watch the videos, released by the WikiLeaks group, of the U.S. military helicopter attack on a group of "insurgents" in Afghanistan. The videos, recorded in graphic detail by the video cameras on the attack helicopters, recorded the conversations of the pilots and their ground controllers as they moved into position and opened fire from miles away on a small group of men, then did the same when a civilian van arrived to collect the dead. My point: the helicopter pilots' dialogue was akin to teenagers playing a video game—laughter, congratulations, and all manner of machismo overshadowed the sad reality of the loss of life, including injury to two young girls. Yes, it's the fog of war. But it's also war being waged by young adults playing real-time war games with million-dollar weapons after being raised to wage make-believe war in their living rooms with hundred-dollar video machines.)

We write financial checks as a nation that we have no ability to cash, yet are surprised when people write moral checks that overdraw their innate human accounts of morality and integrity. How is one different from the other?

Proverbs 29:18 says, "When people do not accept divine guidance, they run wild . . . ."

Psalm 33:12 says, "Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord . . . ."

Those top-tier principles (fill in the details as you will) suggest at the least that we have ignored the importance of a reason to be better than the events this weekend in Tucson suggest we are. It seems that as America, over her three centuries, has moved God to the periphery of her corporate consciousness, man's baser instincts have gained the upper hand. Sad as this weekend's events have been, they at least have caused me to consider any role I am playing in supporting or promoting values that work against what I know is best for the nation as a whole.

Our Daily Bread

I recently watched a most unusual and thought-provoking documentary titled Our Daily Bread, written and directed by Nikolaus Geyrhalter. Filmed in 2005, the movie garnered a half-dozen awards at film festivals in 2005-2006. As a born-and-bred American, I am under-exposed to European sensibilities in many arenas, not the least of which is filmaking. But this film was unique in that it relied solely on the visual art form, beautifully shot, to tell its story in contrast with most films which are filled also with words.

Our Daily Bread is a documentary—but it contains no narration, no interviews, no commentary, almost no words at all. The only verbal content is the low murmurs and occasional conversations of agricultural workers in their settings. The movie visits the production facilities of a dozen or more European commercial agriculture enterprises, both meat and produce, and films what happens there. Its goal is not to shock—there are some scenes shot in meat processing facilities, but not to offend. Rather, the film shows, in silent scene after scene (save for the sounds of mechanized production), what the food INDUSTRY looks like in its automated, commercial, modern incarnation. The word "system" barely does justice to how the organized, detail-oriented Continental conglomerates (the native stock that gives us BMW's and Mercedes, Swiss watches, and high-speed trains that run on time) have made food a commodity that is produced like a, well, like a Swiss watch.

One marvels at the organization until, as the movie progresses, the lack of "life" begins to be worrisome. There are no farmers seen in the movie, only silent, detached workers who monitor systems with a dispassion that becomes a bit depressing as scenes switch from setting to setting.

Europe has a marvelous history and tradition—especially France—of hands-on farming as American apostles like Eliot Coleman have studied and commended, but there was none of that portrayed in this film. Yes, the film is purposefully one-sided—not to deceive, but simply to portray that side of how food for the masses is produced in the modern world.

The film is 90 minutes long. I highly recommend adding it to your Netflix queue and watching it as a means of broadening your perspective on "food" in the modern world. (The official web site for Our Daily Bread is here, along with trailers.)

Seismic Shift in Food and Eating

Despite some opening snide and snarky caricatures of vegans, this Salon.com piece goes on to praise President Clinton's brand of veganism -- seemingly healthy, enjoyable, and very much doable. The author concludes:

Change doesn’t happen overnight, either for individuals or nations. But it is happening, in unexpected corners. Even my own local grocery story in a low-income, predominantly Latino neighborhood -- a place that sells pork rinds at the checkout -- has in the past year added organic produce and a wide aisle of exotic grains. Trust me, the day you can find red quinoa at the C-Town, there's a seismic change going on out there.

