Just Stuff

It hasn't rained since we moved here to Davis.

When we left Colorado, it was dry.  Now friends of mine have dealt with flooding in their apartments and homes.  Most, thankfully, were very lucky.  Others seem to have lost everything.  It's credit to my friends who have to say they feel lucky and fortunate, that they're still afloat and functioning, that it's "just stuff."  Sure, they admit it hurts to lose, but they're strong...probably stronger than I'd be in the same circumstances.

I get how important "Just Stuff" can be.  This move was the first major move I've made in over ten years; the first big move since dropping out of college and moving to Colorado Springs.  All the little moves I've made since then didn't cut me off from people I knew like this one has.  Visiting my friends in Denver or the Springs isn't a day trip anymore, and the majority of my California friends don't live here anymore.  I'm excited for Davis, but it's a foreign land to both myself and my fiancee.  We don't know the roads very well, and know very few people here.  Davis doesn't feel like home like Denver did.  It will, but it will take some time to get there.

Our apartment, though, very much feels like home.  I'm currently sitting wrapped in a blanket I've owned for 8 years, in front of a television I've owned for 3.  The Darth Vader helmet my mother bought me when I was a child is sitting on top of the TV stand, and the Rock Band drumset that's been beaten to hell by both myself and my friends stands in front of the fireplace.  These things are familiar to me; they don't define me, but they reinforce me.  They're "my" things, and each one is something I bought or was bought for me because of who I am, and that makes this home.  Erin's mountain of DVDs are in the corner, still not quite shelved properly, and a set of old bookends sit next to the Vader helmet.  This is her place too, and it is the sharing of our things and the addition of a new TV stand and couch we picked out for ourselves that makes this apartment definitively "ours", even though we've only been here a week.  It may be "Just Stuff," but it's comforting to see ourselves within it.

This is why I feel sorry for those who've lost so much.  Even the most rudimentary object can be an album of memories.  It's the connection to memory we lament, the loss of this stabilizing force of our identities.  I wish I could be there physically for my friends, but the best I can do is wish them luck.

Hugs to you all.

And with that, I'm done.

As soon as I finish writing this, I will walk out the door of the Science building's room 3027 and probably never enter this specific room again.  For over a year now it's been a place of joy, comraderie, and growth. It's also been a place of frustration, stress, and hard work.  It's been a safe haven for me and an obligation, and I can comfortably say there's never been a single moment where I didn't want to be here.  It's the research lab that I've trained in, and I've built memories here that will last me a lifetime.

It wasn't until I signed the last page of my notebook and slid it into my drawer that it hit me just how much I will miss this room.  I'll miss the ancient computer that sometimes has trouble running the nanodrop 2000.  I'll miss the whiteboard from the other lab, constantly filled with hilarious comments and drawings (currently there's a drawing of the moon with a person and a beaver on it, with the words "Beavers ARE Like Humans Because beavers DID Land on THE MOON :).  Also a duck asking a kid if he wants some Quack.)  I'll miss the gorgeous view overlooking the campus and parts of Denver, that on more than one occasion distracted me from my work.  Most of all, though, I'll miss the people.  It's trite, but I really will.  I'll remember them all fondly, and while a couple are facebook friends now, I know it won't be the same as seeing them 3-4 times a week.

Most of all, however, I'm going to miss my mentor in this project.  She's been a huge asset to me and helped me to grow from the ignorant, inexperienced student hoping to learn how to run a gel to the slightly-less ignorant, bit more experienced student who's leaving today.  She welcomed my mistakes, and never once was irritated when I screwed up a gel or eluted a plasmid in 500 microliters of buffer instead of 50 (though for that one I think she laughed a little, and rightly so).  She's the first college instructor that I really felt I could speak plainly with about things outside of academia, and she helped me grow in confidence as a student and as a researcher.  I wouldn't have applied to Harvard if it wasn't for her, not because she encouraged me to directly, but because her confidence and support allowed me to feel confident enough to reach for the unlikely.  She showed me that you can be brilliant and be human without having to sacrifice either, and I will miss working for her more than the view or the whiteboard.

I'm looking forward to the future, but it's sad to leave the present.  Graduation is less than two weeks away, and is at once glorious and somber.  Leaving this lab today is a microcosm of the bigger issue: soon I will be leaving everything that's been familiar to me for the last five plus years.  It's hard, but it's time.  I'm a different person than I was when I entered Metro.  I'm more mild-mannered, less idealistic, more confident, more knowledgable, yet more aware of how precious little I actually do know, and most impotantly, more pleased with who I am.  I entered this university seeking to change my life because I was no longer content with a career in a field that didn't hold my interest, because I wanted to make up for the foolishness of my early 20s.  Even if I don't get into any of the graduate programs at any of the universities I applied to, I've met that goal.  I look at myself in the mirror and I genuinely like who I am.  I have great friends, a wonderful girlfriend who likes me even more than I like myself, and most importantly a future to truly be excited for.  It's time to move on.

That doesn't make it any easier, though.

Why I voted for Obama

I don't have the time to give all the facts, so I'm afraid this will be more of a gut-reaction post than any kind of well-reasoned argument.  Frankly, I've done the research but I don't save it.  The conclusions I've made are for my own benefit alone and no one else's.

Everyone who regularly reads my ramblings knows that I'm a liberal.  Since money has never been a huge motivator for me, the notion of losing some of my earnings to the government has never been a major source of objection, especially when that money goes to things like caring for those who are far needier and in a more desperate situation than my own.  With that said, I also realize there needs to be a pragmatic balance.  Adding more and more debt to our nation is not a viable solution, and we do need to tighten our belts and cut spending while we try to pay back this horrible deficit.  I can appreciate this kind of fiscal conservatism, and while I generally don't have any kind of affiliation that would drive me to vote for it, I feel it is a necessary part of our government, and one that the democrats are ignoring.  The problem is that the republicans seem to be playing this notion a good deal of lip service, but the policies they've proposed and enacted do not serve this goal.  For me, part of this "belt tightening" means that those who can afford to give more should give more, to help us fund programs like education, science, and public services while we're cutting what we can afford to in order to get our budget balanced.  Tax cuts for the wealthy do not work, and Romney has not given me an alternative to this Republican ideal.

The bottom line on economic issues is this: I do not have faith in Romney's ability to do any better than Obama has done.  Has Obama done an amazing job?  I wouldn't go that far.  I would say he's done a reasonable job with what he was given, and that recovery from recessions and depressions takes time.  The great depression lasted a decade or more (depending on the region).  This recession has been around for a little over four years.  I understand that this isn't the kind of PR political slogan to go for, but it's true.  I personally believe that Obama prevented this recession from being far worse than it ultimately was, but as we cannot see alternate timelines, there's no way for us to really know.  In either case, the economy is not entirely reliant upon one man, and whether Romney or Obama holds the office, the economy will eventually recover.  That or the world economy will collapse and we'll live in a post-apocalyptic society where cheese becomes the new universal currency...but I'm placing my bets on the recovery of our economy.

So this means I will safely ignore our economy as an issue.  Romney had six months to convince me he could fix our economy, and he failed (for me).

