Issue 79 Stem Cells: A god send? May 17, 2013

Stem cells are the basic building block from which all our cells develop to become our organs, bones, etc. There are many different varieties of stem cells with embryonic being the most controversial. It has already been proven that all stem cells where ever they are derived work to help improve and heal our physical condition. So is this the best thing to happen to medicine since penicillin?

Yes it is: Stem cells are being experimented with to help heal heart disease, cure cancers and even repair and correct physical and mental conditions. In the show Beyond Tomorrow that was airing on the Science Channel, they injected healthy stem cells from one part of an elderly gentleman’s heart into the part of his heart that was failing. The result was that the mans heart was repaired by those stem cells and was shown to actually make the part of the heart younger. Well not necessarily younger, but health wise it was younger. This is just the beginning.

Stem cells from other animals: Some stem cells don't come from the human body. All animals have them and they are being experimented with too. In the case of the military they are making a kind of dust from pig stem cells. They use this dust by sprinkling it on the stubs of amputees to stimulate the human bodies own stem cells to grow the limb back. So far there has been some progress as some of the soldiers limbs have started growing back, albeit slowly and only in cases of small limbs like fingers. The technology is still developing but there is a hope that we will soon be able to grow peoples limbs back completely.

The types of stem cells: There are stem cells that already exist in the human body. They exist in our blood stream, in our organs, and even in our bones. With these stem cells, it is simply a matter of re-activating them to help heal the sick. As aforementioned, there are animals with stem cells that can be of use to us. These will be used to make other sorts of medicines to allow our bodies to heal themselves, and eventually help to heal our pets. Another type of stem cell is in the umbilical cord. This type exists in umbilical fluid and has greater potential to help heal more serious diseases like Parkinson’s and cancers, at least if our own dormant stem cells prove to be not up to the task.

The most controversial is embryonic. These stem cells exist in undeveloped babies. These are believed to have the greatest potential to save lives, but there is one problem. You will have to kill the unborn child in the fetal stage to harvest the cells. Such a practice is currently outlawed in the U.S. save Jonathon Swifts Modest Proposal becoming a reality. I do not support the research using the unborn stem cells for both moral and ethical reasons as I can see the unborn as nothing but a human life. As such, I will not sacrifice one life for another’s in this scenario.

Conclusion: The discovery and use of stem cells is fantastic. It will allow us to move away from potent and potentially harmful medications and procedures that cause more stress to the body. So this truly is a God send to the medical community and to the world. Now we just have to explore the possibilities.

Issue 78 Should we play God?: extinct species May 16, 2013

I'm sure you have heard about or even read the article in National Geographic about bringing extinct species back from the grave. Most of the animals they intend on bringing back are birds, but they also want to see if they can bring back a mastodon, a woolly mammoth and a saber tooth tiger. I question if we should actually bring these amazing animals back to the world?

Worry number 1: These animals died out within the last couple of thousand of years (they can't bring back dinosaurs due to their DNA being un-recoverable). Some were hunted to extinction while others died due to environmental changes. If we choose to bring these animals back are we dooming them to death once again? Think about it. We are not 100% sure as to why certain species of animals died out. They think the mastodon can come back because the plant life in the arctic tundra is coming back to what it is believed it was like those hundreds of years ago. But, scientists cannot be sure. By breading these animals we could end up poisoning them with current plants and animal life. Morally thinking, I advise against any attempt to release these animals into the wild unless it is provable that they can live and flourish outside a lab.

Worry number 2: Another issue is what happens to the animals that took there place in the wild once they became extinct. The animal kingdom is full of niche animal species. Each one thriving in that role until natural selection occurs once again, such as favoring shorter winged birds over longer winged birds in an urban environment (it allows them to better avoid being hit bay cars). We may regain one species of animal, just to kill off another species through competition with the animal brought back. This is another issue that will have to be taken into account.

The process: What they intend to bring back are not exactly the original animal that went extinct. What is being brought into the world is a representation of the animal that went extinct. To bring such creatures back, scientist map the genome of the extinct animal from DNA that has been recovered. From there, they fill in the missing pieces of DNA with what they believe to be accurate representations of the original animal. From this point the same process used in cloning takes place. They manipulate the eggs of an animal whose DNA is as close a match as possible (Elephant to mastodon for example) and substitute the altered DNA parts with the originals. The result is a hybrid of the original animal and the extinct species. At this point the process is repeated until the animal looks like the extinct species they wanted to bring back. Problem, the animal is not necessarily the extinct species; they are just making another animal look like it. In addition, you cannot study it as the extinct species as we are not 100% sure how the original behaves, thus you are just studying a man made representation and the ways they adapt to the environment they are in (assuming they live).

