Fw from a rtd U Mass prof active on
science/society issues, this msg brings echoes of
what seemed at the time like a main movement
arising in the latter half of the 1960s. The
first to identify its dissipation was - oddly
- H S Thompson.

The term 'second Vietnam War' is news to
me; can someone refer us to an essay explaining
it (by e.g David Horowitz)?

I look fw to discussing with those who
lived thru the late 1960s at Berkeley or similar
centres of 'counter-culture' what movements -
if any - came out of that period.

R

From:
Oaxaca, Saturday May 21, 2005

One of the most beautiful people I've ever met
was a biologist and peacenik, George Wald. His
guest lecture, "A better world for children" to
my Science for Humane Survival class in 1993,
when he was 86, was an unforgettable experience
for me, and, Iím sure, for the students. Wald
explained that he chose that title because he
wanted something short enough to go on a button -
buttons were in vogue - everyone, it seemed, was
a walking propagandist with buttons proclaiming
his or her favorite causes. It was not only
short, but inclusive, he explained, because "a
better world for children" meant a better world
for everyone.

During the "first" Vietnam War (we're now in the
"second") Wald gave a talk, "A generation in
search of a future" which the Boston Globe
printed in full with the following preface:

The crowd of 1200 at M.I.T.'s Kresge Auditorium
[Massachusetts Institute of Technology] last
Tuesday was shifting and restless when Harvard
biologist George Wald rose to speak. Students
and professors there as a part of the "Mar. 4
movement" protesting the misuse of science were
disturbed at the lack of focus in the day's
numerous panel discussions and speeches. The
1967 Nobel prize winner in physiology or medicine
provided a focus. As in his popular lectures at
Harvard, Wald talked extemporaneously, his head
back, his eyes almost closed. His words had an
electric effect. A hush fell over the audience,
broken just once by sustained applause midway in
the speech, and climaxed by a prolonged standing
ovation at its conclusion. It may be the most
important speech given in our time.

Wald's [March 4th?] 1969 talk , as reported in the Boston Globe, began:

"All of you know that in the last couple of years
there has been student unrest breaking at times
into violence in many parts of the world: in
England, Germany, Italy, Spain, Mexico and
needless to say, in many parts of this country.
There has been a great deal of discussion as to
what it all means. Perfectly clearly it means
something different in Mexico from what it does
in France, and something different in France from
what it does in Tokyo, and something different in
Tokyo from what it does in this country. Yet
unless we are to assume that students have gone
crazy all over the world, or that they have just
decided that it's the thing to do, there must be
some common meaning.

"I don't need to go so far afield to look for
that meaning. I am a teacher, and at Harvard, I
have a class of about 350 students - most of them
freshmen and sophomores. Over these past few
years I have felt increasingly that something is
terribly wrong and this year ever so much more
than last. Something has gone sour, in teaching
and in learning. It's almost as though there were
a widesread feeling that education has become
irrelevant.

"A lecture is much more of a dialogue than many
of you probably appreciate. As you lecture, you
keep watching the faces; and information keeps
coming back to you all the time. I began to feel,
particularly this year, that I was missing much
of what was coming back. I tried asking the
students, but they didn't or couldn't help me
very much.

"But I think I know what's the matter, even a
little better than they do. I think that this
whole generation of students is beset with a
profound uneasiness. I don't think that they
have yet quite defined its source, I think I
understand the reasons for their uneasiness even
better than they do. What is more, I share their
uneasiness.

"What's bothering those students? Some of them
tell you it's the Vietnam War. I think the
Vietnam War is the most shameful episode in the
whole of American history. The concept of War
Crimes is an American invention. We've committed
many War Crimes in Vietnam; but I'll tell you
something interesting about that. We were
committing War Crimes in World War II, even
before Nuremberg trials were held and the
principle of war crimes started. The saturation
bombing of German cities was a War Crime and if
we had lost the war, some of our leaders might
have had to answer for it.

"I've gone through all of that history lately,
and I find that there's a gimmick in it. It
isn't written out, but I think we established it
by precedent. That gimmick is that if one can
allege that one is repelling or retaliating for
an aggression after that everything goes. And
you see we are living in a world in which all
wars are wars of defense. All War Departments are
now Defense Departments. This is all part of the
double talk of our time. The aggressor is always
on the other side. And I suppose this is why our
ex-Secretary of State, Dean Rusk a man in whom
repetition takes the place of reason, and
stubbornness takes the place of character went
to such pains to insist, as he still insists,
that in Vietnam we are repelling an aggression.
And if that's what we are doing so runs the
doctrine anything goes. ... {END QUOTE}

- and Salzman recommends

[1] http://www.truthout.com/
[2] http://www.counterpunch.com/
[3] http://www.counterpunch.com/cockburn05142005.html
[4] http://narconews.com/
[5] http://narconews.com/Issue37/article1277.html

All comments and criticisms are welcome.

Note the times of these releases.
Now THAT'S what I call a rapid response.

R

In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 1st October 2005 4:15am

BOEING, BELL HELICOPTER ASKED TO PULL 'MOSQUE ATTACK' AD
Magazine ad shows U.S. special forces rappelling onto mosque roof
(WASHINGTON, D.C., 9/30/2005) - The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) today called on aerospace giants Boeing Co. and Bell Helicopter Textron to pull a print advertisement depicting U.S. troops attacking a mosque.

The ad for the CV-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft, published in the September 24 issue of National Journal magazine, depicts soldiers rappelling onto the roof of a building, labeled "Muhammad Mosque" in Arabic. The building has a dome, crescent moon and minaret, all common features of a mosque.

To view the ad, go to: http://www.cair.com/mosqueattackad.pdf

Headlines on the ad read: "It descends from the heavens. Ironically it unleashes hell." Ad copy states: "The CV-22 delivers Special Forces to insertion points never thought possible."

In a letter to Textron Chairman Lewis B. Campbell, Boeing Company President James A. Bell and Bell Helicopter Chief Executive Officer Michael A. Redenbaugh, CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad wrote:

"[The ad] clearly portrays special forces assaulting a mosque, a structure dedicated to civilian worship purposes. This gives the impression that 'the insertion points never thought possible' are Islamic places of worship. . .This advertisement reflects poorly on Bell Helicopter, Textron and Boeing, and offers a questionable picture of your companies' collective opinion of Islam and Muslims."

Awad asked the companies to withdraw the advertisement and conduct an investigation into how it was approved for publication.

In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 1st October 2005 8:37am

BOEING, BELL, NATIONAL JOURNAL APOLOGIZE FOR 'MOSQUE ATTACK' AD
Boeing: 'We consider the ad offensive, regret its publication and apologize'
(WASHINGTON, D.C., 9/30/2005) - A prominent national Islamic civil rights and advocacy group said this afternoon that Boeing Co., Bell Helicopter Textron and National Journal magazine have apologized for a print advertisement depicting U.S. troops attacking a mosque.

The Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said it had received a statement of apology from Boeing, which sponsored the ad along with Bell. Boeing wrote:

"The CV-22 advertisement that appeared in the National Journal is clearly offensive, and did not proceed through the normal channels within Boeing before production.

"'We consider the ad offensive, regret its publication and apologize to those who like us are dismayed with its contents,' said Mary Foerster, Vice President of Boeing Integrated Defense Systems Communications.

"'When the Company became aware of the advertisement we immediately requested that our partner's agency withdraw and destroy all print proofs of the advertisement and replace it with one that was appropriate,' Foerster said. 'Unfortunately despite our best efforts to have the ad replaced, a clerical error at the National Journal resulted in its publication this week.'"

Representatives of Bell Helicopter and National Journal also contacted CAIR to express regret for the publication of the ad.

National Journal Executive Vice President Elizabeth Baker Keffer wrote: "[T]he advertisement for Boeing/Bell's V-22 Osprey that ran in the September 24 issue of National Journal was run as the result of a clerical error on our part. We had received specific direction from the agency representing Boeing/Bell to not run the ad. We have apologized to Boeing, their partner Bell, and their advertising agency for this mistake."

A Bell statement sent to CAIR said in part: "We recognize that some organizations and individuals may have been offended by its content and regrets any concerns this advertisement may have raised. Bell and our partners are evaluating creative processes to prevent this from happening again."

The ad for the CV-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft depicted soldiers rappelling onto the roof of a building, labeled "Muhammad Mosque" in Arabic. The building has a dome, crescent moon and minaret, all common features of a mosque.

CAIR sent a letter yesterday to top officials of Boeing, Bell and Textron asking the companies to withdraw the advertisement and conduct an investigation into how it was approved for publication. (Bell Helicopter is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Textron.)

"We thank Boeing, Bell and National Journal for their swift and decisive response to our concerns," said CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad. "Mistakes can happen, but the true test of a company's integrity comes in acknowledging and dealing with those mistakes." He said CAIR will follow up with all parties involved to determine how the ad was produced and to help prevent similar incidents in the future.

Awad added that American Muslim groups are always ready to consult with corporations and media outlets on issues related to religious diversity and culturally-sensitive advertising.

**Latest news at http://www.rsnz.org/news/index.php

The full text of news items is only available to Members. For membership details check http://www.rsnz.org/members/join.php

Please send news releases, etc to:

*Items Web-mounted on Thursday, 29 September 2005**


Didymo to have devastating effects
Can smother the habitat for aquatic invertebrate

Invasive algae may wreck more southern rivers, threaten Waikato
Biosecurity officials today widened their alert over the incursion of an
invasive foreign algae - for which there is no biological control - to
all rivers in the South Island

US company to work on jabless avian flu vaccine
MedImmune will try to make an inhaled vaccine by splicing selected genes
from avian flu viruses into a weakened human flu virus

China GMO rice unlikely this year - scientists
Close to approving a genetically modified version

We want human cloning here: Victorian government
Calls for a ban on therapeutic cloning to be lifted

Nobel science prizes remain a male preserve
If history is a guide, a couple of greying men are likely to win the
2005 Nobel physics and chemistry prizes

[of course the harpie who runs this RSNZ teaser system is allowed to imply these awards are not on merit; if they were fair , young women would be given the prizes]

GENETIC CROSSROADS
NEWSLETTER OF THE CENTER FOR GENETICS AND SOCIETY
SEPTEMBER 29, 2005

NOTABLE QUOTE
"Gene doping…is a more clean form…of creating super human beings. This goes way beyond sports…Imagine an army of a million individuals who can out-think, out-use the environment… That's where we're going… and no one's gonna stop it …"
- Jose Canseco, former baseball player, The Kojo Nnamdi Show, WAMU radio (Sept. 26)

I FEATURE: MENTORING GENDER, SELECTING SEX

II CALIFORNIA STEM CELL PROGRAM: CONTINUING CONTROVERSY Who gets the profits?
First grants announced but funding sources uncertain
Bill to reform Prop 71 passes State Senate 39-0

III DEVELOPMENTS NY Times pegs human biotech as coming Supreme Court priority
Jose Canseco: "Super humans walking around in 5 to 8 years"

Move to gut UK oversight body

Florida stem cell initiative: Lessons from California's mistakes?
UK's Lord Robert Winston slams stem cell claims

IV RESOURCES Campaign to End Sex Selection
California symposium on eugenics and genetic engineering, Oct. 21

V CGS IN THE NEWS; NEW CGS STAFF

VI NEWSLETTER SUBSCRIPTION AND FORMAT

I FEATURE: MENTORING GENDER, SELECTING SEX

By Osagie Obasogie, JD
Director, CGS Project on Race, Disability, and Eugenics
September 29 update: A recent report by NPR’s Nell Boyce questions the Baby Gender Mentor’s ability to accurately identify embryonic sex as early as five weeks after conception using a sample of maternal blood. Boyce’s investigation has revealed several cases in which the lab results were simply incorrect. Acu-Gen – the company that makes the test – has remained suspiciously quiet in light of these revelations, refusing to substantiate their claims with data because, they say, this would reveal proprietary technology. Diana Bianchi, a fetal DNA expert at Tufts University whose work is cited on Acu-Gen’s website, finds all of this quite troubling: “I think at the present time we need to be concerned whether the test is accurate or not," she told NPR. "I think it’s caveat emptor. Let the buyer beware."

[ Op-ed originally published in the Boston Globe (Aug. ]

It's a boy! It's a girl! Until the 1970s, these words welcomed virtually every child into the world. In less than one generation, however, new reproductive technologies have shifted this announcement from the delivery room to the obstetrician's office; ultrasounds and amniocenteses now allow expecting parents to choose their nursery walls' paint color months before giving birth.
The science and business of sex identification took yet another quantum leap forward this past week with the Pregnancystore.com's release of the Baby Gender Mentor Home DNA Gender Testing Kit. Now, a woman can know her child's sex shortly after she discovers her pregnancy. As soon as five weeks after conception, she can prick her finger, FedEx a blood sample to Acu-Gen Biolab in Lowell, MA, and have the sex of her sprouting embryo emailed to her faster than Netflix can send her next movie.

continue reading...

II CALIFORNIA STEM CELL PROGRAM: CONTINUING CONTROVERSY

Who gets the profits? The leadership of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) is rapidly backpedaling on promises made during the campaign to pass Proposition 71, which created the CIRM to distribute $3 billion of public money to fund human stem cell research. Last fall, the campaign's economic analysis and official talking points asserted that the measure would pay for itself in several ways - one of which would be a share of royalties or license fees. These returns to the state could amount to $1.1 billion, the campaign repeatedly asserted.

But once California Senator Deborah Ortiz (D-Sacramento) proposed a set of reforms that included requiring returns to the state, Robert Klein—who chaired the campaign and now chairs CIRM's governing board (the ICOC)—quickly produced a legal opinion explaining why the promises could not be fulfilled.
The problem, according to CIRM's leadership, is that any bonds issued for activities that will generate returns to the state would be subject to federal tax and carry a higher interest rate. This fact was not publicized during the campaign.

This issue of intellectual property rights recently moved to the forefront when a special committee of the California Council on Science and Technology issued an interim report on intellectual property rights and the CIRM. The report asserted that expectations of significant returns to the state were unjustified, and recommended that the state forego any claims to returns.

This is not surprising, considering that the committee was dominated by representatives of private corporations and university technology transfer offices—groups that would be expected to oppose returns to the state. Furthermore, the report was largely funded by the California Healthcare Institute, a biomedical industry advocacy group.

In response, the Center for Genetics and Society sent aletter to the ICOC, urging them to think creatively and reject the recommendations of the CCST committee. Sen. Ortiz plans to hold hearings on the topic later this fall.

See "Stem cell's shell game?" Capitol Weekly (September 22)

First grants announced, despite no funds. The CIRM continues to operate on a limited budget and is unable to issue bonds, as lawsuits filed by conservative groups have challenged the constitutionality of Proposition 71. Klein has described his continued work on a "bridge financing" plan, in which organizations that support stem cell research would make below-market loans to the CIRM that would be forgiven if the lawsuits should succeed. Despite the lack of funds, the ICOC announced the recipients of the first round of what it calls "training grants" at its September 9 meeting. Reacting to the lack of funds and other irregularities in CIRM's granting process, the Sacramento Beeeditorialized that it is "hard to imagine a system that is more convoluted and opaque."

Research standards: opportunities for input. The Research Standards Working Group of the CIRM is soliciting public comments on its draft interim standards for human embryonic stem cell research. You can submit comments to Guidelines@cirm.ca.gov. CGS outlined its comments at a public session held in Los Angeles on August 31.

Reform bill passes. Part of the reform package introduced by Sen. Ortiz has passed both houses of the state legislature (39 to 0 in the Senate, 74 to 2 in the Assembly) and awaits the governor's signature. SB18 would mandate a performance audit of the CIRM and strengthen the informed consent provisions for women who are considering providing eggs for research. CGS, along with the Pro-Choice Alliance for Responsible Research, has proposed additional protections for women undergoing egg extraction for research.

Proposition 73 would define embryos as "unborn children." An initiative on California’s November ballot would amend the state’s constitution to require that health care providers notify the parents of young women under the age of 18 before providing abortion services. A coalition of medical experts, teachers, nurses, parents, counselors, and supporters of reproductive rights, including CGS, oppose Proposition 73 because parental notification initiatives threaten teen safety and fail to increase communication between parents and teens about abortion.

A little-noticed statement in the initiative goes much further than parental notification, however. The initiative defines abortion as causing the “death of the unborn child, a child conceived but not yet born.” This clause amounts to an effort to smuggle an assertion that embryos are “unborn children” into the California constitution. Depending on how it is interpreted, it could threaten the legal standing of both abortion and research on stem cells derived from human embryos. CGS supports embryonic stem cell research with meaningful regulatory oversight and safeguards, and opposes research restrictions based on efforts to extend “personhood” to embryos.

III DEVELOPMENTS

New York Times Magazine pegs human biotech as upcoming Supreme Court priority: A cover story by Jeffrey Rosen in the New York Times Magazine, "Roberts v. the Future" (August 25, 2005) explored issues that John Roberts, nominee for the US Supreme Court, might face. "The most divisive issues likely to be argued before the Supreme Count in the coming years have nothing to do with abortion—and everything to do with technology, science and broad societal shifts," Rosen argued. New and emerging human genetic and reproductive technologies are among them. An excerpt from the article is posted on the CGS website.

Sports and gene "doping": On the Kojo Nnamdi Show on WAMU public radio in Washington, D.C., the Center's Osagie Obasogie joined former all-star baseball player Jose Canseco, World Anti-Doping Agency Chair Richard Pound, and other sports doping experts to talk about genetic enhancement of athletes and its implications for the sports industry and society. Canseco made several statements supporting not just gene doping in athletics, but also the inevitable development of “super human beings.” He also argued that “the government is very much of afraid of seeing these super human beings walking around.” Canseco's explicit advocacy is further demonstration that adopting effective regulation and oversight for the emerging genetic technologies is long overdue.

