Philosophy, Science, Well Thought Through Opinions, Sports.
First, alma mater Union is off to the Frozen Four proving that Thomas Bonner and Ned Harkness were correct when they thought Union could be competitive in D1 hockey.
The 1st article that I thought worthy of commenting on is Frank Bruni's rethinking religion which is a personal story of Frank and a college acquaintance reconnecting. The "friend" was very religious and thought gays needed pyscho-analysis in college. Over time, his thinking evolved through life experiences and he is now a Dr who does perform abortions on occasion. He is regularly protested and one woman was a particularly strident protester. One day she comes to him for an abortion which is provided. She came to him because she trusted him. Yet, a week later she is back protesting against abortion.
Link to this story
The 2nd was Thomas Friedman's column on the need to rethink our Middle East Policy, including Afghanistan. Friedman has been reporting on the Middle East for 30 years and has always been an honest observer. His best paragraph is: "In Afghanistan, I laugh out loud whenever I hear Obama administration officials explaining that we just need to train more Afghan soldiers to fight and then we can leave. Is there anything funnier? Afghan men need to be trained to fight? The defeated the British and the Soviets!" Neither political party is ready to do this, but this reinforces my belief that it is time to bring the troops home.
Link to this story
The third article was an observation on one issue created by the response to the Great Recession that I had not thought of. Remember that the financial crisis was caused by a failure to regulate properly. While regulation has been enhanced, there was much antipathy towards the rescue of the financial system and both parties want "Too Big to Fail" to not be a policy. So despite the long recognized harm caused by bank runs (the reason the Fed is the lender of last resort), now banks that fail will be wound down in an 'orderly" manner. The article points out that if big banks are going to fail, there will be nothing orderly about it and bank runs are again likely to happen. This will not be a positive outcome and the reason I always have maintained that the focus should be on good sound regulation.
The Book Review section was rich in thoughtful material.
Two books on science, one maintaining that Quantum Mechanics explains everything, and one maintaining that science cannot explain everything. To explain anything, it must be simple and after reading the book review, I can still not explain to anyone or myself what Quantum Mechanics are, let alone what they can explain. The 2nd book analyzes the communication gap between science and religious believers, and really comes down hard on the militant atheists by pointing out the futility of their reaching their objective of eliminating religion on the basis of science.
In addition, there was a third book review on the topic of religion. This one pointing out many similar things that I spoke of in my earlier blog "Why All Religions Should Be Respected". Namely, belief in God is part and parcel of human evolution. This book focused on liberals and conservatives and how this issue - belief in reason and science vs belief in faith - is the crux of the failure of the left and right to communicate. The book is hard on liberals for their lack of tolerance for other points of view and inability to recognize that conservative prioritization of care of more local groups/issues vs national solutions is in sync with human evolution. The Left hinders advancing their positions by not acknowledging the need for personal responsibility in many issues. A direct benefit of doing so would be when you get to an issue that truly needs a national solution like health care, you would be able to point out the differences between this national issue and the other issues which have been left more local. I imagine the book is more thorough, but I will have to read it to find out.
Book 1 on Quantum Machanics
Book 2 on how science does not have all the answers
Book 3 Why Everyone Should Respect everyone and how to get there
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