Aral Sea, 1973 to 2009 (NASA)

• First, I was shocked to learn that the Aral Sea, once a prominent feature on maps of the Soviet Union, is now spoken of in the past tense.  In my schoolboy years, the Aral Sea was far larger than Lake Huron, but today it is nearly dry, as seen in this series of photos (right) that document its disappearance over a mere forty-year span.

• I was shocked to learn that there are 86,000 diabetes-related amputations every year in the United States.  I no longer scoff at efforts to regulate school snacks and big-gulp soft drinks.

• I was shocked to learn that “87% of all children age 0 to 14 worldwide killed by firearms are children living in the US, despite the fact that less than 5% of the world’s children live in the US.”  Pause for a moment to let that sink in.

• A bit lower on the scale of shock, I was shocked to learn that insurance agents “earn” commissions ranging from 15% (for auto) to 50% (term life) to 100% (whole life) of your first-year premium.  I am okay with insurance agents making a living but I am against commission-based sales in any form.  Commissions and sales incentives invite upselling, an adversarial practice that paints consumers as targets, not as equals in a transaction.  The point of commission-based sales is to transfer the risk of doing business from the business-owner to non-salaried salespeople and ultimately to consumers.  Ask yourself, why should your family’s need for health insurance help your agent win a incentive trip to Cancun, Mexico?  Follow that link to see where your premium dollars are really going.

• Finally, I was shocked and dismayed to learn that there is no official consensus on what constitutes domestic abuse according to Islam.  The Wikipedia article Islam and Domestic Violence has two sections that provide Quranic guidance on this topic: the first section is titled Interpretations that support discipline and the second section is Interpretation that does not support hitting.  I have to stop right here and insist that a man who needs this kind of “interpretation” is not a religious man but a brute.

Christian, Hindi, Shinto men, you’re not off the hook.  If you need cultural or religious excuses to dominate your partner and justify your manhood, you’re not much of a man.