That leaves other issues that do matter for me.  While I am neither gay nor a woman, the rights of both these groups are important to me because I do not want to live in a society where people are treated as second class citizens by their own government because of who they are.  Even though I'm leaving college, there are rumblings among the administration of significant tuition hikes for students in the coming years if Romney were elected vs Obama's plans.  Science funding is threatening to be cut in a world where already only 1 out of 10 grants is funded, meaning a significant amount of valuable research simply cannot be done.  As a budding scientist, this is a major threat to my livelihood.  And finally, as an atheist, I find it difficult to even considering voting for a man who does not view this country as a secular nation, which keeps religion and government separate.  Obama may not be perfect in this field either, but he's reasonable.

I'm not voting for the lesser of two evils.  I'm voting for the better of two choices.  It would be great to have a magic idealistic candidate who would be able to do and stand for all the things I would want, but that kind of candidate doesn't exist.  Obama's not perfect, but he's reasonable, and my stance on issues closely mirrors his.  He's done a reasonable-but-not-perfect job over the last four years and I don't see any reason not to give him another four.

So I voted for Obama.  Clearly it's a bit late to argue me out of that choice, but if you'd like to discuss the matter, as always do it with civility.  Understand also that I know I did not offer any statistics or data, nor do I plan to.  This was for me, to get the rubbish of this election and it's horrible mudslinging by both parties off my chest.  It matters to me that Obama wins, but it matters more to me that you vote for the candidate that you truly feel will do the best for this country.  Don't let anyone bully your vote.

[Men's Bathroom Ads] There's something very wrong about this ad

....I just can't quite put my finger on it.

Found in the bathroom at a Three Margaritas. I know that sex sells, but come on, seriously?

I don't want to live on this planet anymore.

A man's opinion on a woman's issue

This isn’t a fun post to write.  I hate being in disagreement with many of my friends, especially on such a heated and personal issue for many.

The following image has been going around my facebook lately:

Though I hate to disagree, this argument has been bothering me long before this post came around, and it bothers me still.  For those who may have randomly found my little corner of the internet, I by and large agree with my feminist friends.  I fully support legal abortion, I think that rape should carry far stricter penalties than it does, and overall I see the treatment of women by their government as nothing short of abhorrent.  Even as I write this, I hate these words.  I feel like I’m saying, “I’m not a misogynist pig, really!  I have lots of female friends!”

Still I write.  I must hate myself.

I have a very real problem with this argument, primarily on the grounds that it is an argument from emotion and not a particularly logical or reasonable one.  I understand how, for such a powerful issue, it should be an emotional issue in many ways for the people so affected.  I understand that the argument stems from many years of old white idiots making bad argument after bad argument for why women shouldn’t get abortions, or why the pill shouldn’t be covered by insurance (“I don’t want to pay for your recreation,” one overly belligerent acquaintance of mine said recently).  I wholeheartedly support your driving need to tell these buffoons to shut the fuck up, as they don’t know what they’re talking about.  There are better ways to do that, though, for this statement implies that their argument is invalid because of what they have in their pants, not what they lack in their brains.

From this argument we could further suggest that we shouldn’t have a strong opinion about illegal immigration unless we ourselves are immigrants, or that the only people who should have an opinion on science funding are actual researchers (wait...I kinda like that one...).   It says that our opinions matter only if the politics directly influence our lives.  Certainly the opinions of those most affected should be strongly considered when coming to a conclusion on any issue thanks to their personal account of the situation, but it is not the person but the argument that should have the final say.  

The worst part of this argument for me is that this argument seems to only apply if the Y-chromosome bearer disagrees with aspects of women’s rights.  My opinions are and have been welcome for some time, and I suspect they will continue to be welcome as long as I continue to support women's rights.   Though I doubt it, should I come to a conclusion that abortion should be illegal, or that women are made of sand and should be treated as such, I'd hate for my thoughts to be disregarded simply because I'm no longer playing for the home team.  I'd much rather they be disregarded because I had a massive head injury so I'm clearly not thinking straight, or because one of my assumptions was invalid.

 These arguments against women’s rights are bad arguments.  This treatment dismisses a contrary argument based on the source, when instead it should be dismissed because it’s a bad argument. We shouldn't cry foul because the arguments are coming from men, as it’s an easy claim for the opposition to ignore. I've met anti-abortion women, and their arguments are no better than those of the anti-abortion men. All they need is to bring forth a Sarah Palin or similar and the argument is invalid.  Instead of making our own logical fallacies that are as persuasive as a wet dog, I'd rather we stick to the solid, hard-to-refute arguments that women are people and deserve fair and just treatment.

Wrong, wrong, a thousand times wrong

First it was Todd Akin, who desperately needs some fundamental lessons in biology.

Now it's Senator Stacey Campfield, another republican, who decided to leave us with this nugget of wisdom:

“Most people realize that AIDS came from the homosexual community,” he told Michelangelo Signorile, who hosts a radio program on SiriusXM OutQ. “It was one guy screwing a monkey, if I recall correctly, and then having sex with men. It was an airline pilot, if I recall.”

“My understanding is that it is virtually — not completely, but virtually — impossible to contract AIDS through heterosexual sex.” 

Oh my, where to begin?

Let's start with where he's correct.  There's not a lot of correctness, so it shouldn't take time.  To say that AIDS, or more specifically the virus HIV which causes AIDS, comes from the homosexual community is almost accurate.  The first officially documented case of AIDS in the united states (or at least the most recognized) came in the early 80s, when five homosexual men were treated for pneumonia caused  by Pneumocystis carinii, an opportunistic pathogen (which is to say it only causes disease in certain circumstances, such as if the host were immunocompromised).  Most of the time, HIV was identified in homosexuals and drug users, leading many to initially believe that it was a disease that only affected gays.  That assumption lasted all of two years in the scientific community, when it became obvious that AIDS was not exclusive to homosexuals.

That's not to say this was the first case of HIV in the United States, but it's the first series of cases directly attributed to the virus.  There are theories about the original "patient zero" to bring HIV from Africa to the united states, but nothing conclusive.  The best hypothesis I've seen is that there were a series of well traveled gay men who happened to bring the disease back with them, which explains why it hit the gay community the hardest at first.  So yes, Senator Campfield, it seems at least somewhat reasonable to believe that AIDS originally came to the US from the homosexual community, but the assumption is flawed, as it implies that homosexuals are to blame for the disease.  As many of your ilk are prone, you are blaming the victims.  Strike One.

And there's the entirety of his factual understandings.  Oh, wait, there's one small additional tidbit.  The airline pilot in question refers to Gaetan Dugas, a man formerly considered "patient zero" to the US.  He probably wasn't, and again, there's absolutely no evidence that he had sex with a monkey.

