Mexican Donkey Jailed

This is just too hilarious not to blog.

A donkey in Mexico has been jailed for assault and battery:

Officer Sinar Gomez said the donkey will remain behind bars until its owner agrees to pay the men's medical bills.

"Around here, if someone commits a crime they are jailed," Gomez said — "no matter who they are."

...

Police said it took a half-dozen men to control the enraged burro. Chiapas police have thrown animals in the slammer before, including a bull that devoured corn crops and destroyed two wooden vending stands in March.

I suppose this is not much different than an animal control unit. But I am still laughing my ass off. Hey, I guess if people erroneously believe that animals have rights, then there should be no double standards!

Fruit Genetics

Apparently, our modern tomatoes (even so-called heirloom varieties) have mutations in two genes that affect fruit size. One controls cell division and the other controls the number of seed compartments. The more compartments and cells, the bigger the fruit:

If there’s anything better than a fresh, ripe, tomato, it’s a gigantic fresh, ripe tomato. And thanks to a couple of mutations, that’s exactly what we all enjoy every time we grab a tomato from the farmer’s market or the grocery store. In the wild, tomato plants actually produce some pretty small fruit. Today’s cultivated varieties serve up tomatoes that are a thousand times larger....

Regarding the seed compartment mutation:

...researchers found that no strains of wild tomato carry this mutation, which affects a gene called fasciated. Because all of the large-fruited modern varieties they surveyed have it, this suggests that the mutation occurred relatively recently in tomato history, and that breeders then shared it with all their tomato-loving friends. So you can thank those fasciated mutants for teeing up your next BLT.

I do love my tomato sandwiches in the summer and I'm not sure what I would do without a good Brandywine tomato! Fascinating stuff.

Swarm Update

Update: I've uploaded videos to YouTube instead of using Blogger to upload videos.

Disclaimer: nothing I say here should be taken as professional advice. If you are considering beekeeping, do your research or consult a professional who has been in the business 5 years or more. I still consider myself an amateur on this topic.

OK! This morning I captured a swarm in Denver at a residence owned by a mom with three young children. She was rather nervous about it and so I did my best to capture all the bees. I think I left perhaps two bees in her yard. Unfortunately, the swarm was incredibly tiny -- only about fist sized and probably queen-less. I was really disappointed.

A second call came in the afternoon for a larger swarm. The videos I'm going to uplink are my capture of the second swarm. It's still a relatively small swarm (perhaps two softballs in volume), but I think it's going to work!

One of my commenters, in the last topic, asked, "How do you capture a swarm?"

Swarms occur when a colony becomes too large to sustain itself with the current resources or space. About 60% of the colony leaves with a new virgin queen during swarming. Many swarms die. They cannot find an appropriate location for a new colony, such as a hollow tree. Capturing a swarm is actually simple. Almost anyone could do it. Some people think that those who capture bees have some kind of charming ability, but that's just silly. The first thing is to just remain calm. Bees don’t like sudden, jerky movements. Remaining calm is not that difficult when you understand the bees' biology. In a swarm state (a big cluster hanging off a branch) the bees have nothing to defend -- no hive and no honey. They're extremely docile in this state. You simply cut off the branch and place it in a box. If the branch is too big to cut, you hold a box underneath and hit the branch hard until most of the bees fall into the box. If the queen gets into the box, most of the rest of the colony will follow her there. Most people are scared of swarms because there are thousands of bees flying about before and after they cluster, but the truth is that if you’re ever going to go without your veil and beesuit, the best time is when bees swarm! (Warning -- this is NOT true for Africanized bees!)

Another question: "Where do you put them when you get home and how do you get them to stay? Honey?"

Same procedure, pretty much. You just dump them in the hive. Once they detect the queen's pheromones, they will follow. Of course, the scent of beeswax on the frames helps. For instance, tonight I dumped a thousand or perhaps more bees into the hive. Hundreds were flying around, but an hour or two later, there were only one or two bees outside the hive.

Yet another: "Also, how is it you get e-mail messages from people with bee swarms?"

I belong to a beekeeping group that keeps in touch via email. People who get swarms in their yard find a beekeeper (probably by searching the internet) and then those beekeepers, if not interested in swarms themselves, notify the rest of us. You can almost always find a beekeeper to capture a swarm for free or for a small fee to pay for gas.

There are a number of conflicting ideas about capturing swarms. Some beekeepers don't like the idea because they feel that one cannot be sure of the genetic stock or productivity of the queen. While this is true, a swarm, depending on the lineage, may be more evolutionarily adapted to a particular area than a box of bees flown in from California. Personally, I would like to get a crop of honey this year, but maximal honey production is not my goal right now. Africanized bees are also probably not a worry, so I feel safe capturing a swarm in Colorado -- whereas I might not in New Mexico. My goal is simply to have fun and gain experience, and I’m okay with a bit of unpredictability that comes with swarms (small colony size, variable quality of the bees). If I wanted to maximize honey production, I'd probably buy Italians. If I wanted to maximize propolis production, or if I was worried about diseases, I might buy Carniolans.

Without further ado – bee videos!

Video 1: The Swarm

Video 2: The Swarm in the Box

Video 3: The Swarm in the Hive

Video 4: Bee Biology

In the fourth video, I realized that the information is not very complete. These paragraphs should help. First, a drone is a male. There are usually very few drones in a colony. Drones mate with the queen once in her lifetime and then she stores enough sperm to last her entire life. After mating with up to 10 drones, the drones die. Several hundred drones may exist in a colony of tens of thousands of female worker bees, but drones are pretty much useless. (Sorry, guys!) At the end of the season, they are forced out of the colony by the workers and they will die. Drones are tolerated in summertime when resources are plentiful. But when winter comes, these drones are just a drain on the colony – the proverbial louts on the couch who only know how to work the remote! OUT they go!!!