UK review of oversight agency: The United Kingdom Department of Health has begun an extensive review and public consultation of the role of its Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority. This includes whether the HFEA should continue to prohibit sex selection for social reasons. This development raises concern that a small group is moving to undermine the HFEA.

The states and stem cell research:

Massachusetts has formed a committee to monitor and regulate human embryonic stem cell research in the state. The Biomedical Advisory Council held its first meeting on September 21.

In Florida, agroup is now gathering signatures to place an initiative on the 2006 ballot that would allocate $200 million to fund embryonic stem cell research. The author of the short constitutional amendment, Louis M. Guenin of Harvard Medical School, said, "The California initiative is a lesson in how not to do this. The California amendment was 30 pages and loaded with all sorts of problems that I've tried to avoid here." The amendment would grant all authority for the $20 million annual appropriation to the state Department of Health. In response, an anti-abortion rights coalition is now gathering signatures for a counter initiative, that would constitutionally prohibit any public funding of research that destroys embryos.

New Jersey has promised hundreds of millions of dollars to support embryonic stem cell research. In August the first appropriation was actually available, and the state Commission on Science and Technology will begin reviewing grant applications for the first $5 million.

In its list of regional stories that received inadequate coverage in mainstream media, the San Francisco Bay Guardian—northern California's largest alternative weekly—places "The real stem cell debate" at number 2: "In the months leading up to last fall's election, virtually all the major media stories portrayed the battle over the stem cell initiative, Proposition 71, as pitting conservative Christians against liberals. In fact, as Tali Woodward reported in the Bay Guardian, there were many liberal, pro-choice critics - and only after the election did the major media start reporting on the issues those critics raised."
Leading fertility scientist accuses researchers of "hype": Lord Robert Winston, a pioneer in fertility research and an opponent of oversight of science, lashed out at senior scientists, for hyping the potential benefits of embryonic stem cell research. He singled out James Watson and David Baltimore by name for their dangerous arrogance.

IV RESOURCES

Campaign to End Sex Selection: The Campaign to End Sex Selection moved forward with a successful presentation at the recent Aarohan Conference in New Brunswick, New Jersey from September 9-11. Sunita Puri from CGS, Shamita Das Dasgupta from Manavi, Inc. and Yin Leung from the National Asian Pacific Women's Forum made a presentation on the history and current status of sex selection in the United States, with specific reference to its impact on the issue of violence against women. Discussion guides and fact sheets on sex selection were distributed to representatives of 20 different organizations. The Campaign is currently developing a website and planning additional activities.

New CGS Fact Sheet on Women's Health and Egg Extraction for Stem Cell Research: In the US, the debate about embryonic stem cell research has centered on whether human embryos should be used for research, and left nearly untouched a number of very important social, political and ethical issues that are not related to the moral status of embryos. Among these are protecting the safety and health of women who provide eggs for research, preventing the emergence of a commercial market in eggs, and establishing appropriate oversight and regulation of stem cell research. CGS feels that women's well-being needs to be a central focus to ensure that stem cell research is conducted in a safe and ethical manner, and recently produced a fact sheet and one-page summary on this issue, along with a compilation of background materials.

Exhibition on California Eugenics: Human Plants, Human Harvest: The Hidden History of California Eugenics is on display at the California State University Sacramento Library Gallery from September 27 to October 21. This is the first-ever exhibit exclusively devoted to the history of eugenics in California. Rarely seen images and documents from archival collections throughout the US reveal the history of California's aggressive eugenic sterilization program, its promotion by some of the most powerful institutions and individuals in the state, and its adoption as a model by Hitler's regime. The exhibit is organized by Kathryn Sylva, Associate Professor of Design, UC Davis, with Ralph Brave. An opening reception and gallery talk on October 4 will feature Paul Lombardo, Director of the University of Virginia Center for Law & Medicine, and former California State Senator Art Torres, who legislated the 1979 repeal of California's sterilization law. For more information, contact Kathryn Sylva at ksylva@ucdavis.edu or the CSUS Library Gallery at (916) 278-4189.

Symposium on Eugenics and Genetic Engineering: On October 21, the Center for Science, History, Policy & Ethics at California State University, Sacramento will host a one-day symposium, "From Eugenics to Designer Babies: Engineering the California Dream." This unprecedented event will bring together scholars, reporters, policy makers, artists, and public interest advocates to address the legacy of eugenics in California and the political and ethical issues stemming from innovations in contemporary genetic science and technology. Free and open to the public. More information: http://www.csus.edu/cshpe/symposium05, or contact Chloe Burke at cshpe@csus.edu, 916-278-5631.

More information on eugenics in California: http://www.csus.edu/cshpe/eugenics/
Book: The Dream of the Perfect Child by Joan Rothschild provides a feminist and disability rights critique of bioethics and attitudes toward reproductive technologies. According to one reviewer, "Others have addressed the societal implications of contemplating 'the perfect child' but no one has written about it so poignantly, so compellingly, and so beautifully."

Book: ¿Un Mundo Patentado? La privatización de la vida y del conocimiento (A patented world? The privatization of life and knowledge) Jorge Villarreal, Silke Helfrich, Alejandro Calvillo, eds. This Spanish compilation contains essays from academics and activists from around the world, including a chapter by CGS.
Presentation: "The (mis)use of genetic technologies in the realm of sports: Gene doping," by Rosario M. Isasi, CGS Program Associate for International Affairs and Postdoctoral Fellow at the Public Law Research Center, University of Montréal. Discusses the rationale for and methods of opposing sports doping.
Opinion: "Of baseball and enhancement bondage," San Francisco Chronicle (Sept. 26)

Pete Shanks writes that the debate over drugs in sports is a precursor to more profound questions of science and human "enhancement."

Opinion: In "ADA and the new eugenics," Andrew Imparato and Anne Sommers warn in the Washington Examiner against a rising new eugenics, rooted in genetic and reproductive technologies: "As we mark the 15th anniversary of the [Americans with Disabilities Act], let us hope that the ADA's inclusive vision will provide a strong counterbalance to a resurgent eugenics movement that seems to be forgetting the mistakes that led to the forced sterilization of more than 60,000 Americans and a global effort to 'cleanse' the gene pool."

Opinion: In "Sex selection has a eugenic whiff, so let's call it family balancing instead," Anjana Ahuja asserts in the Times of London that "sanctioning sex selection commodifies children, breaches the unwritten but self-evident rule that children should be loved unconditionally, and will, in practice, give more parental rights to the rich."

V THE CENTER IN THE NEWS; NEW CGS STAFF

The Center was cited in media accounts throughout August and September, including:

"Clonacion es una tecnica insegura y peligrosa," Semanario Universidad (August 4)
"The Stem Cell Debate Continues to Heat Up," KPIX CBS 5 Eyewitness News (August 23)
"Federal funding for embryonic stem cell studies gets a boost," American Medical News (August 22)
"Stem cell grants, minus cash, on tap," Sacramento Bee (September
"Stem cell funds awarded," Sacramento Bee (September 10)
"Despite uncertain funding, agency issues first grants," San Diego Union Tribune (September 10)
"Stem Cell Agency Awards $39 Million," Los Angeles Times (September 10)
"Ex-movie chief keeps big role in health care," Sacramento Bee (September 12)
"Stem cell research: cutting-edge science or corporate subsidies, courtesy of voters?," Capitol Weekly (September 15)
"California stem cell ball rolling, sort of," The Scientist (September 15)
"Stem cell's shell game?" Capitol Weekly (September 22)
The Center for Genetics and Society welcomes two new members to our rapidly growing staff. Emily Galpern, Project Director on Reproductive Health and Human Rights, has ten years of experience working to promote community health and well being, primarily through health education, coalition-building, and advocacy with young people, women, and communities of color.
Parita Shah, Communications Director, comes to the Center with experience in politics, policy and communications. She has worked for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in their Global Health Advocacy group, the Clinton White House and the Kerry-Edwards 2004 campaign.

VI NEWSLETTER SUBSCRIPTION AND FORMAT

For information on subscribing and unsubscribing to the CGS email newsletter Genetic Crossroads, and on changing between enhanced HTML and plain text formats, go to http://www.genetics-and-society.org/newsletter.

For information about the Center for Genetics and Society go to http://www.genetics-and-society.org/about.

WORKING MIRACLES IN NEPAL'S NON-GM RICE FIELDS

SciDev.net carries an article expressing amazement at the bumper rice
harvests being obtained in Nepal and other countries using local, non-GM
varieties and no chemicals. Farmers are obtaining harvests of double or
triple the usual size using the System of Rice Intensification (SRI)
method, which uses less water and seed. One of the interesting aspects of
this article is the nature of the surprise about the high yields obtained:
"It sounds too good to be true. After all, this is not a high-yielding
variety of genetically modified rice but the normal local variety, mansuli."
http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5774

INDIAN MEDICS CALL FOR MANDATORY GM LABELLING

The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has called for mandatory
labelling of GM foods. It said that imported foods containing traces of
GMOs should be tested for safety in labs in the country. The call follows a
previous report from The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) that
noted, "Specific safety issues associated with GM foods include direct or
indirect consequences of new gene product or altered levels of existing
gene product due to GM, possibility of gene transfer from ingested GM food
and potential adverse effect like allergenicity and toxic effects."
http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5780

AVERY ET AL ATTACK JEFFREY SMITH

Letters attacking the author Jeffrey Smith, who is lecturing in South
Africa on the risks of GM foods, have been published in the South African
newspaper, Business Day. They come from the usual suspects. Alex Avery and
the Hudson Institute need no introduction. The other letter writer, Gurudev
Singh (Khush), is a green revolution plant breeder who acts as an advisor
to Ventria Bioscience - the firm who are having so much trouble getting
American rice farmers and retailers to accept open field trials of their GM
drug-producing rice.
http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5769

SUSPEND ALL CROP TRIALS - MP

A Kenyan MP has asked the Kenyan government to
suspend all trials on GM crops, pending development of strong biosafety
policies and legal framework. Mr David Nakitare (Saboti) also said further
field trials on GM crops should be stopped until the technology was proved
safe to the environment. He praised the government for ordering the
destruction of GM maize under field trial. The MP added that the same
policy should be implemented against GM cotton, cassava and sweet potatoes.
http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5772

STRONG OPPOSITION TO GMOs IN WEST ASIA AND NORTH AFRICA

A survey undertaken during 2003 and 2004 showed that the public in West
Asia and North Africa were strongly opposed to GM food. The survey was
carried out in Egypt and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on 1,000
participants representing the North African and West Asian regions.
http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5773

NEW STUDY RAISES FEARS OVER LONG TERM IMPACTS OF GM CROPS

A follow-up study to the UK Government's GM crop trials has found that
growing GM oilseed rape crops has negative impacts on farmland biodiversity
in following years. The findings are yet another blow to the biotech
industry. The research, published 28 September in the Royal Society's
journal Biology Letters, found that the immediate impacts on farmland
wildlife found in the Farm Scale Evaluations persisted for at least two
years. Growing GM oilseed rape led to significantly lower weed seedbanks
two years later. Weed seeds are an important source of food for farmland
birds and any reduction is likely to have a negative impact on their
populations.

The results also showed that growing GM beet led to a reduced seedbank in
the following year. Although the results showed that growing GM maize lead
to an increase in the weed seedbanks compared with growing conventional
maize, they are of little value because the weedkiller used on the
conventional maize in the FSE, Atrazine, has now been banned in Europe. GM
maize has not been compared with new conventional maize growing methods.
http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5778
http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5775

SCIENTISTS CONFIRM FAILURES OF BT CROPS

Scientific studies from many countries have now backed up what farmers have
known for years, that Bt crops - genetically engineered with Bt toxin
proteins from the soil bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis targeted at insect
pests - often fail to protect against pest attacks, and have other problems
as well.

Here's a roundup of some of the studies considered in an excellent and
comprehensive report by Dr Mae-Wan Ho:
*India, China and the United States: scientific studies found the levels
of toxin produced by Bt crops varies substantially and is often
insufficient to kill the targeted pests.
*Australia: pest resistance to a Bt toxin found.
*Canada: scientists found yield and economic disadvantage in Bt maize.
*Germany and Canada: researchers have found Bt maize is more "woody" due
to unintentionally raised lignin.
***Other studies show Bt crops are harmful to health and biodiversity.
http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5783
http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5770

The main academic propaganda machine has promoted embryonic stem cells
without mentioning the main defect - the threat of cancer resulting from
the use of mutated stem cell lines.

Letter
Nature Genetics 37, 1099 - 1103 (2005)
Published online: 4 September 2005; | doi:10.1038/ng1631
Genomic alterations in cultured human embryonic stem cells

Anirban Maitra1, 2, 3, 12, Dan E Arking1, 12, Narayan Shivapurkar4,
Morna Ikeda1, Victor Stastny4, Keyaunoosh Kassauei2, Guoping Sui2, David
J Cutler1, Ying Liu5, Sandii N Brimble6, Karin Noaksson7, Johan
Hyllner7, Thomas C Schulz6, Xianmin Zeng8, William J Freed8, Jeremy
Crook9, Suman Abraham9, Alan Colman9, Peter Sartipy7, Sei-Ichi Matsui10,
Melissa Carpenter11, Adi F Gazdar4, Mahendra Rao5 & Aravinda Chakravarti1

Cultured human embryonic stem cell (hESC) lines are an invaluable
resource because they provide a uniform and stable genetic system for
functional analyses and therapeutic applications. Nevertheless, these
dividing cells, like other cells, probably undergo spontaneous mutation
at a rate of 10^-9 per nucleotide. Because each mutant has only a few
progeny, the overall biological properties of the cell culture are not
altered unless a mutation provides a survival or growth advantage.
Clonal evolution that leads to emergence of a dominant mutant genotype
may potentially affect cellular phenotype as well. We assessed the
genomic fidelity of paired early- and late-passage hESC lines in the
course of tissue culture. Relative to early-passage lines, eight of nine
late-passage hESC lines had one or more genomic alterations commonly
observed in human cancers, including aberrations in copy number (45%),
mitochondrial DNA sequence (22%) and gene promoter methylation (90%),
although the latter was essentially restricted to 2 of 14 promoters
examined. The observation that hESC lines maintained in vitro develop
genetic and epigenetic alterations implies that periodic monitoring of
these lines will be required before they are used in in vivo
applications and that some late-passage hESC lines may be unusable for
therapeutic purposes.

Of any interest?

If not to petrol-heads, then to techno-nerds....
quote "One of the entrants is a robotic motorcycle ..."

The Belmont Club URL needs a tweak from time to time but it could be at
http://www.wretchard.com/ to follow the links

The Grand Challenge
28 Sept 05

Computers, start your engines. The DARPA Grand Challenge is about to begin. Starting September 29 and continuing through October 6, unmanned vehicles will attempt to drive 150 miles across a desert in 10 hours. The vehicles will not be remotely driven. They must navigate solely on the strength of their onboard computers and sensors across the course and to the finish line. The sponsor, DARPA, is the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. But the contestants come from all over the United States and from several foreign countries. You can follow the progress of the race at www.grandchallenge.org. It contains links to individual teams and their team blogs.

The Seattle Times says this:

The military sponsors the race to speed the development of unmanned vehicles for combat. The project had an inauspicious start: Last year's inaugural contest ended soon after it began when the robots careened off course or abruptly stalled. One even got tangled in barbed wire. ... This year's race shows signs of being extremely competitive. Some vehicles have logged hundreds of self-guided miles in the Southwestern desert during summer practice runs. Several even tested on last year's course ... Vehicles will have to drive on dirt and gravel, maneuver mountain switchbacks, squeeze through choke points and avoid man-made and natural obstacles.

Carnegie Mellon's Red Team (brought to you by Caterpiller) has video links here and they are heavy downloads. One of the entrants is a robotic motorcycle. Check out the Blue Team at www.ghostriderrobot.com, which has video of their robotic contestant swimming underwater (Sort of. Mutley needed here.), doing ramp jumps and other cool stuff here. Any ideas on who'll finish first?
posted by wretchard.

September, 2005 / Online Edition: Index

Fight in California over privatization of public sector:
It's what's happening across America

By Steven Miller

One hundred years ago, this month, in 1905, the hottest book in America was "The Jungle," by Upton Sinclair. This book described, in terrible and shocking detail, the squalor of the Chicago Stockyards, where America's meat was produced. The public was horrified at a system of exploitation that drove workers so fast that their severed fingers and hands fell into giant vats of meat.

The huge outcry at adulterated meat was only half the story. The public was outraged at the picture of absolute corporate dominance of society, where every decision about community life was made by the so-called private sector. Few people recognized that government had any responsibility for the public welfare.
America in that era was, in fact, almost completely privatized. Wealth was highly polarized. If you didn't pay for it, you couldn't get it.

By next June, 1906, a startled government was stumbling to respond to an outraged public. The federal government was forced to pass one of the very first laws acknowledging that the public had any voice in anything at all. They quickly passed the Pure Food and Drug Act, which acknowledged that public rights over health issues were superior to corporate rights. This was the beginning of the powerful push for public rights that was known as the Progressive Era, where public regulation of corporations was first asserted.

In California, this movement was guided by a vision of "public works, public schools, public land, public rights and public access." Unlike the East Coast, for example, beaches could no longer be privatized. This impulse consciously tried to extend the idea of "The Public" to its greatest limits.

