Plants, Pies, and Little Neighbours

So, WindoPlant is looking happier than it has in months:

This rhubarb and strawberry pie (recipe courtesy of Smitten Kitchen, discovered thanks to my dear Kim is still cooling on the rack RIGHT NOW.




I came across this little fella sleeping in my garden when I came home from the shops yesterday afternoon (and yes, he was breathing--it's always a bit iffy when it comes to London foxes. They're not the healthiest of creatures.)


But These boys live next door and come over to say hi to me almost every day. That's Squidge in the front and Mooney standing behind. They're very sweet. Squidge is a bit simple (he's a fully-grown tom who still chases his tail) and Mooney can be a bit aloof but they both come around right after dinner for a head-scratch. (Before we met the new couple next door, but after the cats started coming around to say hi, we called them Ackee and Saltfish.)


That's all.

Miss Apologist

I just watched the reel of Miss USA contestants' answers to the question "should evolution be taught in schools?" and wow, it made me sad.

Most of them said yes, but qualified it with some sort of higgledy-wibbledy "and creationism should be taught too, so the child can decide what to believe in." Several made disparaging comments regarding the fact that it is a theory, comments which clearly evidence their ignorance as to what the word "theory" actually means. This is pathetic, but demonstrates not their own idiocy, but the failings of their education systems.

In Fort Mill, in the year 2000 I learned about the theory of evolution in Biology 1. The teacher prefaced the unit with a well-rehearsed speech, one that chills me even now as I remember how directly she had to undermine her own intelligence every year. She looked fleetingly in each child's eyes as she said "this is a theory. I'm required to teach it to you. You are not required to believe it, and you will not be tested on your belief in it. But you need to be aware of it, especially those of you who want to study science in college or work in science when you grow up." She then fielded a number of protestations from the class members who wished to sit out because it was offensive to them. They couldn't, so some just didn't show up for the rest of the week and took a zero for the unit. Most kids, though, didn't care, and sat through the lessons exactly as they would any other lesson.

The trouble was, though, that the explanation in the textbook was weak, confusing, and disjointed. The diagrams didn't make any sense and examples seemed almost deliberately obscure. And all the while students whispered "it's just a theory, it's just a theory." as though this somehow negated it.

I'll admit, when I first learned about the evolution of human beings from an ancestor in common with contemporary apes, I was...not sceptical, not dubious, but somehow offended. I didn't like the idea that my big beautiful brain and fur-free face had a root in something so ugly. I didn't want to be part of such a humiliating lineage. But it nevertheless made sense. And in the end, that's all that mattered, because other ideas didn't.

But what got me was the repeated assertion that this was "just a theory" as though it wasn't a fact, just an idea that a few people believed in. But that's not a theory. An idea that makes sense but hasn't been proven or disproved is a hypothesis. The 45-odd identical young women in the interview reel who wanted to teach "both", side by side seemed to think that the word Theory means unverified claim, much like creationism. The only way evolutionary science could be taught alongside creationism is if no one had ever tried to test the hypothesis of evolution.

See, creationism never made it past the hypothesis stage. It did not hold up under experiment or examination. It was disproved. Evolution, on the other hand, has held up under experiment and examination. It has not been disproved. Does that mean it has been proven? Well, that's not really how the scientific method works. And anyone who has paid attention in science class beyond fourth grade knows that. The best you can hope for, really, is to be not conclusively disproved many, many times. Evolution has passed this scrutiny many many times, so it gets to be a theory--a generally agreed-upon-as-true concept. Creationism, and later its watered-down quasi-evolutionary sneaky-inny concessionary re-try versions have failed under this scrutiny many many times, so it gets to be a crock of bullshit. We know it is false. It has never stood up to reasonable verification measures. It is not a theory. It is wrong.

In answering "it should be taught alongside other theories, like creationism" these young ladies have only actually managed to say, "I don't know what the word theory means, so I'm not qualified to answer this question."

But that's what the system teaches them--so long as teachers can say "it's just a theory" and expect most parents to equate that with saying "it's just this insignificant idea" then they can teach their science classes in peace. In parents' minds no one has actually directly stated "this is the truth. All other ideas are wrong." so they don't raise up to protect their bullshit. Even though the teachers actually have said that. Just from a rather oblique grammatical angle. Evolution is the only explanation for biodiversity and the links between various species that has not been proven false.

