Neural Gourmet Archives | Feed Your Brain
Neural Gourmet Archives | Feed Your BrainIn keeping with my newfound interest in all things law, I caught an NYT piece this morning that I wanted to direct people's attention to. It's discussing the fact that we're number 1 (Go USA!) in incarceration rates:
The United States has less than 5 percent of the world’s population. But it has almost a quarter of the world’s prisoners.
Indeed, the United States leads the world in producing prisoners, a reflection of a relatively recent and now entirely distinctive American approach to crime and punishment. Americans are locked up for crimes — from writing bad checks to using drugs — that would rarely produce prison sentences in other countries. And in particular they are kept incarcerated far longer than prisoners in other nations.
Criminologists and legal scholars in other industrialized nations say they are mystified and appalled by the number and length of American prison sentences.
The United States has, for instance, 2.3 million criminals behind bars, more than any other nation, according to data maintained by the International Center for Prison Studies at King’s College London.
You can read the rest of the article here. While it is pehaps not news to many people that we're leading the way in locking people up, what I found interesting was that there was a comparison to the rates in other 1st world nations such as Germany and England (as the usual retort to this sort of thing is that the numbers don't include people who are disappeared) and that the US is also a standalone in imprisoning people for minor property crime.
I know it's been quite a while since I've written anything here, though I know you can forgive me. I just haven't thought of anything fantastic to write (though if you look at my previous posts, you'll see quite clearly that I have some rather crummy standards for what counts as fantastic). I am still around, though. Most of my computer time has been eaten up with moderating over at DU (FSM, I hate primary season). Aside from that, I have also been busy with the LSAT and getting my applications into law school. In the end, though, that all paid off. I've been accepted into law school and will begin in the fall, assuming I can figure out some way of paying for it.
All that being said, my interests are shifting in other directions. I guess that's a bit unfair to say - I am still interested in theology, religion, politics, medicine, and pseudoscience. It's just that these days I spend most of my time reading and researching law and policy. I'm not exactly sure where posts on such matters will fit in here on NG - but I guess we'll find out! I promise to try to come up with something good to write soon, but in lieu of that I just wanted to let whomever might read this that I'm still kicking.
Just when I thought that our respective congress critters couldn't get any more absurd they went ahead and jumped the shark. From CBS News:
Freedom wafers, anyone?This is one straight from the headlines of the Onion. Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) has introduced a resolution (H.Res. 847) saying, and I am not making this up, that Christmas and Christians are important. The House is scheduled to vote on this groundbreaking resolution on Tuesday.
As someone with a Christian background, I can safely say this may be the silliest resolution ever introduced by, or voted upon, by Congress, although I am a little curious to see if anyone will vote against it.
Do we really need Congress to say Christmas and the Christian faith are important? Isn't that pretty self evident by now? Don't Christians already pretty much run everything in this country, except for the mainstream media, which is of course controlled by a Jewish-Illuminati-Bill Gates cabal? Don't we already get Dec. 25 off? Wasn't I forced to shell out $65 for a scrawny Christmas tree this weekend? Won't I have to go to Pentagon City or some other godforsaken place and spend more money in the next couple weeks as part of this strange ritual? What about the terrible songs that get endlessly recycled year after stinking year? And the useless catalogs that clog my mailbox, despite my efforts to get off mailing lists? Where will the horror end?
I realize that is has been blogged about before, by bloggers much more capable than myself, but it has been a while since I visited the website for the upcoming movie Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed and I see that there is now a good deal more information available on it. It's coming out in February 2008, and stars everyone's favorite Nixon speech writer and former second-banana to Jimmy Kimmel, Ben Stein. Tongue firmly in cheek, Stein stars as a "rebel" student at "Big Science Academy" who, from what information I can gather, claims that "Big Science" is keeping "smart ideas" out of the classroom. Translation: scientists won't allow intelligent design to be taught in classrooms because they say it's not science, and that's just mean!read more »
Most of you reading this are probably familiar with the problem of evil as it applies to Judeo-Christian theology. For those who aren't however, a quick rehash:
The problem of evil holds that the mere presence of suffering and evil in this world are inconsistent with the notion of an all-powerful, all-loving, and all-knowing God. This is so, as because if a God is all-loving, all-knowing, and all-powerful then it would seem to follow logically that such a being would not allow us humans (who are referred to on occasion as “his children”) to be subjected mercilessly to horrors that defy description here.
That being the case, it would seem that the following scenarios are likely:
1. You have a God that is all-powerful, all-loving, but not all knowing. God simply does not know about the horrors in the world, otherwise he would surely put an end to them.
This strikes me as absurd on the face. If there were an all-powerful, all-loving being then surely he could get cable news wherever he resides. You don't have to look too hard to see the suffering in this world.
2. You have a God that is all-loving, and all-knowing, but not all-powerful. God knows of the horror in this world, and wishes to cease it, but is simply unable to.read more »
We all know and love Sylvia Browne, right? I read this piece on Guardian Unlimited (hat tip to mr blur over at DU) that planted himself on a cruise with Browne in order to try and get an interview with her. It is rather lengthy, but really is worth your time.
