Category Archives: Thinking

Happy Birthday Eve, Mr. Darwin

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Tomorrow is the 200th birthdays of Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) and Charles Darwin (1809-1882). Tomorrow I’ll be writing about President Lincoln but today I want to remember Charles Darwin.

Charles Darwin is best known for his book, The Origin of Species. He has become the flashpoint in a debate between evolution and creationism. Before the 19th century most people believed that the creation of the world happened as it was described in the Bible. Charles Darwin and others began to observe through scientific experimentation that there was another story.

Therein lies the rub. People who use the Bible as the only source for the world’s creation trace our orign to October 23, 4004 BC. You can read more about it here. Darwin and others began to posit the theory that the world is much older and that species evolved. In other words, the first people were not Adam and Eve. We, instead, evolved from other creatures and other primates are (in a sense) our distant cousins.

Almost immediately after the publication of his book there were those who believed that Darwin wrote his book only to destroy Christianity. They felt that anything that talked about evolution would cause well meaning believers to renounce belief in God and that the world would become atheists (and would therefore be condemned to hell.)

On the other hand, many of us believed that there is not problem in believing in both evolution and God. We were heartened by Pope John Paul II who claimed that Genesis answers the “why” of creation and not the “how.” As a lifelong Catholic it never occurred to me as a child that evolution was wrong. I never saw the connection between science class and church. I always believed in both evolution and God.

It wasn’t until I became an adult that I discovered that there were people who though the world was only 6000 years old. When I first learned about creationism (or its first cousin “intelligent design”) I couldn’t believe intelligent people could believe in such a thing. I quickly recognized that, despite their claims, this wasn’t science.

The scientific method, developed in the 1700s, follows a strict course: you begin with observation, which leads to a hypothesis, followed by experimentation. If the experimentation confirms the hypothesis, it becomes (over a series of experiments) a theory. If it doesn’t, the hypothesis is discarded in favor of another hypothesis. Over time the theory becomes more and more significant and more and more accepted (like gravity).

Creationism isn’t science because it doesn’t follow this course. It begins with the conclusion that must be found. It then develops a hypothesis that picks and chooses observations that lead to the conclusion that must be found. Any experimentation that leads in another direction is discarded, and any experimentation (no matter how suspect) that leads in the right direction must be true.

In the final word, I think the Christian Churches picked a fight with Darwin that didn’t need to be fought. Faith doesn’t mean you have to disbelieve what science finds to be true and it doesn’t mean you have to stop using your brain. My belief in God includes the possibility that God created the world and watches over its evolution. I pray for the day when all Christians believe this.

Electric Cars: Is This a Lateral Shift to Another Fossil Fuel?

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As everyone who reads this knows, I drive a Toyota Prius and my gas milage is in the low 40s MPG. I enjoy it (and especially enjoy the sticker that allows me to drive in the carpool lane even if I’m alone). But the drawback is that my gas mileage isn’t all that much better than the 35MPG I used to get in my 1997 Honda Civic. My Prius uses a battery that is recharged by use of the gas engine and isn’t running all that much.

In the last few weeks I’ve been hearing news out of Detroit that American car manufacturers are increasingly looking at cars that run on 100% electricity and plug in overnight. This would save us from lots of the oil we now convert to gas and burn and it would lower our dependence on OPEC. But it raises an obvious question for me: If, over time, we switch from gas powered cars to electric powered cars, where does the electricity come from? And if it’s coal, does switching from one finite fossil fuel to another really help?

I did some looking on the internet and found a page from the Department of Energy. It broke down all the energy consumption in the United States in 2006 and from my calculation, we used 1,990,926 thousand Megawatt hours in coal compated to 4,064,702 thousand Megawatt hours total. If my 3rd grade math is corrrect (Mrs. Moore, are you checking this?) we get about 49% of our electricty from coal. The numbers in California are dramatically different; I found a group called One Block Off the Grid that shows in 2007 California got only 16.6% of its power from coal, but 45.2% from natural gas, another fossil fuel.