But also (!) what is this BS about kids getting the option of believing in what they want to believe if all the cards are laid out on the table? No. Evolution is true whether or not you believe in it. It is belief-proof. You can stand in your living room or sanctuary all day and wave your hands around saying "la la la, I don't believe" but when you break for dinner, your relationship to the chimpanzee in the local zoo is still irrefutable.

School isn't about providing avenues for belief, and it sure as hell isn't about teaching religious fairy stories. It exists to provide young people with the basic knowledge and thinking skills they need to either undertake further education or do a grown-up job. Note, I did not say "critical" thinking skills. Just thinking. You don't get to think critically until at least your junior year of university.

The mere idea of providing a middle schooler with two contradictory ideas of where human beings came from, one which is true but kinda dry and the other which is clearly false (but is nevertheless presented as "as potentially true" as the other) but tells children that they're somehow special out of the entire universe, then leaving them to pick one, is clearly nonsense. Kids are dumb--not just insufficiently informed, but mentally undeveloped. They're not able to think critically or objectively. They just want to feel safe, fed, and special. That's why we don't argue with them or ask them to make choices. We simply present information to them as irrefutable and expect them to absorb it. And they do.

That is why it is so very vital to keep BS like creationism out of schools. Kids are too dumb to realize that their stupidity and credulity are being exploited by adults who want them to believe popular lies in the face of valid evidence to the contrary. Children believe their teachers with a sort of relaxed empiricism that can get them into trouble. (e.g. I'll believe it because someone much smarter than me believes it and appears to have done some research. Therefore whatever the teacher tells me is factual.) If you tell teachers to present evolution and creationism as equally-potentially-true approaches toward explaining some big unknown, you only confuse the simple-minded monkeys in your class. Tell them what actually is true, and let their churches lie to them.

The sad fact is, most of these contestants in some way acknowledged that kids' understanding of evolution is vital to our nation's progress. We can't make advances in medicine or biotech without it, or with a belief that something else is true. How can you hold two such directly conflicting ideas in one head? On the one hand, you can clearly observe the leaps and bounds technology has made since people accepted the Origin of the Species, you can acknowledge that this scientific understanding is vital, but on the other you can say "but I believe something different." I know this is true, but I don't personally believe in it. GlaDOS would explode.

I'll explain it. You believe the theistic lies because you were told them when you were very young, before you were really capable of examining them yourself. You were told them by people you loved and trusted so you never questioned them. And now, fifteen to twenty years later, they've gelled into a bizarre permeable sense-barrier. You can both know a truth and disbelieve in it, not because you have faith, but because you really just haven't thought about it. Or much at all.

Yes, the most important reason to keep creationism out of schools is that, if we allowed it, the dumber kids would turn out just like you, Miss USAirhead.

I saw a documentary recently about the conservation challenge of non-photogenic endangered species, such as the Dominican Chicken (a big frog with tasty legs) which are on the verge of being wiped out (in the case of the Chicken, by over-hunting and an infectious fungus that was probably brought in by a tourist). It's strange--amphibians have been around for millions and millions of years, and even this particular species has been around for ages, but they are so very specifically adapted to their habitats that they're two degrees from extinction at the best of times (well, at least since the industrial revolution). I guess when you have a fairly permeable skin layer protected by a rather pH specific mucus, the slightest environmental change can wreck your defences and cause catastrophe. Like the white perch in Baltimore Harbour--almost all of them have an intestinal infection (that starts at the anus) by midsummer because the bay's acidity changes during fertilizer season, burning through their protective layer right when the algal bloom is reaching its peak. This illness, plus depleted dissolved oxygen levels (courtesy of the opaque slurry of dead algae) prevents many of these little ugly fish from reaching sexual maturity, so spawn counts are lower, which means the animals that eat them are going hungry...but they're not big or fluffy, so no one really cares. Holistic ecology is lost on most people.

I Attended A Quiet, Nerdy Lecture

and this happened.

Yeah. Protesters. They were upset about AC Grayling's proposed new school, a frou-frou private humanities college that would cost £18,000 a year and offer intensive scholarship to a rather specific student body. Richard Dawkins has agreed to do a few lectures a year there in science, and has made it clear that all of the money he receives for doing them will go to charity. The students don't like the idea of a new private, expensive school in the UK and want Dawkins to refuse to be a part of it on ethical grounds (e.g. the school is too expensive and takes the "best teachers" away from the public schools because it will pay them more.)