When a queen lays a fertilized egg, it will develop into a female worker. Females are diploid, with two sets of chromosomes. When she lays an unfertilized egg, it will develop into a male. Males are haploid, with only one set of chromosomes. Unfertilized eggs (males) are laid in special honeycomb cells that are slightly larger – drone cells. If a colony begins to have excessive amounts of drones without the beekeeper placing a drone frame in the hive, there is a problem: laying workers. This probably means your queen is dead. Worker bees CAN lay eggs – but since they are unfertilized, they will all develop into drones. Such a colony will die in short order, because the worker bees only have a lifespan of 40 days. Obviously, those males aren’t good for much except sex!

Since this seems to be a popular topic, I’ll continue to post short videos of the hive’s progress throughout the season, and some more general beekeeping information. There is a truly great video that you can put in your Netflix queue, though: Tales from the Hive. The footage is great and so is the explanation of bee biology.

Bee Swarm!

I've gotten tons of emails lately about bee swarms, but I've been too occupied with work to pick any of them up. Also, swarms go quickly as there are tons of beekeepers like me who neglected their spring orders and now want to get free bees! BUT -- tonight I responded to an email re: a swarm and I'm going to go pick them up tomorrow at 11 AM. They are in a cluster on the ground in some woman's yard. I really hope they stay there and do not move to a higher location where they would be difficult to reach. It would be ideal if I could get bees so easily.

There won't be anyone home to film me tomorrow but I'll try to set up the camera and take some videos of me setting up the hive.

I'm so excited! OK, I'm off to make sugar syrup and get everything ready!

Down on the Farm

Here are some pics of my week-end:

My favorite animal on the farm -- Petunia

I love these old trees.

Buttercup

Horses on the neighboring farm.

A recent carving commissioned from a dead tree.

Good ole Earl, making noise as usual. Kate (yellow lab) looks like she's quite tired of it, wouldn't you say?

Dora, Earl, Kate and Zeke. My puppy is the prettiest, of course.

Savior Siblings?

I'm not sure what to make of this story, in which UK lawmakers are considering changes to existing law to allow animal-human hybrid embryos to be created for stem cells, and the generation of "savior siblings" with specific genetic characteristics for organ replacements.

First, on the animal-human hybrids. I don't have a problem with that any more than I have a problem with any other type of biotechnology... so long as cells are harvested from the hybrid embryo relatively early on. That does seem to be the case.

But get a load of this second part:

Lawmakers will also vote today on whether to fully authorize the screening of embryos for genetic characteristics to create savior siblings.

These are cases where parents seek to have a child with specific nondiseased characteristics so that he or she can donate tissues or organs to a diseased older sibling.

Whoa. Are they actually talking about sacrificing a human life to save another one? Yikes. It's one thing to donate a kidney or some skin or bone marrow, or even to grow organs in the lab. It's quite another to grow an entire human being for the purpose of a heart transplant and then dispose of the rest like so much junk. That would be scary and I think some clarification is in order.

Scary

I'm sure by now you've seen Obama's latest:

"We can't drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times ... and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK," Obama said.

"That's not leadership. That's not going to happen," he added.

Whoa. That's pretty scary. It reminds me of his wife's statement: "Barack Obama will make you work."

I wonder what Obama would have to say about our house:




Despite the fact that it's passively solar heated and our energy bills are very low, I'm quite sure he'd disapprove of such an extravagant residence. Because, guess what -- this isn't really about global warming. If it was, we'd start building newer, safer nuclear power plants and cut CO2 emissions by 50% real soon. No, Barack Obama's statements are usually about the glorification of sacrifice... on so many levels.

My thoughts on this are pretty simple: Barack Obama can shove it.

Ice Cream

And just in time for summer! An ice cream scoop that delivers cylindrical blocks of ice cream:

"The ergonomic scooper cuts through the hardest ice cream with a simple twist-and-lift action. Push button release."

I want one in butter yellow or fire engine red, though.

I bought an ice cream maker over the week-end. Got a very good deal at Costco. It was tough resisting more purchases. They have ceramic mushroom garden decorations for only $16.

I'd never made homemade ice cream before. It's very easy and very tasty. I like making exactly what I want. I made banana strawberry on my first round. Yummy! Next? Peppermint Stick! When I was around 6, we went to the outdoor window at Friendly's and discovered that they'd discontinued Peppermint Stick, my favorite flavor of all time. I even went without ice cream that day because I was so sad. The only company that I've noticed selling it since is Hershey's. Peppermint Stick must not have been a great seller, probably due to the onset of the peanut-butter-chocolate marshmallow-caramel-fudge-chunky-monkey-moose-droppings-putting- everything-we-can-find-in-ice-cream era that seems to have swept the nation.

By contrast, I like my ice cream relatively simple. Well, now I'll be able to make my own! Yay!

Sweet

I got this one from Jenn, too. However, I must offer a disclaimer. I had two or more questions with answers in which I could have chosen two or more responses, and so I repeatedly tested out as either a crossword puzzle or a maze as well.

You Are Sudoku

You are simple, modern and elegant. You're not that difficult to figure out, but very few people truly get you. You approach the world with a pure logic that most people will never grasp.

What Kind of Puzzle Are You?

By the way, for those of you who have been following my activities, Earl ended up eating 7 of his blood pressure medication pills after counter surfing, and so Earl and I spent much of Friday at CSU's excellent vet school. Earl will be just fine... but he was rather peeved that I would not let him sit on my lap while driving to and fro. Apparently he is used to that. !!

