[Anonymous selections from recent correspondence]
[1] These ducks were rescued from a hoarder's home; they had never seen a water pond:
[2] Chipotle Mexican Grill obviously prides itself on being a world apart from mainstream fast food and the multitude of traditional franchise "dining" options. In a new mini-movie of an ad they have not only underlined that difference, but have taken a stab at their competitors who practice animal cruelty as an everyday part of the factory farming that allows them to churn out cheap food. As part of their ad campaign, Chipotle has even created a game which has a positive and educational message and actually involves saving animals rather than shooting them. For an enjoyable and subtly educational three minutes well spent, click here "Chipotle channels Pixar in mesmerizing mobile game promo."
I woke up this morning feeling good again and had another idea to offer him. We get a mobile home in California, he gives up on the dog and staying up here in the winters, we buy a house in Idaho and live here 7 or 8 months of the year.
So that is our new plan! He is very happy again and, so far, I like the idea also. We will have one auto in California and one here and go on the train back and forth once we are settled. I would go to California by myself one time during that eight months to see the kids.
[5] Here is a young man who sorted it out the black and white of life early, instead of wasting years lost in a fog of gray: "Robert Pattinson: ‘I Don’t Ever Feel the Need to Forgive’."
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| DNA sequencing elements displayed on a monitor |
The cost of sequencing an entire genome has fallen so drastically in the past 20 years—now a few thousand dollars, down from an estimated $3 billion for the public-private partnership that sequenced the first human genome—that doctors are beginning to sequence the entire genomes of some patients. (Sequencing can be done in as little as 50 hours.) And they’re identifying links between mutations and diseases that have never been seen before.[7] This write-up presents causes for tears, but also for celebration and enjoyment: "Do You Like Getting Older?" Excerpt:
Yet all these powerful tests are based on the assumption that, inside our body, a genome is a genome is a genome. Scientists believed that they could look at the genome from cells taken in a cheek swab and be able to learn about the genomes of cells in the brain or the liver or anywhere else in the body.
In the mid-1900s, scientists began to get clues that this was not always true. In 1953, for example, a British woman donated a pint of blood. It turned out that some of her blood was Type O and some was Type A. The scientists who studied her concluded that she had acquired some of her blood from her twin brother in the womb, including his genomes in his blood cells.
...
Medical researchers aren’t the only scientists interested in our multitudes of personal genomes. So are forensic scientists. When they attempt to identify criminals or murder victims by matching DNA, they want to avoid being misled by the variety of genomes inside a single person.
Last year, for example, forensic scientists at the Washington State Patrol Crime Laboratory Division described how a saliva sample and a sperm sample from the same suspect in a sexual assault case didn’t match.
I like being old. It has set me free. I like the person I have become. I am not going to live forever, but while I am still here, I will not waste time lamenting what could have been, or worrying about what will be. And I shall eat dessert every single day (if I feel like it).
[9] Unusual obituary in today's paper: "Marianne Theresa Johnson-Reddick Obit: Patrick Reddick Speaks Out about Abusive Mother." I think I'll try to protect myself from that sort of happening by composing my own obit, with picture, and with the provision that if it is not used then everyone will end up with only a $1.00 bill and my cat. (I'm sure my boys like their mom, but it's a thought.)
What about those oversize clips that hold more than 15 or 30 rounds that legislators were going to ban? Not to worry, this new weapon uses belt-fed ammo, just like a machine gun, so a shooter can spray as many rounds as a belt is long. But this is not a machine gun, really, even the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives says so. They have authorized the weapon and the manufacturer says it will be available this fall, in plenty of time for the one-year anniversary of the Sandy Hook atrocity.]
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| Dem. state Sen. Angela Giron gives her concession speech |
Meanwhile, here in North Carolina, where citizens' voices and wishes have basically been trampled by their legislators' actions, liberal "activists" apparently can't even agree how to start working toward creating a recall procedure in the state. Sadly, both cases are vivid examples of how much more effective a minority of conservative-leaning voters are at achieving their goals, than are a majority of liberal voters.
[14] Limerick of the Week:
We’re having a bit of “triskaidekaphobia”—_______________
didn't know how to pronounce it, did ya, Sophia?
Tris-kai-dɛ-kə’s Greek for thirteen,
and not many hotels were keen
to have that floor—but there are two in Monrovia.