The truth is that we don't have a definitive theory on how HIV originated.  We know fairly well that HIV originated from a strain of SIV (Simian Immunodeficiency Virus), but there are a lot of strands of SIV, each infecting a different primate.  Thanks to a lot of genomic data and analysis, researchers have been able to identify SIVcpz, the strain that specifically infects Pan troglodytes (The chimpanzee), as the culprit.  Of SIVcpz, the closest related viruses are found in Cameroon.  The specific jungle region identified is fairly far from the suspected origin of HIV-1, but there's a river that flows from the region of the SIV chimps to where HIV originated in Kinshasa.  While we don't have solid data on this, there's a lot of strong evidence to suggest that this was the origin of HIV, and it probably came from contact with infected chimp blood (possibly in feces or elsewhere in the river).

Either way, I doubt we'll know for certain exactly where it originated, but it's highly unlikely that it started with some man going all the way into the deep wilderness to have sex with a chimpanzee.  Bestiality may happen, but the likelihood here seems so insignificant as to be considered implausible if not impossible.  So there's strike two.

We know a lot about how HIV spreads.  While it is true that evidence suggests the person doing the penetrating has a lower chance of getting infected than the person being penetrated, infection can and does still occur in significant numbers for either party involved.  One of the biggest concerns in treating HIV in Africa is the threat of a child born to an infected mother.  Another is the common belief that Sex with a virgin will cure AIDS, which potentially has led to a significant increase in women infected with HIV by men.  It is not just stupid, but dangerously foolish to think that heterosexual sex cannot transmit the virus.  Strike Three.  You're out.  Or at least I seriously hope you will be.  Comments like this aren't just wrong.  They breed fear and distrust of others (homosexuals in this case) and promote unsafe behavior (not using protection for sex).  It's worse than the AIDS deniers, especially because this comes from a semi-powerful political voice.

Ugh.

I do this

4 months have come and gone, and I haven't made so much as a peep.  The last semester is in part to blame.  Between Organic Chemistry, Microbial Ecology, Analytical Chemistry, and my independent study, I was fairly swamped and didn't have enough brainpower to really think about any of the significant issues.  Of course, the last semester ended a month and a half ago, so I can't entirely blame that.  I know that the four or so people who actually read my blog on a regular basis are just crushed by my silence.

In any case, things have been busy here.  I took the GRE three weeks back, and that turned out very well.  With 90th percentile in verbal, 93rd in quantitative, and 87th in writing, I can feel comfortable knowing that my GRE scores will only serve to help me get into graduate school.  Also, over the last three weeks I've been doing a summer internship at UC Denver's Anschutz medical campus.  I have to say, the thing I'm most surprised about is the raw amount of reading I've had to do.  There are days where there just isn't a lot I can do on my particular project, so instead I read up about the basic principles surrounding it.  I now know more about miRNAs and gammaherpesvirus 68 (a mouse model for the virus that causes mono) than I ever thought I'd know.

Beyond that, though, it's fantastic.  I've gotten to learn how to do RT-PCR, and my first experiences working with RNA have gone surprisingly well, considering how easily it likes to degrade on researchers.  I've done my first cell cultures, and even got to set up a viral plaque assay.  While I walked into this program feeling overwhelmed by my lack of knowledge, I feel like I'm developing new skills every day.  I may not be stellar yet, and there's more than a few techniques I still haven't done and don't quite grasp, but I'm becoming more confident that research is really the career for me.  (Even if the amount of reading dense material is a bit insane).

Life outside of science is still good.  The girlfriend is still awesome.  The house (lacking air conditioning) is still unbearably hot.  My friends are still supportive and all I could ask for in friends.

Until next time, my friends.

The case of heroes.

A friend of mine shared this on her facebook wall today:

I'll be the first to come out as anti-war.  In my younger days, I identified as a pacifist, and while I no longer think such a concept is feasible or sustainable, I still vouch for peace and hate the glorification of war.  Violence can be necessary, and makes for excellent stories, but in reality it should never be celebrated.  I also am not much of a supporter of troops.  I don't hate them, but I don't feel that they need to be celebrated for serving in wars and conflicts that I believe to be unjust.  These are minor points, however, and I'm more interested in addressing a meme that this particular post exemplifies.  For the sake of this argument, I'm going to speak from a standpoint that supports our troops wholeheartedly.  I can't find an exact term for the meme, so I'll call it the "celebrity over soldier" meme.

The "Celebrity over soldier" meme is this idea that springs up every time a celebrity dies.  Someone decides to point out the great tragedy that this person is mourned while soldiers die and are ignored.  I understand the sense of outrage, especially if you know someone who serves or has served in the military, even more so if that person has suffered in the line of duty.  They served valiantly and protected us, doing something truly great for our country, yet they are forgotten over some random actor, singer, or politician.  Yet if we detach ourselves from the situation and observe the phenominon of mourning from an objective distance, it may be more clear.

Our mourning has no bearing on the objective importance of the death.  When my pet cat died over a year ago, I cried deeply for hours.  When a student in my high school, two years my junior, committed suicide, I felt panic over the notion of death but no tears.  The magnitude of my grief over this mere feline, an animal I would weigh as less important than that of a young human life, was far greater.  We do not mourn because tragedy has befallen someone else.  We mourn because tragedy has befallen us.  Is my cat, whose ashes still rest on my mantle, in any pain or suffering now?  Does he need my sympathy or sadness?  No, my sorrow was for myself, to live without him.

For a celebrity it is much the same.  Some may take it to extremes, but for most the grief is simple.  Celebrities are famous because they have made themselves a part of our lives in some small way.  Whitney Houston's version of "I will always love you" is a classic, and many have been moved by her music.  For me, the death of George Carlin in 2008 was a sad event, as I adored both his standup routine as well as his work in Dogma and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, among others.  We mourn them because they contributed something directly to our lives.  We may have their old material, but there will never be anything new.  They were a known quantity, and now they are gone.  We mourn for ourselves.

A dead soldier, heroic though his death may be, is a relative unknown.  There are hundreds of thousands of soldiers serving actively in the US and abroad, and we do not know them individually.  While we have holidays to celebrate their service, we do not know the names of every single soldier.  From a purely objective standpoint, we have not personally lost anything in their death.  If we did not at the very least know of them in life, mourning them in death is disingenuous.

Their service is not to be discounted, of course, but their death does not detract from our way of life; if anything, it promotes our way of life.  They fight to protect us and our interests, and it is that sacrifice that allows us to mourn for celebrities whose deaths mean they will no longer entertain us.  It is not sad, or wrong, or stupid for us to mourn the loss of Whitney (although honestly I think anyone who spends more than a few minutes thinking, "oh how sad" about any celebrity may need to rethink their priorities of what's important in their lives).  Those soldiers died to give us security, a security that means we can worry more about entertainment than whether we'll see the sun tomorrow.  That should be honored, certainly, but not mourned.  Mourning dead soldiers we never knew cheapens their sacrifice and makes their lives important only in their death.

Christmas

Maybe it's the years raised in a primarily catholic home talking.

Maybe it's the traditional (fake) Christmas tree, with its star trek ornaments mixed among armies of santas and hosts of angels.

Maybe it's the music, with all it's cheesy traditional goodwill.

Maybe it's seeing my uncle, my aunts, and my parents again.

