Thursday, March 29, 2007

"I Do Not Love You As If You Were Salt" by Pablo Neruda

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms,
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers.
Thanks to your love a certain fragrance,
risen darkly from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,
I love you straight forwardly, without complexities or pride,
so I love you because I know no other way than this:
where "I" does not exist, nor "you,"
So close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
So close that your eyes close and I fall asleep.

Neruda, Pablo. "I do not love you as if you were salt." http://www.michaelpalmer.net/Other%20Pages/i_do_not_love.htm.

Disney's Desparate Housewives




Found Here.

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Jay County Pollution

At least the awful stench gives you a little warning of what you are about to see. After all, nothing that smells that bad can look very good.

Animal carcasses -- by one count more than 250 of them -- have been scattered along a steep bank that leads down to a small creek along Spooky Hollow Road between Jay County roads 600-S and 700-S.

Some of the carcasses appear to be in garbage bags, and others are just scattered around the area. There's the occasional body part here and there, a skull or two rolled up against the base of a tree and other rubbish like tires and broken glass dumped there as well.

Flooding caused by last week's rain might have washed some of the animals downstream.

Otherwise, it would be a lovely area. Really.

The winding, gravel road is called Spooky Hollow because the countless trees along it darken the sky when the leaves are out, according to residents. And in the fall, when the trees show their colors, it's really a pleasant drive.

But not right now.

Two women walking in the area last week discovered the carcasses, and the recent rains have delayed clean-up efforts by county crews.

County engineer Dan Watson said he thought the cleanup could begin sometime today.

Officials said it didn't appear that the carcasses had been there very long because they had not been ravaged by other animals.

County highway supervisor Ken Wellman said he was concerned about safety procedures during the clean-up process because of the high water.

"We are looking at different ways to handle the situation," he said. "(Jay County Conservation Officer) Dwane Ford and I are working together to see how to best handle the situation."

Nearby residents didn't seem too upset. No one claimed it was the work of aliens or a secret cult.

"I'm a little concerned about it," said Tina Miller, who has lived in the area for about 20 years. "Way out here no one ever sees anything because the houses are so far apart."

But she's not unduly worried. "Stuff like that happens," she shrugged.

Oddly enough, some of the carcasses had been skinned, including dogs, cats, raccoons and coyotes among others. But a couple of calf carcasses didn't appear to have been molested in any way.

Conservation officer Ford is leading the investigation. He could not be reached for comment Monday, but others say the investigation has led toward Mercer County, just across the state line in Ohio, because numerous pets have been reported missing there.

Jay County officials say the carcasses will be buried on county-owned property near the Jay County Highway Department along County Road 300-N.

Anyone with information about the incident is asked to call the Jay County sheriff's department, (260) 726-8188.

Routledge, Ric. "Hundreds of animal carcasses dumped in Jay County." The Star Press (2007): 27 Mar 2007 http://www.thestarpress.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070327/NEWS01/703270322.

Monday, March 26, 2007

Human Sheep

Scientists have created the world's first human-sheep chimera - which has the body of a sheep and half-human organs.

The sheep have 15 per cent human cells and 85 per cent animal cells - and their evolution brings the prospect of animal organs being transplanted into humans one step closer.

Professor Esmail Zanjani, of the University of Nevada, has spent seven years and £5million perfecting the technique, which involves injecting adult human cells into a sheep's foetus.

He has already created a sheep liver which has a large proportion of human cells and eventually hopes to precisely match a sheep to a transplant patient, using their own stem cells to create their own flock of sheep.

The process would involve extracting stem cells from the donor's bone marrow and injecting them into the peritoneum of a sheep's foetus. When the lamb is born, two months later, it would have a liver, heart, lungs and brain that are partly human and available for transplant.

"We would take a couple of ounces of bone marrow cells from the patient,' said Prof Zanjani, whose work is highlighted in a Channel 4 programme tomorrow.

"We would isolate the stem cells from them, inject them into the peritoneum of these animals and then these cells would get distributed throughout the metabolic system into the circulatory system of all the organs in the body. The two ounces of stem cell or bone marrow cell we get would provide enough stem cells to do about ten foetuses. So you don't just have one organ for transplant purposes, you have many available in case the first one fails."

At present 7,168 patients are waiting for an organ transplant in Britain alone, and two thirds of them are expected to die before an organ becomes available.

Scientists at King's College, London, and the North East Stem Cell Institute in Newcastle have now applied to the HFEA, the Government's fertility watchdog, for permission to start work on the chimeras.

But the development is likely to revive criticisms about scientists playing God, with the possibility of silent viruses, which are harmless in animals, being introduced into the human race.

