Hugs to you! I hate our system. Hate it. I am so sorry.

Same thing here. The reality is meth and some of these stupid novelty drugs that go around from bath crystals to kids eating Tide Pods to....when added to the Opiod epidemic keeps them hopping. It isn't that they aren't concerned about these youngsters, but if the parents look like they are going to intervene, references to help through community services and family court is what is going to happen. They are not going to clog the criminal courts with "15 year old got caught with a doobie" kind of thing. I am okay with that if the parent is actually going to be proactive. The reality is that 15 is young to have a drug bust on his/her record that might, depending on the judge, not be expunged after the 18th birthday, It's the kind of thing that could keep the new, young adult out of college, professional licensing programs, certain trades, jobs, etc. No thanks. If that young life can be turned around without the possibility of such drastic measures, then I'm all for it. Our police departments are stretched thin, and when they have the opportunity to protect a young person from horrible fall out over something much less dangerous than other drugs, I am thankful they try.

In years when I don't have the time and energy to do decorating, I have left our teenage/college boys in charge of it IF they want a tree up. I pay the price, but roll with it because they do a tree whose ornaments are Mountain Dew and Dr. Pepper throw back cans with Star Trek ornaments, white lights, and toilet paper for the garland. They find this quite amusing. I usually take the time to locate my Christmas Evergreen arrangements for the piano and the kitchen island so that I have something pretty to look at. One year when we had been in Egypt doing some work at a hospital there, we came home to find they had put up two trees. The bigger of the two was rocketry themed and the second one had llama and sheep ornaments mixed with my good music themed items. They called the last one "The Musical Farm". So, if you let older kids be in charge, then be prepared to have a sense of humor abou it.

So I did some searching, and my first name is not uncommon, just not popular now, but add my last name the combo gets rather rare. 360 million people, and there are 2945 of me. So .000008 of a percent. I think the Puritans had an awful lot of crazy when it came to naming. Farewell Skye and his brother Die Well, a girl named Fear Not whose last name, no joke, was Helly! Another boy name was Damned Barebone. Damned had a brother names Praise God. Abstinence, More-Fruit Fowler, Rememberence, Hopestill, Humiliation, and Fly-Fornication (no joke, it given to more than one child). Is it just me or do you think that some old fashioned kind of Puritan punishment like a month in stocks should have accompanied naming a child any label that includes "fly" or "fornication", and potentially some lashes for putting them both together??? Good grief. Poor child! So maybe some of the more fringe, novel names we hear in modern times are really quite nice, beautiful in fact. Let us always proclaim it a crime to use the Puritans for baby naming guidance!

I understand where you are coming from, but we also don't know where our kids will land in life. In this global economy, many of our kids will also end up. More than one of my kids is going to end up living abroad so they are going to spend their entire lives spelling their names and teaching people how to say them anyway. Our Danish last name is CONSTANTLY misspelled here. Since I married and took Dh's last name, I have spent 30 years telling people how to spell it, a six letter surname. We increasingly live in a diverse society with people from a plethora of heritages. I have a ridiculously common English name, one that no one would think odd, and I have to spell it everywhere I go. Everywhere. Our eldest daughter has a five letter NOT difficult or unique name at all. She has to spell it. Everyone wants to put a "y" in it even though it is spelled according to the English phonetic rules with an "i". Eldest boy has another ridiculously normal name meaning Christ follower, but he always has to spell it too. The "ph" is considered weird these days I guess even though it is the standard English spelling, very common. My cousin Stephan always, always, always has to spell it because everyone goes for Steven, and his name isn't even pronounced with a 'v" when he introduces himself. He's 48, and has never lived anywhere that he hasn't had to train people how to spell and say his name.

Yes, and I think that in particular, both Alaska and Hawaii would have more unusual or "not white" names than we are used to on the mainland. The Hawaiian language only has 12 letters. The Inuit language has nine written versions and two alphabets with close to 40,000 speakers in the state, I would think that this would lead to some names that are very rare if not non-existent in the other 48 states.