The protest lasted about forty-five minutes (the entire duration of which was spent with the audience hurling abuse at them and telling them to sod off), until the back-up police officers arrived, filed in, and escorted them out quietly. The lecture hall was completely packed--about 1,000 asses in seats--and maybe up to four attendees had any sympathy for their concern. The proposed university certainly wasn't the point of the talk or the reason why any of us had shown up. We'd come to hear a bit of give-and-take, perhaps some dorky science jokes from two of our favourite atheists.

In all honesty I got the impression that the whole point of the talk was to give PZ Myers an opportunity to say hi to some of his London readers, and maybe even have a drink with some of us. As it was the police made a point of shunting us and the professors out of the building as quickly as possible so as to avoid any other ugly encounters that they'd then have to deal with. I can't say I blame them, but it was a shame that the asshat brigade prevented what might have been a nice reception.

See, I have absolutely zero sympathy for these kids. Righteous as their anger must undoubtedly feel to them, I grew up in the USA where higher education is considered neither right nor privilege, but investment. A degree represents an investment of time, effort, and money in your personal future. The state does help students pay for it--not with giveaways, typically, but with low-interest loans and scholarships for the best students. This scholarship system may be considered a sort of sliding scale: the degree itself may be achieved either through more effort or more payment, within certain constraints. If the student consistently earns Cs she can still graduate with money, but if she earns As she can pay for it with merit.

This system worked for me: I earned damn fine grades throughout my undergraduate career and left school with only the debt I accrued through housing costs. The state of South Carolina paid my tuition all four years, and USC gave me a pat on the head in the form of the three words Magna, Cum *hehe* and Laude after my qualification. I'm so clever they had to tell me in Latin.

A lot of students started on this, the LIFE scholarship. It's quite simple, really--in the state of South Carolina, if you graduate high school with at least a B average and at least 1100 on your SATs, if you go to a SC university the state will cover your tuition costs, no matter what you study. In order to keep receiving this every semester all you have to do is remain in full-time study and maintain a B (3.0) average. You can even get LIFE if you didn't meet these criteria at the end of high school, but do well in your first few terms of uni. Sadly, though, most students who start on a LIFE lose it for one reason or another. Either their grades slip, or they drop down to part-time, or they transfer out of state, or they get in too much trouble (I think there's something about not getting convicted of felonies) or a variety of other things happen that cause them to not get funded. The state sees them as a failed investment and withdraws, which gives them a choice: either invest in themselves, or do something else.

Beyond this, nearly 40% of all students who start university drop out after two years--a fact that course designers actually depend on, but a huge pain in the ass in every other respect. Yes, third and fourth year modules benefit from small class sizes and intimate, direct discussion and tuition with teachers, but at what cost? The system has to filter through and crush the dreams of thousands of hopefuls every semester.

But let's look at this from a financial standpoint--unless you quit before you start, if you quit after a term you're left with money spent for nothing. Now, if the "state" pays for most of it, then you're only accountable for at most £4,500 per term that you kept it up. As an individual, that's not so bad. But think for a second--40% of all students drop out. That means the big nebulous "state" is accountable for the remainder of the actual cost of failing to educate all of you--a far greater amount per student than what you pay. Now who is that state? Oh right, it's your friends and neighbours. Y'know, me. We have footed the bulk of the cost so you could fart around and do nothing for a couple of years before giving up and moving back in with your mummy. Thanks for nothing. Excuse me, thanks for less than nothing. Thanks for thieving. That's right. We've given universities millions of pounds so you can come out exactly as employable as if you hadn't gone at all.

Yeah, I actually do want you to get something out of your education--a job. I'm depending on you getting a job. We all are. That's what society is built on. We all chip in--for roads, for schools, for hospitals, for common defence--and we all need jobs in order to do our bit. It is in the best interest of the government And the people for me to have a decent-paying job, because it means I can pay my taxes. I can provide my share of the responsibility of keeping my country running.

(And yes, it's even better for the UK for me to have a job, despite the fact that I can't claim unemployment benefits. Even if I'm not mooching off the state, if I'm not earning money I'm not putting anything into it either.)

Say what you want about reasonable taxation, it's there for a reason. It's not going away. Unless you want to form your own militias and let private companies run the trains for maximum profit, you're going to need to ensure that you have a solid government that is trying to represent the interests of the majority of people in your nation.

So the UK accepts that 40% of all people who start uni aren't going to graduate. That's 40% of the money they have chosen to invest in your future that they're counting on going to waste. That's stupid.

