Wireless Health Hazards

Wireless devices are everywhere. But are they affecting our health? The National Institute for Science, Law and Public Policy recently mailed a report on the health hazards of wireless technologies to Governors, Members of Congress, and President Obama and his administration. They also mailed this report to health and environmental journalists.

They encourage legislators and journalists to learn more about the health consequences of electromagnetic radiation exposure from cell phones, neighborhood antennas, wireless networks, wireless routers, and other wireless technologies. The writers are concerned about the health impact on adults, children, and animals.

Experts assure us that there are no long-term consequences from exposure to electromagnetic radiation. I’m not so sure. I see the impact it has on my wife. If we use the microwave, she has to leave the room. Turn on an iPhone (even under the table) and she starts getting a headache. Drive under some power lines and she has an unpleasant feeling. I don’t feel it, but she does. Is it possible that she (and others) are miner’s canaries who are warning us something is wrong?

A petition to Congress signed by Americans in 47 states and citizens in 25 countries calls for Congress to mandate the Federal Communications Commission to revisit its exposure guidelines for radiofrequency radiation in light of research that indicates that current standards are not protective.

If there are problems with wireless devices, we need to know now before additional wireless infrastructures (such as Wi-Max) are built. At the very least, we should consider whether we should establish cell phone free zones and wireless-free zones. Electromagnetic field radiation may not affect you, but it affects my wife and many others who are more sensitive to this radiation.

And what about those already sick? Some scientist believe that certain illnesses are created or exacerbated by living in this electronic soup of radiation. I think it is time for Congress and the FCC to reexamine the impact of radiation on our bodies. I’m Kerby Anderson, and that’s my point of view.

Your Longevity

Yesterday I talked about longevity and life expectancy as it relates to the health care debate. Today, I would like to make it personal. What is your longevity?

Recently Newsweek magazine had a chart to help you estimate how long you might live. Life expectancy for the average American man is 75 years. For a woman it is 80 years. Many factors are beyond our control. Those would be family medical history, nationality, geography, etc. But what about the factors you can control?

Here are some factors that can extend your life expectancy. If you have a blood relative who has lived to be 95 or older, add 10 years to your baseline life expectancy. If you regularly play puzzles like Scrabble add 5 years. If you are a married man, add 5 years. Sorry ladies, if you are a married woman, it doesn’t add any years to your life expectancy.

A few others things that add a few years to your life expectancy are: eating 5 servings of fruits or vegetables daily, flossing daily, and eating nuts. And if you regularly go to church you can even add 1.7 years to your longevity.

What about those things that reduce your life expectancy? Subtract 15 years if you use IV drugs. Also subtract 15 years if you smoke. Unprotected sex with multiple partners will cut 7 years off your life.

You can subtract 5 years for every one of these activities: eating red meat more than twice a week, feeling stressed out, and slowing putting on weight. You can also lose years by drinking too much coffee and by getting less than six to eight hours of sleep a night.

While it is a helpful exercise, these calculations also bring us back to the current health care debate. American longevity is influenced by more than medical issues, and even some of the medical problems people have are not due to lifestyle. But doesn’t it make sense to do what we can to take responsibility for our lives? Our behavior can stretch or shrink our life span and can also have a positive or negative impact on U.S. health care costs. I’m Kerby Anderson, and that’s my point of view.

Health Care and Longevity

One of the arguments for changing the U.S. health care system is the claim that Americans have a shorter life expectancy. One e-mail I received said: “America ranks very low in longevity compared to other Western countries, infant death ranks high as well. We are not the best, but we could be.”

What about this claim about American longevity? Life expectancy is merely an estimation of how many years the average person lives.” If we use this definition, then American longevity is lower than many other countries. But there may be other factors involved besides health care. For example, one writer points that you can “live in a nation with the best health care system in the world, but if it’s in the throes of civil war,” your life expectancy will be short.

But we aren’t in the midst of a civil war. True, but go to a part of the city where gang warfare rages, and you might feel like you are in the midst of one. Violent crimes will lower life expectancy.

As one radio guest pointed out, crude statistics are just that: crude. Yes, the U.S. has a high infant mortality rate compared to other industrial countries. Part of the gap is due to how live births are defined. In some countries, an infant who dies soon after birth is not considered a live birth. Social scientist Nicholas Eberstadt “finds that U.S. infants, stratified by birth weight, have a high[er] likelihood of survival.”

One commentary in Forbes magazine on American health care finds other factors that affect longevity. Life expectancy differences between the U.S. and other countries can be due “to such lifestyle choices as diet, exercise and smoking.” Longevity in states like Minnesota or Utah essentially match those in countries like Norway or Britain. When you compare all of Europe (both rich and poor) with the U.S., suddenly these major differences in life expectancy vanish.

We need to get the right statistics on the table as we debate health care. I’m Kerby Anderson, and that’s my point of view.

Stolen Elections

Earlier this month, the Minnesota Supreme Court declared Democrat Al Franken the winner of last year’s Senate race again Republican incumbent Norm Coleman. All sorts of questions come to mind, but I will limit myself to just two.

The first question is: Why did it take so long to decide a winner? Put another way, Can’t we devise a system that ensures an accurate count and prevents voter fraud? It shouldn’t take nine months to figure out who wins an election, even if it’s a narrow election. We have in place electronic systems that allow any of use to go to any ATM machine in the world and withdraw money with complete accuracy. I refuse to believe we cannot devise a system with similar accuracy that prevents fraud.