Some countries are pretty strict about this stuff, one is Iceland. Their law is concerned with not mixing up gender because their surnames are all based on the first name of the mother or father with the Icelandic word for son or daughter added to it. Girls have dottir added to their mothers' names and that becomes their surname, and boys have sson added to their father's first names. It is illegal to use anything that approximates a unisex name, or to give a masculine name to a girl and vice versa. The Icelandic Naming Committee is in charge of keeping the official list of what you can and cannot name an Icelandic baby. A young mom in Iceland several years ago didn't seem to be aware of the strictness of the laws and named her daughter Blaer which was considered masculine by the naming committee. This was illegal. While she wasn't fined or forced to change the child's name, the child was punished by being referred to as "girl" plus surname on every official document, and no passport could be issued for lack of a legal first name. Eventually a judge ruled that Blaer could be considered female - a bit of a shocker because culturally they have been against unisex names - and the by then young woman was able to get a passport. Some of this is I think due to the cultural desire to keep their language rather pure. Icelandic has been largely the same for 1200 years and most languages cannot claim such purity. They do not allow Icelandic words to be created for technological advances and such. So computer is computer. Automobile is Automobile, car is car, etc. This way there are no new words introduced to the language. I think that probably makes the naming thing tougher if parents want to do something unique there. With only 338,000 people on the small island, I would imagine that a LOT of people have the same first names, and with their system of surnames, it could get a bit tricky. But they are following their Viking heritage in this regard which is also kind of cool! They also control spelling for this reason. One government official named his daughter Camilla, only to have her registered as Kamilla because Icelandic language has no C. It gets tougher when one parent is from another country because the naming committee has rejected the use of foreign names for children with Icelandic citizenship. Iceland's list of approved names is only about 3500 and Denmark's is around 7000 with a committee that reviews new options or rejects parental choices. Dh's family is Danish - grandpa had dual Danish and US citizenship and his wife had some Danish heritage as well. We named our middle boy after great-grandpa not realizing that his first name was a long standing top three name for baby boys in Denmark for many, many years, and that our last names was also in the top three surnames. He wants to go to grad school in Copenhagen and is almost fluent in Danish at the moment so he has a good chance of being accepted. This should be interesting. He's going to meet a TON of men with the same name.

I don't think it is totally uncommon for children to be named for their parents favorite pursuits in some way. A friend in college who was also a music major named her two daughters Melody and Harmony. Not unusual names per se but definitely reflecting her passion in life, and one of the string professors had a daughter named Viola. Viola is an older, but "normal" female name for sure, but he said she was named that deliberately for his love of the instrument.

I had Remington in my choir. His dad was open about the fact that his kids were named for his hunting and guns hobby. Remington's middle name was Winchester. It kind of stuck with me all of these years because it was so unusual for the times, Hunter not so much. I did not know any other students names Colt, but there were several Cody's in the district.

We have moved cross country three times - anywhere from 1400-2500 miles each time - and the economics of moving that far, putting all of what we brought into temporary housing or storage while we found a home dictated losing attachment to a lot of things. I find that apart from the children's name ornaments and the ones we received from one of my music professors when we got married, a few special toys which we saved for our kids to hand down to their children if they have them, and some china that has been in the family for a century, I am pretty "meh" about everything else other than the baby grand piano, and sadly, if we do end up retiring overseas, she'll have to go. But, I have two adult kids who would like to have her so that's good. Our house is cluttered. Dh is a project man and so are our sons. Sometimes I get completely overwhelmed. I am looking forward to the next move in order to purge it all.

I had a professor whose first name was Garnet, and two great nieces (two different families) one is Ivy and the other Emerald. I also had a Great Great Aunt named Peace. Peace was a somewhat common female name in the 1800's. Her sisters were Temperance, Patience, and Honesty. The four girls' parents were Quaker and lived in a commune type community which may have had something to do with the naming scheme. When I was teaching full time as a young woman so late 80's to late 90's, I had students names Stone, Amethyst, Birch, Brandy/i, Forest, Hawk, Remington, and a Pearl. Among character trait names, I had two Charities that I recall, and one Serene. I had a lot of students over the years and most had what I would describe as more conventional names though some had unconventional spellings of those names. I used to have to constantly remind myself not to spell one young girl's name, Hannuh as Hannah. Oh, and my sister has a nephew whose name is "Indiana". His parents named him that because he was conceived there while they were on a business trip. So I didn't encounter anything quite so unusual as Abcde, but definitely some names that are very uncommon. Remington had two brothers named Hunter and Colt. Hunter is common, but Remington definitely not. You can imagine what the father's big hobby was.

When I do chores on my friend's horse and llama farm in the dead of winter, I wear JcPenney Cuddle Duds under my clothes. They work very well for me even when it is below zero with terrible wind chills. I also use those handwarmer packs from my local farm store when it is really terrible out. They make a new one now for body heat that you place on your chest or some other part of your body. We bought a bunch of these for our son who is going to college in the upper peninsula of Michigan and has a ton of walking between the engineering building which is not on main campus, and then his classes near the university center. He says that one placed on his chest really helps his body stay warmer.

