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Carl Sagan's response to my 8-30-95 letter to him about abortion!!!
The issue of Abortion is a very central one in our culture today and I will do a series of posts on my correspondence with Carl Sagan concerning this issue.
Unplanned Official Trailer – In Theaters March 29
I wrote Carl Sagan a letter on 8-30-95 about abortion and he responded by sending me a copy of his article on abortion. In my letter I included this article below by Greg Koukl.
Fetal Personhood: It's Simple
What makes a person a person? Does a fetus qualify?
I'm asking for people just to work hard to get some clarity on this issue. It's not that hard. If I've heard this once, I've heard it a dozen times: "This is a difficult issue. It's a confusing issue. It's hard to come to a real, proper understanding." The abortion issue is not a difficult issue. It is not a confusing issue. It is a very simple issue when it comes to the facts themselves. And I'm trying to urge people to have some clarity based on what is true here and what is moral and right; not based on what we want for ourselves. That's what makes these kind of issues complicated. The truth is self-evident but we don't like what is true because it makes a moral demand upon us, and that moral demand frequently is uncomfortable and inconveniencing. When we face discomfort and inconvenience, then we want to change the rules; and we try to change the rules by using contorted, disfigured arguments and we claim that it's a difficult issue. It's not difficult at all.
I talked with a young lady last night who made the point that she thinks that. She used the illustration of snapshots. If you took a photo of the developing fetus at every stage of development you would see something different; therefore the fetus is a different thing at each different stage of development. Well, that's an idea, I guess. That's a way of looking at it but it doesn't make any sense whatsoever. It doesn't mean because you can take a picture of me at six, and ten, and twelve, and twenty-four, and forty-four that I am somehow a different being. I'm the same being talking on this show right now that graduated from Simon Greenleaf University two weeks ago, and graduated from York High School in 1968, even though I don't look the same as I did back then. I still have my girlish figure, but I look different.
Does that mean I'm a different person? I'm a different being? All these gradualism arguments fail because they don't have a clear fix on what it means for a thing to be a thing. It sounds like double talk, but it's not double talk at all. It's very simple. A thing is itself and not something else, and it remains itself as long as it exists.
I am Greg Koukl. I was Greg Koukl when I was born, and I'll be Greg Koukl when I die. I am Greg Koukl from beginning to end. I am Greg Koukl the whole time through even though my body changes form. Beings don't transform into different beings. They are what they are.
When does an acorn become an oak? Well, no one knows for sure. Of course we do! An acorn never becomes an oak. An acorn is an oak. Period. That's what an acorn is. It's an oak in immature form. It can become a mature oak tree. But young or old, it's an oak. This is not a matter of opinion, folks. When we get down to it, acorn doesn't describe what a thing is, in a sense; it describes the stage of development of that particular thing. It's kind of like asking what is a teenager? Well, a teenager isn't a particular thing, like there is a being called teenager. What a teenager is a description of the stage of development of the human being. It is a human at a certain age. An acorn is an oak at a certain age. And a fetus is a human being at a certain age.
Now some people try to get around this by saying, "Okay, I'll give in. An unborn child is a human being, but it's not a person." And I have a very simple Columbo for you in that situation. It's very, very easy to use. When someone lays this on you, ask them a very fair question: What's the difference? They will say absolutely nothing. There will be a long, embarrassing silence and don't you dare open your mouth because what this person has just said is that they are willing to sacrifice the life of a human child because it's not a person, yet they are not in any position whatsoever to tell you the difference between the two.
It's kind of like saying why are you killing those children? "Well, it's because they don't have a high enough I.Q." Well, how high of an I.Q. do you have to have to live? "Frankly, I don't have the faintest idea, but I know these kids are pretty dumb." What is that? That is exactly what this response implies. Nonpersons shouldn't be allowed to live. What's a nonperson? "I don't know, but they're not one of them." If a person is willing to sacrifice the life of a child based on its nonpersonhood, it seems to me they ought to have a fairly clear idea of what personhood actually is. But of course nobody does in a clear fashion. It becomes arbitrary at that point.
(Frank Beckwith has written many good pro-life articles)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IIZF093cKw
The fact is that human beings are persons. They are personal kinds of beings whether they are in an early stage of development or a later stage of development. That's what a human is and it remains itself from the beginning to end. It's very simple. It's not hard. It's not complex. We've known it for ages. This personhood argument is only 10-20 years old, since Roe vs. Wade, Frank Beckwith says. Before then there was never a personhood argument. It was introduced after Roe v. Wade to make the decision to have an abortion a little more palatable. The same thing happened with Dred Scott. He's not a person, he's black. He's not a person, though he's a human technically; but that's just a little detail. It's not significant.
It's simple, folks.
http://www.2think.org/abortion.shtml
"The Question of Abortion: A Search for Answers"
by Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan
For the complete text, including illustrations, introductory quote, footnotes, and commentary on the reaction to the originally published article see Billions and Billions.
The issue had been decided years ago. The court had chosen the middle ground. You'd think the fight was over. Instead, there are mass rallies, bombings and intimidation, murders of workers at abortion clinics, arrests, intense lobbying, legislative drama, Congressional hearings, Supreme Court decisions, major political parties almost defining themselves on the issue, and clerics threatening politicians with perdition. Partisans fling accusations of hypocrisy and murder. The intent of the Constitution and the will of God are equally invoked. Doubtful arguments are trotted out as certitudes. The contending factions call on science to bolster their positions. Families are divided, husbands and wives agree not to discuss it, old friends are no longer speaking. Politicians check the latest polls to discover the dictates of their consciences. Amid all the shouting, it is hard for the adversaries to hear one another. Opinions are polarized. Minds are closed.
Is it wrong to abort a pregnancy? Always? Sometimes? Never? How do we decide? We wrote this article to understand better what the contending views are and to see if we ourselves could find a position that would satisfy us both. Is there no middle ground? We had to weigh the arguments of both sides for consistency and to pose test cases, some of which are purely hypothetical. If in some of these tests we seem to go too far, we ask the reader to be patient with us–we're trying to stress the various positions to the breaking point to see their weaknesses and where they fail.
In contemplative moments, nearly everyone recognizes that the issue is not wholly one-sided. Many partisans of differing views, we find, feel some disquiet, some unease when confronting what's behind the opposing arguments. (This is partly why such confrontations are avoided.) And the issue surely touches on deep questions: What are our responses to one another? Should we permit the state to intrude into the most intimate and personal aspects of our lives? Where are the boundaries of freedom? What does it mean to be human?
Of the many actual points of view, it is widely held–especially in the media, which rarely have the time or the inclination to make fine distinctions–that there are only two: "pro-choice" and "pro-life." This is what the two principal warring camps like to call themselves, and that's what we'll call them here. In the simplest characterization, a pro-choicer would hold that the decision to abort a pregnancy is to be made only by the woman; the state has no right to interfere. And a pro-lifer would hold that, from the moment of conception, the embryo or fetus is alive; that this life imposes on us a moral obligation to preserve it; and that abortion is tantamount to murder. Both names–pro-choice and pro-life–were picked with an eye toward influencing those whose minds are not yet made up: Few people wish to be counted either as being against freedom of choice or as opposed to life. Indeed, freedom and life are two of our most cherished values, and here they seem to be in fundamental conflict.
Let's consider these two absolutist positions in turn. A newborn baby is surely the same being it was just before birth. There 's good evidence that a late-term fetus responds to sound–including music, but especially its mother's voice. It can suck its thumb or do a somersault. Occasionally, it generates adult brain-wave patterns. Some people claim to remember being born, or even the uterine environment. Perhaps there is thought in the womb. It's hard to maintain that a transformation to full personhood happens abruptly at the moment of birth. Why, then, should it be murder to kill an infant the day after it was born but not the day before?
As a practical matter, this isn't very important: Less than 1 percent of all tabulated abortions in the United States are listed in the last three months of pregnancy (and, on closer investigation, most such reports turn out to be due to miscarriage or miscalculation). But third-trimester abortions provide a test of the limits of the pro-choice point of view. Does a woman's "innate right to control her own body" encompass the right to kill a near-term fetus who is, for all intents and purposes, identical to a newborn child?
We believe that many supporters of reproductive freedom are troubled at least occasionally by this question. But they are reluctant to raise it because it is the beginning of a slippery slope. If it is impermissible to abort a pregnancy in the ninth month, what about the eighth, seventh, sixth … ? Once we acknowledge that the state can interfere at any time in the pregnancy, doesn't it follow that the state can interfere at all times?
This conjures up the specter of predominantly male, predominantly affluent legislators telling poor women they must bear and raise alone children they cannot afford to bring up; forcing teenagers to bear children they are not emotionally prepared to deal with; saying to women who wish for a career that they must give up their dreams, stay home, and bring up babies; and, worst of all, condemning victims of rape and incest to carry and nurture the offspring of their assailants. Legislative prohibitions on abortion arouse the suspicion that their real intent is to control the independence and sexuality of women…
And yet, by consensus, all of us think it proper that there be prohibitions against, and penalties exacted for, murder. It would be a flimsy defense if the murderer pleads that this is just between him and his victim and none of the government's business. If killing a fetus is truly killing a human being, is it not the duty of the state to prevent it? Indeed, one of the chief functions of government is to protect the weak from the strong.