Day 1: At sea
It is Tuesday evening and I am on a luxury Mediterranean cruise ship called the Westerdam. I'm in the audience in the Vista lounge. A grouchy woman is sitting on a beige and golden throne on the stage. She's complaining about builders and dispensing dietary advice. Her name is Sylvia Browne and for years I've wanted to interview her. She's America's most controversial psychic. She's become famous for telling the parents of missing children what happened to their kids. Distraught parents go to her during her weekly appearance on The Montel Williams Show on CBS television. Montel is like Oprah. Sylvia tells them, "Your child is dead" or "Your child was sold into slavery in Japan."
She really did once say that, in 1999. A six-year-old, Opal Jo Jennings, had a month earlier been snatched from her grandparents' front yard in Texas while playing with her cousin. A man pulled up, grabbed her, threw her into his truck, hit her when she screamed and drove off. Her distraught grandmother went on Montel's show and said, "This is too much for my family and me to handle. We want her back. I need to know where Opal is. I can't stand this. I need your help, Sylvia. Where is Opal? Where is she?"
Sylvia said, "She's not dead. But what bothers me - now I've never heard of this before - but she was taken and put into some kind of a slavery thing and taken into Japan. The place is Kukouro."
I know it has been some time since I have posted here, and it has been even longer since I have posted anything here worth reading. Well I was feeling a bit sentimental today, so I dug up a moldy-oldy I posted to the Democratic Underground a couple months back that didn't get a whole lot of play...so I am resurrecting it. Enjoy!read more »
Good grief it has been a while since I've been around these parts. For those who are interested or who don't know any better, I'm doing okay. I won't bore anyone with the details at the moment. I wanted to make a post to let people know that I'm still alive, and also because there has been something on my mind I wanted to try and get other people's input on.
What I've been wondering is just this: what is the difference, if any, between spirituality and religion? A good synopsis I have heard is that spirituality is something that is defined from within whereas religion is defined from without. Also, spirituality (at least in my opinion) is one of those words that has the potential to be misused or at least given a wide berth with respect to it's usage in the lanuage. Any thoughts?
Oh, and it goes without saying but I hope everyone else is well also.
In my previous post here, I explained my absence. I've recently realized that I am an addict, and I realized that because I hit the bottom. If I hadn't; if circumstances had been different and I had been allowed to continue down that path, then I am certain that's where I would still be. I don't want to go back there anymore. I don't want to go back, but at the same time I miss it very much. It was as if I had a small corner of my life where I could run to when push came to shove and cope with the stress, the anxiety, and the rage. I don't have that anymore, and it's almost like trying to figure out how to walk again. Now that I don't have the familiar methods of coping, I have to figure out a new way to live my life - one that doesn't involve self-destruction and dishonesty. That's a tall order for someone who has spent the past several years living a chunk of his life out of the awareness of everyone. read more »
I've tried to write this post several times now. I keep trying to say exactly what it is that I feel and outline, in a general sense, the reasons for my absence. Either my words don't seem up to the task or I chicken out at the last minute and delete it. There is a definite narcissistic quality to my writing this, as perhaps I have deluded myself into thinking that there are those who would care enough about me (or at least the me that they know) to care what is happening in my life. On the other hand, my primary motivation for writing this is really to dispel any worry or wonder on the off chance that someone actually does care. Secondly, it is my humble wish that, maybe, possibly, something that I have to say might be able to offer someone else some hope or some insight if they are in a similiar situation. read more »
The very notion of an afterlife is both inhumane and immoral. It feeds the masturbatory fantasy that things will not come to an end. With that, we can take our lives for granted. In fact, we can take the lives of those around us for granted - as surely we will be able to meet those we love and care about again someday (as, of course, they will end up in heaven with us). The belief that there is life after death (which, definitionally speaking, is a contradiction of terms) serves to ease the fear of nothingness, but does little to cope with the reality of the situation. Delusions may comfort us, but do not illuminate much outside of our fractured psyches.
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Maybe I'm a bit slow on the uptake, but the other day I finally figured out why the euthyphro dilemma is, in fact, a dilemma. For those of you unfamiliar with it, the dilemma revolves around divine command theory - the notion that morality comes from God. Now either morality comes from God (divine command theory) or it comes from someplace else. I think that's a pretty safe claim, right?
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That is, until I saw this. His comments on this country and our administration were some of the most apt and ariticulate that I have seen or read in quite some time. Check it out.
I love my mother. There are many ways in which I wish that I could be more like her. She is, hands down, one of the sweetest, most compassionate, and caring individuals I have known. That's not to say that she doesn't have her faults, because she does, but the good in her more than makes up for it. I realize that I'm probably biased, but other people have made similiar observations of her character. I know I'm not in woo-wooville just yet.
My mother has a rather unforunate hobby, however: trash TV. American Idol. House Hunters. What Not to Wear. She just loves it. Most of the shows she watches I can deal with. But one show, in particular, evokes nearly audible eye-rolls from me: Ghost Hunters. This is a show on the Sci-Fi channel that involves a few fairly pragmatic fellows going around to haunted areas with all sorts of hi-tech gagedtry to see what's what. I wouldn't be writing about my mother's television viewing habits except for the small fact that she believes that ghosts exist, and Ghost Hunters is living proof (pun intended).
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According to at least one person I've spoken with recently, the fact that people have near death experiences is supposed to convince me that there is an afterlife. At first glance, it does seem kind of convincing. Johnny gets into a car crash and sees God. Jane almost drowns in a swimming pool and has an "out of body experience". Supposedly, the soul leaves the body and is in some sort of temporary limbo. They're not really alive. They're not really dead. It sounds kind of groovy, but I'm not buying it.
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