Moral courage 2

 (cont'd from yesterday's post)

Many played a part in the 1943 rescue of the Danish Jews, including Duckwitz, Werner Best, the Swedish government, and the Danes who transported them across the sea to Sweden. Denmark had been defeated and occupied by Nazi forces the previous year, and they were well aware that defying Hitler was extremely dangerous.

Georg Duckwitz received Israel's recognition as one who risked his life to save the lives of Jews during the holocaust. The honor is called "Righteous Among the Nations."

A movie for television was made about the event, "Miracle At Midnight," which premiered in 1998. 

Moral courage 1

Some of us prefer to avoid conflict if possible, especially when we feel alone. It's hard to stand against your peers. But examples of moral courage inspire us - like that father at a school board meeting, or the NY teacher, or Robert P. George, or Peter Boghossian. 

What if you promoted a movement you thought was good, and then discovered it was bad? Georg Ferdinand Duckwitz joined the Nazi party before World War II, but later decided that he was "fundamentally deceived" about the organization he had joined. 

In 1943, the organizer of the Gestapo told him that they were going to round up all the Jews in Denmark on October 1. Duckwitz approached Sweden's prime minister, who agreed to take the Jewish refugees. He told a Danish contact about the Nazi plan on September 29, who then warned the acting chief rabbi and the head of the Jewish community. 

Word spread quickly. Over the next two months, ordinary Danish people hid them and then organized a mass escape of 7200 Jews and 700 of their non-Jewish relatives over the sea to Sweden. 

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from Wikipedia

(cont'd tomorrow)

Left behind

Back in August, as the date approached when allied military would leave Afghanistan, about 123,000 civilians were successfully evacuated by U.S. and coalition aircraft.

But thousands of Afghans who wanted to get out didn't make it. Those who worked for the U.S. military are in trouble, but they're not the only ones.

The American University of Afghanistan was established in 2007 with $160 million funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development. The president, Ian Bickford, fled when the Taliban took the country and then the university was "shuttered." Another American investment abandoned and left for the Taliban.

Students of AUAF gathered at a safehouse on the 29th, rode busses to the airport, and waited seven hours for clearance - only to be rejected by airport officials. AUAF emailed 600 students: “I regret to inform you that the high command at HKIA in the airport has announced there will be no more rescue flights.”

photo

More bad news: AUAF also gave their names to the Taliban around the airport.

A sophomore spoke for the students, “We are all terrified. There is no evacuation. There is no getting out."

from Yahoo! News

Lethal+

Opioid drug "carfentanil" is used to tranquilize elephants. In humans, it's 100 times stronger than fentanyl and 10,000 times stronger than morphine. Two milligrams is enough to kill a human. Two milligrams is 0.002 grams, or 1/500th the weight of a small paper clip.

Forty-six pounds (101,200 grams) of it was seized at a home (along with cocaine and heroin) in California by the Federal Drug Administration a month ago. That's 50,000,000 lethal doses.

That this much "crazy dangerous" synthetic opioid has been taken off the streets is good news.

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from USA Today

Good connection

Connecting with people is always on my agenda. Like you, I want good relationships with the friends and family in my life, and making a brand new friend is a blessing. If I can keep learning how to make better connections with people, I welcome it - and I hope you do too.

At your peril

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

It's hard to believe that freedom of speech is no longer valued as a primary principle in the little world of our universities. In the rest of the country most Americans still believe that others should be allowed to speak, even if their opinion is unpopular.

Where there is university censorship and you speak without permission (outside the university's authorized narrative) you do so at your peril. They will make you pay a price.

As someone commented on this youtube video:  "1984 wasn't supposed to be an instruction manual."

Foe to friend 3

 (cont'd from yesterday's post)

Where is Peter Boghossian going to carry on his university teaching career? He wants to teach where "woke" ideology doesn't suppress and silence all other belief systems. Where would that be? 