If we do not oppose abortion at some stage of pregnancy, is there not a danger of dismissing an entire category of human beings as unworthy of our protection and respect? And isn't that dismissal the hallmark of sexism, racism, nationalism, and religious fanaticism? Shouldn't those dedicated to fighting such injustices be scrupulously careful not to embrace another?
There is no right to life in any society on Earth today, nor has there been at any former time… : We raise farm animals for slaughter; destroy forests; pollute rivers and lakes until no fish can live there; kill deer and elk for sport, leopards for the pelts, and whales for fertilizer; entrap dolphins, gasping and writhing, in great tuna nets; club seal pups to death; and render a species extinct every day. All these beasts and vegetables are as alive as we. What is (allegedly) protected is not life, but human life.
And even with that protection, casual murder is an urban commonplace, and we wage "conventional" wars with tolls so terrible that we are, most of us, afraid to consider them very deeply… That protection, that right to life, eludes the 40,000 children under five who die on our planet each day from preventable starvation, dehydration, disease, and neglect.
Those who assert a "right to life" are for (at most) not just any kind of life, but for–particularly and uniquely—human life. So they too, like pro-choicers, must decide what distinguishes a human being from other animals and when, during gestation, the uniquely human qualities–whatever they are–emerge.
Despite many claims to the contrary, life does not begin at conception: It is an unbroken chain that stretches back nearly to the origin of the Earth, 4.6 billion years ago. Nor does human life begin at conception: It is an unbroken chain dating back to the origin of our species, hundreds of thousands of years ago. Every human sperm and egg is, beyond the shadow of a doubt, alive. They are not human beings, of course. However, it could be argued that neither is a fertilized egg.
In some animals, an egg develops into a healthy adult without benefit of a sperm cell. But not, so far as we know, among humans. A sperm and an unfertilized egg jointly comprise the full genetic blueprint for a human being. Under certain circumstances, after fertilization, they can develop into a baby. But most fertilized eggs are spontaneously miscarried. Development into a baby is by no means guaranteed. Neither a sperm and egg separately, nor a fertilized egg, is more than a potential baby or a potential adult. So if a sperm and egg are as human as the fertilized egg produced by their union, and if it is murder to destroy a fertilized egg–despite the fact that it's only potentially a baby–why isn't it murder to destroy a sperm or an egg?
Hundreds of millions of sperm cells (top speed with tails lashing: five inches per hour) are produced in an average human ejaculation. A healthy young man can produce in a week or two enough spermatozoa to double the human population of the Earth. So is masturbation mass murder? How about nocturnal emissions or just plain sex? When the unfertilized egg is expelled each month, has someone died? Should we mourn all those spontaneous miscarriages? Many lower animals can be grown in a laboratory from a single body cell. Human cells can be cloned… In light of such cloning technology, would we be committing mass murder by destroying any potentially clonable cells? By shedding a drop of blood?
All human sperm and eggs are genetic halves of "potential" human beings. Should heroic efforts be made to save and preserve all of them, everywhere, because of this "potential"? Is failure to do so immoral or criminal? Of course, there's a difference between taking a life and failing to save it. And there's a big difference between the probability of survival of a sperm cell and that of a fertilized egg. But the absurdity of a corps of high-minded semen-preservers moves us to wonder whether a fertilized egg's mere "potential" to become a baby really does make destroying it murder.
Opponents of abortion worry that, once abortion is permissible immediately after conception, no argument will restrict it at any later time in the pregnancy. Then, they fear, one day it will be permissible to murder a fetus that is unambiguously a human being. Both pro-choicers and pro-lifers (at least some of them) are pushed toward absolutist positions by parallel fears of the slippery slope.
Another slippery slope is reached by those pro-lifers who are willing to make an exception in the agonizing case of a pregnancy resulting from rape or incest. But why should the right to live depend on the circumstances of conception? If the same child were to result, can the state ordain life for the offspring of a lawful union but death for one conceived by force or coercion? How can this be just? And if exceptions are extended to such a fetus, why should they be withheld from any other fetus? This is part of the reason some pro-lifers adopt what many others consider the outrageous posture of opposing abortions under any and all circumstances–only excepting, perhaps, when the life of the mother is in danger.
By far the most common reason for abortion worldwide is birth control. So shouldn't opponents of abortion be handing out contraceptives and teaching school children how to use them? That would be an effective way to reduce the number of abortions. Instead, the United States is far behind other nations in the development of safe and effective methods of birth control–and, in many cases, opposition to such research (and to sex education) has come from the same people who oppose abortions.continue on to Part 3
The attempt to find an ethically sound and unambiguous judgment on when, if ever, abortion is permissible has deep historical roots. Often, especially in Christian tradition, such attempts were connected with the question of when the soul enters the body–a matter not readily amenable to scientific investigation and an issue of controversy even among learned theologians. Ensoulment has been asserted to occur in the sperm before conception, at conception, at the time of "quickening" (when the mother is first able to feel the fetus stirring within her), and at birth. Or even later.
Different religions have different teachings. Among hunter-gatherers, there are usually no prohibitions against abortion, and it was common in ancient Greece and Rome. In contrast, the more severe Assyrians impaled women on stakes for attempting abortion. The Jewish Talmud teaches that the fetus is not a person and has no rights. The Old and New Testaments–rich in astonishingly detailed prohibitions on dress, diet, and permissible words–contain not a word specifically prohibiting abortion. The only passage that's remotely relevant (Exodus 21:22) decrees that if there's a fight and a woman bystander should accidentally be injured and made to miscarry, the assailant must pay a fine.
Neither St. Augustine nor St. Thomas Aquinas considered early-term abortion to be homicide (the latter on the grounds that the embryo doesn't look human). This view was embraced by the Church in the Council of Vienne in 1312, and has never been repudiated. The Catholic Church's first and long-standing collection of canon law (according to the leading historian of the Church's teaching on abortion, John Connery, S.J.) held that abortion was homicide only after the fetus was already "formed"–roughly, the end of the first trimester.
But when sperm cells were examined in the seventeenth century by the first microscopes, they were thought to show a fully formed human being. An old idea of the homunculus was resuscitated–in which within each sperm cell was a fully formed tiny human, within whose testes were innumerable other homunculi, etc., ad infinitum. In part through this misinterpretation of scientific data, in 1869 abortion at any time for any reason became grounds for excommunication. It is surprising to most Catholics and others to discover that the date was not much earlier.
From colonial times to the nineteenth century, the choice in the United States was the woman's until "quickening." An abortion in the first or even second trimester was at worst a misdemeanor. Convictions were rarely sought and almost impossible to obtain, because they depended entirely on the woman's own testimony of whether she had felt quickening, and because of the jury's distaste for prosecuting a woman for exercising her right to choose. In 1800 there was not, so far as is known, a single statute in the United States concerning abortion. Advertisements for drugs to induce abortion could be found in virtually every newspaper and even in many church publications–although the language used was suitably euphemistic, if widely understood.
But by 1900, abortion had been banned at any time in pregnancy by every state in the Union, except when necessary to save the woman's life. What happened to bring about so striking a reversal? Religion had little to do with it. Drastic economic and social conversions were turning this country from an agrarian to an urban-industrial society. America was in the process of changing from having one of the highest birthrates in the world to one of the lowest. Abortion certainly played a role and stimulated forces to suppress it.
One of the most significant of these forces was the medical profession. Up to the mid-nineteenth century, medicine was an uncertified, unsupervised business. Anyone could hang up a shingle and call himself (or herself) a doctor. With the rise of a new, university-educated medical elite, anxious to enhance the status and influence of physicians, the American Medical Association was formed. In its first decade, the AMA began lobbying against abortions performed by anyone except licensed physicians. New knowledge of embryology, the physicians said, had shown the fetus to be human even before quickening.
Their assault on abortion was motivated not by concern for the health of the woman but, they claimed, for the welfare of the fetus. You had to be a physician to know when abortion was morally justified, because the question depended on scientific and medical facts understood only by physicians. At the same time, women were effectively excluded from the medical schools, where such arcane knowledge could be acquired. So, as things worked out, women had almost nothing to say about terminating their own pregnancies. It was also up to the physician to decide if the pregnancy posed a threat to the woman, and it was entirely at his discretion to determine what was and was not a threat. For the rich woman, the threat might be a threat to her emotional tranquillity or even to her lifestyle. The poor woman was often forced to resort to the back alley or the coat hanger.
This was the law until the 1960s, when a coalition of individuals and organizations, the AMA now among them, sought to overturn it and to reinstate the more traditional values that were to be embodied in Roe v. Wade.continue on to Part 4
If you deliberately kill a human being, it's called murder. If you deliberately kill a chimpanzee–biologically, our closest relative, sharing 99.6 percent of our active genes–whatever else it is, it's not murder. To date, murder uniquely applies to killing human beings. Therefore, the question of when personhood (or, if we like, ensoulment) arises is key to the abortion debate. When does the fetus become human? When do distinct and characteristic human qualities emerge?
We recognize that specifying a precise moment will overlook individual differences. Therefore, if we must draw a line, it ought to be drawn conservatively–that is, on the early side. There are people who object to having to set some numerical limit, and we share their disquiet; but if there is to be a law on this matter, and it is to effect some useful compromise between the two absolutist positions, it must specify, at least roughly, a time of transition to personhood.