Big believer in easy and enjoyable. I'm making clam chowder, roasting chicken with veggies, and stuffed mushrooms. MIL and mom will make desserts. I will likely buy disposable plates and cups so all I have to wash are pots and silverware/utensils. I normally don't do that, but we leave on the 26th for Huntsville, AL so I want to be resting in the afternoon and evening since I'll do all of the driving the next day. The boys will want cinnamon rolls that morning, but I can't eat them and am allergic now to wheat so prefer not to handle it or inhale it though those reactions are quite mild. I decided to get them at the bakery the day before. Leftovers and snacks around supper time.

I was just reading another article that said in Chau's notes, he mentioned he was bringing scissors as a gift to the Sentinelese. Wow. I just don't know what logic brings one to determine that A. scissors would be highly prized by the Sentinelese B. that they wouldn't simply use them as a weapon C. that this would be - if one were going to bring sharp implements - more useful than a hatchet D....... My brain goes lots of places on this one.

I am leaving now to take my ds back to college. He couldn't get a ride during this break so the round trip is up to us. I won't be able to respond until tomorrow, but I will be pondering this throughout the drive and discussing it with ds. All of my sons have had interesting things to contribute as we've discussed this at home this week, and that kind of thing, willing to really explore the issues at stake and carefully consider them gives me hope that maybe the next generation may be able to do better on the tough, moral conundrums we face in a global, non homogenous world where increasingly cultures whack up against each other in tense and violent ways. There is always hope that someone will break the cycle of human exploitation and be able to truly help one another. I would love it if there was a spin off thread on the concept of universal morality and for those that believe it, exactly what does that mean and how do they think all peoples are informed of it or instinctively should know it or whatever. It's a pretty could discussion topic for exploring issues that seem to continually distress the planet. Oh, and someone above mentioned climate change, environmental problems and how that will affect these peoples. I think that very slow and not particularly violent change is something that they will likely adapt to like everyone does. My concern is we are rapidly approaching the "this ain't going to be a slow ride anymore" climate situation and with such low population, these folks will not be able to adapt and survive. I've been looking at the data and the rising sea levels which seem to be rising faster than was predicted even just ten years ago, and I am rather convinced that time is quite rapidly running out for them.

I agree that so often thinking is very, very binary. Reminds me of an episode of Young Sheldon when he thinks he's going to get the secrets of the universe from 10 who turns out to be 1 and 0 not ten because it is a binary universe, LOL. Anthropologically, my son who is a senior and majoring in it says that so far in all of his classes and the lectures of visiting anthropologists, no society/tribe/culture has been presented that is without capacity in their own language and people group to mull issues of moral code and ethics. Now that said, there is no universal morality that they all will ever settle on that's for sure. And that makes sense, while it is in my 2018 mind that I'm not going to go killing babies no matter how much of a bizarre threat I might think they be, it wasn't only 300 years ago during the puritan reign over Boston that midwives drowned babies with birthmarks or deformities as soon as they were born and told the preacher the baby was "stillborn" so he and the elders wouldn't even want to look at it in order to spare the mother being put on trial as a witch or someone who "fornicated with Satan." Ya...I read that in a text on the history of midwifery. Ai yi yi yi yi yi and that morality was supposedly informed by judeo christian belief so ouch. He said it is absolutely, universally true that nearly every single society has had justified homicide and infanticide, and the use of the word justified means "according to them". True pacifism is exceptionally rare. But ya, they have the capacity to wrestle with ethics and morality, but it just doesn't mean they will arrive at the conclusion that killing babies or outsiders, or jim bob for stealing your coconut, or whatever is wrong.

Bluegoat, you also made excellent points for discussion. One of them in particular interests me in the concept of isolationism that innocence craves experience. I think that generally that is true. I think most neurotypical minds do crave experience to some degree, obviously personality traits come into play so some crave it more than others. However, I don't think it is necessarily, universally true of all neurotypical persons although again this is all subjective because even the definition of the bell curve of normal is a hot debate topic among neurologists, educators, and psychologists. But I also have to wonder if the collective memories of the Andaman Islands tribes could be bad enough that they've lost their craving for experience without that being a symptom of a less than neurotypical mind...I think of it as trauma memory. Of course without the ability communicate, there is no way to know what on earth they are thinking other than, "They clearly don't want us around and will kill us to make that point!" I do get where you are coming from, and probably we all need to be much more neutral on the concept of lost cultures and civilizations. In many ways it is the "circle of life" for humans. Now the way in which these cultures, languages, etc. are lost is another matter entirely. I think you and I both agree that most of the ways this has happened in the past are very bad indeed. I agree also that 10,000 years from now very little if any of what we esteem to be our highly developed culture will be left. That's just not the way it works, well, unless future generations get awful weirdly, obsessive about preserving it! LOL

