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As doctors, we believe forced hysterectomies, as alleged by a whistle blower at an ICE facility in Georgia, against detained migrant women is a violation of every medical value we swore to uphold as physicians. And every healthcare professional who went into medicine to heal others has a duty to speak up and support a full investigation into this horrific mutilation of women.

From the whistleblower's allegations, migrant women detained at a facility in Georgia did not give informed consent to have hysterectomies performed on them. As detainees of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, held behind bars with little to no rights or freedom, they most likely followed orders out of fear. They were coerced into hysterectomies. This procedure entails the removal of all or part of a woman's uterus, which can be indicated for a host of medical reasons but has the end effect of stopping any future pregnancy.

From a medical perspective, the that must be answered, and they revolve around whether the women were fully informed about the procedure, risks and benefits, potential complications and alternatives. This sharing of information and transparency is the foundation of the ethical practice of medicine.

The most grotesque moments in medicine occurred due to the absence of informed, non-coerced consent.

Between 1933 and its abolition in 1977, the Eugenics Board of North Carolina oversaw the sterilization of roughly 7,500 people. By law, the board could order the sterilization of "mentally diseased, feeble-minded, or epileptic patients" for the goal of preventing them from having children who may become a burden on taxpayers. The victims were overwhelmingly black, poor and disabled people.

In 1973, Minnie Lee and Mary Alice Reif were sterilized at the ages of 12 and 14 in Alabama after their mother, who couldn't read and thought she consented to her daughters getting "shots", signed the surgical consent for a tubal ligation with an "X."

In 1932, 600 men were promised free medical care if they took part in a study of "bad blood." But, they were deceived and for the roughly 400 with latent syphilis, medical care was actively withheld to observe the natural course of the disease. The men were black, poor, and many of them were sharecroppers and had never seen a doctor. The Tuskegee experiment tracked the men over decades. They were given placebos, not penicillin, which was a recommended cure by 1947. The men slowly went mad and blind, and 128 of them died from syphilis. At no time did they give their informed consent.

Today, if physicians did any of these things to a patient, even if that patient were a detainee, we would be sued, lose our medical license, or go to jail. If we encounter communication barriers, language differences or a patient is deaf or blind, we use official translators to ensure all aspects of a treatment or procedure are communicated clearly. The treating physician or performing surgeon must document this communication. A patient's request for a second opinion must be granted.

In emergency medicine, immediate intervention may be necessary to save a patient's life. Informed consent may not be possible in life-threatening situations where the patient isn't conscious. If the patient were, then we explain usually on the walk to the operating room their injuries could kill them unless we intervene with surgery.

After the surgery, we explain to patients and their families all the procedures we performed on them to save their lives, potential complications, outcomes, and next steps as needed. In non-life-threatening situations, we go through all the steps to ensure the patient provides informed consent. In all cases, we document the time we spend explaining treatment and procedures to patients. Anything less before a physician performs a medical procedure on a patient would be unethical and inhumane.

The allegations that hysterectomies were performed on detained migrant women rightfully provokes our public outrage. The U.S. House of Representatives is right to investigate whether the women gave informed, non-coerced consent.

Modern medicine should have moved well past our past barbarities. Yet if the allegations of forced hysterectomies are true allegations that the physician implicated has denied then what happened to these migrant women is an atrocity.

Under international law, "imposing measures intended to prevent births" within a group is an element in genocide. (The next item international law defines as an element in genocide is "forcibly transferring children of the group to another group," another atrocity associated with ICE and the Trump Administration.)

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Opinion: Congress must investigate reports of forced hysterectomies of migrant women - Pocono Record

President Donald Trump recently made a reference to the controversial "racehorse theory" of human breeding, which has become a subject of scrutiny by critics as many wonder whether the Republican actually endorses it. The "racehorse theory" is an offensive and dangerous notion that selective breeding can boost a particular nation in certain ways. The controversial "racehorse theory," infamously practiced by the Nazis when they massacred millions of Jews, involves selective breeding and eugenics. The theory, which was initially used for horses and breeding, was later used to justify the selective breeding of humans. The unfounded theory espouses that human race can be made better by selective breeding, a claim which has been widely discredited.

Trump, on September 18, the night Ruth Bader Ginsburg died, made a campaign appearance in Bemidji, Minnesota, and made an alarming reference to eugenics and the racehorse theory. "You have good genes, you know that right? the president said to a nearly all-white crowd. A lot of it is about the genes, isnt it? Dont you believe? The racehorse theory, Trump said. You think were so different? You have good genes in Minnesota."

Author of 'NeuroTribes', Steve Silberman, also slammed Trump's reference to the theory, likening it to the Nazis. Silberman tweeted: "As a historian who has written about the Holocaust, I'll say bluntly: This is indistinguishable from the Nazi rhetoric that led to Jews, disabled people, LGBTQ, Romani and others being exterminated. This is America 2020. This is where the GOP has taken us."

As a historian who has written about the Holocaust, I'll say bluntly: This is indistinguishable from the Nazi rhetoric that led to Jews, disabled people, LGBTQ, Romani and others being exterminated. This is America 2020. This is where the GOP has taken us. https://t.co/CHMLg804mp

President Trump also appeared to make a reference to eugenics during the first 2020 presidential debate against his political rival, Democratic nominee Joe Biden on September 29. Trump told Biden: "You could never have done the job we did. You dont have it in your blood."

The Republican has also referred to the "racehorse theory" before he won the presidency. Trump, while talking to CNN's Larry King in 2007, had said: "You can absolutely be taught things. Absolutely. You can get a lot better. But there is something. You know, the racehorse theory, there is something to the genes. And I mean, when I say something, I mean a lot."

This is not the first time Trump's reference to eugenics has come under the scanner and has been analyzed. The Republican's biographer, Michael D'Antonio, the author of 'The Truth About Trump', had previously stated that the Trump family has a "very deep attraction" to eugenics. D'Antonio, while talking to Rolling Stone, had said: "The family subscribes to a racehorse theory of human development, that they believe that there are superior people, and that if you put together the genes of a superior woman and a superior man, you get superior offspring."

President Trump, who contracted the novel coronavirus last week, came back to the White House from the Walter Reed Medical Center on Monday, October 5. However, he is still believed to be infectious and received widespread backlash for removing his mask when he returned to the White House, and urged Americans to not to fear the COVID-19 disease that has killed over 209,000 people in the country.

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Has Trump endorsed 'racehorse theory'? POTUS likely a believer in controversial notion about 'superior people' - MEAWW

[Editors Note: This is Part 1 in a four-part series on disability and horror.]

Watching horror films is a disabling experience, Angela M. Smith, Associate Professor of English and Gender Studies for the University of Utah and author of the book Hideous Progeny: Disability, Eugenics, and Classic Horror Cinema, said. Its a controlled encounter with discomfort, with the vulnerability of our minds and bodies to images and suggestions that opens us to unwilled transformations.

The horror film revels in the world of deformity and grotesqueness and, to a disabled viewer, that can be confusing in how relatable it is. For many, to be disabled is also to look different, so how does a person with a disability approach the horror genre when the presented thing to fear is themselves?

Smith said people werent ready for Freaks in the 1930s, and shes absolutely correct. Freaks, for better and worse, remains one of the only U.S. features to have a predominately disabled cast despite being released 88 years ago. Directed by Dracula helmer Tod Browning, Freaks tells the story of a circus troupe and what happens when they discover that little person Hans (Harry Earles) is being poisoned and duped by the able-bodied Cleopatra (Olga Baclanova).

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Freaks, weirdly enough, feels like an authentic horror feature. Even now, the majority of films see able-bodied actors portraying disability that, coupled with able-bodied screenwriters and directors, presents a tableau of disability an imitation. Freaks is the story of a close-knit family, a group of outcasts who support and love each other.

I want to be part of that community, Salome Chasnoff, director of the documentary on disability in horror, Code of the Freaks said to IndieWire. I love the affection and commitment they have to each other. I want to live in a world where people are that committed to me.

Much of this comes from the fact that Browning himself was a part of a traveling circus in his youth. He saw the disabled people that commonly populated what were then called freak shows and wanted to find a way to pay tribute to them. So when star Earles brought up to Browning that he should adapt the short story Spurs by Tod Robbins, the director made MGM buy it for Browning to direct. The basic tenets of the story in Spurs remain, namely the relationship between Hans and Cleopatra, but Browning and a series of directors worked to create a depiction that, at the time, presented the circus performers as people.

Everett Collection (freaks1932-fsct08)

And that warmth is found in snatches throughout Freaks. Outside of the community Chasnoff refers to, there are various storylines showing the day-to-day world of these performers. Frances OConner, who has no arms, is seen casually eating with her feet while performer Prince Randian, known as The Living Torso, rolls a cigarette with his mouth. These scenes, presented so matter-of-factly, display disability as normal. What looks unconventional to an able-bodied person is basic and unspectacular. In these scenes Browning tries to destigmatize the disabled and remind them, in 1932, that theyre people.

Its one of the few films where we can see our disabled ancestors before they were excised from the movies, Carrie Sandhal, Associate Professor in the Department of Disability and Human Development at the University of Illinois at Chicago said. We got to see them as actors as well as people.

