Couple of things
- It took a little time, but the interviews with Andy Herod and David Hamilton are up.
- Atta boy Elton. He and I just might be one in the same as the idea of going to such a wonky gathering sounds fascinating to me. Still, it's very good to see him not only encouraging political involvement from younger folks, but also for going to Washington, D.C. to talk about our efforts in fighting poverty.
- Ultimately, with the growth of our metro area, this is going to be necessary. And what I'd like to see come out of it is a system of roads which embrace a 'Complete Streets' vision which incorporates adequate lanes for automobiles, safe avenues for pedestrians, visually appealing features along the way and ample lanes for bicycles.
- Loyal reader, good friend and Watkinsville City Council member Brian Brodrick gets some love for showing some love.
- OK, Jenny, here's the thing ... if you acknowledge the folks who are giving Greeks a bad name through higher-than-normal arrest rates are probably not the ones who are directly engaged in community service and philanthropy, then why are we letting them in? Why aren't we denouncing their actions since it seems apparent you don't approve of it? It would make sense that rather than be upset at the local newspaper for reporting the very factual statistics of this case, you'd be upset at the small percentage of members in your organizations who are giving you a bad name.
- I didn't win Mega Millions last night, but I'll take $276 millon this weekend as a late birthday present.
- I think the idea to vaccinate girls with the new cervical cancer vaccine is a good idea, and I'm a bit puzzled by those who oppose it. They seem to be wrestling over morality issues regarding a vaccine, but this also seems like good common sense too. If girls who are raised with a particular set of morals might, from time to time, deviate from said morals. It would make sense then to provide some sort of blanket protection for them from this disease.
- Hillary talks about ... Captain D's tilipia dinner.
- J.T. and the boys from the Athens Banner-Herald smack around Sadie Fields's weak argument against Sunday Sales. Safe to say I concur.
- Atta boy Elton. He and I just might be one in the same as the idea of going to such a wonky gathering sounds fascinating to me. Still, it's very good to see him not only encouraging political involvement from younger folks, but also for going to Washington, D.C. to talk about our efforts in fighting poverty.
- Ultimately, with the growth of our metro area, this is going to be necessary. And what I'd like to see come out of it is a system of roads which embrace a 'Complete Streets' vision which incorporates adequate lanes for automobiles, safe avenues for pedestrians, visually appealing features along the way and ample lanes for bicycles.
- Loyal reader, good friend and Watkinsville City Council member Brian Brodrick gets some love for showing some love.
- OK, Jenny, here's the thing ... if you acknowledge the folks who are giving Greeks a bad name through higher-than-normal arrest rates are probably not the ones who are directly engaged in community service and philanthropy, then why are we letting them in? Why aren't we denouncing their actions since it seems apparent you don't approve of it? It would make sense that rather than be upset at the local newspaper for reporting the very factual statistics of this case, you'd be upset at the small percentage of members in your organizations who are giving you a bad name.
- I didn't win Mega Millions last night, but I'll take $276 millon this weekend as a late birthday present.
- I think the idea to vaccinate girls with the new cervical cancer vaccine is a good idea, and I'm a bit puzzled by those who oppose it. They seem to be wrestling over morality issues regarding a vaccine, but this also seems like good common sense too. If girls who are raised with a particular set of morals might, from time to time, deviate from said morals. It would make sense then to provide some sort of blanket protection for them from this disease.
- Hillary talks about ... Captain D's tilipia dinner.
- J.T. and the boys from the Athens Banner-Herald smack around Sadie Fields's weak argument against Sunday Sales. Safe to say I concur.
posted by Jmac at 6:59 AM
15 Comments:
Nice job with those podcasts, man. Oh, and happy birthday.
Yes, Happy B-Day, JMac!
RE: the vaccines, I understand how a lot of Christian conservatives are looking a bit monstrous in this ("If you're having sex, maybe you SHOULD get cancer!"...Yikes!). But...
There is a legitimate place for moral objections to this. For instance, and for those who don't jive with Christian morality just try to put yourself in our shoes on this one, if you believe strongly in a particular way of life regarding sex then you do want to be careful about removing "natural" consequences to deviating from that way of life.
I mean, for an analogy let's think about raising kids who are responsible with money. Would a good parent remove all consequences from their children so that they could spen money however they wanted and it never come back to bit them? (Say you're really rich so the parents can do this if they want, they can always bail thier child out of bad decisions). No, of course they wouldn't do this. They would want there to be real consequences for their child's bad decisions, as an aid to helping train/motivate their child to live responsibly. Well, for Christians sex is similar.
Now, obvioulsy in this situation we're not talking about removing all consequences, just one particularly nasty one. And this is why I'm not upset about these vaccines per se. My daughter still faces plenty of negative consequences from being irresponsible sexually; I'm okay with vaccinating her against freaking cancer!
But, and this second point is my last, these vaccines are expensive. 360 dollars or so if I recall correctly. This is no small matter for many parents, and it is perfectly understandable that they might have higher priorities for that money then removing one potential negative consequence for behavior they're trying to teach their daughter not to engage in anyway. For the state to come in and mandate that everyone get the vaccine, therefore, seems like overkill. Allowing an exception for "religious objections" makes it a little better, but a. not all people who are against sexual promiscuity are religious (though I freely admit most are), and b. this sets people up for having to "prove" that they do indeed have a genuine religious objection (it's analogous to trying to establish your c.o. status during a draft, isn't it?).