I think this is a valid point. From the standpoint of enforcing morality or trying to get a tribe to change, but it is a very nuanced view, and societies such as these tend to see everything in a very black and white way without caveats, exceptions, and grey area. In terms of being right or being wrong, in the case of the Sentinelese, I am not convinced that they have even a sense of that. There is survival, the way it has always been, tribal think etc. So it is something we understand, but definitely not something that they do. I am reminded of a medical doctor that told me about his work with a hospital in eastern Africa with a group of people who were really not very developed compared to say North African nations like Egypt or Morocco. Their language went, 'One, two, three, a whole bunch." That's it. One would get nowhere trying to explain 2+2=4. I think it could be like this with isolated people groups. They may not even have words that express concepts of morality, right and wrong. So the idea of universal morality only goes so far. It is one thing to believe that something is objectively wrong or objectively right, it is quite another to introduce this to a group who apparently didn't get the universe's message and has no language or social skills through which such a message could be taught. I know that there are people who do believe in some sort of morality under-girding the very fabric of time, space, and life, that they should by virtue of living and breathing automatically know that they shouldn't kill the baby or the ridiculous, shouting, singing hooligan on the beach whom they can't understand in the slightest. However, I cannot agree that this universal truth has actually been effectively conveyed through the very fabric of the planet.

Sorry, I had a performance tonight so was gone for a while...thankfully an early performance because I've got a fourteen hour drive tomorrow to get my son back to school, and myself back home! But I digress. So, I am not arguing that it was universally good to kill the baby or the man. I'm not. Seriously folks, if you knew me, you'd know I'd be the one trying to get my hands on that baby and spirit it away from the aggressors or jumping in front of the arrow despite believing that the guy was an idiot. But, I think it's a useful thought experiment, and that people can learn from each other by discussing opposing viewpoints. In my case, if it is universally wrong to the kill the baby, then I have to ask "who gets to decide what is universally wrong, and who gets to decide when this morality is enforced on people outside one's own dominion?" These are valid questions. Who gets to be the judge and jury over other people groups, other nations, other sovereign entities? I will say this in response to some other posts. I take serious issue with the concept that letting a child die because his parents can't afford insulin is less appalling than what happened to this infant. My universal morality doesn't believe that AT ALL. I consider what is happening to starving children in Yemen every bit as much murder as what happened to this baby. I think that when an infant with infantile spasms is allowed to die for lack of access to readily available medicine that is murder on the exact same level. No difference. And I'd argue that the child that dies by inches for a few months seizing upwards of 200 times per day, suffers a hell of a lot more than the short period of time it took for the baby to be drowned, and it hurts to even have to type that! So no, your universal morality that the child who dies because something is withheld is slightly less evil is simply not a universally held truth. I live in the damn effing filthy richest nation and this crap happens every fricking day. It makes my heart bleed and my head explode. So is my morality that finds it just as deplorable to withhold medicine to the not endowed-with-wealth-child just as "good" or is it better than those that do not view it through their universal lens the same way, or find it to be equally as wrong? And who gets to decide between us which "universal morality" is the right one? I would suggest that it is simply put, the will of the majority within the nation with the ability to oppress the weaker one. The stronger, the ones with the greater will to force themselves on the others, wins. That's it. The morality that is the most true ends up being not that which is objectively true, but that which comes with enough will, enough money, enough resource, enough weapons to impose itself on the other. And that probably sounds fine to those who subscribe to that morality. However, you have to admit that when the "my morality is the best" argument is imposed on others, the only way to make it stick and force a change is through violent means if the "other" doesn't want to change from within. What makes the violent means required to force my morality on them any worse than what they have done to begin with? I'm asking. And it could be that no one here thinks that it should be forced. We could all just be grieving out loud about a couple of really horrific situations in the world. Oh we wish they would change, and we wish there was some way to reach them without wiping them out - and for the Sentinelese that isn't too likely because with only 50-75 people in the tribe, they don't have enough genetic diversity to likely survive the mess we'd bring to the island if the collective we came to change them from their barbaric ways to civilized people. Maybe people do not propose ideas of forced change. But the thing is, human history has shown us that these kinds of things only generally happen when tragic, horrific actions are taken. The Aztecs didn't exactly give up human sacrifice on the grounds of appeals to universal morality. They stopped because when your dead, you can't kill anyone else. That's why I'm trying to get the discussion beyond a concept that the Jarawa killed a baby so their culture doesn't have a right to survive or the Sentinelese shouldn't have killed that guy, towards "Okay so it happened and the consensus is that our civilization, our morality is better or best so what do people actually advocate in order to change the people on these islands?" Or do the universal moralists advocate doing nothing? I mean I can see that. We can all be REALLY convinced we are right and still not be comfortable with doing anything significant about it because the methodology needed to do something about it would be rather unpalatable or potentially immoral according to our own moral beliefs which is just a conundrum. And if isolationism and protectionism is considered bad because it prevents them from being exposed to other moral ideas, then will there be moral outrage if they end up extinct, suffering horrifically from their exposure to the moral right? For my part I'm not sure. Really. I think that these isolated tribes will go extinct and in the process encounter a lot of tragedy, a lot of suffering if anything changes. Even the best of NGO's probably cannot stop the hoard of developers, exploiters, human traffickers, and oppressors from flocking to the island should government protection and isolationism fall. Human history has taught us that colonial "go civilize the natives" under the guise of ANY good intentions doesn't usually end well. I think other babies, other children, other innocents will die and in large numbers. It is sad that I have so little faith in the civilized world to do better, but given what is tolerated within our own societies, I can not possibly imagine it won't happen. Shoot. Look at the collateral damage our nation has done under the heading of "good'. What comes to mind is the movie "Medicine Man" with Sean Connery and Loraine Bracco. The seemingly innocent researcher kills 20,000 from swine flu for which he could not possibly have been vaccinated at the time. He makes the new girl take a medical exam in order to bathe in the water supply. Ha. Nice try Sean Connery. The stuff that will kill them is the stuff she probably hasn't shown symptoms of yet or that is laying dormant in her blood stream. The do-gooders are followed into the rainforest by "the road" and the road brings the exploiters, thus burns the forest, and with it many innocent lives lost. Part and parcel. This is what the civilized do to the uncivilized. I'm not certain my moral code allows me to consider these people to be so "bad" that my moral good should be brought to their door since it's likely to wipe them out. So ya, I think killing babies is awful! I don't think it is good from the perspective of my morality which has, for the most part, been a fairly "universal" outlook in the West. But I don't think we are any better than them. Truly. If anything the culture of this nation is actually worse. hey killed over a sense of fear, a sense of self preservation, misguided or not, self defense. We, the good ole US of A kill for profit and indifference. My moral code informs me that my country's motivation is worse than that tribe's. Sad commentary on how I feel about modern society. Oh, and about the Sentinelese, you can't make the case that maybe it was just the actions of just a couple of men, just a few, that they all don't feel that way. The Indian Government has confirmed that when drones have been sent over just to check on their welfare after the tsunami, the tribe absolutely swarmed the beach and shot arrows at the machinery. Fishermen have reported similar responses of large numbers of angry arrow lobbing tribesmen at the sighting of fishing boats too close to the beach. These people as a unit have been quite serious about wanting to be left alone. They do want to be isolated. I think it is a very useful discussion.

