Happy Halloween!

Two fun items on today, the commemoration of Samhain (a Celtic festival pronounced sow-in) and All Hallows Eve (the eve of All Hallows day or All Saints day, November 1). For more history on Halloween, check out this History Channel web page.

The first item is an article on death:
Every year as Halloween approaches, macabre articles and stories show up in the media. This year is no different. One of the darkest articles I have come across is one entitled "How Does It Feel To Die?" by Anna Gosline, published in issue 2625 of New Scientist magazine on 13 October 2007.

To be honest, it is an interesting read. Personally, I've had to deal with the deaths of more than a couple of people in my time as a teenager volunteering as an EMT on a local ambulance company. Drownings always intrigued me the most as a way to die and I'll agree with the author that drowning does have "a certain dark romance to it" (though don't ask me why). I have to admit that the description in the article doesn't make it sound like a particularly peaceful way to go.

In addition to drowning, the article covers lethal heart attacks, bleeding to death, death by fire, decapitation, electrocution, falls from great heights, hanging, lethal injection, and explosive decompression. All in all, an interesting Halloween read.

The second item is some fun facts on ghosts and property law from the Volokh Conspiracy, a blog focused on law:
The blog entry references an AP poll that shows that "that 34% of Americans believe in ghosts and 23% claim to have actually seen one." This plays right into an interesting legal requirement of homeowners looking to sell their property: you must disclose to potential buyers if your house is haunted.

According to a 1991 New York appellate court decision, potential home buyers have a right to know if a house they are looking at purchasing is widely believed to be haunted because that might affect resale value. An interesting thing to think about with all the ghosts and goblins running around tonight.

Happy Halloween!

"Put your hands in the air...and pick up the broom!"

From the Montgomery Advertiser: Burglar made to clean up mess:

Man and woman come home to find house has been trashed and burglarized.

Man turns around and sees the burglar, wearing the victim's hat, walking in the back door.

Man holds suspect at gunpoint while waiting for police.

Man figures he might as well make the most of the wait time and makes the burglar clean the house back up.

Burglar complains to police upon their arrival of being forced to clean the house at gunpoint.

Police laugh in his face and tell him he is lucky he wasn't shot dead upon walking back into the home.

With the exception of the poor victims' possessions being stolen (the article doesn't say that the police were able to recover the stolen property), this is one of the best stories I have read in a while.

Things I Should Have Learned in High School Biology

I have to admit, I laughed out loud at this article and so did Heather. Enjoy a fun read and keep it in mind for any reptilian pets your kids or grandkids may have.

Pay Attention in Biology Class

On Birth Control, Parental Rights, and Parental Responsibility

For those who haven't heard, on 10/17/2007, the Portland Maine School Committee just approved a proposal that allows students at Kind Middle School to be prescribed birth control. The proposal is talked about before its passage in this article at the Portland Press Herald site. It passed with a 7-2 vote on Wednesday night.

Let me explain some of the details. First, this covers students in grades 6-8 which generally covers ages 11-13. It is only available to parents who have given permission for their children to be treated in the King Middle School's health center. There is no gradations of permission, meaning that if you give permission for your child to be treated for a sprained ankle they suffered during gym class or even Tylenol for a headache, you also have given permission for them to obtain birth control.

Originally, this was simply the distribution of condoms. As of the passage of the proposal it also means that 11 year old girls will be able to go in and be examined by a physician or nurse practitioner and receive prescriptions for a full range of birth control means. From the above article: "Types of prescription birth control available through the health centers include contraceptive pills, patches or injections, as well as the morning-after pill. Diaphragms and IUDs are not usually prescribed, [Lisa Belanger, a nurse practitioner who oversees the city's student health centers] said.

Now here's the kicker: as per Maine laws, children have a right to seek confidential health care which means that the clinic is prohibited from telling the parents about any treatment the children receive. They encourage the children to tell their parents, but they cannot force the children to and the clinic cannot disclose it.

For starters, I am not opposed to the clinic making available condoms. At least in this matter, I am a realist and know that thanks to parents who are derelict in their responsibility to sexually educate their children and our grossly sexualized society, there are children of those ages who may choose to experiment sexually. Condoms are a barrier device and in addition to providing contraceptive measures, also protect against sexually transmitted diseases. None of the now prescribe-able birth control measures protect against STDs. So strike one against them.