For many disabled people who grew up without others like them, Freaks became a gateway feature to champion. The shooting process was difficult, unaided by the fact that the circus performers were forced to eat outside the MGM commissary, due to complaints from the studios stars about seeing them. And once the film was finished, head of production Irving Thalberg was not happy with what he saw. Test screenings were rumored to have audiences fleeing the theater. One woman allegedly threatened to sue MGM because the sight of the disabled actors on-screen caused her to have a miscarriage. Its unclear whether much of this was created by MGM itself in order to better sell Freaks as a horror feature.

Regardless, the studio immediately excised 30 minutes out of the movie, much of which were scenes showing the circus performers in a positive light. Its a classic film tragedy that still stings today, especially for disabled performers like Adam Pearson who believe Freaks is a masterpiece.

Its so unfortunate that half of it is on the cutting room floor, he said. It got completely bastardized and diluted by the studio.

After further cuts, many of which are now lost, the feature was transformed into a horror movie aimed at able-bodied audiences. Reviews were negative and Freaks was a box office bomb. Not only did it effectively end Brownings career as a director, many of the able-bodied actors were blacklisted. The actors with disabilities, like the conjoined twins Daisy and Violet Hilton, were left purely making features that treated them as the freaks MGM wanted them to be.

Courtesy Everett Collection

As Smith lays out, the way Freaks turned out was par for the course in 1930s cinema. As she explained, eugenics was a huge element of not just horror films at the time but within society.

There wasa [belief] in external appearance as something thatcould reveal inner pathology, she said. So visible disability or difference was interpreted as a sign of this inner deviance, which was also interpreted in terms of immorality and criminality.

That theme is seen in 1930s features such as Frankenstein and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, but its not so clear-cut in Freaks.

In the 1930s, audiences didnt want to confront difference and accept human variability, and so they condemned Freaks, Smith said.

The characters arent aesthetically conventional, but for over half the movie we see them as kind-hearted, normal people. In fact, the irony Browning presents is that for all of Cleopatras beauty she is so cold-hearted that shes willing to kill Hans for his money. The film languished for several decades until the 1960s when it was embraced by the counterculture as an example of oppression, injustice, and rebellion. And within the last few decades the movie has been the subject of fierce discussion by disabled advocates, critics, and movie lovers about whether its genius or exploitative.

It definitely exploits the sensationalistic thrills of the freak show, presenting these bodies as deviant and threatening, but only after it shows us that these performers are quite ordinary people, driven to defend themselves against supposedly normal individuals who prey on and harm them, Smith said.

But it also forces the viewer, more able-bodied than not, to confront the nature of difference and realize how we view those who are different, and disability by extension, has more to do with societal norms and our prejudices than the person themselves.

[Tod Browning] was a huckster. He had come from exploitation, Tommy Heffron, film and video artist and an Assistant Professorin the Scripps Howard School of Journalism and Communications at Hampton University, said. But for all of Brownings hucksterism, Heffron said the director still created empathy in his characters while simultaneously making a film so shocking it was banned in England for 32 years. More importantly, for Heffron especially, the fact that audiences are still talking about it 88 years later speaks volumes. Its something Pearson seconds, especially factoring in that it remains the only U.S. film to have a predominately disabled cast.

Freaks is divisive, its dated, but its also groundbreaking, entertaining, and frustrating. Have we necessarily improved when it comes to disability in horror? The answer is uncertain. But this Halloween season it might be worth diving deeper into the world of horror to find out the disability narratives underneath.

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Freaks Is the Granddaddy of Disabled Horror, for Better and Worse - IndieWire

News broke last week of an official complaint filed against immigration officials alleging a pattern of hysterectomies without informed consent on women from a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facility in Georgia. Dawn Wooten, the nurse who blew the whistle on the allegations of abuse, and who legal advocacy groups filed the complaint on her behalf, had worked at the privately-operated Irwin County Detention Center in Ocilla, Georgia, for three years. During that time, she alleged multiple hysterectomies were performed on Spanish-speaking immigrants, many of whom said they did not understand the procedure. ICE has denied the claims, the doctor accused of performing the procedures has denied the claims through attorneys, and the hospital where the procedures would have taken place, said it only has records showing that two hysterectomies were performed on those in immigration custody since 2017, according to the Washington Post.

While the cruelty of the allegations came as a shock to many, coerced sterilization is not unprecedented in the broader history of reproductive injustice and violence against people considered "undesirable" in the United Statesoften disabled and indigenous people, people of color, and immigrants.

Racism has been part and parcel of American reproductive healthcare from its beginning. J. Marion Sims, the man known as the "father of modern gynecology," exemplifies this. Sims garnered acclaim for groundbreaking gynecological surgical techniques that he perfected after performing dozens of experimental surgeries on enslaved Black women in Montgomery, Alabama, beginning in 1845. Sims operated on Black women without anesthesia, even though he used it during surgeries on white patients during the period. Sims's decision to operate on Black women without anesthesia went beyond a lack of care for the women; it was tied to pernicious assumptions that Black people were not susceptible to pain. "There was a belief at the time that Black people did not feel pain in the same way," explained Vanessa Northington Gamble, a physician and professor of medical humanities, in an interview with NPR in 2018. "Their pain was ignored," Gamble says. Baseless theories like these continue to inform modern medicine in measurable ways. Racial biases and false beliefs are associated with Black patients receiving less pain medication for broken bones and cancer than white patients, according to research published in 2016 by the National Academy of Sciences.

A generation after Sims built his career on the backs of Black women, the eugenics movement was growing popular in the United States. With it, States began to pass laws mandating compulsory sterilization for specific populations. The state of Indiana is widely considered to have adopted the world's first eugenic sterilization law in 1907, and similar laws were later adopted in 31 other states across the country during the 20th century. The target populations of these laws were defined in legal or pseudo-medical terms"imbeciles," the "feeble-minded"but the laws were deployed in ways that disproportionately victimized poor women and women of color.

Rather than pushing back on eugenic policies during the progressive era that ensued, physicians, legislators, and social reformers further legitimized their prejudiced pseudo-medical norms. American magnates like the Carnegie Foundation and John D. Rockefeller shelled out to fund projects at the Eugenics Record Office, a private research institute that openly supported sterilization as a solution to what it called "defective and delinquent classes of the community." In 1927, when the constitutional legality of compulsory sterilization was questioned in Buck v Bell, the Supreme Court also affirmed that permitting compulsory sterilization of "those who are manifestly unfit" did not violate the constitutional rights of those persons, by a vote of eight to one. Carrie Buck, the plaintiff, was classified at the time as "feeble-minded," but as has been noted, it was actually societal prejudice that earned her this unclear label. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, who authored the majority opinion in Buck v Bell, went so far as to claim that compulsory sterilization policies were "better for all the world." Rhetoric like this that framed eugenic sterilization as a positive public health strategy helped ensure the longevity and widespread impact of shameful coerced sterilization policies across the country.

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History of Coerced Sterilization in the United States - Teen Vogue

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Are we Nazi Germany? This is the incredulous response when people hear that an American detention facility has been accused of performing nonconsensual hysterectomies the surgical removal of the uterus on women. Because of the terror associated with Hitlers reign, people tend to connect any extreme systemic violence to that period of history. While it is certainly true that the human rights violations of Nazi Germany were abhorrent, there is just as much violent oppression throughout American history. In fact, the sterilization of women of color has been a huge problem in the United States since the 19th century. The sterilizations that took place at Irwin County Detention Center do not constitute a terrible exception; instead, such occurrences are the norm.

America is a country with a deeply racist past, built through the labor of slaves. While chattel slavery is the most obviously violent form that racism has taken throughout Americas history, BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, people of color) have faced oppression in a multitude of ways throughout the decades.

Often undergirding the rationale for racist oppression is eugenics, the belief that reproduction should be encouraged in certain desirable groups and discouraged in other undesirable groups. Of course, desirable, in most cases, refers to white, particularly white upper-class people. On the other hand, undesirable generally refers to people of color. Essentially, eugenics calls for the population of people of color to be reduced or at the very least not increased by any means necessary.

Even before the term eugenics was commonly known, plantation owners during American slavery controlled the reproductive lives of their female slaves. Enslaved women were often beaten to the point of infertility, and those who did carry out successful pregnancies were often separated from their children. As the field of eugenics became more popular, doctors and scientists tried different methods to discourage certain groups from reproducing while encouraging others.

In the early to mid 1900s, they frequently blocked upper-class white women from accessing birth control or voluntary hysterectomies, due to their desirable genetics. Around the same time, large numbers of Black women who visited hospitals left without their reproductive organs intact. These women almost never gave consent to the procedure, and were often not even notified that it was happening. After coming to the hospital for routine checkups or minor emergencies, hundreds of women left confused and irreparably harmed by doctors who were supposed to care for them.

According to the whistleblowers report, the women at the Irwin County Detention Center reacted in much the same way when asked about what had happened to them: confused and hurt. Many of the women at the facility visited an outside gynecologist who performed hysterectomies even when the womens medical issues did not call for the surgery. One woman explained that she went into the gynecologists office to have a cyst removed, but he performed a hysterectomy and she left without her uterus.

The gynecologist sterilized women at the facility in other ways as well. One section of the report describes the predicament of a woman who was scheduled to have her left ovary removed, but the gynecologist removed the right one mistakenly. He then went back in to correct the mistake by removing the left one. By the end of her time in the gynecologists office, she was infertile. Whether by medical incompetence or intentional harm, the gynecologist destroyed her reproductive future. At the time of the report, he had become so notorious among the women of the detention center for his sterilizations that he had been nicknamed the uterus collector.