I don't really know what it is exactly that does it, but I really like Christmas.  For some it's a celebration of the birth of their manifest deity, while for others the season celebrates the shortest day of the year and the return of the sun.  Be it Yule, or Christmas, or Hanukkah, or Kwanzaa, for many it's a deep religious celebration.  For me, and many others, it's a celebration of togetherness, of family and friends, and of love.  For all the stress, and rampant commercialism, and rampant religious fundamentalism, it still has that joyous allure for me, and while I'm right there with my fellow atheists in arguing for separation of church and state, and demanding we respect all the different traditions during this time while keeping the "christ" out of "christmas," as that special day nears I find myself caring less and less about the politics of it and more about that simple togetherness.

I'll be seeing my Uncle this Christmas Eve.  My uncle is fun, and I love seeing him every Christmas.  He's also a fundamentalist conservative Christian.  He's also a former hippie.  He's ridiculous in so many ways, yet I still love seeing him.  Every year there's worry of drama, of him finally confronting me, of me finally telling him that I'm an atheist and I don't give a damn about his stories of my miracle birth due to his prayers, or of us simply going at it over the dinner table as we argue one way or the other.  It hasn't happened yet, even though I've been a nonchristian for many years.  Does he know I'm not christian?  I think he may suspect it, but I doubt he realizes I'm a dyed-in-the-wool atheist.  Does it matter?  No, not really.  Even though there may come a christmas where we end up having that confrontation, I'm still happy to see him.  He's fun and I like him.  I like his wife, my aunt.  I like his sister, who is far more liberal and far more entertaining.  I like seeing them all, because it's Christmas.

This Christmas eve I'll be eating carrot pudding, watching A Christmas Carol (the original black and white version.  My family are purists for the classic), and enjoying one another's company.  Things will have changed.  This Christmas my grandmother won't be at her house.  I won't be obligated to take her portion of christmas dinner down to her.  She's not well and it won't be quite the same, but I'll still get to see her.  This Christmas will also bring newer blessings with it.  Tomorrow I drive to the airport to pick up my girlfriend, who will be spending Christmas with us.  She'll get to meet my parents for the first time, see the house I grew up in, and will be a new addition to my christmas tradition.  I like that.  My Christmas will be different, but it will not be bad.

Twenty years ago I cared about presents and loathed the ceremony of Christmas dinner.  I barely remember it.
Ten years ago I was still a catholic and was home for winter break after my first semester at Gonzaga.  I was going to be a famous writer one day and majored in English.
Five years ago I was so very, painfully new age, and I was just going back to school after a very long break, having left Gonzaga for various reasons.
Two years ago I was still religious, but only barely, and I had decided I loved science more than english.
A year ago I was an atheist, and knew that I loved science more than teaching.
Today I am still an atheist, and still remain committed to my goals from a year ago.  What is new is my beautiful girlfriend, who makes me feel like I can accomplish anything.

Looking around me, at the tree I decorated, at the life I had before and the life ahead of me, at the dining room table I grew up sitting at, I feel joyous.

Merry Christmas to some, and to the rest may you feel joy in whatever way you choose.

Don't give money to fetus-killers!

Ruh Roh.  Some funding from some bibles supported an organization that supports a program that happens to be put on by an organization that also sometimes provides abortions:

A Christian publisher is withdrawing copies of the "Breast Cancer Awareness Bible," from stores because the Bible helped raised money for the Susan G. Komen Foundation, which contributes to Planned Parenthood.

Oh, well, it's Planned Parenthood, and that's a bad name among Christians.  They probably put all of those funds to aborting fetuses and dancing naked in a wiccan circle, the heathens.  So I guess it's okay.

"Though we have assurances that Komen's funds are used only for breast-cancer screening and awareness, it is not in keeping with LifeWay's core values to have even an indirect relationship with Planned Parenthood," he said

Oh, so the money's all going to breast cancer screening and research?  Well...but it is Planned Parenthood, and they're evil bastards, what with the aborting and promoting promiscuity and whatnot.  Just fund some other company doing breast cancer screening and research.

"In all cases, Komen funding is used exclusively to provide breast cancer programs, including clinical breast exams conducted by trained medical personnel," stated the release. "It's important to note that Komen will only make grants to non-profit organizations. As many mammography providers are for-profit entities, we are only to fund mammography services through grants made to local non-profit service providers."



As long as there are vulnerable communities in need, said the release, "Komen will fund the facilities that can best meet those needs."

So you're saying that you really just went for the group that's going to do the most good in the community?  Well, okay then, but still, our Bible-money shouldn't go to such an evil, underhanded organization, no matter how much good it does!

The Komen Foundation issued a statement Thursday afternoon contending that there were "no dollars going to Planned Parenthood programs" from sales of the Bibles.

...crap.

So basically the Bibles were pulled from the shelves because a portion of proceeds went to an organization that redistributed said funds to nonprofits that would help with breast cancer screenings, awareness, and the all-important research....but that organization sometimes put funds into Planned Parenthood-sponsored breast cancer clinics.

How very righteous of them.

Antivaccination: how Low Can you Go?

Obviously lower than one might originally think, with books like this:

Since when were Measles "marvelous?"  It's one thing to make fallacious arguments about vaccinations, it's another to take those arguments and use them to teach children to embrace potentially life-threatening diseases.

Yick.

Flu Vaccine: Dishonest stat-skeptics

Well, I haven't found anyone else writing about this, probably because it's downright silly, but there's some people out there arguing that the seasonal influenza vaccine is only 1.5% effective.

Specifically, what happened is that a study published in the prestigious journal The Lancet revealed that flu shots provide only “moderate protection” against the flu, and in some seasons is altogether “reduced or absent.”

Specifically, the Lancet said the vaccine is about 59 percent effective. But when you break the numbers down statistically, what it really works out to is that the vaccine prevents flu 1.5 times out of 100.

That’s right. Using the Lancet’s own numbers, statistics show that the vaccine only works 1.5 times out of 100.

Wow.   Sounds pretty damning, and if it were actually true, I might have to rethink my position on the flu vaccine debate.  What we have here is very creative statistics.  The link they provide regarding the 1.5 times out of 100 effectiveness goes to a letter to the editor written by "J.L. Craig, BSN, PhD."  I'm fairly certain the individual in question is one Jennifer Craig, who has written several books against vaccinations and is now retired, so I haven't had much luck on a cursory search of PubMed to see what kind of research she did.  One of my favorite authors over at science-based medicine did a book review of a bunch of anti-vax books, and one of hers was critiqued (It's #6 if you care to get his impression).  She's very clearly anti-vax from her statements, and if this is the same individual then there's some clear bias going in.  That's fair, though, I have clear bias towards vaccination.  Let's look instead at the statistical ploy she uses in her letter:

... let’s examine the study to see how this spin transpired.

This was a meta analysis, meaning that the researchers used data from 28 previously published random controlled trials between 1967 and 2011. The control group, n=13,095, consisted of non-vaccinated adults who were monitored to see if they got confirmed influenza. Over 97 per cent of them did not. Only 357 got flu which means that 2.73 per cent of these adults got the flu in the first place.