Robb and I had a great time on the farm this week-end. While there I took care of five dogs, four cats, and an aging steer. But being away from home was sort of like a nice little mini-vacation, actually. Earl even grew on me at the end of it all. He is still a huge pain the butt but you can't fault him for lack of personality! I'll post some pictures when I get the chance.

What Kind of Sandwich Am I?

I got it from Jenn!

You Are a Grilled Cheese Sandwich

You are a traditional person with very simple tastes. In your opinion, the best things in life are free, easy, and fun. You totally go with the flow. And you enjoy every minute of it! Your best friend: The Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich Your mortal enemy: The Ham Sandwich

What Kind of Sandwich Are You?

Earl

I'm housesitting on a friend's farm. They have a truly obnoxious basset hound named Earl. He delights in getting food off the counter, peeing on the floor, baying and/or whining incessantly, and stealing food from one of the old, sick dogs.

In short, he is a loud, overbearing problem child.

Are all basset hounds this way? Apparently the French created this breed with such short legs in order to track scents in the thick underbrush. But its legs are so short that it can barely get around right, and it's not even overweight. I kind of feel sorry for it. If I looked like this dog, I'd probably have an attitude problem, too.

What Punctuation Mark Are You?

This is a fun one. I got it from Gus!

You Are a Dash

Your life is fast paced and varied. You are realistic, down to earth, and very honest. You're often busy doing something interesting, and what you do changes quickly. You have many facets to your personality, and you connect them together well. You have a ton of interests. While some of them are a bit offbeat, they all tie together well. You friends rely on you to bring novelty and excitement to their lives. (And while you're the most interesting person they know, they can't help feeling like they don't know you well.) You excel in: Anything to do with money You get along best with: the Exclamation Point

What Punctuation Mark Are You?

I don't think this is entirely accurate... But true to who this quiz says I am, I now must run because I have a ton to do today!

Attacked

This afternoon I was walking my leashed dog about 1/4 mile from my house. As I turned a curve, I saw another dog wandering around at the end of the road. It started running at breakneck speed toward us as soon as it spotted us. As soon as I saw it running, I knew it would attack, and indeed it did. It attacked my dog for at least a minute, before I kicked and screamed at it enough times that it ran away, down an adjacent driveway with a sign saying "Beware of Guard Dog". This was totally unprovoked. The dog was at least 50 yards away when it decided to attack, and my dog was not barking. All we were doing was walking down the road. The whole mountain of dogs started barking in response to my screams. Thankfully, we are OK but I was really scared.

I assume that this dog is the property of the resident where it ran to. What is worse, if that is true, is that the person who lives there is a police officer and this dog has attacked another dog before (we neighbors talk!). Typical! I did report the incident to Animal Control. The dog wasn't even on the owner's property when this happened.

It is one thing to let a dog run loose in the mountains, which is harmless enough. I am not one of these people who thinks that every dog who happens to wander onto my property should be caught and turned in to animal control just because they happen to take a dump in my yard or whatever. But it's quite another thing to let an attack dog run loose. And shouldn't a police officer follow the rules he tries to enforce? But surely that would be too much to ask.

I’m frightened to walk around in my neighborhood now. This is my favorite walking route, too. I don't know anything about guns but this makes me want to get trained in the use of one. Or maybe some Mace or pepper spray or ammonia. Or a big fat walking stick. Or a cattle prod.

I don't know.

Update: the owner called and apologized. It's a rescue dog that they've been working with for six months. So I made some hasty generalizations. Still, this is the second time it's attacked another dog, so I hope they keep it on their property. He assured me that it wouldn't happen again.

The Farm Bill

Nature News reports:

US lawmakers have agreed on wide-ranging agricultural legislation that would reduce the federal subsidy on ethanol produced from maize (corn) by 12%. It marks the first move to scale back government support for a biofuel that has been linked to rising food prices and deforestation abroad...

...It would reduce the maize ethanol subsidy from 51 to 45 cents per gallon; critics have called for its complete elimination...

That is wonderful news. There should be $0 going to biofuels, but I'll take it. Unfortunately, we still have a long way to go on the rest of the Farm Bill, and even the existence of the Farm Bill itself:

The farm bill, worth nearly $300 billion, would direct federal agricultural policy for the next five years, doling out money for agricultural subsidies, nutrition programmes, conservation projects and international food aid. It would reduce the maize ethanol subsidy from 51 to 45 cents per gallon; critics have called for its complete elimination. The bill also creates new incentives for the development of advanced biofuels that would not compete with food crops.

Three. Hundred. Billion. Well, I am glad people are actually seeing the light on ethanol. But we need consumer demand to direct agricultural policy -- not the government. We need informed consumers to direct nutritional programs (2/3 of the Farm Bill budget!) -- not more food stamps and "nutritional" pronouncements from clueless government officials guided by special interests. If conservation projects are funded (and I think in some cases, that's entirely appropriate), they should be entirely voluntary. Same for international food aid. Ditto for biofuels.

I'd like to get to the point where there is NO Farm Bill whatsoever. The intervention of government in our food supply does not get a whole lot of attention, but I think it's greatly influenced the type of dietary advice doled out to Americans by the government, created massive distortions in the market, and thus, highly influenced the type of food that is even available to buy retail. Suffice it to say, we do not have a free market in food. But I am actually optimistic that we eventually will.

One day I hope to do much more research in this area and to write about my findings, as it's a topic of great interest to me. For now, I'll leave it at that.