He knows that the right to speak freely and to think freely is essential to a truth-seeking people, and that's what universities ought to be. It's what they always were until recently. That right was recognized by the American founders and written into the foundation of our country, the constitution.

Suppression of the words and thoughts of other people is the tool of tyranny. Suppression rests on the attitude that "I won't listen to any evidence or opinion because I'm right and everyone else is wrong." It's the opposite of being open-minded, of being open to correction, of learning. It doesn't respect others. It is arrogant.

Communist and dictator Josef Stalin is believed to have said:

"Ideas are more powerful than guns. We would not let our enemies have guns, why should we let them have ideas."

(cont'd tomorrow)

Foe to friend 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Atheist (Boghossian) and Christian (Miller) are now friends, fighting on the same side. They have travelled together and spoken together on the same platform. What do they have in common? They both believe in freedom of speech and objective truth. Passionately.

Miller, like me and most believers, has always defended the rights of people who disagree with us to speak what they believe. It was no great leap for him to fight cancel culture on college campuses. But it probably was a leap for Boghossian because his own preferred politics on the left tends to silence dissenting opinions.

As a Portland professor, Boghossian invited a speaker to campus in 2017 to talk about possible biological gender differences. "Social justice advocates" on campus responded with tying his name to the Nazi swastika, with threats, and with a bag of feces. He says they silence and punish diverse views, becoming "what they claim to hate - thugs and bullies."

He (like Robert George) believes that speaking what you believe to be true in spite of danger . . is a moral duty. It's being suppressed where he worked, at Portland State University. So,  putting his money where his mouth is, he resigned. 

From his resignation letter: "Faculty and administrators have abdicated the university’s truth-seeking mission and instead drive intolerance of divergent beliefs and opinions. This has created a culture of offense where students are now afraid to speak openly and honestly."

(cont'd tomorrow)

Foe to friend 1

Some people like to fight. Conflict doesn't scare or intimidate them because they're just wired that way. You've probably met a few of them in your life. 

The "new atheists" are like that. Evolutionary biologist and atheist Richard Dawkins is their pace setter. He's famous for verbally taking the fight to religious folks.

Professor Peter Boghossian, too, is an atheist and a fighter. For instance, he preaches that there is no connection between faith and morality.  He's on a crusade to wipe out the idea that people of faith are good people. He wants to "help people lose their faith."

But a fighting spirit may exist in Christians as well, one example being Corey Miller. He started a movement to make the case for Christianity on 150 campuses because, in his words, "The university is a battlefield for the minds and hearts of the future."

These men believe strongly in opposite things and are willing to go toe-to-toe with opponents.

But they have one important thing in common. So, amazingly, these "arch enemies" have become friends and allies.

from The Stream

(cont'd tomorrow)

NK escape 3

 (cont'd from yesterday's post)

Here is Yeonmi as she speaks for herself before a TED audience.

NK escape 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

After the family got across a frozen river into China, the first thing Yeonmi saw was her mother being raped. She herself, at 13 years old, was also raped but redeemed her family by becoming the trafficker's mistress. Then they crossed the freezing Gobi desert to escape into South Korea. 

But America was their goal and, after all the terrible suffering, they made it. No longer slaves, they had food and they could even wear jeans if they liked. 

Yeonmi was also hungry for knowledge and for truth after getting so little of that in her childhood. She wound up going to Columbia University . . and got confused. She loved learning about her place in history. But the resentment, bitterness, accusations of oppression at Columbia disturbed her. 

It's not right, she says, to be punished for something you had no hand in. Blacks were shamed and punished for their race a hundred years ago, and now the message is that whites must be shamed and punished for their race today. That's racism and it is still just as wrong.

She's determined to both know and speak the truth on a number of topics. She's written a book: 

from her story at Epoch Times

NK escape 1

Yeonmi Park was a child in North Korea, where she learned early that to speak was fraught with danger. Any talk that crossed the government's narrative could result in prison camp or execution for you and generations of your family. Even someone who seems friendly with you would have to report it, so don't trust anyone.

