Selling organs

Currently, it is illegal to buy or sell organs in the United States. I strongly disagree with this law, and think that people should be able to do so.

Here are two wonderful paragraphs that convey my thoughts better than I could:

It's illegal in this country to buy or sell organs for transplant. This is an unjust law made and enforced by people who desperately need neither organs nor money. It condemns kidney-disease sufferers to death and potential organ donors to poverty. It's a law that I will unhesitatingly break if one of my children needs a kidney, and I hope you will have the decency to do the same if a member of your family is in a similar situation.

...The unearned piety of those who condemn these transactions strikes me as outrageous. If someone has the right to abort her own fetus, why does she not have the right to sell her own kidney? By what authority does the state tell me I cannot save myself or my family members by paying money I earned to a willing seller of a surplus item?

They're from this article. There was also a much longer article on the whole kidney shortage (and possible solutions) from a few weeks ago.

Other thoughts on the issue? I would love to have someone speak up strongly against it so I can see the other perspective...post a comment or send me an email if you're interested in doing that.

Healthcare

A very good post on the health care debate/issues/mess. Paul Krugman is an outspoken liberal economist, while Greg Mankiw is a conservative. It discusses how liberals are generally more trusting of a centralized really puts the whole issue in a different perspective, and helps me understand how something that seems illogical and stupid to me could be logical and the best choice from someone else's perspective.

Also - Mankiw's blog is great reading for anyone interested in current economic issues...I've been following it since I used his (excellent) Principles of Economics textbook in my Econ 110 class.

A tricky problem...

There are 10 machines that fill bottles of soda. One of the machines is either putting one ounce (of mass) too much or one ounce too little in the bottles that it produces. You have a digital scale. In one weighing figure out which of the 10 machines is off. The puzzle does not involve any tricks. The bottles are opaque etc. Note you can assume that you know what the correct weight is, say 10 oz.

I don't know the answer, but am thinking about it A LOT. Posted at Marginal Revolution and they'll post the answer tomorrow.

Funny Moment of the Day

Setting: Checkout desk at the library

Me: I have a really random question...
Girl: (nods)
Me: (smiling nervously) Are you dating anyone?
Girl: (smiling back) Yes.
Me: (drop shoulders in disappointment) Ok, that's all. (smiling sheepishly)
Girl: (still smiling, looks like she feels a little bit of sympathy) I'll see you around.
Me: (smiling and chuckling) Yeah, have a good day.
Girl: (chuckles back)

I'm glad I did it. I was so nervous beforehand.

(And yes, I do know her name, I just don't want to put it here.)

For Single People (like myself)

Sometimes the question to ask yourself may not be: "why don't the people I'm interested in like me back?!?"

But instead: "why am I not interested in those who are interested in me?"

I feel the 2nd question can give us a lot of valuable information about ourselves, our needs, and how we interact with others. I'm not saying anyone necessarily need to change who we're interested in. I do believe that realizing what we want will always help us identify it, pursue it, and appreciate it when comes along.

Accepting Responsibility

Own up

My roommate wrote that and posted it on his blog. Good stuff. It reminds me of a chapter from The Legal Analyst that we read in Law College last semester. It talked about the self-serving bias, which basically is that when you would be better off if something were true, you're more likely to believe that it's true. This combines with something called attribution error, which is where we place too much blame or credit to either a person's inner qualities or their circumstances.

When our attribution error combines with our self-serving bias, it can lead to this lack of responsibility my roommate is talking about. When we do well on the test, we attribute it to our studying and our smarts, whereas if we do poorly it's because the teacher doesn't know how to write tests or because there was material on there that wasn't taught in class.

(And, yes, I think real attribution error says we attribute more to people and less to circumstances than we should, but it also talks about how we're less likely to do this with ourselves, and if you combine that with the self-serving bias it gets the same result either way).

Quality Quotes

In a beautiful comparison between worn books and worn people, I found this gem:

We try to do our best, and take the best care of ourselves. And that is a very good thing. But sometimes we screw up, and our pages get a few smudges, and the dustjacket gets a few tears (or we lose it altogether). . . . And sometimes, much as we try, we don't learn from our mistakes the first time. Sometimes we must revisit that painful passage again (and again), to catch the whole lesson.

But at some point, when the screwing up has paused for a moment: we put ourselves back together, smooth out our edges as much as we can, and stand tall, knowing that someone will love us better for our scars, for our failed attempts at perfect life, and for the story no one else can tell.

I recommend reading the whole (short) post.

The lamest excuse...

