He's only MOSTLY dead

I saw a headline today "Certain health habits can raise your risk of mortality". Hmm. Really. How do you increase the chances that you will die? I mean, as best as I can do the math, the human race has a 100% mortality risk. We all die. It's the only certainty in life behind taxes and the Cubs losing. So, what is it that you can do to increase your mortality risk? Must be some new calculation. Upon checking the link, it was about how eating red meat raised the chances of people dying from cancer and heart attack. So, your heart attack chances and cancer chances have increased- but I would say your mortality risk is probably just about where it was when you started. You will die- when and how are a little more vague, but that you will is certain. One of my friends said she wanted to raise her IMmortality risk. I'm of the mind, that too is pretty yes or no- either you will or you won't- I guess you could argue for a differentiation of immortal life as a ghost, or a cursed pirate, or a zombie, or an angel, or a demon.....wow. That got depressing fast, didn't it? Well, maybe at least the title will make you laugh, as Hollywood obviously ignores the 100% dead rule. I guess I don't feel so bad since I haven't been mostly dead all day. In fact, I've been rather alive, and I like it that way! L'chaim!

Humanity-warning: cyncism ahead

So, I was thinking about some news bits of late- most especially the stem cell legislation by our new president. I was disappointed in that, because they have already figured out how to get skin cells to act like stem cells, so they can get all they need and the necessity of destroying embryos should have been made moot- but for the sake of alacrity and convenience, they want to continue to use embryonic cells, because the process for 'changing' skin cells to stem cells is evidentially more complicated than I know.
And that sort of sums up the American way to me right now- why sacrifice or work harder if you don't have to? Get all the perks and bonuses you can, and why do things differently than we have done in the past 20 years? And, I think connected to that is the concept of immediate gratification and immediate disposal. Our entire ethos and identity can be summed up in the word "consume". Take whatever you can get, pleasure yourself or amass resources for later and continued pleasure, and when you finish with something- simply dispose of it.
As I quoted in my piece from Mr. Mullins, when we see human life as a means to an end, we take all value from it. It is something to be used, consumed, and thrown away when we are finished with it. I guess my cynicism on this has been fed by numerous stories of late- such as the mother who kept her child in a closet for 7 years (story here) or the Texas institute for mentally handicapped folks whose staff set them up in human cockfights (story here) or in the case of the Octo-mom, who needed to have kids to fulfill her own needs (Nadya Suleman was "fixated" on wanting a "huge family" because she wanted "more affection from [her] mother."She volunteered that much of her motivation was about "me projecting my own wants and wishes onto my children."). How about the Austrian father who imprisoned his daughter and repeatedly raped her for 20 plus years? The atrocities of Abu Graib prison in Iraq (and the stories which will come from Guantanamo). The innumerable children enslaved across the world(including the ones in the US sold for drugs) in the sex trade? I could go on and on and on.
I realize there are bright stories of human triumph and caring, of heroics and justice that can counter every headline grabbing negative piece I can come up with. I know that people aren't intrinsically evil, hopelessly selfish and beyond redemption. What my current disappointment rests most in is that I had hoped we would begin to hear from our leadership some appeals to our better angels. One of the most disappointing moments after 9/11 was George Bush telling us to go and shop or the terrorists win. Be a mindless consumer, buy things and live life as normal, or those who oppose us win. With a new administration, two wars and a tough economic time, I really was hoping to hear of some appeals to sacrifice- to give for the common good- some serious butt-kicking and name taking amongst the bloated corporate bonus culture (especially the record breaking profitable Oil industry). I have heard Obama's rhetoric, and it puzzles me why he will not step up on economic and energy issues and push a hard line for reform and sacrifice- giving substance to the claims that Americans are about more than maintaining a cushy, rich, over the top lifestyle. Instead he continues to hold a hard line on those issues which cheapen our value- which say we have as much arrogance as anyone on the planet- and we can decide when life begins, and what is worth keeping and what is not- and for the sake of expediency and simple definition of oneself as everything the past administration was not, will let the ends justify the means- and use federal money to pay for it. And on the money side of things- well, let's stimulate (a very sex-filled term) the economy with bajillions of dollars so things can just keep going as normal- we can keep on our path of selfish pleasure seeking fun. I just want one congressman or senator (or even the president) to say, "Here's half my salary- given the current state of things- I can do without." I mean, seriously, since Obama's meals, housing, transportation, security and all office supplies are paid for, don't you think he could symbolically take a pay cut? Maybe even 10%? But why bring that much change to Washington- wasn't it OK the way it was?

What does it mean to be human?

I have been reminded of this piece several times in the past few weeks (more on that later). Rich Mullins recited this as a quasi-robotic neo-electronic sounding intro to his song about the wisdom of God versus our arrogance of "higher education". It is a profound insight from 1989 that makes me continue to miss Rich Mullins.

“What does it mean to be human? What does it mean to be human? I cannot help but suspect that at one time in the history of thinking that people believed that it meant that we were spiritual and that we could make choices and were capable of aspiring to higher ideals... like maybe loyalty or maybe faith... or maybe even love. But now we are told by people who think they know, that we vary from amoeba only in the complexity of our makeup and not in what we essentially are. They would have us think as Dysart said that we are forever bound up in certain genetic reigns - that we are merely products of the way things are and not free – not free to be the people who make them that way. They would have us see ourselves as products so that we could believe that we were something to be made -something to be used and then something to be disposed of. Used in their wars - used for their gains and then set aside when we get in their way. Well, who are they? They are the few who sit at the top of the heap - dung heap though it is – and who say it is better to reign in Hell than to serve in Heaven. Well, I do not know that we can have a Heaven here on earth, but I am sure we need not have a Hell either. What does it mean to be human? I cannot help but believe that it means we are spiritual - that we are responsible and that we are free - that we are responsible to be free.”