Sunspots 626

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

Education: National Public Radio has published an in-depth report on the pluses and minuses of school voucher programs.

Ethics: Rerum Novarum, an encyclical issued in 1881, by Pope Leo XIII, on the treatment of laborers, and a lot more. Sample (from paragraph 28):
Neither must it be supposed that the solicitude of the Church is so preoccupied with the spiritual concerns of her children as to neglect their temporal and earthly interests. Her desire is that the poor, for example, should rise above poverty and wretchedness, and better their condition in life; and for this she makes a strong endeavor. By the fact that she calls men to virtue and forms them to its practice she promotes this in no slight degree.


Finance: Relevant reports on a study of repaying loans, which found that people who mentioned God when talking about paying back loans were less likely to pay them back.

Health: National Public Radio details two good methods for washing our hands. (Confession: I don't use either of them.)

History: Some historical facts you didn't learn in school, from Listverse.

Humor: (Sort of) Scientific American reports further on the question of why people take their empty shopping carts to a cart corral, or don't. The report is mostly interesting comments, from returners and non-returners.


Politics: Listverse tells us that free speech is being attacked from many sides, in many ways.

(And history) FiveThirtyEight discusses US political scandals of the past, and points out that even when Presidents were involved in some really bad stuff, many congresspeople stuck by them.

Science: (and Christianity) Relevant strongly defends the concept of human-caused climate change.

Wired reports that scientists have made functioning mouse ovaries with a 3-D printer. Really.

Listverse describes 10 fascinating facts about plants.



Image source (public domain)

Memo to self, about current events in the Obama administration

I'm old enough to remember more foul-ups by US Presidents, or their underlings, than I wish I did. Here are three that I remember.

Richard Nixon's re-election campaign committee ordered a robbery of the Democratic National Headquarters. That was bad. Most likely Nixon didn't know about this, but he soon did, and conspired to have the matter covered up. That was really bad. The Watergate scandal led to Nixon's resignation, under threat of his removal from office by Congress. The lesson? Nixon should have taken responsibility, and encouraged investigation of the crime, and punishment for the criminals, including those who ordered the break-in, those who tried to cover it up, and the actual burglars. One irony about this affair is that Nixon was never in any danger of not being re-elected -- his opponent was a weak candidate without enough support.

Democratic President Bill Clinton was sexually involved with a White House intern, Monica Lewinsky. Clinton denied it, both to the public, and in legal proceedings, and Congress considered removing him from office, not on the grounds that he had committed an adulterous act, or acts, but because he lied about it under oath. The Congressional proceedings were largely along party lines, and Clinton finished his term in office. The lesson? Clinton should have confessed, and asked for forgiveness. I can not be certain of the consequences, if he had done so, but would guess that Congress wouldn't have gone as far as it did.

The Iran-Contra scandal occurred during the tenure of Republican President Ronald Reagan. Arms were sold, or transferred, to Iran, through Israel, in an attempt to persuade some Iranians to release US hostages. Some of the money from the arms sales was transferred to a particular political faction in Nicaragua. Iran was under an arms embargo, and Congress had forbidden giving money to that group in Nicaragua. It is unclear as to whether Reagan knew about this from the beginning, but it is clear that, at first, he denied that the US was paying for the release of hostages, and, as a Congressional investigation put it, "If the president did not know what his national security advisers were doing, he should have." The lesson? As President Harry Truman put it "The buck stops here," meaning that the President bears responsibility for whatever his appointees do. President Reagan eventually went on television and apologized to the U. S., and took responsibility for the mess.

The Obama administration is currently involved in at least three affairs that are, or could develop into, major scandals, namely the attack on Benghazi, leading to the death of a US Ambassador, the seizure of massive documentation from the Associated Press, without the usual attempts to obtain cooperation from the AP before the seizure, and the apparent over-reaching of the IRS, in their treatment of right-wing interest groups.

It is unclear how much the President knew about any of these things beforehand, at least to me. It does seem clear that the White House, and possibly the President, was involved in a serious attempt to distort the facts about the attack on Benghazi. I doubt that the President knew about the other matters before they were made public. If the President was involved, he should have confessed, and asked for forgiveness. He also should have made clear that he took responsibility, and really wanted to investigate, punish, and, perhaps, have restitution made, in all three affairs. The President seems to have done about all he could do in relation to the IRS matter, unless, of course, he ordered such behavior, or knew about it before it became public. On the other issues, the record doesn't seem to be so positive.

What's the moral of all this, the lesson?

It seems to me that there are three, and that I should take them seriously.

First, things like this are going to happen, no matter who becomes the next President. Human nature is the same, whether the President is Hilary Clinton, some Tea Party favorite, or someone else. I should pray for whoever is elected, that they won't do, or allow, such things, and I should expect them to happen, no matter whether I voted for the current officeholder or not.

Second, as Moses said, in Numbers 32:23 "But if you will not do so, behold, you have sinned against Yahweh; and be sure your sin will find you out." (World English Bible, public domain.) I know -- that verse is way out of context. It was directed toward two and a half tribes of Israelites, and referred to a specific matter. However, the principle applies. I can't hide most sins, or mistakes, from others, and I can't hide any sins or mistakes from God.

Third, as Lord Acton put it, "Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely." That's true of Presidents, and their appointees. It's also true of parents, teachers, pastors, bosses, newspeople, public officials of all kinds, and anyone who has power of any kind over others. But the main person I need to watch out for is me. I tend to think, as, apparently, the Committee to Re-elect President Nixon did, that whatever I do is proper, because it's me who is doing it. Satan wants me to think that. I shouldn't.

Thanks for reading. I try not to write about politics very much, because when you mix religion and politics, you get politics. Some of my most readable posts about that subject are here, here and here. In February, 2015, Cal Thomas wrote about the first of the three points above, quoting Psalm 146:3, which says, in the World English Bible: "Don’t put your trust in princes,
each a son of man in whom there is no help."

(The final paragraph was edited on February 5, 2015.)