In the world of medicine, patients must be fully informed about what a procedure entails before they can consent to it. As written in the report, the women who visited the gynecologist often expressed that they did not understand why they needed a hysterectomy. In the case of the first woman described above, she went in for a cyst removal and yet received a hysterectomy. Her doctors were not clear with regard to what procedure she needed and why. These women did not and could not have given proper informed consent.

If such gross negligence occurred at a hospital in a predominantly white, upper-class neighborhood, there would be severe and swift consequences for the doctors involved. Yet the Irwin County Detention Centers gynecologist was permitted to continue practicing. Presumably, he was allowed to mistreat these women and perform these sterilizations because, as immigrants and women of color, they are undesirable. Essentially, the Irwin County Detention Center facilitated the practice of eugenics by preventing women of color from reproducing.

There is no doubt that the information coming from the Irwin County Detention Center is disturbing and horrifying. However, it is important to note that none of the atrocities detailed in the report are new or different from what has been happening all over America for centuries. In the last 100 years alone, tens of thousands of Black, Latina and Indigenous women have endured forcible sterilizations because people in power do not believe that they should be able to reproduce. The actions of the gynecologist at the Irwin County facility are not a blip, or an exception; they are part of a long pattern in the history of eugenics. Yet, perhaps the outrage that people are demonstrating in reaction to the whistleblowers report of the detention center sterilizations is exactly what is needed; it is, above all, vital that those fighting for justice never become numb to the racist atrocities of America.

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The ICE Detention Facility Sterilizations Are Nothing New in US History - Study Breaks

Patrick Henry, Times columnist Published 5:01 p.m. CT Oct. 2, 2020

On Sept. 18, Donald Trump was in Bemidji,153 miles from here, but we were on his mind.

"From St. Paul to St. Cloud, from Rochester to Duluth, and from Minneapolis, thank God we still have Minneapolis, to right here, right here with all of you great people, this state was pioneered by men and women who braved the wilderness and the winters to build a better life for themselves and for their families. They were tough and they were strong."

Standard political oratory salute the audience with the narrative they like to tell about themselves (though thank God we still have Minneapolis refers back to his preposterous claim, earlier in the speech,that if Joe Biden wins, people will be saying of that city, It used to be over there. Its all ashes now).

Patrick Henry(Photo: Times photo)

But Trump didnt stop there. What he said next was not just a dog whistle, but as one commentator has noted, a train whistle.

You have good genes. You know that, right? You have good genes. A lot of its about the genes, isnt it? Dont you believe? The racehorse theory you think was so different? You have good genes in Minnesota. (The voice recognition software at rev.com, where the transcription of the speech can be found, misheard and produced resource theory. In the video of the speech its perfectly clear: racehorse.)

The audience at Bemidji Aviation Services was overwhelmingly white. Standing right behind Trump were people who are looking for our votes: Rep. Tom Emmer, for CD6;Michelle Fischbach, for CD7;Jason Lewis, for U.S. Senate. When the president made his genes remark, all three of them smiled approvingly and Fischbach applauded while grinning.

Earlier in the speech Trump had detonated his usual blast at recent arrivals to Minnesota. Dripping with sarcasm, he said, Lots of luck. Youre having a good time with the refugees. He then, of course, singled out Somalis.

By the time he got to genes, his meaning couldnt have been more evident. Its white people who are tough and strong, who deserve to build a better life for themselves and for their families. People of color are a threat.

Do we believe in the gene thing? I mean, I do, Trump is on tape saying on another occasion. And he also said this: "All men are created equal. Well, it's not true. Because some are smart; some aren't."

Youd think that conservative Americans, who pledge allegiance to the Founders, would recoil from such a blatant contradiction of a central theme of the Declaration of Independence.

Of course some people are smarter than others, but Thomas Jeffersons point is that in all matters of public policy, everyone is on an equal footing. IQ has nothing nothing to do with it.

Donald Trumps adherence to eugenics the racehorse theory of breeding for people is among the scariest of his authoritarian inclinations. We need to be wary of it the way Germans needed to be wary in the early 1930s. Its not just that You [white Minnesotans] have good genes. Its the clear implication that other peoples genes are bad, which easily slips over into dangerous meaning such people must be kept out, deported, eliminated one way or another.

Trumps gene theory, which grounds his admiration for the pioneers who braved the wilderness and the winters, spills over into his convictions about education.

He has recently condemned the New York Times 1619 Project, which brings into focus the central role of slavery in American history. He proposes withholding federal funding from California until it jettisons the 1619 Project from school curricula. He has decried what he calls ideological poison, that if not removed will dissolve the civic bonds that tie us together,and has said that under his plan, Our youth will be taught to love America with all of their heart and all of their soul.

To say that the only way youth will love America with all of their heart and all of their soul is to be taught exclusively about the good things the good genes did to be Minnesota specific: overlooking the decimation of Native peoples; forgetting the Duluth lynching; disregarding the research of St. Cloud State professor Christopher Lehman in Slaverys Reach: Southern Slaveholders and the North Star State is to treat youth (and those of us no longer young, too) with condescension and contempt. The civic bonds that tie us together are threatened far more by Trumps 20,000+ documented lies than by the truth about our history.

Recent Times interviews with local candidates were instructive, but the questions thrown were mostly Wiffle Balls. Given Trumps total takeover of the GOP, every Republican candidate at every level, state and federal, must be asked on the record Do you endorse or repudiate Donald Trumps racehorse theory? There is no middle ground.

This is the opinion of Patrick Henry, retired executive director of the Collegeville Institute for Ecumenical and Cultural Research and author of the forthcoming Flashes of Grace: 33 Encounters with God. His column is published the first Sunday of the month.

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Trump's 'racehorse theory' is divisive and dangerous - SC Times

IRONTON The Baptist Home launched a new podcast this month to spotlight what Gods Word says about aging.

For more than 107 years, The Baptist Home has been known for providing compassionate, Christlike care to the aging. More recently, The Baptist Home has been working to share their time-earned insights on aging issues by offering many educational resources for churches, pastors, caregivers, and other agencies focused on improving the quality of life for the aging. This month marks a new frontier for the ministry of The Baptist Home with the launch of their new podcast, Biblical Perspectives on Aging.

Based on Psalm 71, the Biblical Perspectives on Aging weekly podcast will feature one-on-one conversations with Christian aging experts from The Baptist Home and other industry leaders who will fearlessly apply biblical truths to difficult and sometimes controversial aging issues related to moral relativism, eugenics, ageism, sanctity of life, and ethics and aging.

The podcasts first guest, Ben Mitchell, retired Graves Professor of Moral Philosophy at Union University in Tennessee and author of Ethics and Moral Reasoning, discusses moral relativisms impact on ethics and aging. In the interview, Mitchell was enthusiastic about the new podcast saying, Im a Boomer. There are many of us who will have to learn both what it means to honor our fathers and mothers and what it means to have our children care for us. With a growing aging population which is living longer, but not always more healthily, the issues are alive and more urgent in many cases.

Baptist Home President Rodney Harrison, former Dean of Postgraduate Studies at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, spearheaded the launch of the podcast and is passionate about addressing resident rights and aging issues. When asked about his goals for the podcast, Harrison shared, Our objective is to bring together the foremost voices from the academy and practice to speak to the issues of aging from a biblical worldview. The podcast is a resource for all who hold to the sanctity of life to natural death, be they pastors, students, the elderly or children of aging parents.

Andy Braams, pastor, adjunct professor at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, and host of the weekly podcast, Christian Educator Weekly, also serves as the host for Biblical Perspectives on Aging and is excited about the podcast saying, As a middle-aged adult with aging family members and as a pastor of a church with many senior adults, this podcast is not just an opportunity to serve others by hosting, it is a personal opportunity to learn and grow so I can better serve the aging in my life. The initial interviews I have conducted have already been a tremendous encouragement to me personally, and I look forward to continuing to gain insights to benefit everyone who may listen to this podcast. And although my voice serves as host for this podcast, my commitment is to ask questions from each guest to enable and encourage all of us to truly become a voice for the aging.

The Baptist Home was established in 1913 and has four campuses across the state of Missouri, in Arcadia Valley (Ironton), Ashland, Chillicothe, and Ozark. The Baptist Home provides continuum of care retirement communities in a Southern Baptist, faith-based setting and is unlike many long-term care facilities in that it operates without direct Medicare or Medicaid reimbursement. Residents living in assisted and nursing units pay for as much of their cost as they are able, but if funds are depleted The Homes benevolent program enables them to receive the same care and services as private pay individuals for the rest of their lives. Residents who are able to live in the active living apartments do not receive benevolent support but do have access to long-term care services should they require higher levels of care.

For more information about independent living, assisted living, or nursing care services, call (866) 454-2709 or visit http://www.thebaptisthome.org. To listen to Ben Mitchells and other aging experts full interviews, download the Biblical Perspectives on Aging podcast on iTunes, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Google Podcasts, or listen via the podcasts landing page, http://www.biblicalperspectives.org. Interviews are also available for viewing on YouTube at TheBaptistHome1.

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Baptist Home podcast series spotlights 'Biblical Perspectives on Aging' - The Pathway

Francis Galton (by Charles Wellington Furse)

WHILE, as a libertarian, I have my doubts at times about toppling statues or removing a pedestal of Hans Sloane, the founder of the British Museum, I can understand why so many academics at London University decided to rename the lecture theatre honouring Francis Galton, whose theories about the selective breeding of humans to increase desirable characteristics engaged a wave of intellectuals in the 19th century, all following what became known as eugenics.