And Now, Farmers' Rights!

In two separate raids, one in August 2007 and one in April 2008, Mark Nolt's farm in Pennsylvania was raided for his refusal to apply for a permit to sell raw milk. The first raid seized over $25,000 worth of cheese, despite no complaint of food borne illness and no proof of any danger posed by the cheese. In the second raid, 6 police cars and five unmarked cars descended onto his property, preventing neighbors or family from coming onto the property by threatening their arrest, seizing $30,000 worth of cheese, leading Nolt away in handcuffs, and seizing irreplaceable parts to his dairy equipment so that he can no longer make cheese even for his family, let alone consumers. The director of food safety even had the gall to steal a book off his shelf, which was entitled Everything I Ever Wanted to Do is Illegal, by Joel Salatin.

The current, more stringent permitting process in Pennsylvania no longer allows a farmer to sell raw cream or butter, which would significantly add to the income. To add insult to the injury of all of his lost income, Nolt has recently been ordered to pay over $4000 in fines due to his noncompliance. He is appealing the decision.

I'm actually quite optimistic about the prospect of getting the government out of food regulation, as small farmers are much more aware and more defensive of their rights than most other Americans. This could be because of their general self-reliance, it could be that many of them have strong religious convictions and a general distrust of government (Nolt is a Mennonite), or it could be that some of these laws are actually relatively new and thus, people are willing to question them. Whatever the reason, many small farmers are fighting back with direct disobedience of increasing regulatory schemes, and they need and deserve support. (Over the long term, I also hope to gain much as a consumer of some of these products myself.) What they especially need, though, is a principled defense of individual rights -- not a focus on non-essentials, such as a laundry list of scientific facts in support of the safety of health benefits of certain foods or a bemoaning that government officials seized and threw away food in a time of hunger. As such, I have composed the following letter to the state of Pennsylvania's house and senate committees on agricultural affairs, as well as the governor. If you wish to do so, too, or especially if you live in Pennsylvania, you can find more information here.

Dear Bureaucrat:

I am dismayed at the strong-arm tactics displayed in the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture's raid on Mark Nolt's farm in April 2008. As you are likely aware, parts of irreplaceable equipment to produce raw milk products were seized from Mark's farm, as were cheese products worth tens of thousands of dollars in value. I am sure that you are also aware that not ONE complaint of illness has been made against Nolt's farm, nor has any evidence been offered that the products of the Nolt farm are actually dangerous. I am sure you are also aware that the current permitting process does not allow a farmer to expand his business to sales of raw butter or raw cream, thus severely limiting his livelihood in comparison to what it was just a few years ago.

Mark Nolt's position is that he has a constitutional right to enter into contractual agreements without a permit -- that is, he has a right to sell raw milk and raw milk products directly to customers. I wholeheartedly support this right. I urge that any charges or fines be dropped or suspended pending hearings before the legislature. I urge that the legislature repeal the licensing and regulation of raw milk producers selling directly to consumers -- whether it be at the farm, through delivery, or at farmers' markets. These requirements are morally wrong.

As a medical writer, I know that there is accumulating evidence that the pasteurization laws that have been in place for up to 100 years are partly to blame for increasing levels of atopic diseases (allergies, eczema, asthma), as well as anaphylactic reactions and general intolerances to milk. Asthma rates alone have doubled in the past 20 years. Raw milk, when sanitarily prepared, may actually provide significant health benefits in comparison to pasteurized milk. But my main purpose is not to argue for or against the benefits of raw milk. For that, you may find extensive information here, at realmilk.com.

Rather, my main objection is that licensing and regulatory laws have violated not only Mark Nolt's right to a livelihood of his choosing, but other individuals' rights to buy food products according to their own rational judgment. For the past several decades, the onerous regulation of our food supply has increased substantially. For too long now, a government official has been responsible for deciding what is healthy -- often based on outdated, biased, or completely wrong evidence. The current regulatory scheme drastically decreases choices available to consumers and forces them to buy food products as the government sees fit -- regardless of their own judgment or unique circumstances.

I am a consumer of raw milk. In fact, this product has largely resolved one of my family members' lactose intolerance. It is delicious and healthful and I have every right to buy this product directly from a seller according to my own judgment. I have researched my local farm, spoken with the owners, and am convinced of their sanitation practices. I am an informed consumer, aware of the risks involved in drinking raw milk -- not someone who knows and cares not what junk I put into my body as long as there are "regulations" in place to "keep me safe". Recent history shows that there are no total guarantees of the safety from food-borne illness of even pasteurized milk, let alone beef, chicken, or alfalfa sprouts!! -- despite what the PDA or the FDA would like us to believe. Pennsylvanians, indeed all Americans, should be allowed to to make their own decisions about what they put into their bodies without any government interference whatsoever.

The proper solution to food-borne illness is a free market in food. This would usher in a new era of personal responsibility on the part of both consumers and producers, and would give rise to independent private certification and licensing companies with far more objective standards than the current government regulatory officials use. All Americans need to be more informed about their food choices -- not lulled into a false sense of complacency about a particular product simply because it is deemed "safe" by a state or federal health agency. Americans must have the right to eat the food they choose. Should situations of food contamination arise, Americans will always have a recourse: the courts.

Plant Rights

From a private email comes this insane story:

You just knew it was coming: At the request of the Swiss government, an ethics panel has weighed in on the "dignity" of plants and opined that the arbitrary killing of flora is morally wrong. This is no hoax. The concept of what could be called "plant rights" is being seriously debated.

