Teeny-tiny deities

 kw: book reviews, nonfiction, genetics, recombinant dna, gene editing, ethics, morality

When I saw the title of As Gods: A Moral History of the Genetic Age, by Matthew Cobb, I knew I was in for a bit of preachiness. I was right, but it was worth it. Dr. Cobb has been among those in the forefront of genetic research for several decades. His perspective is unique. His moral perspective is also nearly unique, as he reports. Few can keep their integrity: As is usual with us faulty humans, when something gets big, really big, you can ferret out nearly every motive by keeping in mind, "Follow the money." There's enough potential money involved that whole national political attitudes have been shifted, repeatedly. I am politically unwise, so I'll leave it to you to read the gory details; I'll look at the technologies he presents us.

The book traces the history of genetic modification, including the dreams of those who, before the ink was dry on Watson and Crick's publication of the structure of DNA, began to opine rapturously about "rewriting the code of life". The predictions of "what we can do with DNA" exceed even the rhapsodies of those promoting "artificial intelligence". I see these two realms of technology running in parallel, a neck-and-neck race for general godhood on both fronts.

Let's look at the current situation first. The present culmination of all the technologies called "genetic editing" is the precise removal and replacement of a single nucleotide, an advance called Base Editing. It's a step beyond the more familiar CRISPR (more below). Versions of this called Prime Editing and Double-Prime Editing are being worked out at present. These technologies still need to go through a number of medical and regulatory hoops before they can be used for therapies, but they are the most promising to date.

CRISPR, when it appeared a decade ago, and garnered a Nobel Prize for Drs Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier in 2020, was called "DNA scissors". I describe it a little more here. Once the CRISPR agent latches onto DNA, a CAS protein (CAS9 is best known) cuts both strands, and related molecules add "new stuff" at the break and the knit it back together. In more recent years it has been found that the agent isn't as specific as was first thought, and that multiple trials are often needed to get the result you were after. That makes it too risky to use for editing the human germline (the sex cells that turn into babies). Base and Prime Editing methods need a great deal more research and testing to make sure they are as reliable as we need.

However, these targeted mechanisms are a great deal better than older methods, outlined in the book, including something called TALEN, which I liken to a moderately-well-aimed axe. A TALEN needs less accessory machinery than CRISPR and its descendants, because the aim is to remove the "bad half" of a DNA double strand, and let cellular machinery patch the break with a copy of the opposite, "good" side.

Let us consider, though, that methods such as TALEN and earlier tools are not totally obsolete. A proverb of mine (from the Computer Science arena) is, "Nothing is obsolete if it does something you want done." Nature typically takes the "If it isn't broke, don't fix it" approach; our bodies are full of remnants of older structures that work well enough that evolution hasn't removed or replaced them. Think of the appendix; its function has been largely superseded by the spleen, but is still does a couple of immunological functions well enough that we still have it. It is worthwhile keeping, even though we can live without it (mine is gone, 20 years past). Other animals with a less-developed spleen have a much larger appendix. Irony personified: "appendix" means "added on" or even "useless". It isn't.

"Recombinant DNA" is now considered old hat. The technology is more than forty years old. Millions of diabetics are alive because nearly all the insulin they need is produced by this technology. Before recombinant insulin was economical, an eye doctor prescribed insulin drops for my eye, to heal an injury. It was pork insulin, and I was allergic to it; I almost lost the eye. This is the real "Frankenstein" method, where DNA from one organism is spliced into DNA from another. 

Every time a new genetic technology was developed, it was both hyped and decried. Purple promises abounded in medical literature and the popular press, and accusations of "acting like God" abounded right alongside them. On four occasions, lovingly detailed by our author, the researchers have come together and slowed things down. Though they have never called for a moratorium (the "m" word, to many of the author's colleagues), perhaps at least temporary moratoria ought to have been urged. The researchers may not have gone far enough, but the fact that they went as far as they did, and four times, indicates the moral quandary in which they found themselves. 

