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Note that this testimony had nothing to do with nails but with teeth. And it had to do with letting them soak in a glass of Coca-Cola for two days. There were many things wrong with this experiment. First, it gave rise to folklore that it would dissolve a steel nail. People completely forgot that teeth were involved and that nails were not part of the experiment. Second, it overlooked the fact that teeth in human mouths do not remain submerged in Coke. The Coke flows past the teeth, and the teeth are essentially rinsed by the mouth’s saliva. Third, it failed to explain why Coke was any worse than the hundreds of years that human beings in various cultures had been eating spicy, acidic food without their cultures demonstrating a higher rate of caries than cultures that ate bland food (like the English).

The experiment was replicated in 2003.² Note that the person replicating the experiment used both metal nails and shavings of keratin from human nails and claws. The author did not use teeth, but even after multiple days, he was unable to show the dissolving power of Coke in any of the various varieties found in 2003.

Whether the original experiment was ever performed is an intriguing question. Certainly, I saw no evidence that it was successfully replicated, if it had ever been performed. Experimenters have found out that Coke can be used to remove rust from nails, but it is a slow process, and there are better cleaning compounds. Teeth also appear to be basically safe from Coke. Moreover, the experiment makes little theoretical sense. “Under normal physiological conditions, the pH value from the stomach to the intestine basically showed an increasing trend, specifically, acidic stomach (pH 1.5 to 3.5), duodenum (pH 6), terminal ileum (pH 7.4), terminal cecum (pH 6), and colon (pH 6.7).”³ The pH of Coke is around 2.8, well within the pH of the stomach.⁴

It does appear that prolonged use of Coke may help demineralize the enamel of teeth. However, the conclusion of many of the anti-Coke crusaders of yore was that it was the acidic nature of Coke and its sugary content that did the damage. Conveniently, the same crusaders ignored that orange juice is also acidic and sugary. I wonder whether lemonade, which is made from acidic lemons and sugar, is also harmful for your teeth and for metal nails. I suspect that the argument would have been, “Uhm, well, orange juice and lemons are natural, so they could not be harmful.” I express this opinion because I believe it marks the start of many flawed arguments that attempt to conclude that only natural foods are safe.⁵

As for me, a great-grandfather with all my natural teeth in place after years of drinking Coke, I will continue to drink my Coke while sighing at all the natural food people who keep pushing not simply unproven but disproven claims.

1. https://www.wytv.com/news/daybreak/nugget-of-knowledge-cola-cola-urban-legend/#:~:text=In%20the%20fall%20of%201950,.Rome@wytv.com.
2. https://joshmadison.com/2003/12/14/will-coke-dissolve-a-nail-experiment/#:~:text=The%20active%20ingredient%20in%20Coke,nail%20in%20about%204%20days.
3. Chambin et al., 2006
4. I mention this only because there were those that also said that Coke will damage the stomach.
5. I again suspect that all those Florida fresh orange juice drinkers will not show an increased rate of caries compared to their northern non-orange-juice-drinking fellow citizens.

A quite interesting article from 2022. It makes some strong points, including the point that to claim that the entire period of the 500s to 1500s is the Dark Ages is not only inaccurate but also deliberately ignores the many advances in scholarship, architecture, science, government, etc., that took place during the majority of that period.

The article also points out that the term “Dark Ages” is found mainly in English and Scandinavian languages but not often found in the other languages. In Italian, the term “Dark Ages” almost never appeared prior to the 1960s. In two countries, “Early Middle Ages” was the original term, which was changed to “Late Antiquity” post-WWII as being the more accurate term. More recent scholarship has followed that lead, doing away with the term “Dark Ages” as being both inaccurate and expressing a particular regional bias.

Finally, the article further argues that even if one could use the term “Dark Ages” for a three-century period following the fall of Rome, that would be the historical limit for the term. It heavily critiques Hollywood for its Game of Thrones series, as it portrays a Europe-like Late Medieval setting with unremitting violence, darkness, torture, and war.