Change seems to be happening everywhere except in Christendom as exemplified by the two large, resource-rich Christian churches I have attended in recent years, neither of which felt that classes on "stewardship of health vis-a-vis food/lifestyle" was a good fit for their congregations. But perhaps raising the issue with their leaders will count as a seed that might yet sprout and bear good fruit.

How Does Your State Value Animals?

From the Humane Society of the United States web site -- a new report:

The HSUS has released its 2010 "Humane State Ranking," a comprehensive report rating all 50 states on a wide range of animal protection laws. See where your state stands. Hover over map for state summary or click on a tier to view humane state ranking and score out of 65. PDFs of detailed state ranking also available.

Not surprisingly, my home state of North Carolina, the nation's largest pork producer, ranks 32nd out of the 50 states and District of Columbia.

Good Boy, Stanley!

With thanks to the Not One Sparrow blog:

You Had to Grow up There

It's an Alabama thing. Since the Bear Bryant days, football in Alabama -- at THE University of Alabama -- has ascended to the status of religion:

If Jesus Had Been Born in 2010

Shame on Smithfield Foods (and Paula Deen)

Smithfield Foods is the world's largest factory-farm producer of pork products with massive facilities in my home state of North Carolina, the nation's leading pork-producing state. And Paula Deen is Smithfield's leading celebrity chef, promoting all their products. I say shame on them both. I confess to being embarrassed for the South, and humanity in general, whenever I see or hear of Paula Deen being interviewed on TV. Her saccharine Southern/Savannah schtick is more than I can abide. And her unwillingness to disassociate herself from a company like Smithfield makes her all the more in-credible. Smithfield (as do all factory meat farms) has an incredibly poor record of worker care at their food plants, and I heard a caller on an NPR show once ask Paula Deen why she didn't stand up for the abused workers at the company she was representing -- and the NPR host quickly interrupted the call and saved Paula from having to answer.

But this post is more about Smithfield than Paula Deen. HSUS (the Humane Society of the United States) just posted an undercover video shot at a North Carolina Smithfield pork plant. I'm posting the shorter version (3.5 minutes) of the video (below) which has some commentary from the HSUS representative Paul Shapiro. The longer version (8 minutes) shows more footage but without any editing or commentary. I hope you'll watch both.

These videos are not blood-'n-guts videos that show stomach-turning brutality. The purpose for HSUS shooting this undercover video and publishing it is specific: to draw attention to Smithfield Foods' failure to comply with its own stated intentions of doing away with hog gestation crates (see below) and join other major meat producers in the U.S. and Europe in banning (at least partially if not totally) these horrific factory means of raising pigs. The video shows what the life of sows is like who spend their entire life (except for when they deliver piglets) in one of these crates.

I'm posting this information because I don't think the average American has any idea that the ham or pork that Paula Deen promotes with her down-home style is the product of pigs raised in gestation crates. They don't know how pigs are raised -- no clue -- and if they did know I don't think most consumers would like it.

There are two issues going on in this whole discussion: (1) Eating animals at all and (2) Animal welfare -- how the animals that people eat are treated. In other words, it's bad enough that sentient beings are raised for the sole purpose of satisfying the taste buds of the very people commissioned to care for them, but it adds insult to injury when their brief existence is treated as disrespectfully as Smithfield (and some others) treat it.

There are a lot of people who (today) are not going to stop eating animals. But I believe many of those same people are not brutal, uncaring persons; that they would prefer that the animals they eat are at least treated with a measure of respect while they're alive. And all it would take for that to happen is for people to stop buying Smithfield food products and tell Paula Deen to stop making herself rich on the never-ending waves of suffering animals.

Here's what people need to know about how pigs are raised in factory farms -- and some of the terms used in the video that will help you understand the process:

1. General: a female sow lives a pregnant life until slaughtered, interrupted by brief sessions in which she delivers the current litter of piglets. She lives her entire life in a 2' x 7' gestation crate, except for when she is moved to a farrowing crate where she gives birth. She is then artificially re-inseminated and moved back to the gestation crate to await the delivery of the next litter in four months. This is the life of the average sow in a factory farm for 3-4 years, after which she will be slaughtered. A sow is basically a piglet factory. Female piglets go into the same work as their mothers, while males are raised for semen harvesting and for slaughter.