One side aspect of CRISPR (I think  I have this right) is the Gene Drive, which produces a kind of non-Mendelian inheritance that can drive a species to extinction, either by eliminating all the males or making them all sterile. The mechanics of XY chromosome systems makes it easier to target males. The appearance of this technology led to the closest thing to a moratorium, but eventually, this did not come about. As it happens, a Gene Drive isn't the magic bullet. Limited tests had some early success followed by reduced effectiveness of the Drive. It isn't 100% effective (is anything?). Thus, there are a few survivors. They sire a population that isn't affected by the Gene Drive, and pretty soon the pest (such as a mosquito) you were trying to eradicate returns in a more resistant form. But suppose you did drive a malaria-bearing mosquito species to extinction, worldwide: How likely is it that another species will take its place? Will the replacement be better, or perhaps worse?

If a Gene Drive were developed that affected the human species, then what? There are some folks, often called "environmental wackos", who think the Earth is better off without humans. If a few of them get their hands on a few million dollars, what's to stop them from producing, and then releasing, such an agent? Could its progress be stopped? "Playing God" works both ways.

I find I haven't said much about AI, though I intended to. Similar noise abounds around AI as a doomsday technology. But I think I don't need to say more at this point. Mark Twain wrote, "The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated." So are the predictions of imminent human extinction by DNA or by AI, and also the utopian fantasies regarding both.

A quote near the end of the book sums up a lot of this very well, as told to the author by Sheila Jasanoff:

I think that the fears, the nightmares, serve their own purpose. They are prods to make people think harder about the things that can go wrong. If the 'hope people' are the warriors, then the 'fear people' are the worriers. I think we might need both of them in society, to keep the one calibrating the other, and in some kind of balance.

Although there are those who really wish to exercise godlike powers, it's ironic that the best anyone can so far do is make tiny changes—one base here, half a dozen there—to a DNA library with several billion. A real God, for those who believe in Him, made all of it, all at once.

__________________

A bit off a quibble as a postscript. A chapter titled "Weapons" describes several kinds of what are called "gain of function" research, and mentions several viruses, including a variant of Smallpox, that were made many times more virulent than the "natural" product. But the author goes out of his way to say that the SARS-Cov-2 virus that causes COVID-19 was not produced this way, stating "there is no evidence of this". He has believed a lie. I do not attribute falsehood to Dr. Cobb, but naivety and foolishness. A very few facts:

• Dr. Fauci is known to have responded to a Federal moratorium on gain-of-function research by going around the regulations to funnel several million dollars to the Wuhan Institute of Virology to carry out such research on coronaviruses. (This is usually called money laundering)
• He and others said for a long time that the virus came from a bat bought at a "wet market", and later that it came from a pangolin. The Wuhan wet market does not have either bats or pangolins for sale, not now, and not in 2019. (Yes, I have sources in China)
• He has more recently said that there may have been a "lab leak".
• One of the doctors at the Wuhan lab published several articles, including in Nature, about gain-of-function research on coronaviruses collected from bats a few years previously.
• Thousands of Wuhan residents took vacations in the US and other Western countries in mid-to-late 2019, before the Chinese government announced anything about a new respiratory disease erupting in the Wuhan area. This "pulse" of Wuhan-resident vacationers was unusual. It was followed by the first "pulse" of COVID-19 cases in the West.

I conclude that there was a lot more involved than a "leak" from the Wuhan lab. It is a near certainty that the first genetically-engineered bioweapon has already been used. In folklore, the "bad gods" such as Loki always seem to get their licks in first, and are just barely overcome. Human gods are no better, and typically far worse.

Ethics predates us

kw: book reviews, nonfiction, primatology, morality, atheism, theism

An experimenter enters an enclosure containing an ape, and sets down two small boxes. If the ape puts one on top of the other, it is rewarded with a carrot. It soon learns to stack boxes, happily eating the carrots. Then the experimenter leaves and goes into an enclosure nearby containing another ape, which has been able to see this whole procedure. The ape soon sets one box upon another, and happily receives a carrot to eat. After a few repetitions, the experimenter returns to the first enclosure, presenting the same two boxes. This time, when the ape stacks them, it receives a grape. Several repetitions yield several grapes. Now the experimenter returns to the second ape. This one immediately stacks the boxes, so the experimenter presents a carrot. Angrily, the ape rejects the carrot. Clearly, it wants a grape.

The sense of "fair play" is not unique to humans.

