[i understand why we would pray for the survival of the detroit auto industry, but parking suv’s and luxury cars on the pulpit of a church are a bit much for me… as a Christian, i am not sure how to respond to this because we do, in fact, need God’s leadership and grace as we make important decisions during this challenging economic time; however, parking luxury vehicles, which just happen to be the bane of the big 3’s existence, on the pulpit during service seems a little out of place to me.]
i digress. the most important piece of news on the day is this: cancers are rising in the developing world.
why is this so important. one must keep in mind that cancers should be the leading cause of death in places on the planet where people live long enough for your body to succumb to natural stressors and damage from everyday cell processes. this, of course, means that if you live in a place where tuberculosis, HIV/aids, malaria, and other infectious diseases are the bane of your existence, you would count increased cancer rates a blessing…
…unless of course you started observing cancers increasing in prevalence among younger populations. this, of course, is why this is so important [i know i sound redundant, but i’m getting to the point.] broadly speaking, the only reason cancers would increase in developing countries is if their populations are being more thoroughly exposed to insidious mixtures of carcinogens whose modes of action cannot be identified in traditional risk assessment, but induce cancerous effects in non-traditional ways.
for those of you reading this from the comfort of nyc, paris, or even pittsburgh, the take home message is this: we are showering our planet with a concoction of chemicals whose power has never been observed in the history of the planet. furthermore, our activities in our comfortable corner of the global commons instigates environmental exposures in other corners which would be patently unacceptable in ours.
finally, what is most alarming, is that natural processes often transport these compounds globally, at levels whose significance is yet to be discovered. let us be very wary…