2. Gestation crate: Sows are isolated in these crates to prevent them from fighting with one another which they would do if they were kept in an open area. They fight because of being crammed into artificial indoor environments where they can't exercise normal nesting and hierarchical behaviors. The gestation crates have only enough room for a sow to stand or lie on her side. There is no room to turn around. The crates are set atop slatted floors through which excrement drops into a removal system below the crates. Sometimes (as the longer video will show) if a sow delivers while still in the gestation crate, piglets can slip through the excrement slats and fall into the waste removal system below. (The millions of gallons of hog waste generated by hog factory farms in North Carolina is a continual eco-threat to the eastern part of the state where these plants are located. Anytime there is heavy rain, or a hurricane, the threat exists for the hog waste lagoons to overflow and spill untold amounts of waste into local fresh-water sources, fouling them for weeks at a time. This has happened more than once since I've been living in NC.)

3. Farrowing crate: a slightly larger confined area with a solid floor where the sow can deliver her litter. The sow is moved from the gestation crate to the farrowing crate when she is ready to deliver. Still, there is no room to turn around -- only room for the sow to lie on her side so the piglets can nurse immediately after birth until they are separated from the mother.

4. Insanity: think about what it would be like for a female human to be confined the way a sow is, with the sole interruption in her existence being childbirth and re-insemination. Losing one's mind would not be a surprise -- and that's what animal scientists observe happening to sows in gestation crates. Their confinement in wholly unnatural facilities leads to wholly unnatural behavior. If it's true that we are what we eat, then I wonder what the long-term effect is on humans of eating flesh that has been under immense stress (marinating in adrenaline and other hormones for several years) its entire life.

Even if you consume animal products, I hope you'll consider the steps you might take to force producers like Smithfield and celebrities like Paula Deen to do away with gestation crates and create a more humane environment for the animals they raise. That's a long way from the perfect solution, but every little step helps.

The HSUS video:

Nitric Oxide and Endothelial Cells (How to Prevent Heart Disease and Dementia at the Same Time)

I've referenced Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn's work on preventing and reversing heart disease several times in this blog. (Search for "Esselstyn" for previous posts using the Search engine in the left margin.) He is well-known for laymanizing (my term for putting science in layman's terms) the critical link between oil/fats, nitric oxide, and the endothelial lining or arteries.

In today's Happy Healthy Long Life blog post this connection is further explained on the basis of newly published research. In her typical clear and thorough fashion, medical research librarian and plant-based proponent (and Esselstyn fan) Debby explains the new research and why the same diet/lifestyle factors that promote heart health also may prevent dementia by keeping blood flow to the brain healthy. (She doesn't mention this in her post, but the same applies to erectile dysfunction for men since the healthy version of that event is dependent, at least in part, on vigorous and sustained blood flow which is dependent on open and elastic arteries which are dependent on nitric oxide and a healthy endothelial lining in the arteries. Or you could just take a pill and hope you don't land in the ER after four hours! But I digress.)

Debby's entire post is worth the few minutes it will take to read it. If you don't have time for that, here is the take away in terms of diet and lifestyle — what stimulates the endothelial cells to release ample supplies of nitric oxide:

What impairs the supply of nitric oxide?

It's a Catch-22. Nitric oxide is diminished by all the usual suspects--the cardiovascular risk factors--like high cholesterol, high triglycerides, high homocysteine, high CRP (marker for inflammation), insulin resistance, high blood pressure, and smoking. These culprits impair the delicate endothelial cells' ability to produce ample nitric oxide.

What role does diet play in this endothelial cell/nitric oxide story?

Here's how Dr. Esselstyn explains it: "The basic understanding we all need to accept is that with every meal of oil, dairy, or meat we eat, within minutes there is damage & injury to the "life jackets" of our vascular health--which is the single layer of endothelial cells that line all of our blood vessels. The endothelial cells produce the "magical gas" called nitric oxide which keeps our blood vessels relaxed, prevents our white blood cells & platelets from becoming sticky, and prevents the growth of plaque--the dread "hardening of the arteries".

