On Tuesday, Norman Hermansen died. He was in his late 80s. Norm was Wendy’s grandfather, her father’s father. Much of what I love about Wendy seem to have come from her grandfather. Norm never had anything negative to say even around people who didn’t extend him the same courtesy and always showed compassion in his words and actions. He loved his family and supported them. He also seems to have been the source of a good portion of Wendy’s sense of humor as it mimics his style.

May God give you peace Norm. Know that your legacy will live on in your granddaughter that I love very much.

I was pointed to this article in the New York Times regarding cloning and I thought it was worthy of comment.

As I’ve said before, everyone should consider it manditory reading to read Wesley J. Smith’s blog (linked in my blogroll) regarding bioethics. This guy has spent the time to understand all the issues at hand and will repeat the underlying truths over and over until they finally make sense.

In this NYT article, Michael Gazzaniga tries to make the point that there are two different types of cloning: reproductive cloing and biomedical cloning. It used to be that people who thought like he did called biomedical cloning therapudic cloning, but apparantly that smokescreen has fallen out of favor.

So to make sure it was absolutely clear what was going on here I thought I would explain the ins and outs of the issue:

The whole issue fits under the broad heading of “Stem Cell Research”. Stems cells are cells that can turn into different kinds of cells, cells that could become skin cells or nerves cells or blood cells or brain cells or whatever. The problem is that not all kinds of stem cells can become every type of cell, they usually have a limited subset of cells they can become. So a stem cell that comes from the ambilical cord could become (I’m making this list up for demonstration purposes) skin or blood or nerve cells but could not become brain cells. Stem cells that come from other sources could become a different handful of types but again not all of them.

So the holy grail of stem cells is to find pluripotent stem cells, stem cells that could become ANY type of cell. This has the potential to allow for all kinds of treatments that otherwise couldn’t be done if we couldn’t find a type of stem cell that could become the needed cell type.

Up until this point, NOBODY has an ethical issue with this science. Catholics are perfectly content with stem cell treatments and the search for pluripotent ones. But after this point, the ethical delimas start.

You see, many scientists believe that the best source for pluripotent stem cells come from embryonic stem cells. Embryonic stems cells are the cells that make up recently created embryos (like in the last week or two). Us Catholics like to call that embryo a human being because, well, it is. Life begins at conception from our vantage point. Or said another way, life begins when a cell is created that can be properly fostered to divide/grow into a full grown human being. What is it before it grows? A very small human being. It’s nature doesn’t change because it grows.

So for us Catholics (and many others), the idea of taking/creating an embryo and instead of letting it develop to become a baby, destroying it so that the cells can be used for stem cell research, is very ethically troubling, just as ethically troubling as abortion because, well, it’s exactly the same thing it just has a different intent when the embryo is destroyed.

This is the point at which cloning enters the fray. You see, inherently all the scientists want is an embryo. They don’t care how it was created. So it can either be one conceived in the womb (in theory although very difficult in practice because of the difficulty of extracting the embryo from the womb without damaging it), one conceived in a petri dish OR one that was cloned.

Because of the immediately obvious opposition to using conceived embryos, many scientists have put their hope in cloning to give them the embryonic stem cells they want. This desire is magnified because of the trouble that scientists have had with concieved embryos in their stem cell research. You see, embryonic stem cells often become cancerous/dangerous to the subject when injected in the person. This is thought to be because the cells don’t have matching DNA to the person they’re being injected into. If however, the scientists were to be able to create an embryo that has exactly the same DNA as the person being treated, the hope is that they could get around the cancer/rejection problem.

So scientists have two motivations to figure out how to create cloned embryos: To potentially avoid the ethical questions about destroying life and to hopefully give a new avenue to prevent embryonic stem cell rejection.

The good news for scientists is that they have a process that promises the ability to do exactly what I outlined above: create an embryo with the DNA of the person that is to be treated. This process is called somatic cell nuclear transfer or by its initials SCNT. The process is as follows:

-An unfertilized egg is taken from a woman
-Just about any cell is taken from the subject to be treated.
-The DNA is sucked out of the egg
-The DNA is sucked out of the subject’s cell
-The DNA from the subject’s cell is placed into the egg, creating an embryo
-The embryo is stimulated into starting the division/growing process

While it is fairly easy to outline the process, there are all kinds of difficulties with it. Things like doing these processes without damaging the egg or the DNA. It’s so difficult that no one has yet been able to successfully do it for human embryos, at least that they can prove (note the recent scandal with the Korean research that was likely completely fabricated data). However, there have been numerous experiments with animals where they have successfully used this process to create a cloned animal embryo and then grown that embryo into an adult animal, Dolly the Sheep being the most famous.