The treatment group comprised adults who were vaccinated with a trivalent inactivated influenza vaccine. According to the study, 1.18 per cent got the flu.

The difference between these two groups (2.73 – 1.18) is 1.5 people out of 100. In other words, the flu vaccine did nothing for 98.5 per cent of adults in the studies.

Now in all fairness, she is technically correct.  In those studies 98.5% of people who had the flu shot were unaffected.  They were either already not going to get the flu shot or they got the flu even after having gotten the shot.  Only 1.5% of the people who got the flu shot benefited directly from it.

Does this mean that the flu shot was only 1.5% effective?  Well, no.  Let us say that, in some hypothetical world, a flu vaccine was developed that was perfect.  If you got this vaccine, you were guaranteed not to get the flu.  Not a single person got sick.  We would all agree that this shot was 100% effective.  If you got it, you wouldn't get the flu.  According to her statistical analysis and assuming the same morbidity from the study, the difference between vaccinated and unvaccinated would be (2.73-0.00) or 2.73 people out of 100.  So even with an absolutely, 100% perfect flu shot, it would still do nothing for 97.27 per cent of the population.  Does that mean the shot was only 2.73% effective?

The problem here seems to lie in the numbers.  Our puny mammalian brains have trouble comprehending numbers and making them work.  That's why it's easy for people to get confused by billions vs millions and for us to see a vaccine that cuts the number of infected people by more than half as "only 1.5% effective."  Statistics are easy to manipulate, and it's very easy to use numbers to make your case sound better.

What really gets me is Dr. Craig goes on to accuse the cdc of lying with statistics:

So where did the media get 60 per cent effective? It’s called lying with statistics. First you take the 2.73 per cent in the control group who got flu and you divide that figure into the 1.18 per cent of the treatment group who got the flu. This gives you 0.43.

You then say that 0.43 is 43 per cent of 2.73 and claim that the vaccine results in a 57 per cent decrease in flu infections. This becomes the 60 per cent effectiveness claim.

Erm, Hi.  Pot, Kettle.  Perhaps you've met?  If we really wanted to lie with statistics, we would argue that, since only 1.18% of vaccinated people get the flu, the flu shot must be 98.82% effective.  Now there's some blatant dishonesty for you.

One thing that's also difficult to work with here is that none of these studies involved working with the flu at pandemic levels.  60% efficacy only means a percentage of the population when flu levels are fairly low, but should they reach levels such as in 1918, where roughly 500 million were infected, that means 250 million people avoid the flu if they were all vaccinated.  (At the time that's roughly 30% of the population...that would mean, hopefully, that only 15% of the vaccinated population would get sick).  This is all hypothetical, of course.  More studies would be needed.  Further, the presence of protective immunity may also further reduce the number of people who get sick from the flu.  The higher the number of vaccinated people and the better the vaccine, the greater the herd immunity.  We like herd immunity, since it means the immunodeficient get some protection as well.

I will say one last thing: the mercola article is correct in pointing out that this lancet study showed zero efficacy in some seasons.  That happens.  It's always an educated guess as to which strains of influenza will hit us from year to year, and it would be unreasonably costly to vaccinate us from every flu strain we're aware of.  Even then, it might mutate into something we're entirely unprepared for.  That's part of why we will probably never beat the flu the way we beat smallpox.  I wouldn't ever argue that the flu vaccine is perfect, or even close to perfect.  The only argument I make is that it's the best defense we currently have against a virus that has a proven history of causing pandemic level infections in our population.  You may disagree, and that's fine.  I'm certain I'll get at least one comment arguing that the flu vaccine is bad or, at the very least, unnecessary, and that's fine, too.  My biggest beef is only when others take statistics that say "well, maybe it's only 60% effective instead of 78%" and instead argue that the flu shot has been proven to be pointless.  Don't do that.  It's dumb.

Further Reading:

Mark Crislip on Flu Vaccine Efficacy

WebMD Flu Vaccine FAQ

Reason clouded by hate.

There are days I really dislike some of my fellow atheists.  This is one of those days.

During Skepticon (a convention I really wish I could go to one year), a Gelato store owner a block away posted this obviously offensive, mockworthy sign.

Skepticon is not welcomed to my Christian Business

This emphasizes my previous complaint about atheists being treated as vile, untrustworthy, generally-not-nice people, and when I first saw the blog post displaying the photo my immediate reaction was to laugh, discount the guy as a bigot, and move on with my day.  I gave it no more thought until I saw this (apparently) genuinely honest apology from said store owner.

To the World:

Hello, my name is Andy and I’m the owner of Gelato Mio, a gelato shop located in Springfield, Missouri. There has been quite a lot of buzz and discussion concerning a picture of the sign I briefly posted in my front window Saturday evening. I’d like to take this opportunity to tell my story and offer a heartfelt apology to your community. I messed up, plain and simple. This is NOT an excuse, but how it happened from my perspective.

I decided to welcome the convention downtown by offering the attendees 10% off their purchases at my store. A lot of the group from the convention were stopping by, being very polite and enjoying my Gelato. Saturday night started out as a great night. Once the store slowed down, I decided to walk down the street to learn more about the convention, fully thinking it was something involving UFOs (“skeptics”). What I saw instead was a man conducting a mock sermon, reading the bible and cursing it. Instead of saying “Amen”, the phrase was “god damn”. Being a Christian, and expecting flying saucers, I was not only totally surprised but totally offended. I took it very personally and quickly decided in the heat of the moment that I had to take matters into my own hands and let people know how I felt at that moment in time.

So, I went quickly back to my business, grabbed the first piece of paper I could find, wrote the note and taped it in my front window. This was an impulsive response, which I fully acknowledge was completely wrong and unacceptable. The sign was posted for about 10 minutes or so before I calmed down, came to my senses, and took it down. For what it’s worth, nobody was turned away. I strongly believe that everybody is entitled to their beliefs. I’m not apologizing for my beliefs, but rather for my inexcusable actions. I was wrong.

Guys, I really don’t know what else I can do to express my apologies. I’ve received dozens of calls and hundreds of emails since the incident, and have done my best to reply to each and every one and express my regret for what happened. For the thousands of you whom I’ve offended, I sincerely apologize. I hope you can find it in your hearts to forgive me. This is me as a human being sincerely apologizing for my actions.

To those of you who accept my apology, Thank You; it means a lot. To those of you who haven’t, I hope you will. I’m just a 28 year old small business owner who made a big mistake. I hope you see that I have not made any excuses, I’ve owned up to what I did, and I apologize.

For what it’s worth, an Atheist reached out to me to help me work through all of this and contact your community directly. I graciously accepted his offer.

I will give everyone who comes to my store this week 10% off as a token of my apology. Really, what’s more universal than ice cream?

