Friday, June 13, 2008
Maclean's, Canada's leading newsweekly, is on trial for disrespecting
Islam. The magazine argued that the rise of Islam threatens Western
values. This prompted a front-page article by Adam Liptak in yesterday's
New York Times, "Unlike Others, U.S. Defends Freedom to Offend in
Speech." What sets the U.S. apart from all other countries is The First
Amendment to the Constitution. In a sense, these 45 words ARE the
Constitution - the rest of it is just operating instructions. But does
the rise of Islam really threaten Western values? At the risk of being
put on trial in Canada, we note that the NY Times reported a day earlier
that an increasing number of Muslim women in Europe seek hymenoplasty, a
surgical restoration of the hymen to recapture the illusion of virginity.
It's not clear whose values are being threatened.
The success and credibility of science is anchored in the willingness of
scientists to expose their work to the scrutiny of the rest of the
scientific community, and to abandon or modify accepted facts or theories
if better evidence becomes available. This includes sharing the details
of how the work was done. The basic assumption is that for every physical
effect observed there must be a physical cause. Science is a matter of
tracing the chain of causes back in time until we can write the theory-of-
everything on a T-shirt. Governments would do well to emulate the
openness of science.
In a message read at the June 3 opening of a three-day World Food Security
Summit in Rome, Pope Benedict XVI said that hunger is unacceptable in a
world that can produce plenty to eat. He quoted a 12th Century church
text: "If you do not feed someone who is dying of hunger, you have killed
him." But if you do not provide the pill to populations with inadequate
resources, have you murdered starving infants? In a finite world, food
shortages are inevitable in the absence of adequate family planning. In
Britain, where population is soaring due to record immigration, the
Chairman of the Sustainable Development Commission called for a "zero net
immigration" policy. He commented on the malign combination of a Catholic
Church that sees contraception as wicked, and a United States, which takes
an ideological approach to family planning. Martin Rees, President of the
Royal Society said: food and water shortages are a dangerous reality in
developing countries.
John McCain told Florida newspaper editors that it would be exciting to
send a man to Mars. He explained that he's been intrigued by Mars ever
since reading Ray Bradury's Martian Chronicles. Actually Mars has
changed a lot since then. I've been making a list of appropriate crew
members for the trip and I'd be happy to include McCain so he could see
the changes for himself.
After 99 years of trying, naturopaths in Minnesota can now call
themselves "doctor." That's OK, in Minnesota they call tag-team
wrestlers "Governor."
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