United the Arab World wins; Divided they fall. Jordan stands as hopeful leader.

The arab world divided by clans, religious clashes between Sunni and Shiah Muslims, stressed by huge numbers of refugees, with incredible instability in countries with failing governments, with staggering income inequality and pockets of poverty, with strict difference in roles of women and men, must unite to stand or fall if they continue to remain divided, now is faced with one of the deadliest, most gruesome, and unacceptable situations in decades – the unholy and despicable Islamic State.

I condemn the atrocities against children, citizens in the Arab World, and captives – especially the recent burning of a Jordanian pilot – may his soul rest in peace and may God (Allah) bring mercy and comfort to those who have suffered and are suffering.

Jordan is a monarchy that respects the historical, religious, and cultural issues, and therefore should be supported by all and emulated by others. May God (Allah), as well as the words of the prophets bring wisdom and strength to his majesty King Abdullah II.

They still however, have not solved the problems of poverty and refugees, nor the religious differences. This Associated Press article explains this a bit – click here.

I urge King Abdullah II to stand as a leader of the Arab world by:

1) educating and explaining the clan system, its importance, and its necessity to the west, as well as the differences between Sunni and Shiah Muslims;

2) bring conferences between the Shiah and Sunni clans, as well as the Kurds and other minority religious groups, so that they can unite to fight the barbaric Islamic State and crush it;

3) bring conferences to unite about how to stamp out poverty, give their populations a better life and help the refugees;

4) bring conferences to unite about how best to elevate their societies through cooperation over science, resources, education, environmental issues, health issues, etc.; and

5) explain how he has moved his country slowly and respectfully toward greater democratic reforms, which are molded to and respectful of his culture, religion, and clan system.

In this way, the Arab World will be more peaceful, more prosperous, and more of a leader to the rest of the world.

Death from lack of dental care increasing in United States

Tooth and gum disease is a leading cause of infections, heart disease, and poor nutrition, especially in the elderly.  The fact that our supposedly civilized country has so neglected this necessary health care is a sorry fact.  A country is judged by the way it treats the least among it.  Poor people in the United  States have lost man of their teeth before the age of 40 and the  percentage who need dentures despite advancements in dentistry is appalling.

Several years ago our church janitor, a gentle man who had a tough life with some personal problems, lived in our church apartment and cared lovingly for our church building.  He didn’t have the money to pay for dental care and had a horrible abscess and pain from rotten teeth.  he kept buying ibuprofen (Motrin or Advil are the brand names).  He took large quantities of this drug for a long time.  The end result was that the drug caused a bleeding ulcer and we found him deaf in the church school in his 40s, having bled out from his bleeding ulcer in a  pool of blood.  This was a preventable death.

The number of Americans dying of preventable complications of dental caries is rising at an alarming rate.  There is no excuse for our country  to neglect its citizens like this.  Health care should be a right and not a privilege and this should especially be true of mental health care.

How much money are we going to waste paying for persons who come to ERs with advanced terminal illness that was preventable? How many productive years will be lost?  How many kids will grow up without a parent, under financial stress and inadequate supervision?

This news article paints this grim picture in more detail.

How to Decrease Teen Pregnancies, Decrease Crime, and Build Our Economy

Personally as a pediatrician, I found the highest teen birth rates in three groups. 1. Teens in distressed families (drug addict or absent parents [not single moms], poverty where parents are working 2-3 jobs, overextended and therefore technically absent and rich parents with unsupervised kids); 2. Teens in very religious families relying on abstinence, that wouldn’t talk about sex, leaving kids to figure it out on their own (these kids constantly were super rebellious); and 3. idol teens who had no hobbies except hanging out with friends and who had self-esteem problems such that they would do anything to appear popular.

The saddest case that is a commentary on how we talk but don’t help distressed teens and families was an eighth grade girl who told me she purposely got pregnant because she wanted someone to “love her.” She had lived mainly on the streets taking care of herself in South Carolina (the bible belt) where social services were inadequate to help her. Her parents were unavailable. The churches, schools, and social services viewed her as important and worthwhile as a dead dog. What do you expect! Three girls in her class were pregnant that year.

Until we promote individual worth; provide adequate eduation so that kids are motivated to learn and therefore kept busy with self motivation(our high school education is like a junior high education in most civilized countries – teachers are in general miserably undertrained); teach kids the value of being involved with others and with activities such as the arts, volunteering, involvement with government and social services, gardening, sports without a goal of being a major leager; teach that community and family is more important than self and instant gratification or material goods; promote a village atmosphere where people in one small neighborhood or a few blocks in a city know each other, meet regularly with each other (difficult with two jobs and long commutes) and help each other (70 % of Americans don’t know their neighbors); make real job training and jobs available to young men and women; reform laws so that like in Europe women can stay home with a child the first two years of life and still have a job available and career available when they return to work, we will make no progress in regards to teen births or abortions.

We need to shift our priorities and donations to the REAL problems that result in teen pregnancies and abortions. If we simply fight about ideology nothing will be accomplished. United We Stand, Divided We Fall. Perhaps it is time to agree to disagree on ideology and work together on issues that we all agree upon!

The benefits would be enormous. We would not just deal with teen pregnancies and reduce abortions, we would reduce crime and increase our countries productivity saving huge amounts of money and rebuilding our economy.