iPandora

…to be doorways to intimacy with Him. And the best kept secret about obedience in the face of hard temptation is that there is a blessing waiting on the other side. Satan doesn’t want us to know that. He would prefer the usual succumb-and-repent routine.”
~Andree Seu, No Glib Utterances, World Magazine, July 18th 2009

I miss a lot of people.

Living near Sacramento for 20 years or so, in San Jose for 2 years, and now Chicago area for 3-1/2 years now, there are many people I’ve left behind, both in space and time.

My Facebook friends list is testament to this. Only people I’ve actually met or had substantial interaction or connection with are my friends on facebook. I don’t accept people as friends just because we have mutual friends or because they ask. And still the list just passed 600 people.

Old churches, social groups, organizations, choirs, jobs, etc. Each contribute a few more memories to me and a few more friends to my life. And a few more people to feel melancholy when I remember I haven’t seen them for some time.

I’m glad that for my thus far short history the years have been full of joy and pain, angst and enthusiasm, love and loss. It means that I’ve made much of the opportunities I’ve been given and for the many people I’ve rubber shoulders with many relationships have begun.

And for the vast majority of them, I know they will continue on forever as they are with brothers and sisters of Christ.

Better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all.

And so, on this Thanksgiving Day, 2008, I wish that for each of you there will be people you can remember, joys you can share, love you can bask in, and plenty of blessings to relish today, and for each and every day of your life, both long past and yet to come.

Continued from part 6

Salvation: God set up a system of free will. It is not the nicer, or cleaner, or prettier system. But it is the best system. In the short run (life here on earth) there is much pain and suffering, but in the long term those who find the truth and are set free through their acceptance of it experience the personal peace and freedom which the rest of the world will never understand.

Also, looking at America. God does not necessarily reserve His blessing for those who follow exactly in His way, and we often cannot see why it is God bestows blessing upon one and appears to withhold it from another. America, for whatever reason, is blessed far beyond any other nation right now. We have an incredible level of personal wealth spread throughout a percentage of the population unprecedented in the history of civilization. This has many benefits, dangers, and opportunities.

The benefits are obvious: a level of development and technological advancement with only a few equals, a level of stability and available leisure unmatched through history by a greater amount of the populace, and many other. The dangers are real: an apathy for anything worthwhile. The opportunities are endless: the ability to send money and resources to corners of the Globe with such volume that entire nations make base their economies on our own, sending us goods to get our money.

The Christian in this economy has many responsibilities. The foremost is to not allow themselves to be controlled by anything except Christ. The next is to provide for his own as God has given him. The next, but not less important, is to use what he has been given to meet the needs of those around.

This is done with wisdom and grace. Even Paul used strong language when advising the churches that they should not give money to just anyone who asks. He said that it is wrong to give money to someone who is able to work and does not. He said that hunger will teach that person the necessity of work. It is better to allow the person to starve now and learn, than to feed him and harm him by that food.

Further, in the StoryofStuff, it become obvious that the narrator believes the entity primarily responsible for her desired salvation is the government. Our Constitution prohibits the government from taking that sort of responsibility from private industries, a policy Barack Obama knows about and wishes to change. The very idea of government being capable of successfully supporting the social needs of a dependent population is a historical, philosophical, and theoretical demonstrably false idea.

Think Communism/socialism/Marxism. Think the philosophers of the French Revolution and Enlightenment. Think of who is best able to decide how to use their own money? You or the government.

And even if you think the government is better suited to that task than yourself: who then will God hold responsible for the use of the resources He has gifted to us? The Government? I think not.

God will judge governments in His own way, and He will judge me by how I made use of the resources available to me. If I abdicate my responsibility by passing my buck to the government willingly, allowing them to decide how to spend my dollar wastefully, I am held responsible by God for that abdication.

No, I stand with the resources God has given me, knowing the myriad problems plaguing the world, and using my resources to accomplish the most good according to the conscience God has given me. I can and will do no less.

