Fairness as a Point of View....

"Our differing notions of fairness is one of the biggest causes of the divide facing the United States today. And yet, a better understanding of fairness may just well be the bridge that helps heal our country."

Excellent essay on Fairness by Gideon Rosenblatt on his blog AlchemyOfChange.net

U.S. Income Inequality Grows?

Our Banana Republic

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

The richest 1 percent of Americans now take home almost 24 percent of income, up from almost 9 percent in 1976. As Timothy Noah of Slate noted in an excellent series on inequality, the United States now arguably has a more unequal distribution of wealth than traditional banana republics like Nicaragua, Venezuela and Guyana.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/07/opinion/07kristof.html

Gloria Steinem answers: "Why Do You Do What You Do?"

"for the same reason little kids say, 'It's not fair!!!'"

Palestinians Denied Rights to Shelter in West Bank

Nick Kristof from the NY Times questions how this ongoing lack of basic fairness serves Israel in any way long-term besides generating hatred.

Short Video report click here.

Why does Israel do this ongoingly?

Perfectly Flawed: Tigers' Pitcher Armando Galarraga is Robbed of Perfect Game by Incompetent Ump Jim Joyce Game

Bleacher Report story tells it all: Perfectly Flawed: Jim Joyce Robs Armando Galarraga, Tigers of Perfect Game

Join the Facebook page to see if this injustice (in pro sports, mind you) can be righted and / or video replay can finally be used in MLB:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Galarraga-got-robbed/122089564495820?ref=search&sid=RifkLfvu9Mox_MtvZvYjCg.3560830506..1&v=wall

TechCrunch Hacker Identified: You Decide If We Press Charges

What would justice look like if we all got to decide if legal charges would be pressed against others for more than personal issues, community, commerce - even continental?

Cool if geeky example is "TechCrunch Hacker Identified: You Decide If We Press Charges"

Read more: http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/28/techcrunch-hacker-identified-you-decide-if-we-press-charges/#ixzz0n7gDWVyy

Serotonin may affect our sense of fairness... hmmm.

Many folks I talk with believe a sense of fairness must come from either the genes or the home -- the old nature vs. nurture argument. Some argue that wherever it comes from -- we like to attribute to childhood -- humans just grow out of it.

Now Science, the the peer-reviewed journal , is reporting that "the neurotransmitter serotonin, which acts as a chemical messenger between nerve cells, plays a critical role in regulating emotions such as aggression during social decision-making," based on new research by scientists at England's University of Cambridge and UCLA: http://www.physorg.com/news132055144.html

The experimentation involved a money game which I've played at an Esalen workshop where the subjects were as to give and receive 'fair' offers for the win-win receipt, exchange, or rejection of 'insulting" offers. Interesting enough to see yourself play a game with no real cost to yourself financially but some perceived costs socially or for self-esteem -- and sometimes still be stingy!

The scientists in these games then added or subtracted 'happy' seratonin-replacement drugs to the game's baseline results and found that insecure, depressed and pissed off people are less willing to be fair - in fact, are more likely to be downright aggressive. Prozac Nation R US!

Perhaps we should just add seratonin to the drinking water like floride here. In Failed States like Darfur, Somalia, DRCongo, maybe adding it into the rice, tobacco or ganga would help.

What do you think?