A better system is one that recognizes an investment in the students who are most likely to succeed. A system that rewards high grade earners and diligent attenders by lifting the financial burden from them, and encourages people who don't actually want to work hard for an education to get into a more appropriate field quickly. A system wherein individuals earn investment in their potential by proving that they have it.

In South Carolina I made a number of my fellow students unhappy with this assertion--that is, that I supported the financial arrangements I had signed up for by going to a local school. "I lost my scholarship, so now I have to work to pay for school, which interferes in my ability to go to school and study, so my grades have suffered even more" is a big one. And a huge f'ing crock. No. You don't have to. If you actually gave a crap about the education itself, if you didn't have the grades to start with or lost the good ones you had, you could take out a student loan. If you'd rather work for money than study, that's your own concern, but don't make it out like the state ought to keep paying for you to not attend school. The state has a responsibility to promote the general welfare of the people as effectively as it can. Your empty chair in the Economics 201 room is not counted as "people".

What loans and merit-based scholarships do is create not a two-tiered finance-based system, but a multi-tiered interest-based system. For kids who want to learn and are willing to put in the effort, the state supports that education. For the huge numbers of people who don't want to spend more time in a classroom learning abstract ideas and debating philosophy, there are opportunities to learn skills for a lower cost (both in terms of money and time) that can help you find good employment. For people who seek neither education nor skills, there are jobs available sweeping floors and digging ditches. Some people like that. Who am I to argue?

My point is you do not have a right to higher education. Your state has given itself an obligation to ensure that the most capable individuals can get into careers that on some level benefit everyone--even if the only benefit it provides is a taxable salary. If you can pay tax and save lives, so much the better. Get off your damn high horse of middle class entitlement for a second and recognize that it's not all about you, and never was. Your state has been foolishly squandering money on you for years, and they've learned their mistake. The majority of people do not need higher education--they need stable jobs. Most jobs don't actually require a BA-level education to be performed well, but a BA has become the benchmark of competence thanks to you pushing higher education on everyone. Thanks to your "education is a right" bollocks, kiddos, your education has become valueless.

If you want someone to be upset at, don't wave your hands around at academics who want to set up their own private schools. They're not the problem--they're just a symptom. The real problem is that the MA has become the new BA, and the BA has become the new high school diploma, but people still give credence to the idea that the universe was built on purpose in a week by a bearded humanoid who loves them.

You show me nation full of university graduates and I'll show you a nation with a higher ceiling.

hot sauce, spider webs, and a gallon of coffee

So. I've been out of town.

Having a blast, by the way. Two weeks ago found me in St. Michaels, MD, running some day programs for Eastern Shore kids, which were a lot of fun (if fast!) My crew and I spent nights alternately weathering rain and enjoying brightly starlit skies from Sigsbee's deck after delicious meals cooked over a lead-melting burner. (a welcome backup after a propane tank attachment mix-up. Big Fire make Fast Dinner. And perhaps the most perfect popcorn i've ever tried.) The crew transit back, a trip of several hours, was passed enjoyably, if a bit noisily, thanks to the addition of four bottles of hot sauce and a box of crackers. Yeowza! (technically we only tried three--the fourth was saved to be shared with the captain of another vessel. After watching the reactions of tasters, I'm rather glad I wasn't tempted to try the fourth.)

Last Friday was spent in drink and revelry at the annual Maritime Magic gala, a large party/concert/auction/local restaurant sampler/boozeup to benefit the Living Classrooms Foundation. The music was great, the food was excellent, free, and largely vegetarian, the vendors were friendly, and nobody fell in during my M.O.B. watch. I'd call that a success.

This week found me on a 3-day trip to Kent Island, complete with an entire department-load of insurance agents on a team-building adventure. Also known as a lovely few days on boats, some lovely restaurants, and plenty of lovely beer. They were generally pleasant people, and though we flatly lost the sailboat race against Lady Maryland, no one was hugely surprised and it was a great day on the water in any case.

An odd thing occurred while we were crossing the bay toward Baltimore--in a rather nondescript area of open water we happened to pass through a giant cloud of bugs. I don't know what kind exactly--they looked like largeish flying ants, but with pointier aft ends. They may have been larval wasps or juvenile versions of any number of interesting critters, but needless to say I spent most of this time cowering behind one of my coworkers as the bugs whizzed past. Most of them passed by without even noticing Sigsbee, and the ones that did land on deck were easily shooed off it again. We passed through them in about twenty minutes at 5 knots, so do the math and tell me what the diameter of the bug-cloud was. Seriously. I'm pathetic at math.

