It’s an outlier. It is essentially unrelatable to the other nine amendments in the Bill of Rights or anything else in the U.S. Constitution. But because the founding fathers wanted to make sure that white males would be able to keep slaves in check, the “right to bear arms” was included in a sloppily worded notion called the Second Amendment.

If slavery was America’s original sin, then the Second Amendment is the second sin. And they are related, as that right to bear arms was in large part included in order to perpetuate slavery.

Other than slavery, there was really no need for the Second Amendment. At the time that the constitution was being framed, guns were just another implement of life in on a lightly developed continent.

Guns were definitely an improvement over bows and arrows. There were definite human and non-human threats while living on the prairie. A gun could be useful there. It also would be efficient for the government to know that many potential draftees in a time of war would have their own weapons.

But in a lot of ways, they were just another implement, like a plow or a gas lantern. They made life easier. The Constitution already said that individuals had the right to property, so there was no need to establish a specific “right” to own firearms.

This Amendment facilitated the use of violence, something that is part of human nature. But as we look at countries such as the United Kingdom or Australia, we can see that human nature can function without easy access guns. And Australia is like the United States in that it was a vast expanse that had to be settled under dangerous conditions. But after a school shooting in the late 1990s, they called upon their common sense to make it very difficult to purchase firearms. They have had no school shootings since.

I would love it if the Second Amendment was repealed and most guns were confiscated. My reason is simple – we would be a more civil and civilized society. But I am not so naïve as to think that this will happen. The process of confiscating guns would likely result in domestic carnage the likes of which we have never seen save for the Civil War.

But what we should do is to recognize that the Second Amendment was created on spurious grounds and that it protects a specious right. It is unlike any of the other rights that are essential to a democracy.

What we can do is recognize that this mistake of a “right” will likely be with us for a long time, but we should work to craft gun policy that looks at weapons like any other implement that can be dangerous and needs to be regulated to ensure safety (e.g. power tools).

There are many Americans who resent the lives of metropolitan elites. They have good reason to hold grudges and to want a rebalancing of economic power within our society. But the right to resent should not be confused with the right to bear arms.

It might be easier for us to try to get along better if there were fewer guns. Let’s not lose sight of that.

The post Can we please not start with, “I believe in the Second Amendment” appeared first on Occasional Planet.

I just walked a half mile to a Subway restaurant, and it was the most stressful experience of my recent experience. Because I am a woman.

Sometime around 7:30 pm, I decided I wanted something to eat. Recently, I’ve been back at Webster University, living in the dorms while training for work before the rest of the students come back and classes begin. Since it’s technically still summer, though, there are no food options available on campus, so I looked for cheap food places nearby to fill my stomach. Subway is only a half-mile (a ten-minute walk, according to Google Maps) from where I was staying, so around 7:40 pm, I took off in that direction, thinking it was a close enough distance I didn’t need to bum a ride—I would be back really quickly.

By 7:43, just as I was leaving the residence area, I started to become a little nervous, realizing sunset was rapidly approaching. When I saw the first person on the street, I quickly pressed my keys between my fingers, as Law and Order plots started whispering through my mind. It wasn’t too hot or muggy, but I had started sweating profusely. I was beginning to mentally kick myself for not bringing the pepper spray I usually carry with me; my parents insisted I buy it so that when I’m walking home from night classes at 9:30 pm by myself, I am “safe.” I became hyper-aware of everyone and everything around me; the sound of every rabbit and squirrel running through a bush startling me and making me jump. I smiled tensely at everyone I saw, wary of anyone in arms-reach.

I should take a moment to note that this is by no means a shady or sketchy area in which I was walking; much of it was actually on or right by campus. I’ve never seen anyone suspicious around campus or in that vicinity; the area was well-lit, there were shops and apartments up and down the entire stretch of road I was walking. There was even a sidewalk for the convenience of walkers. And yet, still, I felt unsafe.

By the time I got to Subway a few minutes later, I was just relieved to be able to let my guard down for a second. And you can be sure that as I was leaving the restaurant, food in hand, I put the key between my fingers again and had several plans running through my head that, if I was approached maliciously, I would throw my drink at them and run, or I would knee them if they were too close or stab with the key. or I could run into that shop because I knew the staff well and they would help me. It was frightening. Halfway to campus– a quarter of a mile away– I was literally praying for my safety as I walk-ran. And by the time I got back to campus, I was almost shaking from the adrenaline flowing through my veins, thanking God that I was safe.

Again, there was no reason for most people to feel afraid in that situation. Literally none. But I’m a woman. And walking by myself close to nightfall for any length of time just gives me a moment to put into practice the litany of things I’ve been told to do to protect myself from the ever-present threat of an attack. All the little self-defense things I had picked up rushed through my brain as I realized I had violated the number one rule by walking alone by myself too close to nightfall.