Every one of us began from a dot. A fertilized egg is roughly the size of the period at the end of this sentence. The momentous meeting of sperm and egg generally occurs in one of the two fallopian tubes. One cell becomes two, two become four, and so on—an exponentiation of base-2 arithmetic. By the tenth day the fertilized egg has become a kind of hollow sphere wandering off to another realm: the womb. It destroys tissue in its path. It sucks blood from capillaries. It bathes itself in maternal blood, from which it extracts oxygen and nutrients. It establishes itself as a kind of parasite on the walls of the uterus.By the third week, around the time of the first missed menstrual period, the forming embryo is about 2 millimeters long and is developing various body parts. Only at this stage does it begin to be dependent on a rudimentary placenta. It looks a little like a segmented worm.By the end of the fourth week, it's about 5 millimeters (about 1/5 inch) long. It's recognizable now as a vertebrate, its tube-shaped heart is beginning to beat, something like the gill arches of a fish or an amphibian become conspicuous, and there is a pronounced tail. It looks rather like a newt or a tadpole. This is the end of the first month after conception.By the fifth week, the gross divisions of the brain can be distinguished. What will later develop into eyes are apparent, and little buds appear—on their way to becoming arms and legs.By the sixth week, the embryo is 13 millimeteres (about ½ inch) long. The eyes are still on the side of the head, as in most animals, and the reptilian face has connected slits where the mouth and nose eventually will be.By the end of the seventh week, the tail is almost gone, and sexual characteristics can be discerned (although both sexes look female). The face is mammalian but somewhat piglike.By the end of the eighth week, the face resembles that of a primate but is still not quite human. Most of the human body parts are present in their essentials. Some lower brain anatomy is well-developed. The fetus shows some reflex response to delicate stimulation.By the tenth week, the face has an unmistakably human cast. It is beginning to be possible to distinguish males from females. Nails and major bone structures are not apparent until the third month.By the fourth month, you can tell the face of one fetus from that of another. Quickening is most commonly felt in the fifth month. The bronchioles of the lungs do not begin developing until approximately the sixth month, the alveoli still later.
So, if only a person can be murdered, when does the fetus attain personhood? When its face becomes distinctly human, near the end of the first trimester? When the fetus becomes responsive to stimuli–again, at the end of the first trimester? When it becomes active enough to be felt as quickening, typically in the middle of the second trimester? When the lungs have reached a stage of development sufficient that the fetus might, just conceivably, be able to breathe on its own in the outside air?
The trouble with these particular developmental milestones is not just that they're arbitrary. More troubling is the fact that none of them involves uniquely humancharacteristics–apart from the superficial matter of facial appearance. All animals respond to stimuli and move of their own volition. Large numbers are able to breathe. But that doesn't stop us from slaughtering them by the billions. Reflexes and motion are not what make us human.
Other animals have advantages over us–in speed, strength, endurance, climbing or burrowing skills, camouflage, sight or smell or hearing, mastery of the air or water. Our one great advantage, the secret of our success, is thought–characteristically human thought. We are able to think things through, imagine events yet to occur, figure things out. That's how we invented agriculture and civilization. Thought is our blessing and our curse, and it makes us who we are.
Thinking occurs, of course, in the brain–principally in the top layers of the convoluted "gray matter" called the cerebral cortex. The roughly 100 billion neurons in the brain constitute the material basis of thought. The neurons are connected to each other, and their linkups play a major role in what we experience as thinking. But large-scale linking up of neurons doesn't begin until the 24th to 27th week of pregnancy–the sixth month.
By placing harmless electrodes on a subject's head, scientists can measure the electrical activity produced by the network of neurons inside the skull. Different kinds of mental activity show different kinds of brain waves. But brain waves with regular patterns typical of adult human brains do not appear in the fetus until about the 30th week of pregnancy–near the beginning of the third trimester. Fetuses younger than this–however alive and active they may be–lack the necessary brain architecture. They cannot yet think.
Acquiescing in the killing of any living creature, especially one that might later become a baby, is troublesome and painful. But we've rejected the extremes of "always" and "never," and this puts us–like it or not–on the slippery slope. If we are forced to choose a developmental criterion, then this is where we draw the line: when the beginning of characteristically human thinking becomes barely possible.
It is, in fact, a very conservative definition: Regular brain waves are rarely found in fetuses. More research would help… If we wanted to make the criterion still more stringent, to allow for occasional precocious fetal brain development, we might draw the line at six months. This, it so happens, is where the Supreme Court drew it in 1973–although for completely different reasons.
Its decision in the case of Roe v. Wade changed American law on abortion. It permits abortion at the request of the woman without restriction in the first trimester and, with some restrictions intended to protect her health, in the second trimester. It allows states to forbid abortion in the third trimester, except when there's a serious threat to the life or health of the woman. In the 1989 Webster decision, the Supreme Court declined explicitly to overturn Roe v. Wade but in effect invited the 50 state legislatures to decide for themselves.
What was the reasoning in Roe v. Wade? There was no legal weight given to what happens to the children once they are born, or to the family. Instead, a woman's right to reproductive freedom is protected, the court ruled, by constitutional guarantees of privacy. But that right is not unqualified. The woman's guarantee of privacy and the fetus's right to life must be weighed–and when the court did the weighing' priority was given to privacy in the first trimester and to life in the third. The transition was decided not from any of the considerations we have been dealing with so far…–not when "ensoulment" occurs, not when the fetus takes on sufficient human characteristics to be protected by laws against murder. Instead, the criterion adopted was whether the fetus could live outside the mother. This is called "viability" and depends in part on the ability to breathe. The lungs are simply not developed, and the fetus cannot breathe–no matter how advanced an artificial lung it might be placed in—until about the 24th week, near the start of the sixth month. This is why Roe v. Wade permits the states to prohibit abortions in the last trimester. It's a very pragmatic criterion.
If the fetus at a certain stage of gestation would be viable outside the womb, the argument goes, then the right of the fetus to life overrides the right of the woman to privacy. But just what does "viable" mean? Even a full-term newborn is not viable without a great deal of care and love. There was a time before incubators, only a few decades ago, when babies in their seventh month were unlikely to be viable. Would aborting in the seventh month have been permissible then? After the invention of incubators, did aborting pregnancies in the seventh month suddenly become immoral? What happens if, in the future, a new technology develops so that an artificial womb can sustain a fetus even before the sixth month by delivering oxygen and nutrients through the blood–as the mother does through the placenta and into the fetal blood system? We grant that this technology is unlikely to be developed soon or become available to many. But if it were available, does it then become immoral to abort earlier than the sixth month, when previously it was moral? A morality that depends on, and changes with, technology is a fragile morality; for some, it is also an unacceptable morality.
And why, exactly, should breathing (or kidney function, or the ability to resist disease) justify legal protection? If a fetus can be shown to think and feel but not be able to breathe, would it be all right to kill it? Do we value breathing more than thinking and feeling? Viability arguments cannot, it seems to us, coherently determine when abortions are permissible. Some other criterion is needed. Again, we offer for consideration the earliest onset of human thinking as that criterion.
Since, on average, fetal thinking occurs even later than fetal lung development, we find Roe v. Wade to be a good and prudent decision addressing a complex and difficult issue. With prohibitions on abortion in the last trimester–except in cases of grave medical necessity–it strikes a fair balance between the conflicting claims of freedom and life.What do you think? What have others said about Carl Sagan's thoughts on
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SGT. PEPPER'S had a lot of sad stories on it and many of the stories including people addicted to drugs and alcohol. Who are the alcoholics on the cover of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band Album cover? James Joyce, W.C. Fields, and Tony Curtis are three we can start off with. W.C.Fields' said, "I only have […] By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)
10 YEARS AGO ADRIAN ROGERS WENT TO GLORY BUT HIS SERMONS ARE STILL SHARING CHRIST LOVE TODAY!!!
On 11-15-05 Adrian Rogers passed over to glory and since it is the 10th anniversary of that day I wanted to celebrate his life in two ways. First, I wanted to pass on some of the material from Adrian Rogers' sermons I have sent to prominent atheists over the last 20 years. Second, I wanted […] By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers | Tagged (Paul Kurtz (1925-2012), Albert Ellis (1913-2007), Archie J. Bahm (1907-1996), Aron S "Gil" Martin ( 1910-1997), Barbara Marie Tabler (1915-1996), Bette Chambers (1930-), Brian Charlesworth (1945-), Carl Sagan (1934-1996), Ernest Mayr (1904-2005), Francisco J. Ayala (1934-) Elliott Sober (1948-), George Wald (1906-1997), Gordon Stein (1941-1996), H. J. Eysenck (1916-1997), John Hospers (1918-2011), John J. Shea (1969-), Kevin Padian (1951-), Lloyd Morain (1917-2010), Mary Morain (1911-1999), Matt Cartmill (1943-), Matthew I. Spetter (1921-2012), Michael A. Crawford (1938-), Michael Martin (1932-)., Milton Fingerman (1928-), Milton Friedman (1912-2006), Nicolaas Bloembergen (1920-), Renate Vambery (1916-2005), Robert L. Erdmann (1929-2006), Robert Shapiro (1935-2011), Sol Gordon (1923-2008), Warren Allen Smith (1921-) | Edit | Comments (0)
"Schaeffer Sunday" Liberals at Ark Times can not stand up to Scott Klusendorf's pro-life arguments (Part 4) Liberal blogger says "…you don't get to force your beliefs on me (concerning abortion)…"
August 9, 2015 – 12:35 am
I just wanted to note that I have spoken on the phone several times and corresponded with Dr. Paul D. Simmons who is very much pro-choice. (He is quoted in the article below.) He actually helped me write an article to submit to Americans United for the Separation of Church and State back in the […]
By Everette Hatcher III, on April 2, 2019 at 7:02 pm, under Uncategorized. No Comments
« RESPONDING TO HARRY KROTO'S BRILLIANT RENOWNED ACADEMICS!! Part 152 My May 15, 1994 letter to Stephen Hawking (Part C )
WOODY WEDNESDAY Open Letter to Woody Allen on Bergman Films Part 3 »