There is no word for friend. They use the word "comrade," meaning someone you work with for the "glory of the party." There is no word for love, except in the sense that you must love the "Dear Leader." They were taught that they lived in a socialist paradise.

Vocabulary control is thought control. Another tool for controlling thought is plain old hunger. Weak and desperate citizens who worry about every meal have little thought to spare for political change. Starving North Koreans are taught that former leader Kim Jong Un died of exhaustion working for the good of the people.

In 2007 her family could no longer find food. Yeonmi had never seen a map of the world, but saw lights across the border to China. That looked better to her, and that's where the family went.

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from Epoch Times

(cont'd tomorrow)

Integrity 2

 (cont'd from yesterday's post)

So Princeton Professor of Law Robert P. George has made up his mind in advance of the testing he thinks will come. When/if powers in our culture demand that he affirm what he does not believe, he will not do it. Not in public, not in private, not to save career or friendship.

"There is only one thing about my life that is completely in my control, namely, my integrity. No one can take it from me. If I lose it, it can only be by way of my own freely chosen decision to yield it up. This I will not do.

"How about you? The only thing in your life that no one can take from you--even if they take from you everything else, everything you love, treasure, or cherish--is your integrity. Will you sacrifice it for other things? Or will you refuse to yield it up, no matter the cost?

"You will face the test. Pray for me, as I will pray for you, dear friends, that all of us, with God's help, will pass the test--that "like a tree planted by the water, we shall not be moved."

Integrity 1

In Isaiah 5:2, God says, "Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness . . . "

Corruption in our national life is distressing. People of integrity will have to decide whether to  cave under pressure, or take a stand against the corruption.

Robert P. George posted the following on Facebook.

"A time of testing is coming--indeed, for some it has already come. We are each going to have to decide. As for myself:

"I will not pretend to believe what I do not believe, or pretend not to believe what I do believe.

"I will not speak as if I believe to be true something I in fact believe to be false.

"Not in public. Not in private. Not for the sake of career or friendships. Not to fit in or avoid being thrown out (or "canceled").

(cont'd tomorrow)

9/11 memories 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Dodie survived the 9/11 Pentagon attack, with respect in her heart for her co-workers there and for the first responders who acted with integrity and didn't panic. She feels they have not been sufficiently recognized by media. Anger also remains . . toward the government. Read her take on the situation here.

What's being taught in schools about that terrible day? Students who didn't live through it will have to learn from those who did - to the extent that's even possible. Second-hand learning can't equal learning from the experience, but we have to try.

"Drive-thru History" has a series of videos on 9/11 including the events and first-hand witnesses. The video below explains why the World Trade Center buildings were probably chosen by our enemies as targets. Taller than the Empire State Building, they symbolized America's "power, style, importance and influence."

from Breakpoint

9/11 memories 1

Most of the Americans who had a personal memory of the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 are now gone. 

But the 9/11 attack of 2001 is still vivid to us Americans who lived through it just twenty years ago. It's a good idea to share the memories of those who lived through this one, because a new generation has grown up with no personal recollection of the events.

"Dodie" (a program manager for Air Force intelligence ops) was there on September 11, 2001. Islamic extremists hijacked four commercial airplanes and used them as weapons against American targets. She worked in the Pentagon, the biggest office building in the world, when it was hit. 

She would have been in the section destroyed by the explosion and fireball, but her meeting's location had been changed to an office further away. She remembers walking with the evacuees for miles in high heels on the freeway.

Death was instant for most of the 184 killed at this site, and another 160 had serious injuries.

from The Stream

(cont'd tomorrow)

Innovation

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

So where people are free enough, they tend to use their God-given talents to build on the knowledge that came before in order to improve things.

