All posts by Steve Stern

Glow in the dark

Current Affairs, Psychological Musings, Uncategorized

In an article on looking for a cure/vaccination for AIDS, I read – almost in passing – that they have made a kitty that glows in the dark. It seems that researchers were able to place genes a from a glow in the dark Jelly Fish into a cat’s egg. The glowing gene is used as a marker insuring that the egg accepted an anti-AIDS gene they are working on. This leaves me pretty much speechless. For all sorts of reasons.

One is that the article is so nonchalant about the whole glowing kitty thing. A little bit like the glowing kitty part is something we all know about and the interesting part is the AIDS, well, it is probably more important in the short run, but making a kitty glow in the dark; that is – as Che said about sanitation – revolutionary.  How long before we have Replicants?

Imagine killing somebody

Americana, War

Just think about it for a second. Over the last, say, 65 years – I’m hoping and going with the premise that I didn’t want to kill anybody before I was six – I have wanted to kill many people. Not for long enough to actually imagine what it would be like, more of a That fucker should be shot. kind of killing. But, imagine killing somebody. A man, say, in a dirt poor third world country.

Somebody who doesn’t want the United States there. Maybe they have kids and a wife who depend on them. So you are not just killing them, you are fucking up a whole family. But, hopefully, they don’t have a dependent family. But, surely, they do have a mother and a father who have invested their hopes and dreams in him. Maybe they named him Ibrahim – Abraham – after the founder of their religion, maybe they named him Anthony. What difference does it make? Just think about killing them. Make it easy on yourself, make the killing from a distance with a high powered rifle.

Now watch this video.  I think that it is a simulation – a training film – but, maybe not. Either way, this is what it is like to kill a person today.

 

In this case, right is correct

Uncategorized

I was driving home from the market and listening to NPR whenm I heard them talk about the Air Controllers Bill that was stalled. Evidently, it is no longer stalled, but it had been stalled because one Senator – man, I even hate honoring that group by capitalizing the name – had put one of those arbitrary Senate holds on the bill. One guy holding everything up. It was Tom Coburn, the Senator from Oklahoma, also known as Dr. – he is a MD – No.

I immediately became pissed off at Coburn, Oklahoma, the Republicans, and the slow driver three cars ahead of me. Then I heard the reason he had placed the hold. The Air Controllers Bill also had some Federal Highway stuff tacked on that include mandatory highway beautification. Coburn didn’t think the highway beautification should be mandatory, he thought that each state should be allowed to divert those funds to other highway projects. Like bridge repair.

I think he is right and the whole thing seems to be a distillation of much of what is wrong with government and much of why people are pissed.

Working backward, I don’t think Congress should bundle disparate items together. When A and B,B=,B’,BB-, are all tacked together, it means that somebody who doesn’t like A’ – let’s say mandatory highway beatification –  but doesn’t want to vote against B – say keeping the airlines flying – has almost no choice but to vote for both. There may be political and tactical reasons for it, but it probably means somebody is getting fucked and will be pissed.

That said, no one Senator should be able to hold things up. I know the Senate was conceived as a way to hold things up – that should be read as stabilize, or something – but that has been perverted. Now the Senate has made rules so that one person can hold up everything. That is not serving democracy, that is serving some warped idea of Senatorial congeniality.

That said, the Federal Government shouldn’t be telling the states that they have to beautify a highway anyway. If Mississippi or Georgia want to fix a bridge rather than landscape, I might not agree but I shouldn’t have a say through the Federal Government. It pisses people off. I want to rush in here and say that I am not a states rights kind of guy: I think that the Feds should protect all citizens and the rights of all citizens of the United States no matter where they live. But making sure that somebody has the right to vote, or eat at a lunch counter, or get married is not the same as you must landscape.

And lastly, and most importantly, the federal Government should pay for highways that are truly in the national interest but not – for example – highway 280 by my house  0r even, as far as I am concerned Highway 5 (from the Bay Area to L. A.). This Federal over-reaching bullshit gives opponents a nose under the tent to say the Feds should butt out of everything. I have no idea who put the beautification clause – item, chapter, whatever – in the bill but I suspect it was the Democrats – I really hope not – and that is too bad.

 

Cultivars

Around home, Photography

warm days early nights
Amaryllis belladonna
bright in fading light

It is the end of summer and the most noticeable flowers, by far, are the naked ladies, Amaryllis belladonna. When I first got interested in plants, my plants of choice were cactus. At that time, in San Jose – at least – people held species in much higher regard than hybrids or, more formally, Cultivars. The large hybrids flowers – in Rhododendrons for example – were often distainly referred to as blopo flowers. The small, often inconsequential flowers of the true species were considered purer.

I still pretty much feel that way, but Michele has buying cultivars of A. belladonna for a while now and I really like them. Maybe because the  species flower is pretty much a blopo to start with, I find the variety of the cultivars beguiling. Here are a couple from our backyard, starting with the outrageously pink true species – I think – and going on to a couple of cultivars.