Filed under: Uncategorized
Right now, I’m annoyed with god or whoever runs things in the universe.
Why do bad things happen to good people?
Why are some people evil?
Why do some people suffer while others lounge in luxury?
Why do I think about these things so much?
What I do know is that it is not fair that two of my very good friends have very bad cancer. It isn’t fair that babies and kids at the hospital where I work have cancer.
It isn’t fair that some babies never make it to their first birthday. Do you know how many babies die before 12 months of age in Memphis? Too many. The infant mortality rate in parts of Memphis is 19 deaths per 1,000 live births. A baby has a better chance of survival being born on the Gaza Strip or Sri Lanka than Memphis. Back in college, I helped run a group called SCIPE (Grinnell College Student Campaign for Increased Political Engagement). We once invited experts on healthcare to come to campus and debate whether the US would benefit from universal healthcare. While doing background research I learned the dirty secret of Memphis, an infant mortality rate that is higher than many “developing countries”. I was furious and felt guilty that something so easily preventable was happening in “my” city. I don’t know why I felt guilty as an 18 year old college student nearly 1,000 miles from Memphis but I did.
It isn’t fair that the USA has spent god knows how many billion dollars bombing civilians. It isn’t fair that the civilians are called “collateral damage”.
Every time someone tells me that some tragedy is “part of the divine plan” I want to meet the maker of this “plan” and ask him/her/it/they if the suffering of one baby or one family or one nation is really worth it. Does everything have to balance? Why can’t good things happen to good people? Why can’t “bad people” (I’m not sure anyone is ever fully “bad” or “evil”) change for the better?
Most importantly to me, what can I do to make things better?
I know I won’t ever give up. That is just the way I am. I’ll keep repeating Gandhi, “Whatever you do may seem insignificant, but it is most important that you do it” even when it seems meaningless.
The good news is that these questions have been plaguing me for years, preventing me from ever being too comfortable. Always forcing me to try to change things in any way I can.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: college, every tree on campus, festival, film, Grinnell, jedi, racquetball, star wars, Titular Head, tulat, weapon of choice
One of the many reasons I love Grinnell is the annual student film festival, Titular Head. Many amazing works of cinematography have appeared at TitHead over the years including, “Racquetball Tunak Tunak Tun” , an epic tale of two college students playing a game of racquetball so intense that it knows no bounds. Another noteworthy film is “Weapon of Choice” by my friend, Patrick Murray. A spoof of a spoof is always pretty good but, “Tulat“ Dhiern Patik’s spof of Borat is especially well done (I’m biased though because I know just about everybody in the film). Another wonderful film, “The Flesh and the Foam” was brilliant but unfortunately was unable to be screened or released because of nudity.
However, in the year since I graduated, the Titualr Head Film to end all Films, has been created. ”Star Wars Grinnell” created by Henry Reich (one of the colleges’ top long distance runners and easily on of the most talented students on campus) starring his little brother Alex as a Jedi Knight. In a physics classroom where I spent many, many hours, Alex uses his Jedi mind control to make the professor (played by the charming Randy Brush) change his exam grade from an “F” to an “A”. The action continues and the special effects are spectacular. Though the story-line is a bit… disjointed, the film is well deserving of it’s first place prize.
The next time somebody asks me why I went to Grinnell, I will tell them to simply search “Titular Head Grinnell” on youtube.
Grinnell is amazing. I wish I were there.
Other noteworthy films include:
Bend it Like Bala- starring my friend Rup as Bala the soccer guru
‘The Passion of the Omana’- which isn’t online anymore
Today Iowa made gay marriage legal.
Even though I am not gay, I’m so proud of Iowa. I spent four wonderful years in a small college in Iowa and I can truly say that Iowans are some of the nicest people on Earth.
You can read the summary of the proceedings here.
- Shoeless Joe Jackson: Hey, is this heaven?
- Ray Kinsella: No, it’s Iowa.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: science, strange terms, sonic hedgehog, developmental biology
A few months ago I wrote about the insanity of drosophila geneticists. Well, apparently I was right. NPR’s “All Things Considered” is doing a story about the crazy names.
The story airs later today and you can listen to it here.
The story description:
February 9 · Fruit Fly geneticists spend hours each day staring at flies under a microscope. And they want you to know they have their own ways of being geeky, like giving funny names to things. But is that a good thing for the study of genetics as it applies to humans?
Filed under: Uncategorized
I haven’t blogged lately because I had my tonsils taken out three weeks ago. It was not fun, though I did find the induction of anesthesia to be strangely enjoyable. Now that I feel like a human again here is a random and hopefully funny story. It is entirely true.