Is there anything we can eat to insure that our endothelial cells will have the raw materials to produce this healing nitric oxide?

Beans & leafy greens. Load up on kale, collards, Swiss chard, bok choy & beans and you will be well on your way to healing the linings of your blood vessels. Ditch the meat, dairy, & oil. And be sure to include a daily bowl of oatmeal while you're at it--with its nitric-oxide increasing avenanthramides.

The Un-education of American Teenagers

On the NBC Nightly News program tonight, Brian Williams reported on the just released results of the 2009 edition of the PISA test—Program for International Student Assessment. The PISA is administered to high school students in countries around the world. In 2009, 470,000 students in 65 countries took the test. 2009 was the first year that China participated.

First, the bad news. American students ranked "average" compared to 34 similarly developed nations. Out of the 34 countries, America scored 14th in reading, 17th in science, and 25th in math. America's scores were slightly higher than on the 2003 and 2006 tests, so there has been improvement, but still ranked far below nations like Finland, South Korea, Hong Kong (Singapore), China (Shanghai), and even Canada. China (surprise, surprise) scored highest of all nations in math.

In an article about the PISA results on the NBC web site, U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said (in part), "We have to get much more serious about investing in education."

I almost laughed out loud! For years, America has spent more money per child on educating than any other nation. Among the 2009 country-participants, only Luxembourg spent more than the U.S. Estonia and Poland scored about equal with the U.S. on the tests while spending half per-child of what the U.S. spends. The problem is obviously not money.

The video accompanying the news piece spoke volumes to me. The video of a class session in a Chinese high school (public? private? I don't know) showed neatly groomed teens sitting at desks arranged in careful rows listening attentively to an instructor who was at the board explaining math. The students all wore matching sweatshirt-type tops with a logo of some kind on them. Very impressive --

The video of an American high school class was less so. Students at desks arranged rather haphazardly -- I won't say the kids were slouching, but there was a marked difference. And of course, they were all dressed differently. ("Self-expression," I guess we call it.) One shot showed the very obese upper arm of a girl being raised to ask or answer a question. (Didn't see any obese kids in the Chinese class.)

I have to say that I was shaking my head at the end of the news report having seen the video segments. I can only say that I am profoundly grateful not to have children I love in America's public school system that is dominated by the NAE union whose top priority is teacher/administrator tenure and retirement, weak accountability, and maintaining the status quo. We've been talking about education reform in America for years -- and yes, there have been some improvements as mentioned above in terms of international rankings. But until public schools once again become centers of education instead of centers for social experimentation and interaction among culture-infected teenagers, progress will surely be slow.

Like many, I grieve for what America has become -- from the very early days when young teens were required to know Latin and Greek before entering Harvard, to the present. But there are bright spots . . .

The last feature on the broadcast was about a trio of beautiful, poised, and amazingly talented young African-American teenage girls from Chicago—three cousins who call themselves the SugarStrings—who play classical music on violin, viola, and cello. They've been performing together for six years—the feature showed them giving a concert at a local predominantly black grammar school where the children were clearly enthralled with the music. (Encouraging to see the children's matching school shirts!) The SugarStrings were amazing. They began playing at ages 5, 3, and 3 at the prompting of parents and grandparents. You can see the NBC segment at this link (look around for the SugarStrings segment.)

I'm not naive enough to think that China has it all together and America doesn't. But in the decades to come, I don't see how "average" is going to compete with #1.

Backyard Deer

Looked out my back window this morning to see these four deer feeding on the acorns beneath a large oak tree in my neighbor's yard -- an adult and three adolescents. Hard for me to imagine where they live. The woods in the background of these photos are a buffer about 50 yards wide and maybe 500 yards long with houses on all four sides of the woods. I can't imagine they live in that area alone. They fed on the acorns and grass for about a half-hour, then when the juveniles started getting restless and playing, mom gathered the brood and retreated back into the woods.

