assorted thoughts

first off, i found these (research paper and NPR article from this morning) very interesting in regard to my prior discussion with a Restless Legs Syndrome sufferer. I do wish her the best, but the paper in particular includes the mot juste that I was searching for in regard to her rare, debilitating condition. "disease mongering."

PLoS Medicine

NPR Health

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I think creationism is arrogance--the belief that human beings are somehow special, or special-er than every other species on the whole planet in the whole universe. "God made the whole of the heavens and the earth, and then he made us to live in it and worship him." That's the most narcissistic statement i've ever heard. Today on my ride home Terry Gross was interviewing Francis Collins, head of the Human Genome Project, writer of The Language of God, and a practicing Evangelical. I about threw up when he said

"it was all his plan, he just carried it out, using the tools of evolution. . . . god had the intention of creating life--this wonderful diversity of life that we see all around us on this planet--and ourselves, special creatures with whom he could have fellowship, in whom he would imbue the soul, the knowledge of good and evil, and the ability to practice free will."

Way to adapt truth to fanciful egotism. You work in a field in which you have the facts of life shoved into your face daily--there's no getting around it by hiding in the church--but rather than accept the fact that we are just one species of many on one of many planets in many galaxies in possibly many pan-dimensional universes and That's It, you'd prefer to crawl back into the recesses of your selfish imagination and try to Justify It To Your Ego somehow.

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I'm really getting tired of excessive safety features. Like the auto-slide door on minivans (people carriers). You push a button in the door and it closes itself in a controlled manner. Sounds like a good idea--fewer crushed fingers and tearful eyes--until you sit through its opening/closing procedure a few times. The thing takes about half an hour to slide across. You coulda been to the grocery store and back by the time the damn door closed. It also takes a lot of battery power, Breaks if you try to close it manually, and get this--they don't actually have enough power to get over the holding lever. Yep--that's the whole reason children's arms get thrown out in the first place. Slowly sliding a door closed Never gets it to actually click closed. I know a number of dads who've perfected the technique of leaving the door wide open, getting all the kids in their seat belts, and then driving a few feet only to slam on the brakes, causing the door to likewise slam. Not only does it delight the stickier members of the family, but its one of a very small number of ways to successfully close those doors.

this also pertains to the manufacture of shoddy products that are loaded with safety features which fail to take into consideration the most likely course of events--that being the product Breaking.

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I just finished Mary Wollstonecraft's Mary, a delightful, short narrative on how one woman's life starts out bad, gets worse, all her friends and family die in her arms, and she spends the rest of her life alone. I've since embarked upon The Wrongs of Woman, and i've gotten a whole four pages in without anyone coughing up blood!

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An ad searching for egg donors recently caught my eye. I nearly started the preliminary forms, but then was reminded of my family history of alcoholism, depression, cancer, blood disorders, arthritis, pulmonary disorders, poor vision, patella disorders, back pain, and oddly-shaped fingernails. I think I'll keep my shoddy DNA to myself.

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Before the invention of toilet paper, I'd imagine your average person was a lot better at botany.