Anyway, we got back to the dock and tidied up the boat, and in the process of tying off the gantline a member of my crew happened to look up and see that every line, every lazy jack and halyard was decorated with hundreds of delicate webs--the entire rig was covered in a filigree of arachnoid fibers. We assumed these had something to do with the bug-cloud, but we really have no idea--no one had heard of six-legged or winged insects with the ability to produce a web, and none of them appeared to be ballooning anyway. Some theories we proposed, but later shot down included:

-the Francis Scott Key Bridge, which marks the entrance to Baltimore's Outer Harbor, just doesn't have cargo ships passing under it like it used to get and is overrun with spiderwebs.
-the bugs were being attacked by minute ballooning spiders and we just interrupted, which led to all of the webs appearing to be over four feet long
-we were attacked by something at the dock overnight (this theory was dispelled when we saw the same webs covering the Lady Maryland's lines, and LM anchored out pretty far from land because the water gets too shallow for her)
-our captain is actually a spider and we've just never noticed.

Any ideas?

in any case, my crew has been rather busy lately and, on account of this, have managed to go through three bags of coffee beans in about three weeks. Is that normal for four people?

The Great Chesapeake Bay Schooner Race is coming up in a couple of days, and boats from up and down the eastern seaboard have been showing up in droves in the inner harbor. Its been a lot of fun to see. I hope to get a chance to schmooze with their crews.

One more thing. This piece of psychadellic art gave me pause to wonder--it looks hand-painted by a giddy stoner with no concept of life-like colors, patterns, or ratios. I think a new religion or at least emphatic cult should form around this clear proof that God trips on acid.

prey

Has any group of scientists done an environmental impact study on the utter removal of mosquitoes, biting flies, no-see-ums, and fleas from the planet? What would happen if we forced the extinction of predatory insects? Who depends on these horrible creatures for sustenance? What else needs them, aside from themselves? Does the right to live extend to critters that prey routinely upon humans?

I am covered in tiny bites from an outing this weekend--there's some from skeeters, some from no-see-ums, some from who knows what--about 50 in all, all of them itching and swollen. I even have them on my legs, and I was wearing long pants. Natural bug repellent does nothing (except make me smell like a candle) and DEET-containing sprays are very bad for you if you don't wash them off daily (long camping trips? showers? ha.) I can't figure out how to avoid these things while still performing my job, but an idea popped into my head regarding their forced removal from the world.

Mosquitoes are known carriers and transmitters of disease. These horrible animals suck up infected blood from one mammal, carry it around a bit, then shove it uninvited into the flesh of another mammal, infecting and frequently killing them, without ever contracting the disease themselves. This made me wonder--to what extent do mosquitoes interact with other skeeters? do they have skeeter mixers? Is there a way for humans to play their game back at them--infect one mosquito, and have it pass a skeeters-only disease to the rest of them? I know poisons are supposed to work like that for colonies of cockroaches, but would it work with a disease? How could that backfire on us? Could the disease mutate and infect humans, or infect all insects, upsetting the food chain? Would they pass it to one another or would it just die with one? Could it be mixed into bug spray--if buggy bites, buggy dies--without being harmful to the wearer? So far I think all insect killers are harsh chemicals that kill by dissolving the critter where it stands, which isn't exactly pleasant for people and pets. I don't want to wipe out bugs altogether, but I seriously can't see any particular value for bugs that bite me but don't wind up being eaten by frogs and birds. Can we isolate the blood sucking bug community and level it?

----

So I just did a store location search for Barnes and Noble Booksellers in my area, and lo and behold, the first hit was none other than...the Barnes and Noble Bookseller I can see from my porthole and actually could hit with a well-lobbed book of my own. Wow. Impressive. Some mornings this brain of mine forgets my name. Can I trade it in?

Giant Horseshoe Crabs, or Visitors from the Paleozoic

today's trawl hauled in an insanely diverse catch--in addition to numerous white perch and striped bass, which have been our staple catch, we dragged in a heap of sea nettles (jellyfish with pink tentacles), ctenophores (comb jellies), some huge oysters, flatworms, barnacles, mussels, and what appear to be a mating pair of horseshoe crabs. The male was about a foot long from the end of his spiked tail to the apex of his face; the female was easily double that. They were wiggly and annoyed with us for obvious reasons, but we kept them in a tub separate from the other critters and they chilled out.