It found curious support among such eminent public figures as George Bernard Shaw and HG Wells.

But eugenics certainly found a home in Germany, and later in the Nazi culture, feeding its racist beliefs and poisoning scientific and medical circles.

Mary Fulbrook

One of London Universitys eminent academics, Mary Fulbrook a world recognised author on the hideous ramifications of the Holocaust stood slightly aside while debate raged in the halls of learning about what to do with the Galton name. She is now immersed in researching the role of bystanders in Nazi Germany, who either literally stood by and allowed the abhorrent persecution of Jews and minorities to take place or even participated in them. The professions in science or medicine were not exempt from what became a genocide. Her next book will describe this tide of hate.

Racism, of course, is abhorrent but it can be so easily manipulated as an idea and found where, perhaps, it does not exist.I wrote last week about a Jewish lawyer in Islington who has been suspended from membership of the Labour Party for alleged anti-semitic remarks. I hear that Bindmans, the firm of solicitors in Euston, is now representing eight Labour Party members who are either being investigated by Labour officials or accused of making alleged anti-semitic remarks. A crowdfunding site has so far raised 27,000 for legal fees.

Somewhere, it seems, a legal argument begins as to whether critical statements about the Israeli government get entangled and confused with remarks deemed to be anti-semitic.

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Tracking racism's symbols and reality - Camden New Journal newspapers website

Throughout literary history, without concern for era or genre, there have been a slew of authors who happen to strike up long-lived friendships with fellow writers. Tolkien and Lewis, Emerson and Louisa May Alcott, and Twain and Ulysses S. Grant comprise a few exemplary pairs of writer-friends.

However, one relationship among literary giants is often forgotten. It involved two British writers who had equally grandiose personalities, though rather opposing perceptions of the world.

One was an atheistic socialist; the other a faith-based conservative. One was a science-fiction novelist and historian; one a columnist, poet, and mystery novelist.

These two men respected each other, despite their clashing dispositions, and were able to communicate on polite terms, something modern debaters could take a cue from. They were the well-revered H.G. Wells and G.K. Chesterton.

Their charm matched with their tempered persistence made for appealing, intellectually-stimulating conversations. Or at least they thought so.

Chesterton was rather known for his open affiliation with individuals whose beliefs he firmly disapproved of. Wells stood just as firm in his own ideals. He openly stated he was immoral, referring to his sexual tendencies, though on what rationale he based this it is uncertain.

But on one occasion Wells is also noted for saying, If I ever get to Heaven, presuming there is a Heaven, it will be by the intervention of Gilbert Chesterton.

Chesterton, likewise, held his friend Wells in high esteem for his willingness to explore varying realms of philosophy. The columnist once hailed Wells as the only one of many brilliant contemporaries who has not stopped growing.

Wells insisted on the theory of eugenics, a concept that may likely have influenced the degenerated depiction of humanity's future in The Time Machine (1895). Wells was quite involved with eugenics theory, though the concept would eventually show signs of societal damage. Chesterton challenged this mentality of Wells (and others) in Eugenics and Other Evils (1922) with responses such as:

The Eugenic optimism seems to partake generally of the nature of that dazzled and confused confidence, so common in private theatricals, that it will be all right on the night.

Nevertheless, in the coming decades, eugenics proved itself to be a driving factor behind the master race ideology of Nazism and the subsequent Holocaust of World War II, which took the lives of millions.

In many of his own fictional novels, Wells explored a bestial dimension of humanity, while Chesterton viewed the human person as made in the image of the Divine. It comes as no surprise then when we notice Wells promoting Darwinism and see that Chesterton is unexcited by the idea of macroevolution.

These two men could not be more different. But their relationship displays an equilibrium in the faculties of listening to one another and having mutual respect. The result was a shared understanding. The aura of this friendship is something that ought to be envied by modernity, especially under the current political climate in the United States.

The current state of American politics is plagued by partisanship and polarization. It's been building for years. As opposing sides drift farther apart, the less they perceive as having in common. Policymakers and citizens continually grow more staunchly unwelcoming to the ideals of their opponents.

Moreover, they begin to look at one another in disgust, associating a dirty name with the people of dissimilar political agendas. These unassociating parties develop what is commonly referred to as their own political bubbles.

This phenomenon might be uncomfortable to discuss, but it's happening. Analysts and critics from varying positions have frowned upon this ongoing, contrasting dissemination and have warned about its damaging consequences.

According to Pew Research, polarization is included as a defining feature of American politics today.

A 2013 report from The Breakthrough Institute points to rampant and severe polarization within Congress and within various states at that time, claiming this as detrimental to the functionality of liberalism.

Additionally, both national political parties struggle with partisanship within their own ranks, which becomes particularly evident come election time. This not only inhibits individual ideological goals, it makes it very difficult to come to an agreement on weighty issues.

Currently, with regards to policymaking, the polarization witnessed between parties is making it harder to deliberate on COVID-19 precautions and subsequent action. This is a case in which public safety has become jeopardized through the incapacitation resulting from polarization.

A mentality similar to that within policy is seen in voters, as noted by the Breakthrough report. Political differences cause apparent enmity between neighbors.

Friendships are dissolved, and arguments degenerate into personal attacks laced with hateful rhetoric. And there are plenty of tweets to support this.

As experienced by the American public, different beliefsboth presently as well as historicallyhave brought about societal strife leading to belligerent yelling matches, physical antagonism, or worse.

We look around, and it seems like no one can debate among friends. I rather think healthy debate should be fostered between friends as it was in the relationship shared between Wells and Chesterton.

A number of psychologists have looked unfavorably on polarization. Research in recent years, undertaken by psychologists at universities such as Stanford and Princeton, has suggested that political preferences have become deeply ingrained social identities. These tests also supported an argument proposing political polarization as being more stringent than racial polarization.

It's clear that polarization damages relationships, hurts society, and stifles necessary action. The biggest problem with it is that it severs communication and cooperation between people. However, the friendship that Wells and Chesterton enjoyed offers diplomats and debaters something extraordinarily superior to polarization: a conversation.

Wells and Chesterton had a bond, the likes of which have seldom been replicated in either the 20th or 21st centuries.

The amazing thing is that in their encounters they were not enemies at heart. Certainly, each disapproved of many of the positions the other took. Their inner lives were comparatively as similar as a frosted cake and broccoli.

But they did not let mere differences force them into immediate and unrelenting harshness, which is so typical of debates between people nowadays. They were fully themselves and open with one another.

Even in their paper correspondence, the 20th century equivalent to tweets, they were quite diplomatic. They realized a belligerent inflection isn't going to get one's point across any clearer. And each knew that breaking a relationship would be of no benefit to either.

Perhaps they shared something more. An adherent of Darwinism, Wells would have a difficult time denying that a lack of cooperation can lead to self-destruction. Cooperation is a key ingredient in the prospects of survival. Similarly, Chesterton, holding high his Christian beliefs, recognized division as a breakdown of community.

Perhaps this was something that each could not walk away from. Instead, they embraced it.

Wells and Chesterton not only recognized the dignity of one another; they also listened to one another. Each internalized the other's perspective. This kind of relationship is something humans should seek to emulate.

In both American politics and sociability, we need more unbashful, polite friendships like that of H.G. Wells and G.K. Chesterton.

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Americans Could Learn a Lot from the Friendship of These Two Celebrated Authors | John Tuttle - Foundation for Economic

On Friday, May 24, 1968, Bruce Tucker celebrated the end of his work week at an egg-packing plant in Richmond by gathering with friends and sharing wine.

But the camaraderie ended early when the 54-year-old African American fell off the wall on which he was sitting, suffered a serious head injury, was taken to Medical College of Virginia Hospital and admitted as a charity patient.

A day later, the Dinwiddie County native was pronounced dead, and his heart and kidneys were harvested. His heart went to Joseph Klett, a 54-year-old white businessman from Orange County. The heart transplant was the 16th in the world, the ninth in the United States and the first to involve different races.

Meanwhile, younger brother William Tucker, who owned a shoe-repair shop near MCV, had learned of Bruces presence there through a friend. But when he sought information from the hospital, he received nothing that was helpful.

Longtime Virginia journalist Chip Jones tells the tale in The Organ Thieves, an exploration of ambition and researchand the lingering ghost of Jim Crow.

Despite police efforts, MCV was unable to locate Bruce Tuckers relatives. And the transplant took place sooner than the 24-hour waiting period required by Virginia law before the disposal of unclaimed bodies or for their use in research.

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Book review: 'The Organ Thieves' recounts troubling tale of 1968 heart transplant - Fredericksburg.com

Date:September 2, 2020Host:Jim SchneiderGuest: Mark CrutcherMP3|Order

According to numberofabortions.com, since the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, there have been more than 18 million 662 thousand 172 black babies killed by abortion in the U.S.

Why dont these black lives matter?

Mark Crutcher is calling for a congressional investigation to defund big abortion for matters related to racial discrimination and hate crimes. Mark is the founder and director of Life Dynamics. He may be best known for his bold undercover operations that have exposed shocking and even illegal activities inside the abortion industry. Life Dynamics is the producer of Maafa 21 which exposes the black genocide thats underway in the 21st century.