I find this a little disturbing for three reasons: First, I’m not sure that in the long run we gain much from switching to another fossil fuel. Granted we have more coal and natural gas under our own soil and this would free us up from OPEC. But the bottom line is that we’re still burning a finite fuel and it, too, will run out some day. Second, coal and natural gas are also greenhouse gases. According to naturalgas.org all three release CO2 with coal being the highest, oil in the middle, and natural gas being the least. You can find the numbers there. Finally, it’s clear that the American car industry needs to change things and change things fast to stay competitive and in business. When they start making the switch to electricity, will the current grid be able to accept all the increase in demand? We here in Southern California know well that there are times during the summer where increased use of air conditioners has led to rolling blackouts because the grid just couldn’t keep up with demand. Granted if we do start switching over to electric cars it will be a gradual thing, and the industry is saying simply “The grid will have to grow” but can it? Can we mine enough coal and natural gas to keep up with demand?

We hear all the time about areas around the world that have electricity for only a few hours a day, if at all. Most of us have never experienced that. We expect, and have come to expect, that whatever we plug in, no matter how power hungry and no matter what time of the day, will work. Those days may be changing.

Exit Thoughts on 2008

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It’s been a while since I’ve posted; I keep thinking that someday I’ll have the time to post on a more regular basis.

It’s been quite a year; the most important news is good: George W. Bush leaves office in 20 days and Barack Obama will take the helm. It’s been a long 8 years and I believe the country has suffered greatly under the Bush years. He believes that history will vindicate him and his reputation (like Harry Truman’s) will improve. I, on the other hand, believe in 20 years it will be hard to find anyone who will admit that they voted for him.

Much of the rest of the news is bad. It’s hard to believe what’s happened to the economy in the last year. Wall Street will be open tomorrow and these numbers will change, but not significantly. Stocks in the Dow Jones Industrial Average have declined nearly 35% this year. Unemployment is up and it appears we are in the beginning stages of a long and painful recession. As for Nancy and me, our portfolio has gone down 28% (even with our contributions to our retirement plans). My employer, San Diego Hospice, like many nonprofits, is feeling the twin blows of decreased donations and declining stock portfolios. So far they’ve announced no payraises in 2009 as well as no employer contributions to our 401(k)’s. We’ve also had some layoffs in the bereavement department. It appears my job is safe though.

Speaking of jobs, there has been some good news in that department. In February I’ll celebrate 4 years at San Diego Hospice (and I just passed 11 years as a hospice chaplain). For the past 3 years I’ve been a preceptor: I’ve been one of the chaplains who has mentored new chaplains in the agency. I’ve found that I really love meeting and mentoring new folk. I appear to have some success: of the 7 new chaplains I’ve mentored, all are still with the agency. I’ve been asked if I’m interested in going up the ladder in management, and while that’s flattering I have no desire to do that. Last month ago the agency decided to come up with a new classification: advanced clinician master preceptor. We are developing two teams where everyone (nurse, social worker, home health aide, and chaplain) is a preceptor and will mentor new employees as a team. This sounds complicated as I’m describing this, but let me say this: I applied for one of the positions and was accepted into the program.

This is really the best of both worlds as I will continue to see patients and do more mentoring. I’ll also be working on a team where all of us are advanced clinicians. Since there are two teams, I’ll be working with another chaplain and it’s someone I work well with. The teams will be working closely together to develop curricula, not only for new employees, but for the agency as a whole. I’ll be working on a nursing home team (not a home team) and I haven’t worked in nursing homes since I was with Odyssey over 4 years ago. As I told my new boss, there will be a definite “remembering curve.” I’ll also be working at nursing homes much closer to home which will give my Prius a break.