A Challenge to the Red Cross

I've been giving blood to the Red Cross on a regular basis for several years. At the most basic level, it's because of the simple words of Leviticus 17:14: "For the life of every creature is its blood: its blood is its life" (ESV). That is obviously true physically, but the spiritual implications are even more profound. The reason animals were sacrificed and their blood poured out as an atoning sacrifice in the Old Testament was to graphically illustrate the giving of an innocent LIFE for a guilty LIFE. The innocent animal's blood was shed so that the blood of the guilty human could remain un-shed; so his LIFE could be spared. This was preparatory and temporary for the ultimate blood exchange yet to come. This physical-spiritual sacrificial substitution motif culminated, of course, in the Lamb of God, Jesus of Nazareth, shedding His innocent blood in place of the "guilty" blood of human beings. He gave His blood (His LIFE) so that my blood (my LIFE) could be saved.

My blood, it goes without saying, has no atoning power. If it did, the Red Cross wouldn't hound me with phone calls every 50-odd days to come back and give again. Those who received a transfusion of Kruidenier blood would rise whole and healed and my blood would be in constant demand. Such, alas, is not the case.

I give blood purely for the physical help it may provide to another—someone in need of LIFE as a result of surgery or an accident. My blood is the most valuable physical possession I have. Nothing else I own is able to keep another person alive and convey new LIFE to someone who might otherwise die. So when I tithe my blood (give away one of my 10 pints) every 2-3 months, it's just another way to stay in touch with Jesus' "better to give than to receive" viewpoint (Acts 20:35). (And I confess: I would much rather be a giver of blood than a needer of blood.) (But giving blood is also healthy from what I have read. It deletes accumulated iron stores in men who don't lose blood monthly the way women do, and giving a large block of blood at one time stimulates fresh blood reproduction in the body. Out with the old, in with the new.)

Now -- to the point of this post. I have worn my curmudgeonly hat to give blood on more than one occasion, yesterday being one of those days. I never leave home with the hat on, but I find it has assumed its cranial cap once I have finished giving blood and I'm invited to "have a snack" -- the post-operative way the RC has of thanking you for coming in and getting your blood sugar stimulated so you don't faint on the way out the door and end up needing back the blood you just gave. As usual, after donating blood yesterday, I was invited to sift through a Trick or Treat-like collection of junk snacks and have my choice of a soda. Which would mean, if I availed myself of these offerings, my remaining blood would be less healthy upon leaving the Red Cross venue than the pint I was leaving with them.

Another reason I give blood regularly is because I believe it's in pretty decent shape and might actually be a healthy addition to the average person's body. But I am always amazed that the Red Cross -- an organization in the business of promoting and saving lives, offers their donors nothing better to build up their donor's health than soda and processed, trans-fat laden junk food.

Yesterday, there were a couple of volunteers my age who were helping man the "recovery" area. When I was offered soda and a snack, I opted for a bottled water and no snack. (This is where I found the curmudgeonly hat had appeared.) I said to the two guys (I've learned to do this in a laughing, winsome way so as not to offend), "No thanks. You know, it always amazes me that the Red Cross offers snacks to people that make their blood worse than it was before they came in. You'd think they would want to set a better example."

The guys chuckled (they knew I was right) and one of them started rifling through the box and came up with a "granola bar." I said I'd seen that bar before and passed because it was full of trans-fats (hydrogenated oils), which set in motion a couple minutes of label reading. The granola bar went back in the box and this time a packet or raisins was extracted. I said that looked better: "Let's see what's in it." We immediately began looking for a couple of lines of ingredients on the label and I couldn't seem to find a list. Suddenly I realized why: The ingredient list had only one word in it—Raisins. No cane sugar, no added anything. So we cheered and all three of us had a packet of raisins.

There have been a couple of instances when the blood donation was held at a church and some of the church members (I assume) had baked fresh goodies for donors to sample: cookies, brownies, and the like. But even then, there would always be the Red Cross staples of junk-food snacks and soda (sometimes small containers of fruit juice) for the hard-core American donors to feed on. Even though the homemade snacks were probably not particularly healthy, they were a step in the right direction. And even though I didn't eat them, I thanked the volunteers for providing them.

