All posts in category Justice

This is So Wrong

Human brain - midsagittal cut

Human brain – midsagittal cut (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A Countdown to a Digital Simulation of Every Last Neuron in the Human Brain

This article in Scientific American is about scientists trying to simulate a human brain on a computer. There doesn’t exist a computer with the necessary computing power yet, but it is supposedly coming soon.

This is so wrong on so many levels. First, let me say I can see the scientific value in this, because it would be good to be able to run experiments on something that wasn’t a real human being. BUT, I believe that if you fully simulate the human brain, you have a real human being. We are human because of our brains — there are plenty of other apes without the same complex, large brains we have — and they are not human. If it is not okay to run certain experiments on non-simulated, physical human beings, it is not okay to run them on a human simulated on a computer. It’s not.

Other posts I have written about artificial intelligence that you may enjoy if you like this article:

Artificial Intelligence

The Singularity is Coming

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by Lizbeth on May 21, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Justice
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Posted by Lizbeth on May 21, 2012

http://lizbethsgarden.wordpress.com/2012/05/21/this-is-so-wrong/

There is nothing new under the sun

That we may buy the poor for silver, and the needy for a
pair of shoes; yea, and sell the refuse of the wheat?

Amos 8:6 King James Bible

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by Lizbeth on May 17, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Justice, Words and Songs
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Posted by Lizbeth on May 17, 2012

http://lizbethsgarden.wordpress.com/2012/05/17/there-is-nothing-new-under-the-sun/

Are you planning on voting?

Primaries are upcoming here in Idaho, and the general election will be here before we know it (however much we seem mired in campaign slog right now). Many states have passed new laws requiring identification at the polls. This identification must be current and up-to-date, with your current, legal name and address. And before you say that doesn’t apply to you, of course you have current, updated photo identification, an article by The Nation came out last week, and it quotes a Brennan survey that 10% of Americans don’t have it. Most of that 10% are women, who have last name changes due to marriage and divorce. Read the entire article.

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by Lizbeth on May 7, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in For Women, Human Rights, Justice, Politics
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Posted by Lizbeth on May 7, 2012

http://lizbethsgarden.wordpress.com/2012/05/07/are-you-planning-on-voting/

Who do we think we are?: A poem on #humanrights

We sleep, safe in our warm houses
Who do we think we are?
We have forgotten the struggle
For our lives and voices.

Who do we think we are,
Scribbling away, warm and safe?
For our lives and voices
We did not pay the price.

Scribbling away, warm and safe
While other women scrimp and hide
We did not pay the price
They still suffer and die.

While other women scrimp and hide,
We have forgotten the struggle
They still suffer and die,
We sleep, safe in our warm houses.

For more information on what this poem is about, see Who are We? a post I wrote earlier this week.

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by Lizbeth on May 3, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in For Women, Human Rights, Justice, My Writing, Poetry
Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

Posted by Lizbeth on May 3, 2012

http://lizbethsgarden.wordpress.com/2012/05/03/who-do-we-think-we-are-a-poem-on-humanrights/

Who are We?

Who are we to be so safe? We sit in our safe, warm rooms, writing, and we think nothing of it. Women fought and died for our rights, to speak as the men speak, freely and without fear. We gather, we protest, we write.

Do not forget those who do not have these same freedoms, who hide their writing, and their voices. Remember those who live in fear, whose still small voices are all they have.

“In Afghanistan, poetry is the women’s movement from the inside.” Safia Siddiqi

“They’re behind high walls, under the strong control of men.” Ogai Amail

When women listen to each other’s stories and share their own, growth happens and confidence grows. As harmless as such an endeavour may seem to women who like the idea, this may be a threat to the established order. Men in authority worry about women talking freely to each other.
Jean Shinoda Bolen, M.D. in Urgent Message from Mother: Gather the Women, Save the World

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by Lizbeth on April 29, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in For Women, Human Rights, Justice, Words and Songs
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Posted by Lizbeth on April 29, 2012

http://lizbethsgarden.wordpress.com/2012/04/29/who-are-we/

Sunday Service: Immigration

Statue of Liberty, New York

Statue of Liberty, New York (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!
Emma Lazarus

The lines above are the concluding lines to the poem written on the Statue of Liberty. Almost all of us who live in the United States have stories in our backgrounds of how our ancestors came to this country. Most were immigrants.

Every once in a while, the politics of this country lean towards protectionism and nationalism, resulting in laws to keep out more immigrants. But these laws are a slap in the face to the founding premise of this country, that we would welcome all who come here.

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court will hear opening arguments on Arizona’s anti-immigrant law. I participated in a witness vigil against the law tonight. If you are so moved, there will be more vigils in communities across the U.S. in the coming days, and rallies and vigils outside the Supreme Court on Wednesday.

I don’t often discuss politics on this blog, but I feel moved to write on this topic — it is not a matter of mere politics, but of justice and human rights. For everyone whose ancestors immigrated to this country, I believe it is our duty to keep the doors open for more immigrants. We can’t slam the doors shut just because we got our chance. There is plenty for everyone.