Conclusion: I know I sound critical, and that is because I am. There is no way that I don't think it is cool that these new versions of extinct species could walk the earth, but morally I'm troubled. Should we bring such animals back, just to see them die, or cause other animals to die as well? Conservation efforts don't exactly work out as planned. Some animals died out anyway, while others became too successful and have to be hunted regularly to avoid over population. In this instance, I would just use this science to test if it is possible to bring animals back. I would not release them out in the wild, but rather seek to design animals that could exist as domesticated versions in zoos. We could create more versions of life stock for leather, and meat to help end world hunger. Or we can even use the technology to aid in our government's mission to colonize Mars (you know they want the credit) by creating animals that can survive the harsh conditions. There will be many issues with this technology and the creations it produces as the animals must survive here on earth, exposed to many of the same diseases that may have wiped out there originals. Can we play God? Yes, but it is not exactly the most advisable thing to do (think the movie Planet of the Apes and the lesson it was trying to impart).

Issue 77 Tenure: Is it really needed? May 15, 2013

                    

  Tenure was designed as a way to protect teachers from being fired for expressing their opinions.  That is what it was supposed to do in summary.  It was originally conceived to protect college professors from being fired for discussing controversial topics, fill in controversial topic here.  Tenure in college was awarded to college professors after many years and under very strict standards with most professors never getting tenured.  Today is different.  Every teacher gets tenure through contract for a certain number of years of service and approval by some official in the education bureaucracy.  This even includes administrators as well.  The very same administrators who make up the education bureaucracy that creates massive redundancies and red tape.  Overall what is up with such a policy that just allows everybody to get job security even from the most heinous of infractions?

  Why the wall?:  That is right; I am asking why do they get a wall against being fired? It is impossible to get ride of bad teachers who are then placed in a firing process which could take years to be rid of them whilst they continue being paid.  They sit in places like New York States “rubber rooms” where they sit around all day raking in or tax dollars that are meant for educating America’s children. Tenure was not intended to protect bad teachers, but unfortunately it does.  It was also not intended to have good non-tenured teachers fired in their place.  Gives new meaning to last hired, first fired.

 Shouldn't it be a reward?:  What I don’t get is why tenure is necessary at all.  Should it not be rewarded like it used to be at colleges where who receives tenure is so strict that it is almost impossible to get.  Primary and secondary education teachers don’t even need tenure in the first place for they should not be talking about controversial topics to young students in the first place.  Not to mention that tenure gives them the license to turn their classroom into a bully pulpit to advocate certain ideologies to young impressionable children.  Other teachers may become lazy due to the job security tenure provides.  School officials are not teachers, so why have it for them even if they might have used to be teachers themselves.  Well I can only think that in the case of administrators having tenure is that it allows them to be whistle blowers on corruption, but we have whistle blower laws for that.  Let’s face it; a poor performing teacher should be fired.  It does not matter if that teacher is popular; popularity is no excuse for a lack of performance.

Conclusion:  Tenure belongs in college with strict requirements, not primary and secondary education where the only cheep option to get rid of a bad teacher is to transfer them and hope the new teacher is better than the last one.  It is so hard to fire a teacher, so expensive, that they transfer them hoping that the swap with the other school gives them a better teacher than the last.  The school does not want to pay bed teachers to sit for years while they go through the firing process.  It is hard to believe they transfer teachers because it’s cheaper.  A risk that schools take hoping that they did not sign a death warrant for the education of the class the new teacher will be teaching.  It is time to make schools cheaper, improve teacher quality by cutting off the minority bad teacher’s free ride.  Let us eliminate tenure, so we do not end up sending America’s children into a classroom that will negatively impact their future.

Issue 76 Education: Attacking the main problem May 14, 2013

  The main problem with education in the United States is social promotion.  Social promotion moves children up a grade even if they are not academically capable of understanding the material at the higher grade level.  Thus, the student is unprepared to meet the new challenges and this begins spirals until the student graduates with them leaving school incapable of meeting society’s educational demands.

