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Happy Valentine's Day! A person cannot become a self apart from their relationship to others.



Today's selection -- from Works of Love by Søren Kierkegaard. 
A thought for Valentine's Eve. The Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard is considered the founder of modern existentialism. He wrote extensively on Christianity and the issues of morality and ethics that surround religion. One of his most influential books is Works of Love. In it, he notes that Jesus said, in a variation of the Golden Rule, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself" and asks if Jesus is therefore commanding self-love. In the Roman Catholic tradition, self-love is affirmed as necessary for true love of God.  In the Protestant tradition, self-love is perceived as a barrier to genuine love of neighbor.  Which is right?  Kierkegaard argues that great subtlety is required.  There is indeed a self-love that is deeply unhealthy and destroys our humanity.  Yet there is a "proper" self-love that alone makes us whole persons.  What is that love?  Kierkegaard

suggests it is when a person learns that love for that neighbor and love for oneself are the same thing; that indeed a person cannot become a self apart from their relationship to others.  Elsewhere Kierkegaard calls this love forgiveness; and he suggests that only when I forgive my neighbor can I truly forgive myself -- and forgive I must:




Soren Aabye Kierkegaard


"Therefore -- as yourself. Suppose the most cunning deceiver who has ever ... in order, if possible, to have the opportunity of using many words and becoming loquacious (for then the deceiver would quickly conquer), were temptingly to question the royal law year in and year out, 'How shall I love my neighbour?' then the terse command, unchanged, will continue to repeat the short phrase, 'as yourself.' And if any deceiver has -- deceived himself throughout his whole life by all sorts of verbosity concerning this subject, the eternal will only hold him to the terse word of the law, as yourself. No one, to be sure, will be able to escape this command. If its as yourself comes as close to the life of self-love as is possible, then one's neighbour is again a qualification as fatally close to self-love as possible. Self-love itself perceives that it is an impossibility to shirk this. The only escape is the one which the Pharisees in their time also tried in order to justify themselves: to let it be doubtful who one's neighbour is -- in order to get him out of one's life."












REPORT HIGHLIGHT: Thriving on Our Changing Planet: A Decadal Strategy for Earth Observation from Space
On Friday, January 5, the National Academies released Thriving on Our Changing Planet: A Decadal Strategy for Earth Observation from Space. Satellite observations of Earth continually transform how we understand our planet, and these measurements are critical for our nation's economy, security, and safety. Thriving on Our Changing Planet highlights the ways in which Earth observations are a key part of the nation’s information infrastructure and calls for a U.S. program of Earth observations that is robust, resilient, and appropriately balanced. Assessing current programs and future needs, the report recommends undertaking a series of measurements to address key aspects of the atmosphere, ocean, land, and ice with the goal of furthering our understanding of climate, weather, sea level rise, ecosystem health, and ocean circulation. The report recommends the creation of new program lines within NASA's Earth Science Division and discusses technology on-ramps, the use of commercial data providers, international cooperation, and other ideas to make optimal use of limited resources for the research and operational satellite programs of NASA, NOAA, and the U.S. Geological Survey.
Download the full report
Download the 4-page summary
Watch the public briefing video
Download the public briefing slides
View our infographic on the importance of Earth information
[News from Climate Change at the National Academies, Feb. 7, 2018]








For Periodista Refugees, There Are No Safe Havens
“Shooting the messenger” isn’t just a metaphor in Mexico. In 2017, journalist murders there averaged one per month. That’s driven some into a federal protection program, but others fear the government even more than drug cartels. So they’ve fled north, where U.S. judges appear reluctant to grant asylum. The National Press Club gave one of them, Emilio Gutierrez Soto, its Press Freedom Award last year — before he and his son were whisked away to a Texas immigration jail. His asylum plea denied, he faces deportation, to become, he says, “another dead journalist.” [OZY Presidential Brief, February 10, 2018]



HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE 








HEALTHCARE

OBAMACARE

ICYMI: Major swings in enrollment by state. That's the takeaway from the National Academy for State Health Policy, which on Wednesday released new a analysis of the just-ended ACA enrollment period.
The 34 states that utilize HealthCare.gov and don't conduct their own marketing or outreach efforts saw a 5.3 percent decrease in enrollments. That was in contrast to state-based marketplaces, which saw enrollments largely remain flat, ticking up by 0.1 percent.
- Looking closer: Enrollment falls slightly in California. While new signups increased by up to 5 percent (depending on how you crunch the numbers), re-enrollments dipped by as much as 5 percent, leaving Covered California with a total decrease in enrollment of 2 percent.
The slight decline is seen in California as a win considering the contentious year for the ACA marketplaces and the volatile nature of individual coverage, POLITICO's Victoria Colliver reports from Sacramento. And some carriers had growth - like L.A. Care Health Plan, which saw gross signups triple, due to the plan's price points and some marketplace changes in the Los Angeles County market.
Still, Covered California committed $111 million to advertising and outreach for the 2018 enrollment period - and will likely end up with a slightly lower tally to show for it. [Politico Pulse, February 8, 2018]

ACA enrollment nearly hit 12 million
Total enrollment in the ACA’s insurance exchanges ended up at roughly 11.8 million — a 3.7% drop from the year before, according to math from the National Association of State Health Policy.
  • This includes the totals from HealthCare.gov, which we’ve known for a while, as well as the handful of state-run exchanges with longer enrollment periods. (California’s just ended this week.)
Why it matters: Enrollment is supposed to go up every year, not down, but this is a much smaller drop than almost anyone anticipated based on the changes the Trump administration made to the signup process.
  • The total volume of consumers does not itself affect premiums — they depend more on the mix of sick and healthy enrollees. But getting a lot of people through the door is an encouraging sign. If enrollment had fallen steeply, it’d be easy to surmise that only the sickest people had kept their coverage. [Axios Vitals, February 8, 2018]



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HOME VISITING LEFT OUT OF SPENDING BILL: Backers of the Maternal, Infant and Early Childhood Home Visiting Program are expressing frustration that the stopgap spending bill, HR 1892 (115), that the House passed Tuesday night to keep the government afloat after Thursday does not include a provision that would reauthorize the program, which expired Sept. 30. Backers are calling on senators to include it in their version of the government funding bill. The program, which is funded at $400 million annually, targets disadvantaged families by providing support to states for educational and other in-home services to pregnant mothers and families with young children.
- If the Senate doesn't act, "babies and their families will be denied access to the quality home visiting experiences that are proven to help them lift themselves out of poverty," said Sarah Rittling, the interim executive director of the First Five Years Fund, which advocates on early childhood issues. "Congress cannot and should not continue to kick the can down the road and sidestep this vital program that shares widespread support and has been elevated as a priority up to this point." [POLITICO's Morning Education, February 7, 2018]













FAMILY






EXPERIMENTAL MEDICINE





EPA






ENVIRONMENT






ENERGY







Dreamers are being deported and Trump and the GOP aren’t doing anything to clean up the mess Trump made when he ended DACA in September. We need Congress to fix Trump’s mess, but we can’t let Trump use Dreamers as hostages for his extreme immigration plans, which is why we won’t accept anything less than a “clean” Dream Act. 
Protecting Dreamers: We’ve updated our Immigrant Ally Toolkit to help you support Dreamers. DACA recipients will begin losing their protections at a rate of 1,200 a day beginning March 5, and Trump and his white supremacist cronies are holding Dreamers hostage to push a radical anti-immigrant agenda. The fight in Congress over Dream Act continues, but there are ways that you can help locally.
Indivisible Immigrant Ally Toolkit   https://www.indivisible.org/resource/immigrant-ally-toolkit-introduction/


…chief of staff, John F. Kelly, said that many Dreamers failed to register for protected status with the government because they were 'were too afraid to sign up' or were 'too lazy to get off their asses.' He said he doubted Mr. Trump would extend the March 5 deadline that shields them from deportation [Progressive Breakfast, Trump Calls For Shutdown To Force Immigration Demands, February 7, 2018]






NOTE: The news sources here vary.  Not all sources have the same credibility, but in an effort to share some different perspectives, they are included here.  This compendium itself cannot claim to be unbiased.  Please take into consideration where these different perspectives originate in assessing their value.  Thank you

NOTE: I have no official connection to any organization from which information is shared.. Occasionally, I post informational material and/or an opportunity to donate or join as  a "community service" announcement.  These again are shared for their varying perspectives.

Any books listed are random or topic-related to something else in the post.  Think of these as a "library bookshelf" to browse.  They are shared for informational or entertainment value only, not as being recommended
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