But sometimes an individual will stand out for much more progress. A person of genius who also has opportunity and an amazing combination of talents will pop up, one in a million:

"There are many smart people in the world. Some, but not all, are also creative. And some of these, but not all, are highly energetic and ambitious in their goals. At the extreme, we have superstars in science, engineering, business and the arts who are one-in-a-million in developing valuable innovations. These people produce new ideas that millions of other people can use. This is a huge point: the benefits of the creative geniuses are enjoyed by the rest of us."

The world is able to produce much more food, for example, because of the work of Norman Borlaug. There's Alan Turing and Steven Jobs. You will think of more.

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from Forbes

Not scarcity 2

 (cont'd from yesterday's post)

It's an idea that really needs to die out, that human populations are nothing more than mouths to feed, just consumers of resources. Not so. Human beings create material wealth when they're free to dream and solve problems.

In spite of being proven wrong, the idea comes up every now and then. If I may refer just once more to the Marvel movies . . Thanos killed half of all life in "Avengers: Infinity War" so that the other half could get all the universe's resources and live better. Bad and wrong on every count.

Not scarcity

(cont'd from last Thursday's post)

Does it make sense that the world's population is better off now with 8 billion people than it was in 1970 with about 4 billion? Not according to Paul Ehrlich's confident prediction. Back then, he said it was already too late to stop hundreds of millions from starving, that humanity was doomed for sure.

But food has been available all this time, and is way more abundant now. New technology improved food production, made communication between people almost effortless, radically reduced the time and effort necessary to take care of human needs, and gave us near-miraculous health care.

Over all, humans gradually raised global standards of living by applying their problem-solving intelligence to new knowledge and discovery. The speed of that process far exceeded the rate of population growth.

In some cases, a person of genius in a society free enough to try his/her ideas had a positive effect on a phenomenal scale.

from Mind Matters

(cont'd tomorrow)

Big fast food

 McDonald's was the biggest fast food chain for years. Which chain is biggest now? 

Would a coffee house be counted as a fast food chain?

See their growth in this colorful moving comparison of the number of stores for each chain over the years 1971-2019.

Marvel future

Some of you blog readers are fans of The Avengers movies (mentioned on Tuesday). They are the work of Kevin Feige, film producer and president of the Marvel Cinematic Universe franchise since 2007. 

Where are they going with that? Glad you asked. A new generation is coming. "Black Widow" is already in theaters, the back story of Natasha Romanov. Then comes "Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings," "The Eternals," and more Spider Man, Dr. Strange, and Thor.

Here is a Kevin Feige interview about the Marvel franchise and the coming Shang-Chi movie:

Scarcity 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Ehrlich got his prediction wrong. It looked like his math was right: limitless population growth to go along with a fixed amount of resources on our planet meant to him a future of famine and doom. He was sure that supplies of resources would become increasingly expensive and run out.

Another professor, Julian Simon, developed a different hunch. So they made a bet. Ehrlich bet that certain metals (he chose them) would go up in price over ten years, Simon bet they would go down. Simon won the bet.

As a Forbes writer puts it, "The old pessimists [like Ehrlich] made very poor forecasts. Famine did not kill millions of people. The air in developed countries got cleaner, not dirtier. The world produced more food, not less."

Why didn't Ehrlich's mathematical model work? Because each new person is not just another mouth to feed. Along with the mouth comes a mind, millions of brain cells, and creative imagination.

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(cont'd on September 7)

Scarcity?

Last week I posted a comparison of food prices a hundred years ago in America compared to food prices today - not in terms of the dollars they paid then, but in terms of how long an average worker of that time had to work to earn them. Food today costs us much less in time and work than food did then. I wonder if you were surprised.

Since the world has a fixed amount of resources and a rising number of people consuming them, those resources are running out, right? Back in the 1970-80's that was a hot topic. 

Paul Ehrlich published his book, The Population Bomb, in 1970 saying on the first page that hundreds of millions of people were going to starve to death in the '70's because the earth could not support so many people, and that population growth was a cancer. Today the earth supports almost 8 billion people, twice as many as at that time, and food is more (not less) available. Why was he so wrong?

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(cont'd tomorrow)