IF the debate were over legalizing the vaccine, and certain conservatives were standing against anyone getting it, then I would side against them loudly and clearly. But it seems like overdoing it for the gov't to mandate that everyone has to get the vaccine (exceptions notwithstanding).
What about gay males and the heightened risks of anal, penile, and oral cancer due to HPV? Is there any mention of them getting the vaccines as teens, too?
No. Not that I'm aware of. Stupic sexist society we live in.
Xon, I respectfully disagree completely with that argument. first, HPV is quite prevalent. Second, HPV is often contracted with no symptoms. And it's transmissible with non-sexual contact. So 10 years down the road a virgin female meets and marries and does all that comes with it -- and gets HPV. And has no immunity. And potentially develops a deadly cancer.
I'm also skeptical that an HPV vaccine will undo years of responsible parenting. I mean, if your only recourse to encourage responsinle behavior is the fear of an STD and deadly disease, then I think you have bigger fish to fry.
But I blogged on the expenses. 'Cause those, to me, are the practical challenges/implications of the legislation.
I think the argument (not really put forth by Xon, to be fair) that giving the vaccine will encourage sexual activity by young people is quite silly. It's akin, to me, to the argument that making condoms available in schools will enocourage sexual activity. Guess what encourages sexual activity in young people? Hormones.
Darren
OK, moral blabbering aside, here is the argument against the mandatory HPV vaccine that makes sense, but you have to fill in and appraise the empirical data to see if it's a good argument:
1. Mandatory vaccines are warranted by our nation's policies when the disease is a significant threat to the public health (accepted as a premise).
2. Diseases that our elected officials have chosen to target include measles, mumps, and rubella.
3. Those diseases are a serious threat to public health because of the scale of illness and death they have been responsible for.
4. Cervical cancer kills a much smaller number of people than the other diseases targeted by mandatory vaccines.
5. Conclusion: Therefore, mandatory vaccines for HPV are not warranted under our nation's policies on mandatory vaccines.
You will really have to look at numbers to see how that argument works out. Even if, yes, cervical cancer deaths are bad, consider all the other causes of death killing larger numbers of people. Now consider that Merck is the major lobbyist for this mandatory HPV vaccine effort.
It makes me really, really uncomfortable.
Hi, nicki,
Cervical cancer is already fairly rare, as Adrian has cautiously pointed out. Every disease is bad, every death is bad, don't get me wrong, but in social policy we have to set priorities right? We can't do everything.
So, like I said, cerv cancer is pretty rare. And cerv cancer from HPV contracted through non-sexual contact (or through marital sexual contact) is even rarer still. We cannot solve every single problem that might arise for people.
"Yes, but we can solve HPV by vaccinating against it." (Just accepting this claim as a given, putting aside 'hippie' arguments against vaccines) Right, go do that for your daughter then. Maybe I'll also choose to do it for mine. My complaint is with making the vaccine mandatory, not with its bare existence.
I agree with your second paragraph. That wasn't my argument.
Exactly, Adrian. You have spelled it out well. Now, it's possible that measles, mumps, and rubella should be downgraded, but this is the argument I have against making the vaccine mandatory.
Xon, are you morally/Christianly against liposuction?
Why do you ask? I'm not sure why you think it's relevant. But I've been in a lot of discussions the last few weeks, and so maybe I'm missing your obvious point. Help me out?
"For instance, and for those who don't jive with Christian morality just try to put yourself in our shoes on this one, if you believe strongly in a particular way of life regarding sex then you do want to be careful about removing "natural" consequences to deviating from that way of life."
Obesity is a natural consequence of gluttony.
Okay. I would probably "want to be careful" about using liposuction as some magical "out" in those circumstances, yes.
That doesn't quite answer the question.
Is it immoral/unChristian?
A Christian is careful when crossing the street. A Christian is immoral when running over an old man in a wheelchair for the thrill of seeing him die.
I would not say it is per se immoral to get liposuction in such a circumstance (when obesity is due to gluttony). It would be incredibly unwise, hence why you want to "be careful", but not immoral across the board. We are talking about practical wisdom here, not Kantian or Millian ethical laws.
If my child got themself into an awful lot of trouble, I might bail them out of the worst part of the consequences, depending on the situation. But the fact remains that, as a general rule, parents who habitually try to protect their children from consequences end up raising them to be more of a curse than a blessing.
This is a Proverbs issue, not a Torah issue...
Ah, I see. That you said this was about "Christian morality" and "moral objections" made me think you were taking natural consequences to be a morally relevant consideration (ie., it would be immoral to remove natural consequences from one's actions). But what I get now is that you're saying this is about practical considerations, such as crossing the street at appropriate times.
So, do you think that one could morally object to someone getting liposuction? I mean, are you saying that a Christian can make a moral objection to the HPV vaccine? Or, is the 'moral' there only referring to the practical considerations of wisdom and praxis?
I fully agree with you about how full protection of kids results in people who lack the will to discipline themselves. I see it far too often, and I know the kind of narcissism that goes along with it.
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