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by Lizbeth on April 22, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Human Rights, Justice, Politics, Regular Features, Sunday Service
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Posted by Lizbeth on April 22, 2012

http://lizbethsgarden.wordpress.com/2012/04/22/sunday-service-immigration/

Candlelight Vigil for Trayvon Martin

Candlelight Vigil in Hong Kong for the 18th An...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I just returned from a candlelight vigil for Trayvon Martin, the young man whose life was tragically cut short last month in Florida.

What kind of a world do we live in, that teenagers are not safe walking home after dark? What kind of a world do we live in, that teenagers who dress like their peers, just trying to fit in, are labelled as thugs?

I thought we had moved beyond the world where African-American teenage males must be told to be careful how they act, or they will be arrested or worse. All teenagers annoy their elders, but that African-American males must fear for their lives is just plain wrong.

I want to live in a world where no one dies because of fear, where being black (or brown, or some color other than white) is not a crime, where law-abiding teenagers don’t have to fear the police, or vigilantes, where love and justice prevail.

How long must we wait for Dr. King’s dream to come true?

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by Lizbeth on March 31, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Justice
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Posted by Lizbeth on March 31, 2012

http://lizbethsgarden.wordpress.com/2012/03/31/candlelight-vigil-for-trayvon-martin/

Sunday Service: My Faith

"Tinka" Bell

Image by Puzzler4879 via Flickr

I struggle with how much of my faith to reveal in public. I realized last night that a lot almost all my passion for justice and compassion truly stems from my Buddhist faith. And yet, I don’t like to talk about my faith, and I am realizing that that amounts to hiding my light under a bushel as far as communicating my passion for justice & compassion is concerned.

But even to write, in a public forum, that I am coming from a faith perspective, and what that faith is, feels like too much.

I don’t know how to feel comfortable with talking about my faith, and still let people know how strongly I feel about justice and compassion in the world.

I think about all the people whom I know might read this entry, and what they will think of it, and I am tempted not to publish it. I feel more daunted by the people I know, than all the strangers I don’t. But if I cannot talk about my passion without discussing my faith, then I must be comfortable discussing my faith. This cryptic, half-revealing, half-not blog entry is a first step, I suppose.

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by Lizbeth on March 25, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Buddhism, Justice, Regular Features, Sunday Service
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Posted by Lizbeth on March 25, 2012

http://lizbethsgarden.wordpress.com/2012/03/25/sunday-service-my-faith/

The Glass Ceiling Still Exists

There was an article in yesterday’s Post Register about the glass ceiling in the governor’s Cabinet in Idaho. According to an investigation by the Idaho Statesman, women in the Cabinet make $17,500 less than men, when comparing median salaries.

The article quoted many people in the Cabinet and Idaho’s state employees on the reason for this gap, with all agreeing that it was not based on gender, but on the clout of the departments, the size of the departments, and other factors not related to the gender of the department heads.

I would tend to give them the benefit of the doubt, since I am not a member of Idaho’s Cabinet nor an employee of the state of Idaho, but I think it is very suspicious that in the case of two departments cited in the article, Agriculture and Commerce, the one run by a man (Commerce) is a smaller department with fewer employees (53) and yet he makes $38,000 more than the woman who runs the Agriculture department with 259 employees. And she has been in her position since 2007, and he only began his time in his position in October of last year.

I thought the most telling quotation, however, came at the very end of the article, from Tana Cory, head of the Division of Human Resources and the second-lowest paid person in the Cabinet.

“As a dedicated-fund agency, any increases would be passed on to our licensees, and I am sensitive to that in our current economy,” Cory said. “Additionally, my focus is not on my own salary but on the salaries of those who work for the bureau. So, when we have an increase in (pay), I prefer to pass on as much as possible to the employees.”

So her concern for her clients is overriding both her boss and her best interests.

Whatever the reason, I think that this pay discrepancy between the men and women in Idaho’s Cabinet is unacceptable.

You can read the entire article here (pay subscription link) or here (AP link, I think it is free).

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by Lizbeth on March 19, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in For Women, Justice, Politics
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Posted by Lizbeth on March 19, 2012

http://lizbethsgarden.wordpress.com/2012/03/19/the-glass-ceiling-still-exists/

More on SOPA & PIPA

Peter Frase makes the argument at Al-Jazeera English that the fight over SOPA & PIPA was not a fight between labour and capital but rather a fight between different factions of capitalism, the content sellers and the content distributors. He enumerates the odd alliances in the U.S. Senate engendered by the bills. That alone makes his article worth reading.

I would agree with Peter Frase in general, although I disagree that ordinary folks are caught in the middle of a clash of corporate Titans. That terminology implies a helplessness and a passivity on the part of ordinary folks that I don’t see. I think the fight over SOPA & PIPA was actually a perfect example of the grassroots making a difference. Yes, there were large corporations on both sides, but to diminish the role of everyday people in the defeat of the bills implies that we are all corporate cats-paws. And I, for one, still retain the ability to think for myself.

However, the article is an interesting breakdown of the struggle on the larger scale, and I found it quite interesting.

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by Lizbeth on March 14, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Politics
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Posted by Lizbeth on March 14, 2012

http://lizbethsgarden.wordpress.com/2012/03/14/more-on-sopa-pipa/

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