Sincerely, Andy

Good for him.  Maybe it's clever PR trying to get past the stigma he placed on his shop, but it seems to me like the guy had a gut reaction, overreacted, and wanted to express his apologies for being a douchenozzle.  I think most reasonable people would take it at that, understanding that when we get offended, we tend not to think rationally.  This isn't a christian condition, so much as it's a human condition.  If someone attacks something you value, the first reaction is almost always to go on the defensive.  I know I have on more than one occasion, and I've seen it in my believer and nonbeliever friends.  This is part of my issue with the notion of the sacredness of anything.  If we allow ourselves to be offended by ill-treatment of objects, it clouds our judgement and keeps us from being logical about the issue.  He was affected by this ill logic due to the mistreatment of his sacred book, and overreacted.  The logical response was to understand, shrug it off, and move on with our lives.

PZ Myers doesn't agree:

There is an asymmetry here. GelatoGuy lives in one of the most religious countries on earth, in a particularly intensely religious part of that country, and in a moment of smug self-righteousness, felt he could openly discriminate against people who do not respect his beliefs. And now he thinks he can walk away, forgiven, and return to his blithe happy Christian pocket universe, just by saying a few words. And we, of course, will turn around and think he’s a nice , sincere, classy guy.

Meanwhile, we will still be regarded as the least trustworthy minority in the country; we still have to deal with the fact that we are excluded from the political discourse; we still have to walk into courtrooms with the ten commandments on display; we have to watch these nice, sincere, classy people elect gay hating bigots, anti-science know-nothings, and flaming misogynists to high office…but hey, they’ll apologize to our faces when they risk losing our business. And then go back to church to listen to their priests fulminate against the godless, go into the voting booth and vote against civil rights, go to their school board and piously try to ram their faith into our children’s faces.

I understand his rage.  Christianity as a whole has a very cushy position in America, and the kind of discrimination he displayed is fairly common in certain parts of the US.  Atheism as a movement is regarded poorly, and people think poorly about us.  Yet it seems that PZ and others have lumped all Christians into the same category: people in Jesus-bubbles who can't see atheists in any kind of positive light.  I understand that sentiment, too.  My own mother had the emotional reaction that she was a failure as a parent because I turned to atheism.  Eventually she came to understand and respect my decision, and we're past that point, but that gut reaction is a common problem that many believers share.  Becoming an atheist is like becoming a convicted criminal to many.  You've gone down a notch in the quality of your character by becoming one.

So yes, PZ is very much in the right to be offended, but the offense of the many does not justify disrespecting a single man who, while somewhat prejudiced against us, openly admitted that what he had done was wrong.  Whether he feels we're immorally bankrupt, he acknowledges that treating us like second-class citizens is inappropriate.  No one should discredit this man for being offended.  He has the right to be offended.  Hell, he should have been.  From what I understand, it was intended to be an offensive piece.  He made a really dumb, bigoted mistake, and owned up to it.  What's more awesome than that?

I really like "friendly atheist" Hermant Mehta's take on it:

No one’s letting Andy off the hook for being a bigot. He still disapproves of atheism. Who cares. The point is that he (now) knows that his act of discrimination was wrong. We ought to show some appreciation when someone admits they made a mistake, even if the person isn’t completely on our side of the big picture. The next step is to get him to realize why there’s nothing wrong with what was said at Skepticon in the first place, but that’s a separate battle.

What I don't like is what one of his commentors said:

I completely disagree that this makes everything okay. Say he heard that Pride Day was going on and thought it was some patriotic gathering; he instead saw gay couples kissing, and subsequently banned them from his establishment as a kneejerk panicked response? That would not be quickly forgiven, likely by many; why should this be treated any differently when the bigotry was just as real?

I see a couple of key differences here.  The first is that gay couples kissing is not designed nor intended to offend, just as skeptical people sitting down and talking about the flaws of religion or generally making logical arguments are not designed to offend.  The second is that yes, I think the example she gave here should be treated with the same level of forgiveness.  People can be dumb and bigoted, and cutting them off doesn't give them the exposure to get past those prejudices and move past a place of ignorance and into a place of knowledge.  PZ may think people should be confronted with full-frontal atheism from the get-go...

Perhaps, on the schedule, we could print little chili peppers next to the titles of the talks? No peppers means it will praise Jesus, five peppers means the content will send any Christian listeners straight to hell?

I find this whole idea far more offensive than what GelatoGuy did — it is atheists and skeptics rushing to self-censor themselves, to mark some of their ideas as publicly shameful, and to acquiesce to ignorant public opinion. I’m not going to support that kind of behavior at all: sure, welcome the public, including delicate Christians like GelatoGuy, to the event, but don’t coddle them. This is who we are. Be proud.

 

...and I can appreciate that sentiment.  Yet it's not offensive to suggest that he first listen to a milder voice of atheism.  People view atheists as belligerent, condescending assholes, and the best way to break a prejudice like that is to show someone an example of an atheist who isn't a belligerent, condescending asshole.  We can be proud of who we are yet also be reasonable people, starting with little baby-steps and moving onto the great leaps of grokking our ideas.  I became an atheist because of reasonable people who didn't push me, followed by belligerent assholes who challenged me.  I think there's plenty of room for the dicks of the atheist community just as there's room for the "accomodationists," and for PZ to think that being accomodating and friendly is worthy of rage is deeply offensive and, dare I say it, foolish.

There's got to be a middle ground somewhere.  There's room enough in this movement for the obnoxious and the soft-spoken, for the belligerent and the peaceful, for the offensive and the accomodating.  Yet even the most obnoxious shouldn't look at a man's apology as a reason to condemn him.  Give him a bloody chance to grow from this experience and realize that being an atheist doesn't make us immoral, indecent, or evil.

Here we go again.

A friend on facebook posted a link to a new study showing just how much everyone hates us atheists, arguing that this hatred stems mostly from distrust.  I wouldn't have felt the need to comment on this originally; it's a sad but true fact that people distrust atheists, that we're one of the most hated groups in the world, yadda yadda yadda.  Then I saw this part of the study:

 this description — of an individual who commits insurance fraud and steals money when the chances of detection are minimal — was only seen as representative of atheists and rapists, and people did not significantly differentiate atheists from rapists.

Read the link presented by the Friendly Atheist to see the whole scenario, but I promise you it doesn't paint a good picture.  It doesn't say "oh, all people think atheists are awful," but it does say when people make logical fallacies of inference, they view us as just as awful, immoral, and corrupt as a rapist.

This is unacceptable.

Why is it that we live in a world where belief in an unproven and to some degree unprovable phenomenon is the mark of good morality?  Why are we constantly viewed as cesspools of greed and villainy, time and time again?  I've been spared the bulk of this treatment on most cases.  I'm fortunate enough to be surrounded by friends and people who either are also atheists or, at the very least, are areligious.  Yet even still it happens.  I've been told before that my atheism is just a phase, and I made my own mother ask her friends if she was a failure when I "came out of the atheist closet."  She came to respect my decision over time, and I respect her for that, but then there are other, more recent examples.

When my girlfriend and I "went public" with our relationship, linking our profiles on facebook, one of her coworkers came to her and said, "Oh my god, Erin, did you know that your boyfriend is an atheist?"  It's funny, but also more than a little sad.

Ok, I'll admit, this is probably coming across as a little more angry than it ought, but I hate this.  Still, The Friendly Atheist offers good advice, advice to enact change.