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Tag: Ron Carter
Article Artist Contributor Best of Jazz Editors' Picks
Conversationally, he was most engaging and charismatic – a baby-faced authentic New York character who drew me into what became an ongoing sphere of influence, within a few seconds.
Tags "Mean Streets", "Philly Yo Yones", "Philly" Joe Jones, Barry Harris, Benny Green, Betty Carter, Billy Kyle, California, Carl Perkins, Curtis Lundy, Dan Morgenstern, drums, Ed Berger, Ed Howard, Great American Music Hall, Heineken Jazz Festival, James Williams, Jazz Artistry Now, Jazz Journalists Association, John Hicks, Kenny Clarke, Kenny Washington, Loren Schoenberg, Mike LeDonne, New York, New York City, professionalism, Puerto Rico, Ron Carter, San Francisco, San Juan, Village Gate, Wizard Harper, Wynton Kelly
Article Artist Contributor Commentary
Freddie Hubbard – A Preface On How We Met
"You sound good, I heard you playing that 'One Finger Snap'. You know that the melody you're playing after the first four bars was mine, right? Herbie wrote out the first four bars of the melody and after that, he just had the chords on my part and told me to play my own melody. What you're playing is what I played on the record, but I just came up with it that one time. Now they have it written that way in the fake-books, hahaha!"
Tags A Preface On How We Met, Ahmad Jamal, Art Blakey, Benny Green, Betty Carter, Bird and Diz, Bird and Miles, Canonball Adderley, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Don Braden, Freddie Hubbard, Freddie Hubbard Quintett - Jazzwoche Burghausen 1991, Herbie Hancock, Jazz Generations, Jazz Legends, Jazz Masters, Jeff Chambers, Kenny Barron, Kenny Drew, Kenny Washington, Louis Hayes, Max Bolleman, Ron Carter, Rudy Van Gelder, Sonny Rollins, Take It To The Ozone, Tony Williams
REVIEW: Jeff 'Siege' Siegel Quartet – London Live
This stimulating and often-stormy set of exciting post-bop jazz does an excellent job of displaying the musical talents of Jeff "Siege" Siegel's quartet.
Tags Artists Recording Collective, bass, Benny Golson, Dave Liebman, drums, Elvin Jones, Erica Lindsay, Francesca Tanksley, Jazz Artistry Now, Jeff Siege Siegel, Jimmy Garrison, John Coltrane Quartet, John Medeski, Kurt Elling, Levin Brothers, London Live, Lydia Liebman, McCoy Tyner, Mose Allison, Pat Metheny, piano, Ravi Coltrane, Ron Carter, Scott Yanow, Sheila Jordan, Sir Roland Hannah, Steve Turre, tenor, Uli Langthaler, Wadada Leo Smith