Ok, this might not actually be the lamest excuse, but it is pretty lame. Ready for it? It's usually expressed like this: "I'm sorry I couldn't _____. I've been really busy." I know that I've used this excuse, and I also recognize that people are busy. I also feel that this excuse is particularly misleading because the truth is we always have time for our priorities. It's true. If you're not getting something done in the day, it's because you're doing something else instead. We all have 24 hours in every day. We can use those 24 hours how we choose. Sometimes we need to work on our time management skills and such, but that's just another question of priorities.

It's true that often times we have really important things to do. Some people have small children or sick people that they need to take care of, and most others "have to" go to school or work. I'm not saying that those things aren't important; all I'm saying is that we should acknowledge, at least to ourselves, that we're choosing to do those things. No one has to work or go to school or spend time with their family, but hopefully those are all things that we all choose to do in our lives.

It's empowering to recognize and acknowledge that we haven't been gotten something done because we chose to do something that was more important to us. It also makes us have greater appreciation for those other things we chose to do. And if, in retrospect, we feel lame when we realize that we didn't do something because we were playing video games or updating our status on facebook, that's a great opportunity to reevaluate our priorities and take charge of our lives.

The other thing that bothers me about that excuse is that it often seems like people are saying "I'm sorry" when they really don't mean it. Like if someone takes 3 days to call you back and says "I'm sorry, I've been really busy," and then the next time you call they take another 3 days and again apologize. It seems that if someone is really sorry, they wouldn't happen again and again. I find myself doing this as well, as I almost feel obligated to say I'm sorry. Why is that??

In short, I'm not really upset at the people for apologizing or for saying that they're busy, but if someone tells me "I'm sorry I couldn't ______. I've been really busy" I hear, "I'm sorry I didn't _______. I've been doing other things that are more important to me." And really, that's ok. As long as they're being honest with themselves.

I LOVE sincerity...

So today I happened across Seriously, so blessed, a blog that seems to serve as a stream of consciousness journal for a young, married, Mormon girl who just had twins. Her writing style (and just her style in general) is way different than mine, but I'm still fascinated. Just look at the sincerity in this post about one of her engagements.

Oh, and that whole "I prayed about it and it felt wrong" thing when really you just don't like how they changed their major is a dirty trick. You don't have to marry him, just tell him why not. Let's communicate here, people. Still, loving the sincerity.

Bank of America - $75 deal

As a very small number of you know, I love signing up for banks / credit card promotions to get the free stuff that they offer. I don't do it ALL the time, because it can be a bit of a hassle to keep track of where all your money is and when to cancel accounts and all that, but when a really good deal comes along I go for it. So far, I've gotten two iPods and at least $570 from various bank and credit card companies over the last 3 years (not to mention hundreds more in credit card "% cash back" promotions). The only real consequences have been $44 in overdraft fees when I forgot that my money was in another account. So it's been a good deal overall.

I've decided to share these deals when they come along, as I'd be happy if someone shared them with me. So right now, you can get $75 from Bank of America for signing up for checking account. I'm not sure if there are even locations near where I live, but you can do it all online so it shouldn't take more than a few minutes no matter where you're at. You also get an additional $25 if you use the account to pay two bills online within 30 days. The one "catch" is that you have to have the account open for 6 months, and that's not even really a catch.

So, if you're interested, the offer is here. It doesn't have a posted expiration date, but often these thinks are only up for a week or two so I'd jump on it if you're interested. If you have questions or sign up for it and want to share your experience, just leave a comment. I'll be signing up in the next few days and will leave a note there saying how it went.

(I found out about the offer via bankaholic.com)

Coincidence?

Over the last few years I've seen fewer and fewer things as coincidences and started to see them as blessings or experiences that God placed in my lives to help me be happy, learn, and grow. There's a scripture that talks about this too, that says: "And in nothing doth man offend God, or against none is his wrath kindled, save those who confess not his hand in all things, and obey not his commandments." So if his hand is in all things, there are no coincidences, right?

As I was making lunch today I had a thought that changed my perspective. As I opened the drawer next to our stove, I was reminded of the day that my roommate and I both bought oven mitts at the same time to replace the one which burned on our stove top a few weeks before. "What I coincidence that was," I thought. My mind then went to it's usual "but there are no coincidences" way of thinking. However, this time that thinking seemed strange. I realized that there probably are coincidences, and that God may not have a hand in every housewares purchase our apartment makes. So, if I accept that there are coincidences, where do you draw the line?

What do y'all think about this? Should one just assume that God's hand is in everything, so as to be grateful for those things that are? I have a lot of questions about this topic, but am having a hard time expressing them. Thoughts? Feedback?