Let’s say all of this is accurate. How do we counteract the negative perceptions about us?

Two ways.

First, we have to continue doing community service — serving at food banks, donating to charity, giving blood, etc. Show people that we can be good without god.

Second, we have to let people we trust know that we’re atheists. People think poorly of atheists because they don’t think they know any. It’s a shock to their system when they find out someone close to them doesn’t believe in a god… so shock them! Let them know that someone they already trust is an atheist.

Those two things would do more to reverse the results the researchers found in these studies than anything else I can think of.

So yes.  Friends, I am an atheist.  And yes, we do good deeds not because people are watching, but because it is fundamentally the right thing to do.  The reward is in the success and goodwill of our entire species, because I do have faith.  I have faith in the heart of humanity, in our dedication to others, and I have faith that most people do good deeds not because they are afraid of eternal punishment or hope that they'll "get their reward in heaven," but because it's the right way to act.

And if you think that fear of hell will persuade anyone any more than fear of prison will, I've got a plot of land on the moon I'd like to sell you.

The Virus and the Sanctity of Life

This paper, below, was a project for my Virology class.  I really wanted to go into more detail, but she specifically asked for around one page and I found, if I tried to talk about any other aspect of this debate, that I ran well over that limit.  So am I overall happy with the paper?  Well, no, not really.  Do I think it's reasonable for being limited to a page?  You bet'cha.  Let me know what you think!

Oh, the prompt was simply, "Are Viruses Alive?"  We had to take a side, though I'd like to place them pretty firmly in the "kinda sorta" category.

------------------------

                Characterizing viruses as alive or nonliving presents a very real challenge in modern biology; one must, before taking a stance, come with a functional definition of life that can clearly delineate living from the near-living.  This presents a problem, as we don’t really have a definition that accomplishes this.  We know to some extent how life functions, but have difficulty coming up with a clear, concise definition that excludes all things dead yet includes all living things.  The task would be easy if not for the strong societal connotation that “alive” bears.  You can see it permeated throughout our culture.  The 1980s movie Short Circuit focused heavily on this idea, featuring a robot that had argued for his own sentience with such clever catchphrases as “Number Five is alive!”  Humans are overly concerned with the notion of “living” when we actually tend to mean “sentient” or “self-aware.”  Rare is the person who cares if we kill a colony of bacteria, but human life or, to some, animal life bears greater significance.  This concern for the existence of sentient, feeling organisms seems to charge “life” and its variants with a connotation that can impede our efforts to define it. 

                We commonly consider an organism “alive” if it has a metabolism, responds chemically to its environment, maintains a separation from itself and its environment, and is capable of reproduction.  This definition carries with it many problems, as no single characteristic is exclusive to life, and some may, in fact, exclude forms of life.   A man who is infertile is not capable of reproducing more copies of himself (save at a cellular level), but is still considered alive.  A house has clear boundaries, but is quite dead.  A car has a form of metabolism, and nearly everything can respond chemically to their environment in some fashion or another.   A better definition of life must be more specific to have any relevance to biology.

 We know a few things about what we define as life.  All clearly categorized living things have a genome, a code of instructions that can be replicated by the organism.  This genome also undergoes a process to create proteins based on that genome (traditionally transcription followed by translation), which can be used for a variety of purposes.  These features function elegantly, but their function seems little more than that of a machine.  The genome is the programming code, the proteins created by that code are the gears (enzymes and cell signaling proteins), and while capable of some self-repair there comes a point when the machine is no longer capable of functioning.  In machines we might call it simply “irreparably damaged” or “junk.”  In life we call it “dead.”  A “living” machine must be organic and utilize a genome, certainly, but that makes it a category of machinery, not a classification separate from it.  Viruses are merely simpler organic machines.  They are capable of a set of processes defined by their genomic code, and have a point where they can no longer function.   By this presented argument, viruses are alive.  A bacterial spore has little to no function, but is still considered alive since it can be viable years after encysting.  If we accept these simple spores as alive, then a virus, which may like smallpox remain dormant for years and still be virulent, should be considered alive.  A prion, carrying no genetic code but being a peculiar infective result of that code, would not be considered alive.   It is a rogue cog in the machinery of life, causing significant damage yet holding no heritable, reproducible advantage or capability. 

Smut for Smut?

I'm conflicted on this in a lot of different ways:

At the University of Texas San Antonio campus, a college atheist group is offering students pornography in exchange for Bibles, Korans, or other religious texts. The group, Atheist Agenda, calls the exchange "Smut for Smut".

Group members claim that the Bible and other religious texts are just as as smutty as any pornography. According to the group, the Bible contains all sorts of misogyny, violence, torture and questionable sexual practices.

My first reaction to this activity was amusement, I'll admit.  There's nothing better than irreverence in comedy, and I find many things offensive to be quite funny, really.  It's clever, has a catchy slogan, and overall entertaining to think about.  I'd probably trade in a bible for porn just for the shock value alone.  Let's face it: making fun of religion is funny.  If it wasn't, I wouldn't laugh my ass off every time I heard this song:

(The animation in particular makes me giggle)

That said, I also wonder if this is as inappropriate as the qu'ran burning  last year was.  The two incidents bear some striking resemblances, as both involve desecrating what people consider sacred.  Is it as tasteless, or is there a difference in that one is rife with hypocrisy and the other treats everything as irreverent?  It's a worthy question for contemplation, and one I don't really have an answer to.  The only thing I do know is that the inappropriateness is irrelevant, because both activities are and ought to be legal.  None are truly harmed by the burning of the Qu'ran or the trading of bibles for porn, and while I equally support the right of others to protest these actions, there is and should not be anything wrong with the atheist organization doing this.  Reverence belongs to the believer, and has no place in the eyes of the nonbeliever nor the government.

At least that's my take on things.  What do you think about this incident?  Kosher or not?  I haven't given it enough thought to come to a full-on conclusion yet, and I'd like to hear the input of my friends. :)  

Fly Away, Katydid

Tonight I let my Katydid free.

It's been quite a while since I've written here, so unless you've spoken to me in the last few weeks, you wouldn't know about my katydid.  I sadly don't have a great picture of her, but here's the only one that had any clarity:

Yeah, the only good shot I get, and it's of her rump.

For Invertibrate Zoology, one of our requirements was to catch and take care of some kind of invertebrate and do a report on them.  For being so interested in biology, I'm fundamentally squeamish about touching living organisms, especially invertebrates (or vertebrates that potentially bite).  It's not much of an issue with cats, dogs, or other domesticated animals.  It's the wild ones.  Maybe it's a touch of respect for their wildness, maybe it's partly an ingrained fear of injury, or maybe I'm just constantly terrified that touching them will cause them harm, like with butterflies.  It's probably a combination of the three.  Whatever the cause, the squeamishness makes me hesitate when trying to grab something, making attempts at catching much of anything a bit of a challenge.  Thankfully, my roommate and my girlfriend were both happy to help.