Observations of apes and other primates "in the wild" confirm not only the sense of fair versus unfair treatment, but also social morals. In one instance, two families of baboons came upon a small fruiting bush. There was not enough fruit for both families. Rather than fight or even confront each other, both families ran off in opposite directions. This is but one of many, many indications that the Hobbesian notion of "nature red in tooth and claw" is quite wrong-headed.

Even further. You may have seen the Disney movie in which Akela, the alpha wolf, misses a kill, and the troop turns against him. This doesn't actually happen, among either wolves or apes. Even when a "beta" displaces an "alpha", the deposed leader is not exiled. In fact, when an animal has become ill or disabled, its fellows help it. For example, an ape dying of infection is comforted by other apes, who groom it more than usual and bring food. And the internet is full of pictures and videos of cross-species animal adoptions and "friendships", between dog and cat, sow and puppies, and the gorilla Koko with her pet kitten All Ball. The Tarzan stories, in which an ape adopts a human infant, would not resonate with anyone if adoption were not a common occurrence.
Most human adoptive parents do a good job raising the totally unrelated child. So do most cross-species adoptive "parents".
Social consciousness and altruism are not unique to humans.

Primatologist Frans de Waal has studied chimpanzees and bonobos, and the striking differences between them, for decades. While bonobos (formerly "pygmy chimpanzees") are more peaceable, both species of ape display ethical and moral behavior. Of course, moral lapses result is fierce chastisement, in both species, but, then so do moral lapses among humans. Think how you were raised. Maybe your parents spanked you, and maybe not, but "time out" and other forms of correction still train the conscience, and it is well known that parents who eschew all forms of "punishment" raise spoiled brats.

In his book The Bonobo and the Atheist: In Search of Humanism Among the Primates, de Waal demonstrates that the conscience is not only a human attribute: all social mammals (and perhaps all mammals) show evidence of having a conscience to be trained. Don't we speak of a psychopath as someone lacking a conscience? In spite of parental training and other social sanctions, a psychopath behaves amorally. Whatever mental "organ" it is that makes most of us into rule-keepers (at least most of the time!), is absent in a psychopath. If we had no innate tendency to "goodness", however defined, no training method could make us capable of goodness.

The author's thesis is that morality predates religion. As an atheist, he distances himself from "neo-atheists", or "evangelical atheists" (who are actually anti-theists). He recognizes that nearly all of us have the "God-shaped hole" (a paraphrase of Pascal), such that, as Voltaire said, "If there were no God, we would have to invent him." Of course, many evangelical Christians claim that the God-shaped hole is universal, but to my careful observation over many years, I would have to say, not entirely. There are some quite contented nontheists (a word I prefer to "atheist").

The impetus to write the book arose from responses to a blog posting by the author, "Morals without God?" He realized he would have to explain himself further. Many folks did get his point, but some, particularly neo-atheists, missed it. He does not desire to drive God or religion out of society. Indeed, he spends half a chapter outlining the three Twentieth Century attempts to do so, by Joseph Stalin, Pol Pot, and Mao Zedong. Stalin's effort resulted in at least 15 million killed; Pol Pot's attempt killed 3 million; and Mao topped them all, killing more than 100 million Chinese. The anti-religious effort he doesn't mention is that of Hitler, who attempted to exterminate one particular religion. In doing so, not only 6 million Jews were killed, but so were nearly 6 million Christians, plus tens of thousands of homosexuals and other "undesirables" (in Hitler's view). Yeah, it is true that misapplication of religion has led to many killings, but the greatest evils arose from trying to eliminate religion. This exposes the mis-aiming of the anti-theists. They clearly hate religion, and any one of them could become another Pol Pot or Mao as a result.

de Waal posits that small pre-agricultural bands of humans didn't need religion, that religions arose along with the need to manage large populations. Since I sharply distinguish between faith and religion, I mostly agree: faith is all about how the individual relates to God or gods, while religion is all about organization of the faith-full. The larger the number, the more organization is needed, which is why I prefer smaller churches. The trouble is, religion also provides hierarchy, rites and rituals, all human-created structures in which the faith-less can fake it, to the point that many churches are simply social clubs with barely a nod toward a mostly absent deity.