So, FINALLY I get to the point of the article from the NYT!

Note that I said that SCNT was the process used to make Dolly the Sheep. In other words, it was used to do what is called reproductive cloning. Also note that the logic that got us to discussing SCNT was stem cell research and the desire for pluripotent stem cells. This is what the scientists would like to call therapudic or (in the NYT article) biomedical cloning.

The fact is that these two “different” types of cloning are EXACTLY the same thing. They can try to call them different things, but the procedure is the same and is called SCNT. The only conceivable difference is intent. However, after one has performed SCNT, no matter what the original intent was, the embryo could either be distroyed and used for medical purposes or it could be grown into what it is a miniature version of: a human being.

Finally, there are a number of additionally troubling issues specifically with SCNT the most overlooked of which is the need for eggs from women. See, they don’t create these clones from thin air. Unless some unforseen breakthough comes about, they will always need 1 egg for every clone they do. So if they’re going to treat millions of people with embryonic stem cells, they will need millions of eggs from women. This issue popped up during the Korean experiments where women were forced to donate eggs to the experiment.

Additionally, much of the focus on SCNT and embryonic stem cell research (which has yet to produce ANY treatments) takes away focus from far less troubling stem cell research using adult stem cells (of which the above mentioned ambilical cord stem cells are an example of) which not only shows much promise, but has ACTUALLY developed meaningful cures/treatments for a number of different illnesses.

However, these issues are just the icing on a very ethically troubling cake. The reality is that no matter what proponents of embryonic stem cell research say, every time they create a new stem cell line, they destroy a growing human embryo.

I watched a clip of the Daily Show just after Dick Cheney shot his hunting partner. The host was complaining that it had been a slow news month until this beautifully wonderful story dropped in his lap giving him all the comic content he could ever want. In his words, “Thank you Jesus!”

Well, us Cal fans were given a similarly blessed gift recently when we found out that the person inside the Stanford mascot was fired from said job for being intoxicated while doing it.

Putting aside for the moment that I think they’ll have a hard time finding someone who’s willing to do the job while sober, I want to focus on the supposed mission of the Stanford band. As it says in the article about this “tragic” firing, the band spokesman Sam Urmy said, “We don’t want to risk our core mission of rocking out and bringing funk to the funkless.”

THAT’S their core mission!?!

Did anybody else pick up on this from the numerous times they’ve been subjected to watching the Stanford band? I’ve seen them more times than I care to remember and I think everyone who has seen the Stanford band perform can attest to the fact that not only did they fail in their apparent mission to “bring funk to the funkless” but that it was entirely unclear that to “bring funk to the funkless” was indeed their mission to begin with.

Hat tip to my brother.

In a Crawford family first, my brother actually recommended a movie of religious nature that I enjoyed watching: The Mission. This movie was made in 1986 and stars Robert DeNiro.

The number one thing that struck me in this movie was the value of Penance. Robert DeNiro plays a slave capturer who kills his brother in a fight and turns away from his past life to become a religious brother. During his transformation he goes through a process which is very common for new/renewed believers: he doubts whether his sins can be forgiven. And while God forgives, the process of penance helps us to recognize the truth. The sequence of him carrying a heavy load of miltary gear up the mountain to the natives that he had hunted and sold was very powerful and the natives freeing him from that load was even more powerful. You could feel the healing in DeNiro’s tears.

Penance is a very powerful healing tool.

The second thing that I thought of what how far the mighty Jesuits have fallen. This movie portrays the best of who the Jesuits are. They were formed by a Saint who knew the value of fighting for the faith or as is said in the Catholic Encyclopedia:

‘Ignatius had suggested for the title of their brotherhood “The Company of Jesus”. Company was taken in its military sense, and in those days a company was generally known by its captain’s name.’

The movie shows the Jesuits standing up for the faith and, just as importantly, the people of the faith in the face of secular persecution. Today, however, the Jesuits far too often find themselves associated with questioning the faith and denying Jesus and particularly his divinity. How the mighty have fallen…

Well another Superbowl has passed. Forty of them…

The first thing to note is that Superbowl Sunday is quickly becoming “Ken’s obligitory annual beer day”. For some reason I just don’t drink very much at all and it isn’t because of any religious aversion. When offered a beer or a soda most of the time my mouth desires a soda. In any case, I’ve made a point of ensuring a drink a beer on Superbowl Sunday just to make sure I drink a beer now and again. Kinda odd…

Along those lines, Wendy said something that every man wants to hear now and again from his wife: “Can I get you another beer?” Admittedly, she isn’t exactly given a lot of oportunities to say that, particularly the “another” part.