Unfortunately, I could not embed the article. Please follow the link above to see what I am discussing.

Here is a little article whose only purpose appears to be to interpret a unanimous Supreme Court decision through a distinctly partisan lens. It appears to have two purposes. One is to portray the ruling as a victory for a “conservative” ideology. The second is to diminish the intellectual authorship of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who wrote the opinion. This anything-but-neutral article insinuates that she was a student of Justice Clarence Thomas rather than acknowledging her as a qualified scholar in her own right who came to her own decisions after analysis of the question.

Having spent most of the article as a paean to Justice Thomas, the article spends no time demonstrating in any way that Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson–whose photograph is not even shown–would have ruled differently had she not met Justice Thomas. Unlike the paean to Justice Thomas, there is no listing of previous rulings or editorials or interviews by Justice Jackson demonstrating a view different than the one she expressed in her written opinion on this case. This article implies that Justice Jackson has been schooled due to its lack of mention of her prior work. By omitting her intellectual history on the matter, the article implies her opinion was not independently formed.

The article claims Justice Thomas was the true philosophical author of this decision, but it offers no evidence that Justice Jackson had a different opinion than the one in this unanimous decision. This focus on two justices is disrespectful to the rest of the Court, reducing a unanimous decision to a mere ideological contest. This article is a partisan effort to deny credit to an “enemy” and to the rest of the Court.

This, of course, is sad partisanship at its worst. Having had the opportunity to celebrate a unity that bypasses labels, to reinforce that Constitutional unity that this network claims they desire, they descended into reinforcing the mindset that “we” are the only ones who can correctly interpret the intent of the Founding Fathers. By implication, it means that all agency is denied to Justice Jackson and to the rest of the Court.

Nine Justices agreed; nine Justices voted unanimously; eight Justices agreed that Justice Jackson was the indicated person. Therefore, this was neither a “conservative” nor a “liberal” opinion. By its very unanimity, it was simply “our” opinion. One partisan network decided they knew better than the Court and tried to claim this as a partisan victory. You see the abysmal result in this article.

Walt Kelly had the right idea in 1971. Let us remember that in 1971, Vietnam was still a very active conflict. A year later, in December of 1972, Nixon unleashed a carpet bombing campaign on Hanoi, which did not deter what was then North Vietnam in the least. Four years earlier, in 1968, the USA had started peace talks with Hanoi. It was not until 1973 that the pullout ending the war happened. As you may remember, the photographs from the last days and the helicopters flying out are not that different from what happened in Afghanistan after the Trump-negotiated “peace.”¹

Both in 1967 and 1969, massive demonstrations against the Vietnam War took place. In November 1969, half a million people demonstrated in Washington, DC. By 1971, when Kelly published the cartoon above, everyone knew that the end of Vietnam was coming. I was drafted in 1971. Few things are worse than being drafted into a war that is finishing. No one wants to be the last body bag out. Fortunately, I served in the USA without ever being on the firing line. I have sometimes wondered what would have happened had I been sent to Vietnam as a medic or a medical lab specialist. But those are irrelevant thoughts.

By 1971, this country was severely divided. Having lived then, I think we are worse split today. But Kelly had the right idea, as the same thing is happening today. Our culture was about to be divided back then but managed to pull itself together. Kelly’s warning was that the problem was not outside of us. We were the problem, not any external situation. I think the same is true today, but various degrees worse. Unlike back then, we are not blaming outside entities. We are openly fighting to silence each other.