Copyright © 2013 by Morris Dean
| Please comment |
One of the problems with guns is the price. They are just too cheap. If they can't be ban or controlled, I say tax the hell out of them. Let the gun owners pay for the damage these weapons do. And if the tax is high enough maybe it will slow down the sells. I don't think 100% tax is over the top.
ReplyDeleteGood fish.
And let's do the same for tobacco, alcohol, cars that go more than 75 mph and/or have built-in cell phones, health insurance premiums for obese people, pizza, unhealthy fast food, and any other relatively cheap and readily available means of people needlessly killing themselves or each other, right?
ReplyDeleteWhen I got a haircut this morning, I borrowed a text book from the barbering institute where I go to get a cheap cut and give a student a chance to practice on someone who doesn't really care that much what kind of haircut he has. (They're usually pretty good cuts, however.)
DeleteAn early chapter in the textbook covers the history of barbering, and in one paragraph I read that Peter the Great taxed beards according to their lengths to try to encourage men not to wear them....
Also (but not because of taxation, rather because James T. Carney wrote about walking Hadrian's Wall), Hadrian grew a beard to cover up some disfigurations of his face, and beards became popular in Rome for a while....
In most paintings, Peter the Great is shown with a pathetically thin and crooked mustache that in many illustrations looks almost like something a child drew afterward with a crayon, rather than something that was part of the original artwork. I wonder if he had equally bad luck growing a beard, and if he tried to discourage them because he was jealous, or if Russia really needed the tax money that badly? Or, Russia being Russia, if he feared a lack of facial hair would make him seem unmanly, and therefore a more likely target of a coup? As we know from Putin's many examples, ruling Russia even today apparently requires overt, almost homophobic displays of manliness.
DeleteMotomynd, GOOD JOB of "investigative commenting"! A rather flattering image of Peter the Great is shown in Wikipedia's article for him: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/72/Peter_der-Grosse_1838.jpg/220px-Peter_der-Grosse_1838.jpg. That is, the artist was probably taxed in order to ensure that his depiction of the Great Peter's moustache would look as stylish as Peter wanted it to.
DeleteDo you think Putin's muscles as shown in photographs are real, or has he too resorted to taxing his photographers to do whatever is needed by way of Photoshop or whatever propietary flattery-software the KGB might have to tone them up?
Morris, haven't checked the history on this, but if memory serves, didn't Peter the Great come to power when he was only 10 years old, or something like that? Which could explain the wispy mustache in earlier paintings and the far richer and more flamboyant one in the image you found. Or it could be that by the time later paintings were done, so many previous artists had suffered ill fate for doing an honest rendering, rather than a flattering one, they were by then educated to what was expected.
DeleteGiven the bizarre way things have been done in Russia for centuries -- basically rule by intimidation, torture and barbarism -- and the fact it hardly seems to change no matter if government is run by the czars, the communists, or as some sort of alleged quasi-democratic republic, I suspect today's photographers need no encouragement to make sure their photos flatter Putin. However, they don't want to overly flatter, for there is risk there as well. As I recall, one of the Russian leaders had the architects' eyes gouged out after they designed St. Basil's Cathedral, to make sure they never created another building of such beauty. So as a photographer one would want to make Putin look good, but not too good, as he might have you "offed" to insure you didn't make his successor look better.
Recalling some of the strange rules during the time I was photographing President George W. Bush at various events, I will have to say that, arduous as they were, at least I didn't worry about "being disappeared" or having my head lopped off if I mistakenly published a "bad" image. Or a too good image. In Russia I would think a photographer would be much safer as a baker, or perhaps as a bartender.
Tobacco, alcohol, gas are taxed beyond their value and insurance companies charge more based on health. You pay about the same for cocaine and a gun today as you did in the fifties. Back then that was a lot of money, so fewer people own guns or at least more than one. Cocaine was the rich man's high. I could count the number of people I knew that used coke in the sixties on one hand. Then the price of grass went sky high, but coke stayed the same. Along came the seventies and everybody and their brother was using coke.
ReplyDeleteThe NRA and the gun lobby know once you buy a gun, you really have no use for more, so they keep the price low and scare people in to buying more, because God help us if we run out of guns
Are you saying cocaine and guns literally cost the same as in the '50s, or they cost the same percentage of income today compared to then? If you are saying the former, I think you need to check your math. If you are saying the latter, you may or may not be correct - I would need to check that math.