The book is full of fascinating research findings, that illustrate how other animals, not just us humans, display compassion, fairness and altruism. Dogs know when they are treated fairly, or not; elephants try to help a fallen comrade, whether a relative or not; and one story tells of a camel that was beaten savagely, frequently and unfairly, that meekly bided its time, and when alone with the drover, bit the top off his head! Self-defense is a moral value also.

de Waal picked bonobos to compare with us, because physically they more closely resemble early human ancestors such as Ardipithecus. Bonobos are more slender than chimpanzees, have longer legs and can more nearly walk upright. Whether "Ardi" also had the peaceable nature of bonobos is unknown. We need to constantly recall that, not only do we have millions and billions of years of evolution leading up to us, but so do bonobos, and chimps, and parakeets and oak trees. The hominin family tree branched from other apes around 7 million years ago, while bonobos and chimps probably branched from one another 4-5 million years ago (the moist forests in which both live are notoriously bad for fossil preservation). Which ape diverged most from that extinct ape species of 7 million years ago that gave rise to all three of us? The human, the bonobo, or the chimpanzee? I think it is more like the 3-legged stool. We all diverged about equally, in different directions.

We can say that our behavior is some mixture of both bonobo and chimp behaviors, plus some additions (not many). But a chimp scholar might make the same claim, that chimp behavior is some mixture of human and bonobo, with some additions! And so forth. The singular added factor for humans is our ability to function in larger and larger groups. de Waal makes a good case that religion has facilitated that ability. He hopes that morality can gradually be disentangled from religion, because he has also shown that we are moral, or at least have moral ideals, whether or not we are religious. He does not propose a different organizing principle. His book gives us all much to ponder.

When both are right, but not all right

kw: book reviews, nonfiction, sociology, social psychology, morality

"Our God's better than your god!" That is the hidden motto of many religions. Substitute the word "candidate" for "god", and you have the basis of political parties, at least in "democratic" nations. This also demonstrates that Atheism and New Atheism are religions, with the over-individualized Self substituted for a Deity.

I have belonged to a number of clubs and groups over the years, in addition to my church. Whether it is a stamp collecting club, the Boy Scouts, or Toastmasters, every group has a similar structure, whether official or not: a large number of "members" and a small number of "leaders". Usually the "leaders" group is supported by a middling number of devotees, for whom, I have observed, the group is their "church"; they are its fanatical evangelists.

"No Man is an Island" is not just a nice poem or song. It expresses that humans are not just a "social animal". Nearly all of us are obsessively groupish. Yet we are also selfish, which leads to trouble with our groups. Biologists and psychologists don't like to admit it, but this tension must have an evolutionary basis.

Once in a while a book comes along that explains so much, it seems to explain everything. Jonathan Haidt's new book seems to come close: The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion. Dr. Haidt's thesis is straightforward, as in the preface he states that "…an obsession with righteousness (leading inevitably to self-righteousness) is the normal human condition." (p xiii). He uses two great analogies throughout:

• Elephant and Rider – The Elephant is our intuition or "gut reaction". The Rider is our reason. As any howdah knows, the rider serves the elephant. Thus, the first section of the book has the subtitle Intuitions come first, strategic reasoning second. We primarily use reason to justify our beliefs, not to determine what they ought to be.
• Taste Buds – Through research, he and his colleagues have identified six "Moral Foundations" (more on them later) that shape our attitudes toward events, and the kinds of reactions we will have, including the kinds of groups we choose to adhere to.

The author calls Plato's idealized Philosopher-King a "rationalist delusion", and demonstrates that the notion of "Philosophers Behaving Badly" (the title of a book by Rodgers and Thompson) is well supported by both casual observation and detailed research. In PBB we find, for example, that Bertrand Russell was called "Dirty Bertie" by those who knew him, and with good reason. In The Righteous Mind, the author calls upon research that shows philosophers are really a cut below "the common man", probably because their education has made them experts at rationalization. And in truth, a foray into the "Ring of Gyges" story in The Republic shows that we value a good reputation much more than actually being good.