[but The Jungle didn't provoke any nationalisation that I know of; only govt regulation of private enterprise - RM]

Fast Forward to 2005

Under the mantra of "free trade," corporations are once again pushing a hidden agenda to turn public property into private property. Free trade, of course, means that Mom and Pop stores are "free" to go head to head with WalMart any time they want.

Corporations around the world are forcing local governments into privatizing their functions, especially the pro-people functions. The result is that billions of dollars in public money becomes privatized - perhaps the largest transfer of wealth from the public to corporate hands in history.

The whole push is to maximize the rights of corporations over our lives. The goal is to make the idea of "The Public" extinct, driven over the brink by hoards of corporate lawyers with a Mission.

The same agenda is being played out at every level of government and in every state: corporate taxes are frozen and then cut. Suddenly governments face bankruptcy. The cry goes out to privatize all human services (even though the cost of corporate pollution, for example, is supposed to be born by the public). This is what the capitalist pundit, Grover Norquist, means when he says it is now time to drown governments like a baby in a bathtub.

Nowhere in the country is this process being driven faster than in California, led by the Governator.

California is on the brink of the most important election in the state's history. Schwarzenegger is forcing the state to spend at least $100 million on an election that the public doesn't want.

Last year, Arnold changed the Constitution to all but eliminate Workmans' Comp and end the state's responsibility to provide medical care to injured workers. Then he tried to privatize the state's pensions for teachers, nurses, fire fighters, police and state workers. Massive public outrage forced him to temporarily abandon this one.

The Corporate Agenda

Arnold's special election hosts a variety of "Constitutional Amendments" that paves the way to further privatization of state services:

Prop 74 - Raises the time necessary for teacher tenure from two to five years
Tenure is simply the right to due process and freedom of speech. How exactly does amending the state constitution address the financial crisis? Bill Hauck, president of the California Business Roundtable, who also chairs Arnold's election campaign, states, "Ideally we would have no tenure and no collective bargaining."

Prop 75 - The so-called "Paycheck Protection" Amendment
This one requires unions to get permission from every single member to spend one cent of union money in a political campaign. This, of course, prevents unions from mounting a campaign, as did the Nurses, to force the Governator's hands off the pensions. In California, corporations outspend unions 24 to 1 in political campaigns. Nobody requires their workers to give their permission first.

Prop 76 - The so-called "Live Within Our Means" Amendment
This guts the floor for guaranteed state spending on public education established in 1988. As the state's schools fell from first to worst, the people amended the constitution to give investing in children and the future the highest priority. It also allows any governor to make unilateral cuts in the budget four times a year whenever there is a "financial crisis."

Prop 77 - Redraws the state congressional districts next year, five years ahead of the usual date.

It also takes this power from the Legislature and gives it to a panel of three retired judges. Karl Rove has stated that the best thing Republicans can do to win in 2008 is to redistrict Texas, Florida and California.

Dueling Visions

Arnold is right about one thing: the system is not working. But the so-called budget crisis is carefully manufactured. What else can you call it when insurance corporations pay Zero (that's $000.00) income tax in the state? The Governator says he won't raise taxes (certainly not on corporations) yet California is the only energy producing state without an excise tax! This is a tax on companies that extract natural resources that can never be replaced again, like oil, gas or coal.

There's plenty of money, but it is being redirected away from anything that benefits the public. Privatizing Social Security, public pensions, public water and public schools is now routinely discussed. These steps are promoted as positive reforms, yet they really represent attacks on public power. No one should forget how ENRON and other energy companies looted the state for $40 billion by deregulating public control of California's electricity.

The real fight is the fight for which direction society will take. The resources of the world will increasingly be directed to become corporate holdings. Or we can rally around a vision of a new world where the public has universal access to housing, culture, income, quality medical care and education. It's either private, corporate property or it's public property.

Steve Miller is available to speak through Speakers for a New America. Call 800-691-6888 or email sandy@speakersforanewamerica.com.

(From the Los Gatos guy...Michael finally went to the fat farm to take some of the pressure off his brain.)

[NB: this email racked up the record achievement of provoking a brain blowout in a Los Gatos electronics executive. It is thought that if he'd been somewhat fitter, and not let the traitor get to him, he'd have survived the distasteful experience; but as it turned out, he was found at his kompughter frothing at the mouth, gabbling incoherently.]

A Letter to All Who Voted for George W. Bush from Michael Moore

To All My Fellow Americans Who Voted for George W. Bush:

On this, the fourth anniversary of 9/11, I'm just curious, how does it feel?

How does it feel to know that the man you elected to lead us after we were attacked went ahead and put a guy in charge of FEMA whose main qualification was that he ran horse shows?

That's right. Horse shows.

I really want to know -- and I ask you this in all sincerity and with all due respect -- how do you feel about the utter contempt Mr. Bush has shown for your safety? C'mon, give me just a moment of honesty. Don't start ranting on about how this disaster in New Orleans was the fault of one of the poorest cities in America. Put aside your hatred of Democrats and liberals and anyone with the last name of Clinton. Just look me in the eye and tell me our President did the right thing after 9/11 by naming a horse show runner as the top man to protect us in case of an emergency or catastrophe.

I want you to put aside your self-affixed label of Republican/conservative/born-again/capitalist/ditto-head/right-winger and just talk to me as an American, on the common ground we both call America.

Are we safer now than before 9/11? When you learn that behind the horse show runner, the #2 and #3 men in charge of emergency preparedness have zero experience in emergency preparedness, do you think we are safer?

When you look at Michael Chertoff, the head of Homeland Security, a man with little experience in national security, do you feel secure?

When men who never served in the military and have never seen young men die in battle send our young people off to war, do you think they know how to conduct a war? Do they know what it means to have your legs blown off for a threat that was never there?

Do you really believe that turning over important government services to private corporations has resulted in better services for the people?

Why do you hate our federal government so much? You have voted for politicians for the past 25 years whose main goal has been to de-fund the federal government. Do you think that cutting federal programs like FEMA and the Army Corps of Engineers has been good or bad for America? GOOD OR BAD?

With the nation's debt at an all-time high, do you think tax cuts for the rich are still a good idea? Will you give yours back so hundreds of thousands of homeless in New Orleans can have a home?

Do you believe in Jesus? Really? Didn't he say that we would be judged by how we treat the least among us? Hurricane Katrina came in and blew off the facade that we were a nation with liberty and justice for all. The wind howled and the water rose and what was revealed was that the poor in America shall be left to suffer and die while the President of the United States fiddles and tells them to eat cake.

That's not a joke. The day the hurricane hit and the levees broke, Mr. Bush, John McCain and their rich pals were stuffing themselves with cake. A full day after the levees broke (the same levees whose repair funding he had cut), Mr. Bush was playing a guitar some country singer gave him. All this while New Orleans sank under water.

It would take ANOTHER day before the President would do a flyover in his jumbo jet, peeking out the window at the misery 2500 feet below him as he flew back to his second home in DC. It would then be TWO MORE DAYS before a trickle of federal aid and troops would arrive. This was no seven minutes in a sitting trance while children read "My Pet Goat" to him. This was FOUR DAYS of doing nothing other than saying "Brownie (FEMA director Michael Brown), you're doing a heck of a job!"

My Republican friends, does it bother you that we are the laughing stock of the world?

And on this sacred day of remembrance, do you think we honor or shame those who died on 9/11/01? If we learned nothing and find ourselves today every bit as vulnerable and unprepared as we were on that bright sunny morning, then did the 3,000 die in vain?

Our vulnerability is not just about dealing with terrorists or natural disasters. We are vulnerable and unsafe because we allow one in eight Americans to live in horrible poverty. We accept an education system where one in six children never graduate and most of those who do can't string a coherent sentence together. The middle class can't pay the mortgage or the hospital bills and 45 million have no health coverage whatsoever.

Are we safe? Do you really feel safe? You can only move so far out and build so many gated communities before the fruit of what you've sown will be crashing through your walls and demanding retribution. Do you really want to wait until that happens? Or is it your hope that if they are left alone long enough to soil themselves and shoot themselves and drown in the filth that fills the street that maybe the problem will somehow go away?

I know you know better. You gave the country and the world a man who wasn't up for the job and all he does is hire people who aren't up for the job. You did this to us, to the world, to the people of New Orleans. Please fix it. Bush is yours. And you know, for our peace and safety and security, this has to be fixed. What do you propose?

I have an idea, and it isn't a horse show.

Yours,

Michael Moore
www.michaelmoore.com
mmflint@aol.com

(Ed. Note - Political propaganda)

from the September 27, 2005 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0927/p11s02-bogn.html
Science and politics: a dangerous mix

'Twisted science' may endanger America's future, one journalist warns.

By Gregory M. Lamb

The Republican War on Science lives up to its incendiary title. The book will undoubtedly raise hackles among conservatives and spawn sharp-tongued counterattacks. But the real test of its efficacy may be whether or not it persuades independents and moderate Republicans that without a new approach toward science America is headed for what the author calls "economic, ecological, and social calamity."

As a good polemicist, Chris Mooney, a journalist who specializes in writing about science and politics, knows to protect his argument by first making two concessions.

First, not all Republicans have been antiscience. Teddy Roosevelt was a great early conservationist. Dwight Eisenhower was the first president to recognize that the White House needed a science adviser. Ronald Reagan's surgeon general, C. Everett Koop, weighed scientific evidence "dispassionately" on subjects like AIDS and the health effects of abortion and declared, "I am the nation's surgeon general, not the nation's chaplain."

Even the first President Bush was largely regarded by scientists as "a friend," Mr. Mooney says. And today, a few GOP mavericks like Sen. John McCain speak the truth on issues like global warming.

Secondly, Mooney wisely - albeit briefly - acknowledges that liberals have also sometimes twisted science for their own political ends. Some of the alarm over genetically modified foods has exceeded what science shows; animal rights activists have argued that animal testing isn't necessary when most scientists disagree; and some Democratic politicians have overstated the likelihood that stemcell research will produce quick cures.

But these transgressions, Mooney says, pale in comparison with the breathtaking audacity of Mr. Bush's "New Right" in its cynical manipulation of science. In a kind of Orwellian newspeak, they label conventional science as "junk science" and seek to replace it with what they call "sound science" - in other words, questionable, fringe science that conveniently props up the interests of big industry and conservative Christians.

All sides might agree that science should inform policy, not make it. Other considerations may trump it. But what irks Mooney is when, in his eyes, science is distorted to defend a policy.

In this regard, Mooney contrasts the Clinton and Bush administrations in their approaches to needle-exchange programs for drug addicts. Numerous reputable scientific studies show that needle-exchange programs reduce the transmission of AIDS without encouraging drug abuse. The Clinton administration acknowledged these findings, but simply decided to ignore them, apparently unwilling to take an unpopular political stance.

The Bush administration also opposed needle-exchange programs but "twisted the science," Mooney says, by insisting that some scientists doubted the findings. Yet when the press followed up, the scientists cited by the White House said they had no such doubts.

A key GOP tactic, Mooney says, has been "magnifying uncertainty" - finding a few dissenting voices on the scientific fringe and calling for "more research" to forestall action - a tactic the tobacco industry used for decades, he says.

Chapter by chapter, Mooney picks through the hot-button issues - global warming, creationism, intelligent design, stem cells - and finds conservatives politicizing and distorting the science involved.

He rejects the idea of even "teaching the controversy" over these issues in schools, arguing that the far right has invented the controversy itself by ginning up a kind of faux science alternative that has no solid basis. He isn't even willing to move the controversy out of science classes into social studies or current events.

Mooney does offer a brief list of solutions. Congress should revive the Office of Technology Assessment "or a close equivalent," which once offered nonpartisan scientific advice to lawmakers. The White House should restore its science adviser from his peripheral position now to the president's inner circle, where the office resided under President Kennedy. Journalists should resist slick PR campaigns and "spin" on science-related stories.

(According to Mooney, although a "powerful consensus" exists among scientists that global climate change is under way, that has not been reflected in the mainstream press, which feels compelled for reasons of "balance" to report as though the issue were still in doubt.)

"Our future relies on our intelligence ... nourishing disturbing anti-intellectual tendencies - cannot deliver us there successfully or safely," Mooney warns.

For those who have felt even vaguely disturbed by their government's attitude toward science, this book is likely to bring those concerns into sharp focus.

* Gregory M. Lamb is on the Monitor staff.

The Republican War on Science
By Chris Mooney
Basic Books336 pp., $24.95

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/26/AR2005092600817_pf.html

Pa. Case Is Newest Round in Evolution Debate
'Intelligent Design' Teaching Challenged

By Michael Powell
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, September 27, 2005; A03

HARRISBURG, Pa., Sept. 26 -- New barrages sounded in the evolution war Monday as lawyers for a group of parents challenged the teaching of "intelligent design" as nothing more than an old argument for God's hand wrapped in fancy new cloth.

"This clever tactical repackaging of creationism does not merit consideration," Witold Walczak, legal director of the Pennsylvania American Civil Liberties Union and a lawyer for the parents, told U.S. District Judge John E. Jones in opening arguments. "Intelligent design admits that it is not science unless science is redefined to include the supernatural."

This is, he added, "a 21st-century version of creationism."

Eleven parents from Dover, in central Pennsylvania, are seeking to block their school board from requiring that high school biology teachers read a four-paragraph statement to students that casts doubt on Darwin's theory of evolution. This mandatory statement notes that intelligent design offers an alternative theory for the origin and evolution of life -- namely, that life in all of its complexity could not have arisen without the help of an intelligent hand.

The foremost advocates of intelligent design are silent on whether that intelligent hand belongs to God or some other intelligent force, even including a space alien. The school board, represented by the Thomas More Law Center, a conservative, religiously grounded nonprofit firm, took the position that the case was about freedom of speech.

"There is in fact a controversy over Darwin's theory," Richard Thompson, chief counsel for the law center, said afterward during an impromptu news conference on the courthouse steps. "Clearly both theories have religious implications. But this is not about God."

Last year, however, Dover school board members -- who voted 6 to 3 for the new policy -- made it clear that they believed that the origin of life was guided by a heavenly hand. Several of them suggested that their views on evolution are far closer to Young Earth Creationism, which holds that God created the world 6,000 years ago and that Noah's flood covered Earth, than to intelligent design.

One board member told a public meeting -- in a remark he has since tried to deny -- that the nation "was founded on Christianity, and our students should be taught as such."

The war over the teaching of evolution is almost a century old, the first great shot having been fired in Dayton, Tenn., in the famous 1925 Scopes "monkey trial," in which the ACLU defended a teacher convicted of teaching evolution. Former presidential candidate and prairie populist Williams Jennings Bryan represented the school board. Another shot sounded in 1987, when the Supreme Court prohibited the teaching of creationism in public schools, ruling that it was not science but religion and violated the separation of church and state.

Shortly after that Supreme Court ruling, intelligent design began to appear on the lecture circuit, championed by a small band of scientists and academics. Intelligent design advocates tend to concentrate their criticism on Darwinian theory; they have been far less successful at laying a foundation for a new scientific theory, which by definition must be testable.

This was a point hammered at Monday as the ACLU called its first witness, Kenneth R. Miller, a Brown University biology professor and author of a biology textbook used in nearly half the schools in the nation -- including in Dover. Miller noted that virtually every prominent scientific organization in the United States has upheld Darwin's theory of evolution as an unshakable pillar of science.

Intelligent design, he emphasized, has not fared nearly as well.

"Intelligent design is inherently religious. It is a form of creationism," Miller said during four hours of testimony that often resembled an extended college seminar. "If you invoke a spiritual force in science, I can't test or replicate it.

"Scientific theories are not hunches," he added. "When we say 'theory,' we mean a strong, overarching explanation that ties together many facts and enables us to make testable predictions."

The school board's attorneys countered by arguing that several of the leading intelligent design theorists are respected scientists and professors. And they said the school board merely makes students aware of another viewpoint. The board also mandated the placement in the school library of the book "Of Pandas and People." The book makes the case for intelligent design, and the school board's attorneys made the case that it was sort of an alternative textbook.
But Miller rejoined in his testimony that it was nothing of the sort. He pointed out many examples of outdated or distorted science in the book. He said the errors were so numerous as to amount to an intentional misreading of science, designed to drive unwary students to reject evolutionary theory.

"The errors in the book are systematic," Miller said.
Both sides plan to call a long line of witnesses, from scientists to philosophers to local teachers and parents. And, in a rare moment of agreement, they said the case is likely to eventually reach the Supreme Court.

The use of GM rootstocks is the first step
towards all-GM wine. California has been silent
about such developments. In the USA it is
unclear which wines and beers contain GM
components. Sweden is the first country in
Europe to market GM beer from GM 'Bt' corn. That
brew is certainly suitable for fattening steers
and swedes!

September 26, 2005 NY Times
A Project to Remodel Grape Genes Yields Mostly Outrage
By CRAIG S. SMITH

COLMAR, France, Sept. 21 - Behind six-foot
fencing, watched by unblinking video eyes, and
guarded by motion detectors that set off bright
halogen lights and a silent police alarm in the
event of nocturnal intruders, there lurks what
some people in this gentle wine-making region
consider an unholy alliance between the noble
grape and "Frankenstem": 70 grapevines grafted
onto genetically modified rootstocks.

The operation here by the National Institute for
Agronomic Research is meant to demonstrate that
transgenic plants can cure one of grape growing's
most nettlesome ills: the fan-leaf virus, which
turns leaves yellow and kills the flowers before
they can form fruit, reducing vineyard yields.
The virus is present in as many as a third of
French vineyards.