That leads to the second question: How did Mr. Franken (who trailed Mr. Coleman on election night by 725 votes) end up being declared the winner? If you don’t think any tricks were involved read The Wall Street Journal editorial that said; “Mr. Franken now goes to the Senate having effectively stolen an election.” Those are pretty strong words from their editorial board. Of course, it makes sense since John Fund writes for The Wall Street Journal and has previously published a book with the title Stealing Elections: How Voter Fraud Threatens Our Democracy.

The editorial says that the “Franken legal team swarmed the recount, aggressively demanding that votes that had been disqualified be added to his count, while others be denied for Mr. Coleman.” They were able to bring an additional 1,350 absentee votes from Franken-leaning countries and ended up finding enough votes to put Franken ahead.

The editorial reminds us that this is “the second time Republicans have bean beaten in this kind of legal street fight.” In 2004, Republican Dino Rossi was ahead of Democrat Christine Gregorie. Her legal team was able to rifle through a list of provisional votes and were able to find enough votes for her by the third recount.

Joseph Stalin once said: “It’s not the people who vote that count. It’s the people who count the votes.” I don’t know if fraud and manipulation was involved in these elections, though I suspect it. The answer is to devise an accurate, fraud-proof system of elections so that people counting the vote can’t manipulate the system. I’m Kerby Anderson, and that’s my point of view.

The Graying World Population

The world’s population is graying, and that will have major implications for many countries around the world, including the United States. The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that the world 65-and-older population will triple by mid-century to 1 in 6 people. While this will be a challenge for the United States to support the elderly, it will be devastating for many other developed countries as well as developing countries.

The reason for the graying of the world’s population is two-fold: declining birthrates and medical advances that have extended life spans. The fastest growing age group is seniors, who presently comprise about 8 percent of the world’s population.

The percentage of seniors in the United States is about 13 percent, but the number will double by the middle of this century. This is due in large part to the baby boom generation (born between 1946 and 1964) entering retirement age. In previous commentaries, I have talked about the strain baby boomers will put on current workers and entitlement programs.

But the challenge in other countries will be much greater. Japan has been known as the land of the rising sun, but there is growing evidence that the sun is actually setting on Japan. A few years ago (2005), Japan entered into a phase of decline in which there were more deaths than births within the country. It is a country that allows few immigrants, has few minorities, and has no desire for any. For the rest of this century, we will see Japan continue to age and fall into decline. It appears that nothing will be able to pull it up from its demographic death spiral.

China is also facing a crisis, brought on by its one-child policy. Their current ratio of 16 elderly people per 100 workers will double by 2025, and than double again by mid-century. Given the current economic conditions and government policies, it is likely that millions of older Chinese will fall into poverty in coming years.

As we face the challenges of an aging population, we should be grateful that our challenges are less than those faced in other countries. Once again, demography is destiny. I’m Kerby Anderson, and that’s my point of view.

Giving

Do Pastors need to educate their congregation about biblical principles concerning giving? That’s one of my recommendations in my new book, Making the Most of Your Money in Tough Times. There is growing evidence that the Christian church needs to recapture a biblical perspective on finances, and especially giving.

A number of years ago, Barna Research did a study of giving by Christians and found that less than ten percent of born-again Christians give ten percent to their church. Now I know that we are no longer under Old Testament law where the tithe is mandatory. But it is clear that the early Christians often used the tithe as a baseline for their voluntary giving. Today, we aren’t even close to that baseline.

You do have to wonder about our priorities when less than ten percent even give a tithe. Consider that a majority of Christians spend more for presents at Christmas than they give to the church and Christian organizations throughout the year.

I might add Barna Research found that age and annual income were significant indicators of giving. For example the older you are, the more likely you were to tithe. Also, the poorer you were the more likely you were to tithe. A person who makes $20,000 a year is twice as likely to tithe as a person who makes $40,000-50,000 year. And a person who makes $20,000 a year is eight times more likely to tithe than a person who makes $75,000 a year.

Do those statistics bother you? They bother me and are worth reconsidering. You have to wonder about priorities. We seem to be more willing to lay up treasures on earth instead of investing in God’s work and laying up treasures in heaven.

I hope you will take a moment and consider what you might do to support your church and worthwhile ministries. That might even include the radio station that carries this commentary. Let’s reevaluate our financial priorities and try to get our spending and giving ratios back in line. I’m Kerby Anderson, and that’s my point of view.

Astronomical Numbers

Over this last year, we have been throwing around some very large numbers. How much is a trillion dollars? Ernest Istook (former member of Congress and fellow at the Heritage Foundation) used some helpful illustrations so we can get our heads around these large numbers.

One illustration looks at how long it would take to count to one trillion. Two years ago, Jeremy Harper made the news when he counted to one million in front of a webcam. He took sleep breaks, so it took him 89 days. But a million is really a very small number. One trillion is actually one million million. If someone wanted to count to a trillion (counting one number per second and taking no breaks), it would take 32,000 years.

Think of this number in another way. This country has not been around a trillion seconds. Western civilization has not been around a trillion seconds. All of recorded history is less than a trillion seconds.

Another illustration would be to cover a trillion miles. Even traveling at the speed of light, it would take two months. However, if you took a trillion one-dollar bills and laid them end-to-end, they would reach from the Earth to the sun.

While we are using astronomical illustrations, let’s consider our own galaxy. Our solar system is just an incredibly small part of the Milky Way galaxy. But as large it is, there are probably only 100 billion stars in our galaxy. We would need ten galaxies like the Milky Way to equal a trillion stars.

Let’s get back to Earth and consider $1 trillion. If you stacked $100 bills on top of each other, it would take a stack 789 miles high to equal $1 trillion. By the way, the interest on $1 trillion dollars at six percent interest is $166 million per day.

One trillion dollars is an astronomical number. I’m Kerby Anderson, and that’s my point of view.