Dr Patrick Dixon, an international lecturer on biological trends, warned: "Many silent viruses could create a biological nightmare in humans. Mutant animal viruses are a real threat, as we have seen with HIV."

Animal rights activists fear that if the cells get mixed together, they could end up with cellular fusion, creating a hybrid which would have the features and characteristics of both man and sheep. But Prof Zanjani said: "Transplanting the cells into foetal sheep at this early stage does not result in fusion at all."

Joseph, Claudia. "Now scientists create a sheep that's 15% human." Daily Mail: 24 Mar. 2007 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=444436&in_page_id=1770.

Sunday, March 18, 2007

Buds


I took this in New Orleans, it is probably one of the best pictures I have ever taken. Since my free Flickr account is full, I decided to post it on here instead.

If you click on it, you can see it in better detail.

Friday, March 09, 2007

i carry your heart with me by ee cummings


i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)


cummings, e.e. "i carry your heart with me." PoemHunter.com. 9 March 2007. http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/i-carry-your-heart-with-me-2/.

Thursday, March 08, 2007

Alzheimers by Kelly Cherry

I found this beautiful poem while Stumbling round the internet. The language and imagery in this poem took my breath away.

He stands at the door, a crazy old man
Back from the hospital, his mind rattling
like the suitcase, swinging from his hand,
That contains shaving cream, a piggy bank,
A book he sometimes pretends to read,
His clothes. On the brick wall beside him
Roses and columbine slug it out for space, claw the mortar.
The sun is shining, as it does late in the afternoon
in England, after rain.
Sun hardens the house, reifies it,
Strikes the iron grillwork like a smithy
and sparks fly off, burning in the bushes--
the rosebushes--
While the white wood trim defines solidity in space.
This is his house. He remembers it as his,
Remembers the walkway he built between the front room
and the garage, the rhododendron he planted in back,
the car he used to drive. He remembers himself,
A younger man, in a tweed hat, a man who loved
Music. There is no time for that now. No time for music,
The peculiar screeching of strings, the luxurious
Fiddling with emotion.
Other things have become more urgent.
Other matters are now of greater import, have more
Consequence, must be attended to. The first
Thing he must do, now that he is home, is decide who
This woman is, this old, white-haired woman
Standing here in the doorway,
Welcoming him in.

Cherry, Kelly. "Alzheimers." 1997 http://www.zarcrom.com/users/yeartorem/ADpoetry/KCAlzheimers.html.

Remember Book-It!

Fort Wayne (WANE) - Pizza Hut's Book It! Program provides incentive for students to read. But a children's advocacy group is criticizing the program, claiming it makes kids hungry for pizza, not books. Educators and Pizza Hut disagree, saying the program is just one more tool to help improve literacy.

Dr. Susan Linn, a spokesperson for The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, says Book It! doesn't give kids an appetite for reading. "There is a national concern about reading. There has been for a very long time, so Pizza Hut decided to create a program to help kids read. And in fact what the program does is market Pizza Hut every day the kids are in school. So you keep promising kids rewards for reading, there are a couple of messages in that. One of them is an inherent message that kids don't want to read and that reading is boring. When the reward ends, kids tend to stop doing whatever that behavior is."

The reading program is in many elementary schools in our area, and many educators maintain Book It! does give students a taste for books. "The Book It! Program really encourages reading in our elementary school students and reading is the most important foundation of learning. Anything that encourages reading we support," says FWCS Director of Public Affairs Melanie Hall.

Pizza Hut issued this statement: "The Book It! Program is designed to help children develop a love of book and reading and accomplishing goals. Teachers and parents tell us that the rewards of praise, recognition and pizza are motivating. A certificate for a personal pan pizza is only awarded once a month, and only then if the student has achieved the reading goals set by his or her teacher. We're proud of the success of the Book It! Program, which has encouraged million of students to develop a lifelong passion for learning."

The company says it also received hundreds of comments from Book It! alums supporting the program. An e-mail to Pizza Hut reads, "I am 26 and I think I was one of the first sessions of students to take part in the Book It! program years ago. I would just like to say thank you for the program that your company built. With the help of my parents, you guys helped me to build a love for books."

The Campaign for a Commerical-Free Childhood says Pizza Hut could sponsor other programs that don't promote products, like purchasing books. A Pizza Hut representative told NewsChannel 15 over the phone that the company does do that in addition to Book It!.


This article found here.


Personally I think this is completely ridiculous. I LOVED Book-It! I think any program that gets kids to read is a fantastic idea, even if it does have some commercial value. Since when is giving rewards to a well-deserving child a bad thing?