"natural theology > notes > 2016 > Sunday 18 December"

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Krushchev, Nikita Sergeevich Krushchev, and Strobe Talbott (translator). Edward Crankshaw (Introduction), Krushchev Remembers, Little Brown & Company 1970 From Amazon customer review: 'It is also a story of one person's political survival under immense stress and arbitrary death sentences. Stalin's ways were unpredictable and capricious. Probably this because what Stalin wanted: complete fear for the people so they would become passive like sheep unable to strike back at him. Kruschev mentions that when you met Stalin for a meeting you didn't know whether you would come out alive. He explains the unpredictable paranoia of Stalin and his methods for destroying imagined and real rivals such as Trotsky and other communist party leaders. Edmund P. Leigh.ß
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Mukherjee, Siddhartha, The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, Scribner 2010 '"In 2010, about six hundred thousand Americans, and more than 7 million humans around the world, will die of cancer." With this sobering statistic, physician and researcher Siddhartha Mukherjee begins his comprehensive and eloquent "biography" of one of the most virulent diseases of our time. An exhaustive account of cancer's origins, The Emperor of All Maladies illustrates how modern treatments--multi-pronged chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery, as well as preventative care--came into existence thanks to a century's worth of research, trials, and small, essential breakthroughs around the globe. While The Emperor of All Maladies is rich with the science and history behind the fight against cancer, it is also a meditation on illness, medical ethics, and the complex, intertwining lives of doctors and patients. Mukherjee's profound compassion--for cancer patients, their families, as well as the oncologists who, all too often, can offer little hope--makes this book a very human history of an elusive and complicated disease.' --Lynette Mong
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Pope Benedict XVI, and Peter Seewald, Last Testament, Bloomsbury Continuum 2016 'Pope Benedict made history by being the first Pope in over 700 years to resign from office. The Catholic Church the world over was stunned. Worn out by corruption in the Church and by an endless series of clerical sex scandals, he decided that the resolution of all these problems was outside his power for a man of his age.'
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Links

Adam Withnall, Pope Francis declares evolution and Big Bang theory are real and God is not 'a magician with a magic wand', 'Giovanni Bignami, a professor and president of Italy’s National Institute for Astrophysics, told the Italian news agency Adnkronos: “The pope’s statement is significant. We are the direct descendents from the Big Bang that created the universe. Evolution came from creation.” Giulio Giorello, professor of the philosophy of science at Milan’s University degli Studi, told reporters that he believed Francis was “trying to reduce the emotion of dispute or presumed disputes” with science.' back

Ari Rabin-Havt, Trump's outrageous lies come straight from big businesses' playbook, 'Sixty-three years ago, as the scientific community neared consensus that tobacco products were dangerous, titans of the tobacco industry came together to meet with John Hill at the Plaza Hotel in New York. This was a rare gathering, as these executives were fighting one another for market share in an immensely competitive business. Hill, the founder of PR conglomerate Hill & Knowlton, recommended that they form a public relations operation, thinly veiled as a scientific institute, to argue that their products were safe. Together, the tobacco executives and Hill created the Tobacco Industry Research Committee, a sham organization designed to spread corporate propaganda to mislead the media, policymakers and the public at large.' back

Joseph Ratzinger, Tarcisio Bertone, Declaration "Dominus Iesus" on the Unicity and Salvific Universality of Jesus Christ and the Church, '14. It must therefore be firmly believed as a truth of Catholic faith that the universal salvific will of the One and Triune God is offered and accomplished once for all in the mystery of the incarnation, death, and resurrection of the Son of God. . . . Above all else, it must be firmly believed that “the Church, a pilgrim now on earth, is necessary for salvation: the one Christ is the mediator and the way of salvation; he is present to us in his body which is the Church. He himself explicitly asserted the necessity of faith and baptism (cf. Mk 16:16; Jn 3:5), and thereby affirmed at the same time the necessity of the Church which men enter through baptism as through a door”.' back

Kinase - Wikipedia, Kinase - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In chemistry and biochemistry, a kinase[1] is a type of enzyme that transfers phosphate groups from high-energy donor molecules, such as ATP,[2] to specific substrates, a process referred to as phosphorylation. Kinases are part of the larger family of phosphotransferases. Kinases are not to be confused with phosphorylases, which carry out phosphorolysis, the breaking of a bond using an inorganic phosphate group; or with phosphatases, which remove phosphate groups.' back

Pamela Constable, In Pakistan, five girls were killed for having fun. Then the story took a darker twist, '“No one in my district or my province has ever spoken against honor killing. They tell me I have defamed my culture, my religion, my tribe,” Kohistani said this month. “Everybody knows what happened, but no one is ready to come forward. This is an illegal, unconstitutional and un-Islamic tradition, but people don’t even consider it a crime.” ' back

Paul Krugman, How Republics End, ' But what directly drives the attack on democracy, I’d argue, is simple careerism on the part of people who are apparatchiks within a system insulated from outside pressures by gerrymandered districts, unshakable partisan loyalty, and lots and lots of plutocratic financial support. For such people, toeing the party line and defending the party’s rule are all that matters. And if they sometimes seem consumed with rage at anyone who challenges their actions, well, that’s how hacks always respond when called on their hackery.' back

Rupert Neate, Donald Trump faces Senate backlash over 'cabinet of billionaires', 'According to Peter Henning, a constitutional law professor at Wayne State University, appointing business leaders to top political positions has become the norm in American politics, but Trump’s nominations were “unique in the volume of people with minimal, if any, government experience”. “I am always wary of people who say ‘we have to run the country like a business’ – businesses aren’t responsible for defence or caring for the elderly,” he said. “Businesses are driven with one guiding principle – to make the most money – and that should not be the role of the government.” ' back

Toger Cohen, Australia's Brave Whistlebower Nurse, 'From the start of its “offshore processing” program that has seen more than 2,000 asylum seekers and refugees dumped on two remote Pacific islands, Australia has relied on draconian nondisclosure contracts to keep the extent of its brutality secret. But this month Lynne Elworthy, an Australian mental health nurse employed on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea, defied the gag clauses and a federal law against whistle-blowers to tell me the policy was an exercise in “absolute cruelty.” ' back

vol VII: Notes

2016

Notes

Sunday 18 December 2016

Monday 19 December 2016

Tuesday 20 December 2016

Wednesday 21 December 2016

Thursday 22 December

Friday 23 December 2016

Saturday 24 December 2016

Further reading

Books

Links