That is what we believe. But they don't have any way of knowing that. And just because our experience is that killing innocents is never good, that does not mean they have failed to experience the opposite. In all likelihood, they have experienced a benefit for them. That's really horrific to think about, but ya, it does happen. Ouch. Again, it is a determination of us to use our experience to inform others of "good" while NOT taking into account their own experiences or our own inability to prevent "bad" from happening to them. All they know of outsider people has pretty much been bad, bad, bad, bad, bad so not letting an outsider baby live is logical and rational to their situation even if it is not palatable to us, horrific, and a violation of our moral code. We can't say with any surety that they will suffer terrible consequences for doing it. Really. Gut wrenching, I know. But American History, European History is not the only history in this world. I will be honest with you. Had the Wampanoag slaughtered the original Plimoth colonists and all that attempted to come after them, it is reasonable to believe that millions of Native Americans would not have died. That's very sobering to think about. However, it is a definite possibility. We don't know for sure. It is however a definite possibility. And again you or I or ANYONE else can't go into that society of isolated peoples and change it without killing. It can't be done as far as I can tell. Biohazmat suits fail, tensions run high, someone misinterprets someone else's actions or words, and lethal offense is taken. Where is there a case in human history of "people who know better" going into an indigenous people group, and its all unicorns and rainbows. I have been searching online for such a case. I haven't been able to find one. On our own continent, people who knew better made the population of of Native Americans drop by 90% in one hundred years. Are we so conceited that we think we would NOT do this now? I question our ability. I really do. Even the best and most purely motivated NGO's seeking to do nothing but good and bring glad tidings to all the people with medicine, clean water, vitamins, whatever will not be able to stop the horde of developers and greed mongers from following in their footsteps, raping and pillaging the island, decimating the people all while making lovely deposits to the bank as they build their resorts on the beach and charge a thousand dollars a night to stay there very likely parading the meager survivors of the tribes around like museum exhibits. It has been done in our recent memory. It is still happening in the Amazon and the only thing we have to show for it is millions of dead people, and climate change from the destruction of the environment. How has that worked out well for anyone? Really. I'm asking. It seems just so naive to think that we should intervene and change this culture so it more matches our own and believe that this will be a good for everyone. I don't think that human nature has changed so radically in recent decades that it will suddenly happen now. I don't think the Indian government protects them because it personally gives a flying fig about preserving their culture and morals. most governments are not motivated by such things. I think they do it because they've figured out that outsiders bring death and destruction always, and these humans have a right to survive too, and a right to self determination just like the "civilized" folks. Also, I would ask how we are better? This is an honest question. Sure. It's not palatable to many that they killed this baby as a matter of either discrimination or survival or maybe even a blend of both. BUT, and I think this is a huge, legitimate, honest question, every year in this nation tens of thousands of people die from environmental devastation, lack of access to the healthcare we want to force these people to accept, lack of meds - tens of thousands predicted to now die due to inability to afford insulin which was sacrificed on the altar of corporate greed - homeless people freezing to death in the winter, turning away asylum seekers who very surely face horrors on their return home, etc. We watch people die in Venezuela, Guatamala, El Salavador by the thousands and pretty much do not one darn thing about it. How are we any more civilized? Who are we to say the Jarawa and Sentinelese shouldn't be able to make these determinations for themselves. Our very own country is barbaric, backward, savage. We just look shiny with all of our technology. The costume masks the inner soul of the culture. I am genuinely asking, but I just don't see it. I'm not utilitarian, not a nihilist. Really. I have a pretty heightened sense of morality and a lot of it looks like judeo christian type morality too which is the accepted basis around here for moral "truth". However, I do not honestly see this from the standpoint of our culture as a whole, our society, our leadership. What I see is a tremendous amount of glossy, glittery looking advancement as a veneer on a society that is still pretty barbaric at times, and the benefits of which are distributed largely along lines of wealth and discrimination which doesn't seem particularly moral either. Until we clean up our own acts, I honestly don't think we have the right to decide if their culture is worth preserving or not. I would imagine there are lot of countries and people groups that look at the good ole USA and think, "I really don't think their culture is worth allowing to survive." We should be very, very careful playing the judge and jury on this one unless we are okay with others doing it to us. I don't think we are prepared to allow the intervention of those that would deem our culture unworthy to continue. These are genuine questions for those that do not think these people should be protected or their way of life preserved due to moral issues. Interestingly, again with Star Trek...darn those progressive, wild ideas of the writers. It's worth exploring the concept of the Federation of Planets "The Prime Directive" and the good, the bad, and the ugly of it. It's an interesting concept. Obviously Kirk and Janeway *the two captains I know about pretty well" saw fit to play loose and fast with that ideal when it benefited the crew to do so. But, I think it is a very interesting premise to discuss because it kind of goes to the heart of the current matter we are discussing.