The far-left plays innocent with its claims that it wants equal treatment with everyone. However, cancel culture was one of the final straws that led to the massive cultural conflict in this country. It was one of the most ambitious attempts to force-change the current culture. Cancel culture was not merely an attempt to teach people different speech patterns, different modes of behavior, and a libertarian acceptance of differences. It was a blatant exercise in punishing any who disagreed and shut down discussion by blaming everything on either some discrimination or a psychological problem.²

The far-right learned to respond in kind. First, Republicans “started playing footsie” with extremists on the right. Then, accusations equivalent to the far-left allegations began to fly. Thus, the persistent drumbeat that charges gays and transgenders of being pedophiles. This is the same psychologizing false accusations that the far-left employed for years. The right-to-life groups also started to use increasingly harsh language. After years of saying that the abortionists were the murderers and women the victims, the approach changed. The moment that the Supreme Court announced the repeal of Roe v Wade laws began to be passed that did what right to life had denied for decades that they would do. Laws punishing the people previously called victims began to be passed. The promise that women would not be prosecuted were right to life to be adopted was quickly discarded and not mentioned again.

Sadly, the far-right lost all grasp on epistemology. No theory was too extreme to be discarded. Suspicion of the government grew to be suspicion of scientists, of teachers, of anyone who did not agree with any outlandish theory that contradicted generally accepted wisdom or generally accepted scientific formulations. Sometimes, the stranger the theory or the more it contradicts anything that could be considered accepted wisdom or formulation, the more the far-right must believe it with strong arguments that are articles of belief more than tested theory.

And so, we are back to 1971. We are our own worst enemy. The cancel culture of the left has now become the cancel culture of the right. Book bans are becoming common in our libraries.³ Criminalizing groups has become as common an approach in the far-right as the cancel culture of the left. The firings in federal and state governments are the far-right expression of cancel culture.⁴ But, the real intent is for the far-right to cancel the far-left.

I fear that what never happened in 1969 may happen today. I may live to see a country that breaks out into another Civil War situation. The adjustments that allowed the South to rejoin the North after the Civil War are breaking down. Both sides want a monoculture in the USA, which must be their monoculture. Those who disagree with their monoculture will be silenced.

So, we are back in 1971 and heading for 1973-1974. It took President Ford’s pardon of President Nixon to finally settle that mess. I hope we make it through this mess.

1. See, https://kyivindependent.com/in-negotiations-with-russia-trump-is-repeating-his-complete-disaster-peace-deal-with-taliban/ published earlier today.
2. For instance, note how the terms homophobia, transgender phobia, etc., all psychologize the discussion. Thus, the person who disagreed with the far left had mental issues. Failing that, then racism was blamed, or religion, or… What is true is that no legitimate agency was permitted to those who disagreed.
3. Shades of Fahreinheit 451.
4. The language used is military language, and it is said that this country is recovering control of its institutions. That argument is illogical as this country was in control of its institutions. The subtext is actually that this country is changing control of its institutions from the left to the right.

How do we learn to live with each other again? How do we learn to allow each other as much freedom as possible? How do we prevent ourselves from trying to coerce the other side using rules and laws to force a change into only what we believe? Or is this country bound and determined to impose some ideological limits, exchanging our vaunted freedom of speech for speech limitations or imposed speech guidelines? You cannot successfully ban certain religious expressions in schools and specific religious arguments in the courts, then be surprised when certain of your books are banned in libraries and entire DEI departments are gutted and extinguished. Tit for tat is a terrible way to live.

Ultimately, there is no difference between the right-wing book censors and the left-wing DEI censors. Both attempt to silence the other side by preventing access to certain concepts via book banning or imposing a linguistic schema that forces people to speak in ways that violate their convictions. Both sides justify their actions with false or exaggerated charges against the other. Both sides deliberately intrude into the other’s space to accuse the other side of palpably and demonstrably untrue things.

To state it bluntly, It is a lie to say that a traditionalist or religious person has a psychological problem simply because they disagree with you. Traditionalists and religious believers are not homophobes or transphobes or …. They are not psychologically adverse to you. They intellectually or religiously disagree with you. They do not need to be fixed, be given electroshock therapy, or be classified as unstable. It would be best if you tried to change their conviction. Failing that, it would be good to attempt to reach a détente. By now, you should be beginning to realize that forcing them to use language with which they strongly disagree is counterproductive and leads to an intense backlash. Rather than the path of persuasion, you chose the path of power and now see its predictable results. Speaking truth to power sounds great until you become the power and someone speaks truth to you.