My roommate and I caught a grasshopper and a pine beetle while we were in the mountains, helping his family.  I say "we" caught them, but really it was almost entirely his doing.  I wandered around, feeling oafish as everything with legs and wings hopped, ran, or flew away from me.  Still, we had them, and I started doing research, hoping to get the project over with as quickly as possible.  Both died in short order.  Thankfully, less than a week later my girlfriend and I stumbled upon this beautiful creature.  Since the picture of my actual caught organism is pretty weak, I include a stock footage of the species, hoping you'll understand if I argue that she looked "just like this."

Microcentrum rhombificum, or Greater Anglewing Katydids, are the only kind of katydid typically found in Denver proper, so it was fairly easy to identify her.  I'm slow to catch bugs, and generally squeamish about handling them, so I'll admit that it was my girlfriend who was daring and clever enough to catch her.  She held the katydid in her hands all the way back to the car, a fair distance since we were out for a walk.  She commented with amusement how the insect was tickling her hands as she walked.  We eventually put her in an empty qdoba bag for the ride home, and my roommate helped us transfer her from the bag to my cage.

For the next week I studied her, becoming comfortable with her general features and habits, all the while keeping her in her cage.  I delighted when she grew eggs, and fretted over her, misting her cage frequently and adding new and various vegetation for her consumption.  The project date came and my presentation was an astounding success.  Still, over all this time I never once touched or handled her. I watched her with keen interest and adoration, but not once even tried to make contact.  The cage was a barrier to both of us, and I preferred to keep it that way.

Tonight I decided to let her go.  It was time, really.  M. rhombificum adults typically only last until the end of October, so she wasn't likely going to live much longer anyways.  I walked out to my back porch, opened the cage, and set it down on the ground, away from me and towards the wilderness that is our backyard.  She didn't move.  I picked up the cage and studied her intently.  She continued to sit there, calmly grooming her legs, seemingly uninterested in the notion of freedom.  I set it down again and waited.

And waited.

And waited.


I picked up the cage again and stared in at her.  She stared right back at me.  Building up some nerve, I reached in and gently poked her wings, hoping the contact with a big, scary predator might cause her to consider making a break for it.  Of course, my own training should have told me that katydids, aka "leaf bugs", freeze when they suspect they're in trouble, what with their masterful ability to blend in with their environment.  Surprise, surprise, she froze.

Maybe a little shake of the cage might knock her out, I reasoned.  I was afraid to knock out the eggs she'd laid, so I gently yet firmly shook the cage, letting bits and pieces of weed, leaf, and romaine lettuce hearts shake out onto the backyard patio.  No katydid.  I tried again.  Still no katydid.  A third time and still no katydid, but finally I noticed that she had started crawling to the top of the cage.  I set it down again, hoping she'd crawl out, and she did.  I knew then that it wouldn't be long before she'd fly away, and I knew I had to seize the moment.  For all my squeamishness, if I didn't handle her at least a little bit before she was gone, I knew I'd regret it.

So I held out my finger to her and she climbed on.  I didn't grab her, didn't touch her in any way.  I let her touch me.  She stood on my finger, so content that when I put my finger next to a very tall weed she made no move to depart.  She sat there for a few minutes and I had my first opportunity to really examine her.  Without the mesh of the cage between us, she was a beautiful marvel of life.  I had come to appreciate her in an academic sense, but what I felt, sitting there in the middle of the night in my boxers and a t-shirt, was far greater than simple academia.  It was raw appreciation for the brilliance of the organism that sat on my finger. You can never have that same sensation in microbiology (no matter how awesome microbes are).

Moments later she flew away, vanishing into the night.  I went downstairs, sat down on my computer, and wrote this article.

I suppose there's a metaphor in there somewhere.

Love

I am a sappy fool.

That's not a bad statement.  I think we as a society look too harshly on the fools in our world.  I don't think I'm an idiot, per se, just that I tend to behave and think in ways that are foolish when it comes to romance.  I toy with thoughts that are outright dumb, knowing fully well that they are dumb, and in the right moment of passion am prone to falling for them.  Sometimes I might fall for them even as I think completely and rationally about my choices, knowing it's probably not the best for my sanity or my life.  I make them because even as they are excessively foolish, they are also brilliant.

I adore romance, but not the too-serious kind.  To me the world of the heart should never be taken with too much gravitas, because such strong feelings can only be countered by a whimsical joy that pervades it.  You have to know that what you're writing, thinking, or doing is sappy, that there's a silliness to it, or the game is ruined.  To ignore the silliness in love is to risk disaster.

At least that's my take on things.  I think I've been hiding that romantic side in me for too long, not really expressing it to the world.  I've been burned many times, leaping too far or making too foolish a move at just the wrong moment, but I think in the end it was worth it.

Love, ultimately, has always been worth it.

(And no, I'm not changing my facebook status anytime soon.  I just had a long talk tonight that really put things in perspective for me.  It was good.)

School Days, School Days...

School will soon be upon me.  As a child I might have seen the return to school with a sense of dread and fear.  Gone would be the sense of freedom, gone the days of careless play and weeklong camping trips.  These days I look with excitement.  Gone will be the sense of listlessness, gone the days of job searching and wishing I could afford to do more things.  I laugh a little as I realize I am so mad that I want to pursue effectively a career in being in school, constantly studying and refining my knowledge of the world around me.  I'm legitimately excited about this semester.  It should be fantastic.

My schedule this semester is going to be light, class-wise.  I'll be taking Virology, Invertebrate Zoology, and General Chemistry 2.  That's it.  Three classes, plus a lab.  With the way my graduation path is lined up, I'll only be taking roughly three classes a semester until I graduate.  Virology is with the same instructor I took for Genetics, and is effectively an advanced genetics course.  Since I love both the professor and the subject, it should be great.  I haven't taken a class from my Invertebrate Zoology professor, but invertebrates are interesting and I've heard good things about her.  The last class, Gen Chem 2, worries me.  It worries me a lot.  Not because I don't know or like the material, but because I don't know who the professor is yet.  The last time this happened I got stuck with one of the most boring instructors in the department, one who also happened to take roll and taught a subject I was intimately familiar with.

So this semester should be good, all told.  Add on that I'm working in the student labs (for free) doing independent research/study with my absolute favorite teacher, and this semester keeps sounding better and better!

Way to go, Matt Damon

I have to admit, I'm a big fan of Matt Damon.  Everything I've heard him say outside of acting makes me like him.  This recent video I am happy to include among the evidence for "Matt Damon is awesome:"

Reason.tv is a libertarian organization.  I've had some people suggest I might be libertarian, but this video is evidence to the contrary.  Having (mostly) gone through the teacher program at my university, and having several good friends who are teachers, I wholeheartedly agree with Matt Damon's approach.  The idea of taking away "job security" among teachers is silly.  I don't know exactly where I stand on the pension issue, exactly, but it seems like the gut reaction most people have when there are education problems is to blame the teachers.  Yes, there are bad teachers.  Yes, we should try to figure out a way to encourage good teachers and teaching habits.  The issue is minor compared to many other driving issues in education.

I remain hopeful for education, even if I'm going going into the career anymore.