A few years ago the Swiss added to their national constitution a
provision requiring "account to be taken of the dignity of creation when handling animals, plants and other organisms." No one knew exactly what it meant, so they asked the Swiss Federal Ethics Committee on Non-Human Biotechnology to figure it out. The resulting report, "The Dignity of Living Beings with Regard to Plants," is enough to short circuit the brain.

A "clear majority" of the panel adopted what it called a "biocentric" moral view, meaning that "living organisms should be considered morally for their own sake because they are alive." Thus, the panel determined that we cannot claim "absolute ownership" over plants and, moreover, that "individual plants have an inherent worth." This means that "we may not use them just as we please, even if the plant community is not in danger, or if our actions do not endanger the species, or if we are not acting arbitrarily."

Nuts. One wonders how they are going to enforce this. Such ideas are hardly new, though. There is a sect of veganism called fruitarianism that I heard about awhile back. Heard of it? Fruitarians only eat the reproductive portion of the plant, the fruit, because eating vegetables can entail killing the plant. And then there are the breathearians, who believe that they can survive on pure air, without food OR water. Think I'm joking?

Further down, the article states:

Eschewing humans as the pinnacle of "creation" (to borrow the term used in the Swiss constitution) has caused environmentalism to mutate from conservationism--a concern to properly steward resources and protect pristine environs and endangered species--into a willingness to thwart human flourishing to "save the planet." Indeed, the most radical "deep ecologists" have grown so virulently misanthropic that
Paul Watson, the head of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, called humans "the AIDS of the earth," requiring "radical invasive therapy" in order to reduce the population of the earth to under a billion.

I couldn't have put it better. Utter. Insanity.

Incidentally, I have quite a bit to say on the environmentalists' use of the terms ecology, ecosystem, etc. and their tendency to refer to themselves as ecologists -- which is all an utter joke, as few of them even understand the first thing about science. These are terms that the environmentalist movement has commandeered from science. The movement has, unfortunately, been successful in totally distorting their meanings in the culture at large. These terms are almost completely corrupted as I've heard environmentalists use them, as the media usually uses them, and even as they are frequently used in the marketing of products. Since ecology is a valid science, I think that presents a serious problem for the layman. I don't have time right this moment, but I'll be explaining in an upcoming post the scientific use of these terms, explaining why we need to insist on definitions when such terms are used, and giving examples of proper and improper use.

Ignunce!

If you haven't seen Flibbert's piece on Ayn Rand being discussed on National Public Radio (NPR), go read it. A very good piece.

I used to listen to NPR about 4-7 years ago when I was doing mindless labwork all day long. Then I stopped because I got busier and my work was more focused on writing, so I couldn't listen to radio while working anymore (I even have a difficult time listening to music when writing, let alone verbal stuff). Around the same time that I stopped listening to NPR, I coincidentally started studying Objectivism.

Anyway. After a hiatus of about 2-3 years, I went back to NPR to listen while working at the scope. I couldn't believe some of the atrocious junk I was hearing. Bad premises, an overwhelming tendency to focus on non-essentials in debates, deliberate lack of context, and outright bias, ignunce (ignorance), and stupidity in reporting.

I think the people at NPR think they are racy because they might cover a topic from a different, non-politically correct angle once in a blue moon. Which kind of makes me laugh if they think that offering up the ideas of fundamentalist Christians now and then is any sort of answer to the left. We already get that from Fox News, thanks. Oh, they have interesting tidbits now and then when there are few philosophical or political implications to a piece, but I stopped listening altogether about a year ago.

Oh well. To come back around to Ayn Rand, I'm really not surprised to hear this nonsense that Flibbert describes as being on NPR. After several years of not listening to any of their pieces, they just seemed so asinine and juvenile when I went back, really. I guess we should consider it a compliment that NPR is even discussing Ayn Rand at all. I wonder if they feel threatened by the fact that Objectivism is being discussed more seriously nowadays and that's why they even feel a need to cover her.

We went to hear Yaron Brook at a breakfast talk yesterday in Denver on the current status and goals of the Ayn Rand Institute (ARI). It was an interesting and heartening talk. I learned that Brook has a regular column in Forbes now, that the University of Texas has a chair of Objectivist studies, that ARI's budget has ballooned to four times what it was just a few years ago, that ARI is opening a new office is Washington, DC, and that an estimated 1 million students are reading Ayn Rand in high school every year as part of ARI's books program. All good news.

Flibbert excellently covers the typical analytical problems displayed by both the left and the right when discussing Ayn Rand, so I won't even cover bother to discuss them here. Needless to say, we do not need to put up with such a pestilence of ignunce! Objectivist ideas is being discussed in academia and the media now in a more serious way. So if either the left or the right want to be reputable critics of Ayn Rand or Objectivism, they're going to have to come up with something better than deliberate mispresentation.

Update: Whoa. Typo of the year, Monica: "Objectivist ideas is being discussed in academia..." It's too funny to delete!

Also, I went to NPR and offered two comments on their piece.

"What Happened to My Dinosaur Eggs?"

Robb doesn't like the eggs I buy.

Although I don't care whether eggs are "certified organic" I usually buy Omega 3 eggs. But these eggs just aren't big enough for him. My personal answer to small eggs would be to just fry two eggs instead of one. But after repeated complaints about the type of eggs I buy, I just decided that if I have to buy separate eggs for him to keep him happy, then whatever... so be it.

So the last time I went grocery shopping at Wal Mart, I got not large eggs.... not extra large eggs.... but JUMBO eggs. You know the type of eggs I'm talking about. Dinosaur eggs. The kind that often have two yolks because they are so huge. A few Saturday mornings ago, when Robb pulled out these new eggs for breakfast and saw how gynormous they were, I asked him if those eggs were big enough. He had to admit that they were. We got a good laugh over it.