 Its original purpose:  Social promotions purpose was to speed students through school and to prevent children from being left back.  It was felt that by doing this that these students would not suffer ridicule from their peers, therefore preserving their self-esteem.  Problem is it leaves students unprepared, sometimes dangerously so, to enter the working world.  Not to mention how embarrassing it is for some of these socially promoted students not even knowing how to read.

 Kill the idea:  A real change for education would be the abolishment of this ridiculous idea that robs children of a successful career which is always founded on a good education.  In other words, the more educated you are the higher paying job you can achieve.  Let’s face it; employers want educated workers who innovate to improve business, not mindless drones.  Look at the State of Florida; they along with several other States got rid of both social promotion and tenure.  As a result within ten years grades improved significantly. 

 Conclusion:  It is time to end this stupidity of protecting a student’s self-esteem at the expense of their education and future.  Hold students back if they are not academically prepared to meet the standards that are set for success.  End social promotion now.

Issue 75 Education: correcting some errors May 13, 2013

 We have all heard the quote “The foundation of every State is the education of its youth.”  Well duh, a dumb nation cannot progress.  A dumb nation means we cannot compete intellectually with other nations because jobs are created by smart people who invest their income wisely.  International businesses not only look at how cheep it is for it to establish itself and produce its products, but also the education of workers because smart labor equals skilled labor equals profits.  We are in a race for the most highly skilled workers on the planet, an education arms race if you will.  Problem, our education system has some major malfunctions inhibiting our, your, Americas future, from getting the best quality education.

The first problem is when school elections are held:  Have you noticed that school elections are not held on the same day as a general election, the very same general election where we as citizens cast our vote for our President, and federal, State and local representatives?  The reason is because the school boards want a lower voter turnout.  Some are thinking why the heck would they want a lower turnout?  Simple, with less people voting, officials are more likely to be elected or re-elected.  Budgets are almost guaranteed to pass even if that budget is flawed, or clearly does nothing to enhance the education of the students and line the pockets of the education bureaucracy.  In other words, the members of the education bureaucracy only have to be responsible to the segment of the community who actually gets out and votes and not the entire community. 

 Next is the problem with the Lemons:  No, not the fruit or the cars, I mean bad teachers.  Usually, these bad teachers can’t be fired due to tenure or contract, so schools have an alternative solution.  They trade off bad teachers with other schools hoping the newer one was better than the last.  This of course means that the new teacher can be as bad as or worse than the one traded away.  Other teachers go into what the people of New York State call rubber rooms.  This is where bad teachers go while they wait for there hearings to take place, all the while getting paid to do nothing.  Some might say remove tenure, which is something I am in favor of, but here I will discuss alternatives.  In the case of the rubber rooms, a teacher who is not in the classroom teaching should not be paid.  That’s right, if your not working you should not be paid and the fear of being placed into one of these rubber rooms will put the fear of God into that select minority of bad teachers.  This also eliminates the need to trade off bad teachers because they can simply threaten to send poor performing teachers, and those who commit worse acts than failing their students, into a rubber room.  Thus, the number of bad teachers should drop.

Another Approach:  An alternative that can be combined with the first is to make tenure renewable.  In other words it will expire after a certain period of time and teachers’ records will be used to justify its renewal.  This is a very simple solution, because their application for renewal may be denied and that bad teacher will then be let go.  I suggest every five to eight years for a renewal of tenure.  I chose these numbers because it’s long enough to evaluate a teachers performance under “safe” circumstances and at the same time give the teacher the ability to enjoy the original intention of tenure, the freedom to discuss points of view in the classroom.

But, what happens to the bad teachers who do manage to be fired.  Why they can simply get another teaching job.  Your saying how does that work aren’t you?  Well, it’s because unlike the majority of professions, teacher’s records are sealed.  The new employer can’t look into the reason why the teacher no longer has their original teaching job, or even the fact that they were fired.  So why is it that a teacher has their records sealed and not other professions?  Why inhibit employers in schools from insuring that America’s children are getting the best of the best?