Continued from part 5

10 Little and Big Things You Can Do:

1: Hypocrisy: Publicly-”Green” people tend to fly more, take more expensive and expansive vacations and use loop-hole systems such as Carbon Offsets to make the claim they are caring about the environment (ie: Al Gore).
Demonizing Corporations: Requires corporations.Solar panels require extremely high amounts of wealth and take extreme amounts of time to recoup the dollar and energy costs.

2: Average people are better at this, the cost of items drives conservation. Growing up we always used paper garbage bags for our trash bags in the kitchen. I upgrade computers for several years, replacing internal parts piecemeal as my needs change.

Potential Hypocrisy: “Visibly engage in re-use”: It’s what we do when people aren’t watching that shows who we are. We should simply engage in re-use, not visibly or invisibly, but as part of who we are.

3: Good, but know where the rational, reasonable, and practical parts are, and avoid the conspiracies, fallacies, and manipulations which use the Green movement to further enrich callous liars such as Al Gore.

4: Al Gore, wrong poster boy. John Doe, right poster boy. Climate change, arguable issue, plenty of science on either side. Cyclical, “hockey stick” graph magnifies an infinitesimal temperature change, ignore the fact that the pollution spike follows after the temperature spike. Sun spot cycles are more closely correlated in a casual relationship.

5: Good, but Chemical and Toxic do not necessarily equal. Is not government’s responsibility. Internet and modern communcation allows ’small’ people to have large voices and affect real and substantive pressure for change on private industry.

EU example: “Tin slivers” are dangerous, lead better, more reliable, safer for the reliability it has. Forces private industry to make inferior products.

6: Agree. This is the Church.

7: Public transportation does not ease congestion, is prone to government-induced cronyism and corruption in the lucrative contracts. Dirty, inefficient, cannot profit. Is not federal government’s responsibility. Privatize public transportation. Airlines and bus lines and Ocean lines are profitable and successful. Why not trains? Government run failures.

Master-planned communities tend to be less diverse economically and inhibit the upward- and cross-mobilism that is encouraged by an open and spread community system. Is government going to require people live within 5 miles of their job? Who can do this? Do you want to be forced to live next door to the supermarketor the office building? This inhibits personal freedom and the meeting of needs by artificially conforming all members of a community to lead similar lives in a pre-defined economony. This is a tried and proven recipe for economic stagnation, poverty, and dissatisfaction (ie: communism/socialism). Causes harm.

8: Hypocrisy: CFLs (“energy efficient light bulbs”) contain mercury, which is released when they are disposed of or broken. Talking about toxins: Mercury is known bad. Also, some people are more sensitive to the 60-Hz “flicker” of fluorescent bulbs, causing headaches and other physical problems. It’s a good idea at its root, but more wealth allows for more development which allows for better solutions. CFLs are not the solution to the lighting problem. Corporations need the freedom to innovate further to address the needs which we present to them through the force of the market.

Answer is to innovate and develop and start own corporation which will produce the solution.

9: Recycled bottles take more energy to make than “original” bottle of similar dimension. Needs innovation and development to make effective. Only because we have corporations allowing people to make money and get rich can we afford to support economically wasteful systems which are cleaner and more “Green”.

10: Good… but. Wal-mart. Average family in Wal-mart neighborhood has $2000 extra at the end of the year because of the price deflation a Wal-mart forces on the area. Thats $2000 they can spend on glasses for their kids, medicine, etc, without going to the government. Wal-mart hires people not as ‘acceptable’ at other places: mentally handicapped, older, etc. Without Wal-mart keeping their costs down they would be forced only to hire healthy, good-looking people like everybody else. What is better: An Old person with self-respect due to a productive job who has to pay for their own health insurance or an old person decrepit and decaying in the lounger at the nursing home paid for at exculpatory rates by money taken from you and me by government-run bloated social welfare programs which I can no longer use to give to my Church so they can’t keep up the outreach to the nursing home or to pay for medicine for my children?

Yes, there is a problem and the root of the solution is not all that complex.