ReplyDeleteTobacco and alcohol are completely nonessential items, so how is it possible to overtax them? I ask that question with concern, hoping it does not inspire a tax increase on the shot of single malt I consider a daily dietary supplement.
Yes, insurance companies charge more based on health, but they don't charge nearly enough more to offset the actual cost of treating high-risk and unhealthy people. The rest of us subsidize those costs by paying more than we should for our health insurance and health care.
Obesity and diabetes kill exponentially more people every year than guns. And they are both caused mainly by non-essential foods - especially fast foods - that people would obviously be better off without. No one needs a 1,200-calorie burger anymore than they need a 10-gauge magnum shotgun or an assault rifle. Why raise the tax on guns, but not on the unhealthy foods that ruin many more lives and kill several times more people than guns?
On the guns I was speaking percentage of income. On cocaine not sure about the fifties, but in the sixties it cost around $80.00 a gram and last time I heard it cost $85.00 a year ago.
ReplyDeleteI will give you your dues on fast food or the crap they put in all our food. But the insurance companies---I hope you don't think you pay more for your insurance because of unhealthy people. You pay more because they are a bunch, greedy, blood sucking, bastards, whom I am sure own stock in the fast food markets.
"Happy trails to you---until we meet again!" 'Smiley here'
On the summation about insurance companies: Well put!
ReplyDeleteOn the topic of cocaine, have never been a user myself, and know nothing about the pricing, but from what I have seen of people who use it in moderation, cocaine could almost be described as a health supplement. Take a slow moving, overweight beer drinker, or user of other drugs, put them on cocaine, and they lose weight, have more energy, and are more fun than they have ever been. Ironic to think that legal food is killing Americans in droves, but an illegal drug might save them.
Speaking of irony, and companies that own stock in fast food: Ironic that McDonald's was a substantial investor in Chipotle Mexican Grill until they divested in 2006. Chipotle also went public on the stock market that year. So is it possible that the same people who own much stock in McDonald's may also own a big chunk of Chipotle? That would almost be like anti-gun organizations and the NRA ramping up their rhetoric to increase fundraising for both, which is currently happening. Wonder if that is by coincidence, or design?
These people have no morals, it's all about their bottom line. During the tech bubble, everybody I knew kept wanting me to buy stock. So I at one point I gave in and and invested a little, I look at it as rolling dice, never put down more than you are willing to lose. Anyway, I told the broker I didn't want to invest in any company that owned tech stocks. There were none, they all were using the stocks to increase their bottom line. None of those companies were doing worth a damn. The high priced tech stock in their portfolio made it look like they were booming also.I lost maybe $1200. But there were people who lost everything.
ReplyDeleteThe Coco leaf has every vitamin the human body needs. However, cocaine is more like gas is with oil, it's a waste product. After you remove all the good stuff you have cocaine. The Indians of Peru chew the leaf with a little ash and choose the less bitter Coco, which has less cocaine.
Rock Stars and others like it because it gives maybe a fifteen minute high before you need another hit. It's a controlled high, but like with most things---lose control and you die. Unlike speed, which once taken, takes you up and you stay there until in wears off, coke lets you go to bed and sleep. The first induction into the world of speed, for most kids in the sixties, came from their mother's diet pills.
Instead of doing away with the coco plants, they should buy the leafs for the good stuff that is in them and that way the farmer makes a living and the world reduces the cheap drug from the market place. But we know that will never happen.
kono, you are correct in just about everything you say here, especially the part about coco leaves. No argument to bring up, but I do have a small story to share.
ReplyDeleteYears ago, when I was involved with the Harvard University 'Bridge Builders' program, one of the participants was a female activist from South America who was championing almost exactly what you put forth in your final paragraph. In a place like Cambridge, where women joggers have to register key ring pepper spray holders with the police or risk being charged with carrying a concealed weapon, there is paranoia about anyone committing even the tiniest infraction. In the midst of her presentation on the facts of coco, and how it was much more than just the scourge it is known as in America, the South American woman reached in her handwoven carry bag - and pulled out a handful of coco leaves. The idea of course, was to show people it was just a plant, not some Godzilla-like monster, but the moderator, a Harvard professor, and the other panel members, reacted almost as if she had reached for a handgun. And a loud murmur - I so want to say a buzz - ran through the crowd in attendance. It was amazing to realize that otherwise normal and highly educated Americans seemed to fear they might be afflicted or addicted just by seeing this "evil" plant they had heard so much propaganda about.