This leads me to another question: Why are we only giving special attention to the best students?  This is due to the track system which was developed during the industrialization of America.  The original intent was to give the top performers in schools the most attention because they were perceived as the next generation of politicians and lawyers.  The next group was expected to be accountants, and secretaries who aid the top group while the final group (the majority) was to be factory workers and farmers.  This system has always worked by giving attention to students based on performance.  However, performance is based on test scores that are factored in with other factors which inflate grades like behavior.  So good students academically are given less attention because of poor behavior such as obedience or the number of times they raise their hand while others are given higher grades because they might behave better than the rest of the class.  This is not fair and nor is it equal treatment.  This is biased education from a bygone era.  The track system must end for all students who must all be held to the same standards.  They must be given the exact attention they need to succeed and above all treated like the next Albert Einstein. 

 We are still left with inflated grades based on behavior though.  So make academic performance and behavior two separate grades.  Academic performance and behavior do not correlate which is why grades get inflated or even deflated, so there is no reason to not make this change for teachers are already accounting for a student’s behavior.  This will make grading fair and equitable and allow both parents and teachers to identify what areas a student is week in whether it is academically, respecting others, group work, attention to detail, all of which is important in the working world   

 Conclusion: These are some simple fixes, though some are harder to achieve than others i.e. elections and tenure.  We can make America’s system of education the best in the world and a model for all to follow.  Our 50 States, each with their own separate and independent education systems, are competing to be the best.  Each State is in an education arms race with each other and the rest of the world, each a powerful force in education reform. 

Issue 74 Over Licensed May 10, 2013

            I was originally inspired by John Stossel to write this chapter.  I was watching his program on Fox Business Network and he was discussing how over regulated society is.  In this particular episode it was about licenses.  Licensing is a quality control device to ensure that a person is capable of performing a certain type of job or task such as a driver’s license or a plumber’s license.  According to Stossel licenses do more than protect us from bad plumbers, but also dead flowers!  That’s right, I said dead flowers.  Some States in the United States license florists to ensure the quality of the flowers you buy.  They license hair stylists and other occupations as well.  States will require these people to pay fees, sometimes in upwards of a thousand dollars or more, and job training just to be able to cut someone’s hair.  Some times they even have people get a license even if the training for that license has nothing to do with the job or service they wish to perform.  An example of this comes from Stossel’s episode where a woman wanted to provide a service in the form of Jamaican hair braiding.  She was forced to get a license and go to a class on how to cut hair and at no time was she ever instructed on how to braid hair.  In other words she had to get a license on a service she was never going to perform, hair cutting, just so she could braid hair.  Money and hours wasted.

The situation with licensing gets worse:  Imagine some kids who want to open a lemonade stand on a street corner or even right in front of there own home.  The government shuts them down because they did not get a license to open up a business (which is used for tax purposes).  Well it happened, and not just to kids with lemonade stands.  It happened to kids who wanted to sell pumpkins (compliments of their parents) and to kids trying to sell cookies.  Just search the internet and you’ll find this kind of foolishness everywhere.  It’s no wonder it’s so hard to open a business.

Why do governments license these things so excessively?:  Well I can only give my opinion, but I think its government greed.  For one the States get revenue when only licensed businesses sell there products and not from the untaxed street corner lemonade stand.  This is especially true when it can take over $1,000 just to get a license from the government, and that’s not including the training costs.  The other reason is to remove competition.  For instance a New York cabby can only get a medallion to own a cab by paying anywhere from $100,000 to $600,000 depending on what the New York City taxi and limousine commission decides.  It only takes $600, classes and a drug test to drive though.  It is a system designed to suppress the competition by pricing them out of the market, thus it is almost impossible to be an independent operator.  Lobbying at its best, government sponsored monopoly at its worst. 

 The Alternative: So rather than licensing people arbitrarily to protect people dead flowers (mind you, who would shop at a florist if there flowers are just going to die the very next day) lets be smart about it.  Let’s decide what is absolutely necessary to be licensed.  Police and Firefighters come to mind.  Doctor’s, plumbers, electricians, and architects are another.  No one wants a bad doctor, so let’s make sure they have a certificate confirming that they have been trained to heal the sick.  Plumbers and electricians need to be licensed to ensure our homes don’t become money pits.  Architects need a license to ensure buildings won’t fall down upon its occupants.  It should not stop a non-architect from designing a building; it will just need an architect to give it a pass before it is built.  So those jobs that provide specialized construction all need some form of license.