Continue reading in part 7

Continued from part 4

CONSUMPTION: “Golden arrow” “heart of the system, the engine that drives it.
“Protecting this arrow (of consumption) has become the top priority for (government and corporations).”
After 9/11 President Bush told US to shop. – The economy had been hurt. It was not the only thing he said. Bush said many things during that time, among them he dealt with the serious blow to our economy. He was standing well in his position with the bully-pulpit to minimize the effect the attacks had on us. The goal of the terrorists was to cripple our nation in as many ways possible, including economically. To address this specific threat Bush did make statements encouraging us to not sit tight and hunker down. If the economy took a hard hit from people acting in fear, people would have lost their jobs, lost money, experienced much more damage than we actually did. This was not a cold-calculated attempt to shore up his ‘buddies’ in business, this was Bush’s way to keep Americans acting from a position of strength.
Percentage of resources still in use 6 months after purchase: 1% -
99% trashed within 6 months – How much of this is packaging? Terrible packaging, wasteful. Can the government do better? They can’t design a simple tax system. What do you think their packaging would look like? Once again, the private citizen using the resources available to them can change this. In the news just today Amazon.com reports they are redesigning packaging and encouraging other companies to do the same to minimize waste and improve the user experience with packaging in response to one person’s ‘encouragement’. It’s not that this isn’t a problem, it’s just the implied solution is far from the best.
“It didn’t just happen. It was designed.”
“Our enormously productive economy demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction, our ego satisfaction, in consumption…We need things consumed, burned up, replaced and discarded at an ever-accelerating rate.” Victor Lebow, 1955 – This is idolatry to a Christian who participates to the extent people such as Lebow desire or prescribe. That is undeniable. But it is wisdom to participate to the extent God allows us, for in our participation we expand the gifts God has given us (Parable of the Talents), benefit others through the melding and expansion of each others resources, and enable ourselves to support ministries which further His work on this earth.
Purpose of the economy is to create more consumer goods – NOT: Health care, Education, Safe transportation, Sustainability, Justice. Governments have a God-given responsibility to apply Justice. We ourselves, as individuals and together as an independent society have the opportunity to meet all the other needs through the strength of the economy. If there was not this vehicle for spurring innovation and creating wealth, how would any development and growth occur in any of these other categories?
Planned obsolescense: “Planned for the dump” OK for smaller things, packaging. Now bigger stuff too. – Solution? Research and buy more reliable stuff. I purchase a quintessential toss-away technology item, a portable CD player, 10 years ago. I paid $150, which is significantly more than people pay on average for such devices. However, mine is still running. My cost is therefore only $10 per year. A good price. And no extra junk for those 10 years from disposing of cheaper products. It’s not like I’ve not abused the device, it’s followed me to work and school in my pockets, walking, on the bus, bicycling, etc… It’s just better. Armed with the extensive knowledge we have today, we are more able than ever to verify products reliability. All this ability is because of the capitalist system which encourages innovation.
Percieved obsolescence: “Convinces us to throw away stuff that is still perfectly useful”
Not keeping up with the times.
“It’s to keep us buying new shoes” – We are allowing ourselves to be controlled and defined by media. There is nothing which says we must act a certain way as defined by the media, there is just our decision to allow such things control in our lives. If we allow ourselves to be controlled, we are not victims, we are weak but nevertheless guilty independent moral agents.

National happiness peaked in 1950s (post war). Why? – Because we were all working, on a post-war high. Industry was thriving. Poor people 20 years previously were now part of the exploding middle class. More people were going to school and getting college degrees than ever before. All because of the incredible wealth ingenuity and innovation supported by a free-market, capitalist system which had just vanquished a strong enemy in the form of Fascist Nazi Germany.

DISPOSAL: Trash – 4.5 pounds each day per person

Dumped in landfill or burned and dumped – Burning trash was the main power generation method in Woodland, CA. It may not be cleanest, but it does use the the output in a creative and productive manner.