Late in the book Dr. Haidt makes a strong case in favor of group selection, or multi-level selection, which is disparaged by many biologists, but without it, the theory of natural selection is too weak to explain relationships among social animals (and most are!). Among primates, humans are the most social, even compared to Bonobos. We are ultrasocial (the author's synonym for eusocial, but allowing for a much broader range of expression and cognition than found in eusocial insects such as bees or termites). Even a complete psychopath cares about reputation, if only to be (initially) attractive to victims. I'll leave it to you to read his 4-pronged defense of multilevel selection and how it supports grouping behavior.

I am much more taken by the statement that we are 90% Chimp and 10% Bee. Chimpanzees are quite social, but also very selfish, to a level akin to psychopathy in humans. Not having language, their only method of resolving disputes is physical force, somewhat modified by a group's dominance hierarchy. I recall reading an account of New Guinea tribesmen meeting in the forest. They spend a few minutes discussing their relatives, to determine if perhaps they are related to each other, and thus not duty bound to fight to the death. I believe language arose to facilitate such negotiations. Those who can talk and live will outbreed those who instantly fight and thus are more likely to die.

So, OK, we can talk, we can negotiate. Favor based on relatedness is understandable from an evolutionary viewpoint. But how about a Crip meeting a Blood in downtown Los Angeles? If they negotiate at all, it is to determine if some kind of truce is there, otherwise they fight. A Crip meeting another Crip "out of uniform" (not wearing gang insignia) may chastise him, but no deadly fight ensues. Yet they are probably not related. Individual selection cannot explain this.

Dr. Haidt frequently invokes Emile Durkheim, who seems to have "got it right", that humans live on two levels. Our Chimpish selfishness rules much of our daily activity. When we are with a group we belong to, however, we are driven by the need for good reputation. But there is more. Groups all have rituals, and participating in them often triggers a "hive switch". Under its influence, we become more Beeish (hivish?), ready to propagate the group, defend the group, and possibly kill or die for it. A threat to the group can also trigger the hive switch. For many Americans, the 9/11 attacks did so. Dr. Haidt, a proud liberal, found himself wanting to wear a flag pin on his lapel (he didn't, but he wanted to).

Group activities, whether "team building" games at a company retreat or the rites of a church, trigger the hive switch and foster powerful, and very enjoyable, feelings of group unity and connectedness. Thus we read on page 257 that "…the very practices that the New Atheists dismiss as costly, inefficient, and irrational turn out to be a solution to one of the hardest problems humans face: cooperation without kinship." It is not yet proven that this is a direct product of evolution, but I suspect it will be found to be so.

In the second section of the book, the motto is There's more to morality than harm and fairness. Looked at in a simple way, American Liberals seem to be motivated primarily by the desire to "help the helpless" and to promote "fairness", while American Conservatives care more about tradition. A deeper look led the author to discover the six moral "taste buds", which he also calls Moral Foundations, and to consider their origin and present expression:

• Care/Harm - evolved to motivate child care. Now it underlies the Welfare State and all kinds of "white knight syndrome".
• Fairness/Cheating - evolved to permit coordination and cooperation and reduce exploitation. Now Liberals exhort us to "soak the rich" and overtax them (further than we already do).
• Liberty/Oppression - evolved in response to bullying. Now underlies opposition to all kinds of societal restrictions as "oppression", and supports rebels against Authority (see below).
• Loyalty/Betrayal - evolved to support forming coalitions. Now it is the Circle the Wagons response to every question, legitimate or not.
• Authority/Subversion - evolved to regulate hierarchies. Now it tends toward Fascist overcontrol, or reacts into "Off the Pig" rebellion.
• Sanctity/Degradation - evolved to prevent poisoning (chemical or bacterial). Now disgust is used to condemn everything your political faction disagrees with (but be sure to circle the wagons if "your guy" is accused of any kind of degradation).

In 1972 I went to a Republican rally for President Richard Nixon, where he spoke. We were really revved up. Everybody's hive switch clicked full on! Within two years, I was mad as hell and deeply disappointed. He betrayed us all. If Bob Woodward was correct in All the President's Men, Nixon deeply despised the law and its restrictions. Nixon had nobody to write a book in his defense, at least not right away, but his later "rehabilitation" was based on some good things he had done (like opening relations with China), and did not address the Watergate matters, so "his side" was apparently no side. He remains a betrayer in my mind…or, perhaps, actually, in my heart.