The reason I’m sharing my experience is that I know it’s not a novel one– too many women can identify with it. In fact, it’s probably reasonably normal in comparison to many other women’s stories.

And, honestly, that kind of terror is part of the college experience for too many women. But that doesn’t mean it’s a four-years-and-done kind of thing; it’s forever. It is a terrifying, paralyzing fear always lying at the back of our minds, always questioning our choices and making us doubt that an even slightly risky decision (like going ten minutes away for Subway) could keep us safe.

Women are constantly threatened by the existence of men around them because all women have felt terrified for their safety, simply because they were alone. I dare you to find a woman who hasn’t. And that is indicative of a far larger issue within our society: Women never truly feel safe in their own company, always looking for a threat on the horizon, living a life dominated by fear.

And perhaps now you’re looking in this article for the quick 30-second fix to this problem, so you feel like you have done your part. But it’s not that easy. Honestly, I wish I had one for you. I really do, I really, really, really do. But it’s not that easy.

The post Walking in a “safe” neighborhood sparks fears shared by all women appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Spend a little time on the Ft. Lauderdale water taxi and you’ll soon get a feel for the world of the 1% of the 1%. As you drift along you will see row upon row of mega-yachts – sleek vessels, 80 feet, 120 feet, 200 feet or longer in length. According to the City of Ft. Lauderdale, about 1,500 mega yachts visit annually. There are some 100 marinas housing 42,000 resident yachts.

Among all of the craft that dominate the view, one stands out. It’s 282 feet long. It has a black hull and a huge equipment mast. According to a story in the Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel,

It boasts luxury amenities for 12 guests, with a crew of 26. There is a large master stateroom with a study and private deck, a helipad, indoor cinema and an infinity pool with a 15-foot glass wall that converts to a movie screen so the director and his guests can take in a film while swimming.

The Seven Seas is the personal toy of Steven Spielberg. The cost? Just $200 million. The flag on its stern? Cayman Islands. Why is that?

The reason so many American yachts fly non-American flags has a whole lot to do with tax and employment laws and United States Coast Guard regulations.

According to Power and Motoryacht Magazine, U.S.-registered yachts must be staffed by American citizens who have obtained USCG certification. What’s more, the yacht owners must actually comply with U.S. employment tax laws. Of course, it’s much cheaper for them to register in a friendly country and hire foreign nationals.

Power and Motoryacht Magazine further points out that U.S.-registered yachts also are required to meet USCG regulations for firefighting, safety equipment and staffing. These regulations insure that a yacht is safe for both passengers and crew. All of that boosts the cost of ownership and operation.

Spielberg is not alone. Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s yacht is registered in the Caymans. So is Larry Ellison’s (CEO of Oracle and ninth richest man in the world). Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s yacht Octopus also flies the red Cayman flag. In fact, most U.S.-owned mega-yachts are registered in the Cayman Islands and other tax-friendly countries.

Safety, decent pay, fair taxes? That must be too high of a price for the mega-rich to pay.

Maybe I’m just envious, but I can’t wrap my head around what one might do with a 282-foot, $200-million yacht. Do a little fishing? Enjoy the ocean breezes? Escape from the drudgery of the workaday world? Maybe.

But then again there’s sea level rise waiting at the doorsteps of the ostentatious $10-million mansions that line the Ft. Lauderdale waterways. Perhaps escape is what those yachts are really for after all.

[Editor’s update, February 2016: One billionaire’s mega-yacht recently made news when its anchor destroyed a section of an endangered coral reef in the Cayman Islands. Read about it here.]

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You know something’s wrong when you walk down the aisles in your local supermarket, and you no longer see the food on the shelves as food, but see something that looks like food and smells like food but is something so adulterated with questionable additives that you imagine it might be best if the food company had stamped the packaging with a skull and crossbones.

What’s going on?  First of all, here in the Northeast the growing season is rapidly winding down.  The last of the homegrown tomatoes have been picked. Farmers’ markets are in their final weeks.  Except for some greens and root vegetables and other vegetables grown earlier in the season and put into cold storage, there’s not much local, freshly picked produce left to excite the palate and get the cooking juices going.

What this means for this part of the country is that we’re forced to go indoors. It’s the season of the dreaded return to the supermarket with its sprayed, waxed, and travel-tired produce section. Falling back on inferior-quality supermarket produce is a major disappointment after the fresh bounty of the summer.

Even worse are questions about the safety of our supermarket food supply that scientists seem to be dropping on us almost daily.

GMOs in almost everything.  Arsenic in rice and chicken.  Synthetic hormones banned in most first-world countries but fed copiously to American cows that give us nonorganic dairy products.  Flame retardants (or, as they’re affectionately known, HBCDs) in canned sardines, peanut butter, sliced ham, turkey, and chicken.

