Death to the Death Penalty

There are many laws in our country that have good intention as the basis. However, for any reason there is usually a chance that the law can be misused. This could be wrongful conviction from incorrect DNA evidence, false testimonies, or many other reasons. Chimeras, or people with two or more sets of DNA within their body, are a particularly interesting area in the courtroom that can prove to give wrongful convictions by thwarting the highly praised DNA evidence. Without going into too much detail, the main point is that courts are not always perfect, and can allow the innocent man to be seen as guilty. How then, can we allow something as conclusive and finalizing as the death penalty to be a possible outcome, or more so an end to so cases? Many inmates, in the history of the US legal system, have been released due to developments in their cases, but this will not matter if they were killed. The Death penalty is nothing more than an overstatement of the government’s confidence in their every ruling that needs to be quickly and completely removed from our legal system. We try to be civilized men in our everyday lives, and quickly and rightfully convict those who are so demented as to take another’s life. However, we are no better than them, if our answer is to do the same thing we are convicting them for? Our justification has always been hidden behind the government’s seal, but we are so easily reminded by history of the corruption of even the highest elected officials that this is not always sound. The line must be drawn in the sand somewhere, as to the extent of the governments “legal” abilities and unfortunately this line has long been washed away by the ever-present waves of illogical arguments and corruption.

Women who stare at goats.

Wednesday November 17, 2010. Does this day mean anything to you, or anything to anyone in the United States? Unfortunately, apart from a few select Americans probably not. This was, as I found out after a quick Cha cha and a few seconds in the good ole’ Bible, the day that the Muslim culture celebrated Eid al-Adha. To avoid spending too much time on this subject, Eid al-Adha is the day the Muslim culture spends to remember when the prophet Abraham was allowed to spare the life of his child and slaughter a ram instead. Although, while most partakers enjoy the day, it has always been a horror fest for animal rights activists as the streets are filled with the public slaughtering of animals. NYT’s Robert Worth interviewed Amina Abaza, a local animal rights activist about the subject. “She complains that many butchers fail to abide even by Islam’s own strictures: that the animal should not be mistreated, and should not see or hear other animals being killed,” wrote Worth. I believe though, that she should not be taken seriously for even a second. In a world seen, stereotypically by the Western cultures, as a bomb-ridden terrorist infested desert, there should not be the slightest concern for how the animals are treated. Someone who worries about animal rights in the middle east is comparable to the child Jamal, from Slumdog Millionaire, worrying about whether the chicken he is eating is free range or not. There are more important things to worry about Jamal, and Mrs. Abaza. While I agree to some degree that animals should not be abused, we should all agree that a human life is of greater unparalleled value. Instead, Mrs. Abaza should be worrying about how the Islamic culture is regarded in the treatment of humans and realize that this will affect how they treat animals as well. She needs to confront the deeper problem in their culture instead of wasting her time wondering about the feelings of a sheep waiting for slaughter.

Can Greed Ever Be Good?

In the recently released movie Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps by Oliver Stone, the idea of greed was candidly addressed. The prequel to this film, also by the same name, allowed the main character Gordon Gekko to make the simple statement, “Greed…is good.” He was referring to the economic benefit of having people constantly pushing for more and more, eliminating inefficiencies and allowing our economy to reach never before seen potentials. This original Wall Street movie, which was released in the mid eighties, was met with cheers at a Berkley Business Administration graduation ceremony speech, for its ideas of supposed economic health.
However, as an economics teacher of mine once said, ”Whenever rapid growth or inflation occurs in an economy, unfortunately recession is always soon to follow.” That idea is reflective in the basic laws of our world. It follows Newton’s third law, stating that whenever there is a force it is always accompanied with a reaction force of equal magnitude in the opposite direction. As we continue to force our economy to grow at impractical rates, we are met with that equal and opposite force pushing us back. This is evident in a quick glance of our history of economic inflations and recessions in the US.
Greed is the main cause for continuing to push for more and more, far beyond necessity. The movie Wall Street portrays a man by the name of Bretton James as a hedge fund manager in great financial success. He is later on convicted of insider trading between his company and a smaller company that he anonymously owns. A board manager questions his reasoning and Bretton is without an answer. Why would someone well into his millions, if not billions of dollars risk going to jail simply for trying to double or triple his fortune? Greed can be the only answer before insanity. Greed is nothing more than a disease in our modern world, allowing families to buy homes well above practical limits, companies to depend on unnecessary rising stock prices, and our economy to constantly swing like a pendulum in and out of recession and inflation.

James, Michael S. "Is Greed Ever Good?" ABC News/Money (2002). Web. 1 Oct. 2010.

Blog 1. The Human Vermiform Appendix.

As medical technology has advanced so has our understanding of the human or vermiform appendix. The technical description of the organ is still vestigial, or without a purpose. However, many people are deciding to leave in the appendix if it is not a life threatening issue. It has recently been used as extra tissue to replace parts of the bladder in bladder reconstruction surgery. This alone makes the vermiform appendix anything but vestigial.

In 2007, a study from research scientists at Duke Medical University was published revealing the formation of biofilms in the large bowel. Now what does this mean to those not as fluent in medical terminology? It simply states that the presence of biofilms, or clusters of microorganisms, in the large bowel suggest that the appendix is used by the body to store good bacteria. In certain cases when antibiotics or an infection wipe out the good with the bad bacteria, Duke researchers are fairly certain that the appendix plays a role in restoring your body with good bacteria. This report has since appeared in many college and medical journals such as the Dartmouth Undergraduate Journal of Science and even published in the U.S National Library of Medicine.

These findings are unavoidable and obviously just the start in the area of appendix research. While you may not be a complete believer I hope that you are at least motivated to question your Doctor if or when he or she suggests an unnecessary removal of the appendix. Although the findings are not completely certain, I would be willing to bet a large portion of my appendix that within the next few years a new edition of our biology books, that will actually be necessary, will state the appendix as a non-vestigial human organ.

Sources:

Wanjek, Christopher. "The Appendix: Slimy But Not Worthless." Live Science (2006). Web. 9 Sept. 2010. .

Bollinger, Randal R., Andrew S. Barbas, Errol L. Bush, Shu S. Lin, and William Parker. "Biofilms in the Large Bowel Suggest an Apparent Function of the Human." Journal of Theoretical Biology 249 (2007): 826-31. Www.Duke.edu. 7 Sept. 2007. Web. 9 Sept. 2010. .

Welcome

Well after a lot of requests, well mainly from Dr. Hillabold, this blog is ready. I hope that you are just as excited as i am about this, and hope you continue to read and experience the magic that is Blair's Blog!