But in a land where winemaking is a sacred art
and genetic modification is blasphemy to many
people, selling the idea to the public has been
slow.

"We feel that we don't have the right to alter
nature," said René Muré, glaring behind large
tortoise-shell-rimmed eyeglasses, at a nearby
winery that his family has run since 1648. He
contends that wine should be an expression of the
land and that the tiny worms that carry the virus
and even the virus itself are part of the complex
and wondrous biology that makes for great wine.

Mr. Muré's dismay is part of a growing concern in
Europe about the gradual spread of genetically
modified plants despite popular opposition.
Transgenic corn is growing in more than 2,500
acres in France, up from just over 40 in 2004.

Nowhere is the genetic tinkering more contentious
than in the vineyards, whose richly varied
produce, together with the country's cheese, as
much as anything else define French culture.

The effort to modify grapevines genetically
started in the 1990's with Moët & Chandon, the
venerable Champagne maker, which was trying to
combat the virus.

Gene splicers argue that a transgenic answer is
the only effective way to stop the virus, short
of saturating the soil with pesticides to kill
the worms that carry it, or tearing out infected
vineyards and leaving the land fallow for 10
years.

Moët & Chandon's scientists, working with a
hybrid of the Vitis vinifera and Vitis
berlandieri vines known as 41B, developed a
transgenic fanleaf-resistant plant onto which
grapevines could be grafted. The rootstock is
used primarily for growing white grapes.

The company eventually won approval for a field
test from the Ministry of Agriculture and quietly
planted dozens of the gene-altered grapevines in
1996, only to rip them out three years later when
the French press learned of the project.

Worried about tarnishing its image, the company
turned over the genetic material to the National
Institute for Agronomic Research, which has been
working ever since to win over skeptical
winemakers.

Winemakers worry that someone could steal the
genetically modified grapevines and transplant
them in the neighboring vineyards, "as a kind of
bioterrorism," said Olivier Lemaire, lead
scientist on the project.

French grapevines are already growing on borrowed
roots. The country's vineyards were nearly wiped
out in the late 1800's when an aggressive
ground-borne aphid, the grape phylloxera, arrived
from the United States and spread quickly. Only
American vines were resistant to the sap-sucking
insect, so French vineyards were replanted with
American plants that had European grapevines
grafted onto them. The practice has continued
ever since.

The National Institute is using five transgenic
strains of 41B, each with a gene that produces
virus-killing material implanted in a different
place in the rootstock's DNA, the substance in
the cell nucleus that contains the genetic code.
Mr. Lemaire watches over the young plants on the
institute's grounds.

But local vintners worry that any confusion in
the public's mind could taint their wine.

"We asked that they not use an Alsatian grape,"
said Jean-Paul Goulby, president of the Alsatian
Winemakers Association, adding that any link
between Alsatian wines and genetically modified
grapevines "would be catastrophic for us."

To ease those fears, the institute chose Pinot
Meunier, a variety used in Champagne, to graft
onto the transgenic rootstocks. The vine has
fuzzy leaves that are easily differentiated from
Alsatian varieties.

Mr. Lemaire said the institute has also agreed to
cut off all buds before they can develop into
flowers. Thus, the plants will not be used to
produce wine. He emphasized that there was no
exchange of DNA between the rootstock and the
grapevine grafted onto it. There may, however, be
an exchange of RNA, a nucleic acid present in all
cells, and one of the things the scientists want
to discover is whether the genetically modified
rootstock will send virus-killing RNA into the
grapevine, making the entire plant immune.

The scientists also created a test area to see if
the transgenic rootstock caused the virus itself
to mutate or if the worms migrated toward
unprotected rootstocks planted in clean soil.

It will take at least two years before they have
any results, and the test is scheduled to run
through 2009, when the results will be evaluated
and the plants destroyed.

The careful planning has not assuaged everyone.
Earlier this month, about 40 protesters gathered
outside the institute's gates.

Mr. Muré, looking at a verdant hillside combed by
rows of grape-heavy vines, worries that the
introduction of genetically modified plants would
only create disease-resistant, climate-adapted
vines and increase the volume of mass-produced
wine with a standardized flavor.

"There needs to be a multitude of organisms in
the soil for the land to express itself in the
vine," he said, adding that wine quality eroded
after World War II as more and more chemicals
were applied to the land. His vineyard stopped
using pesticides and herbicides a decade ago,
part of a growing trend in France to produce
organic wines.

He said a carefully tended vineyard could survive
without pesticides, herbicides or transgenic
plants. "The more diversity, the greater the
character of the wine," he said, "but there will
be no diversity if you use a clone."

Foreign Policy Research Institute
50 Years of Ideas in Service to Our Nation
1955-2005
www.fpri.org

E-Notes
Distributed Exclusively via Fax & Email

The 10th Annual Templeton Lecture on Religion and World Affairs
RELIGION, IDENTITY AND MIDEAST PEACE
by Rabbi David Rosen

September 23, 2005

David Rosen is the Director of Inter-religious Affairs for
the American Jewish Committee in Jerusalem. He is the
former Chief Rabbi of Ireland.

The 10th Annual Templeton Lecture on Religion and World Affairs
RELIGION, IDENTITY AND MIDEAST PEACE

by Rabbi David Rosen

It is true that most conflicts that are portrayed as
religious conflicts are not in essence anything of the sort.
Whether between Hindus and Muslims in Kashmir, Buddhists and
Hindus in Sri Lanka, Christians and Muslims in Nigeria or
Indonesia, Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland, or
between Muslims and Jews in the Middle East, these conflicts
are not at all religious or theological in origin! They are
all territorial conflicts in which ethnic and religious
differences are exploited and manipulated, often
mercilessly.

However this fact still begs the question. Why and how is
it that religion is so easily exploited and abused? Why is
it that in many contexts of conflict in our world, religion
appears to be more part of the problem than the solution?
The answer, I believe, is to a great extent implicit in the
aforementioned point itself - namely, the socio-cultural
territorial and political contexts in which religion
functions.

Because religion seeks to give meaning and purpose to who we
are, it is inextricably bound up with all the different
components of human identity, from the most basic such as
family, through the larger components of communities, ethnic
groups, nations and peoples, to the widest components of
humanity and creation as a whole. These components of human
identity are the building blocks of our psycho-spiritual
well-being and we deny them at our peril. Scholars studying
the modern human condition have pointed out just how much
the counterculture, drug abuse, violence, cults, etc. are a
search for identity on the part of those who have lost the
traditional compasses of orientation.

In the relationship between religion and identity, the
components or circles within circles of our identity affirm
who we are; but by definition at the same time they affirm
who we are not! Whether the perception of distinction and
difference is viewed positively or negatively, depends upon
the context in which we find or perceive ourselves.

You may recall the work of the popular writer on animal and
human behavior, Robert Ardrey, who referred to three basic
human needs: security, stimulation and identity. Ardrey
pointed out that the absence of security serves as automatic
stimulation that leads to identity. When people sense a
threat, such as in wartime, they do not face the challenge
of loss of identity. On the contrary, the very absence of
security itself guarantees the stimulation that leads to
strengthening of identity. Indeed because religion is so
inextricably bound up with identity, religion itself
acquires far greater prominence in times of threat and
conflict, nurturing and strengthening the identity that
senses itself as threatened, in opposition to that which is
perceived as threatening it. We might note in this regard
the role of the ancient Hebrew prophets in relation to the
people when in exile. Then they do not challenge their lack
of moral responsiveness and ethical outreach -- that they do
when the people are secure. In times of insecurity, they
see their role to protect and enhance the identity that is
under threat.

However, the character that religion assumes under such
circumstances is often not just one of nurturing, but often
one of such self-preoccupation and paradoxically even one of
self-righteousness, that disregards "the other" who is
perceived as not part of one's identity group and even
demonizes that "other" who is perceived as hostile, often
portraying the latter -- in the words of the historian
Richard Hofstadter -- as "a perfect picture of malice."

The image I find useful in explaining the behaviour of
particular identities for good or bad is that of a spiral.
These different components of identity, as I mentioned
before, are circles within circles. When they feel secure
within the wider context in which they find themselves, then
they can open up and affirm the broader context; families
respecting other families; communities respecting other
communities; nations respecting other nations; and religions
affirming the commonality within the family of nations or
humankind. However, when these components of human identity
do not feel comfortable in the broader context, they isolate
themselves, cut themselves off from one another and
generally compound the sense of alienation.

In the Middle East this phenomenon is especially intense.
Everybody in our part of the world feels vulnerable and
threatened; it is just that different groups see themselves
and others in different paradigms! Therefore it is very
difficult within such a context to be able to open to the
other and affirm our common humanity in the recognition and
the importance of the fact not only that every human being
is created in the image of the Divine, but that our
religions -- all our religions -- affirm the value of peace
as an ideal for human society and see violence and war as
being undesirable -- perhaps a necessity in cases, but
certainly not as an ideal.

Moreover, where religion does not provide a prophetic
challenge to political authority, but is both caught up as
part of the political reality and even subordinate and
subject to political authority as it is in the Middle East,
institutional religion tends to be more part of the problem
than part of the solution. The role of the prophetic
challenge to religious identities, to be faithful to their
traditions while affirming the dignity of the other and
promoting reconciliation and peace -- has tended in our part
of the world as in most contexts of conflict, to be the
voice of the non-establishment religious visionaries and
activists.

Christianity has perhaps been a more constructive voice
within this context, but there is the rub: for Christianity
in the Middle East is characterized precisely by the fact
that it is not linked to any political power base. However,
most institutional religion in our part of the world is so
inextricably bound up with the power structures -- with the
heads of the respective Jewish and Muslim communities
actually appointed by the political authorities -- that it
is very rare for a truly prophetic voice to emerge from the
institutional religious leadership of either the Jewish or
Muslim communities. And even within the local Christian
communities there is also a tendency to be hamstrung by the
exigencies of the political realities that impose very
significant restrictions and pressures upon the role of
leadership within such a context.

Because religion is therefore associated more with partisan
insularity if not downright hostility towards the "other,"
there has been an understandable tendency on the part of
peace initiatives in the Middle East to avoid religious
institutions and their authorities, seeing them as obstacles
to any such peace process. This tendency is comprehensible
but terribly misguided, as it fails to address the most
deep-seated dimensions of the communal identities involved
and actually undermines the capacities of positive political
initiatives to succeed. Indeed, I believe this was a
significant factor in the failure of the Oslo Process. Let
me make the point more graphically. On the lawn of the
White House when the famous handshake took place in
September 1992, one saw no visible personality representing
religious leadership either of the Jewish community or of
the Muslim community in the Holy Land supporting the desire
to find a way out of the regional conflict. The message was
clear: religion is something to be kept out of the process.
It is not an exaggeration to say that this attitude
compounded a sense of alienation on the part of the most
fervently religious elements within both communities who did
their best to violently undermine that process (not that I
am suggesting any equivalence here!).

Furthermore, during the last five years, not only have we
witnessed terrible violence in the Holy Land, but we also
have seen a most worrying religious manipulation of a
territorial conflict, using religious symbols and arguments
to poison minds and justify terrible carnage.

Undoubtedly, the global terrorist abuse of religion has
significantly contributed to a dawning realization in the
world and in relation to the Middle East in particular that
not only is religion, as Doug Johnston has described it,
"the missing dimension of statecraft," but that, in fact, if
one does not engage religious institutions that reflect the
most profound identities of the peoples concerned to support
positive political processes, then inevitably one is playing
into the hands of those hostile to them. The real way to
overcome the extremists is to strengthen the hands of the
moderates. The effective way to marginalize the political
abuse of religion is to demonstrate its constructive
political use to embrace the other while respecting the
differences that make us who we are.

It was in this light, amidst the worst violence in recent
years in the Holy Land, that a remarkable gathering took
place three years ago in Alexandria, Egypt, bringing
religious leaders of the Three Faith communities together
for the first time ever in human history, to lend the voices
of their respective traditions to an end to violence and to
promoting peace and reconciliation. But precisely because
of the fear and insecurity that separates our communities in
conflict, it required a third party to bring this about.
And the person to do so was the then Archbishop of
Canterbury, Lord George Carey. Providentially, Canterbury
had an institutional relationship with Al Azhar in Cairo,
the fountainhead of Islamic learning in the Arab world,
indeed in the Muslim world at large, and the Grand Imam of
Al Azhar, Sheikh Tantawi, agreed to host the meeting. This
was crucial in facilitating the success of this initiative.
For while the Chief Rabbis of Israel do not represent all
religious Jews in Israel, let alone in the world,
nevertheless no one in world Jewry would object to their
representing Judaism for the purpose of advancing
interreligious reconciliation. Similarly, while the
Patriarchs of Jerusalem do not represent the whole of
Christendom, their role as representatives of Christianity
in an effort to promote reconciliation in the Middle East
would certainly be affirmed by the Christian world at large.
But, in the Islamic context, the religious leadership within
Palestinian society does not have the standing throughout
the Muslim world to ensure that its voice would be heard and
respected as representing Islam. Thus, the need to have
this major institution of Islamic learning support this
process was of critical importance. In addition, Egyptian
President Hosni Mubarak gave the green light to Sheikh
Tantawi to host the gathering, and arranged for all the
participants to subsequently meet with him at his palace in
Cairo for a press conference. This was because President
Mubarak, like other political leaders, now had an interest,
especially after September 11, 2001, in being seen to be on
the side of constructive religious resolution of conflict
rather than to be avoiding it. And not only President
Mubarak, but of course Prime Minister Sharon, and Chairman
Arafat also had an interest in such. The amazing thing was
that they all lent their support to this initiative despite
the violence that was going on at the time.

As mentioned, this summit was indeed an historic event, as
never before had heads of the different three faith
communities in the Holy Land ever come together in one
place. The participants included four leading Sheikhs from
the establishment structure of the Palestinian authority,
including the head of the Shaaria Courts, their Supreme
Islamic Juridicial Authority; five prominent Israeli rabbis,
including the Sephardic Chief Rabbi; and all Patriarchs were
represented, the Latin Patriarch attending in person. After
much discussion we were able to agree on a text of a
declaration that condemned the violent abuse of religion,
suicidal homicides, and all actions that are oppressive and
destructive of human life and dignity. The declaration also
called on political leaders to eschew violence and return to
the negotiating table and to recognize the importance of
religion as a force of reconciliation; and it called for
respect for the rights of both Israeli and Palestinian
peoples.

Notwithstanding the ongoing violence, this was a document of
great significance. While the symbolic significance of this
summit and its declaration in itself should not be
minimized, a number of important developments followed. To
begin with, it initiated a process of real communication
between the religious leaders who had previously had no
ongoing contact between them. The outcome has been the
establishment of a Council of the Religious Leadership
Institutions of the Holy Land involving the Chief Rabbinate
of Israel, the Shaaria Courts of Palestine and all the
recognized Churches of the Holy Land. This body declares
its purpose not only to facilitate ongoing communication
between the religious leadership, but also to engage
respective political leadership in the pursuit of peace and
reconciliation.

The Alexandria summit also led to the establishment of
centers for the promotion of religious teaching on peace and
reconciliation, in Gaza, Kafr Kassem and Jerusalem. One
might also argue that had it not been for the Alexandria
initiative, the historic World Congress of Imams and Rabbis
for peace that took place this year in Brussels under the
patronage of the Kings of Morocco and Belgium, would not
have happened. This led to the formation of an executive
and administrative structure to facilitate such ongoing
dialogue and conversation and the second congress is
scheduled to take place next March in Seville at the Center
for the Three Cultures of the Mediterranean.

Above all, however, the Alexandria initiative has given both
religious institutions in the Holy Land and beyond, a sense
that they can and must play an active role in conflict
resolution and has increased an understanding of this
necessity among political leadership as well.

The potential in this regard is enormous and I would suggest
that an urgent focus needs to be Jerusalem and the Holy
sites.

It has been popular past political wisdom that Jerusalem is
an issue that needs to be left until the end of a peace
process. However, the "religionization" of the Middle East
conflict to which I referred earlier -- not least of all
reflected in the Palestinian designation of the last round
of conflict as the Al Aksa Intifada -- has turned this
"wisdom" on its head.

This negative use of religion reflecting and exploiting an
atmosphere of insecurity and mistrust, has led to a
perception within the Muslim World that Muslim Holy sites in
Jerusalem are somehow under threat. At the same time, Jews
around the world and not only in Israel, are horrified by
what they perceive as the overwhelming denial on the part of
Muslims of any historic attachment of the Jewish people to
Jerusalem at all, let alone to its holy sites. And the
Christian communities are caught between the hammer and the
anvil.

Achieving an accord of the three religious communities on
Jerusalem that would affirm respect for each one's
attachments and sites, and adjuring against any threat in
word or deed to these, would be of enormous psychological
value. It would also be of great assistance for any
political process it there is a will for such.

A serious difficulty however lies -- as I have already
indicated -- in the fact that Palestinian Muslim leadership
cannot speak on behalf of the Muslim world. Accordingly,
any kind of interreligious accord has to involve the wider
Arab Muslim world at least. There are five key "players" in
this regard. In addition to the Palestinians, there is
Jordan, which still has a special role in relation to the
Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem; the Saudis, who see
themselves as the Guardians of all the key Muslim holy
sites; Egypt, which sees itself as the leader of the Arab
world and is the seat of the most important Muslim institute
of religious learning, Al Azhar; and Morocco, whose King
chairs the Jerusalem Committee of the OIC.

Efforts at bringing all these components together to achieve
an accord on Jerusalem and the holy sites are now underway
and, if they succeed, could be of enormous value.