On the topic of not knowing how to make fire, that is pretty easy in a tropical/rainforest type environment. We tend to again think of it from our perspective which is of living in a country with a lot of dry wood, dry kindling, ability to keep fire starters dry. We also think of it from the perspective of a country chock full of mineral resources that make it easy to produce spark. But they likely live an a very humid, very wet, rainy tropical environment without a lot of metal resources. It is crazy difficult to start a fire in that kind of place. Try it. Go out into your yard after a good deluge, wet, rainy spring...gather up wet leaves, some sicks that have fallen from the trees, maybe some bark. Try rubbing your wet sticks together. Don't take a flint; be the Sentinelese, go without iron. Give it a try. You probably can't do it no matter how many hours you exhaust yourself trying it. I can easily see why they have to "harvest" fire from lightening strikes and then work like crazy to never let that fire go out! Note to self, never go remote without matches and a butane lighter. That's just the very best way to do it. Also note that advancement of civilizations requires access to a plethora of resources. Forging metal requires the ability to melt it which requires the ability to sustain fires hot enough to reach hundreds of degrees (for lead and bismuth, antimony, etc....the soft metals), if not thousands of degrees (steel, iron, etc. not mention making glass), and you have to have those elements to begin with in large enough ore to mine it and harvest it. Many of these remote islands are pretty much botanical only kinds of places. So yah, they have sand, but without rocks, and caves and such out of which to make forges, metal working isn't going to happen. Note that they must not have it because they have to harvest metal from refuse that washes up on the beach. There is only so much you can do with plants. Sure food, medicine, clothing....but to move beyond a hunter gatherer society more resources are needed. I can easily see why they haven't progressed. Egypt, Greece, Akkadia, Babylon, Persia, Rome....they all became what they did because of access to much greater diversity and quantity of natural resources.

