Monday, May 26, 2003

No Knives, No Guns, No Killing -- Making Iraq Safe Timothy Wilken, MD writes: The history of the American West, is in large part the struggle to overcome  adversity. Wyatt Earp's discovery of a mechanism to insure public safety spread. By the summer of 1876, Denver was slightly larger than Dallas, although not a mite different as far as being fronted by the inevitable plankwalks and halter-polished hitch rails. A sign posted at the edge of town warned: "No guns in town." This law was strictly enforced. What Wyatt Earp achieved with his "No Guns in Town" law was the creation of a zone of safety. Within city limits there could be no guns. Apparently Earp understood that "guns do kill people." Guns are weapons. By excluding them from the town, he was using a principle of synergic containment and disarmament. We need to create a zone of safety. And, then we can begin to extend that zone. We need to protect those within the zone and isolate those outside the zone. This is how the immune system in our body works. The skin is the boundary for the body. Its job is to isolate all adversity from the interior. We need to create a skin around our safety zone. That isolates all adversity from the interior. Within the safety zone, there should be no tolerance of adversity. None!  (05/26/03) The Empty Ocean Richard Ellis writes: So many of the inhabitants of the oceans have been depleted-fishes, sharks, whales, dolphins-but so have many creatures that spend only a part of their lives in the water yet depend on the oceans for their very existence. The semiaquatic seals and sea lions feed and travel in the water but come out to breed and give birth, as does the sea otter. Perched as he is at the pinnacle of the food pyramid, Homo sapiens has made a career of eliminating those on the lower tiers. Even the most powerful of the ocean's predators-the sharks, tunas, billfishes, whales, and dolphins-have fallen before the fishers' and hunters' relentless determination to wrest a living from the sea's bounty. Some of these creatures were hunted for food, some for fur, some for oil. Some species of aquatic birds died by the thousands because they were trapped in nets meant for fishes, and some, like the flightless great auk, were hunted for food and clubbed out of existence. Our ability to affect the life and death of sea creatures-the subject of this book-acutely underscores our responsibility to the creatures that share our planet. In that sense-and only in that sense-is it our planet. We are stranded on shore, watching as the bountiful sea life disappears before our uncomprehending eyes. For many species, what we do-or don't do-in the coming years will make the difference between existence and extinction. In some cases, it is too late to do anything; the sea cows, great auks, Labrador ducks, and Caribbean monk seals are gone, probably to be followed into the black hole of extinction by barndoor skates, thorn-back rays, Patagonian toothfish, Chinese river dolphins, Ganges River dolphins, and the little Gulf of California porpoises known as vaquitas. Weep for them-and listen to the words of William Beebe: "The beauty and genius of a work of art may be reconceived, though its first material expression be destroyed; a vanished harmony may yet again inspire the composer; but when the last individual of a race of living things breathes no more, another heaven and another earth must pass before such a one can be again." (05/26/03) The Minotaur and the Balance of Powers John Brand writes: According to Greek mythology, the good old sea-god Poseidon sent a pure-white bull to King Minos to be sacrificed to the gods. But Minos knew a good thing when he saw it and kept the bull alive. My goodness, a bull like that could easily fetch $5,000 and more for each vial of sperm to be used in artificial insemination. Minos's decision got Poseidon's nose out of joint. The sea-god roared from the bottom of the ocean, "You just can't let these pathetic earthlings get away with such disobedience." He then opined that a virile man's pride would really be smashed if his wife falls in love with someone else. So Poseidon made Queen Pasiphae fall in love with the bull. The ardent love affair produced Minotaur, a creature half man and half bull. ... Now, fast-forward to September 17, 1778, the date the U.S. Constitution, consisting of a Preamble and seven Articles, was adopted by a majority of the 55 delegates who were assembled in Philadelphia. Like the white bull given by Poseidon, the seven articles of the Constitution represented the loftiest, the most noble of ideas. Nothing like it had ever appeared on the surface of the globe! The genius of the Constitution does not primarily grant freedom and liberty to the citizens of the new Republic. Rather, it invoked a form of government creating the condition for freedom. It is not freedom that is the hallmark of America. You can scream freedom from the top of Mount Everest but if you do not have the institution guaranteeing that freedom, your shouting is just so much hot air! Freedom is a subsequent condition resulting from our unique form of government. It seeks to control human greed and acquisition of personal power by imposing