As I have indicated, institutional religion cannot in itself
spearhead a political peace process in the Middle East.
However, it is an essential partner in providing the psycho-
spiritual glue without which no peace process will hold
together.

Simply stated, if we do not want religion to be part of the
problem, it has to be part of the solution - and where else
more so than in the land that is holy and so significant for
all three faiths, and where any accord between the local
communities will have enormous ramifications not only for
our region but indeed for the world as a whole.

----------------------------------------------------------
The Templeton Lecture on Religion and World Affairs

The Templeton Lecture was established by John M. Templeton,
Jr. to provide a public forum for the discussion of the role
of religion in international politics. Essays based on
these lectures are posted at:
www.fpri.org/education/templetonlecture.html

2004: Is Public Theology Necessary for Democracy?
Max L. Stackhouse, Princeton Theological Seminary

2003: The New Jihad and Islamic Tradition
John Kelsay, University of Florida

2002: The Dignity of Difference: Avoiding the Clash of Civilizations
Jonathan Sacks, Chief Rabbi of the British Commonwealth

2001: The Sacred and the Profane: Judaism and International Relations
Harvey Sicherman, President, FPRI

2000: Pope John Paul II and the Dynamics of History
George Weigel, Ethics and Public Policy Center

1999: The Coming Transformation of the Muslim World
Dale F. Eickelman, Dartmouth University

1998: Religion and Globalization
James Kurth, Swarthmore College and FPRI

1997: Religion and Russia's Future
James H. Billington, Librarian of Congress

1996: Religion and Civic Virtue at Home and Abroad
George Gallup, Jr., The Gallup Poll

For related material, see the Spring 1992 issue of Orbis on
Faith and Statecraft.

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http://www.enn.com/today.html?id=8878

Getting Apollo off the Ground -- A Guest Commentary

September 23, 2005 - By Steven J. Moss, San Francisco Community Power

Energy and labor are intimately related. After all, energy is by and
large a replacement for labor - most energy-using devices save time.
Washing machines replaced stone-slapping methods of clothes cleaning;
cars substitute for slower modes of manual transport. This
historical relationship has recently formed the basis for a
counter-movement lead by labor unions and environmental groups - the
Apollo Alliance. Apollo seeks to change the energy-labor
relationship into one in which cleaner energy sources create jobs,
rather than eliminates them.

So far Apollo has been closer to a delayed space shuttle launch than
a successful trip to the moon. While energy efficiency, solar power,
and "demand-response" have made steady gains in state and federal
energy policies, the linkage between energy and economic development
hasn't. Still, despite the lack of policy reform, there's ample
evidence that well-crafted community-based energy management programs
can provide multiple benefits, including reduced polluting air
emissions, job creation, and economic development.

San Francisco Community Power is one example of how energy and
employment can be successfully linked, as well as the challenges of
doing so. SF Power was originally funded by power plant mitigation
monies. The organization trained unemployed residents of San
Francisco neighborhoods where aging power plants are located to
install energy saving equipment at low income households and small
businesses. The work itself was not particularly complicated -
literally screwing in compact fluorescent light bulbs or installing
motion sensors - but it required patience, care, and "handyman" level
competence.

Virtually every worker hired by SF Power had "issues," before and
after their training. The training itself was the first time some of
them had been in an adult classroom setting, and many did not have
study skills, or even know how to behave respectfully towards the
teachers or one another. Most of them, including the women, had
their wages garnished for back child care liabilities, reducing their
incentive to work. And throughout their employment work-disrupting
situations emerged for all of them. Girlfriends or family members got
sick, and had to be taken care of; cars broke down or were stolen
entirely; addictions re-emerged, with individuals simply disappearing
for days, weeks, or forever.

Still, and without the full-range of social support resources typical
of many back-to-work programs, the job got done. Thousands of
households or businesses were provided with devices that tangibly
reduced their energy bills, as well as lessened reliance on the
locally polluting power plants. Less money for utility bills meant
more dollars in consumers and businesses pockets, with concomitant
benefits to the local economy, including, undoubtedly, more job
creation. And every person employed in the program expressed pride in
their work to help improve their community's environment. The outcome
was precisely what the Apollo Alliance wants to achieve.

When the mitigation monies, which were administrated by the City and
County of San Francisco, ran out, SF Power successfully turned to the
local utility, Pacific Gas and Electric Company, for funding support.
A version of the program continued, including relying on community
residents to do the work. But PG&E, as governed by the California
Public Utility Commission, did not have the same interest in bundling
energy saving efforts with job creation and economic development.
The utility's direction from its regulators was to obtain
cost-effective energy savings as soon as possible. As a result, it
had less patience for the slower work pace caused by newly
refurbished workers, and no funding for the extra staff time required
to make community residents workforce-ready. It was difficult to get
the resources necessary, or even obtain access, to support training
opportunities.

Still again, the PG&E-funded program has proved successful, employing
two-dozen community members and cumulatively serving close to fifteen
thousand homes and businesses cost-effectively. But the need to wage
a "permanent war" to attract, train, manage, and replace low income
workers has taken its toil on SF Power. It's not clear, four years
after its launch that this type of effort can effectively compete
against private sector companies whose only motivation is the bottom
line, and who are willing to hire fewer individuals from outside the
community being served to do more work at lower pay.

And that's why Apollo needs to get off the ground. While utility
ratepayers may not have an interest in job creation, environmental
justice, or even economic development, society does. And it just so
happens that society members and ratepayers are one and the same.
Energy regulators -- as well as other one-issue government agencies,
for that matter - should abandon their single-minded focus on
achieving a solitary goal. Instead we should use our scarce resources
to get as many "two-fers" as possible. A dollar spent buying someone
a light bulb will get some energy savings. Spending a dollar and a
"bit" having that same bulb screwed in by a rehabilitated worker who
lives in the neighborhood will not only save energy, it will create
it as well: previously under-utilized human energy.

Steven Moss is the publisher of the Neighborhood Environmental
Newswire. He serves as Executive Director of San Francisco Community
Power, www.sfpower.org.

truthout http://www.truthout.org/issues_05/092305EC.shtml
original http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2005/9/21/17309/6650

Sunrise from the West
By David Hochschild
Grist.org

Wednesday 21 September 2005

The defeat in the California legislature of
the bipartisan Million Solar Roofs bill earlier
this month was a big blow, but the initiative -
and the broader spirit behind it - are carrying
on, says David Hochschild, director of policy at
Vote Solar Initiative, a nonprofit working to
bring solar energy into the mainstream. Here,
Hochschild shares his take in an op-ed written
for Grist®:

Late on the night of Thursday, Sept. 8,
California's Million Solar Roofs bill died when
the California legislature ended the 2005
session. Originally proposed by Governor
Schwarzenegger with bipartisan support in 2004,
the $2.5 billion bill would have created ten
years of incentives to help Californians install
up to one million rooftop solar energy systems on
homes and businesses.

The autopsy report is not long. The blame
falls squarely on the rising political tensions
between the governor and the legislature and on
the inability of various labor interests and
advocates for this bill to reach a fair consensus
that would help reduce the cost of solar energy.

Nevertheless, solar advocates have good
reason for optimism. The California Public
Utilities Commission, which created the nation's
largest solar incentive program in 2001, is
moving to establish the Million Solar Roofs
program on its own. Under California law, the
CPUC has wide authority to enact the key
provisions contained in the failed Million Solar
Roofs bill, the most important of which is the
funding. A final ruling by the CPUC to increase
and expand California's current solar rebate
program for ten years, now funded at $125 million
a year, is expected in the next three months.

CPUC President Michael Peevey, a strong solar
supporter, has been leading this effort. If he is
successful, the majority of Californians will be
grateful. According to a recent Field Poll, 77%
of Californians want the Million Solar Roofs
program implemented.

In the din of America's sensationalist
political culture, it can be easy to lose sight
of why state leadership on renewable energy
matters so much. This summer, just six months
after the Kyoto global warming treaty took effect
with the support of 141 nations, President Bush
signed into law a 1,700-page federal energy bill
chock-full of subsidies for coal and oil. That
America has rejected the only international
protocol intended to fight global warming and
instead adopted an energy policy that
accelerates, rather than alleviates, the problem
is unacceptable.

But by failing to lead in the development of
the clean-energy technologies of tomorrow like
solar power, the US is also sacrificing an
enormous economic leadership opportunity to
countries like Japan. The world's solar industry
today is undergoing changes that are similar to
what happened in television manufacturing over
the last few decades. Once dominated by American
companies like RCA and GE, television
manufacturing was transformed after Japan moved
aggressively to establish itself as the industry
leader. The company names on most television sets
in American households today tell the rest of the
story.

Today, Japan, among other nations, is having
enormous success doing the same thing with solar
energy, another technology born in the United
States. In 1994, the Japanese government
established a solar program similar to the model
California is now considering, with rebates given
to customers who install rooftop solar energy
systems. In just ten years, Japanese solar
companies like Sharp, Kyocera, Mitsubishi, and
Sanyo emerged as the titans of the world's solar
industry and the average cost of a Japanese
residential solar energy system declined by 72%.

That America's economic counterparts are
bringing solar into the mainstream is good news
from an environmental perspective. Largely as a
result of pro-solar policies implemented in Japan
and Germany, the world's solar industry grew by
62% last year, surpassing wind energy to become
the fastest-growing source of energy in the world.

This is encouraging news. But without the
meaningful participation of the United States, it
is unlikely to be enough to make a dent in
climate change. The leading contributor of the
CO2 emissions that cause global warming is
pollution from power plants. And the cost of
solar has to come down another order of magnitude
to make an impact on this problem. The most
important factor determining which nation will
lead the solar revolution in the decade ahead is
not annual sunlight but pro-solar policies. Both
Japan and Germany, which together represent 69%
of the world's solar market, receive only about
two-thirds of the annual sunlight of the United
States. Meanwhile, America, and California in
particular, is the Saudi Arabia of sunlight but
without the right policies to encourage us to
take full advantage of this clean resource.

For the next few years, it seems likely that
renewable energy will remain a national priority
without national leadership. That makes the
pioneering efforts of state governments all the
more important. If California does succeed in
implementing the Million Solar Roofs program this
fall, it will be national victory that can help
America become the political and economic
incubator that brings solar energy into the
mainstream. But whether or not California gets
the job done, the responsibility to keep fighting
for it falls to us all.

-------

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107,
this material is distributed without profit to
those who have expressed a prior interest in
receiving the included information for research
and educational purposes. t r u t h o u t has no
affiliation whatsoever with the originator of
this article nor is t r u t h o u t endorsed or
sponsored by the originator.)

MannGram: REVERENCE FOR NATURE

Sep 2005

I was struck by this quote within one of the homely daily email bulls:-

Quote for today:
Unless we have a deep awe of the Word we shall never have high joy over it. Our rejoicing will be measured by our reverencing. (Charles Spurgeon)

This strikes me as right on - esp remembering The Word through whom all was created (Jn 1).

But isn't it also interesting to pursue the great English Baptist's point, applied instead to this world? Is there not a sense in which we should have 'deep awe of the world'?

'This world' in the NT often stands for Satan acting thru wicked people; and of course we are instructed not to be of this world in this sense. But what I mean by reverence for this world is due respect for natural ecosystems upon which we depend for our own life and which have intrinsic values that materialism cannot recognise.

Reverence for nature has become trendy from time to time e.g GaiaSpirituality and Noo Eege generally, the 'letter from Chief Seattle' forgery, etc. Most of these modern 'spirituality' efforts have been embarrassingly shallow. But reverence for nature can have far sounder bases.

I would say on reflection:

Go big Chuckie - tell it ter Dawkins.

The best, arguably the only, way to evoke practical caring for this world is by inducing a kind of reverence, and the best examples are found in religion-based management systems. A few millennia of sustainable farming have been achieved in the famous rice terraces of Bali. Gita Mehta's superb historical novel 'Raj' reminds us that some kingdoms of ancient India were pretty stable for a few millennia. By contrast, the overdeveloped nations today worship Mammon shamelessly, causing unprecedented harm.

Reverence is of course not the same as worship. You don't have to be a pantheist, or even a panentheist, to revere the only biosphere we know of. Christian scientists such as John Morton have respected the natural created world enough to learn more about it than recent graduates can know; to describe ecosystems in reverent detail; and to advocate for conservation e.g against filling-in Ngataringa Bay, logging Whirinaki forest, etc. The dismal point is that Christian conservationists like Mort have remained rare. The church has disgracefully neglected care for Creation.

Nature includes also of course the tool-making, oh-so-clever ape about which the Creator particularly cares. Christ's atonement is primarily for us humans. But in the (neglected) Millennium a perfected world is to enjoy Christ as we now cannot. The joy in the Word during the Millennium is - on my analysis - to be correlated with, and I suppose to some extent earned by, our reverencing of the only biosphere we know of, the garden we are wrecking.

Some recent sects concentrate on personal salvation (& sometimes prosperity) without regard to the limits of the planet to provide resources or to absorb pollutants. One forthright follower of Christ recently mocked Mort's saving of Ngataringa Bay - "a few more snails wouldn't matter". Care for creation is a very low-rank dimension of work in my diocese. Asst bp Randers was a member of Eichers' Royal Commission on GM but was unable to prevent grossly unfair procedures, and showed little interest in the ethics for which he was appointed as expert.

The modern, science-based era in conservation dates from the Manapouri campaign in NZ, and globally from Rachel Carson's 'Silent Spring' (1962). 1972 was the annus mirabilis of this movement. The NZ Values Party, primarily conservationist, in the 1975 general FPP election, 5.2% of votes. Gwen Struik got 10% in Nelson. Now, in the mischievous German-type MMP electoral system, the NZ Green party struggles to keep above the generous 5% threshold. In many ways, the conservation movement has been not only failing to make progress but even losing ground.

I'm socking this MannGram to many believers, but also some old friends who've persisted in atheism.

How can we expect people to take due care of the biosphere? The record of godless communism was even bleaker than that of our side in the military-industrial competition. The Nash/Marshall attempt to implement Christian ethics in a mixed economy thru a secular legal system created, briefly, the finest modern civilisation; but that depended crucially on some threshold of Christianity in the private lives of the citizens. We slid below that threshold - somewheres in the 1960s I suspect. Western civilisation has been on an increasingly steep downward slide for 4 decades now. I doubt reversal of decay can be achieved on materialist grounds which have never sufficed. It is up to the church to lead the revival.

The little-known attempt by Rev Lt H Williams & northern chiefs to create a theocracy, expressed partially in the 1835 declaration, was abandoned when Henry had seen (Jan 1840) what the Wakefield wide-boys were doing around Cook Strait. Reluctantly, the CMS had to accept that a rule of law based on Christian ethics was not politically available to New Zealand except by incorporation into the British Empire (as requested by important chiefs for decades already; which the CMS had been trying to avoid). The 1840 declaration therefore superseded the 1835 announcement (which BTW is nevertheless recently revived for claimant purposes by stupid lesbians claiming the Manukau Harbour with persistent help from Ms H Fletcher CJ).

If applied ecology is to become dominant in politics - the hopeful cause since 1972 - the only practical hope for our governance is to reinforce the monarchy and in particular the heir who not only advocates but notably practises at Highgrove top-quality organic agriculture. He, and his most noble mother, are devout Christians. Supporting this royal family within the proven constitutional monarchy would seem the only sensible way to go.

But instead, the Green party has become republican. They wish to overthrow the monarchy. Their "co"leader Rod Donald makes oafish remarks about the Queen. (Their actual leader is cunning enough to leave this dirty role to him.) The Maori they at last found to replace Sue Bradford as their spokesman on Maori affairs, Ms Metiria 'innocent girl' Turei, delivered a seditious maiden speech in Parlt. She has just got back into Parlt ahead of Tandoori on account he can't cope with a child in his idea of a domestic arrangement for bringing up children. Their party is more preoccupied with propagandising for sexual deviance and racism than for applied ecology.

I agree with Garth George that political parties claiming to represent Christianity should be disbanded. The Nash/Marshall era must be regained amidst a wider exploration of means for the church to influence politics in every party and outside them. Islam is influencing NZ politics, with the help of "green" communist list-MP Keith Locke. How is Christianity to recover vigour as the moral leader in New Zealand?

As I said a few y ago: I interpret the downward slide of civilisation over the past few decades as evidence that the attempt to maintain a system of ethics & law based historically & logically in Christianity is doomed if the religion which gave rise to it is not suitably active in its continuance. Theocracy is not advocated by anyone I know; but what other church/state arrangements looks feasible & desirable? An upper house of Parlt, with formal church representation, has been tried in the UK for quite a while, and Blair's disdain for it is no final word on the general idea. When was it last looked into?

Anyhow let us take every opportunity of reaffirming the Parltry prayer as a statement of national values.

Almighty God
Humbly acknowledging our need for Thy guidance in all things, and laying aside all private & personal interests, we beseech Thee to grant that we may conduct the affairs of this house and of our country to the glory of Thy holy name, the maintenance of true religion & justice, the honour of the Queen, and the public welfare, peace & tranquility of New Zealand; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen

R.

From: "Maxim Institute"
Subject: Maxim Institute - real issues - No 175

When the tail wags the dog
Law already operates to shut down "hate speech"
Speculation underway on the special votes

When the tail wags the dog
Germany also went to the polls on the weekend. The results generated some striking similarities with New Zealand. This is not surprising as New Zealand's Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) electoral system is modelled on the MMP system used in Germany.