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Scandinavian Heritage (Summer 2018)
Additional Included Highlights
Enjoy free time to explore the harbour of this fascinating city of design.
See Alvar Aalto's Town Hall and visit the cathedral. Receive an Arctic Circle Crossing certificate.
Visit Northern Finland's oldest city. It is also one of the most important harbour cities in all of Northern Europe.
Visit one of Lapland's oldest churches.
See the Sami Parliament.
Stand near the fence of the towering cliffs, drastically rising our of the sea. You will feel as if you are n the edge of the world, and your literally are.
See the street of historic, 19th century wooden buildings and Norway's oldest octagonal chruch.
Tell all your friends you travelled through!
See the Market Square and its statue of Olav Tryggvason, the Nidaros Cathedral, the Tyholt Tower and Old Town Bridge.
Enjoy time to explore this UNESCO World Heritage Site as you wish.
See the town that hosted the 1994 Winter Olympics.
See the 12th century stave church.
Skåne Region, Lake Vättern, Lapland, Four Winds' Road, Kåfjord, Lyngen Alps, Rago National Park, Laksfoss Falls, Norwegian Fjordland, Dovre Mountains, Rondane National Park, Norwegian West Coast from Bergen to Stavanger, south cape of Norway, Jutland Peninsula.
Pass through the National Park known for its beautiful arctic tundra.
Enjoy time to explore this Wooden City.
See Vagabond's Cave, old mountain farms, idyllic islands and majestic scenery.
Walk the city centre and see the Dom Kirke and Nupen Fountain.
Travel by ferry to the island of Fyn.
Copenhagen: At your Celebration Dinner, Scandinavian hospitality is matched with fine food and wine.
Alta: Savour a delicious barbecue Highlight Dinner of local specialties of fresh salmon and the local's favourite, reindeer, served with fresh salads and wine.
Oslo: Scandinavian hospitality is matched with fine food and a glass of wine at your Celebration Dinner.
Bergen: Enjoy an evening of dinner and wine at a local restaurant. Zupperia Matbørsen offers traditional Norwegian and European meal with an Asian twist.
Aarhus: Savour a delightful Farm-to-Table Dinner prepared with fresh, locally-sourced ingredients and accompanied with local wine.
Dining Summary: 28 Buffet Breakfasts (BB), 8 Dinners (D) and 6 Dinners with Wine (DW) all with tea or coffee.
Alta: Meet Trine Lyrek at her working husky farm. Gain an insight to the challenges Trine and her Alaskan Huskies face when competing in marathon Arctic dog sled races. There's also time to have a play with these gorgeous pups.
Rovaniemi: Meet Santa Clause when you visit his village where it is Christmas all year round! From his post office, you can make sure that Santa sends Christmas letters to friends and family back home come December.
Stay at the Best Addresses
Mosjøen: The traditional Fru Haugans Hotel is in a picturesque location. It offers all the comforts of a modern hotel and is characterised by excellent personal service.
Geiranger: For a scenic location, you won't find better than Hotel Union. Enjoy upgraded rooms set against a fabulous backdrop of breathtaking fjord scenery and mountains.
Stockholm: The classy Hilton Slussen is conveniently located within walking distance of the historic Old Town.
Cruising: Enjoy the additional comfort of your high-class, sea-view cabin onboard your overnight cruise from Stockholm to Helsinki.
Helsinki: GLO Hotel Art is a charming hotel, built around a century-old art nouveau castle. It is in the centre of Helsinki surrounded by the vivid Design District.
Copenhagen: Make the most of the long summer nights at Tivoli Gardens, the famous entertainment park.
Karasjok: Visit the museum devoted to Sami history and culture, offering a glimpse into the old Sami lifestyle.
North Cape: Journey to mainland Europe's most northern point to see something that doesn't happen - sunset! Even at midnight, the sun clings to the horizon. This once-in-a-lifetime unique experience is accompanied by champagne and caviar to make it even more special.
Geiranger: Cruise along the deep, blue waters of majestic Geirangerfjord, surrounded by snow-covered mountains, gushing waterfalls and lush green vegetation.
Oslo: Stand beneath the scrolled prows and handcut hulls of 9th century ships that carried Viking nobles to the afterlife and learn about their traditions and culture when you visit the Viking Ship Museum.
Oslo: Guided by your Local Expert, see the impressive Akershus Castle and the Royal Palace. Take a moment to contemplate the interesting Vigeland sculptures when you visit Frogner Park.
Copenhagen: Explore with your Local Expert. See Hans Christian Andersen's Little Mermaid on the harbour, the Renaissance Stock Exchange, Rosenborg Castle and Amalienborg Palace.
Copenhagen: With a Local Expert, witness the regal interior of Christiansborg Palace, with its stunning tapestries, furnishings and decor.
Øresund Bridge: Cross this magnificent fiat of engineering. It's the longest road and rail bridge in Europe, spanning 8 kilometres.
Cruise: Admire the beautiful views from your high-class, sea-view cabin as your cruise through the largest archipelago in the world, from Stockholm to Helsinki.
Stockholm: Wander through Gamla Stan, the Old Town, with your Local Expert to see the cathedral and the Royal Palace.
Stockholm: With a Local Expert, step inside the City Hall where the fabulous Gyllene salen, the Golden Hall is covered by 18 million gilded mosaic tiles. You'll also see the Blå hallen, the Blue Hall, where the Nobel Prize banquets are held.
Helsinki: Your Local Expert will show you the sights of the harbour city. Visit the Church in the Rock, admire the interesting Sibelius Monument and see Finlandia Hall.
Kuopio: Admire the spectacular panoramic views from atop Puijo Tower.
Odense: Be enchanted by the tales of Hans Christian Anderson's life when you visit the museum dedicated to his life and works.
Copenhagen: With your Local Expert, view Christiansborg Palace and the cathedral where the Crown Prince of Denmark married Princess Mary. You'll also see Rosenborg Castle, Amalienborg Palace, the Renaissance Stock Exchange and the unusual Rundertaarn, which is the oldest functioning Observatory in Europe.
Oslo: With your Local Expert, see Akershus Castle, Oslo Harbour and the Royal Palace. Take a moment to contemplate the interesting Vigeland sculptures when you visit Frogner Park.
Bergen: Marvel at the 13th century Haakon's Hall and explore the many market stalls with your Local Expert.
Norway's West Coast: Fjord hop from Bergen to Stavanger.
Lysefjord: Embrace spectacular scenery as you cruise through Lysefjord to the magnificent Pulpit Rock.
Skagerrak: Sail across the Skagerrak as you cross from Kristiansand to Hirsthals.
Aarhus: Your Local Expert guides you through the open-air museum of Den Gamle By.
Norway is the westernmost, northernmost—and in fact the easternmost—of the three Scandinavian countries. Best known for the complex and deep fjords along its west coast which stretches from the North Sea near Denmark and Scotland into the Arctic Ocean and has borders with Finland, Sweden and the northwestern tip of Russia. Norway may have a clutch of attractive, cosmopolitan cities, appealing destinations in their own right, but where the country really shines is not in its urban culture, but rather in the low-key, amiable small-town feel that pervades throughout its settlements.
Finland - full of picturesque, natural beauty, unique cultural treasures and historic locations, is a sovereign state in Europe. It is a top performer in numerous metrics of national performance, including education, economic competitiveness, civil liberties, quality of life, and human development. There are many attractions in Finland which attracted millions of visitors. Outdoor activities range from Nordic skiing, golf, fishing, yachting, lake cruises, hiking, and kayaking, among many others. Bird-watching is popular for those fond of avifauna, however hunting is also popular.
Sweden is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe of thousands of coastal islands, inland lakes, forests and mountains. It has the world's eighth-highest per capita income and ranks highly in numerous metrics of national performance, including quality of life, health, education, protection of civil liberties, economic competitiveness, equality, prosperity and human development. Sweden, the largest of the Scandinavian countries, boasts a long mercantile history that has made it one of the most culturally open and welcoming in Europe!
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Europe. The country consists of a peninsula, Jutland, and an archipelago of 443 named islands, of which around 70 are inhabited. The islands are characterised by flat, arable land and sandy coasts, low elevation and a temperate climate. Denmark is also the birthplace of one of the world's most popular toys, Lego. There is no other better place in the world where one can buy Lego bricks than at the Legoland theme park in Billund. Top it off with a rich, well-preserved cultural heritage, and the Danes legendary sense of design and architecture, and you have one intriguing holiday destination.
Amazing Spain & Portugal (Winter 2017...
Jordan Experience (Summer 2018)
Highlights of Spain (Summer 2018)
Elegance of the East Coast (Summer 2018)
Northern Capitals and Russia (Preview...
Sicily in Depth (Summer 2019)