Also, I realized how much I miss watching the Superbowl with my Dad. Every year I’d get to hear my Dad lose his cool because someone was talking during a commercial. The best part was that he’d rewind the segment to hear it again and inevitably everyone would be quiet just long enough for him to rewind, re-watch the part he heard the first time, and then someone would say something just as he was trying to hear it the 2nd time. The resulting fracas was always fun to watch. I’ll have to make sure I watch the game with him next year.

On to this years commercials:

This year started with a pretty good batch. I particularly like the following (in order):

1. Bud’s secret fridge and the rotating wall.
2. FedEx’s pre-historic manager “that’s not my problem”
3. Bud’s running from the bear.
4. Bud’s “cleaning the gutters”
5. AmeriQuest’s “that killed him” bit (the fly by the doctor) even though I didn’t like the “Don’t judge too quickly” series as a whole.
6. CareerBuilder’s Chimps running company think sales are up because they’ve got the chart sideways.

But as the day wore on, not only did the commercials get worse, but I saw A LOT of already running ads, particularly from Carls Jr. What every happened to every ad on the superbowl being new?

Next up, the halftime show:

This just gets worse EVERY year. This year we just have a standard run of the mill Rolling Stones concert. What’s special/super about that? I mean it was fine, for a Rolling Stones concert. But who cares? If I wanted to see the Rolling Stones I’d order up whatever pay-per-view thing they’re doing right now. At least last year with Paul McCartney they had a pretty cool fireworks display synchronized to the music. That was somewhat unique. But the Rolling Stones doing they’re regular thing just isn’t special. In the end, the whole concert halftime show is the wrong way to go. I’d rather see the traditional marching bands or similar stuff. I want to see something unique even at the expense of “guaranteed” enjoyability. It doesn’t make any sense to do a rock concert. That’ll just never be special or unique. Add on the pre-game concert by Stevy Wonder and you’ve got a bad joke on your hands. Something really needs to be done about this.

Finally, the game itself:

Every Seattle fan this morning needs to shutup about the refs. It wasn’t that bad and you probably would have lost anyway. There’s actually a petition circulating this morning asking for the NFL to add “reviews” to penalties.

Listen people, that’s THE ABSOLUTE LAST thing that the NFL needs. I already don’t like the reviews and you can’t have reviews of judgement calls by the refs. See, the underlying problem is that every play has 10 fouls if you go just by the rule book. By the letter of the law tons of rules get broken. The refs therefore reasonably have to make judgement calls as to what was a big enough infraction to justify calling the penalty. Often times they are using their knowledge of the minor infractions that weren’t called before that to decide whether to call a penalty now. So, in the case of the offensive pass interference call that overturned a touchdown (which admittedly was the most objectional call) for all we know he’d been pushing off the defender all day and that was the straw that broke the camels back. But that doesn’t change the fact that the player did indeed break a rule even though he didn’t break the “spirit” of the rule.

I also think the replay of the TD was handled correctly. There wasn’t enough evidence to OVERTURN the call. People forget that the ref’s job is not to determine what was most likely the case but to determine if there is solid evidence that the call on the field was wrong. This didn’t exist for two reasons:

1. the ball was hidden behind the QB’s arm
2. the camera that had the best angle wasn’t on the line but in the endzone (I’d say 4-5 yards deep) and that slight angle change is more significant than you think in making the location of the line difficult to judge.

Which brings me to an on-going complaint I have about football TV coverage (both college and pro). Why is it that the sideline cameral is always out of position? Seriously, on a play like that the camera should be RIGHT ON the endzone line! Why is it always slightly off. At least if it had been right on the line of scrimage (another thing they frequenly fail to properly place it on) they’d have an excuse, but no, it’s 4 yards deep in the endzone. And this is the case just about EVERY time. They NEVER put it right on the line even when it is clear that they set it up for the line shot. Just ridiculous.

I hope everyone had an enjoyable weekend!

For those not in the know, today is the first day that future students of colleges can sign commitment letters to attend those schools with the intent of playing football. That doesn’t sound like a big deal at first, but it turns out it is a VERY big deal. Coaches have been traveling all over the country for the last 3 months courting the best high school football players. Up until now, none of them have been able to sign on the dotted line so other coaches come in a try to sway those who intend to go to one school or another. Today is the day that the coaches get the majority of their recruits to sign on the dotted line.

Click here for a list of the Cal recruits who have signed as of today.