Although MMP allows a greater number of parties to be represented in Parliament, the problem often arises that there is not a clear winner and parties must negotiate to form a government. Since the minor parties reflect a number of sectional interests, this makes the task a lot trickier.

Both the New Zealand and German campaigns were fiercely fought between the major parties on the left and the right. In Germany, these were the incumbent Social Democrats (SPD), led by Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, and Angela Merkel's conservative Christian Democrats (CDU). Although the CDU led in the polls, hard campaigning by Schröder saw the final difference between the two major parties at only one percent on election night (CDU 35 percent, SPD 34 percent), the same as the difference between Labour and National. The result is just as inconclusive as New Zealand's, since both Merkel and Schröder have claimed they can form the next government.

Although the CDU has the largest number of seats in the German Parliament, it will be difficult for Merkel to stitch together a coalition because none of the minor parties (the Greens, the Left party or the Liberals) want to work with each other in a coalition government, much like the situation in New Zealand. The election results in both countries showed decreasing support for a red-green government.

As in New Zealand, German politicians are trying to negotiate an agreement. However, their options appear even more limited than those available to Helen Clark or Don Brash. New Zealand's situation is not as dire, but both elections show that the political dynamic created by MMP must be consensual before it can be strong or stable, as Helen Clark and Gerhard Schröder claim. The government 'the people' finally end up with may not bear close relation to the votes cast, as small parties can end up having an influence disproportionate to their size.
To read an article on MMP by Maxim researcher Steve Thomas, featured in the winter issue of Evidence, please visit;

http://www.maxim.org.nz/evidence/evidence05_winter_thomas.html

Law already operates to shut down "hate speech"

A man who sent offensive letters containing slices of pork to Muslims has been jailed for six months for criminal harassment under the Harassment Act 1997. The man had randomly selected Muslim names out of a phone book because he was angry at the September 11 terrorist attack and the Bali bombing.

This latest sentence shows that the law already operates to prohibit certain speech that could be deemed hateful or insulting and that further laws restricting "hate speech" may be unwarranted.

The Harassment Act is one of six pieces of legislation that prohibit speech that has the potential to cause offence, harm or ridicule. Words that are likely to "excite hostility or bring into contempt" any group on the grounds of colour, race or origin are prohibited under the Human Rights Act, and words that are intended to "threaten, alarm or insult" are prohibited under the Summary Offences Act.

The Government Administration Committee has, over the past year, conducted an inquiry into whether New Zealand should have laws banning so called "hate speech", but has not yet reported back to Parliament. This latest court sentence makes it clear that further restriction on freedom of expression to control so called "hate speech" is not warranted, and would be an unjustified limitation on our freedom of expression affirmed by the New Zealand Bill of Rights 1990.

To read Maxim Institute's submission on the Inquiry into "hate speech" from May 2005, please click here: http://www.maxim.org.nz/ri/HateSpeechSubmission.pdf

Speculation underway on the special votes

With the Election result in the balance, much is going to depend on the 218,000 special votes still being counted. In the past, these have tended to favour Labour and the Greens. However, past years may not necessarily be a good guide for estimating their impact this time round.

In previous years, up to 25 percent of special votes have been disallowed. The discard rate was at its lowest in 2002, when 93 percent of party votes were valid. If we take 90 percent as being a likely percentage this time, that leaves the parties fighting over approximately 196,000 valid votes.

On the Election night count, the overall vote for centre-left parties, including the Maori Party, dropped from 51 percent to 49 percent. The centre-right (defined broadly to include New Zealand First and United Future) climbed from 47 percent to 50 percent. Labour, with 41 percent of the party vote on Saturday night, currently has 50 seats. National is currently 1 percent behind, with 49 seats.

Based on the approximation above, to remain at 5 percent, the Greens would need 8,350 of the special votes, or 4 percent; less than that, and they would fall below the threshold of 5 percent of the party vote and lose all their seats in Parliament. This would have implications for coalitions, and possibly determine who forms the next government.

In the previous two elections, the Greens have done well in the specials, possibly because they were held during the university holidays. If students were registered in the electorate where they were studying, many would have cast a special vote. This year there are not likely to be as many students who registered special votes, but the Greens are still unlikely to fall below the threshold. This scenario illustrates how under MMP, smaller parties may be very influential in determining the final outcome of an election.

The U of Ak chaplains' mag Real World, where I pubd my first theological paper a dozen y ago, is to pub next month the attached 1500wd. I've sent it also to NYT

!Should I next try on Dawkins' stronghold The Grauniad ?

The challenge is to summarise theistic evolution so that an outline can be presented in many situations. We should include IDT's main point but also many more important.

Sound-bite situations beloved of the media are a largely different challenge but should also I suppose be faced up to also.

IDT®, the thin end of the wedge for Creationism®, is mostly a pseudo-intellectual PR charade.

IDT® cautiously refrains from error, rather in the manner of a student writing exam answers. But they do so at the price of saying very little. Their characteristic point, 'this bacterial flagellum is designed' i.e Paley 1802 gone submicroscopic, is not wrong - OK as far as it goes; but to stand pat on that one point, waiting for Dawkins, Wolpert etc to admit it, is not very educational. (I'm glad to find the recent Discovery Inst bk 'This Privileged Planet' is a broader 'cosmological anthropic' reasoning.)

IDT is tainted by fake scholarship. The IDT storefront www.iscid.org is designed to resemble a scientific forum but comptrollers Dembski, Sparacio have repeatedly refused to let me slap anything onto it. Unnecessary novel terms are injected by Dembski in such a way as to give those unfamiliar with philosophy an impression of scholarly writing. I have remarked that their concentration on submicroscopic 'Paley timepieces' is to a degree obscurantist - requiring instruments and advanced theory to understand what is being studied e.g flagellin, blood clot cascades, etc, whereas the evident planned cooperation in macroscopic ecology is directly accessible to children .

As Don Nield points out, IDT's Wedge is being driven in at the wrong place, causing rifts in wrong places. IDTers Johnson, Dembski etc want to dump methodological materialism, and claim that 'this bacterial flagellum must be designed' is a scientific statement. Instead, it's 'God of the gaps' lo-grade philosophy, and peculiarly narrow & fixed. Dubya has even vaguely endorsed IDT® - kiss of death?!?

What is needed instead is to carry on science with materialism as an axiom of scientific method, but also create a context of philosophy in which science will be conducted, acknowledging all 4 categories of cause (not just 2 as assumed in Dawkins' scientism).

Moral relativism is common among pushers of IDT (Creationism lite) and even of Creationism-hevi. 'Teach the controversy' they intone, as if all ideas enter on an equal footing. Glyn Carpenter likes to give more space to each of Creationism® and IDT® alongside Don Nield's orthodox understanding of evolution which ends up < 33% of the VisioNet booklet. Interestingly, they don't admit to supporting Creationism or even IDT - they just pose as neutral. But these are not tendencies toward which a Christian minister or serious layman should remain neutral. I repeat what I've said about the leaders of Creationism previously:

In 1983 I photographed in the Science Museum, Kensington, an exhibit which asserted the axiom that
*either* organisms have evolved
*or* God has created them.

This furphy, not normally so clearly enunciated, seems to me to be not only the fundamental error of Creationism® but also typical in its illogic of most if not all fundamentalisms. I suggest the racket common to them all is the requirement of assent to propositions which are not subtly but flagrantly false. This is not ancillary or accidental: I believe it is essential, in that once a person has overtly signalled switching-off of God-given reason in favour of a pointedly false slogan from the sect leader(s), obedience can be thereafter required much more generally by the sect leaders.

This is in the nature of totalitarian systems' social psychology. "The Slavs are sub-human" and of course the immortal "the Jews are the cause of all German troubles" are prototypical modern examples of blatantly false slogans which you had to assent to overtly if you were to attain the (temporary) social security of the National Socialist Party. "The first 3 chapters of the Bible, plus the Noah story, can & must be taken literally" is similar mischief. To exhort people to say they believe what cannot actually be believed is mind-buggering for the purpose of totalitarian power.

I don't see why this racket is not more widely & vigorously condemned. Those who propound it do not in fact advocate that other parts of the Bible be read literally; Broom & I point to John the Baptist's hailing "the Lamb of God" - why do fundamentalists not try to insist that Christ assumed ovine form for that occasion on the banks of the Jordan?

These sectarian, totalitarian tendencies are a major cross-current within W. Christianity. Graeme Finlay has emphasized that they are also a serious external embarrassment to Christianity, being used as handy weak targets by anti-religion ravers e.g. Dawkins. I cannot understand why VisioNetNZ is so easily bought off and acts in effect as an undeclared agent for Creationism®.

I have seen enough of the leaders of Creationism & IDT to say their main ideas & methods are demonic. Bruce Nicholls pretends to reply by saying their dupes are not demonic; I agree this is a fact - but why won't Bruce & Glyn face up to the glaring defects in the leaders?

R

Clarifying "the" theory of evolution

L R B Mann

Which aspects of the theory of evolution are in dispute? A thickening fog of verbiage now makes it more difficult than ever for students to discover fact, and to understand theory, regarding evolution.

1. Fact as distinct from Theory

What does the term 'evolution' mean? The OED tells us it comes from the Latin noun evolutio 'unrolling' and means

A. The process by which different kinds of living organisms are believed to have developed from earlier forms, especially by natural selection.
B. Gradual development.
Evolution is the appearance over time (Margulis & Schwartz 199 of new life-forms - new species, and larger taxa (genus, family, order, class, phylum, kingdom). Science has inferred from a large body of observations that life appeared on our planet as blue-green algae 4 x 109 year BP; later emergences include complex animals 1 x 109 y, mammals 2 x 108 y, and man somewhere in the region 106 -104 y BP. Most species were created much later than the first. Thus, insofar as facts can ever be confirmed regarding pre-human processes, evolution is a fact - in the sense that new life-forms have appeared over billions of years.

However, evidence for change in descent from one to another has been difficult to come by and is sparser, at least to date, than sometim¬es assumed.

2. Theory
To explain evolution, as to explain any process in nature, will require theory - some model of how organisms could have evolved. (The question of how the first organism came to be is a largely different matter.) All categories of cause will be required for any such theoretical model. The 4 categories of cause, originally defined by Aristotle (trans. Flew 1989), hold key potential for improving evolution theory. The recent restricting by e.g. Dawkins of causality in evolution theory to only 2 categories of cause is a main confusion in evolution theory.

The biologist John Morton (1972 Ch.1), noting that at Aristotle's period in the development of science he was in no position to understand chemical process, offered a more modern version of the 4 causes which I précis and commend for wide spreading:

What are the causes of the bottle of claret I'm now decanting?

The material causes include the grape juice and the yeast, materials transformed by the efficient cause into this peculiar substance claret.

The efficient cause, as in Aristotle's prototypical example 'the making of a statue', is the action of the yeast on the grape sugars and some minor components, a process resulting in aqueous ethanol and some minor chemicals characteristic of claret.

But my bottle of claret has also a final cause: a person (named Babich) willed to organise suitable vessels & conditions for the substances which are the material causes, and planned a sequence of operations, for the purpose of making claret by maximising the likelihood that the efficient cause for claret would operate i.e. the particular biochemical action of the yeast on the grape juice leading to claret.

Aristotle's formal cause is in this example the 'claret idea' in Babich's mind.

Some rationalisation for the label 'final' is offered by Temple (1923):

This is the essence of "intellection" or science, that it asks "why" perpetually; as soon as it is answered, it asks "Why?" again ... But if from some other department of Mind's activity an answer is suggested, the intellect (if not impeded by "intellectualist" dogmatism) will gladly accept it. And Mind does accept as final an explanation in terms of Purpose and Will; for this (and, so far as our experience goes, this alone) combines efficient and final causation. "Why is this canvas covered with paint?" "Because I painted it." "Why did you do that?" "Because I hoped to create a thing of beauty for the delight of myself and others."

I believe the Categories of Cause - surely among the most important ideas in the whole of philosophy - constitute the lever to break the confused logjam of "creationist" fundamentalism, 'intelligent design theory' IDT®, and neoDarwinism.

IDT, a very restricted phenomenon, is a modern version of Paley's 1802 natural theology, insisting that biology bears the marks of design. IDTers refuse to discuss the character, or even the number, of designer(s).

NeoDarwinism, the current mainstream scientific theory, purports to explain change in descent by mutation (usually said to be random) followed by natural selection which narrows the variance among the mutants by selecting against the less fit.

Those two processes, involving only material causes and efficient causes, are necessary, but not sufficient, to explain evolution.

What can be said to explain - ascribe all the causes of - an organism and its evolution?

DNA is a material cause of all (so far as is known) organisms, and operates as parts of efficient causes through the several types of RNA and the many enzymes essential for biosynthesis of proteins & other biochemicals; but DNA is surely not a Final cause. As Morton has recently put it, DNA is not the kind of thing that can cause other things as if paints could leap from tubes to create a Turner, or vibrations & percussions form themselves into a work of Mozart. A person implementing a plan - a final cause - is a prerequisite for such things to come into existence. The point which IDT® emphasizes is more clearly put: no amount of explanation in the categories of material & efficient causes can suffice to explain life. (The OED's attempt to privilege natural selection as a theoretical approach is questionable.)

Similarly, megatime is no substitute for purpose in the emergence of new species.

Technology - and more widely, all human acts willed to modify the universe - cannot be explained without using the concept Final Cause. The only type of final cause - person acting with a purpose - is, in the militant atheist Dawkins' approach, human will. Thus "who designed this watch?" would be an allowed question, but "who designed this frog?" disallowed - as an assumption of atheism.

But ecology, and evolution of ecosystems, are purposeful, and Dawkins' descriptions of evolution turn out to be always laden with the language of purpose.

How is a modern biology to deal with Final cause? A conservative answer today could be to continue the methodological convention that science will pursue only material and efficient causes, but also to advocate that science be taught & practised in a context of philosophy acknowledging all the categories of Causes. (This can be readily done consistent with the USA constitutional amendment so misrepresented by USA courts this last half-century; there need be no tendency to establish any church with legal privileges.)

If science consists in discovering materials (e.g. chemical elements & compounds), energies (so far just 4), and forms (e.g. species of organism) and elucidating qualitatively & quantitatively the processes - including energy conversions - which result in new physical situations, then material and efficient causes are the only causes science can study. But this methodological restriction in the scope of scientific theory does not constitute any reason to say that no final causes operate in evolution. How much science can hint about these final causes remains to be seen, but will not amount to much; natural theology - the study of nature, without recourse to revelation, with intent to infer who created it - is only a small part of comprehensive theology. Philosophy and theology will have to revive to give us the metaphysics needed to study final and formal causes in evolution.

The mainstream Christian doctrine is that evolution is God's process for creating new types of organism. Less than a century old, eccentric, and mischievous, is the fundamentalist claim that evolution is refuted by Genesis 1-3 (the creation stories of Judaism & Christianity) & 6-9 (the Noah story). These very figurative sections are among the most myth-laden biblical texts and were written long before science emerged as a way of knowing. Their theological wealth is neglected by the novel mischievous pretence ("creationism") to understand them as literally contradicting science.

Discussion of final cause in biology may well begin with Hume's quip "[t]his world, for aught [any man] knows, is very faulty and imperfect compared to a superior standard; and was only the first rude essay of some infant deity, who afterwards abandoned it, ashamed of his lame performance." As a Christian, I'm willing to discuss starting as far back as that ultra-sceptical position. But anyhow, let's keep moving, shall we, IDTers? It is not realistic to stand pat on your one little point, Paley's Argument to Design, waiting for Dawkins, S Weinberg, Wolpert etc to concede its logic.

The only theory of evolution anywhere near explaining that marvellous process comes to us by the Christian tradition - today Morton, Broom, and Sheldrake; in the previous generation Sir Alister Hardy and Archbishop Wm Temple.

I would relish a public debate against Dawkins about his depauperate 2-causes philosophy.

-----

Readings

Broom, N., 1998. How Blind is The Watchmaker? Aldershot: Ashgate ; rev edn IVP 2001.
Flew, A., 1989. Introduction to Western Philosophy p.159 London: Thames & Hudson.
Margulis, L. & Schwartz, K. V., 1998. Five Kingdoms New York: Freeman.
Morton, J., 1972. Man, Science and God Auckland & London: Collins.
Temple, W., 1923 . Mens Creatrix - an essay Macmillan.
Temple, W., 1934 . Nature, Man and God Macmillan.

= = =

A biochemist from Wellington via Berkeley, Dr Robt Mann was on the U of Auckland staff for two decades. In retirement he is involved in appropriate technology and in natural theology. He has published in Real World several times from no. 3.

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=57&ItemID=8777

A World Turned Upside Down

The corporations are demanding regulation, and the government is
refusing to give it to them
by George Monbiot

September 20, 2005

Climate change denial has gone through four stages. First the fossil
fuel lobbyists told us that global warming was a myth. Then they
agreed that it was happening, but insisted it was a good thing: we
could grow wine in the Pennines and take Mediterranean holidays in
Skegness. Then they admitted that the bad effects outweighed the
good ones, but claimed that it would cost more to tackle than to
tolerate. Now they have reached stage 4. They concede that it would
be cheaper to address than to neglect, but maintain that it's now too
late. This is their most persuasive argument.

Today the climatologists at the Snow and Ice Data Centre in Colorado
will publish the results of the latest satellite survey of Arctic sea
ice(1). It looks as if this month's coverage will be the lowest ever
recorded. The Arctic, they warn, could already have reached tipping
point: the moment beyond which the warming becomes irreversible(2).
As ice disappears, the surface of the sea becomes darker, absorbing
more heat. Less ice forms, so the sea becomes darker still, and so
it goes on.

