Inspired to Serve:
A Word for You
When your questions pertains to the Holy Writ, seek a commentary from a Brother or a Sister in the Faith, or simply consult with the Holy Spirit:
The Wise Thing to Do
Whenever there is a matter of true concern, complex or simple, if unresolved, give the matter to the Master. Call on the Holy Spirit to guide you, place your, non-doubting, trust in your Heavenly Father to see you through and expect great things to happen. Our Heavenly Father knows best.
A patrolman in Maine pulled over a 63-year-old man for a traffic stop. 40 seconds later, he sent his K-9 on him.
Camille Fine
·7 min read
YORK, Maine — Town officials released video footage late Wednesday that shows a police officer in Maine using a K-9 to subdue a man during a traffic stop more than two years ago.
The release of the footage comes about a week after the man, Stephen Brennan, announced through his attorneys he had reached a $325,000 settlement agreement with the town and Patrolman Jonathan Rogers, who had released the dog during the encounter on Sept. 20, 2019.
In a joint statement released with the footage, York Town Manager Steve Burns and Acting Police Chief Owen Davis said Rogers “simply did his job to keep York a safe place.”
Brennan was 63 at the time of the incident and ran a pediatrics practice. He suffered multiple injuries, including dog bites that his attorneys said required months of follow-up and wound care.
The 21-minute video, which was released in response to a public records request from Seacoast Media Group, includes audio and dashboard camera video. There was no body-worn camera used during the encounter, Burns said.
Rogers pulled over Brennan for allegedly flashing his high beams. The video shows Brennan stepped out of his vehicle before Rogers' cruiser had fully stopped.
As Brennan walked toward the police cruiser, Rogers shouted at him to put his hands up. Brennan complied at first, but he continued walking while Rogers yelled three times for him to stop.
Brennan stopped for a moment with his hands raised, then he dropped them and turned back toward his own vehicle. Rogers left his cruiser and approached Brennan, telling him to stop moving.Rogers had his gun drawn and pointed at Brennan.
Dashboard camera footage released by the Town of York shows York Police Department Patrolman Jonathan Rogers using a K-9 to subdue pediatrician Stephen Brennan during a traffic stop on Sept. 20, 2019. The footage was released publicly Jan. 12, 2022, in response to a public records request. The video shows Brennan was on his knees before the K-9 made contact with him.
Brennan turned again toward Rogers, who repeatedly warned that he would sic the K-9 on him if he did not turn around and comply.
After Rogers told Brennan six times to get on the ground, Brennan dropped to his knees. Rogers told Brennan to get on the ground one more time as the K-9 ran toward Brennan and knocked him to the ground.
Global spread of autoimmune disease blamed on western diet
New DNA research by London-based scientists hopes to find cure for rapidly spreading conditions
Rheumatoid arthritis is one of the autoimmune conditions that are causing concern around the world. Photograph: BSIP/UIG/Getty Images
More and more people around the world are suffering because their immune systems can no longer tell the difference between healthy cells and invading micro-organisms. Disease defences that once protected them are instead attacking their tissue and organs.
Major international research efforts are being made to fight this trend – including an initiative at London’s Francis Crick Institute, where two world experts, James Lee and Carola Vinuesa, have set up separate research groups to help pinpoint the precise causes of autoimmune disease, as these conditions are known.
“Numbers of autoimmune cases began to increase about 40 years ago in the west,” Lee told the Observer. “However, we are now seeing some emerge in countries that never had such diseases before.
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For example, the biggest recent increase in inflammatory bowel disease cases has been in the Middle East and east Asia. Before that they had hardly seen the disease.”
Autoimmune diseases range from type 1 diabetes to rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease and multiple sclerosis. In each case, the immune system gets its wires crossed and turns on healthy tissue instead of infectious agents.
In the UK alone, at least 4 million people have developed such conditions, with some individuals suffering more than one. Internationally, it is now estimated that cases of autoimmune diseases are rising by between 3% and 9% a year. Most scientists believe environmental factors play a key role in this rise.
“Human genetics hasn’t altered over the past few decades,” said Lee, who was previously based at Cambridge University. “So something must be changing in the outside world in a way that is increasing our predisposition to autoimmune disease.”
This idea was backed by Vinuesa, who was previously based at the Australian National University. She pointed to changes in diet that were occurring as more and more countries adopted western-style diets and people bought more fast food.
“Fast-food diets lack certain important ingredients, such as fibre, and evidence suggests this alteration affects a person’s microbiome – the collection of micro-organisms that we have in our gut and which play a key role in controlling various bodily functions,” Vinuesa said.
“These changes in our microbiomes are then triggering autoimmune diseases, of which more than 100 types have now been discovered.”
Both scientists stressed that individual susceptibilities were involved in contracting such illnesses, ailments that also include celiac disease as well as lupus, which triggers inflammation and swelling and can cause damage to various organs, including the heart.
“If you don’t have a certain genetic susceptibility, you won’t necessarily get an autoimmune disease, no matter how many Big Macs you eat,” said Vinuesa. “There is not a lot we can do to halt the global spread of fast-food franchises. So instead, we are trying to understand the fundamental genetic mechanisms that underpin autoimmune diseases and make some people susceptible but others not. We want to tackle the issue at that level.”
This task is possible thanks to the development of techniques that now allow scientists to pinpoint tiny DNA differences among large numbers of individuals. In this way, it is possible to identify common genetic patterns among those suffering from an autoimmune disease.