To state it bluntly, It is a lie to say that an LGBTQ+ person is a groomer or that a liberal heterosexual supporter of LGBTQ+ is a groomer-enabler. If you are going to make that claim, then you need to also go after some of the wilder lingerie advertisements easily visible on all media for grooming heterosexual misbehavior. It has long ago been pointed out that heterosexual grooming is part of many advertisements, that is, unless you believe that a sexy woman draped over a car is a perfectly harmless photograph that does not subliminally point you toward heterosexual misbehavior. You need to clean some of your own house. The number of adulterous heterosexual relationships among influential clergy leaders is a source of shame and an example of successful heterosexual grooming. Being a traditionalist or religious sounds excellent until your behavior no longer matches what is proclaimed. Remember that Martin Luther King’s letter “Letter from Birmingham Jail” was written to supposedly godly pastors who supported segregation, anti-miscegenation laws, poll taxes, etc.

Both sides make charges against the other while demonstrating a severe lack of introspection. I would appeal to both sides to engage in some weighty introspection. We cannot flaunt our delight in being American while violating some of this country’s founding principles. How do we live as Americans in this modern world?

Finally, a word to my fellow Christians. The Orthodox Church of America says the following in an online article on faithfulness:

Faithfulness is characterized by stability of body and soul; the utter refusal to move or be moved for any unworthy reason; the complete dedication to what God gives one to do, with the faith, grace and strength that God gives to do it. As it is written in the sayings of the fathers of the desert: “As a tree cannot bear fruit if it is often transplanted, no more can a monk (or any person) that is often changing his mind and moving from place to place.” The only way to receive the “crown of life” is to be “faithful until death” in the place where God has put us (Rev 2.10).

I understand that there are some issues on which we cannot compromise. A big one is the sanctity of life as expressed within Orthodox guidelines. I write it this way because I am not a Roman Catholic; thus, I am not against birth control. (For those ready to jump in with all types of micro-definitions of birth control, please resist. I am faithful to Orthodox teachings expressed by our bishops and saints, no more and no less.) Nevertheless, there are issues on which we do not need to win. More importantly, we need to give a witness so that our words might be believed. That witness is found all through Scripture and the Fathers, but I will choose a passage from Matthew 25:34-40.

Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’

Here is a good and thoughtful story. El Salvador was dying. Its people were leaving. MS-13 had even begun subsidiary gangs in the USA. The country was falling apart to the point that as recently as 2016, the country was nicknamed the “murder capital of the world,” averaging a murder an hour. Note that this was not the death rate; it was simply the murder rate that did not include death by accident, old age, illness, etc.

The country was ripe for a strongman to take over. A strongman did not take over, but one was elected. Various judicial norms were suspended. People were arrested, sometimes on a simple anonymous report. The country built a particular prison just for the gang members, and those who are sent there are sent there for life with no hope of parole. Various procedural safeguards were weakened.

But, instead of a repressive dictatorship, El Salvador has emerged as a reasonably safe place again. Some of its people are returning. Some civil rights have been weakened, making it easier to be arrested. But, as the article points out, the country and its people are happy. There are no imposed ideological or intellectual lines per se. There is reasonable freedom of speech. Most of all, there is freedom to live again, to go to the neighborhood park again, etc.

For those of us who have lived either under a right-wing or a left-wing dictatorship, there is an anxious feeling in the back of our minds that this is temporary and that power corrupts. However, the power of the gangs had corrupted the country utterly and brought it to the edge of extinction as a functional entity.

So, here are the difficult questions. What are the limits of freedom? What are the limits of a desire for security? When there is an apparent conflict between the two, how does a country decide where the limits belong? Honestly, I do not have a good answer. I hope you do.