Last month, New Scientist reported that something similar is
happening in Siberia. For the first time on record, the permafrost
of western Siberia is melting(3). As it does so, it releases the
methane stored in the peat. Methane has 20 times the greenhouse
warming effect of carbon dioxide. The more gas the peat releases, the
warmer the world becomes, and the more the permafrost melts.

Two weeks ago, scientists at Cranfield University discovered that the
soils in the UK have been losing the carbon they contain: as
temperatures rise, the decomposition of organic matter accelarates,
which causes more warming, which causes more decomposition. Already
the soil in this country has released enough carbon dioxide to
counteract the emissions cuts we have made since 1990(4).

These are examples of positive feedback: self-reinforcing effects
which, once started, are hard to stop. They are kicking in long
before they were supposed to. The intergovernmental panel on climate
change, which predicts how far the world's temperature is likely to
rise, hasn't yet had time to include them in its calculations. The
current forecast - of 1.4 to 5.8 degrees this century - is almost
certainly too low.

A week ago, I would have said that if it is too late, then one factor
above all others is to blame: the chokehold big business has on
economic policy. By forbidding governments to intervene effectively
in the market, the corporations oblige us to do nothing but stand by
and watch as the planet cooks. But on Wednesday I discovered that it
isn't quite that simple. At a conference organised by the Building
Research Establishment, I witnessed an extraordinary thing: companies
demanding tougher regulations, and the government refusing to grant
them(5).

Environmental managers from BT and John Lewis (which owns Waitrose)
complained that without tighter standards that everyone has to
conform to, their companies put themselves at a disadvantage if they
try to go green. "All that counts", the man from John Lewis said,
"is cost, cost and cost." If he's buying eco-friendly lighting and
his competitors aren't, he loses. As a result, he said, "I welcome
the EU's Energy Performance of Buildings Directive, as it will force
retailers to take these issues seriously."(6) Yes, I heard the cry
of the unicorn: a corporate executive, welcoming a European directive.

And from the government? Nothing. Elliot Morley, the minister for
climate change, proposed to do as little as he could get away with.
The officials from the Department of Trade and Industry, to a
collective groan from the men in suits, insisted that the measures
some of the companies wanted would be "an unwarranted intervention in
the market".

It was unspeakably frustrating. The suits had come to unveil
technologies of the kind which really could save the planet. The
architects Atelier Ten had designed a cooling system based on the
galleries of a termite mound. By installing a concrete labyrinth in
the foundations, they could keep even a large building in a hot place
- like the arts centre they had built in Melbourne - at a constant
temperature without air conditioning(7). The only power they needed
was to drive the fans pushing the cold air upwards, using 10% of the
electricity required for normal cooling systems.

The man from a company called PB Power explained how the 4 megawatts
of waste heat poured into the Thames by the gas-fired power station
in Barking could be used to warm the surrounding homes. A firm called
XCO2 has designed a virtually silent wind turbine, which hangs, like
a clothes hoist, from a vertical axis. It can be installed in the
middle of a city without upsetting anyone(.

These three technologies alone could cut millions of tonnes of
emissions without causing any decline in our quality of life. Like
hundreds of others, they are ready to deploy immediately and almost
universally. But they won't be widely used until the government acts:
it remains cheaper for companies to install the old technologies. And
the government won't act because to do so would be "an unwarranted
intervention in the market".

This was not, I now discover, the first time that the corporations
have demanded regulation. In January the chairman of Shell, Lord
Oxburgh, insisted that "Governments in developed countries need to
introduce taxes, regulations or plans ... to increase the cost of
emitting carbon dioxide."(9) He listed the technologies required to
replace fossil fuels, and remarked that "none of this is going to
happen if the market is left to itself." In August the heads of
United Utilities, British Gas, Scottish Power and the National Grid
joined Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace in calling for "tougher
regulations for the built environment"(10).

So much for the perpetual demand of the thinktanks to "get government
off the backs of business". Any firm which wants to develop the new
technologies wants tough new rules. It is regulation that creates the
market.

So why won't the government act? Because it is siding with the dirty
companies against the clean ones. Deregulation has become the test of
its manhood: the sign that it has put the bad old days of economic
planning behind it. Sir David Arculus, the man appointed by Blair to
run the government's Better Regulation Task Force, is also deputy
chairman of the Confederation of British Industry, the shrillest
exponents of the need to put the market ahead of society. It is hard
to think of a more blatant conflict of interest.

I don't believe it is yet too late to minimise climate change. Most
of the evidence suggests we could still stop the ecosystem from
melting down, but only by cutting greenhouse gases by around 80% by
2030. I'm working on a book showing how this can be done, technically
and politically. But it has now become clear to me that the obstacle
is not the market but the government, waving a dog-eared treatise
which proves some point in a debate the rest of the world has
forgotten.

www.monbiot.com

References:

1. This was reported by Steve Connor, 16th September 2005. Global
warming 'past the point of no return'. The Independent. But the
centre has just announced that its results won't be published until
the end of the month. http://nsidc.org/news/

2. Steve Connor, ibid.

3. Fred Pearce, 11 August 2005. Climate warning as Siberia melts. New
Scientist.

4. John Pickrell, 7th September 2005. Soil may spoil UK's climate
efforts. New Scientist.

5. Resource '05, 13th-15th September 2005. BRE, Watford.

6. Bill Wright, energy and environment manager, John Lewis Partnership.

7. See http://www.atelierten.com/ourwork/profiles/0513-federation-square.pdf

8. Quiet Revolution 6kW. Brochure from XCO2. Offord St, London.

9. Lord Oxburgh, 27th January 2005. Quoted in Greenpeace press
release: Shell Chair urges government to act now on climate change.
http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/climate/climate.cfm?ucidparam=20050210110220

10. Tony Juniper et al, 1st August 2005. Letter to Margaret Beckett
and other ministers. Available on request from Friends of the Earth.
--
Robt Mann
consultant ecologist
P O Box 28878 Remuera, Auckland 1005, New Zealand
(9) 524 2949
http://www.kuratrading.com/HTMLArticles/writings.htm

Subject: 10 things..........
TEN THINGS GOD WON'T ASK ON THE DAY YOU DIE...........

1... God won't ask what kind of car you drove. He'll ask how many people
you drove who didn't have transportation.

>If you do it in a wasteful or ostentatious way, he may well count against you what kind of car you drive.

2... God won't ask the square footage of your house, He'll ask how many
people you welcomed into your home.

>- but in the context of square footage, no?

3... God won't ask about the clothes you had in your closet, He'll ask how
many you helped to clothe.

>Why would he ignore extravagance in your wardrobe, even if you give away plenty?

4... God won't ask what your highest salary was. He'll ask if you
compromised your character to obtain it.

>This is getting more & more vulgar & crass.

5... God won't ask what your job title was. He'll ask if you performed your
job to the best of your ability.

>OK - for this relief much thanx

6... God won't ask how many friends you had. He'll ask how many people to
whom you were a friend.

>dubious

7... God won't ask in what neighborhood you lived, He'll ask how you
treated your neighbors.

>OK - but if you go out of your way to amass enough wealth to move into Grace Kelly country, and then stay many y in extreme luxury, might that not count against you?

8... God won't ask about the color of your skin, He'll ask about the
content of your character.

>check

9... God won't ask why it took you so long to seek Salvation.
He'll lovingly take you to your mansion in heaven, and not to the gates of Hell.

>This Universalism is impossible to reconcile with the NT, esp several stern statements of Christ.

N.B handy in the attempt to legitimize greed if you can pretend all are saved anyhow. But if you really believe that Get Smart doctrine, why bother to try to refute suggestions of sin for which you could be penalized at the last judgment?

10... God won't have to ask how many people you forwarded this to, He
already knows your decision.

>A very different point. And sneakily put.
I fw it as an example of glib but dangerous legitimisation of greed, admixed with some other stuff that doesn't cohere.

R

Lately, quite a lot of criticism is due within the Anglican (= Episcopal) church (to which I happen to belong).

This item exemplifies a version of racism that has largely taken over in the W.

Christianity, and I believe Judaism, actually forbids the attitude manifested here toward a creature.

British, or even Yank, types of legal system cannot embrace this type of "spirituality" as a basis for controlling gene-tampering.

R

For Immediate Release 9/15/05
Contact: Jennifer Tlumak
Wild Rice Outreach Coordinator
White Earth Land Recovery Project
218.573.3448
jtlumak@welrp.org

Department of Indian Work of the Episcopal Diocese of Minnesota Resolves
to Protect Wild Rice

St. Cloud, MN: On September 13, 2005 The Department of Indian Work of
the Episcopal Diocese of Minnesota forwarded a unanimous resolution to the
Bishop. The resolution, aimed at protecting sacred (??) wild rice from
contamination from potential genetic engineering, passed without dissent.
The group has asked that the Bishop James L. Jelinek of Minnesota
communicate to the Governor of Minnesota, the State House of
Representatives, State Senate, and other relevant State agencies the
"importance of protecting our wild rice resources by prohibiting
genetically engineered wild rice from being introduced into Minnesota."

The Rev. Canon Stephen Schaitberger brought the resolution forward. A man
with a love of the natural world, Rev. Schaitberger is deeply concerned
about the environmental and spiritual implications of the genetic
alteration of rice. "We want to support Minnesota's diverse religious
community, and this issue is of great spiritual importance to our Ojibwe
brothers and sisters," he said. "If wild rice is 'tamed' in the
laboratory through genetic engineering, and planted alongside lake rice,
the environmental consequences could be detrimental. Wild rice is a
state symbol for all Minnesotans, and I, along with this committee, want to
make sure it's protected," Schaitberger stated. He summed up, "Wild rice
is our mother, our sister, our brother; it is a relative [and the Episcopal Church is asked to support this "spirituality" - pathetic ! ! !] as well as a
plant."

The passage of this resolution adds another voice to the growing chorus of
advocacy groups, businesses, and individuals who oppose genetic
engineering of wild rice. Legislation to protect wild rice is expected
to be introduced at the Minnesota Legislature in the upcoming session,
which will begin March 1, 2006.

###

s m a c a
... a forum for progressive Christianity produced by St Matthew-in-the-City Anglican Church Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand.

18th September 2005

"Election!"
- THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK (Christian Politicians Go Home)

=====================
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK

"I choose to believe that the two Christian parties will register barely a blip on the count of votes, and I pray that they will both dissolve themselves and that their members will go back to their churches and preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ, by which they might do some good."
- Garth George (NZ Herald columnist)

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/search/story.cfm?storyid=%1E%FB%F8%C5%28%B6%BA%40

G Geo has provoked much resentment in his control of the NZ Horrid letters. But for once I agree with him.

How the state should be influenced by the church - a theme of at least 2 millennia - is one of the most important questions (far more important than those used for infotainment by the media in our media-produced election). Byzantium at its peak seems to have this issue best resolved; but we can't reproduce that civilisation today. For our country, theocracy was intended by Rev H Williams till as late as Jan 1840. By the Nash/Marshall era arrangements for the church to influence politics were practically nil.

I have contended for nearly a decade now:

Today I interpret the downward slide of civilisation over the past few decades as evidence that the attempt to maintain a system of ethics & law based historically & logically in Christianity is doomed if the religion which gave rise to it is not suitably active in its continuance.

But activity thru political parties seem to be a flop, and I fail to see how they could be an important answer.

How should the church influence the State?

R

Something to think about as we move towards the election?

Champion R-wing summary of how tax cuts work and what wealth is

David R. Kamerschen,
Professor of Economics, University of NSW.

Suppose that every night, ten men go out for dinner at La Porchetta's. The bill for all ten comes to $100. They decide to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes, and it goes like this:

* The first four men (the poorest) paid nothing
* The fifth paid $1
* The sixth $3
* The seventh $7
* The eighth $12
* The ninth $18
* The tenth man (the richest) paid $59

All 10 are quite happy with the arrangement, until one
day, the owner says: "Since you are all such good customers, I'm going
to reduce the cost of your daily meal by $20."
So now their dinner for ten only costs $80. The group still decides to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes. The first four men are unaffected. They will still eat for free.

But how should the other six, the paying customers, divvy up the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his "fair share"?

They realise that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtract that from everybody's share, then the fifth and sixth men would each end up being paid to eat. The restaurateur suggests reducing each man's bill by roughly the same percentage, thus:

* The fifth man pays nothing (like the first four) instead of $1 (100%saving)
* The sixth pays $2 instead of $3 (33% saving)
* The seventh pays $5 instead of $7 (28% saving)
* The eighth pays $9 instead of $12 (25% saving)
* The ninth pays $14 instead of $18 (22% saving)
* The tenth pays $49 instead of $59 (16% saving)

Each of the six are better off, and the first four continue to eat for free, as now does the fifth - but outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.

"I only got a dollar out of the $20," declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man "but he got $10!"

"That's right," exclaimed the fifth man. "I only saved a dollar too. It's unfair that he got ten times more than me!"

"That's true!" shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get $10 back when I got only $2? The wealthy get all the breaks!"

"Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison.

"We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!"

The nine men then surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn't show up for dinner. The nine sat down and ate without him, but when they came to pay the bill, they discovered that they didn't have enough money between all of them to meet even half of the bill!
That, boys and girls, journalists and college professors [not a term that would be used by a NSW native], is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up at the table anymore. There are lots of good restaurants in Monaco and the Caribbean.

This was my first theological paper -
as Mort put it immediately after helping me a
good deal with its writing. (Not many have such
distinguished help.)

Unfortunately it's in a 'counterattack'
mode, but I did work in a lot of substance - so
it may even be worthy of the mighty kuratrading®
webpage ...

Real World (U. of Auckland chaplains' magazine) 3 1993

A NOTE ON FEMINISM & CHRISTIANITY

Robert Mann

'God-Talk and the Liberation of Women', Susana Carryer's feminist article in Real World2, deserves some comments. Of Ms Carryer's key statements I quote and comment briefly upon a half-dozen. Then, I offer a glimpse of useful literature on 'the liberation of women'.

(1) "Biblical images of God as a mother . . . point to Mother as a viable and biblically correct option as a name for God."

If that is so, should not a scholarly article give references to those biblical images? Readers who do not know their Bible well enough, such as myself, cannot readily find these neglected passages. This comment is no mere pedantry; readers are entitled to wonder whether the Bible does actually contain passages to the effect (when read in context, as we would all like to do) claimed by Ms Carryer.

(2) " . . . the association of God with Father has become normative in our tradition . . . a cycle that is very difficult to break out of".

In one of God's central disclosures to us about his nature and how we should behave toward him, he has instructed us to address him as "Our Father". That key revelation of the Bible is of course reinforced by many others. This instruction presumably implies that, insofar as our feeble human minds can grasp and briefly refer in human terms to our relationship with God, it is most like that of a human child (male or female) with its father. Calling God 'Father' is no fleeting fashion or mere social construction; ironically, calling him anything else is.

(3) "the maleness of Christ has been converted from an historical accident . . . to being an ontological necessity".

Why God chose to reveal himself in a male rather than a female human constitutes something of a mystery which we may think about (while not hoping to understand fully). But the fact that he did thus choose remains a sheer fact.

To read into this historical given a universal ontological necessity that Christ (or any adequate manifestation of God) had to be masculine would be to go further than the Church has ever officially sought to. But to go to the other extreme and term it a mere accident entails an arrogant posture toward God of criticism which I, for one, find preposterous. God's choice within his creative process to make Jesus male really is a God-given factnot up for questioning. If the world is as God made it, trammelled by us sinners, we are faced with the sufficiently large task of discerning truly what are the facts of providence; speculation about whether Jesus could have been female seems, at best, peculiarly vacuous and evasive of reality.

Any thinking of God as personal entails the model of the human species, which happens to be male or female, as the only mode in which we can understand personality. To abandon gender must mean all too soon to lose personality. Doubtless God is unimaginably more than personal; but in our human apprehending he must be at least personal. The pronoun It would leave him sub-personal, no more to be found responding to us as I to Thou.

But the colossal recent mistake has been to think of sexuality as the primary and divisive category among us. We are first of all human. It is out of our humanity and His that we acclaim in Christ the human being to gather up and re-present before theFather a whole redeemed humanity.

(4) "Terms promoting a linear rather than hierarchical relationship need to take their rightful place alongside the others . . ."

That Nature is inherently thoroughly and profoundly hierarchical has been detailed in Goldsmith's recent magnum opus 'The Way'. As well speak of an animal body without organs, or a cell without organelles, as babble of a non-hierarchical ecosystem or society. It is vacuous, futile, and confusing.

A further criticism, on the level of logic: to present "linear" and hierarchical as tolerantly co-existing characteristics is woolly-minded. Even if we were not stuck by providence with inherently hierarchical biology and society - that is, if we had a real possibility of supplanting hierarchy with "linearity" - it would indeed be a supplanting that Ms Carryer promotes. Any impression that she is advocating kindly addition 'alongside', not replacement, is at best confused.

(5) "Female images of God . . . are necessary to affirm the goodness and legitimacy of female sexuality and identity." [my emphasis]

I hope the falsity of this assertion will need little exposition. Goodness and legitimacy abound in many aspects of humanity without any necessity of being projected onto God himself. Female sexuality has been affirmed as not merely good but glorious in a colossal mass of literature, song, and art; female images of God have evidently not been necessary for the production of these affirmations.

(6) " . . . women are [represented as] the descendants of Eve, the cause of all the evil in the world . . ."