checks and balances on our behavior. ... This is where the genius of the United States Constitution meets the world. The condition assuring freedom lies in the creation of three branches of the government balancing each other. When the Legislative branch gets to beating its chest, the Supreme Court can step in and rap its knuckles. When the Executive begins to bust the buttons off his vest, Congress can step in and make him exhale. When the somber justices mix up their personal agenda with the priorities of the welfare of the people, Congress can take appropriate measures. If a situation should occur when things are really in a mess, a Constitutional amendment can put everyone's feet to the fire. Then, if things work like they should, freedom results. It is just plain silly to talk of freedom when the wheelers and dealers do not accept the simple proposition of the triune government. For the welfare of all, all have to accept the wisdom of the fathers.  (05/26/03) Reducing Heart Disease in Aborigines ABC: Science -- A Darwin Menzies School of Health researcher says better access to fresh fruit and vegetables is one of the keys to reducing the rate of heart disease in Aboriginal communities. Professor Kerin O'Dea has conducted a study of 170 members of a Western Australian Aboriginal community, which has revealed that those with a poor diet are more likely to suffer from inflammation of the arteries. She says high cholesterol and blood pressure usually associated with coronary heart disease are not excessive in Aboriginal people, but diet plays a role. (05/26/03) Learning from our Ancient Ancestors BBC Science -- Agricultural techniques perfected by Inca farmers 500 years ago are beginning to have a dramatic effect on the incomes of today's farmers in Pampachiri, one of the poorest areas of Peru. An ancient water transport system, developed by the Wira people and refined by the Incas, has been restored by the Cusichaca Trust NGO using traditional methods. Clay, stone, sand, and a certain type of cactus juice, have restored the system of canals and terraces, in turn helping repair the area's shattered economy. ... One of the farmers involved in the project, Juan Guillen, explained why the old methods were proving so effective. "The Incas were very good agronomists - they understood sustainable agriculture," Mr Guillen said. (05/26/03) Rescuing Long Island Sound New York Times: Environment -- Forty years ago in the summer of 1963, a writer for The New Yorker named Morton M. Hunt spent two weeks circumnavigating Long Island Sound in a little sailboat. When he sat down to write, he mourned. A way of life was disappearing. The old culture of the Sound — a still wild mix of scruffy boatyards, Gold Coast snobs and fishermen, all set against the vast mirror of nature — would surely be homogenized and pushed to the brink by the pell-mell rush of suburbanization and the mass market, Mr. Hunt wrote. But then there was a plot twist that he could not have foreseen. In the years that followed Mr. Hunt's trip, people gradually began to realize that the Sound — by the power of history and population and the environmental damage inflicted upon it — had in a very real way become a human creation. The impact of civilization was complete, the idea of a return to wild nature only a fantasy.  The ancient estuary, extending 110 miles northeast from New York City to Rhode Island through the densest population corridor in the nation — loved and loathed as a breadbasket, playground and dump — would have to be managed for its own sake, and for the region's.  And that realization produced another voyage — of discovery and confounding mystery, triumph and setback — as people came to understand the complexity of what they had undertaken to do. (05/26/03) SARS--Beware of What you Eat New Scientist -- Evidence of the deadly SARS virus has been discovered in three exotic animal species being sold live in a Chinese food market. The revelation is highly significant as it may allow SARS to be stopped at source and may help in the development of diagnostic tests. The virus found is "almost identical to the human SARS virus", according to Klaus Stöhr, SARS basic science research director at the World Health Organization. The virus itself was uncovered in six civet cats and one raccoon dog and antibodies to the virus were found in a badger known as the Chinese ferret badger. The researchers, from Hong Kong and mainland China, had sampled over 25 animals from a local food market near a laboratory in China's Guangdong province. It is "highly likely" that the virus jumped from the animals to humans, said Kwok-Yung Yuen, head of microbiology at the University of Hong Kong. He unveiled the results of the pilot study, conducted with the Shenzhen Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, on Friday. The exotic mammals are considered as culinary delicacies in Guangdong, where the killer virus first surfaced in November 2002. The disease spread rapidly across the globe, and has now caused over 8100 infections and nearly 700 deaths. (05/26/03) 5:44:01 AM

© TrustMark 2003 Timothy Wilken. Last update: 6/3/2003; 5:45:00 AM. This theme is based on the SoundWaves (blue) Manila theme.