Or, we are seeing the result of a lack of accountability because there are few repercussions to one’s actions.

For CrowdStrike, the financial cost of thoroughly testing a significant software update on a diverse range of non-vital systems is a deterrent. It’s cheaper to skip this step, especially when there are minimal repercussions for a company whose software is crucial and installed on most of the Free World’s significant systems.

Boeing, a key player in the US economy, can afford to cut corners. Yes, there may be a plane crash or two, but the profits from skipping one or two inspection steps far outweigh the costs of settlements. After all, Boeing’s strategic importance to the US, as the manufacturer of the F-15 and many of the world’s commercial aircraft, provides a buffer against market pressures.

The purported system of checks and balances in free market capitalism, such as supply and demand, is significantly disrupted when a near-monopoly is established by a certain product or corporation. This imbalance in market forces becomes more pronounced once a product becomes vital, buffering the company from many market pressures. I.e., you can skip steps and fail without paying the piper.

The growth in unsupervised monopolies with the false drive to drop regulations has led to an environment where safety is simply a number on a spreadsheet. If the price for lack of accountability or customer/worker safety is below a certain level, it is cheaper to take a chance than to prepare beforehand.

The Secret Service case is a different matter that bears no relation to CrowdStrike or Boeing. “No plan of operations extends with certainty beyond the first encounter with the enemy’s main strength.”² “In preparing for battle, I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.”³ “A perfect tactical plan is like a unicorn because anyone can tell you what one looks like, but no one has actually ever seen one.”⁴

Theoretically, that roof was covered. It had been noticed, brought up, and responsibility assigned. The plan left an unexpected hole in the security perimeter. The police claim they communicated that they were short-handed. The Secret Service claims they did not receive such communication. The investigation will help show what may have happened. Blaming it purely on the Secret Service is vastly inaccurate but helpful to a party trying to take the Federal government apart as much as possible. The probability of an untrained person barely above a teenager being able to find a crack in the battle plan is infinitesimal. But that is battle!

The immediate post-shooting demand by the House oversight committee is little more than overt political posturing. The post-event incident analyses will still need to be finished or evaluated. But, the “hearing” will provide a spectacle that will play well during our major election season.

Will the Secret Service be found responsible? Well, certainly they will! It is a pre-ordained result, even if it turns out that the police needed to appropriately communicate their inability to fully cover their assigned perimeter parts. The Secret Service may indeed have blown their responsibilities. But, at this time, we do not know. Saying that they are guilty at this point is premature. It amounts to little more than saying that the captain of a ship is responsible for everything that happens on his or her boat. That may be true as a doctrine, but it is unhelpful for evaluating an incident.

1. I am deliberately not using his/her name as it is the comment that interests me.
2. Kriegsgechichtliche Einzelschriften (1880); often quoted as, ‘No plan survives first contact with the enemy’
3. Dwight D. Eisenhower found in Richard Nixon Six Crises (1962); attributed
4. Author unknown

I agree with this decision.¹ Being “religious” does not give one the right to endanger the children of other parents. Being “religious” does not exempt you from any law you do not like, though it may exempt you from a very few laws. I do not believe in an absolute right of individual conscience.

A helpful list can be found here,² which lists different Christian denominations and other world religions, giving their stances on vaccination. Various religions hold quite nuanced stances, so this list is worth reading. There is a phenomenon called vaccine hesitancy. It is found in multiple religions. It concerns receiving certain vaccines based on their contents, their manner of manufacture, or a specific religious season.

For instance, Muslims will show a hesitancy or even a partial rejection to receiving a vaccine that has been developed using porcine products. About half of Muslims and nearly 90% of imans do not believe it appropriate to receive a vaccine during Ramadan. On the other hand: “Some muftis (experts in Islamic law) hold that immunization is obligatory (wajib) when the disease risk is high, and the vaccine has benefits that far outweigh its risk.”³

Various Christian groups have strong religious objections to receiving vaccines prepared on a substrate of aborted fetal tissue. Sporadic small Christian groups are completely against vaccination. Notably, the Roman Catholic Church has officially stated that sometimes vaccination is the lesser of two evils.