Climate change: incineration, super toxins, Dioxin. – Climate change does not enjoy the scientific consensus many would like it to. After the UN report on climate change came out, several scientists sued to have their names removed from its list of endorsers, claiming they’d been misled in the content of the report. The climate change models popularized by Al Gore are suspect at the very best, with causation and correlation confused and data manipulated in ways that ought not be in serious scientific pursuits. Further, the aims and goals of many of those claiming catastrophic global warming are more damaging to society than they are helping to global climate change.

Recycling helps – Recycling is not energy effective. It takes more energy to recycle paper and plastic than it does to make more and new. Not that recycling is bad, it just takes a wealthy society to support an effective recycling system.

Core of the problems? - The solutions proposed in so many of these arguments engaged the government in taking over huge sections of private industry in an attempt to make it all work in some happy circle. Individuals building corporations to provide creative and effective solutions or convincing other corporations to clean up their acts is more effective and do not have the same crippling effect on the economy and devastation on people’s lives as the government intrusion.

Labor rights, blocking landfills and incinerators, taking back government (of the people by the people). - How do labor rights get in here? This is not a list of solutions, it’s a laundry list of the speaker’s favorite pet socio-political projects. Taking back government is an excellent course of action, one I can definitely sign on to. But I think her ideas and my ideas of what that government ought to do are very different and mutually irreconcilable. Instead, make government small and increase the ability of people to convince corporations to act responsibly. At the same time remove the protections from people who do try to convince those corporations so that frivilous suits over pointless and wasteful stupidities will be deterred from their damaging and greedy quests.

“Chuck the throw-away mindset” – Excellent idea. All for this one.
“Local living economies” – Read: “Master-planned communities” Who plans those communities? Allowing communities to grow naturally is better. Zoning laws needlessly restrict the growth of communities along the predetermined lines preferred by city planners.

People created problem, people have to create solution. - But can we? All these problems are symptoms of a single, much larger problem: human sin. And we are unable to resolve it. We do what we can as part of our changed and redeemed natures as Christians to fix problems as we can with the first goal of bringing others in from the dark of sin and into the light of Christ.

Continue reading in part 6

Continued from part 3

DISTRIBUTION: “Selling all the toxic, contaminated junk as fast as possible”
“Keep the prices low, keep the people buying, keep the inventory moving”
“How do they keep the prices down?”
“They don’t pay the workers very much, and they skimp on health insurance everytime they can. It’s all about externalizing the costs. What that means is the real costs of making stuff aren’t captured in the price.” – Is there a mandate that companies provide health insurance? It definitely is a perk and people are perfectly able to vote with their feet and take jobs which provide insurance coverage, which will then encourage more employers to provide health insurance.
“We aren’t paying for the stuff we buy”
“I didn’t pay for the radio. So who did pay?”
These people paid with the loss of their natural resource space.
These people paid with the loss of their clean air, with increasing asthma and cancer rates. – A bugbear: healthy diet and exercise have been shown over and over again to allow our body to process toxins it encounters and avoid the problems many people result to medication to resolve. Also, studies have shown that rates of many diseases are not increasing so much as diagnosis of them is. People are more willing to be tested for diseases and conditions and accept treatment of those diseases and therefore the incidence rates are going up. There may indeed be increases in the actual incidence rate, but we cannot know a) how much is accounted for by the more pervasive testing and b) whether there is significant enough correlation between the two data sets to support the claim of pollution causing the increasing incidences of illness.
“Kids in the Congo paid with their future. 30% of kids in the Congo dropped out of school to mine… a metal we need for our cheap and disposable electronics.” – If that job payed them more than they’ve ever dreamed of earning before in a society where education does not mean what it means to us, is that as terrible as the initial claims sounds? The video makes the error of viewing these cultures through the prism of a Western viewpoint. The children would be better served in the long run by staying in school now. Their potentials would be significantly improved. But to leave those schools now and go to work supporting their families was a valid and tempting option to many of them. Our cheap and disposable electronics has grown their economy and given money to the lowest of the low in their society. How is that bad again?
These people paid by having to cover their own health insurance. - If you compel every employer to provide health insurance, you raise the cost of each employee to their employer. If the cost of employing people goes up, employers will employ fewer people. So then which is better: A worker paying for their own insurance or an unemployed person unable to pay for anything and living off the government dole?
All along this system people pitched in so I could get this radio for $4.99. - That is the beauty of the system. It is not perfect, and many people don’t get the same “treatment” by the system. But by and large, more than any other system that has been tried or theorized, more people benefit to a greater extent across all levels of income, culture, and economy by the capitalist system. It is not that capitalism is the perfect system, it is simply the best system we humans can engage in.