Mark began by noting his organizations 3 year-plus research project called Maafa 21. The idea behind this now 11 year old movie was to show that the original motivation for the legalization of abortion had nothing to do with womens rights, reproductive freedom or choice. It was strictly about eugenics in order to wipe out minorities and primarily the black community.

Mark indicated that Planned Parenthood knows exactly what the history is of their organization. Its about racism, black genocide and eugenics. When Life Dynamics first started studying this issue, they found that the first anti-abortion organizations in America werent Christian pro-life groups and churches. It was actually the radical civil rights groups such as the Black Panthers and Nation of Islam. They realized that the legalization of abortion was being touted as a way to get rid of the black community.

Maafa 21 came out to expose this reality to the American public. Its been documented that over 2 million people have viewed it. As a result, Life Dynamics has seen an explosion of black people coming into the pro-life movement.

This situation is best summed up by the following statement from Mark as quoted by Jim: What the Ku Klux Klan could only dream about, the abortion industry is accomplishing. Its a statement Mark can back up and you can hear it all when you review this Crosstalk broadcast.

More Information

lifedynamics.com

Maafa21.com

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The Racism of the Abortion Industry VCY America - VCY America

Our views of human nature shape almost everything we do as a society. It informs who heal or ignore. Who we protect or persecute. And no view of human nature has done more harm than survival of the fittest. At its inception, it inspired the eugenics movement and now it promotes all forms of racism and discrimination.

But survival of the fittest, which in the popular imagination suggests the superiority of the strongest, biggest and meanest, is a tragic misunderstanding. To Darwin, and other biologists, fitness only refers to the offspring you leave behind. It was never meant to go beyond that.

Using the intended definition of fitness, research has repeatedly shown that friendliness is the key to lifes biggest successes. Flowering plants quickly spread to every corner of the planet by inviting animals to pollinate them.

Cleaner wrasse comfortably dart between the teeth of much larger predatory fish who let them eat their dental parasites. And dogs are the ultimate example of survival of the friendliest they became friendlier through domestication and are the most successful mammal on the planet, besides us.

Read more about friendship:

Even our closest primate cousins, bonobos and chimpanzees, show how friendliness wins.

In chimpanzees, the alpha male pummels his way to the top, forcing his groupmates to signal their total submission by kissing his testicles. Fights can be deadly. He uses his power to monopolise females and have more offspring than other males.

Bonobos do none of this. No bonobo group has ever been observed to have an alpha male. Instead, females, who are smaller than the males, form a coalition to prevent any one bonobo from ruling the group.

A male that uses force to get his way will be met by an alliance of females he cannot overpower, and who will then refuse to mate with him. Male aggression does not pay and as a result no bonobo has ever been seen to kill another bonobo.

If we look at biological fitness, who has the most reproductive success: alpha chimpanzees or more friendly bonobo males? It turns out that the most successful bonobo males leave more offspring than even the most despotic chimpanzees.

Friendliness in nature helps us understand our own nature. In the past 100,000 years our species, Homo sapiens, has co-existed with at least four other human species.

This includes Neanderthals, with brains as big, and bodies as strong, as our own. They had culture and technology that rivalled ours, but this did not protect them from extinction. If big brains and culture do not guarantee survival, why are we the last human standing?

Our success was due to a new social category the in-group stranger. Bonobos and chimpanzees recognise those as inside or outside their group based on familiarity.

Bonobos have never been seen to kill another bonobo Getty Images

Chimpanzees respond negatively and bonobos positively to someone they do not recognise, but neither species has a group identity. Only we have shared signals we use to recognise if someone is part of our group.

Prehistorically, this might have been shared language, technology, or clothing. Today, these signals are a range of arbitrary but culturally constructed cues, like a baseball cap, rosary, skin colour, or an accent.

No other animal recognises in-group strangers. It is unique to our species. We are surrounded by people we do not know, and yet we are not just tolerant of these strangers, we actively help each other. This friendliness encourages us to perform acts of kindness both great, like donating an organ, and small, like helping someone cross the street.

Read more about friends in the animal kingdom:

This new category of in-group stranger probably appeared in our species during the Middle Palaeolithic, more than 80,000 years ago, and allowed communities to become larger and more densely populated.

The minds of innovators were networked together and our capacity for technological innovation exploded. With improved tools, we could expand into a wider range of ecologies. Once the social calculus shifted, our unique form of friendliness gave us a major advantage over other human species.

Unfortunately, our increased friendliness created a new form of aggression. Group members had the ability to connect with each other, and the bonds between them were so strong, they felt like family. With this new concern for others came a willingness to violently defend them against threatening outsiders.

Social scientists have traditionally called this dislike of other groups prejudice. However, our worst behaviours toward other groups cannot be explained as mere negative feeling towards others. Just as we can embrace in-group strangers, we can blind ourselves to the basic humanity of those we feel threaten our group or its identity.

This blindness is a far darker force than prejudice it is dehumanisation. When we do not view others as fully human, we morally exclude them. Our empathy narrows like a spotlight increasingly focused on those most like us.

People might vary in their predisposition to dehumanise, and levels of dehumanisation are impacted by socialisation, but all human brains are capable of dehumanisation.

If our kindness is also the source of cruelty, how do we facilitate friendliness while keeping our darker side in check? The good news is, to break the cycle of dehumanisation there is a simple solution, and we know it works.

Friendship is the bridge between two groups. If we can remove that sense of threat, even for a short time, we can create a different kind of feedback loop that might be called reciprocal humanisation.

For example, people are less likely to dehumanise homosexuals if they know a homosexual through their network of friends. Israeli and Palestinian teenagers who went to three week camp together listed someone from the opposite side as a friend and reported more positive feelings towards the opposite group as a whole.

Dogs: the ultimate example of survival of the friendliest Getty Images

In a time of social distancing, when friendships are difficult to maintain and new friendships are almost impossible to form, we can still short circuit our tendency to dehumanise.

One study found that just imagining positive contact with one of the most dehumanised groups of people the homeless helps people to empathise with them. Even using humanising words to describe people in an outside group can lead people to want to approach and make contact.

Now more than ever, we have a chance to become something new. One of the most important lessons we have learned about the last 100,000 years is that a life should not be measured by how many enemies you have conquered, but by how many friends you have made.

Go here to read the rest:

Survival of the friendliest: Why kindness, not aggression, helped humans thrive - BBC Focus Magazine

A poll worker casts a mail-in ballot for a voter at a drive-thru polling station during the primary election amid the coronavirus outbreak in Miami, Fla., August 18, 2020. (Marco Bello/Reuters)

On the menu today: As Facebook takes steps to prepare for a divided and angry election season, lets remember what we can do to ensure we have faith in this falls elections; a grim number that indicates that COVID-19 isnt just a menace to the elderly and immunocompromised; some revelations about Alexander Graham Bell I wish I hadnt learned; and a new spot online for voracious readers.

If Youre Worried about the Election, You Can Do Something about It

Facebooks Mark Zuckerberg, this morning: The U.S. elections are just two months away, and with Covid-19 affecting communities across the country, Im concerned about the challenges people could face when voting. Im also worried that with our nation so divided and election results potentially taking days or even weeks to be finalized, there could be an increased risk of civil unrest across the country.

Facebook is taking additional steps to help the upcoming election run smoothly removing misinformation about voting, partnering with Reuters and the National Election Pool to provide authoritative information about election results, and not allowing political advertising in the final week before the election.

But whether or not the country witnesses election-related unrest shouldnt be dependent upon the policies of a social-media company. Functioning as a constitutional democratic republic requires a little bit of responsibility on the part of each citizen, poll worker, volunteer, government employee, and elected leader. Not a ton or an unbearable burden. We can handle this, America.

First, you know there are foreign forces hostile to the United States who want you to have no faith in any aspect of your government, right? Vladimir Putin, Chinese State Security, and the Iranian mullahs, among others, want you marinating in a toxic stew of suspicion, confusion, paranoia, rage, and eagerness to lash out at other Americans. The more energy and time we spend attacking each other, the less time we have left to focus on what theyre doing whether its Novichok assassinations, running concentration camps or crushing democratic opposition in Hong Kong, or executing children. We, as ordinary citizens, have limited ability to impede their efforts to put out disinformation. But we can choose how we respond to it, and we can choose to be less credulous about everything we read on social media.

If everybody in America resolved, Im not going to rush out and smash something because I dont like the election result, or the votes are taking a long time to count, we would prove that all of these foreign disinformation efforts are a waste of time. Were not taking the bait; were not so easily manipulated.*

Second, you know that in most jurisdictions, you can volunteer as a poll worker or poll watcher, right? There are various age, local residence, and voter registration requirements. If youre wondering whether its safe to work at a polling place . . . with the proper precautions, yes. Weve held primary elections all year long.

If you have any doubts that the elections in your community wont be run fairly, you can do something about it. If you cant get involved in the election process yourself, you have no shortage of legal authorities to turn to if you suspect election fraud or some other illegal activity. Every state government has an election security office. The Department of Homeland Security has an Election Security division. The U.S. Election Assistance Commissions whole job is to help states and localities prepare and secure their elections.

Dont just sit there and predict that the election will be stolen on social media; get up out of your chair and do something about it. Those hostile foreign forces want you feeling helpless and that theres nothing you can do.

I am among the worlds most insufferable critics of government bureaucracy.But although there are a handful of places that are notorious for poorly run elections and counts,in the vast majority of places in the United States, elections are run fairly, legally, and smoothly.