In general, it seems like a pretty good lot, ranked by most as the 4th best in the Pac-10 (USC, Arizona, UCLA in that order being better). However, the QB, Kevin Riley is supposed to be incredible and there are THREE highly touted running backs: R.J. Garrett, James Montgomery and Tracy Slocum. This is an indication that Cal is getting a reputation with running backs as being one of the premiere running schools on the west coast, and why wouldn’t it with all the talent that has gone through here in the last few years. Also of note are two junior college transfers who will be immediate help on the depleated offensive line.

Things continue to look up in Berkeley…

This is a complete aside, but I found out today about a very interesting website Where’s George?!. The idea is to track the path of US Currency. It does it through the cooperation of averages Joes who enter their current zipcode and the serial numbers of the money they have on them. When future people do the same thing, one can see where the money they spent has gone. In some cases it can be very surprising like this one that made it from Ohio to Kentuky to Tennesse to Florida to Texas to Utah to Michigan over the course of 3 years. They’ve tracked (at one point or another 76 million bills totaling $430 million.

Pretty interesting stuff if you ask me.

A long time has passed now since Teri Schiavo has died, but for those who truly care about the care of the elderly/disabled, the issues is still of great importance.

One of the blogs I have on my blogroll on the right hand side of the blog is for Wesley J. Smith. Mr. Smith made a name for himself by writing the book “Culture of Death” in 2001 before the phrase became a media sensation. The book is not about abortion or euthenasia but about the current state of medical ethics and the transition from needs based care to “quality of life” based care. I’m told it is a very good book and I’ve heard him speak about the subject at a conference and it was very compelling, so I suggest everyone read the book (it’s on my stack to read).

In any case, on his blog one of the issues he often comments on (along with stem cells and cloning) is feeding tubes. He today re-made a point that his made many times that for some reason struck a cord with me:

Food and water are different than other kinds of medical treatments because EVERYONE, no matter who you are, WILL DIE without food and water. While the same is true for air/oxygen, the significant difference is that air is readily available at our noses in normal circumstances. So while people make comparisons between ventilators and feeding tubes, they are not equivalent. If you wanted to make an appropriate comparision, removing a feeding tube would be the same as removing a ventilator AND sealing the room so that no more oxygen can get in.

I think we all agree that sealing a room so a person can’t breath is immoral. Similarly, in the western world, refusing to provide food to ANY person, whether they be a homeless person on the street or a person who can’t swallow (because remember that all a feeding tube is, is a simple tube that goes down ones throat past where the bypass to the lungs is so that one doesn’t inhale (literally) the food), is similarly immoral.

I was reading today on a Catholic blog where the author is anticipating a major pay cut at his job and was pretty worried about how he was going to make ends meet.

What instantly popped in my head was how thankful I am for the life I have. I’ve got a stable job at a pretty good company (although not what it once was as far as employee treatment). They pay me enough that I can afford to pay for all of my family’s needs without asking my wife to contribute financially. I am able to do this and was able to purchase a beautiful home at a time when it was affordable for me to do so on a 30 year fixed morgage at a pretty good interest rate.

But even more importantly, I have a wonderful wife whom I love dearly and two incredibly wonderful boys who bring me so much joy I want 20 more of them.

There is much for me to be thankful for.

I was reading this heavily biased story when a thought of mine re-occured to me. The statement that did it was:

“It’s (a new ballot initiative to pay for pre-school for all children) also about taxes, as it would raise the state income tax rate on the richest 1 percent of Californians – married couples earning over $800,000 or individuals over $400,000.”

I fundamentally disagree with this type of taxation particularly when put in a ballot initiative. The basic premise of these types of techniques is “we want this type of benefit… but we don’t want to have to pay for it.”

Listen, I’m OK with a graduated tax (where lower income is taxed at lower levels), but whenever we’re going to increase taxes, EVERYONE’S taxes need to be increased. They don’t need to be increased the same amount, we could choose to increase rich people taxes more than poor peoples, but if a new initiative needs taxation, then we’d all better be willing to contribute at least something. To at least be willing to make SOME kind of sacrifice, even if it is pale in comparison to what another group will be making.

Even if it is $50 a year for the “average family” as opposed to $100K for the millionare at least then we all have to make a trade off; to say to ourselves “is this really worth spending money on?”

Otherwise there will be no limit to our ability to spend money wastefully because it will be “free money”. I’ve already heard people basically admit it with statements like “Hey, if it only affects the millionares, why wouldn’t we do it?”

Why? Because it isn’t fair no matter much money the millionares have. We’re all citizens and we all need to contribute.