For many years, readers of the Listener were subjected to endless weekly accusations by feminist Marilyn Waring to the effect that men are to blame for the world's ills. The interpretation of Genesis of which Ms Carryer complains has, I submit, had far less (relatively negligible) influence during the past half-century at least.

Having pointed out these rather obvious comments, one can nevertheless expect that they will be ignored by the political ideology of wimmin's lib, which diligently avoids critical discussion. Christians should be clear-eyed about the nature of this irrational political trend which has already made severe inroads on language, reasoning, politics and religion. (The extent of the latter inroads is glimpsed in the very fact that the article on which I have commented was accepted for publication.) Feminists, while differing amongst many sundering camps, are generally gaining political power (overtly or deviously) on the basis of misrepresentations of providence. I wish therefore to take this opportunity to point out some cogent facts about the way God has actually set up the world. Similar summaries have appeared elsewhere.

Ms Carryer, like most if not all feminists, complains repeatedly about patriarchy as if it were obviously evil and as if social rearrangements can do away with it. The book (Goldberg 1979) which first summarised the findings in the societies that have been studied on the subject of male dominance tells us that in all 1400 societies, men occupy the positions of apparent power. (The Amazons turn out to be a forgery.) Similarly, Keesing's (1976) textbook on cultural anthropology, in its section "womens' worlds", says:-

As 16 women social anthropologists compellingly argue in'Woman, Culture, and Society' (Rosaldo & Lamphere 1974), there is no evidence that matriarchal societies have ever existed. The apparent universality of male dominance - at least in public and political realms - must be a starting point for an anthropology of women.

The second edition of this book enlarges in very helpful ways, emphasising the need for both empathy and some measure of detached judgement regarding inferences of 'exploitation'.

Confusion often arises among people who have not looked up the meaning of the term patriarchy. Its characteristics relate merely to the formal, public arenas and social hierarchies, in which men brandish weapons, sometimes use them, march around in uniform, deliver loudly the decisions of society, defend and enforce them, etc. The very different forms of power exerted by women, mostly in private, in the formation of those decisions, are by their nature far less amenable to historical research; but it is a serious error to claim that patriarchy entails a lack of power for women. A particular case is that of many Maori women who are content not to speak on the marae because they do in fact speak through their menfolk, more effectively.

The latest and in many ways the best relevant textbook is Dr Anne Moir's 'Brain Sex' (1989). Like her predecessor Goldberg, Moir is rigorously blacked out, as is Illich's key book 'Gender', by feminist "scholar"s, of whom Margarita Levin (1986) makes some stinging criticisms.

Lisa Tuttle's 'Encyclopedia of Feminism' (1987) records the universality of patriarchy but asserts "alternatives to patriarchy may at least be imagined". I however contend that no such fantasy has actually been formulated, and that we cannot regenerate community on the basis of the erroneous notion - the axiom of feminism - that closely similar ways of life should be led by women and men. That such a notion needs to be pointed out as not onlyunrealistic but also highly undesirable illustrates how many have strayed, especially during this last quarter-century, from well-founded traditional understandings of gender.

Paul's words about the subjection of women (1 Cor. 7; 1 Tim. 2,8ff.) have not endeared that apostle to radical feminists. To be reconciled with Paul's whole evident position, those passages need to be understood as contingent upon and conditioned by the society Paul lived in. We need the same understanding of Jesus' oft-cited decision to enlist no women in the intimate fellowship of the Twelve. In his human life Jesus, with his disciples, was a Jew faithful in daily matters to the social perceptions of his culture and time. Over and over again in his ministry we find Jesus following these, working "with the grain". Only thus could his mission be accomplished among the people into whom (very oddly as the rhymster says) God chose to become incarnate.

If we want to find Paul's convictions on the plane that counts eternally, we must go to the splendid Gal. iii28-9: "There is no such thing as Jew and Greek, slave and freeman, male and female, for you are all one person in Christ Jesus". Through the centuries this has been the normative text of conduct for any society to be called decently Christian. The firstcouple - Jew and Gentile - was given recognition in Christian practice during the first century; 'bond and free' took longer, until the 19th century. Let us work to see that 'male and female' become reconciled in the full Galatians sense in our time. Feminism is, on the whole, antagonistic to that Christian challenge.

Much more needs to be written about this important topic. To my mind the real question is, what is the appropriate division of labour between men and women? What, especially, is the meaning for today's men and women of the Bible's first three chapters? Have readers of Real Worldsome thoughtful suggestions on that?

SOME GOOD SOURCES

Goldberg S (1979) 'Male Dominance: the Inevitability of Patriarchy'. Abacus
Goldsmith E R D (1992) 'The Way'. Century
Greer G (1983) 'Sex & Destiny'. Secker & Warburg
Illich I (1982) 'Gender'. Pantheon
Keesing R M (1976; 1981) 'Cultural Anthropology'. Holt Rinehart
Levin M (1986) 'Caring New World: Feminism and Science' Amer. Scholar 57(winter) 100-106
Lyndon N (1992) 'No More Sex War'. Sinclair-Stevenson
Moir A, Jessel D (1989) 'Brain Sex: the real difference between men and women'. Michael Joseph; see also the epilogue to the American edition (Lyle Stuart 1991).
Tuttle L (1987) 'Encyclopedia of Feminism'. London: Arrow

[ the then editor Rev Calum Gilmour printed this - with an ill grace. The only response was from some harpie purporting to complain at my failure to cite any reference for my statement that God had instructed us to address him as 'Our Father'. Calum printed that. ]

The article below by sometimes controversial high school {the
hall arson case} principal Martin Elliott makes some good points -
if in an annoyingly trendy style.

I believe that if the media would give fair coverage to the
arguments, s59 would cease to be challenged.

But we live in a period of decreasing reason. The nation is
dominated by an inchoate, shifting set of power-plays by a murky,
changing set of lesbians & bisexuals. Poutasi's special statute to
block Professor Elliott's world-leading biotech, aided crucially in
Parliament by Fiddler Bunkum, Mrs Yates, and Ms Fitzsimons, and
further afield Mae-Wan Ho, may hold the record for irrationality.

In such a context, the feminazi cause of sooling the police
onto domestic "violence" does make sense as a main project of the
warped, vengeance-bent ideology of WimminsLib. I realise many have
difficulty imagining such wickedness. Please don't blame the
messenger. I am merely trying to point out what is happening, and to
suggest a reasonable interpretation; the loathsome nature of the
picture I sketch is no excuse to evade the facts, nor to blame me.
Face the facts.

Cartwright intruded (as reported below) on an election
campaign to endorse a policy just announced by a political party.
Next day she made a similar political speech to a more respectable
gathering (Save The Children, patron the Princess Royal). Such
political intrusion is to my mind clearly beyond her constitutional
bounds.

R

******

"Smack now and save trouble later"

Waikato Times, 18 June 2002

If parents could correct and control their children in younger years there
would be fewer problems later, says Martin Elliott.

I READ with interest an article in the Sunday Star-Times by Dame Silvia
Cartwright

[ I believe this is a significant error. That rag featured
her on p.1, but only in a report, which I also copy below - and
which omitted her ludicrous "180 NZ children killed by abuse" ]

on the issue of the right of a parent to smack their child, and
furthermore she makes the claim that smacking your child is assault.

This is an issue which creates considerable debate and has gained much
impetus in these politically correct times and there are still moves to make
smacking your child a criminal offence.

From the outset can I declare my stance?

1 am in favour of parents having the right to use such physical force as to
reasonably restrain or modify the behaviour of their children. This will not
surprise many, as I know that I am considered a conservative, somewhere to
the Right of Genghis Khan and Attila the Hun. Thankfully there are still a
few of us around.

There are two key issues that I see as important.

Firstly I do not have a moral or ethical problem with a parent smacking or
restraining their child in a reasonable manner. In fact if I was to be
honest, I wish more parents would in fact restrain and control their
children within reasonable parameters and if necessary whack some bums.

So often these days we read stories in the media about kids failing to act
reasonably and responsibly; young people totally out of the control of their
parents, schools and the police.

The truth is many young people have been brought up without guidelines or
parameters and these days can do what they like. They have never been made
accountable for their behaviour. The Children and Young Persons Act has made
a mockery of disciplining and controlling young people.

The right of a parent to chastise their child must be balanced by the
parent's responsibility to care for their children. So often in life it is a
question of balance and degree.

Before the politically correct go into a feeding frenzy I need to say that
there is a huge difference between a slap on the bum and outright brutality
or brutality of any sort. It is this distinction that causes the division
between the camps in this debate.

However Dame Silvia is of the opinion that even a slight smack is an
assault, which I believe is nonsense.

The truth is the "thug parent" will always beat the crap out of their
children regardless of the law or any philosophical argument that you and I
can discuss.

When children are young a slap on the hand and a sharp verbal admonishment
not to draw on the TV screen with their pudding will normally change a
child's behaviour very quickly. Wrecking the lounge furniture, pulling down
the ornamental plants, or refusing to obey an instruction from the parent
will equally be brought to a halt with a smack and verbal admonishment.

Kids do not have adult brains and to launch into a 10-minute spiel on the
dangers of electricity and three-point plugs is lunacy when a smack and
sharp words will suffice until the child grows older and understands in a
more mature way that 10,000 volts up the bum will do more than curl your
hair.

The PC crowd would have us believe that we should modify our behaviour in
order to control our kid's behaviour.

That is, we move the lounge around, put ornaments out of harm's way, let him
dictate the TV channel, so that little Jimmy can go on the rampage and won't
get into trouble.

All little Jimmy learns from that is he can do whatever he likes and everyone
else will accommodate his wants and needs.

If he screams, stamps his foot and turns red as he also holds his breath he
knows Mum and Dad will give in even faster. When little Jimmy turns from a
little cherub with a precocious self-centred view of the world into a
gangly, physically imposing, surly 16-year-old, he becomes our worst
nightmare.

Let's get real about one thing.

Children do not have the same rights and responsibilities as an adult, nor
are they accountable to the same degree for their behaviour, so it is
nonsense for us to expect the same rules to apply to adults as it does to
children.

The second point I want to make is more pragmatic.

Society shouldn't make laws it cannot enforce. How would this country
enforce an anti-smacking law? If little 8-year-old Jimmy tells his
schoolteacher "Mummy smacked me last night" what happens next? Who polices
the law? Who are the watchdogs to follow up any incidents?

What happens when little Jimmy says to his mother "If you don't let me stay
up to 9.30 to watch TV I'm going to tell the teacher you hit me!"

Don't smirk. I have seen this scenario happen many times. Teenagers are
already blackmailing their parents with the big Social Welfare baddie if
they don't get their own way.

Parents are already incredibly disempowered by the law. I do not blame
parents for being unable to control their kids. Kids know their rights big
time, but we have failed to impress upon them their responsibilities.

In New Zealand most people comply with the law willingly. There will always
be those people, regardless of whichever law, who flout it.

I am firmly of the belief that if we as a nation took a bit more
responsibility in correcting and controlling our children in their younger
years we would have far fewer problems with teenagers in their latter years.
Change the law, Dame Silvia? No way!

-------------------------------------

Radio NZ reported 15-6-02 that our G-G had delivered a speech
advocating something along the lines of Jane Ritchie's proposal: a
new crime - corporal punishment on one's own child in one's own home.
She was quoted as saying that since Sweden created that crime only 4
children have been killed in Sweden by domestic violence whereas in
smaller NZ 180. No such numbers are cited in the 'Sunday Star-Times'
front-page story (below).

A few y ago the 'NZ Herald' printed a piece of mine (attached
now) against this proposal; more recently an assoc prof of law at
Otago, James Allan, has expounded similarly in that same organ. I
outline now why I believe the banning of smacking is nothing less
than an attack on civilisation, and in particular an unacceptable
political advocacy by any G-G.

The basis of civil order is domestic order, and a main basis
of that is the rare but crucial recourse of the head of the household
to corporal punishment. Minimising (as distinct from the stupid
unrealistic aim of abolishing) violence is based on corporal
punishment of children.

Anthropology & sociology have reported that the division of
roles between the sexes in all societies is characterised by
patriarchy. In the public realm, the men deliver the decisions and
die defending them on behalf of the women & children. Within the
household, generally, the man delivers the decisions, after informal,
but usually important, consultations in private with the woman.
These are the main features of patriarchy, which has been universal
in human societies (except the v recent USA subsidised black slum
household led by a woman and devoid of men except sometimes for
transient wallets - now emulated by the subsidised NZ version).

Cartwright of course is the spearhead of the radical
wimminsLib attempt to overthrow patriarchy. I have studied many
aspects of her notorious 'inquiry' and the NZ Herald has allowed me
to call it a travesty. To those who knew about that rort, it was
always on that she would cause bad trouble by misusing her position
as G-G.

Indeed, the first thing she did was to raise gratuitously the
subject of republicanism. Since then, H Clark esq has openly
advocated republicanism. Cartwright has repeated that chant again
recently, and said she has strong opinions on what sort of republic
we should have - but then gone all coy & pseudo-proper by
withholding those particular opinions. It would be reckless to
assume these two are not in league in their advocacy of republicanism.

During the 1996 election campaign Cartwright delivered a
speech on poverty, to a wimminsLib gathering (Prostitutes Collective,
Rape Crisis, Positive Action Self Defence Network, Women's Electoral
Lobby, Federation of Women's Health Councils {i.e. S Coney), etc). A
friend of mine wrote complaining to the chief justice (then Eichers)
and was rudely brushed off; indeed he had issued a Media Release the
day after her speech saying she'd done nothing wrong. Doug Graham,
who until then had a pretty good grasp and only more recently went
PC, condemned her political utterance, saying that if she wanted to
go into politics she should quit the bench.

It will be argued that on both occasions she was only giving
some leadership on an important moral issue. But if she can't do
that without explicitly arguing for a recently-announced, highly
contentious policy of a political party, which is exactly what she's
done this time, she should not do it.

Opinions may differ on how grave is this latest offence. I
take it that the Monarchist League would do what it could to get her
purged if she very gravely offended against our well-established
politically neutral G-G office. It was worrying enough when Holyoake
was slapped into the job; today things are sliding fast, and I
suggest we must carefully review what it would take for a G-G to
deserve removal. I would be grateful to hear considered opinions on
that question. If this latest offence is not over the line, where
would you draw the line?

R


SMACKING KIDS IS ASSAULT, SAYS CARTWRIGHT

Sunday Star-Times 16-6-02
p. 1

by Oskar Alley

Governor-General Dame Silvia Cartwright has criticised a
quirk in the law that allows parents to smack their children.

In a break with the governor-general's normally independent
stance, the former high court judge said parents who smack their
children could be committing a technical assault.

Cartwright stopped short of calling for a law change to make
smacking illegal but questioned the lack of legal protection for
children when slapping an adult or beating an animal was a crime.

Cartwright's comments put her at odds with the government,
which has been unprepared to repeal section 59 of the Crimes Act,
which allows parents to use reasonable force to punish their children.

Cartwright told a Save the Children national conference in
Wellington yesterday that levels of child abuse in New Zealand were
"shocking".

"Yet the legal definition of 'assault' says that any force,
no matter how slight[,] constitutes an assault. So there is a
contradiction in the way we look at the assault of another person and
the way we look at the physical discipline of children," she said.

"It is unlawful to slap another person's face but not
unlawful to slap a child.

"A parent has a right, indeed a responsibility, to discipline
or chastise a child. But that same person has no such right to touch
another person, if that touching falls within the legal definition of
'assault'."

Cartwright said that legally assault was any force applied
with intent and the line between physical punishment and serious
assault was so blurred it did not really exist.

She said the laws allowed parents to use "reasonable force",
later adding: "If you are 18 months old and can't speak yet, no one
really knows whether your misbehaviour was so calculated, so deviant
as to warrant the bruising and internal injuries visited on you as
punishment. "[sic] If you were an adult, no matter how deviant your
behaviour, you cannot be punished by another in such a way without
the intervention of the law.

"But we can guess - no 18-month-old child could possibly
deserve such a brutal physical assault."

Cartwright said "violence begets violence", adding judges did
not have faith in prison terms to stop violent offending.

As a high court judge, she said, it had been "truly
depressing" sentencing violent offenders who knew no other way of
life. She said "judges know that a sentence of imprisonment is not a
solution to violent offending - it may keep the community safe, but
it will not modify the violent behaviour".

Carwright, patron of Save the Children, said she did not want
to become involved in the political debate but the way forward was to
support preventive strategies.

Justice Minister Phil Goff has said there was not time to
change the existing laws before the election. Meanwhile two private
member's bills restraining smacking continue to languish in the
parliamentary ballot.

-----

You will note the blatantly illogical tricks she is pulling.
She implies children should have exactly the same
legal status as adults - a truly preposterous notion.

She implies that smacking entails bruising & internal
injuries. She fails to discriminate between violence and stinging
but non-injurious smacking - the heart of the matter.

She suggests the behaviour for which she advocates
criminal penalties is not modified by even a gaol term; but she fails
to say whether she believes a fine will deter. It remains unclear
what good she envisages from prosecuting parents for smacking their
children. (At least she refrains from the standard routine within
this campaign of advocating repeal of s59 while also claiming
prosecutions are not intended.)

Most constitutionally objectionable is her coy "I
don't want to become involved in the political debate". This is of
course standard for ideologues, who evade any debate - their ideas
are held dogmatically, not open to reason. But she is deliberately
impinging on a political debate, and in a unilateral declaration.
This is, in form if not in degree, a breach of her constitutional
status.

Even if what she had uttered had been reasonable & honest,
the form of political intrusion would still be a constitutional
breach. It is surely not to be humoured without protest.

That leaves the question of what modes of protest would be best.