One of the reasons I haven’t posted in a while is that I was down with a bad case of pertussis, also known as whooping cough. I came down with it the beginning of November, and ironically enough, my worst day with it was election day. As I told Nancy, I never remember being this sick, and the day I’ve been anticipating for 8 years was not even a day I could celebrate well. It was horrible and I can’t imagine what it must be like for infants and children. It’s not hard to imagine how this can be fatal in infants. I missed a week and a half of work and probably came back too soon. Even now I have an occasional coughing fit. It was probably exacerbated by my asthma but even so, my heart goes out to anyone who has this illness. It’s good to be feeling better.

Finally, let us all pray that 2009 is a good year for all.

T Plus 5 Days and Counting

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I’m writing this on Sunday night after the Presidential election. I hope everyone knows this, but Barack Obama defeated John McCain last Thursday. The popular vote was 65,431,955 (53%) for Obama and 57,434,084 (46%) for McCain. In the electoral map, Obama won 364 electoral votes vs. 173 for McCain (different news organizations have different numbers, but they are close enough for my doing). As a sidebar I looked at some of the web pages of the independent candidates I listed on my page. I wasn’t able to find much information on how many votes they received, and I have to say that as a group they are not gracious losers. I didn’t see any of them offer their support or prayers to the new president; none of them took a page from Senator McCain’s gracious and benevolent remarks.

In any case it’s still hard to believe that the campaign really is over. With all the buildup, all the twists and turns, it didn’t take long on Tuesday night to have a winner. By the time our polls closed at 8PM local time the networks knew and shortly after 8 the race was over. We had some friends and family over and when Senator Obama was announced we all looked at each other in disbelief.

Since then there has been an outpouring and it’s moved me to tears several times. I grew up in Virginia and thought I was aware of racial politics and beliefs but I was not prepared for the welling of emotion over the election of an African American man for President. I guess I was one of the few people of my generation who did believe I’d see an African American President in my lifetime (mostly at this point I’m still getting my head wrapped around the fact that Obama is younger than me). On the other hand “knowing I’ll see it happen someday” is very different from actually experiencing it. I’ll never forget the faces in the crowds in Grant Park in Chicago where thousands gathered. This time just feels so . . . hopeful.

I say this against backdrop of the horrible racial politics that the other side attempted. I wrote about this a few days ago, how blogs all over the country were trying to portray Obama as an outsider with a “secret agenda” who is “not one of us” and “secretly wants to destroy America.” These words make his victory all the sweeter in that this type of ignorance didn’t work.

The dark spot of the election for me here in California was the passage of Proposition 8. Last May the California Supreme Court ruled that it was unconstitutional for California to deny marriage to same sex couples; almost immediately groups in and out of the state began this proposition to change the state constitution to define marriage as only for heterosexual couples. It passed by a thin margin. I’m not sure where it goes from here, but it does strike me as unfair that the state constitution can be changed by a simple majority on a proposition. By contrast, the U.S. Constitution can be amended only after a two step process: a resolution is passed by 2/3 majority of the House and Senate, and is ratified by the state legislatures of 3/4 of the states.

The supporters of Prop 8 disagree with me on this reasoning but I do draw a line from this to the debate about interracial marriage that took place last century. Until 1967 (in the case of Loving vs. Virginia) it was against the law in several states for people of different races to marry. The Supreme Court argued here that there was no constitutional right to define marriage as between people of the same race.

The landmark Supreme Court case in the civil rights era is Brown vs. Board of Education, 1954. What is not well known is that it overturned a previous Supreme Court case, Plessy vs. Ferguson, 1896. In the Plessy case the Court ruled 8-1 that it was permissible to allow “separate but equal” facilities. The Brown case, 58 years later, argued that separate is inherently unequal and there can be no double standard.

That’s the issue I have with those who hold that our gay brothers and sisters still have domestic partnerships. The argument is that they have this provision and marriage can still be reserved to a man and a woman. Only it can’t. Justice Warren in 1954 was right: separate is simply not equal.

So let’s take a moment to celebrate Barack’s victory, but then remember that we still have work to do.

