Convicts = Good Organ Donors?

Why would anyone who did something bad enough to be on death row want to do something good for people?

According to Christian Longo, who murdered his wife and three children, lots of convicts like himself would like to donate their internal organs to those in need. Hmmph.

I guess if I were in a situation where I needed an organ, or someone I knew needed an organ, it would be good to have the option to take one from a generous inmate. I would say that as long as the sick patient knows where their donation is coming from, and is okay with it, then it should be allowed.

Longo's prison, and others, currently do not allow organ donation by those with the death penalty. Read Longo's article to see whether you support a change on this policy.  He brings up some good points. It's true that it is a waste of otherwise healthy organs. He argues that if his state were to use a safer chemical in his lethal injection that his organs would remain healthy.

Also, knowing that a donor is available, and knowing the exact date and time that the organ would become available is quite interesting to think about. I just watched Never Let Me Go the other day, which is a pretty depressing movie, but it is about a made up society where we clone people to be organ donors. Essentially the characters in the movie were prisoners themselves, with a death sentence scheduled for their mid to late twenties.

Is your degree worth it?

Here's a good one for college students -- a news writer telling us again that we're going to school for nothing! We could all use some extra pessimism throughout college, right?

I got this interesting article in my NY Times daily email update the other day. It basically reinforces that the job world is changing and that jobs are going to computers. The one thing about this article that wasn't so bad was that it suggested that we need to think ahead and try to focus on different types of careers for our futures. However, it suggests leaving education out of the plan -- interesting.

Computers are easily stealing all the jobs that are easy to automate like in factories and your local Stop and Shop checkout. The article suggests that certain jobs will never be automated. Anyone wanna quit school and be a truck driver? That's what the newspapers think we should do.

This is a bad sign.

A lot of students seem down about the worth of their degrees right now. My literature professor actually spends five to ten minutes a class just giving us cheerful news about the economy! She's sweet. We all need a little bit of hope sometimes.