I think that what most "civilized" peoples struggle with is the right of self determination. We want it for ourselves, but often decide that our own lives are so much better we have a moral obligation to deny self determination to other people groups in order to impose our "better life" on them. The interesting thing is that we tend to view those without technological advances or modern medicine or bed mattresses and electricity or whatever as miserable or something. We don't really have any evidence for it. The Native Americans were without guns, saddles, wagons, ships, any number of advancements that the colonists brought with them and yet no evidence that life was horrible for them, none at all. It is an emotionally based perspective informed by the fact that because we like our advancements that others are just suffering mightily without them. To be true, in some cases this is the reality. Unclean water, inability to store food, etc. these things can be horrific and cause tremendous suffering. But it isn't across the board true that isolated people groups are all necessarily miserable. To be honest, some of them are DARN healthy, way healthier than we are. Evolution being a two edged sword, the one thing it does for a time within these groups is allow those without the immunity to the local diseases to die and not pass on their genes, while those that do survive have a nice immunity to pass on to the next generation. So long as the tribe is large enough to prevent genetic issues from becoming an issue, health and well being is often the case for these peoples. The other side of the genetic sword is of course isolation without genetic diversity over time produces serious problems such as are experienced in Lancaster County among the Amish where many families face a one in four change of horrific genetic problems among their children. "Bubble syndrome" comes to mind. One in 45,000-70,000 individuals nationwide will be born with this out a population of 300+ million people. But some Amish families have a 25-30% chance of it among their own. It wouldn't take too many generations of that going on before their population is decimated. Often barring the disaster of cultures bumping up against one another, a hunter gatherer society can be pretty comfortable. It's just human nature. We adapt and become comfortable with what we know. Misery and suffering is not always easily defined as absolutes. Dying of any disease, any injury is suffering and tragic. But we don't exactly avoid that here in America or any other developed nation. Sometimes we actually experience the opposite, avoiding death by drawing out the inevitable with medical technology to the place that the end is slow, and full of horrific pain and fear. LOL, sometimes I listen to pharmaceutical commercials and after the ridiculously long list of side effects many of which are lethal have run the screen, I think "NO Thanks, I'd rather just handle the disease as it comes!" Without our advances, likely some of these ends would be much quicker. So again, that two edged sword thing, and we can't claim that we've got it all figured out for ourselves much less for everyone else. The Jarawa have a right to self determination so if they decide they want to play with outsiders and technology, so be it. I would hope that the Indian Government would be able to find a way to keep the worst elements of civilization, Big For Profit Business, away from them. I doubt it though. I get why they killed the baby. The Jarawa are down to 270 ish souls. They are also in danger of extinction. That baby represented the possibility that the father, the father's people group, law enforcement, social workers, someone coming after it. I would imagine that the men who did it felt they were doing a collective good to prevent more invasion. Under British colonialism in just one year, 150 of their children were killed by disease brought in by the civilized. For a tribe that at the time only numbered a few thousand, that's like putting an entire generation in the grave. So I fear their curiosity won't end well for them, and I get why some men thought it was a good idea to end the child's life for the greater benefit. For the most part, I don't think it is possible given the motivations of most cultures, for isolated people groups to not end up on the wrong side of allowing outsiders into their midst. Even with the most altruistic ideals under-girding the attempts, I think the chances are that it does more harm than good. But the Jarawa, for good or for bad, have the right to do it if they so please. I find that very sad. I have no faith in civilized humans to NOT take advantage of them or inadvertently kill them off despite good intentions. As for religion, I get what the idiot believed. I do. It is preached heavily around here, and the local pastor here in town, an acquaintance we run into a lot and who stopped by to wish us a Happy Thanksgiving yesterday, has indicated through his email contact list that he will be using the worship service this Sunday to specifically memorialize this person and his martyrdom. I emailed and suggested that it is the height of avarice to believe that someone shouting about Jesus and singing worship songs in English to a tribe who does not understand the language, has no written language and no record of their language from which linguists can work therefore NO ONE can learn the language, is legitimate evangelism. It's just a reckless, unintelligent action. He didn't email me back. Maybe he isn't looking at his email today. I suspect though that he isn't happy with my viewpoint. That said, while others have indicated they believe he had to have been mentally ill because his irrational belief and reckless behavior must directly translate to diseased brain, I don't think it follows. Seriously. We'd have to label a massive portion of the world as mentally ill for what they believe if this were the case, and then we'd have to decide who gets to be the arbitur of what is and what is not rational. We already do that to some extent based on the reality of what we experience with our senses so we recognize things like hallucinations or delusions based on our perceptions of reality and call the sufferer mentally ill. But we'd have to open a massive pandora's box if we take it all that much further. I think we want to be very careful about that. It wouldn't take much to label all religious folks as irrational so by extension mentally ill. I am pretty certain that there would be an outcry bar none. So don't give this guy the pass of being ill. I doubt it. Unless there is evidence of mental illness from his life and medical record, other more bizarre behavior that would point to defined illness, etc. the more likely scenario is he was stupidly reckless which is within the bell curve of normal for humans, no other explanation needed. If anything, it would be nice if whatever church and religious group he hung out with would re-examine some of what they preach and how they influence people. But I don't think that will happen given the family statement and the general view of him as heroic by the people who knew him.