It would seem every Nation that has come in contact with coco has tried to do away with it. When the Spaniards first came to Peru, after raping the woman and stealing the gold, they attempted to stop the use of the coco plant. The Indians of Peru believe it was given to them by the Gods and while the Spaniards were able to take the women and gold---the coco plant is still there. It is something the Indians will never give up, so the world has best learn a way to deal with it. Also, Coke (the drink) had a little cocaine in it for a lot of years, because there was no way at the time to remove it all, which changed as soon as a process was invented.
ReplyDeleteYes, Harvard, Yale, and our other so called great centers of learning; they are indeed the creators of the thinkers who will lead us to the stars. Universities are like churches they discourage free thinking. This was one of the sadder battles we lost in the sixties.
I maybe a little hard on our centers of learning, but I remember very well, the police on campus after campus, enforcing the rule to conform. Nobody seemed to be able to get pass the idea that the protests were about much more than the Vietnam War.
What can one expect of people who believe in butchering before killing (i.e. bullfighting) rather than killing then butchering? And I have to wonder if people would be better off today if they drank Coke with more coco and less sugar.
ReplyDeleteThe war over free thinking, which most individuals inevitably lose at the university level, starts in Pre-Kindergarten. In fact, one has to wonder if that head start was the whole motivation of getting children into the system at as early an age as possible. The emphasis is on producing good and useful citizens, not on inspiring independent and creative thinking.
It is ironic that Ivy League schools are generally regarded as bastions of free and non-prejudiced thinking. To immerse in an organization at one Ivy League school, and then make the mistake of telling your new friends your father went to a different Ivy League school, is to incur the sort of discrimination you previously had only read about.
For what it is worth kono, some of us "kids" did get what we thought was the larger message of the Vietnam protests. What we didn't understand was why so many of the protesters seemed to turn against their own ideals within a very few years.
To have a belief and fight for it is one thing, but when those things you fought for are defeated, your beliefs may not change, however, your actions have too.
ReplyDeleteSome faced with the lose, and excepted the fact they had to live in the world they had tried to charge or spend the remainder of their life in jail, homeless, or dead on a drug overdose.
When you fight for the heart and soul of a Nation and that Nation tells you to F-off, there's not much else to be said. Maybe, the US has gone so far to the right, the people will try to correct themselves. After Carter was president, to try and change anything for the good would have been like standing in front of a train. No one wanted to hear our shit anymore.
kono, not disagreeing with a thing you are saying here, but help me with the math. If the '60s protesters were at the leading edge of the "boomers" and are therefore the largest segment of our population, how did they lose? Majority wins, right? So didn't most of them have to give up their ideals to manufacture a loss? I mean, if they are in the majority, and they keep on keeping on, they win: Don't they?
ReplyDeleteIt is the same with current politics in North Carolina, where I now live, and in many other places across the country: the left leaning supposedly outnumber the right leaning, yet the left finds a way to lose. The math does not add up for the '60s, or now. Either someone is lying about how they are voting, or they are not showing up at the polls at all. Or do you have some other explanation?
They are lying about how they are voting. There never has been a large left wing and only a few so called boomers have ever been Democrats. Out of the hundreds of thousands of troops sent to Vietnam, the number that protested or even supported the peace movement were only a few hundred. That is like saying Republicans elected Bush both times. The largest group and a very big bunch of these people call themselves Democrats, vote stupid. The talking heads on TV drive their thinking, and the last thought in their head is how they vote. Like I said the left never was large and with in the group, there were divides. The hippies, didn't like or trust the Anti-war, the anti-war, didn't trust the unions and the unions didn't trust any of them. If you dig deep enough you will find the movement was doomed from the beginning and once the government found those divides and broke them open, it was over. There never was one set of ideals to turn against so for some the step back was not that big of a step.
ReplyDeleteWell kono, this is a bit disheartening for someone like me, who was raised just far enough from the '60s to actually believe it was a mass of idealists intent on changing the world. Pairing your insider perspective with the statistics I have studied while helping run countless political campaigns, I fear you are correct. But I wish you weren't.
ReplyDeleteI wish I wasn't also, much more than you will ever know.
ReplyDeleteOne last comment on the subject. These days a lot of people claim the title hippie and claim they were flower children. Most can't even roll a joint.
ReplyDeleteSuddenly after 9/11, everybody became a Vietnam Vet, while few had ever had the screaming shits.
Point being: just because some one says something, it doesn't make it truth.