This chart was prepared rather early on, when only 5 of the 6 moral taste buds had been chosen. It is found on p 161. The political Left relies for moral guidance on Care and on Fairness, with little regard (or active contempt) for Loyalty, Authority or Sanctity. The political Right relies more equally on all the taste buds. Later the Liberty/Oppression Foundation was split out from the Fairness/Cheating Foundation. Liberty has been found to trend with Care.

Note that, as befits those of a traditionalist mindset, among Conservatives the Authority Foundation is slightly the strongest. I took the Moral Foundations Questionnaire (MFQ) found at www.yourmorals.org, and found that I rely on all the Foundations about equally.

Political partisanship and religion are discussed most fully in the third section, with the motto Morality binds and blinds. It is actually in this part that the hive switch is introduced and discussed in detail. It operates to temporarily overcome the effects of our WEIRD socialization: Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic as we are throughout the West. In less WEIRD societies, collective tendencies are more pronounced, and the hive switch is even more effective at eliciting group feelings. Although, it is hard to imagine a greater example of hivish activity than we see in a sports stadium. This is the Bind part.

Those who are the WEIRDest tend to see the trees and not the forest. The author was fully of this mindset until a few months in India opened his eyes to a different kind of socialization. Outside the West, relationships trump individual "self determination". They may have something there. For example, most of my friends from India have had arranged marriages, where total family compatibility is an important part of choosing marriage partners, a matter much too important to entrust to the young "eligibles". They do tend to have stable and happy marriages, more so than here.

I find it interesting that the chart above has seven gradations of Left to Right. I have noted elsewhere that such gradations tend to correspond to a statistical standard deviation, and that differences greater than 2 standard deviations (2 sigma) render people mutually incomprehensible. This is the Blind part. The Left is at best indifferent to Loyalty and Authority, and openly disdainful of Sanctity. The lesser reliance on Care, Fairness and Liberty by the Right induces the Left to disparage them as "heartless" or even "cruel". And both ends hate the Moderates in the middle, even though the central three categories describe 90% of Americans.

I think it is clear that Conservatives are in better balance. They do not neglect any of the Foundations. It is a realistic stance. I also note that this study did not result in Dr. Haidt's becoming conservative. That would be going too far! But he is now a rare Liberal, being at least somewhat sympathetic and understanding of conservative motives. He probably remains an atheist also, though he disparages the New Atheists, who are actually anti-God (only Nontheists are genuinely indifferent to whether a god may exist).

Yet he records the results of a study of communes (Sosis, R. and E. R. Bressler, 2003. "Cooperation and Commune Longevity: A Test of the Costly Signaling Theory of Religion." Cross-Cultural Research 37:211-239) in which it was found that 6% of secular communes had lasted 20 years or more, compared to 39 percent of religious communes. And he quotes another study (Robert Putnam and David Campbell, 2010, American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us):

By many different measures religiously observant Americans are better neighbors and better citizens than secular Americans—they are more generous with their time and money, especially in helping the needy, and they are more active in community life.

We can compare this with the Biblical book of Judges. Twice in the book we find, "In those days there was no king in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own eyes", written in connection with some horrifying story of anarchy and chaos. Three other places in the Bible we find injunctions against doing "right in your own eyes."

All this just skates over the surface of a wonderful book. We are moral because morality is needed to succeed as a species. A final statement by the author sums it up: "Morality is, in large part, and evolved response to the free rider problem." (in a note on p 349)

Done biting my tongue

kw: public service, morality

A friend from Georgia told me of a politician there who, it was found, had hundreds of thousands of dollars stashed inside a mattress in his home. There was shortly a recall election, and he was run out of office. My friend explained, "We sort of expect public officials to be corrupt, but we won't tolerate rank stupidity."

I have refrained from commenting on the idiocy of New York Representative Anthony Weiner, but a few things must be said. I sort of expect congresspersons to be philanderers; it is well known that many of them are. Probably most are. But Weiner's behavior is rank stupidity, even dumber than filling a mattress with cash. There have to be dozens of ways of communicating with targets of one's seductive wiles that are more secure! If this fool can't keep personal secrets—mainly because he can't pick discreet partners—just how safe are the nation's secrets with him?