This. And they didn't kill him on an uncivilized, petty whim either. They gave him warnings that they did not want him there and would use lethal force, despite the language barrier these were quite obvious signs of "get the heck out of here", and he came back anyway. That's a lot like the the creep trying to come through a kid's bedroom window and the parent yells, "I've got a weapon and I will use it", and he keeps coming, so the parent waves the weapon at him, and he keeps coming, so the parent uses the weapon. There would be mass support on this board for that very situation. I don't subscribe to the philosophy that he must have had something mentally wrong, not unless we are going to begin labeling a LOT of religious people as insane. His outlook is actually rather mainstream among holiness association churches, charismatic churches, dominionist and reconstructionist churches, etc. and yes, they would view him as martyr, a saint of the church. I doubt that very many here would be comfortable relegating a wide range of religious belief to the category of mental illness. Pre-millennial dispensationalists in a variety of churches (though certainly not all who subscribe to this doctrine) believe that the Bible must be translated into every language on earth which means that every single tribe must be contacted, and every single oral language given a written form, and the people taught to read that new written language, and the Bible disseminated in that tongue in order for the tribulation and then the coming millennial reign of Christ to occur. They also believe it is their job to support efforts to make that happen or become actively involved in the financial support of it. This is not some fringe group. We are talking about hundreds of thousands of people who believe this. While they may never have the conviction to go make the attempt on their own, they are very supportive of someone just like this 26 year old dead man. We have whole churches in this area who believe this, preach this. So unless one is going to play loose and free with the term "mental illness", I don't think it applies here provided there isn't new information about his life and medical history that would indicate real, mental illness symptoms.

Agreeing with Terabith, it is appalling that the family even THINKS from this perspective. The only person who needed forgiveness for anything was the man who put them in danger, and anyone who may have supported him in his actions. The statement from the family is deeply offensive.

This. From their perspective, he was every bit as dangerous as we would deem a terrorist here. Their history is that of a people for whom contact with outsiders has ended horrifically numerous times. And he may yet kill them from grave if they handled his body. The incubation period for many viruses that we carry and are not vaccinated for - the common cold, flu, and several others is 24-72 hours, but for tuberculosis - something that is on the rise here in the States - it is 2-12 weeks, bronchiolitis is 3-5 days, enterovirus is 6-12 days, 3-5 for strep, 4-10 for staff, 2-14 for adenovirus, up to 20 days on pertusis, 1-4 weeks on bacterial pneumonia, etc. and people are contagious prior to being symptomatic. His vaccinations are not that much of a protection for these folks. Their isolation means that diseases that are not a danger to him or would be easily treated here are total killers to them. He may yet cause the extinction of this tribe. His going was a premeditated attempted genocide whether or not he fully understood that. Ignorance is really not a pass either. There is no correlation that can be drawn between immigration issues in a country that has the ability to quickly identify sick people, and has hospitals all over its nation capable of bio-hazard quarantine. Think about how we handled the ebola patient in Texas. They don't have that, and he KNEW they were that isolated from medical technology. His journal entries indicate that he received multiple, hostile warnings, and he still went back. It isn't as if they simply murdered him on sight. They gave him the option to save his own skin. They made it clear they weren't messing around. And he ignored it. He was, to them, a potentially homicidal maniac. I have nothing but sympathy for them. The fear they live with is all encompassing, and informs their lives in ways most Americans can't wrap their brains around. I am saddened that there are posters on this topic that have in past threads strongly advocated for "stand your ground" and self defense laws, the right to own lethal weapons in order to defend against perceived threat, but seem to think the actions of the tribe were extreme. We talk sometimes about the concept of white privilege, but I think that we need to actually discuss the concept of "American Privilege" along with the general privilege afforded Christianity when it comes to interactions with non-american cultures because there appears to be a double standard. From their perspective, he deserved to die, and frankly, given what was at stake for them, it is their perspective that counts the most, with the government of India - ie laws of the nation - coming in second. It is very sad for his family that he did such a profoundly terrible thing. However, I think that most of the emotional energy should be focused on hoping and praying he didn't end up bringing something to that island that will kill this fragile people.