Embryonic Stem Cell question

Columnist MichaelKinsley reasons that those who oppose embryonic stem cell research need to oppose the work of fertility clinics:

Stem cells used in medical research generally come from fertility clinics, which produce more embryos than they can use. This isn't an accident -- it is essential to their mission of helping people have babies. Often these are "test tube babies": the product of an egg fertilized in the lab and then implanted in a womb to develop until birth. Controversy about test-tube babies has all but disappeared. Vague science-fiction alarms have been crushed by the practical evidence, and potential political backlash, of grateful, happy parents.

In any particular case, fertility clinics try to produce more embryos than they intend to implant. Then -- like the Yale admissions office (only more accurately) -- they pick and choose among the candidates, looking for qualities that make for a better human being. If you don't get into Yale, you have the choice of attending a different college. If the fertility clinic rejects you, you get flushed away -- or maybe frozen until the day you can be discarded without controversy.

And fate isn't much kinder to the embryos that make this first cut. Usually several of them are implanted in the hope that one will survive. Or, to put it another way, in the hope that all but one will not survive. And fertility doctors do their ruthless best to make these hopes come true.

In short, if embryos are human beings with full human rights, fertility clinics are death camps -- with a side order of cold-blooded eugenics. No one who truly believes in the humanity of embryos could possibly think otherwise.

The rest of the article can be found here.

Arts observation - One for Brad

When my friend Brad spoke lovingly of ukulele music, I scoffed, I laughed, I thought "You've got to be kidding me."

But youtube has shown me that Brad is right on this one - or that it actually is possible to make good and even incredible music on a ukulele.

First there is my musical hero, Bruce Springsteen playing the uke (He's playing a song from his first album):

Here's a rock version (sans uke):


But this is amazing. Jason Shimabukuro is playing "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" I hope to see him at a Borders store next month here in Chicago

So Brad,
I take back my laughter, my scoffing, and my questioning. I shall once again dine on crow. I've learned so many ways to serve it.

Coulter and hunter thompson

Is Ann Coulter the right wing version of Hunter Thompson?
An anti-Thompson?
An alternate universe Thompson?

How are we different?

Some thoughts while watching the news and perusing the internet re: the Iraq war.

We are disgusted with videos posted by insurgents blowing up vehicles with roadside bombs. We get a rush, or at least feel good, watching planes blow up vehicles and buildings that contain insurgents. How are we different? I must repent.

We are disgusted when insurgents and other Iraqis rejoice over American dead bodies. We rejoice over the pictures of the most notable insurgent. How are we different. I must repent.

We have found the chemical weapons - and they are ours.
We went to war fearing Saddam's use of chemical weapons. We've used chemical weapons in Iraq - we have dropped a newer form of napalm called mk77, and white phosphorus, which the military has confirmed. Technically, WP not a chemical weapon when used against military targets but is a chemical weapon when used against civilians. Troops also use it as a highly effective smoke screen.

See wikipedia info.

White phosphorus can leave clothing untouched but burn away the skin. For pictures of what it can do, see Veterans Today. Pic 1, (WARNING: Very Graphic) I have chosen not to link to others, but felt people should have the opportunity to see what they cannot see on the news.

Again, I ask, how are we different?

As a Christian, I must speak out against the use of this weapon. I am not a pacifist, but how do we expect to win the hearts and minds of the people if we burn to death not only insurgents but innocents?

We talk about the number of the injured and the dead as if they were statistics. There are the heartfelt stories in hometown newspapers when a resident is killed. But the pictures I've seen of what the results of real violence looks like (not just of the weapons above), turn the stomach. The pictures on the news are tame.

When I see the suffering and the anger of the Iraqis on the news, I have to understand that they are seeing these results in person on a frequent basis. What would our reaction be if this happened on our home soil. We did get a taste of it, of course, on 9/11, but we are not having to deal with see bodies every day.

I can't help but wonder if George Bush and Dick Cheney had served in Vietnam with people who weren't able to avoid going, would they have been as eager to go to Iraq.

Even more I want to work for peace. It is part of my repentance. I hope this entry is a beginning.

How stupid are voters?

A Republican candidate is second in his party's gubernatorial primary despite running fake headlines under the mastheads of real newspapers in his commercials, a poll shows.

According to factcheck.org -

Jim Oberweis launched the ads against the frontrunner in the state's GOP gubernatorial primary, Judy Baar Topinka. He accuses her of being part of a "culture of political corruption." Besides Oberweis's fakery, he misleads by resurrecting decade-old allegations that came to nothing.

I love Illinois politics - even laying aside those in Chicago. A jury is deliberating on corruption charges against the former governor. The current governor is suspected of being under investigation, but the prosecutor isn't saying definitively.

And some wonder why people don't turn out to vote.

What is blasphemy?

The excellent Chicago Sun-Times writer asks the question in her recent column. Here is an excerpt;

in an age of pluralism, multiculturalism, and (some say) secularism, what constitutes blasphemy?
Is it an image of the Buddha adorning a flip-flop?
A Hindu deity on the front of a skimpy tank top?
Madonna and Guy Ritchie praying at the tomb of the Matriarch Rachel in Israel?
Jesus as a namby-pamby cable-access talk-show host on "South Park"? Or political paraphernalia that says it's our "God-given right" to bear arms?

Is nothing sacred anymore?

My one year anniversary

January 10 marked my one year anniversary at my current place of employment in the Windy City. Here are 10 things I am proud of accomplishing since arriving here.

10. I was able to be here a whole day before having the CD player stolen out of my car.
9. I was here two whole days before I got my first parking ticket.
8. I no longer have a car.
7. I have figured out how to use the public transit system and how not to get on the wrong color "L" train line - a trial and error lesson.
6. Sampled excellent pizza across the city...
5. And still lost weight.
4. Bought a house plant and it's still alive.
3. Took my teenage daughter shopping all day at a mall with more than 100 stores the day after Thanksgiving.
2. Took my teenage daughter and son shopping all day at a mall with more than 100 stores the day after Christmas.
1. When I did have a car, I refrained from giving the "horn response signal."
(Confession: I almost soiled my record in this city of honkers when at the last second I remembered the previous owner of my vehicle had affixed one of those Jesus fish stickers. I knew they served a purpose.)

Here's to a second year at a job I love and living in a city that has become "Sweet Home Chicago."

Where have you gone, Ted Koppel

Actually, he's been discovered. After leaving Nightline, he's found his way to the Discovery Channel to do documentaries, which I will never see because I don't have cable.

I miss Koppel. The new Nightline isn't awful, but not particularly good or interesting either. It has all the depth of a People magazine article on the Simpsons (Nick and Jessica).

Loved his comment on why he didn't even talk with the major cable news networks, which was because they seemed, "preoccupied with a 'desperate race to be the first with the obvious.'" Bet his daughter, Andrea, who is a CNN correspondent loved that one.

To do a little name dropping: Along with several other people, I had a late night meal with Koppel and Jerry Brown, who were speaking at the University of Missouri School of Journalism, where I got my degree. Long story about how that happened, but I remember two things from the evening. Jerry Brown was no longer dating Linda Ronstadt, but some wise guy played her song Someone to Lay Down Beside Me on the jukebox. Returned to the table and said, "Jerry, what's that song." He laughed.

The other was a kid coming up to Koppel and asking if he would speak with his mother, who was a big fan. He spent 10 to 15 minutes talking with her.

I only wish that Koppel and Jon Stewart would team up to do a show. How cool would that be. And then put it on network TV so that I could actually see it.