Secondly, there are the potential health hazards. Increased risks of cervical cancer, breast cancer, and lethal blood clots are all hazards. One 1997 study found that women who had previously used oral contraceptives were 40% more likely to have Lupus. An increased incidence rate of all auto-immune diseases was found among pill users. On top of that, hormonal contraceptives can increase moodiness. With suicide being the third leading cause of death among young Americans and rates for suicide among 10-14 year old girls (exactly the age range we are talking about) up 76% from previous rates and teenage girl suicides up in gerneral (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/09/06/health/main3239837.shtml), do we need to potentially add to the problem with mood altering contraceptives. That is in addition to the increased likelihood of depression in teenage girls who are sexually active (more than three times as likely according to http://www.heritage.org/Research/Abstinence/cda0304.cfm).

With the exception of the diaphragm, which isn't even a commonly prescribed measure, all of those are hormone changing agents and in the case of some IUDs (intra-uterine devices: a device that is inserted into the uterine that do several things including plugging the fallopian tubes so that sperm cannot enter and fertilize the egg) they stop the menstrual cycle completely and the recipient no longer has periods! Recently, some oral contraceptives have accomplished the same thing of eliminating periods altogether. I am a bit out of my league in discussing the emotional and societal right of passage associated with menarche, the stabilizing of the menstrual period, and how learning to handle the God given gift of reproduction impacts a young teen girl, but I will venture a guess that taking a pill that stops all of that when it has barely started may have some long term implications on a psycho-emotional level.

Another risk of hormonal contraceptives is the common side effect of weight gain. Take a look at these statistics from the 2005 CDC Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System:

• Nationwide, 12.3% of high school students had gone without eating for 24 hours or more to lose weight or to keep from gaining weight during the last 30 days.
• During the last 30 days, 6.3% of students nationwide had taken diet pills, powders, or liquids without a doctor’s advice to lose weight or to keep from gaining weight.
• Nationwide, 4.5% of students had vomited or taken laxatives to lose weight or to keep from gaining weight during the last 30 days. Overall the prevalence of having vomited or taken laxatives to lose weight or to keep from gaining weight was higher among female (6.2%) than male (2.8%) students.
  

And yet, for some reason, a contraceptive that increases these girls' weight is supposed to be good for them?

I guess the worst part of all this is the removal of the parents from the scenario. Suddenly, an 11 year old is expected to be mature enough to make these decisions on her own and deal with the ensuing consequences with no support from her parents. She is supposed to have the foresight, wisdom, and clarity of thought necessary to make what would be a decision that will have effects that echo for decades of if not her entire life.

But, after all, who are we to tell our kids anything or to teach them anything. There is a quote attributed to Theodore Roosevelt that goes: "To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society." In today's society, this is laughed at and some people thoroughly disagree with it questioning why we as parents have any right to teach our children what is right or wrong.

One such man is Presidential hopeful John Edwards. Courtesy of The Boston Globe article Don't leave educating our children to the government:

When the party's presidential candidates debated at Dartmouth College recently, they were asked about a controversial incident in Lexington, Mass., where a second-grade teacher, to the dismay of several parents, had read her young students a story celebrating same-sex marriage. Were the candidates "comfortable" with that?

"'Yes, absolutely,' former senator John Edwards promptly replied. 'I want my children . . . to be exposed to all the information . . . even in second grade . . . because I don't want to impose my view. Nobody made me God. I don't get to decide on behalf of my family or my children. . . . I don't get to impose on them what it is that I believe is right.'"

Sadly, Mr. Edwards, it is looking like the option of teaching our kids and helping to guide them is being legislated right out of parents' hands. I recognize why the law prohibiting clinics from disclosing information to parents exists. It is to protect that minority of children whose parents are abusive or neglectful from retaliating against them should the child seek treatment for an abuse injury or turn to an adult for help with a medical problem that, for whatever reason, they cannot turn to their parents for. But instead of penalizing all parents and leaving them in the dark, couldn't a way be devised to only penalize the bad ones? An example from off the top of my head, if the child feels that their parents will be abusive or retaliate against them, they can opt to have it kept confidential and then turn the case over to a social worker for follow up.

I don't know what the answer is, but I know that Maine laws and the laws in so many other states make a blanket abridgment all parents' rights are not.

Thoughts?

***Update: Everything I just talked about I just found more support for in an article indicating that STDs infections are way up in California. Two quick quotes.

According to a study published last month in the Californian Journal of Health Promotion, there were 1.1 million new cases of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) among young Californians in 2005, the California Catholic reports. If the study is accurate, diseases such as chlamydia, gonorrhea, syphilis, HPV, and HIV now infect almost one out of four Californians in the 15-24 age group.