Yes, the 2020 election will almost certainly have more Americans voting early and voting by mail than ever before. But last cycle wasnt exactly low about 57.2 million in 2016, or about 40 percent of all ballots. Sixteen states had more than half their ballots cast by mail or early. Running this years general election without too many snafus or confusion will be a tougher endeavor, but it wont be wildly different from the challenge last cycle.

We can do this, America. Dont get anxious, get prepared.

*Perhaps we are so easily manipulated. Last year, somebody wrote a novel about a sinister group with ties to the Iranians using social media to stir up mistrust and fear, climaxing in widespread violence in cities as Americans lashed out at each other in suspicion,trying to create an atmosphere of runaway paranoia where Americans started to see every stranger they encountered as a deadly threat. But hey, what are the odds of that happening, right?

COVID-19 Has Killed More Cops This Year Than All Other Causes Combined

This is a useful reminder for the COVID-19 is only a threat to the elderly and those who were already seriously sick crowd:

As of Sept. 2, on-the-jobcoronavirusinfections were responsible for a least 100 officer deaths, more than gun violence, car accidents and all other causes combined,according to the Officer Downgroup. National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund reported a nearly identical number of covid-related law enforcement deaths.

Both organizations only count covid deaths if it is determined that the officer died as a result of exposure to the virus while performing official duties, as the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund put it. Substantive evidence will be required to show the death was more than likely due to the direct and proximate result of a duty-related incident.

In addition to the 100 confirmed coronavirus fatalities listed on the Officer Down website, the nonprofit said it is in the process of verifying an additional 150 officer deaths due to covid-19 and presumed to have been contracted in the line of duty, said Chris Cosgriff, executive director of ODMP, in an email.

A disturbing number of people have chosen to interpret COVID-19 is a greater threat to the elderly and immunocompromised as COVID-19 is only a threat to the elderly and immunocompromised.

Technically, I Guess Alexander Graham Bell Is to Blame for Robocalls, Too

A wise voice wrote in, marveling that the District of Columbias Facilities and Commemorative Expressions (DCFACES) group singled out over 150 landmarks having the names of persons of concern and on the list was Bell Multicultural High School in Columbia Heights, named after Alexander Graham Bell.

This is the report that urged the mayor to use her position on the National Capital Memorial Advisory Commission to recommend that Federal government remove, relocate, or contextualize the Jefferson Memorial, Washington Monument, and six other federal assets.

Keep in mind that the District of Columbia has no authority over the Washington Monument or Jefferson Memorial, as those are run by the National Parks Service.

I did some Googling . . . and learned some disappointing things about Alexander Graham Bell:

Bells second chief interest was the study of heredity and animal breeding, and he became an early supporter of the eugenics movement to improve human breeding. Bell did not go so far as to advocate social controls on reproduction, as many eugenicists did. He did, however, decry the immigration into the United States of what he termed undesirable ethnical elements, calling for legislation to prevent their entry in order to encourage the evolution of a higher and nobler type of man in America. His views on immigration, deaf education, and eugenics overlapped and intertwined. He described sign language as essentially a foreign language and argued that in an English speaking country like the United States, the English language,and the English language alone, should be used as the means of communication and instruction at least in schools supported at public expense. He maintained that the use of sign language in our public schools is contrary to the spirit and practice of American Institutions (as foreign immigrants have found out).

In 1884, Bell published a paper Upon the Formation of a Deaf Variety of the Human Race, in which he warned of a great calamity facing the nation: deaf people were forming clubs, socializing with one another and, consequently, marrying other deaf people. The creation of a deaf race that yearly would grow larger and more insular was underway. Bell noted that a special language adapted for the use of such a race already was in existence, a language as different from English as French or German or Russian. Some eugenicists called for legislation outlawing intermarriage by deaf people, but Bell rejected such a ban as impractical. Instead he proposed the following steps: (1) Determine the causes that promote intermarriages among the deaf and dumb; and (2) remove them. The causes he sought to remove were sign language, deaf teachers, and residential schools. His solution was the creation of special day schools taught by hearing teachers who would enforce a ban on sign language.

Ugh. Eugenics? Opposition to deaf people socializing or marrying other deaf people?

I dont know if I necessarily would rename the Bell school now that I know this; the man was still a revolutionary inventor. But reading the above, its at least easier to see why some people would prefer a school not be named after him.

ADDENDUM: A little more than 13 years ago, I set up my Goodreads account . . . and did almost nothing with it. Ive finally updated it with more information about my books and will soon add links to my book reviews, etc.If youre on Goodreads, check it out, and if youre not, but like books and reading, you may want to give it a try.

Originally posted here:

We Can Handle This, America - National Review

Spotify launched Joe Rogans popular podcast this week. But the batch of 1,691 episodes of The Joe Rogan Experience currently available on the streaming platform is conspicuously missing a several controversial segments.

The Rogan episodes on Spotify omit his interviews with far-right figures including notorious conspiracy monger Alex Jones of InfoWars (whose podcasts Spotify and other platforms pulled in 2018 for policy violations). Other Joe Rogan Experience episodes not available include those with Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes; ex-Breitbart News editor Milo Yiannopoulos; Charles C. Johnson, whos been described as a race-baiting troll; alt-right political commentator and comedian Owen Benjamin; Stefan Molyneux, who amplifies scientific racism, eugenics and white supremacism, per the Southern Poverty Law Center; and anti-feminist personality Carl Benjamin (aka Sargon of Akkad).

Spotify announced the arrival of Rogans podcast in a tweet Tuesday, calling him a stand-up comic, mixed martial arts fanatic and psychedelic adventurer, neglecting to call out one significant element of his brand a political provocateur who has provided a platform for the far-right fringe.

Also not available on Spotify are Rogans podcast episodes with comedians Chris DElia (recently accused of sexual misconduct involving, in some cases, teenage girls), as well as Joey Diaz and Tommy Chong.

Reps for Spotify and Rogan didnt respond to requests for comment.

According to Spotify, The Joe Rogan Experience has long been the most-searched-for podcast on its service. The episodes on the service date back to 2009, when the comedian and former TV host first launched the show. Rogans deal with Spotify is worth more than $100 million, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Under the mutiyear licensing pact, The Joe Rogan Experience will become exclusive to Spotify later in 2020. There will still be clips from the show on YouTube but full versions of the show will only be on Spotify after the end of the year.

While Spotify will become the exclusive distributor of JRE, Rogan will maintain full creative control over the show under the agreement.

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Joe Rogan Podcast Comes to Spotify, but Its Missing His Episodes With Far-Right Figures - Yahoo Entertainment

Progressives have long history with eugenics

Mr. Rock it is good to see you pop back up, and thanks for the opportunity to expand on the topic.

Eugenics and the progessive movement have a long history together.

The progressives focus on common good and betterment of humanity while devaluing the individual. (Definitions of betterment vary.) The downside is the individual becomes expendable. Even Wikipedia recognizes progressivism was tied to eugenics and the temperance movement, both of which were promoted in the name of public health and as initiatives toward that goal.

Eugenics was thought of as cutting edge science. Progressives sought to improve the human condition by government control of genetics by sterilizing those it deemed inferior. Those that questioned the settled science were ostracized. (Sound familiar?)

It was actually a rebellion against Darwinism as survival of the fittest was not producing the desired results and the state must intervene to select the fittest. There is a strong belief the state should be the one making decisions because you as individuals are too incompetent to do so on our own. The party elite are apparently better equipped to make such personal decisions for others. (sarcasm)

Tommy Douglass, (father of socialized medicine in Canada) university thesis, was titled The Problems of the Subnormal Family. He argued that the subnormal Canadian be segregated or sterilized so they would be less of a public burden. He also argued that before marriage the couple had to prove they were mentality and morally fit. You can see the ideas echoed in CCF (predecessor to NDP) documentation. The public saw the horrors of where eugenics led, the Nazi regime, and it became an unpopular opinion to hold. Thankfully Douglas recanted rather then face public backlash.

This disgust for a group wrapped up in the language of victimhood is all too common to the progressives. The current issue of First Nations women coerced into being sterilized during labour is the legacy of the progressives. The 60s scoop and residential schools are in line with the progressives nanny state ideology of government intervention.

The state having power over an individuals body is only possible if the state owns its citizens. Slavery. Life and death then falls to a small group of elites who are there because of their loyalty to party and leader, not their compassion for others.

Eugenics may have been well intentioned but as history shows, it led to some of the darkest parts of the 20th century. (Road to hell paved with good intentions.)

S. Innis

Duncan

Letters

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Progressives have long history with eugenics - Cowichan Valley Citizen

In 1872, with the publication of "The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals," Charles Darwin went rogue. Only a decade after the anatomist Duchenne de Boulogne's produced the first neurology text illustrated by photographs, Darwin claimed to be the first to use photographs in a scientific publication to actually document the expressive spectrum of the face.

Combining speculation about raised eyebrows and flushed skin with vile commentary about mental illness, he famously logged diagrams of facial musculature, along with drawings of sulky chimpanzees andphotographs of weeping infants, to create a study that spanned species, temperament, age, and gender. But what really interested him was not so much the specificity of the individual as the universality of the tribe: If expressions could, as de Boulogne had suggested, be physically localized, could they also be culturally generalized?