“Until very recently, we just didn’t have the tools to do that, but now we have this incredible power to sequence DNA on a large scale and that has changed everything,” said Lee. “When I started doing research, we knew about half a dozen DNA variants that were involved in triggering inflammatory bowel disease. Now we know of more than 250.”
Such work lies at the core of Lee and Vinuesa’s efforts, which aim to find out how these different genetic pathways operate and unravel the many different types of disease doctors are now looking at. “If you look at some autoimmune diseases – for example, lupus – it has become clear recently there are many different versions of them, that may be caused by different genetic pathways,” said Vinuesa. “And that has a consequence when you are trying to find the right treatment.
“We have lots of potentially useful new therapies that are being developed all the time, but we don’t know which patients to give them to, because we now realise we don’t know exactly which version of the disease they have. And that is now a key goal for autoimmune research. We have to learn how to group and stratify patients so we can give them the right therapy.”
Lee also stressed that surging cases of autoimmune diseases across the world meant new treatments and drugs were now urgently needed more than ever before. “At present, there are no cures for autoimmune diseases, which usually develop in young people – while they are trying to complete their education, get their first job and have families,” he said.
“That means growing numbers of people face surgery or will have to have regular injections for the rest of their lives. It can be grim for patients and a massive strain on health services. Hence the urgent need to find new, effective treatments.”
Coming into the new year, it is vital to come to grips with the disease that most threatens American democracy—nearly universal distrust of its governing institutions. The anger and polarization rivening society are symptoms of distrust.
Distrust is the virus that got in the brain of those people who stormed the Capitol last January. They believed America's electoral machinery had somehow been rigged to steal the election from Donald J. Trump.
Distrust is what motivates millions of Americans, despite all evidence, to refuse COVID-19 vaccinations.
A deep well of distrust is what powered the riots across the country in the wake of the killing of George Floyd.
Overcoming distrust is not easy. Facts don't work because distrustful people don't believe they're facts. It doesn't matter that vote recounts in Georgia and other states, confirming the accuracy of the final tally, were led by Republicans. It doesn't matter that vaccinations actually work to reduce the harm of the coronavirus, and that vaccinated friends suffer no ill effects. It doesn't matter to the "defund the police" activists that most minority communities want an active police presence.
The political parties, as currently led, are unlikely to offer a path away from distrust and toward common ground. The more they generate fear of extremists from the other side, the more money they raise. They profit by exaggerating woke ideologies and violent right-wing fringes. Ditto for media: Conflict attracts attention, which attracts advertisers.
Once distrust reaches a critical mass, "confirmation bias" constantly reinforces it. Distrust not only hardens, but attracts more adherents as it causes institutional failures. The more things fail—schools don't reopen, testing kits are unavailable, homelessness grows, politicians don't deliver—the more people are distrustful. Pew recently found that 85 percent of Americans believe American democracy needs major changes or must be completely reformed.
America is at a dangerous point. Distrust drives people to extreme actions, as we saw in the invasion of the Capitol and in the riots over the summer of 2020. For the first time in memory, serious observers are starting to talk about organized civil strife.
The path toward trust, however, is not continued battles against extremists of either side. Telling people they're wrong, or stupid, or selfish, is a formula for further polarization.
The American flag is flown at half-staff over the U.S. Capitol building.ANNA MONEYMAKER/GETTY IMAGES
What's needed is a governing vision that engages Americans to help make things work better. Many Americans feel powerless, as if governed by an alien force. They have no connection to the nuts and bolts of public choices, and almost everything they see from Washington reinforces their belief that choices are made by Big Brother without any respect for local beliefs and needs.
The new governing vision should re-empower Americans at all levels of responsibility to roll up their sleeves and use their common sense. Replace red tape with flexible frameworks that allow communities to do things in their own ways. Frustrated Americans would then have a chance to make a difference. Instead of mandates from a bureaucratic black box, Americans should have a clear line of sight to officials who are actually making decisions. Only then can democracy provide accountability to voters.
Many, perhaps most, Americans would subscribe to a vision of simpler frameworks activated by human responsibility. Left wing activists want accountability of police and other officials. Right wing activists are angered by mandates from on high. Everyone wants better schools. Doctors and nurses need relief from endless red tape. The new governing framework would set goals and guiding principles, not dictate how to run a classroom, or care for a patient. Clear lines of authority would hold people accountable for the job they do.
Nor does the new vision require a complex platform. It should embrace one overriding principle: simpler frameworks activated by human responsibility. Let people decide. Let others hold them accountable. Instead of a detailed platform, it should call for independent commissions to recommend new simpler frameworks, area by area. Congress can then vote the proposals up or down.
Neither party will lead such a movement, because most interest groups exist to preserve the status quo. The parties instead will grandstand for their favored reforms. But reform never happens, except on the margins, and pruning this red tape jungle is a fool's errand. It would take a thousand lifetimes to untangle this bureaucratic mess—150 million words of federal law and regulation alone. Reforms almost never succeed because the modern bureaucratic state has been built on a flawed premise—that thick rulebooks should dictate "one correct way" to make daily choices. All across America, doctors, teachers, small businesses and officials pull their hair out trying to comply with dictates that make no sense in particular situations. It must be replaced, not repaired.
Americans overwhelmingly think our democracy needs to be overhauled. Let's create a movement to do just that. The current trench warfare is leading us nowhere except continued distrust, public failure and unravelling of the great promise of American democracy.
Philip K. Howard is chair of Common Good. His latest book is Try Common Sense.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own. 0nline/1/09/22