I ended up using most of these huge eggs for egg salad and so I went out and bought a dozen and a half appropriately large eggs (not Jumbo size this time, just "large"). It also happens that I'm soon going to be housesitting for a friend that has lots of farm animals, and she raises bantam hens, so after going over there to learn the ropes, I took home a dozen and a half eggs from her bantam hens, too. If you've ever seen bantam hen eggs, you'll know they're really tiny. Much smaller than the medium sized eggs in the grocery store. Kind of like what I imagine eggs would have looked like around the turn of the century.

What didn't really register to me was that these eggs were in a King Soopers cardboard box that read "large" just like the other dozen and a half store bought eggs in our fridge. Breakfast time comes around again and Robb pulls out one of the two "large" boxes that happens to contain the tiny eggs. "What happened to my dinosaur eggs?" he exclaimed. "Man, these eggs from King Soopers are terrible! Look how tiny they are! These are supposed to be large?"

heh. I love to mess with people. Especially when it happens by accident.

Get a Divorce, Get Yourself Fired

From the Chicago Sun-Times:

Gramm, a professor of English at Wheaton College, and his wife are in the midst of a split, and because he refuses to discuss the cause of the divorce with college officials -- school policy requires the divorce be within acceptable parameters -- he is resigning.

Otherwise, the college would have fired him.

...

Teachers, students and employees of Wheaton, an evangelical Christian school, commit to live their lives according to a Statement of Faith and Community Covenant that spells out suitable behavior.

"You sign the statement when you accept employment at the college," said Sarah Clark, director of media relations. "Everyone knows it's part of the deal."

...

Wheaton's policy acknowledges divorce can occur in a Christian marriage, and it does not consider divorce an "unpardonable sin." But college officials reserve the right to review the cause of a divorce, something that Gramm refused to discuss.

So technically, Gramm isn’t getting fired. But he could have if he simply had chosen not to go quietly.

This article doesn't surprise me in the least. I went to Houghton College and Wheaton was our arch rival. Both are Wesleyan universities with similar theological roots. Houghton has very similar policies and is, in fact, slightly more strict on some aspects (such as dancing) in comparison to Wheaton. Every faculty member and student is required to sign what is known as the Responsibilities of Community Life, aka The Pledge.

Of Wheaton’s contract, a Wheaton media relations employee says:

"We are a place of higher education, and that is certainly central to our mission," Clark said. "But we are also a faith-based community. So we tell all of our employees, whether it's a janitor or a dean, that it's about more than teaching. It's about being an example for our students in the entire scope of our lives."

What does Gramm have to say about that?

"I think it's wrong to have to accuse your spouse and to discuss with your employer your personal life and marital situation," Gramm said. "But I don't feel badly treated. There has been an attitude of compassion here."

Damn straight on the first part. But interestingly, the compassion that Graham speaks about in the second half of his statement only goes so far and there are serious double standards. As a matter of practicality, enforcement simply can’t extend to the largely unenforceable parts of these pledges. For example, no one is going to get kicked out of a Christian college for not treating their neighbors with “brotherly love.” They might not even get kicked out for possessing some alcohol: that type of offense would merely merit community service. No, instead the enforcement targets people who have serious problems and truly do need compassion at a particular point in their life. Getting pregnant, attempting suicide, and suffering from mental problems are all grounds for dismissal. During my time at Houghton or shortly thereafter, I heard of students that were dismissed for each of these issues.

I’m not going to bash Wheaton or Houghton or any other college for making their students and faculty sign contracts about highly personal behavior. While I think it's morally repugnant to penalize people for physical conditions or illnesses that pose no objective danger whatsoever to anyone else, or for that matter, to require forgiving behavior toward others that contradict a person's own sense of justice, all of this is their business. And if people are dumb enough to sign these contracts (as I once was) then that's their problem. Gramm signed this contract, and like most Christians living in their little bubble, I'm sure it just never occurred to him that a real-life situation could happen.

If you read the story you'll see that Gramm still buys into the Christian bullshit and only differs on the minor particulars of the religious code. However, I am glad he put his foot down and decided not to share the details of his divorce with Wheaton’s administration. Because guess what? No matter what ridiculous statement he signed, it’s none of their Goddamn business.

Military Bans Mens' Magazine Sales

Seriously. Apparently freedom has it's limits...even (especially!?) if you're freaking defending other people's rights to that freedom.

This is so pathetic. I can't wait to hear the military's warped Christian conservative pseudo-scientific explanation for this one. I'm sure I'll be as impressed with it as the arguments claiming that gays and women in the military reduce its effectiveness.

My Childhood Independence

Recently, RationalJenn's post Free Children, and the ensuing comments, made me think of my own childhood and the cultural changes that have led to kids being indoors or monitored most of the time now. I really enjoyed her post, and if you haven't read it already you should check it out.


Above is a map of where I grew up in Forestport, NY. "A" was my house on Kayuta Lake. "C" was the huge dam at the end of the lake where we would go trout fishing and searching for "pollywogs" -- aka tadpoles -- in a small nearby pond. By the age of 8, I was biking with friends to the nearby smaller lake called Blue Waters (location B) -- even careening down the hill and into the lake on our bike. At the time, there was no road surrounding Blue Waters as there is in the satellite photo. I would also take friends on a wooded path to cross Dustin Road and onto the railroad track west of the road. Then I'd follow that north to where the track met Woodhull Rd. At this point, my friends and I would take our dollars (you really only needed two dollars, and it remains so to this day) to Bonnie's Country Store (location D), which was a child's delight, filled with one whole row of penny candy jars where each item ranged between one to five cents. You got a coke and a paper bag full of candy. And then you'd walk back home, over a mile away as the crow flies, from D to A. At around age 10, I was allowed to canoe across the lake to the small island south of A, where we would spend the day eating snacks and playing. Days were filled with mud pies, climbing trees, building forts, catching fish and minnows, and picking huckleberries and balancing them in your baseball cap as you biked home. In other words, I was exploring -- doing what kids do to learn first hand about their world.