Along with the increase in sexually transmitted infections, there has also been a striking increase in the suicide rates among young people. UCLA psychiatrist Dr. Miriam Grossman has argued that promiscuity is the root cause of much depression. She believes the promiscuity-depression-suicide link is being ignored by doctors who fail to caution students about the dangers of the "hook-up" culture.

You can read the rest at http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=10728

A (not so) Brief Introduction To This Blog

I actually started this blog a year ago. The original explanation of the title and purpose are below. I never posted to it but I put together a basic premise of what I felt passionate about writing. Sadly, I just don't have the time to put into a blog that is completely devoted to that topic, the Sole Morality that the blog is named for.

I keep coming across items in the news or online that I feel a need to talk about and wanting to share with friends and family. So, I have decided to post what I can on here. Some of the content will be serious and in line with what I originally intended this blog to be for and other postings will simply be other things I come across that I want to share, be they funny, thought provoking, or exasperating. I'll do my best to keep any personal entries at least moderately interesting.

In the end, keep in mind that I am doing my best at juggling a family, school, a job, and an internship, so some postings may simply be a line or two and a link.

With that out of the way, on to the original explanation of "The Sole Morality."

***

In his 1905 State of the Union address, President Theodore Roosevelt said the following:

“There are those who believe that a new modernity demands a new morality. What they fail to consider is the harsh reality that there is no such thing as a new morality. There is only one morality. All else is immorality. There is only true Christian ethics over against which stands the whole of paganism. If we are to fulfill our great destiny as a people, then we must return to the old morality, the sole morality.”

Roosevelt is addressing a problem that I see everywhere. It is the faulty premise that what is morally right and wrong changes with the times. Society at large seems to preach one of two views concerning morality.

The first theory of morality is that morality is what we make it and that it can be changed at any time simply by the majority of people changing their definition of what is moral. Thus the idea that any single point is morally right or wrong (let’s take abortion as an example) is purely a majority decision.

An extension of this is the idea that the law is what makes things moral or immoral. If a particluar item is against the law, having been made so by the legislators that the majority have elected, then it is immoral and if no laws prohibit it, it is moral. Those that subscribe to this philosphy don’t have any morals themselves, but only those morals that others say they have.

The second theory of morality is that you, I, and everyone else has not right to be dictating what is right or wrong for anyone else at all. They believe that morality is what you make it and if another person disagrees, well then they aren't wrong, they are just different.

While the second school of thought is dangerous in its own right because it advocates a free for all in morality, it is the first theory that I believe is the most dangerous to society as a whole. The only way to base things off of a majority opinion is to poll the population or at least a significant part of it. This is hardly possible in today's society.

From the legislative view of morality, with voter turnout around 55% (actually hit 60% at the Bush-Kerry polls), we can barely tell what the majority of people want if all votes were unanimous, let alone if it is a close poll. And that is if it is a big election. Mid-term elections tend to run 10-15% lower in voter turnout. Secondly, those who turn out are largely uninformed about issues and candidates (see this National Review article). A good portion of the rest of voters are activists in one area or another and are often the ones encouraging and coaching the uninformed about how to vote. Then there is the voter fraud that takes place. The majority is hardly, if ever, a "simple majority."

Consequently, morality founded on common belief isn't necessarily commonly believed. In far too many cases, it is simply the voice of the more popular activists. Morality should not be established based on who or how many yell and how loudly they do so. Morality cannot be established like that. Morality is not something that can be changed or adjusted based on who thinks what.

Roosevelt believed, and I believe with him, that there is a higher source of morality than what others say. There are eternal morals that stand higher than and cannot be overruled by common consent. Even if laws are passed to the contrary, it does not mean that such morality is wrong or changed, it merely means that people have chosen to ignore a moral in much the same way they chose to ignore their mother when she asked if they would jump off a cliff just because all their friends were.

I believe that mankind as a whole is on a downward moral spiral. We are abandoning the morals that made us great in favor of what is popular with the shrill common voice that often isn’t even the majority of people, but simply those yelling the loudest.

There is a sole morality that we must return to and abide by if we as a people wish society to become as great as it can be. I don’t claim to completely understand what that sole morality is or what it encompasses. I don’t claim to be right in everything I write on this blog. In fact, I expect to change or at least adjust my position on topics that come up as intelligent comments and emails are submitted. All I claim is that I worry that we keep slipping further away from that sole morality.