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Paralytic Stalks is the eleventh full-length studio album by psychedelic pop group, of Montreal. It was released on the Polyvinyl website and in stores on February 7, 2012. The band released the album in several formats, including music download, CD, cassette, vinyl, and a special-edition "Fuchsia Purple" vinyl, which was limited to 1,500 copies. Later pressings of the vinyl were offered in yellow as well as black vinyl. All physical versions of the album featured free digital downloads. To support the release of the album, of Montreal toured America in early 2012.

Sound and style
The recording of the album is dense, featuring dark tones and an indiscriminate eclectic nature both electronically and aesthetically. The album features a wide array of music, ranging from "pseudo-country" and, to a larger degree, neo-prog often switching and mixing music styles multiple times through the course of a song.
Most of the recording was done with a Synclavier 9600 workstation. Kevin Barnes's lyricism also returns to the confessional style heard in Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?, entailing dark topics such as revenge, self-hatred, the human condition, and their painful relationship with their wife Nina. It has been called their most personal recording to date.

Recording
The album was recorded in Barnes' personal studio and was mixed at Chase Park Transduction with engineer Drew Vandenberg, who has mixed albums by Toro y Moi, Futurebirds, and Kishi Bashi. Kevin is the producer, songwriter, and co-engineer for the album. The album features a crew of hired session musicians for the first time in of Montreal's history and features horn and flute player Zac Colwell as a new addition to the band's line-up.
While Kevin Barnes is known to take primary creative control of their recordings, K. Ishibashi of Kishi Bashi was a known collaborator on this record and was said by Barnes to have helped shape the songs.

Reception
The reception from critics has been mixed, with the average critical score being a 62 out of 100, according to Metacritic. Some have praised its emotional rawness, while others thought its divergence from the band's previous poppy style was alienating.

Track listing

Credits
 Mixed by Kevin Barnes and Drew Vandenberg at Chase Park Transduction
 Mastered by Greg Calbi

References

Of Montreal albums
2012 albums
Polyvinyl Record Co. albums
Sound collage albums

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


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Security firm recovers data from drives bought on eBay
December 22, 2016 by Gary Scott News
Formatting hard drives does not necessarily delete data stored on them, a security firm has warned.
Secarma issued the warning to businesses after recovering personal data – including passwords and login information – from erased and formatted hard drives bought online.
Computer Weekly article can be found at:
http://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240176039/Security-firm-Secarma-recovers-data-from-drives-bought-on-eBay
The security firm, an arm of cloud and colocation specialist UKFast, was invited by BBC Radio show Naked Scientists to investigate the security of recycling hard drives.
This practice is common for environmentally conscious businesses, but the investigation found that, despite users password-protecting and deleting data archives from hard drives they sold on, sensitive data was still recoverable.
For the investigation, Secarma searched eBay for a hard drive that was "preformatted ready to use".
"The label 'formatted' gets used so loosely in technology that people don't fully understand its true definition, misinterpreting it to mean 'deleted' and gone forever," said Stuart Coulson, a cyber security expert at Secarma.
"Unfortunately this isn't entirely true, as a quick recovery uncovered hundreds of student and dissertation data from a humanities college," he said.
Secarma extracted data from the drives bought on eBay using off-the-shelf recovery software. The data retrieved included student user login details and links to coursework from the preformatted hard drive.
"Businesses should heed the warning that 'formatted' does not mean 'erased forever', as they could be inadvertently sharing confidential corporate data, or worse, client data which it is their duty to protect," said Coulson.
Firms looking to remain environmentally friendly by recycling or reselling old drives should use computer recycling and disposal services that will provide a Certificate of Destruction, Coulson said.
Article 7 of the Data Protection Act (DPA) requires all owners of data to ensure the appropriate protocol is put in place when deleting data.
The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), which enforces the DPA, imposed one of the biggest monetary penalties to date on the Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals Trust after highly sensitive personal data of patients and staff was discovered on hard drives sold on eBay in October and November 2010.
City info left on computer hard drives sold to computer repair shop
Cloud hosting companies liable for leaked health information
Hard Drive Destruction Los Angeles
Rare Earth Magnet Recycling


We all know that eye sight decreases with age. However many people are unaware how important regular check ups and eye care becomes at the age of 65. Men and Women age 65 and older should be getting a yearly comprehensive dilated eye exam annually. At this age early detection of serious eye problems is very important. There are 4 conditions that are the most common cause of blindness and vision problems for seniors.
Macular Degeneration- This disease is age related as it mainly occurs in people over the age of 50. People experiencing this will have blurred vision that will affect activities like driving and reading.
Glaucoma- This eye disease causes a persons field of vision to narrow while causing damage to the optic nerve fibers of the eye. Early detection and care is important to slow the effects of this disease on eye sight.
Cataracts- This disease causes cloudy and blurry vision, glare when driving at night and seeing faded colors. Most seniors experience this disease but with cataract surgery the cloudy lens can be removed allowing the patient to see clearly again.
Diabetic Retinopathy – Seniors suffering from diabetes are at risk for another eye disease. This disease affects the retina of seniors with diabetes and causes vision problems. Seniors with diabetes have at odds 25 times more likely to experience blindness. Seniors with diabetes should receive an yearly exam by their optometrist with a dilated eye exam.


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So, as was to be expected, a deal has been done. Also, as was to be expected too, it doesn't give the religious sectarians of the DUP a veto as was initially floated. Apart from the arrangements for Northern Ireland, the withdrawal agreement is exactly the same as Theresa May's.
The Irish backstop (which would have kept the whole of the UK in a customs union with EU in the event of no trade deal being negotiated with them) would probably never have been invoked as some trade deal was bound to be agreed. It did, however, strengthen the EU's hand in these negotiations. The EU has now agreed to give this up. In the (unlikely) event of no trade deal within 5 years it's only Northern Ireland that risks remaining aligned (which, incidentally, is what the EU originally proposed; it was May who in a concession to the DUP insisted that whatever applied in NI should apply to the whole UK).
The "political declaration" is also different in that it holds out the prospect of the future trade deal being a free trade agreement rather than some closer trading arrangement with the EU. That's not really what the dominant section of the British capitalist class want but the political declaration is just that — a non-binding declaration of intent, just a piece of paper. If the withdrawal agreement itself is accepted, nothing prevents a future government ignoring the political declaration and negotiating a different trade agreement retaining a closer alignment with the EU and easier access to its single market. That's still to play for for the dominant section of the capitalist class even if the new deal is accepted.
The opposition parties, who are representing the interests of the capitalist class better these days than most Tories, still seem to think that they can get the UK to remain in the EU and are going to try and sink the new deal. With the help of the DUP they may well do so. We'll see on Saturday.
If they succeed, then what? More of the same, the same old, boring and irrelevant debate about the trading arrangements of the British capitalist class, complicated by the political ambitions of the career politicians on both sides of the House of Commons. It's a dismal prospect. The side show has ceased to be amusing and it's time the actors were booed off the stage.


