A number of years ago there was controversy over the use of food that had been modified by genetic engineering. People believed we were heading into unknown territory and that if we manipulated the genes of the food we eat we might have to deal with dangerous unintended consequences. As a result, some states required the labelling of food that might be considered to be Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO’s).

I have been making a self-guided educational effort to understand the current revolution of genetic engineering for the past four years. There have been monumental scientific breakthroughs in genetic engineering and they revolve around something called CRISPR, an acronym for clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats. The CRISPR technology allows scientists to alter the genetic makeup of cells. It is a complex process, but the bottom line is that CRISPR has the potential to change our ability to fight disease in plants, animals and humans among other processes.

Anyone who is even marginally engaged with today’s world cannot help but feel some degree of anxiety watching local and world events unfold. A lot of people have decided to either ration their contact with all forms of media or shut themselves off completely from the near-constant barrage of murder, mayhem and demeaning and hostile rhetoric.

The human species has the potential for creating a peaceful, humane and loving world but most of the activity we see does the opposite. That does not mean that there are not a lot of people who work hard to cultivate what is best in the human spirit, but their efforts are too often Sisyphean.