As a man of science, he set out to analyze the visual difference between types, which is to say races. While Darwin's scientific contributions remain ever significant, it's worth remembering he was also a man of his era privileged, white, affluent, commanding who generalized as much as, if not more than, he analyzed, especially when it came to objectifying people's looks. In spite of his influence on evolutionary biology and his role in the scientific study of emotion, Darwin's prognostications read today as remarkably prejudicial. ("No determined man," he writes in "The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals," "probably ever had an habitually gaping mouth.") This urge to label "types" a loaded and unfortunate term would essentially go viral in the early years of the coming century, with such assumptions reasserting themselves as dogmatic, even axiomatic, fact.

Hardly the first to postulate on the graphic evidence of the grimace, Darwin hoped to introduce a system by which facial expressions might be properly evaluated. He shared with many of his generation a predisposition toward history: simply put, the idea that certain facial traits might have a basis in evolution. Empirically, the idea itself is not unreasonable. We are, after all, genetically predisposed to share traits with those in our familial line, occasionally by virtue of our geographic vicinity. At the same time, certain specimens, when classified by visual genre, become the easy targets of discrimination. In so doing, comparisons can and do glide effortlessly from hypothesis to hyperbole, particularly when images are in play.

Almost exactly a century after the arrival of Darwin's volume, Paul Ekman, a psychologist at the University of California, published a study in which he determined that there were seven principal facial expressions deemed universal across all cultures: anger, contempt, fear, happiness, interest, sadness, and surprise. HisFacial Action Coding System(FACS) supported many of Darwin's earlier findings and remains, to date, the gold standard for identifying any movement the face can make. As a methodology for parsing facial expression, Ekman's work provides a practical rubric for understanding these distinctions: It's logical, codified, and clear. But what happens to such comparative practices when supposition trumps proposition, when the science of scrutiny is eclipsed by the lure of a bigger, messier, more global extrapolation? When does the quest for the universal backfire and become a discriminatory practice?

The real seduction, in Darwin's era and in our own, lies in the notion that pictures and especially pictures of our faces are remarkably powerful tools of persuasion and do, in so many instances, speak louder than words.

The idea that photography allowed for the demonstration and distribution of objective visual evidence was a striking development for clinicians. Unlike the interpretive transference of a drawing, or the abstract data of a diagram, the camera was clear and direct, a vehicle for proof. The process itself allowed for a kind of massive stockpiling pictures compared to one another, minutiae contrasted, hypotheses often mistakenly corroborated which, while arguably rooted in scientific inquiry, led to a stunning degree of generalization in the name of fact. If evolution is seen as the study of unseen development biological, generational, temporal, and by definition intangible the camera provided the illusion of quantifiable benchmarks, an irresistible proposition for the proponents of theoretical ideas.

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Darwin's cousin, the noted statistician Francis Galton, saw such generalizations as precisely the point. Long before computer software would make such computational practice commonplace, he introduced not a lateral but a synthetic system for facial comparison: what he termed "composite portraiture" was, in fact, a neologism for pictorial averaging. Galton's objective was to identify deviation and, in so doing, to reverse-engineer an ideal "type," which he did by repeat printing upon a single photographic plate and within the same vicinity to one another thereby creating a force-amalgamated portrait of multiple faces. At once besotted with mechanical certainty and mesmerized by the scope of visual wonder before him, Galton thrilled to the notion of mathematical precision the lockup on the photographic plate, the reckoning of the binomial curve but appeared uninterested in actual details unless they could help reaffirm his suppositions about averages, about types, even about the photomechanical process itself.

That Galton drew upon the language of statistical fact and benefited from the presumed sovereignty of his own exalted social position to become an evangelist for the camera is questionable in itself, but the fact that he viewed his composite photographs as plausible evidence for an unforgiving sociocultural rationale shifts the legacy of his scholarship into far more pernicious territory.

At once driven by claims of biological determinism and supported by the authoritarian heft of British empiricism, Francis Galton pioneered an insidious form of human scrutiny that would come to be known as eugenics. The word itself comes from the Greek wordeugenes(noble, well-born, and "good in stock"), though Galton's own definition is a bit more sinister: For him, it was a science addressing "all influences that improve the inborn qualities of a race, also with those that develop them to the utmost advantage." The idea of social betterment through better breeding (indeed, the notion of better anything through breeding) led to a horrifying era of social supremacism in which "deviation" would come to be classified across a broad spectrum of race, religion, health, wealth, and every imaginable kind of human infirmity. Grossly and idiosyncratically defined even a "propensity" for carpentry or dress-making was considered a genetically inherited trait Galton's remarkably flawed (and deeply racist) ideology soon found favor with a public eager to assert, if nothing else, its own vile claims to vanity.

The social climate into which eugenic doctrine inserted itself appealed to precisely this fantasy, beginning with "Better Baby" and "Fitter Family" contests, an unfortunate staple of recreational entertainment that emerged across the regional United States during the early years of the 20th century.Widely promotedas a wholesome public health initiative, the idea of parading good-looking children for prizes (a practice that essentially likened kids to livestock) was one of a number of practices predicated on the notion that better breeding outcomes were in everyone's best interest. The resulting photos conferred bragging rights on the winning (read "white") contestants, but the broader message framing beauty, but especially facial beauty, as a scientifically sanctioned community aspiration implicitly suggests that the inverse was also true: that to be found "unfit" was to be doomed to social exile and thus restricted, among other things, by fierce reproductive protocols.

In 29 states beginning in 1907 and until the laws were repealed in the 1940s those deemed socially inferior (an inexcusable euphemism for what was then defined as physically "inadequate") were, in fact, subject tocompulsory sterilization. From asthma to scoliosis, mental disability to moral delinquency, eugenicists denounced difference in light of a presumed cultural superiority, a skewed imperialism that found its most nefarious expression during the Third Reich. To measure difference was to eradicate it, exterminate it, excise it from evolutionary fact. Though ultimately discredited following the atrocities endured during multiple years of Nazi reign, eugenic theory was steeped in this sinister view of genetic governance, manifest destiny run amok.

Later, once detached from Galton's maniacal gaze, the composite portrait would inspire others to play with the optics of the amalgamated image. The 19th-century French photographer Arthur Batut, known for being one of the first aerial photographers (he shot from a kite), may have been drawn to the hints of movement generated by a portrait's animated edges. American photographer Nancy Burson has experimented with composite photography to merge black, Asian, and Caucasian faces against population statistics: Introduced in 2000, herHuman Race Machinelets you see how you would look as another race. The artist Richard Prince flattened every one of Jerry Seinfeld's fifty-seven TV love interests into a 2013 composite he called "Jerry's Girls," while in 2017, data scientist Giuseppe Sollazzo createda blended facefor the BBC that used a carefully plotted algorithm to combine every face in the U.S. Senate.

Galton would have appreciated the speed of the software and the advantages of the algorithm but what of the ethics of the very act of image capture and comparison, of the ethics of pictorial appropriation itself? There's an implicit generalization to this kind of image production and indeed, seen over time, composite portraiture would become a way to amalgamate and assess an entire culture, even an era. In a 1931 radio interview, the German portraitist August Sander claimed he wanted to "capture and communicate in photography the physiognomic time exposure of a whole generation," an observation that reframes the composite as a kind of collected census, or population survey.

The camera, after all, bears witness over time, its outcome an extension of the eye, the mind, the soul of the photographer. Sander was right. (So was Susan Sontag: "Humanity," she oncewrote, "is not one.") With the advent of better, cheaper, faster, and more mobile technologies for capturing our faces, the time exposure of a whole generation was about to become a great deal more achievable.

* * *

Jessica Helfandis a designer, artist, and writer. She is a cofounder ofDesign Observerand the author of numerous books on visual and cultural criticism, including "Face: A Visual Odyssey," from which this article is adapted.

Excerpt from:

Darwin, Expression, and the lasting legacy of eugenics - Salon

This article was originally published here

J Racial Ethn Health Disparities. 2020 Aug 7. doi: 10.1007/s40615-020-00834-3. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

The face of medicine is a term commonly used to describe the leaders and decision-makers of medicine. Medical ethics often discuss past historical atrocities committed by the face of medicine, such as the American eugenics movement and medical experimentation. However, a great irony persists: the faces of medicine do not resemble the faces of the oppressed populations. Nevertheless, the discussion of white supremacy and systemic racism, structures which fueled historical medical atrocities, is often omitted. This reflection discusses the need for education, conversation, and action surrounding these topics to adequately combat racial and ethnic health disparities. We also argue that the decision-makers of medicine should be a diverse group of stakeholders, thereby representative of and personally invested in a diverse group of populations.

PMID:32770309 | DOI:10.1007/s40615-020-00834-3

More:

The Face of Medicine Is Not My FaceBut, It Should Be - DocWire News

Seattles church of St. Muir

The Northwest is a bastion of so-called "nones" people who belong to no formal religion but consider themselves secular but spiritual.

I belong to this undefined congregation. I was raised in the church of John Muir, a nearly sainted figure from my childhood on.

I grew up on a green, Olmsted-designed boulevard in a neighborhood shaped, like many in Seattle, by turn-of-the-century racist housing covenants. The landscape was designed to cultivate and preserve nature in the city, allowing appreciation of trees and such to flourish in our yards and parks. That landscape is what I knew and loved, from Lake Washington to Rainier Avenue.

My father, aunt, both of my sisters and I attended John Muir School in Mount Baker, from the 1920s to the 1960s. The school was originally part of the Columbia City schools, called Wetmore, and later York. In my fathers day it ran through the eighth grade; in mine it was an elementary school. The Muir name was adopted in 1921 to honor the man who made frequent and much-publicized visits to Seattle as he went to and from Alaska. He climbed most of the major peaks in the Cascades, including Rainier. Muir was a scientist who learned about how glaciers shaped the land, as well as an author and advocate. His name is on Camp Muir at Rainier.