So my challenge to the Red Cross is this: In keeping with your commitment to sustaining LIFE by collecting blood, how about matching it with a commitment to building better blood among your donors. How about setting a better example by providing fresh fruit and fruit juices for donors to snack on (or, at least, "healthy" cookies, etc.) after they give blood. (Or asking your host organizations to provide it.) I'm in the habit of taking along a banana or apple to eat, along with one of their bottles of water, after donating. But I know most folks aren't going to do that. So here's hoping the Red Cross will continue not only their good work of service in so many ways, but grab a small opportunity to increase the quality of the blood they hope to collect and dispense to those in need.

We Need a New Word

Now that 7-Eleven is selling vegan food, you know the movement has been co-opted and it's time to find another word to replace "vegan." This is not news, of course -- other (better) words have been used in place of "vegan" for a while now, "plant-based" and "nutritarian" being two good examples. The point is that one can be a vegan by living on Twinkies and Ho-Ho's and potato chips -- but that's not exactly what the vegan movement has stood for, at least on the nutrition side.

The same has happened to "organic." Once the USDA took ownership of that term, it began to be used by corporations selling dog food and shampoo and other things that were never part of the movement. So a lot of old-school (and many new-school) organic farmers refused to participate in the USDA system (which basically disallows use of the word "organic" unless you're certified by the government) and created new labels: "Beyond Organic," "Natural" and others.

It's the life-cycle of good ideas: message > mission >movement > monstrosity > monument > memory > new message.

Of course, it's good that healthier choices of food are being offered in 7-Elevens -- which is actually not a huge accomplishment. Here's hoping some of the regular 7-Eleven clientele will try them.

Atheists Don't Have No Songs

Steve Martin has to be one of the most creative people alive, not to mention one of the funniest:

How Apple Is Spending Your Money

I've been a loyal Apple/Mac user since 1984—have never owned a PC and hopefully never will. But Apple has crossed the line when it comes to using its clout and capital.

Yes, Apple is a private company that answers to no one except its shareholders (which I am not). But it is also dependent on not arousing the ire of its ever-growing consumer base to continue expanding its presence and profit in the marketplace. And they have awakened a sleeping giant of conservative, fair-minded citizens who want Apple to back off their social engineering efforts and stick to technical engineering.

What did they do? Over the Thanksgiving holidays they quietly withdrew the iPhone/iPad app for the Manhattan Declaration citing "objectionable content." Apple had previously given the MD app a strong rating ("no objectionable content") and all was fine -- until Change.org mounted a petition to force Apple to remove the app because of its "hateful," "divisive," "offensive," "pro-life," "pro-traditional marriage" content. In other words, the extreme left (pro-choice, pro-homosexual) crowd told Apple they were offended that the Manhattan Declaration -- which supports religious freedom, traditional marriage, and is against abortion -- was allowed to have an app in the iTunes store. So when Apple received the Change.org petition with over 7,000 signatures they caved and pulled the MD app.

Manhattan Declaration has mounted a campaign to ask Apple to reinstate the app. So far, more than 39,301 people (as of 1:21 p.m. EST on 12-4-10) have signed the MD petition. If you are in favor of what the Manhattan Declaration stands for I encourage you to sign the petition.

You can read about the Manhattan Declaration and what it stands for on their web site. But recent activity has slowed their servers to a crawl, so you can read the Wikipedia article instead.

You can sign the petition either here (very slow the last two days [update: now seems to be loading fine]) or here (faster). You can also drop Steve Jobs (CEO of Apple) an email to express your views here.

Here's a good summary of the issue written by a Catholic columnist.