How about that Bisphenol A, a chemical that seeps into foods packaged in plastic that’s been found to promote prostate cancer in animals.  Foods marked with “artificial flavor” or “artificial coloring” that the FDA does not require to be broken down into its components for labeling. Doubts about what’s really grown organically or not.  Natural or unnatural?  Who can trust anything about the food supply anymore?

Such uncertainty is a recipe for full-scale food phobia.  When you think too much about what’s in the food supply, you start to feel as if you’ve just stepped into the neurotic swirl of a Roz Chast cartoon.

Is anyone out there protecting our food supply? It’s supposed to be the FDA. How well are they doing? It depends on who you’re talking to.  The FDA is doing just fine, thank you, for big ag and the corporate food industry.  Not so good for the consumer and the concerns of the food-safety movement.

A little history might serve to reveal the confusion and pervasive influence of industry and their lobbyists over the FDA. It was 1949 when the FDA published the first guidelines for the food industry.   The publication was officially titled “Procedures for the Appraisal of the Toxicity of Chemicals in Food” but became known as the “black book.” It took nine more years before manufacturers of new food additives were required to formally establish the safety of their products. At the time, food producers were required to declare all additives contained in their products.

That requirement has swung wildly back and forth from adequate disclosure to no disclosure at all to something in between.  A good example is the checkered history of the artificial sweetener Saccharin (today, Sweet’n Low or Sugar Twin). Prior to 1971 Saccharin was listed as GRAS (generally recognized as safe), but in 1971 it was removed from that list and transferred into a group of additives requiring new scientific study, which effectively banned its use.

Six years later the Saccharin Study and Labeling Act was passed by Congress.  The 1977 act overturned the ban on the sweetener but required labeling stating that Saccharin had been found to cause cancer in laboratory animals.  Than came another turnaround, even though the health concerns were not fully disproved. The Saccharin Notice Repeal Act of 1995 struck down the labeling requirements of 1977.  Evidently, by 1995 the FDA believed that consumers no longer needed to be informed about the potential health hazards (still in question today) of Saccharin, which is now contained in hundreds of food products.

Is it any wonder we don’t know what to believe?  The scientists at the forty-year-old Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) are trying to bring some transparency to what’s in our food, which additives seem to be safe, and which ones we should be concerned about.

Here are their conclusions.  They’ve rated approximately 145 food additives.  There are five ratings:  safe, cut back, caution, avoid, and certain people should avoid.  Their findings indicate that 85 additives are safe.  Seventeen should be cut back.  Nine earned a caution because the additives could pose a risk and need further testing. Twelve have enough scientific evidence of possible harm to be avoided or are unsafe in amounts consumed by the typical consumer or have been poorly tested. Eighteen are potentially harmful to individuals with certain health risks and should be avoided by them.

Is your mind boggled yet?  If so, the well-intentioned folks at CSPI have a mobile APP for you—called (I kid you not) “Chemical Cuisine”—that lets you look up additives and their ratings to determine whether you’d like to consume that stuff the food factories call food. I’ll tell you, I can’t wait to step over the crowds of concerned food buyers spending hours in the food aisles keying in ingredients on their mobile devices and trying to make sense of the labels.  As for me, I’ll just be trying as best I can to skip the produce section and to get through the winter until next spring when my local farmers set out the unadulterated, real food that I’m missing already.

The post Chemical cuisine: What’s in your gullet? appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Often, when college students major in foreign affairs, they are asked, “What do you want to do with that degree?”  When they say they want to join the State Department and to get a job as a diplomat with the hope of becoming an ambassador, they often receive a curious look and a turn in the conversation.  After all, what’s creative or exciting about being in a small developing country and being the mouthpiece of bureaucrats back in the Foggy Bottom headquarters of the State Department?  As Prudence Bushnell wrote in the Sept. 13, 2012 New York Times:

We must make that work safer. The reasons for violence change with time and place but the human effects are the same. For two years before we were blown up in Nairobi, Kenya, my team and I fought (“nagged” was the word State Department colleagues used) to have security threats and vulnerabilities addressed. We were too close to the street, an easy target. Washington’s assessment was that things were O.K. Anyway, I was told, there was no money for a more secure embassy. What was Washington’s assessment of our consulate in Benghazi? We may not like the image of American diplomats working out of fortified boxes, but we cannot let them work in buildings that can be overrun by attackers. This is a lesson our government still hasn’t learned since 1979 in Tehran.

Defending embassies and consulates is tricky business.  Should the guards be from the country whose compound it is or from the host country?  Would the U.S. feel comfortable with Egyptian or Libyan troops guarding its facilities?  Would the Egyptians or Libyans want hundreds of American soldiers surrounding their embassies and consulates?

Whatever the answers, it’s a tough job, and we owe much gratitude to those staffing our foreign outposts.

Read Prudence Bushnell’s full article here.

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