Today's the Day

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8:00 PM Western Time (Midnight in the East, 0400 GMT)

It appears to have happened: NBC, ABC, CNN have all declared Senator Obama as our next president. The polls have just closed on the West Coast and the Obama support has been strong enough to declare California, Oregon, and Washington for Obama. It also appears that my home state of Virginia will go for Obama. I’m watching the celebration from Grant Park in Chicago and it’s jubilation. As an aside, we haven’t seen the McCain headquarters as they are in the Phoenix Biltmore and it’s closed to the public. No more need be said.

OK, maybe more can be said. It’s been a long 8 years for many of us and President Elect Obama has a great deal of cleaning up to do. He will certainly need our prayers in the years ahead. Whatever has been said about the “color barrier” this is a historic moment and years from now I’ll remember this moment. But more than that, I believe he is the man who will best be able to reunite our country.

6:00 PM Western Time (9:00 in the East, and 0200 GMT)

Every hour brings new states that have closed their polls, and things continue to look up for Sen. Obama. NBC has 175 Electoral Votes for him and 76 for Sen. McCain. He appears to have some downticket momentum. John Warner (R-Va.) retired and it has gone to Democrat Mark Warner (no relation). That wasn’t a surprise but it was a surprise to see that incumbent Senator John Sununu (R-NH) was defeated by Jean Shaheen and incumbent Elizabeth Dole (R-NC) has been defeated by Kay Hagan. We’re a long way off from this, but there is an outside chance that the Democrats will have 60 seats in the Senate.

That’s important because of the role of the filibuster in the Senate. Any Senator can block discussion or a vote on any bill simply by taking the podium and not giving it up. It takes a vote of at least 60 senators for “cloture” to end the filibuster. The Democrats currently have a majority if the Senate but they don’t have 60 seats and the Republicans have been able to effectively block a great deal of progress. Assuming Sen. Obama wins, if he has a 60 seat majority in the Senate, he will have a tremendous opportunity to move us beyond the Bush years.

4:45 PM Western Time (7:45 in the East, and 2345 GMT)

Well it’s already started: as I write this Kentucky and South Carolina have gone for Sen. McCain and Vermont for Sen. Obama. None of these were surprises, though perhaps if South Carolina had gone for Obama, the race would pretty much have been over by now. As of now, McCain is ahead 16 electoral votes to 3 (at this point I’m watching NBC; other networks have different totals).

1:30 PM Western Time (4:30 PM in the East, and 2130 GMT)
OK, so at long last it’s here: Election Day 2008. My countdown clock goes until January 20, 2009 because that’s how much longer President Bush is in office. Sometime within the next few hours we’ll know who the President Elect is, but he won’t take office for another 76 days.

In the next several hours I’ll be making some changes on my web page. Primarily I’ll be removing the names of the candidates running for President. Keeping track of this has turned into a bit of a nightmare and I have only myself to blame. At the beginning of the primary season I hoped to list not only the major candidates of the major parties, but anyone I could find who announced candidacy for President. At first it wasn’t too bad as I was able to find most of what I wanted from Google or Wikipedia. It became more complicated when candidates would lose their primary and announce that they had either switched to another party or decided to run as independents. It also became clear that some of these candidates weren’t putting in much effort as there were no changes in the web pages over the course of the race. In any case, after tonight nobody is running for president in 2008.

I’m planning to keep most of the other boxes on the left side of the page. I’ll probably get rid of the Bert and Ernie terror alert level; it was a parody of the White House’s color coded terror alert level and I don’t know anyone who keeps track of that now.

I’ve been keeping track of the US combat deaths in Iraq with a counter I downloaded from antiwar.com. It doesn’t look like we’ll be out of there anytime soon and I’m inclined to keep it there as long as our troops are there. Unfortunately I can’t seem to find a counter for deaths in Afghanistan; if I do I’ll add it. There are counters who attempt to keep track of deaths of US civilian contractors and Iraqi civilians but the Bush administration has been successful in keeping that information private and the counters aren’t very accurate.