Impact of Diet Choices on the Planet

Talia Fuhrman, daughter of nutritarian M.D. Joel Fuhrman, accompanied her father to the recent meeting of the World Preservation Foundation in London, and filed these facts she collected at the meeting about the impact of diet choices on the planet. I can't vouch for the facts or for the World Preservation Foundation, but her list is a good summary of "impacts" being discussed widely these days. (I mean by that last statement that I'm slowly learning that numbers, facts, and statistics, be they ever so authoritatively presented, have to be held lightly. When the Obama administration says "a million jobs were created," or some such thing, I don't believe it for a minute. I treat it as political agenda-speak. That's obviously a round number that is completely unverifiable at a moment in time. Therefore, it's only fair to treat numbers that I want to agree with the same way—as round numbers that are guesstimates based on varying degrees of verifiable research. Instead of taking the numbers literally, I use the "where there's smoke, there's fire" approach—the numbers represent trends that bear looking into. Another way to look at large numbers like these is to say, "If the numbers are off by a fourth/third/half, do we still have a problem?" In the case of the following numbers, I would say mostly "Yes.")

1) Raising livestock and their by-products account for at least 32.6 billion tons of carbon dioxide equivalents per year, or 51 percent of annual worldwide green house gas (GHG) emissions.

2) Thirty percent of the entire land surface of Earth is devoted to livestock production, including plants used to feed the livestock.

3) Replacing meat with plant-derived sources of calories and protein could reduce the land area required to feed the human population by more than 80 percent and recover about 25 percent of the land for restoration, solar energy capture, or other eco-friendly purposes.

4) Between 23-30 percent of our global ecological footprint comes from agriculture, primarily livestock production.

5) Beef takes 70 times more land to produce than vegetables.

6) 80 percent of the world’s soy production is consumed by livestock.

7) About 50 percent of the world’s grain supply is used to feed livestock. This is while almost 11 million children who live in the countries where these feed grains are grown, die ironically of hunger each year.

8) In 2009, for the first time, the number of people suffering from hunger exceeded 1 billion. This doesn’t include people facing hunger shortages from natural disasters.

9) If all 6.78 billion people on Earth began consuming as many animal products as residents of the United States, we would need over 3 planet Earths to meet the demand. If all people on Earth became vegetarians, less than one Earth would be needed to meet food demands.

Spider Man: Tears and Chills

On 60 Minutes tonight, Lesley Stahl previewed the upcoming Broadway production of Spiderman: Turn off the Dark—the most ambitious ($60 million) production in theater history. The director of this piece—a woman named Julie Taymor—is a force of nature. This production has been years in the making, pushing the boundaries of technical special effects (think Cirque du Soleil) and scrambling for financing. But Taymor refused to give up the vision and has reached her goal. And if that wasn't inspiring enough, the score for the production was written entirely by Bono and The Edge.

Watching people collaborate at this level of creativity and expertise was spine-tingling for me. Here's the 20-minute segment: (or here in a bit larger format)

And an additional segment—behind the scenes with Bono and The Edge working out the kinks in some of the music (or here):

Like Julie Taymor says, the biggest and best things always involve a level of risk and fear. I'm amazed by people who step willingly off the cliff of certainty into the thin air of uncertainty.

Doing Something

World Vision, the Christian humanitarian aid organization, was founded by a man named Bob Pierce (d. 1978). He also founded Samaritan's Purse, now headed by Franklin Graham. Bob Pierce's philosophy is captured by these words of his: "Don't fail to do something just because you can't do everything." One of the "somethings" I've enjoyed through the years has been sponsoring a child through World Vision beginning in May, 1976, and continuing to the present. I don't recall how many different children there have been -- they would grow up and move out of World Vision's program, and I would sign up for another. I've not been a great sponsor -- many World Vision sponsors travel to visit their child(ren) in their native country, and maintain active correspondence with them (letters, gifts, etc.). But I trust "my" children were helped in a small way through World Vision's support programs in their local area.

World Vision is good about sending regular school, health, and activity updates on each sponsored child, and birthday and greeting cards for the sponsor to sign and return to the child. The young man I'm sponsoring now I have "known" for the last 5-6 years. I won't mention his name or location -- as a Christian child in the world's most-Muslim country, I don't want to imperil him in any way. His latest annual progress report came with a current picture and a personal note written in his native hand and translated by a World Vision staff member. He's now in the ninth grade and doing well -- the picture shows him writing his note to me on the progress report I received from him. I'm happy that he is safe and healthy and getting a good education and the support of World Vision staff in his area -- a small something in a world where everything is not always possible.