Weekly Meanderings, 6 September 2014

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 10:34 pm by Scot McKnight

Weekly Meanderings, 6 September 2014 2015-03-13T22:34:15-05:00 Scot McKnight

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Hello from Lake Tahoe! Emily Badger’s wonderful sketch of research that confirms that where you are in 1st grade largely determines your success:

Over time, their lives were constrained — or cushioned — by the circumstances they were born into, by the employment and education prospects of their parents, by the addictions or job contacts that would become their economic inheritance. Johns Hopkins researchers Karl Alexander and Doris Entwisle watched as less than half of the group graduated high school on time. Before they turned 18, 40 percent of the black girls from low-income homes had given birth to their own babies. At the time of the final interviews, when the children were now adults of 28, more than 10 percent of the black men in the study were incarcerated. Twenty-six of the children, among those they could find at last count, were no longer living.

Good news about Henrietta Lacks:

Over the past six decades, huge medical advances have sprung from the cells of Henrietta Lacks, a poor, African-American mother of five who died in 1951 of cervical cancer. But Lacks never agreed that the cells from a biopsy before her death taken could be used for research. For years, her own family had no idea that her cells were still alive in petri dishes in scientists’ labs. They eventually learned they had fueled a line called HeLa cells, which have generated billions of dollars, but they didn’t realize until this spring that her genome had been sequenced and made public for anyone to see.

On Tuesday, the National Institute of Health announced it was, at long last, making good with Lacks’ family. Under a new agreement, Lack’s genome data will be accessible only to those who apply for and are granted permission. And two representatives of the Lacks family will serve on the NIH group responsible for reviewing biomedical researchers’ applications for controlled access to HeLa cells. Additionally, any researcher who uses that data will be asked to include an acknowledgement to the Lacks family in their publications.

The new understanding between the NIH and the Lacks family does not include any financial compensation for the family. The Lacks family hasn’t, and won’t, see a dime of the profits that came from the findings generated by HeLa cells. But this is a moral and ethical victory for a family long excluded from any acknowledgment and involvement in genetic research their matriarch made possible.

Vancouver’s majestic Stanley Park, a report:

Vancouver’s Stanley Park provides countless experiences and stories for eight million visitors each year.

But what — and who — calls the massive urban park home?

Stanley Park officially opened in 1888 and, like the City of Vancouver which grew up with it, the beloved crown jewel has evolved dramatically over the last century. New creatures were introduced to the park and cohabited with native species. Some have flourished and others have perished.

And the park is still changing. This week, The Province conducted an informal census of the 400-hectare national historic site, to take a snapshot of who and what lives there now — and to see how that picture has changed over the decades.

Dominican fellowship:

When Rafael Soriano arrived in the visitors’ clubhouse at Great American Ball Park in Cincinnati for the first game of a late-July series between the Reds and the Washington Nationals, four plastic to-go containers in two plastic bags were waiting on the chair in front of his locker. Inside the containers was enough Dominican-style rice and beans, braised chicken and fried chicken to feed a small family. Cincinnati veteran infielder Ramon Santiago, like Soriano a native of the Dominican Republic, sent over the feast. The following day, Reds starter Johnny Cueto was responsible for supplying Dominican food for the visitors’ clubhouse. This pay-it-forward tradition happens across baseball every day. Dominican players make up the largest contingent of foreign-born players in the major leagues — about 11 percent of active players on opening day — and, with baseball’s grueling schedule and travel, those players miss food from home. Do you know how hard it is to find a Dominican restaurant in Cincinnati or Minneapolis? So Dominican players — even those who don’t know each other well — take care of each other through their own version of the food network. The Dominicans on the home team are responsible for sending food to their countrymen on the visiting team. Albert Pujols (Los Angeles Angels), David Ortiz (Boston) and Nelson Cruz (Baltimore) always bring food for visiting Dominican players. Soriano’s wife or a family friend will make an extra helping of Dominican food so that he can do the same. Robinson Cano (Seattle), Francisco Liriano (Pittsburgh), Carlos Gomez (Milwaukee), Jose Reyes (Toronto) and Adrian Beltre (Texas) take part, too.

The new kind of college application?

Goucher College is offering a novel way for cellphone-savvy teenagers to seek admission if the regular application process seems too confusing or if they fear that their grades and test scores aren’t good enough.

They can skip the ACT and SAT admission tests. They don’t need to send a high school transcript. Instead, they can submit a two-minute video to the liberal arts college in Baltimore County that answers a simple question: How do you see yourself at Goucher?

In recent years, a growing number of students have begun sending colleges videos to supplement their applications. Some videos are crucial for those seeking entry to a school with a focus on performing arts.

Great story about Bob Smietana, one of my favorite religion journalists — running to live.

“Archbishop Cranmer” on the way of the cross and peace:

In the hospital, a VOM worker met John. When the worker asked John how he felt about his attackers, he replied, “I have forgiven the Islamic militants, because they did not know what they are doing.”

The words are liberating; they tell of an appalling horror over which love triumphs. Christians are commanded to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. It’s easy to preach and it’s cheap to believe – until you’re confronted by such evil that every fibre of your being cries out for retaliation and revenge, which breeds mutual hostility and creates a cycle of hatred from which there is no escape.

“You must convert to Islam or else you will die a painful death” is what many thousands of Christians and other minorities are hearing right across the Islamic abyss. How many of us would be strong enough to refuse, as John did? How many of us would refuse to renounce Christ while our hands are being hacked off?

And how many would say “I forgive you” to those who wish to torture and kill our bodies?

We can only be free when we stop allowing the enemy’s strategy and beliefs to dictate ours. We can only find peace when we end our obsession with the threat. We are all children of God, and He lets the sun rise on evil and good; He sends rain on the just and unjust. Anyone who repays evil with evil is doing as the world does. Those who repay evil with good have ceased simply reacting to oppression; they are creating light in the darkness; proclaiming the sovereignty of the Risen Christ over all creation; incarnating the love which nullifies hatred and conquers hostility. [HT: KM]

Maria Popova’s collection of Seneca’s wisdom on the brevity of life:

“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives,” Annie Dillard memorably wrote in reflecting on why presence matters more than productivity. “On how one orients himself to the moment depends the failure or fruitfulness of it,” Henry Miller asserted in his beautiful meditation on the art of living. And yet we spend our lives fleeing from the present moment, constantly occupying ourselves withoverplanning the future or recoiling with anxiety over its impermanence, thus invariably robbing ourselves of the vibrancy of aliveness.

In a chapter of the altogether indispensable 1843 treatise Either/Or: A Fragment of Life(public library), the influential Danish thinkerSøren Kierkegaard (May 5, 1813–November 11, 1855), considered the first true existentialist philosopher, explores precisely that — how our constant escapism from our own lives is our greatest source of unhappiness.

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