I can only think of only one other occupation, a trial lawyer. I do not mean law professionals in general, but only the lawyers who become advocates for the defense and prosecuting attorneys. A legal letter or other such services do not require a lawyer’s expertise as there is instructions to write such things on the internet and your write to defend yourself should not be infringed because you yourself are not a lawyer. I say this because some one was actually arrested for writing a legal letter on behalf of an elderly man who designed a church for his community which was built. The elderly gentleman did not have a license to be an architect, and to try and keep him out of jail a friend wrote a legal letter on his behalf. This friend was arrested for writing a legal letter without having a license to be a lawyer, in which he was incarcerated for a month until he apologized to the court. Take note that he could have been out sooner, but he was trying to maintain his rights as a citizen and that his incarceration was a court order and he was not convicted of a crime.

 

Conclusion: I question why it is a crime to help your fellow man and why government wishes to corrupt itself by maintaining monopolies on chosen businesses. By the way monopolies can only exist if governments let them. We have this at the federal level with health insurers having monopolies in particular States. So I say lets end the arbitrary corruption of government licensing. To learn more on this and other issues you may simply watch more of John Stossel on the Fox Business network.

Issue 73 Who should not have a gun May 9, 2013

As my post yesterday was about the people who want to and possibly need to own a gun I thought it appropriate to examine who should not have one. So here it goes.

Convicted Criminals: The most obvious are convicted criminals. We do not want or need these people being released just to return to a life of crime. However, not all criminals should be banned from owning guns. Those criminals who should never be allowed to own a gun in my opinion are rapists and child molesters. Additionally, people convicted of other violent crimes already involving a gun or deadly weapon such as a person who committed armed robbery or a murder. That sums of the list of who should not own a gun when it comes to criminals. People who have been in bar fights, petty theft are small time criminals who chose the least violent rout possible and thus should not be considered as dangerous upon release. Those who commit victimless crimes like insider trading also should be exempted from the ban. If they already own a gun (that was not used in the crime in question) obviously it should be seized, but it should be returned upon their release. Like I said earlier, those who commit violent criminal acts should never be allowed to own a gun again, but those who do not commit such acts should be allowed the trust of society once again. But if you want to be safe, repeat offenders will be banned from owning fire arms as well.

Mentally ill: People in this category also should not be allowed to own guns. Wait, forget what I said, some people in this category should not be allowed to own guns. You are probably thinking why on earth some people who are mentally ill should be allowed to own a gun. Well, it is very simple, members of both the police and the military are considered to be mentally ill. These members of law enforcement and our troops suffer from depression, anxiety, bi-polarism, extreme stress and other such mental disorders which would classify them as mentally ill. These men and women have access to some of the most powerful arsenals on earth, and you know what, we trust them. So people with mental illness should be allowed to own a gun, but who amongst people in this category should not.

Those in this category that should not be allowed to own a firearm are those who would seek to harm themselves or others. You will need a trained professional to diagnose such cases and even then exceptions can me made based on how severe someone’s condition is, i.e. a person who is prone to suicide due to post traumatic stress should not be allowed to own a gun. Even if these people are not allowed to own a gun in the short term, this should not prohibit them from owning a gun once their condition is under control. Just remember, if we just out right banned people with such disorders then we would be disarming almost everyone. Face it; we are all a little nuts.

Conclusion: Yes there are exceptions to every rule. Some of you may agree with me, while others may want even tighter restrictions and I welcome the conversation. However, I would like to bring to your attention a more pressing concern, the way mentally ill people in the U.S. are treated medically. There are instances where doctors are not allowed to take on there case if these people do not show any signs of wanting to harm themselves or others. As a result, these people go untreated. Before we really want to fix gun laws (let alone actually enforce ones that work) we have to fix the mental health care system so we can help to prevent things like school shootings. There are other little things we can do to prevent good citizens from becoming murderers to, like addressing issues with school bulling which can drive kids to kill their peers. We can address issues with criminality by adjusting laws to stop ruining peoples live in victimless crimes like abusing a drug, and even prevent repeat offenders by finding ways to show employers that these former criminals are trustworthy so they don't turn back to a life of crime. Laws can only react to a problem, but what I’m talking about here helps to reduce such issues from occurring, and that is all we can do.