Two seemingly unrelated topics

1st, I'm not a person defined by my occupation. God has blessed me with a good job , a boss (makes that bosses now, that's one of them in the pic) that are kind to work for and cube neighbor's and fellow admins who I get along with and laugh with. I do my job to the best of my ability and with the exception of infrequent squabbles with co-workers, I leave it at the office. The recent talk about all the sub prime bad loans and the press article today about John Edwards and his link to my parent company has me feeling a bit like a mama cat looking after her kittens. I do have empathy ( more on that later) for those that entered in to a loan agreement with the adjustable rates and the declining housing market now leaving them unable to refinance or little hope of selling. Saying that, it's also a gamble in agreeing to something you can't afford down the road and hoping home values continue to rise as they have for the last few years. Trends show the market always corrects, it's just a matter of time. It's as risky as the stocks or the slots out there.

2nd, I almost never talk about politics. Usually I interpret political campaigning a character assassination/ ploy. An elected used car sales man for lack of a better analogy. When people usually talk about the elections my mind starts wondering about the color of the walls or counting the letters in the words they are speaking.

So these two seemingly unrelated events are all part of today's headline on the Wall Street Journal. It burns me about John Edwards, his investment connections and simultaneous blasting of those same institutions is hypocritical at best and weaselly at worst. Commentary Mag said it best, giving more grace than I think I would be so inclined: "Shouldn't it possible to have an adult debate about politics that recognizes that politicians, even more than the rest of us, are sometimes caught up in contradictions? What’s not adult is when Edwards, speaking to citizens as if they were children, hypocritically argues that he joined Fortress to learn more about the connections between financial markets and poverty. "

So on empathy, I read an article as well concerning University of Chicago psychologist finding the source of what causes people to be able/ unable to show empathy towards another. ( I tried to attach a link- btw, not a fan on the animal research portion).
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118728841048999914.html?mod=fpa_editors_picks

" And if researchers in Europe and the U.S. are correct, these cells are subconscious seeds of social behavior that also can be manipulated to boost sales, generate fads or influence political beliefs. Located in the brain's motor cortex, which orchestrates movement and muscle control, the cells fire when we perform an action and also when we watch someone else do the same thing. When someone smiles or wrinkles her nose in distaste, motor cells in your own brain associated with those expressions resonate in response like a tuning fork, triggering a hint of the feeling itself. Among those diagnosed with autism, this mirror of neurons may be broken, independent research groups at the University of Montreal and the University of California, San Diego, recently reported. The more severely the mirror networks are disrupted, the more pronounced the symptoms of autism, which impairs language, behavioral and social skills, UCLA researchers reported in May."

Okay, sorry for the geek entry today, but psychology does fascinate me. God created us so magnificantly and I see science as our feable human attempt to try to understand and copy the awesome work of God.

While I'm still on lunch, gotta get small group prayer requests out before they elect someone else to do it.