Genuine and Sham Poetics: "Journey of the Magi"
Perhaps it is not as often the case as once might have been, with pop-poetry being so inundated with bad free verse, if not defined by bad free verse, that the question of enjambement is one of the first, major, creative explorations in poetics for novices. Though, in truth, that statement does not fit my own experience with younger explorers of poetry. That experience points to that the natural tendency is to write in defined lines and explore through defined lines, even if not formal lines, and enjambement is a complexity added much later to that base idea. But then again, looking at poetry posting sites online, that individual experience may not be telling of the statistical norm. Irrespective, I know I am not the first person to say that free styling culture of poetry of the last half century has had a detrimental effect on the ability to read and hear poetic structure.
You would have to work to convince me that even a substantial minority of pop-poets have any real, organic idea of the line, or write their poetry through any such idea. There is far too much bad prose with line breaks being published in books and chapbooks and mags. This goes for formal poets as well, who to most appearances defer the considerations of writing lines (couplets, stanzas) to the mechanical procedure of rhythms and rhymes.
In my own introductions to writing poetry the idea of enjambement was something counter – contrapuntal – to the beginning want to write lines; it was an idea that was at the start not wholly trusted, something that had to be explored, justified, before being implemented. It was (for me) introduced through what I am sure are familiar phrases: a means to have the flow of the poem cross lines; a means to create importance or energy by varying from a norm within a poem of end-stopped lines. Given such justifications, my fellow, novice writers would merrily introduce enjambement into their writing – or increase its frequency if already present. They would then learn how to defend the use of the running lines through the same or similar phrasings: "It creates a more natural flow" or "It creates an interesting moment in its variation." And you will hear the same and similar justifications by poets higher up the learning curve, even for poetry that exhibits a dearth of end stopped lines. Lest I forget, there is also that most important one: "that is how contemporary poetry is written."
Interesting how that phrase sounds so very commercial. So very official. So very affirmative.
Except that writing that way is but mimicry. It is sham poetry: justifying the choices of style and construction by external sources, whether it be "that is how contemporary poetry is written" or "that is what is getting published in the mags" or "by using enjambement I create energy through the variation away from the norm of the end-stopped lines." Writing from such only ever creates surface effects. It is not writing out of the poem itself, not finding the one justification that is genuine: the depth energies of the engagement with the poem by the reader. When a sophisticated reader reads a poem written in a style mimicked because "that is how contemporary poetry is written," they can see that the tropes and effects of the poem are but surface decoration; they can see that the poet did not engage the medium that is a written text. It is so marked because the tropes and effects are simply present, like cinematic special effects added to a thin script to spice up the viewing.
One of the more interesting ways that a poem reveals the nature of its writing is in exploring variations in the writing. That is, in asking the poem not "why are you this way?" but "why are you not some other way?" A shallowly written poem can bear great changes without changing substantially the reception of the poem itself. A depth written poem will reveal that the event in line A exists in connection with other events in the poem, and changing the line creates disruptions throughout the poem (or at least throughout the immediate area of the poem). But I am drifting too far into the abstract, so let me give you a simple thought demonstration. Consider the idea of a "tight" poem. I believe most everyone can understand that the idea of the tight text is that it has eliminated anything (be it elements of the text or structural considerations) unnecessary to the text. In turn, I believe it is as easy to see how a tight text cannot be changed easily, cannot be changed without having to account for the effects created by the change in other parts of the text. A loose text, however, can readily be changed, because there is not the intensity of interaction between the various aspects and elements of the text.
So, the book was described as "very good condition." And it is in very nice condition, except that, behind the first page, the binding is split. So it goes.
These are the opening lines of "Journey of the Magi" (about the first half of the first stanza). My point will focus upon the second and third line. I will here go farther than I need to go.
"there were times we regretted"
It might be argued that the same can be said for lines 2 and 3. My counter to that – albeit a subtle counter – is that line 1 starts the sentence, establishes the idea, and creates an expectation in the reader that pushes the reader through the next two lines.
"A cold coming we had of it,"
It is there that the sentence holds its bating pause, and once released, the reader runs through to the end of the thought.
"Just the worst time of the year for a journey, and such a long journey."
Now, we already have one justification for the enjambement: it maintains the four-stress line. But that is a surface justification only. It is not organically integral to the piece. After all, the stanza is not written in strict formal verse. This is free verse, though utilizing a four-stress rhythm to the ends of the sound of the work. The justification for the enjambement lies not within the external rule of the four-stress line, but within the poem itself. To reveal that justification, I will make a simple modification to the lines. The modification will be organize – and justified, in pop-poetic manner – by a new external rule: end-stopping all the lines.
As I said above, however, looking at a text organically, if the original was internally justified, we would be able see what effects that change has had on the reading of the poem: "reading" must include the aural effects, for an aesthetic poem is first and foremost an experience of the medium. In that language is both ideational and aural, both are to be considered.
Just the worst time of the year for a journey.
There are two negative effects. First, you have a strong stop on the second line of the poem. It makes the poem stutter. Second, the new line three now feels repetitive because it has to re-crank the poem's engine to get the flow going again, and it is re-cranking by backing up and repeating itself. In the original composition[FN], "and such a long journey" modifies and is tied to the preceding phrase "for a journey" by it being part of the same line. In the modified version, isolated from the "for a journey" by the line break, it is a new thought. Not only aurally but also ideationally the poem stutters and stalls.
[FN] Think the word composition in the manner that a painter would use the word – something that has been lost (or shed aside) in writing.
On the surface, the enjambement on line 2 pulls the reader directly into line 3. But that is a surface effect, the kind of effect that is but mimicry of what is seen in other poem. If that was the whole of the justification for the enjambement, then the poem would read like a sham poem. But it is not. The enjambement has two deeper effects that extends beyond the mere flow from 2 to 3.
A complete thought on the first line, but being a first line the reader is expecting explanation, and the comma and the end assures the reader that the thought is not actually closed. There is more to come.
The explanation is begun, and the open end of the line carries the reader forward yet.
But we have two, four-stressed lines, in a stanza that is aurally anchored in four-stress lines. The reader is pushed by the comma and the rhythm into recognizing that while the thought could be ending there, it is not.
and the first break from the four-stress rhythm, occurring at the line that does, finally, close the opening thought, and closes it, appropriately, in "the very dead of winter." The line not only stands out aurally by its shortened length, but also in that it falls into simple rhythm. The / ' ' - - / is also gone.
Thus the second effect created by the enjambement: the unity within the first four lines that both sets up the differing fifth and keeps the fifth within the one complex of thought.
Let's bring back the passage rewritten.
The aural build up in the original text, the build up to the effect created by the simple and shortened final line, a line dominated by the slack e's and i; a build up which cannot ignore the blunt meaning of the phrase "the very dead of winter"; that aural build up is now absent from the text. First, there is no established rhythms off of which the final line can play. Second, the aural flow is also disrupted by the uneven lines, and the reader is no longer guided through the whole of the five lines to that potent ending. Third, the semantic flow is now fragmented and choppy: in stead of "the very dead of winter" being the final closing idea of a long, unified passage, it is now the third (if not the fourth) independent (if inter-related) idea of the poem. By simply moving the phrase "for a journey" up one line, even though that move can be justified by the surface effects of the poem, the passage has lost its organic unity and has fallen apart into what is now a rather clumsy narration.
Closing thoughts. First, demonstrations like this are always hit and miss, especially when typed. Either you see it, or you do not. There is no positive or negative conclusion with either result as concerns the reader of this. Sophistication is always individual sophistication. What one person sees, the other may not. Though, really, the governing situation here is not sophistication as much as that this is written text. What I myself see in a poem only goes so far, and only thrives in its engagement with what other people see in the same poem. The governing issue here is whether I have been able to convey to you, successfully, or successfully enough, what I see in the poem: not for you to accept it as fact, but for you to engage on your own.
And not only what I see in the poem, but also the why of what I see in the poem, and also the what that is the thesis of this exploration: the difference between a poetic event that is surface effect only and an event that functions to the organic being of the poem. And, how exploration of a poem – by asking "why not another way?" – can sometimes reveal whether the "poetics" of a poem are surface or depth, mimicry or creating, sham or genuine.