In an article from 2012, the National Catholic Register explained: “St. Thomas Aquinas enunciated this principle in the Summa Theologiae, where he noted that the object of the will’s choice is the possible good, not the impossible good (ST I-II q13, a5). Applying this principle, Blessed Pope John Paul II taught in Evangelium Vitae (73) that it is legitimate for a legislator to vote for a more restrictive law regarding abortion over a less restrictive law. He wrote: ‘This does not in fact represent an illicit cooperation with an unjust law, but rather a legitimate and proper attempt to limit its evil aspects, in order to prevent worse legislation from being adopted.'”⁴

The same type of reasoning as was used in the 2012 Roman Catholic article was used again during the COVID pandemic to argue that a Roman Catholic could receive the COVID vaccine, even if it were researched using the tissue from an aborted fetus. See the statement by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, “Our love of neighbor should lead us to avoid giving scandal, but we cannot omit fulfilling serious obligations such as the prevention of deadly infection and the spread of contagion among those who are vulnerable just to avoid the appearance of scandal.”⁵ That is, the bishops found no solid moral reason to avoid vaccination if it means “the prevention of deadly infection and the spread of contagion among those who are vulnerable.” Thus, it appears that the principle enunciated by the Roman Catholic Church is that if the choice is a vaccine of dubious origin or the “spread of contagion among those who are vulnerable,” then individual conscience needs to yield to the lesser of two evils.

The Eastern Orthodox have no one authoritative source of religious doctrine outside of an Ecumenical Council or recognized Holy Tradition. The Russian Orthodox Church issued a very strong statement regarding vaccination: “Speaking on state television, Metropolitan Hilarion, head of the Moscow Patriarchate’s department for external church relations, said those refusing to vaccinate were committing ‘a sin for which they will have to atone throughout their lives’.”⁶

Meanwhile, the Greek Orthodox Church in America issued a powerful statement regarding vaccination. “In addition, although some may be exempt from the vaccination for clear medical reasons, there is no exemption in the Orthodox Church for Her faithful from any vaccination for religious reasons, including the coronavirus vaccine. For this reason, letters of exemption for the vaccination against the coronavirus for religious purposes issued by priests of the Archdiocese of America have no validity, and furthermore, no clergy are to issue such religious exemption letters for any reason.”⁷

So, finally, let me say that I fully support and obey my bishops. I also agree with the Roman Catholic bishops, though they are not my bishops. Therefore, I agree with the Supreme Court. There is no purported religious right that allows someone to put someone else’s child in danger of death or a sequela of morbidity by a preventable disease. Note that the same argument may not be used for other subjects.⁸ Each subject requires its own moral analysis. However, when it comes to vaccines, then your child need not be admitted to a school should you refuse to vaccinate them. All of our rights have limitations. No one has a right to infect someone else’s children. The Supreme Court is correct in defending the rights of others.

1. https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-vaccine-exemptions-connecticut-29927533dfb5bc82ee47668c630bc875
2. https://www.vumc.org/health-wellness/resource-articles/immunizations-and-religion#:~:text=Most%20religions%20have%20no%20prohibition,vaccination%2C%20or%20specific%20vaccine%20ingredients.
3. ibid
4. https://www.ncregister.com/news/is-there-a-lesser-of-two-evils-oa54gmsn
5. https://www.usccb.org/moral-considerations-covid-vaccines
6. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/vaccinate-or-repent-russian-church-says-amid-hundreds-daily-covid-19-deaths-2021-07-05/
7. https://www.goarch.org/-/holy-eparchial-synod-ccmmunique
8. In other words, to argue that your beliefs are causing some psychological harm or trauma to others outside your family is probably not going to be a valid argument.