Where did all the compassion go?

"Compassion isn’t a sign of weakness, but of civilization."  - Nicholas Kristoff' I've been thinking a lot lately about compassion, especially in terms of the upcoming US election cycle.  I have an interesting history with religion, having spent the first 15 years of my life blissfully ignorant to any religion before spending 4 years at a Catholic high school where I was thrown in head first.  I never came close to becoming Catholic, but I did really enjoy learning many of the values that most Christian faiths instill in its followers.  One such core value is this idea of compassion, and my four years of Catholic teaching opened my eyes to soup kitchens, clothing drives, holiday gift drives, and caring for those in the community who were struggling in one way or another.  This has no doubt shaped me into the man I am today.

Fast forward to 2012 and I am blown away by an apparent lack of compassion in this country, including a significant number of so called Christians.  We are the wealthiest and strongest nation in the world and yet our country is in the midst of a vicious debate over providing health care, something that could arguably be called a universal right.  If you look at many of the hotly debated issues, whether it is health care, gay rights, immigration, or female equality, they all boil down to compassion.  I wish every American was able to put themselves into the shoes of others before voting, thinking through the issues from the perspective of someone whose whole world centers upon one of these.  For example, what if you were the friend or relative of Scott Androes, the man who made a now fatal mid life crisis mistake to quit his job and lose his health insurance and was recently portrayed by Nicholas Kristoff's in the New York Times (read here)?  Or what if you were brought to the US when you were 3 months old and know nothing but the USA and are told that you have no reasonable chance of ever becoming a citizen?

Almost all of the issues debated in this year's election have absolutely no impact on my day to day life.  Regardless of who wins, I will wake up on November 7th knowing that my life can continue on in pretty much the same manner.  But for millions of Americans, that will unfortunately not be the case.  In one night, the dream of affordable health care, marrying the love of one's life, or becoming a US citizen could be destroyed.  So why do I care so much about this election?  It all comes down to compassion.  I feel for those in situations different than mine.  I feel lucky to be where I am and I recognize the best way  that I can show that appreciation is to care for others that aren't so lucky.

So, on November 6th, all I ask for is that you think about how you can be compassionate to others.  Help your fellow Americans with a vote that represents what you would be wishing for if you were in the shoes of one of millions of other Americans struggling to get health insurance, hoping for equal pay, in need of birth control, or trying to get married.  Who knows, maybe that will be you or your child some day in need of some compassion.

Side Note:

Seeing the graphic below really made me sad, as it shows a complete lack of compassion by a large portion of Americans (unfortunately there is a large % in all 3 groups).  Pew Research Center study from 2012 (page 5 in PDF).

I was a welfare mother

Larkin Warren wrote a terrific essay in the NY Times this past Sunday (read here).  It tells a first hand story about Romney's 47%.  Sure, there are plenty of people that abuse the system and put in little effort to live a really crappy (but work free) lifestyle on welfare.  But for every person who "beats" the system, I'm sure there is at least one story like what Larken writes about, struggling to get by and if given the right opportunities will be able to overcome life's hurdles and become a contributing member of society (the 53% in Romney's eyes). The opportunity that people like Larkin have in this country is what makes this country so great in my opinion.  I sure hope that later this year America votes to give folks like Larkin a chance to achieve the "American Dream".  Writes Larkin:

I was not an exception in that little Section 8 neighborhood. Among those welfare moms were future teachers, nurses, scientists, business owners, health and safety advocates. We never believed we were “victims” or felt “entitled”; if anything, we felt determined. Wouldn’t any decent person throw a rope to a drowning person? Wouldn’t any drowning person take it?

iOS 6 features that weren't publicized well but you should know about

There are a ton of new features in the latest version of iOS, many of which got lots of publicity.  I would say I really like the upgrade, but it isn't really that great, and anybody that is a fan of Droids would argue most things Droids already do.  I think the biggest changes are the behind the scenes changes to make apple devices play nicely with each other.  Anything I have on my iPhone is also available instantly on my iPad and on my MacBook.  Say what you want about some of the features on the latest Droid phones, but they won't have as great of an "ecosystem" as Apple anytime soon. Rather than focus on some of the big new features, there are a few other features that didn't receive much press and that the average user wouldn't figure out unless they read the full apple release notes or read a lot of tech blogs.  I thought I'd point out a few that you might not have realized.

1. Attach a picture to an email - If you are in an email, hold down in the body of the email like you do to "select" something.  When the select/select all options come up, press the tiny right arrow and you can now upload a picture to your email (shockingly this was never possible before to attach an email once you started typing an email or if you were replying to an email)
2. Limit ad tracking - very, very, very unpublicized feature.  So much so that I have no idea what this does, but I'm guessing they were under some kind of legal obligation to put this.  Settings > General > About > Scroll down > Advertising> Limit Ad Tracking: ON
3. Do not disturb feature - You'll find this in settings.  Basically, if you turn this on your notifications will stop during the hours you set as your sleeping hours except from your "favorite" contacts or people that call you more than once within 3 minutes (one would assume it is an emergency then)
4. Post to Facebook/Twitter from the notification center - by now you probably are use to the notification center, where you pull down from the top of the screen.  If you go into settings, scroll most of the way down and you will see Twitter and Facebook.  You can add your username/password in those settings and then anytime you want to tweet or post a status update you go to notification center and can do so right from there without opening the app (it also makes posts easier from other apps too)
5. Turn on emoji (emoticons) - There are some amusing ones if that's your thing, and they just added a ton more in iOS 6.  No longer do you need a separate app for this, simply go to your Settings, and drill down into General > Keyboard > International Keyboards preference pane. Tap on “Add New Keyboard…” and you’ll see a list of available keyboards in various languages that are available. Scroll down to “Emoji” and tap to add. Once you’ve done so, whenever you see the keyboard, you’ll now see a small globe to the left of the space bar. Tap on that, and you’ll bring up your alternate keyboards, which in your case, since you only have one, will be the emoji symbols.
6. Google Maps and Transit Maps - if you really want Google maps back, go to maps.google.com in your browser and then add it as a home screen icon.  If you want transit maps back via the new apple maps, when you click a location you want to go to, click the right arrow, scroll down to "Get directions", choose the Bus icon, then choose a "Transit enabled" app to install which can be directly launched to give you bus directions.  There are only a few now, but I bet in a few weeks a ton will surface and they will probably look and behave much better than the previous version did, just need to be patient

Yellowstone, Grand Tetons, and Great Salt Lake in Utah

Yellowstone was enormous and I only saw a very small part of it, but what I did see was not nearly as impressive as I'd been expecting.  I also learned about the great fire in 1988 they had, it's unbelievable how much damage it did back then and what some of the landscape still looks like 20+ years later.  Grand Teton was unbelievably gorgeous and makes me want to head to Jackson Hole to go skiing sometime soon.  Finally, Antelope Island on the Great Salt Lake was an interesting environment with magnificent views of the surrounding area.  I had always assumed the Salt Lake was very built up and a huge recreation area (like almost every lake in New England it seems is), but it was surprisingly desolate.