Continued from part 5

Continued from part 2

PRODUCTION: “Use energy to mix toxic chemicals in with natural resources to make toxic contaminated products” – Very crafty. Immediately we associate the words “toxic” “chemical” “contaminated” and “products” where there is not a necessary link. Chemicals are naturally occurring elements. Sodium Chloride is a chemical, and we use it in food to help our bodies retain water (Table salt). Dihydrogen Oxide is a chemical, and yet we’d die without it (water).
Over 100,000 synthetic chemicals in use in commerce today. – Very little could be made without them.
Only a handful tested for health impacts. – This is true, and a problem. Market pressure from a populace wealthy enough to pay for the extensive and expensive testing is the best way to fix.
None tested for “synergistic” health impacts: impacts when combined with other chemicals accidentally or purposefully. – See above
Toxins in = toxins out – True. Read about Lobsters. Talk to ShatteredChina.
BFR’s = neuro-toxins, flame retardants added to many products. – How many lives are saved because of it? Is there something better right now? There are places people can purchase products free of this.
Food with highest level of “toxic” contaminants: Human Breast Milk – Real gut-wrencher. Likely true, but what does it mean? Here in the most toxic land on the planet we have very low infant mortality rates. Why?
Babies = most vulnerable – What about abortion? Which is the greater moral ill: possible harm from higher toxin rates in their food, or killing them before they even have a chance?
Why are we not protecting “sacred” breast feeding.
Goes back to government: “I thought they were looking out for us” – Is the government morally responsible or is it defined in their limited scope to protect breast feeding? This is a ludicrous assumption. Government policy may indeed have been indirectly responsible for pollution, but if that is true, do you trust them, being part of the problem, to be part of the solution? Further, your rage, as a consumer with a voice, is much more effective in causing change on the part of the corporations which can develop and create and invent actual solutions to problems. Is the government capable of development of creative solutions?

Factory workers, many women, of reproductive age – This is a bloated claim. Quick to tug the heart strings, but without serious validity. The number of safety precautions in modern manufacturing are mind blowing. Further, this is reminiscent of the tales told in Sociology classes of the hideous conditions of the common man over the years of industry. They are sensationalist and disproven. The photographers famous for their cataloging of the ills of modern commerce were out to make a buck. “If it bleeds, it leads” is a truism and has led to many a distortion. Not that there are not cases of real damage, they just are not nearly as common or egregious as is commonly believe based on the narrative sold us by the purveyors of doom.
No other option – What about the better lives they are able to give their children because they have a more stable job with better wages? A good parent will do what is necessary to give their children every advantage they can. If that includes taking risks, that is a judgment made by each individual. Certain jobs carry risk. Do we ban jobs which entail risk? Would such a ban be truly beneficial?
Erosion of local economies and resources push people to leave previously self-sustaining local economies live in cities - If they were self-sustaining why did people leave? The agrarian economy is subject to a boom/bust cycle which is one reason the push to a industrial/commercial economy has been so embraced by so many. We tend to glamorize the agrarian life-style to a dangerous degree, philosophically. And while there are many good people who survive and thrive in that life-style, many choose to leave it, and have chose to leave it, due to it’s many hardships.
“many to live in slums” – Should we outlaw slums?
“looking for work no matter how toxic that work may be” – And now we are to outlaw work? As a husband and potential/hopeful father, I make a judgment call when I take a job whether the potential risk outweighs the potential benefit. Watch the Discovery Channel’s shows Dangerous Jobs, Ice Road, and other shows which highlight people performing hard work under extreme conditions. Often they enjoy the jobs. They fill serious needs and sometimes ‘frivolous’ desires of
“Not just resources wasted along this system, people are wasted, whole communities” – There is never a waste where people choose to apply themselves to a system which produces. This is loaded language with the intent of causing us to be increasingly against the heart of personal enrichment: the ability to create and earn wealth from that creation.
Environmental impact of production: toxic byproducts, pollution. – This is incontrovertible, but incomplete. Therefore it is misleading.
4 billion pounds US industry “admits” to releasing each year. – Spread that across the volume of the atmosphere, water, subtract for the processing ability of the green on the earth. Now how much is left?
“It’s probably a lot more because that’s only what they admit” – Leading language, assumes they are all crooks.
“So what do they do? Move the dirty factories overseas. Pollute someone elses land.” – Why is it that the Kyoto Accord and other such environmental pacts exempt third-world countries and their corporations and factories from any accountability? Because without the ability to produce “more than their fair share” of garbage until their populace gained enough general wealth they will not be able to afford the production standards and technology necessary to make cleaner factories and production environments.
Pollution “comes right back at us carried by wind currents” – This has been true for a long time. Early mariners sailing outside the Los Angeles bay and basin noted the smog in the areas. It’s not worth panicing over.