Deconstructing Glen Campbell

kw: musings, polemics, morality

My wife likes to watch the PBS reruns of old Lawrence Welk shows, produced by OETA. A few days back, we watched one from 1971 that, early on, featured Norma Zimmer singing a lovely, if a bit overdone, anthem of getting help from God. The next selection was a guitar trio performing "Gentle on My Mind". I was aghast, and wondered if Mr. Welk ever really listened to the words.

In verse 1, the singer says he will "leave my sleepin' bag rolled up and stashed behind your couch", meaning, "I'll be sleeping in your bed tonite, Babe." Any chance that this might be a committed couple vanishes with the next thought, that they're "not shackled by forgotten words and bonds, and the ink stains that have dried upon some line." No wonder his lady friend inhabits the "back roads" of his mind! There is no highway in his life. No, in verse 2 he's planning to be back walking along railroad tracks. No "columns" or "ivy" for him.

And verse 3 finds him bragging to this love about forsaking another one, or so he plans, in the very near future. It is no surprise that in verse 4 his appearance is less than savory: "My beard a rustlin' coal pile and a dirty hat pulled low across my face" as he settles into a hobo camp for the night.

What could possibly be romantic about this picture? This man is a serial seducer, a sexual predator, a collector of broken hearts, particularly the one he is breaking by singing of it to her. He is a bum who can't stay put. Not someone I'd ever be willing to call a friend. What was Welk thinking?

Capital...Punishment?

kw: capital punishment, death penalty, morality, responsibility

Before reading any further, ask yourself this question (and do your best to answer it to yourself): Does the Devil know he is evil?

Well, does he?

Be honest.

.

.

.

OK, here is my answer: The Devil (AKA Lucifer, Satan, Beelzebub, etc.) thinks he is a victim of bad press. He lost an epic battle with Elohim (AKA Jehovah, El, Almighty God, etc.). Elohim claims to have created Lucifer, to be His servant-of-all-servants, to lead all the angelic beings in their service and worship. He was the original Prophet, Priest, and King in service to God..."until iniquity was found in you," God tells us.

But make no mistake about it. Anyone with any spiritual experience knows, the Devil is all to real, and all too evil.

The press today is full of the execution of Stanley "Tookie" Williams, founder of the Crips gang, convicter murderer of four (and probable murderer of dozens more), the baddest guy in San Quentin prison (more probable murders, and many, many assaults on prisoners and guards)...more recently the author (maybe also the writer) of a number of children's books. He died this morning, shortly after midnight, I assume by Pacific time. Did he deserve to die?

Wrong question.

The right question: What is the use to society of legal killing? For what reason(s) ought a civil society take someone's life?

Some folks say, NEVER. A few would refuse to kill Osama Bin Laden, Hitler, or Stalin, were the decision in their power. They would grant clemency (with a life term, one supposes) to Jack the Ripper, the Boston Strangler, and the Unabomber (Ted K...I can't spell his name). A couple hundred people at this end of the spectrum protested in the street near San Quentin prison over the last couple of days. Some have nominated TW for the Nobel Peace prize.

An equal number, right across the street, were at the opposite extreme, the "Nuke him 'til he glows" people being the edge of the edge. Among them, some wish we'd return to the Noose, the Chair, or the Gas Chamber, and do it in public. Twenty witnesses? HA!! Put it on FOX and CNN!!!!

Only a very few claim Tookie didn't kill anyone. Most anti-death-penalty folks have various sentimental arguments, about giving a guy a chance to reform, and so on. Just by the way, TW never, ever expressed regret for his crimes, or any kind of remorse. Nor did he take any responsibility.

In that I liken him to the Devil, described above. He just thinks he's had a bad press. He's really a good guy, underneath. He is like his friend "Monster" Kody, now called Sanyika Shakur, who, as you read his book "MONSTER", clearly just cannot get the idea that he is responsible for what he has done.

But to me, whether a killer has seemingly reformed or not makes little difference. Once a person has shown not just the ability but the willingness to murder, by actually doing so, and not just in self-defense, then he or she must be removed from this existence, permanently. It is the only action that can GUARANTEE the killing will not be repeated.