Crustaceans in general have always been the oddest curiosities to me, with their funny mouths and all the flaps to their bodies. Crabs are like matryoshka dolls--there's always another layer to them. Horseshoe crabs are some sort of aliens, i'm convinced. Either that or they descended from soup bowls. They're perfectly round and even have a lip around the base. Segmented, heavily armored, pointy, barnacle-covered soup bowls with at least ten pinchy, wiggly legs all up inside like the lunch special at the Beetlejuice Cafe.

We bothered them for a while and then sent them along with the Snow Goose, a crab boat from the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, to take them home (and out of the inner harbor where we had tied up. no sense letting these neat creatures be needlessly crushed by a dinner cruiser or a Duck.) CBF are friends of LCF who run similar trips. They motored up and borrowed a cup of salt from us this morning. We're good neighbors.

hard to believe

I just read an article about how a telescope far off in space just observed a "gamma burst"--a big wave of light and energy equivalent to the energy emitted by the sun over its entire projected 10 billion year lifespan. as cool as this is, it got me thinkin'.

i have a hard time believing it. not that gamma bursts can occur or that they're really cool when you observe them, but i just have a hard time believing that we're actually receiving anything from the billion-dollar soda cans we send out into the cosmos. Like the Voyager missions to explore Jupiter and Saturn--I can't get mobile phone reception in the bottom floor of my house, and yet NASA has the gall to tell me that they've been communicating with a telescope millions of of miles off into nowhere since the 70's? Let's be reasonable.

Hairy Animals

A cloned Afghan Hound was born recently to a yellow labrador retriever in South Korea. I find the Afghan fitting for this task--they inherently have a look of incredulity on their faces. Now, in addition to not being able to take his silly haircut seriously, the pup can also look appropriate when folks try to convince him, in proper red-headed stepchild fashion, that that's really his mom.




(Example Afghan--not actual cloned dog)

germs

why is it that if you keep your house fairly clean and wash your hands after you go to the toilet you're more likely to get sick than people who never have? i swear i have the weakest gastric system ever. i just can't take the germs when i eat at a greasy spoon or a kebab shop (not that i've done that since i learned my lesson last term). seems that kids who grow up eating bugs and sneaking handfuls of dog food either die really young or grow up to have kevlar stomachs. i don't have any food allergies or diseases, so i think this must count as some sort of disability handling the strains of everyday life. or maybe just red meat.

Viruses must be alive

Scientists, philosophers, and theologists can all bicker and argue over whether or not a virus is a living being--as it fails to carry DNA and does not seem to have much of an identifiable cell-type structure that is indicative of life in unicellular beings--but I will vouch that not only are they alive, they're smart little buggers.
Consider: Viruses attack bacteria that normally live happy, subdued little lives in your lymphatic (sinus) system. The virus pumps its RNA into an individual bacterium, which gets eaten up by baby viruses, who in turn go ahead and infect other bacteria. Basic 10th grade biology. Now here's the part that may be a conspiracy theory, but it makes sense. When viruses kill bacteria and cells from your lymphatic system, it causes your sinuses to screw up. Namely, with the common cold, it causes the sinuses to produce excessive quantities of phlegm and icky green, infected mucous. It generally does its best to exit the sinuses, by entering the nasal cavities and filling up whatever space it can there before leaking out, either exiting the body through the nose or attempting to continue through the body down the throat. Biology teachers once told me that this was a protective measure--that the phlegm was relocated to the throat and nasal passages to protect the thin and delicate skin there. BULL SHIT. When phlegm enters the nose, it causes you to sniffle, sneeze, and have a nasty runny nose that won't quit. When it enters the throat it causes you to choke, cough, splutter, and eventually spit phlegm everywhere. Noticing a trend? This infected green goo is doing its very best to not just exit the body but dissipate. spread. become a fine, airborne haze. we do our best to cover our mouths, wash our hands, keep away from food and use hankies, but the bottom line is--a good deal of that infected krud gets out of the body and into the air, water, and stuff we touch every day. Your mother always tells you to avoid touching doorknobs and toilet seats, wash your hands, and for heaven's sake keep your fingernails out of your mouth. There's Germs on those surfaces! But did she ever think of why? Not why did someone sneeze here, why did someone not wash their hands after using the toilet and wipe whatever in the world on this door handle, but why are the germs there? Because Viruses made a Conscious Effort to enter a body, make it sick, and exit the body in the quickest, most propelled manner possible. You call it a sneeze. The inbred army of virii living in your snot call it a missile.