It wasn't always fun. Around age 8, one of the neighborhood bullies (age 16 or so) lifted me off the ground by my ponytail. It hurt like hell. But guess what -- life isn't always fair, and I learned what I was made of. At age 10, I was doing dishes nightly. At age 12, I was doing the family laundry and ironing. You see, most of the people I know who are totally screwed up as adults are not people that had this type of childhood -- they are people who had everything handed to them on a platter and they get to college and don't even know how to operate a vacuum cleaner.

I was doing most of the things I listed above by age 10, without any mechanism of contact with my parents, like a walkie talkie or a cell phone. Our property was beachfront and relatively secluded. I was a very good swimmer, and I can't even remember learning how to swim since I was raised on the water. As long as I was with friends, I would be allowed to swim in the lake without adult supervision before age 12. After that, I was allowed to swim in the lake alone so long as I didn't go out too far from shore. In the summer, showers were rare -- most of the time I simply bathed with soap and shampoo in the lake. All of this was done without life jackets.

At the time, I thought my mother was very overly protective. But today, I'm very surprised she allowed me even this much freedom because I was her only child. Plus, by today's standards, everything I have described is practically child neglect. She would have this whistle she would use to call me in for dinner (yes the image is awful, I'm sure) but most of the time I was too far away to hear it. Often, time would get away from me and I wouldn't be home until dusk, and she'd be pissed.

I now wonder to myself: If I had a child, would I be so permissive as my mother was? Heck, I was babysitting a newborn at age 12. Would I allow my kid to do that? I seriously doubt it. I also ask: Have things really become more dangerous? I doubt that either -- the dangers are just more publicized. I just think it's become socially unacceptable to let your kid risk breaking his or her arm now. I'm sure I'd struggle with this if I was a parent today, though.

When I emailed this post of Jenn's to my mom, she responded:

Boy, I totally agree. That is great. I can remember being gone for the day on week-ends when I was a kid. We would take some snacks and go up to the second bridge back into the woods to a favorite spot on the water and play all day in the water, etc. We had so much find we didn't want to come home at night when it got dark. And I was under 10 years old doing all this. And you know the story when I took 2 friends and we rode our bikes 10 miles into Rome to my grandmother's house on the back roads. Now, that was pushing it too far, Dad said. I was only 8 or 9 and Grandma called him when we got there. Sad to say, my bike was in the cellar for the rest of the summer. A lot of good memories!

Indeed. If I ever have kids, I would want them to have these types of experiences -- exploring their world and testing their boundaries. I don't know how I'd do it with our society being as nannified as it is today, but I would do my best to ensure that they could roam. I think it had a huge role to play in the independent person I've turned out to be. My mom gets annoyed when I drive cross country alone, but you see, she has only herself to blame. Pot kettle black!

Cell Phones: A Tool of the Devil

No, not because of these unfounded claims that they supposedly cause brain cancer or cause bees to go haywire. Thanks to RationalJenn's recent post on letting kids run free (which I wholeheartedly agree with, GO JENN!) I came across the blog Free Range Kids. Surfing, I discovered that the author of the blog, Lenore Skenazy, is a columnist. One of her articles is entitled: Cell Phone Holdouts are Right: Buy a Phone, Become a Baby, in which she opines:

Cell phones turn adults into babies, constantly needing contact with their spouses, friends and children. In fact, it's possible that children in a cell-connected world make out worst of all. This morning, not five minutes after I'd left for work, my 11-year-old called from the kitchen to ask if he could have banana bread for breakfast.

Kid — I'm not there. Eat ice cream and marshmallows. Make a vodka smoothie! Go wild or be a good boy, just pretend it's 1990 and I'm unreachable.

With all of us connected all the time — "Mom, I'm on the bus," "Mom, I'm two blocks from home" — independence never gets a foothold.

Young adults fare no better. I have a friend whose daughter went shopping for her first college formal and sent her mom — 1,000 miles away — a photo of each dress as she tried it on.

Grow up! Buy a dress by yourself! And while we're at it, learn to make plans, too.

Lady, you nailed it! Tell it like it is! I didn't get my first cell phone until I was in grad school -- mostly because they simply didn't have coverage in my remote undergrad college location. Somehow, I even survived cross country road trips and week long backpacking trips in the wilderness without one. Who'd a thunk it? You do realize, of course, that this is anathema to most people -- "You need a cell phone for safety, Monica" -- regardless of whether the cell phone will actually have signal when and where you break down. "Just in case!" I'm sure the cell phone has saved some lives, but in nearly ten years I have never used one in a true emergency and I don't know anyone who has. (Forgetting something at the grocery store and needing to phone home about it is not an emergency.)

Skenazy is not exaggerating. I can personally attest to the bizarre phenomenon of "needing" this device to make ordinary purchases -- like a bridesmaid dress. I was personally admonished by the bride to send a picture of myself after trying it on at the store. !? Say what?? My cell phone is three times bigger than everyone else's, four years old, and doesn't have a fancy folding mechanism... let alone a camera. I also didn't bring five girlfriends to the store with me to watch me try the goddamn thing on, so there won't actually be anyone there to take the picture, anyway!