Continue reading in part 4

Continued from Part 1

EXTRACTION: “Trashing the planet”
1st limit: running out of resources = using too much stuff.
Last 3 decades used up 1/3 of planets’ resources. Gone. - Where are the figures? This is a bold statement, and there are no references to the actual figures, their source, and their justification. It is also a startlingly bold statement considering the dearth of information about the planet. Do we understand our own planet enough to know the total amount of resources it contains?
Less than 4% of original forests in US. – This is either false or misleading, the United States has more forested acres now than it did when Europeans first landed. It may be true there are fewer ORIGINAL forests, but there are more forests and they are larger now. Also, natural systems such as fires frequently destroyed entire forests as a natural cycle, clearing the way for new growth. But now we fight these fires and protect the forests, meaning they last longer and continue to grow.
40% of waterways become undrinkable. – Advanced filtration systems allow reclamation of the water to allow for better use of the water we have and the use of water previously unusable.
Using “more than our share” of resources. – USA most efficient user of resources. For each unit of resource we use, we produce more than other industrialized nations.
US has 5% of world population, using 30% of world resources. - Once again: how do we know the total of the resources contained in the entire earth? Further, with that 30%, due to the fact that we are most efficient, we create more usable product than any other nation could create if they had that 30%.
Creating 30% of global waste. – USA is most efficient of industrialized nations. For that 30% of waste, we create significantly more usable product than another nation could held to that same level of waste.
US response: take someone else’s resources = exploit third-world. – See above.
“Our stuff that somehow got on somebody else’s land” = trashing. - This is a judgment of motive. The Bible says we cannot know the heart of man, only God can. How can we divine the motive of an entire nation?

75% of global fisheries farmed at or above capacity. – Business acts in it’s own best interest. How can a business act in such a way that it destroys it’s own ability to continue to act in that way?

80% of global forests gone – Where is the data? How much of this is the aridization of Saharan Africa?
If you don’t own or buy stuff = no value.

Continue reading in part 3

An old friend of mine asked me to watch the ‘mercial on StoryofStuff.com and consider what they’re saying.

It’s 20 minutes but if you’re up to it, it’s a well designed and put together commentary on the economy and environment, the problems and possible solutions. It’s not as strident as many people and ideas in the Green movement, but it has faults. Important ones. It’s description of the problem is inaccurate and misleading and seems to have the purpose of limiting the possible solutions to those the the commentator prefers.

It is not all wrong, and the speaker appears sincere and full of the best of intentions. But good intentions and sincerity are all too common among those deceived, even only partially.

In the interest of following our responsibility to be wise as serpents in all things, here’s what stuck out to me while watching the video.

Note: most of this will not make much sense unless you’ve watched the video.

“It’s the government’s job to watch out for us, to take care of us. It’s their JOB”
Corporation is bigger than government. Government wants to please Corp more.

Continue reading in Part 2