As long as I’m housecleaning I’m making some changes on the right column too. Primarily I’ll be getting rid of some of the personal blogs that either no longer exist or now require permission to read.

I’m going to write several times during the night as the voting comes in. Right now there isn’t much as the first polls don’t even close for another 2 1/2 hours.

Old Men Dream

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No, the subject of this post does not acknowledge the fact that my gray hair and beard allow me to order from the senior’s menu at Coco’s Restaurant and Denny’s without being asked if I qualify.

Old Men Dream is the title of the book I’m currently reading. It was written by and old and dear friend, Pete Fullerton. If you’re of a certain age you may remember him as the bass guitarist of the 1960s folk group We Five. I first met Pete and his family in 1983 when I was a student at St. Patrick’s Seminary. After some hesitation I got involved in the Youth Ministry Program at St. William’s and St. Nicholas’ Catholic Churches in Los Altos, California. The two parishes combined and hired Greg Kremer as the Youth Minister. Pete and his wife Sue were an integral part of the ministry and I soon became friends with them and their 5 children. It’s hard to believe that it’s been 25 years.

When I first met Pete and Sue he was working for Lockheed and doing some charity work as he had time. A few years later they made the decision that Pete would devote his full time to the charity, Truck of Love. They do incredible work and I’ve been blessed to be able to support it; please check out their website. In 1997 after much prayer and discussion, Pete decided he wanted to live as a homeless person for a few months; Old Men Dream is his chronicle of this experience. Pete has always been a deeply spiritual man and he took the name “Old Man” from the Biblical Book of Joel: “Old men shall dream dreams and young men shall see visions.” As I read this book I’m finding that it’s surfacing all sorts of memories, and thoughts about his journey. Here they are in no particular order, save the order that they come out of my brain:

  • I’ve always been amazed at the simple courage Pete shows. We all claim to believe that God will take care of us and has our back, but Pete lives like he believes it. I’m ashamed to admit how much time and energy I spend making sure my stuff is safe. There is a point in his book where he is robbed of a few dollars and some food; it’s not much in the grand scheme of things, but when you’re living on the lowest rung it doesn’t take much to be devastating. Rather than act with anger or seeking revenge Pete reflects on what he can learn from this and how he can use this experience. There is a unique cruelty in the homeless from stealing from each other but other homeless people provide the easiest, and perhaps the only reasonable targets.
  • I can’t even begin to list all the thing Pete has taught me but the lesson I use the most is this: everyone has eyes and I try to look everyone in the eye, no matter the encounter. Think it’s obvious? OK, next time you’re at a restaurant and the server reaches around you to remove your empty plate (so he can wash it), see how deliberate you have to be to see what he looks like. I try to pick up the plate and hand it to him; sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. If Pete were a priest he would excellent at hearing confessions because he has the ability to extend his trust and love within the first few words.
  • This is related to the previous point, but he has the gift to make anyone feel important. I’ve done some work with the homeless and I know that for many of them the most crushing part of life isn’t hunger but loneliness. I find much the same in hospice. Just today one of my patients joked that several people don’t call her anymore because they assume she must be dead by now. Many patients feel the crush of loneliness because they are too sick to go out, but are also not visited as often because they are seen as “not quite as alive as the rest of us.” This is particularly true with people who suffer from Alzheimer’s or other dementia. They can’t carry on a conversation anymore and may not be the person we once knew, but they still have not lost their need for connection.

More later, I’m sure. If you want to buy the book, it’s available only through the Truck of Love website.

Presidential Candidate Shuffle

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OK, several months ago I started keeping track of who is running for President this year. I wanted to list not only the Republican and Democratic major candidates, but (to the best of my ability) anyone who is running. Simply put, this has appeared to have gotten away from me.