After Muir's death in 1914, Edmond Meany gave a lecture on Muir in memory of one of the great naturalists, poets, and philosophers of the Coast, wrote The Seattle Times at the time. The lecture was held at a Unitarian Church on Boylston Avenue and was said to feature seventy-five hand-painted stereopticon pictures of the mountains Muir loved. It must have felt like a church service featuring mountain gods.

In the 1920s, the John Muir school was transformed from a typical Seattle school into a kind of chapel in the church of Muirs nature worship. There are many ideas expressed in his writings. He regarded woods as temples and felt deeply the sacredness of nature. He described those who would dam Yosmites Hetch Hetchy as temple destroyers, selfish despoilers of every type, from Satan to Senators.

The clearest way into the universe is through a forest wilderness, Muir wrote in his journal. If the view was exclusionist in conception, it was also attuned to powerful feelings evoked by witnessing the wilds, in standing with the natural world against what Muir saw as greed, commercialization and the brutality of industrialization. If Seattles John Muir students couldnt climb mountains or walk remote tracts in their daily lives, they could still be imbued with the faith as they played in parks that sought to give them some hope of meeting the universe in their own neighborhood. Muirs message was that the wilderness untamed offered spiritual uplift.

Read more from the original source:

John Muir: The godfather of Seattle's spiritual life and a racist - Crosscut

For last weeks Third M, we asked members of the media as well as individuals from media-adjacent organizations to weigh in on social media follows, coverage blind spots and more. This week, with assistance from Wego Health, we ran the same questions by patient influencers who, in many cases, had a distinctly different perspective. The MM&M patient influencer panel included: Amanda Greene (LA Lupus Lady), Marie Dagenais-Lewis, Candace Lerman (Rare Candace), Frank Rivera, Britt Clark, Deborah Lee Andio (Chronically Grateful Me), Barby Ingle, Dr. Maria De Leon and Lynn Julian.

Greene: On Twitter, I follow #HighRiskCOVID19, which was created by an innovative group of patient leaders to foster community support for information, resources and one another. For mental health, I follow Channel Kindness on many social media platforms as well as ChannelKindness.org, which offers tips and links for more resources to support the community.

Dagenais-Lewis: I became active again in patient advocacy due to COVID-19. I realized my rare disease research foundation was not looking out for the patients, so I started my brand, R.A.R.E., to educate about how Multiple Hereditary Exostoses patients are high-risk for COVID and also how the face mask debate is ableist.

Lerman: I enjoy hearing from former FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb on Twitter. Dr. Stephen Hahn at the FDA provides great information regarding approved testing and antibody kits, as well as information regarding clinical trial delays caused by COVID-19 and medication shortages.

Clark: The Lupus Foundation of America has done an excellent job navigating lupus patients through COVID. They were a voice for us when the pandemic started and when hydroxychloroquine medication shortages started, and have continued to support lupus patients as the country reopens. Without their voice to national and state leadership, many more lupus patients would have been dangerously affected by this medication shortage.

Ingle: In traditional media I have been following the CDCs updates, but I dont fully trust them.

Andio: I like to see the success stories, ones about those who fought and made it through and got to come home. I want more positive news because the terrible daily news is bad for our mental health. People are afraid to leave their home because others never take precautions.

Lerman: The mask debacle! I have been wearing masks for six years thanks to my compromised immune system from off-label chemo. Wearing a proper mask is so critical. The focus should be on protecting yourself and how to wear a mask the correct way. I think we are seeing spikes in numbers because people arent wearing masks correctly, coming within six feet of people and forgetting about hand hygiene because they think cloth masks stop the spread.

Julian: The media is not accepting any responsibility, nor is the President, for telling people they dont have to wear masks. Masks may not be 100% effective, but they are certainly more effective than wearing nothing. By wearing nothing, you are not only risking your own life, but you are risking mine as well.

Rivera: Too many people are being either misled or outright foolish about mask-wearing and social distancing, and how even though [COVID-19] isnt always killing people, the long-lasting aftereffects can be so dangerous.

Greene: How those who are immune-compromised are faring if they test positive. What most of the population can learn from those who are high risk for COVID-19. How facts and science are the resources we should be listening to.

De Leon: How do you deal with intimacy issues amid social distancing and how do you cope with loved ones being separated when hospitalized. Most importantly, coverage of how minority groups most affected, such as Hispanics are dealing with COVID-19 (information in Spanish and other languages).

Dagenais-Lewis: The aspect of how ableism is the main driving factor behind the face mask debate. It matters because the U.S. has a long history with modern eugenics and because ableism is so ingrained into our society that able-bodied people and even disabled people who dont understand they are disabled and affected by ableism complain that the face mask mandate infringes upon their freedom. In my mind, what really infringes on freedom is the fact that disability lacks constitutional protection, not being mandated to wear a face mask.

Clark: How high-risk people can continue to have their jobs protected. How high-risk people dont mind having to continue sheltering in place (as many of us live this life all the time), but that we want to have some guidance on our kids going back to school and our jobs calling us back to work outside of our homes. How to prevent another major medication shortage like the ones experienced recently by those taking hydroxychloroquine.

Dagenais-Lewis: I would love to see more patient advocacy movements, more light being shined on ableism and more feel-good stories that break stigma. I work in the media and all I see is politics, hate and divisive topics that dominate coverage while important topics like disability rights are constantly overlooked. It is upsetting that I pitch stories related to disability and they always get trashed just because society is ableist and truly doesnt care, it seems. With the equal rights movement going on, now is the time to push for disability rights as well.

Julian: Id love to see the science proving the effectiveness of masks be part of the medias narrative.

Lerman: Id love to see the focus shift to the problems created by delays in care due to COVID-19. I believe we will see some disastrous consequences from delayed procedures, screenings and preventative care. Now is the time to start stressing the importance of regular checkups and proactive healthcare.

See the original post:

Health Media in the COVID-19 Era: Patient influencers weigh in - Media News - MM&M - Medical Marketing and Media

COVID-19 is not a hoax

Last April British citizens eagerly anticipated faster internet as 5G towers were being installed and yet 30 of the towers were burned and vandalized.

A popular conspiracy theory convinced people that 5G towers caused COVID-19. Of course, that proved to be untrue but the individuals who torched the towers believed themselves to be heroes.

The people who harassed and attacked 80 technicians installing 5G towers were good people who thought they were saving their communities from a horrible disease. The misinformation circulating about COVID-19 has been referred to as an infodemic. Much of the misinformation is motivated by greed. Websites promising cures are often phishing sites used to collect credit card numbers. Websites with articles about eye-catching but false information have been used to install malware.

Its vital that we cut through the false conspiracy theories. Firstly COVID-19 is not a hoax. Epidemics and pandemics are a natural part of the human experience. The first documented epidemic was a flu-like disease that ravaged Asia and the Middle East in 1,200 B.C.E.

There have been countless epidemics from ancient times until today. One false claim is that the press has inflated the numbers of COVID-19. Data from mortuaries, hospital census, and public health offices all agree that this is a large and serious outbreak.

Just because you dont personally know someone who has died from the virus doesnt mean that its not real. Because its new scientist have been studying the virus for less then a year and there is much we dont know. What we do know is that facemasks and social distancing are effective to slow the spread of this deadly disease.

Through the generations we have gotten past epidemics of bubonic plague, smallpox, typhus, measles, diphtheria, cholera, yellow fever and numerous flus. We will get past COVID-19 but it will happen a lot sooner if we can work together. We need to let go of the conspiracy theories, social distance and wear a mask.

Molly Machin

Nipomo

As the presidential election approaches and Trumps poll numbers continue to decline, we are beginning to see the inevitable prediction that mail-in voting will lead to massive voter fraud.

This is a common trope that is fueled by random anecdotes and is debunked by all the empirical data to the contrary. A Washington Post analysis of general elections in three Western states in 2016 and 2018 found the incidence of double voting was 0.0025.

Another study, supported by the Pew Charitable Trust, found only 0.001 percent incidence of voter fraud. The assumption of voter fraud not only flies in the face of data it is an insult to the election officials in every state who, with the support of experts in technology, have designed elaborate systems to mitigate this risk.

Ironically the most chaotic election in my lifetime was Gore V Bush, when old fashioned voting machines nearly caused a constitutional crisis. So its odd that mail-in voting, which has been supported by both parties in the past, is suddenly the focus of suspicion for some Republicans.

This is especially odd in the midst of the coronavirus, when avoiding large groups is so critical to public health. Coronavirus has resulted in the support of nearly every state for either mail-in or absentee ballots.

Based on reality we should be more concerned about voter suppression than voter fraud. In most states access to poles looks very different depending on zip code. In some states the poor, Black and Brown people have to travel long distances and stand in line for hours to vote.

We choose to hold elections on Tuesday when many low wage workers have to work long shifts and many single parents do not have childcare. Why not hold voting on Saturday or Sunday? Why not have polling places in or near churches? And, if we really want to have a Democracy, why not make voting easily accessible for every eligible citizen?

Margaret Tillery

Santa Maria

Link:

Santa Maria speaks up: Letters to the editor for the week of Aug. 7, 2020 - Santa Maria Times