June 2013 - "Tornado Theology"
On May 20, one of the most devastating natural disasters in American history ripped though the Oklahoma City suburb of Moore, killing 24 people, injuring 377 others and causing an estimated 2 billion dollars in property damage. Less than two weeks later on May 31, with clean up efforts still being organized and a state of emergency declaration still in place, a second tornado devastated El Reno, a community about 30 miles west of Moore, killing 9 and injuring 115. The second tornado was the widest in recorded history, measuring 2.6 miles across with wind speeds over 300 mph. These storms literally produced more destructive energy than the atomic bomb that was dropped over Japan in World War II, leaving the OKC metro area scarred and bruised.
That type of power demands serious attention but after the threat is gone and the adrenaline wears off, questions begin to emerge, questions about the source and trustworthiness of that power? What kind of a god would allow such an atrocity? Is this god vindictive or just asleep at the wheel? Questioning his purposes and plans during these tragedies are completely legitimate spiritual launching points, and simultaneously, extremely poor spiritual destinations.
If tornados are only brief, localized bursts of God's overwhelming power, then an equally legitimate question might be who are we to sin against such a God and live? Who are we to accuse him of neglect or malice while enjoying his sunshine the other 364 days a year?
The tornados around Oklahoma City did not create a new spiritual reality for us to deal with; they simply amplified a pre-existing one. One where destruction is real, people die and our efforts are limited. The God we serve is not simply powerful but distant, he's not just present but impotent. The God we serve became a man and moved into our messy, broken, dark aftermath of a neighborhood in order to save the neighborhood. And for a community, a state, a whole world where there is nothing but death tolls and damage assessments, this is good news.


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Does watching Sesame Street make kids kinder?
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Vanderbilt University to host Clinton Global Initiative University annual meeting in 2023
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IRIS Center funding renewed with $6 million grant
Mary Louise Hemmeter (Vanderbilt)
by Jane Sevier
A grant of more than $100,000 from Sesame Workshop will support a study by researchers at Vanderbilt's Peabody College of education and human development measuring the effects of watching Sesame Street on young children's understanding of kindness and emotions.
Special Education Professor Mary Louise Hemmeter leads the study. "Sesame Street Season 47: Focus on Kindness," will recruit 300 children from early childhood programs in Nashville and randomly assign them to two groups. The intervention group will watch 12 episodes of the popular television show. The other group will watch the same number of episodes of a developmentally appropriate nature-themed documentary.
"Developing positive social relationships and communicating emotions effectively is important to a child's success in school and life. I can't think of a better way to start than learning to be kind to others," said Hemmeter, who is one of the developers of the Pyramid Model for Supporting Social Emotional Competence in Young Children, an evidence based model for use in early childhood classrooms.
Researchers will recruit from child care, Head Start, and public school pre-K classrooms that serve a diverse group of children. The team will ask about each family's media use at home, the child's previous exposure to Sesame Street, and family viewing habits—if parents and children watch the shows together and talk about the content.
Erin Barton (Vanderbilt)
Parents in both groups will be asked to watch the video selection multiple times that week with their children. They also will be expected to talk with their children about the episode while watching it, and discuss it during the week. Parents and teachers of each child will be asked to complete an online survey assessing the child's kindness, empathy and compassion, feelings, and gratitude before and at the conclusion of the study. Teachers will not know which children are assigned to which group.
"Previous research has shown that when parents engage in active mediation, which is simply watching the shows with their children and talking about the content, children are more likely to understand and use the behaviors demonstrated in the shows," said co-author Assistant Professor of Special Education Erin Barton. "We look forward to examining this phenomenon as it relates to kindness in the Sesame Street episodes."
Results of the study will be available in summer 2018.
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LeBron James Leads Lakers Past Hawks 134-118 for 4th Straight Win
By The Citizen on January 7, 2022
LeBron James scored 23 of his 32 points in the second half, Malik Monk added a season-high 29 points and the Los Angeles Lakers held off the Atlanta Hawks 134-118 Friday night for their first four-game winning streak of the season.
Avery Bradley and Talen Horton-Tucker scored 21 points apiece for the Lakers, who have won five of six overall while remaining perfect on a five-game homestand that ends Sunday. With Anthony Davis the only major contributor still absent from their injury-plagued roster, the Lakers had a season-high 37 assists and continued to play their most cohesive basketball in the regular season's first half.
Trae Young had 25 points and 14 assists, and John Collins scored 21 points in his return to the Hawks, who have lost five of seven amid significant coronavirus problems. Atlanta dropped to 2-3 on a six-game trip, its longest of the season.
Coach Nate McMillan is still away from the Hawks under the NBA's health and safety protocols, but starters Collins and Bogdan Bogdanovic returned to uniform after clearing the protocols earlier in the week.
Collins had missed the Hawks' previous five games, and Bogdanovic scored 15 points after missing the last four.
Los Angeles led by 19 early in the fourth quarter, but Atlanta trimmed the margin to 10 before the Lakers closed it out with dramatic dunks from James and Monk, who soared through the lane for a put-back slam with 1:56 to play.
Monk scored 21 points in the first half while hitting eight of his first nine shots in his latest impressive performance for the Lakers, who signed him as a free agent in the offseason. Monk averaged 20.7 points per game in Los Angeles' previous six games starting on Christmas, showing off his quick-release jumper with multiple 3-pointers in every outing.
Young added nine rebounds to another outstanding performance despite a lower back injury that forced him to miss Atlanta's last game in Sacramento after he dropped 56 in Portland on Monday.
Kevin Huerter, who scored 25 points and closed out the Hawks' win in Sacramento two days ago with five late points, hit four 3-pointers and scored 12 of his 16 points in the first half against the Lakers.
Hawks: Cameron Oliver and Gorgui Dieng remain in the NBA's health and safety protocols along with McMillan. … Timothé Luwawu-Cabarrot played 23 scoreless minutes in his first game since his contract became guaranteed for the rest of the season.
Lakers: Austin Reaves' contract also became fully guaranteed Friday in an unsurprising decision. The rookie is a regular rotation player off LA's bench. … James passed Alvin Robertson for 10th place on the NBA's career steals list in the second half.
BRADLEY SUPER
Bradley scored 16 points in an outstanding first half and hit four 3-pointers in his first game since his contract with the Lakers became guaranteed for the rest of the season.
Los Angeles claimed Bradley in October after their roster had preseason injury problems, and the veteran guard surprisingly became a starter and a dependable contributor in his second stint in LA. Bradley was a contributor to the Lakers' championship team before the coronavirus pause, but he opted out of the playoff bubble and didn't get to win a title.
Hawks: At Clippers on Sunday.
Lakers: Host Memphis on Sunday.


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Don't wait for April 22! Here is a month-long list of eco-awesome activities you can do to celebrate the planet every day.
April 1, 2014, 6:15 p.m.
Happy April! We finally seem to be leaving old man winter in the dust and welcoming spring with open arms.
April is also the month that we celebrate Earth Day. But you don't have to limit your green to just one day a year. Why not celebrate all month long — or heck, even all year?
Here are 30 great ways to go green. You can do one a day, two a week, or maybe even just pick one that you want to focus on all month long. Do you have any you want to add? Let us know in the comments below!
3. Pick up litter in your favorite local park.
4. Go for a hike.
5. Go for a picnic.
6. Reduce. Give the Earth and your wallet a break this month and pass on that new shirt or DVD.
8. Recycle. If it's not already a habit, make it one this month.
9. Go ahead. Hug a tree.
11. Volunteer with your local environmental club or at a nearby state park.
12. Run or walk a 5K.
13. Go for a hike.
15. Turn out the lights.
16. Step away from the car and walk or ride your bike instead.
17. Host an eco-swap. Get together with friends and neighbors to swap your gently used spring cleaning discards.
19. Hit your local Green Festival to learn more about eco-happenings in your area.
20. Read an eco-book to your kids.
21. Read an eco-book to yourself.
22. Go for a bike ride.
23. Break the plastic water bottle habit.
24. Break the plastic bag habit.
25. Donate to a worthy eco-cause.
26. Support your local wildlife.
28. Build a rain barrel.