Republican Party Since I started this, John McCain has appeared to have wrapped up the Republican nomination. His major opponents have withdrawn and endorsed him but this hasn’t stopped some of the other candidates. I’ve removed their webpages; Alan Keyes moved to the Constitution Party but he lost the nomination there too.

Democratic Party Conventional wisdom has Barack Obama winning the nomination though it appears that Hillary Clinton is not entirely out of the race. It’s a close call but I’ve left both of them on.

Constitution Party This is where Alan Keyes went when he realized he wasn’t going to win the Republican nomination. They held their nomination on April 26th in Kansas City and nominated Chuck Baldwin. I’ve removed all candidates from the party except Chuck.

Green Party Their convention is scheduled for July 10th to 14th in Chicago. So far the frontrunners are Cynthia McKinney and Ralph Nader. They are so much ahead of the other candidates that I’m listing only them.

Libertarian Party They will hold their convention later this month in Denver. On their website they list the top four candidates: Bob Barr, Wayne Root, Daniel Imperato, and Michael Jingozian. I’ve removed the other candidates.

The other parties (Socialist, Prohibition) don’t appear to have conventions, or at least have chosen their candidates by acclimation. Independent candidates, by definition, don’t need to be nominated and I’ve left them alone.

Stay tuned, and let me know if I’ve made any errors.

They Are Not Making This Easy For Me (but that's OK)

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On the left side of this blog I’ve tried to keep track of two things: (1) Who is running for President and (2) How many delegates are committed in the Democrat’s race. John McCain has already wrapped up the Republican nomination and the other parties don’t have the primaries.

In terms of who is running, that is getting a little complicated. I periodically try to click on the links to make sure all the candidates are still running. Especially with the independent candidates I get the feeling there isn’t much going on. The pages don’t seem to be updated much but no pages have gone down and nobody has announced pulling out of the race. The one change is that there does seem to be some party hopping. Mike Gravel began the race as a Democrat but has switched to the Libertarian party. On the other side of the aisle, Alan Keyes has announced that he has left the Republican Party but I’m not sure where he is going. Since he is still running for President I’ll keep him with the Republicans until he announces where he is going. Also, Bob Barr has announced that he is thinking of running as a Libertarian but hasn’t decided. I’ll include him if/when he decides to run.

The delegate race is the same mess it’s been all along. I’ve removed the delegate count for the Republicans since there’s no longer a race. Almost every news outlet counts superdelegates who have committed to a candidate; I haven’t since they don’t need to commit until the convention and can change their minds.

It’s not the easiest thing in the world to keep up with this, but I have to confess that I’m loving it. Frankly, it’s democracy in action and I think the Founding Fathers (and Mothers) would be pleased to see it.

And the Delegate Winner Is…

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I’ve had great fun (right) trying to follow the delegate count in the election. After a fair amount of searching I decided to keep track of the pledged delegates only, knowing that the superdelegates don’t need to make their choice until the convention. I set up a table to show where each candidate was awarded delegates according to state. I also put a link on the left side of the page. I’ll keep keeping track.

It's Not Easy Being Green (OK, You Had to Know This Was Coming)

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Last August I wrote that I had heard from the John Bootie campaign thanking me for having a link to his website. I always think it’s a feather in my cap to see that anyone is actually reading this blog, even if it’s someone I disagree with (like John). A few days ago I heard from Matt Cleveland of the Green Party. He asked me to update the web page for Jesse Johnson which I gladly did. He also asked me to add a link to his page. He is providing web access to anyone who is running for office under the Green banner.

I had mixed emotions when I first looked at his site; he’s pretty angry with the Democratic Party for some actions that have prevented some Green candidates from having the access they need. I’m one of those Democrats who still harbors some resentment toward Ralph Nader in the 2000 election. But in fairness I’ve included links on my page for candidates I don’t like, and so I’m including this. If you’re someone who resonates with the Green platform and you’re interested in making a difference, contact Matt. He’s being pretty generous with bandwidth and I commend him.