You'll find this in the current edition of Newsweek. Here's an excerpt regarding the source of morality in the absence of religion: WARREN: Sam, what are the secular sources of an acceptable moral code? HARRIS: Well, I don't think that the religious books are the source. We go to the…
My daughters and I have started to watch some of the episodes from the Star Trek Voyager series on DVD. We are not disappointed at all. All of us are finding that the series contains well-written, thought-provoking, stories. Here is a topic that might seem unrelated to Star Trek: According to…
In 2004, Matthew was appointed the president’s chief campaign strategist. According to a new article by the Washington Post, Dowd now says his faith in Mr. Bush was “misplaced.” In a wide-ranging interview here, Mr. Dowd called for a withdrawal from Iraq and expressed his disappointment in Mr. Bush’s leadership. He…
Now there is a reasonably-priced way to know . . .
Today, an acquaintance (I’ll call her “Laura”) asked me if I would buy some Girl Scout cookies from her daughter’s troop. I told her “No thank you.”
It’s not that I don’t enjoy eating Girl Scout cookies (I do enjoy Thin Mints and Peanut Butter Sandwich Cookies). It’s not that I generally oppose the activities of Girl Scouts. I approve of much of what Girl Scouts do.
Here’s what triggered this post. Laura told me that the average box of cookies sells for three dollars and that the average profit for each box of cookies is only fifty cents. Hmmmm.
Therefore, I can support their Girl Scouts to the same extent by handing $5 directly to the local troop or by buying $30 worth of cookies. Unless you think that eating cookies is an especially good thing, it makes much more sense to simply hand the local troop $5. Then again, eating cookies, especially a lot of cookies, is not a good thing. Cookies consist largely of refined carbohydrates and sugars. These are exactly the kinds of ingredients that invite obesity. Are the Girl Scouts concerned about obesity? Very much so (so am I), yet they continue to rely on cookie sales to fund their activities.
But let’s go back to the money for a moment. If you click here, you can see it stated that “all of the revenue” from cookie sales “stays with the local Girl Scout council that sponsors the sale.” The official site carefully …