Ugh. Finally I got fed up. Last year I told the world that I was canceling my cell service:

Shortly I will be canceling my cell phone. The reception is so bad in the mountains - and frankly, Verizon's service is so utterly abysmal - that having one has become useless except when on the road in case of emergency, and I've decided to save $55 a month. Yay!

If you want to reach me by phone, you can reach me at home at (number). This is the only number where I can be reached. Please make a note of it.

(Oh, and please don't flood my inbox with messages telling me to get a Go Phone for safety. Thanks.)

Well... you can guess, right? One person told me to get a pay per minute for safety, and I had three other responses insinuating the same... one person actually suggested that not having a cell phone reduced my independence. Got that? All in all, I had 23 responses. I discovered that apparently I am not an adult nor smart enough to make my own decisions. One of my friends, thankfully, got it:

Screw safety, Monica, think about what you're gonna do in all those fashion emergencies (should I get this pair of shoes or that one?) Who will you send pics to and get emergency advice from without a cell phone???? Oh dear I'm soooooooo very concerned.

You see? The sterotypes are true.

Please don't misuderstand me. I love the slim, sleek, compact nature of the modern cell phone. I love the little "boop boop" noises, the calculator tool, the games, the alarm clock, texting friends, and the funky colors the keys give off when you press them. And they can be useful little things, especially if you're constantly on the road or have a business that requires you to be in contact with people frequently. But I'm not, and I don't. And I'm simply straining to think of an instance where I actually would have died or suffered serious bodily harm without its presence. No, I come up empty. I also feel no guilt -- and that's where the real problem comes in, folks. Because even if you own a cell phone for these hypothetical "emergencies" that everyone reminds you of, you're still not off the hook. The real problem is not that I don't have one for emergencies, but that I just don't feel answering it 80% of the time. This seriously throws a wrench in the works, because for most people in this world, a cell phone has become absolutely indispensable for survival. Your friends and family simply cannot comprehend your lack of need for instant contact with them, and it drives them insane. "Where the hell have you been for the past 20 minutes? Why didn't you respond to my text messages?"

Ummmm... I was on the toilet, reading and taking a crap. Is that OK?

"I go to concerts all the time and my network of friends, they just don't know what to do when they confront somebody without a cell," said a 27-year-old holdout, Briee (cq) Della Rocca. "They say, 'Call me when you get to the parking lot and we'll meet up somewhere.' I say, 'I don't have a cell phone. Let's plan in advance' — and the record stops. It's almost like they don't even consider that this is a potential option — to plan ahead."

Precisely. Cell phones are like crack for the dependent, the insecure, the disorganized, the non-committal. They are poison to people like me who need privacy and relish being incommunicado for a few days... or a few hours.

I recently broke down and got another cell phone. But it was pointless, because emergencies are not what cell phones are actually about. This week-end, I asked the Significant Other to drop me off at a particular store to shop, and told him I'd take the 1/3 mile or so walk over to the store where he was shopping when I was done. As I got out of the car, he said, "Hey, do you have your cell phone?"

I replied that I did.

Of course, I didn't tell him that I had no plans to turn it on.

Asthma and Vitamin D

I am doing some research for a particular writing project on asthma.

I found a particularly interesting passage in one article which summarizes the current state of asthma genetics research. The passage reads, “Further analysis has revealed that the vitamin D receptor provided the strongest association with asthma and that the effects were strongest in female subjects. These studies led to investigations into the putative role of vitamin D in asthma susceptibility, with some studies suggesting that relative deficiency increases the risk for development of the disease.”

Wow... Of course, there is already 70 year old research indicating that dietary levels of vitamin D (and other fat soluble vitamins) in the standard American diet are far too low.

But I repeat myself. Who wants to hear about a guy that showed the importance of eating cod liver oil and butter? Hell, no. Now "researchers" warn of fat soluble vitamin toxicity and the American Heart Association recommends low fat (especially low fat dairy), low cholesterol, high grain diets for children one year of age and older.

I could say a lot more but I think I'll just hold my tongue.

Anti-Hillary-ites for Hillary

Have you guys seen or heard Hillary lately? She's slamming back shots with the good ole boys in Indiana, shooting off guns... even fantasizing about nuking Iran.



Quite funny, actually. I suppose we could all expect this. My personal assessment of her is that she's just a pragmatic power luster. If she has to do something that looks ridiculous to get in office, she will do it. I think it's instructive to look at why many Democrats don't like her -- and there are some that don't. They don't like her because she's not as principled about altruism as Obama is. I am not going to dig up written evidence on blogs, though I'm sure I could find some if I just went to Daily Kos or something. Stuff like: "Hillary is a tool of the corporatists, blah blah blah." More evidence, you say? Well, I live in Boulder, CO. This is one of the most leftist areas of the country. I see gazillions of Obama stickers everywhere on my drive to work. I have seen ONE Hillary sticker so far.

I see no evidence that Hillary's altruism is motivated by religion despite the fact that she has tried to jump on the religious bandwagon. In fact, we all know she is an atheist even if she won't admit it.

I agree with Myrhaf's overall assessment of the election:

...at the moment I think the candidate who would accomplish the least amount of damage to American freedom would be Hillary Clinton. It would not be for lack of trying on her part, but that she is so widely hated that she would have little support for any big sweeping changes. And the Republicans in Congress would be energized to fight her every step of the way.

Precisely. The Republicans are not motivated to fight Obama or McCain every step of the way, even though those two candidates stand for basically the same things as Hillary, and they're more principled about it. The best we can hope for is gridlock for the next four years.