The Community Podcast Herb Williams

Some people with Parkinson’s disease find that using cannabis products helps to ease certain symptoms, according to results from a survey. “These survey results offer a broad overview of real-world cannabis use patterns and experience among a large group of people living with [Parkinson’s] and provide initial results regarding the differential symptomatic effects of different cannabis products, researchers wrote.

Some people with Parkinson’s disease find that using cannabis products helps to ease certain symptoms, according to results from a survey. These survey results offer a broad overview of real-world cannabis use patterns and experience among a large group of people living with Parkinson’s and provide initial results regarding the differential symptomatic effects of different cannabis products, researchers wrote.

What are the five biggest problems facing black Americans? Where do things like racism and police brutality rank? What about the absence of black fathers? Taleeb Starkes, author of Amazon #1 bestseller "Black Lies Matter," lists the five. They may surprise you.

Why Study History?
Victor Davis Hanson

Is it important to study history? Why do we need to know what’s come before us? Isn’t it enough to just “live in the moment?” Renowned historian Victor Davis Hanson explores these important questions.

3 Moral Issues About Abortion
Michael W. Austin PhD

Let's not touch on the question that most preoccupies discussion of the subject -- whether abortion should be legal or illegal.
But let's talk in an unemotional way. The only question here is the moral one: Is ending the life of a human fetus -- moral?

Let's begin with this question: Does the human fetus have any value and any rights? Now, it's a scientific fact that a human fetus is human life. Those who argue that the human fetus has no rights say that a fetus is not a person. But even if you believe that, it doesn't mean the fetus has no intrinsic value or no rights. There are many living beings that are not persons that have both value and rights: Dogs and other animals, for example. And that's Moral Argument Number One: A living being doesn't have to be a person in order to have intrinsic moral value and rights.

When challenged with this argument, people usually change the subject to the rights of the mother -- meaning the right of a mother to end her fetus's life under any circumstance, for any reason, and at any time in her pregnancy. Is that moral? It is only if we believe that the human fetus has no intrinsic worth. But in most cases, nearl everyone believes that the human fetus has essentially infinite worth and an almost absolute right to live. When? When a pregnant woman wants to give birth. Then, society -- and its laws -- regard the fetus as so valuable that if someone were to kill that fetus, that person could be prosecuted for homicide. Only if a pregnant woman doesn't want to give birth, do many people regard the fetus as worthless. Now, does that make sense?

It doesn't seem to. Either a human fetus has worth or it doesn't. And this is Moral Argument Number Two: On what moral grounds does the mother alone decide a fetus's worth? We certainly don't do that with regard to a newborn child. It is society, not the mother -- or the father -- that determines whether a newborn child has worth and a right to live.

So, the question is: Why should that be different before the human being is born? Why does one person, a mother, get to determine whether that being has any right to live? People respond by saying that a woman has the right to "control her body. " Now, that is entirely correct. The problem here, however, is that the fetus is not "her body;" it is in her body. It is a separate body. And that's Moral Argument Number Three. No one ever asks a pregnant woman, "How's your body? " when asking about the fetus. People ask, "How is the baby? "

The Abortion Debate
There is much confusion in the abortion debate. The existence of a heartbeat is not enough, on its own, to confer a right to life. On this, I believe many pro-lifers are mistaken. But on the pro-choice side, is it ethical to abort fetuses as a way to select the gender of one's child,or instance?

We should not focus solely on the fetus, of course, but also on the interests of the mother, father, and society as a whole. Many believe that in order to achieve this goal, we need to provide much greater support to women who may want to ive birth and raise their children, but choose not to for financial, psychoogical, health, or relationship reasons; that adoption should be much less expensive, so that it is a live option for more qualified parents; and that quality health care should be accessible to all.

I fear, however, that one thing that gets lost in all of the dialogue, debate, and rhetoric surrounding the abortion issue is the nature of the human fetus. This is certainly not the only issue. But it is crucial to determining the morality of abortion, one way or the other. People on both sides of the debate would do well to build their views with this in mind.

Slavery and The Plantation

Sugar plantation in the British colony of Antigua, 1823
Planters embraced the use of slaves mainly because indentured labor became expensive. Some indentured servants were also leaving to start their own farms as land was widely available. Colonists tried to use Native Americans for labor, but they were susceptible to European diseases and died in large numbers. The plantation owners then turned to enslaved Africans for labor. In 1665, there were fewer than 500 Africans in Virginia but by 1750, 85 percent of the 235,000 slaves lived in the Southern colonies, Virginia included. Africans made up 40 percent of the South’s population.

According to the 1840 United States Census, one out of every four families in Virginia owned slaves. There were over 100 plantation owners who owned over 100 slaves.The number of slaves in the 15 States was just shy of 4 million in a total population 12.4 million and the percentage was 32% of the population.

Number of slaves in the Lower South: 2,312,352 (47% of total population) 4,919 million.
Number of slaves in the Upper South: 1,208,758 (29% of total population) 4,165 million.
Number of slaves in the Border States: 432,586 (13% of total population) 3,323 million.
Fewer than one-third of Southern families owned slaves at the peak of slavery prior to the Civil War. In Mississippi and South Carolina the figure approached one half. The total number of slave owners was 385,000 (including, in Louisiana, some free African Americans), amounting to approximately 3.8% of the Southern and Border states population.


Tobacco field
On a plantation with more than 100 slaves, the capital value of the slaves was greater than the capital value of the land and farming implements. The first plantations occurred in the Caribbean islands, particularly, in the West Indies on the island of Hispaniola, where it was initiated by the Spaniards in the early 16th century. The plantation system was based on slave labor and it was marked by inhumane methods of exploitation. After being established in the Caribbean islands, the plantation system spread during the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries to European colonies in the Americas and Asia. All the plantation system had a form of slavery in its establishment, slaves were initially forced to be labors to the plantation system, these slaves were primarily native Indians, but the system was later extended to include slaves shipped from Africa. Indeed, the progress of the plantation system was accompanied by the rapid growth of the slave trade. The plantation system peaked in the first half of the 18th century, but later on, during the middle of 19th century, there was a significant increase in demand for cotton from European countries, which means there was a need for expanding the plantation in the southern parts of United States. This made the plantation system reach a profound crisis, until it was changed from being forcing slave labour to being mainly low-paid wage labors who contained a smaller proportion of forced labour. The monopolies were insured high profits from the sale of plantation products by having cheap labours, forced recruitment, peonage and debt servitude.