The scene: Des Moines airport. (For the record, “Des Moines” is pronounced “De Moyne” the esses are silent.) I’m about to get on a plane home for winter break, a wonderful month away from the cold and snow of Grinnell.
As I approached the ticket counter, I anticipated trouble. I’m always selected for “random” searches. I did not expect what happened next.
The ticket counter guy informed me that there was bad weather in Memphis and that the plane had to be under a certian weight limit. TCG (ticket counter guy) told me all about the wonderful voucher for a hotel and a flight the next day that I would be given for my trouble. Apparently, TCG was trying to cut me from the flight list.
I was tired. A week of exams and very little sleep made me a bit annoyed. I stared at TCG wondering why they thought that my 120 pounds (on a 1.73 m/5′ 8″ frame) of body plus around 10 pounds of luggage was enough to endanger the flight. I respectfully turned down the “offer”/”order” and told TCG that I had to be in Memphis by 5:00pm. I had important things to do. Like sleep.
TCG begrudgingly allowed me to board the pane after realizing that I probably wouldn’t upset the balance of the plane. When I got to my seat (D1, I think), I found that the person next to me was a very….large lady. Upwards of 300 pounds. I realized that life is hilarious. TCG tried to keep me off the plane for saftey reasons but my neighbor was apparently not a threat. TCG told me that the plane had to be extra light because of the turbulence in Memphis. I squeezed into my seat and setteled down for a mid flight nap. I put my elbow on the armrest and noted how very soft it was.
Much to my chagrin, the “armrest” turned out to by my neighbor’s arm. She was not amused. I offered her a candy cane I had in my coat pocket. She was placated by this gesture of concilliation. I spent the rest of the flight with my arms crossed in an attempt to avoid being a repeat offender of the personal space law.
We landed safely and I had a wonderful winter break. But I will never again assume that an airline upgraded the padding of their armrests without checking to make sure that padding isn’t actually the flesh of the person sitting next to me.
Thus ends the random story.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: civilians, Gaza, Hamas, human rights, Israel, justice, Palestine, peace, war, zionism
Last week I had a conversation with a co-worker of mine who is an Orthodox Jew about the situation in Palestine. We agreed that Israel is wrong in their actions in Gaza and that the fight is not fair. (Israel recieves around $2 billion dollars in military aid from the United States each year).
My co-worker had one question she said she couldn’t understand. She asked how someone can walk into a Yeshiva and “just kill innocent boys”? (I assume she was referring to the 6 March 2008 attacks on a Yeshiva in Jerusalem). I, not wanting to reveal too much about where my loyalties (if any) lay, summarized a quote by JFK and said, “maybe some Palestinians feel that their peaceful pleas for justice have been ignored so the only thing they have left is violence.” She pondered this and then agreed.
Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable. (JFK 1962)
To me, the most important thing to remember while reading about and reacting to Israel’s attacks on Gaza, is that the situation is one of David vs. Goliath except that David, in this case is malnourished, injured and oppressed and that Goliath recieves $2 billion dollars a year from the US for weapons to use against ‘David’. In this modern David v. Goliath, the metaphor rises above Israeli vs. Palestinian. That is what the surface of the conflict appears to be; however, the real conflict is military vs. civilian. The fact that a humanitarian crisis has been building in Gaza can not be denyed. Hamas resumed firing rockets into civilian areas of Israel in response to the mounting crisis. Israel responded with an all out war. I have combed over news archives trying to count the total number of Isreali civilians killed by Hamas rockets and I have not been able to count more than 15 in the past four years. In the two weeks since Israel began bombing Gaza between 100 and an estimated 600 Palestinian civilians have been killed.
This un-holy war will continue to mar the supposed Holy Land until both sides, Israeli and Palestinian, are given EQUAL voice. The rights of Palestinians must be recognized and protected before any peace talks can begin. The countries of the world must uphold the rights of civilians to live, have access to health care and education. If the world does not act, our countries, by ignoring and denying the rights and dignity of our fellow humans, are not only committing violence but are also ensuring that violence will continue.
Please read the quotations below, visit the sites I’ve listed and consider doing whatever you can to bring peace to the world.
A few more thoughts to consider from a man much more eloquent that I can ever hope to be, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. from his 1967 speech “Beyond Vietnam-A Time to Break the Silence“:
“As I have walked among the desperate, rejected, and angry young men, I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action. But they ask — and rightly so — what about Vietnam? They ask if our own nation wasn’t using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today — my own government. For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of the hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent.“
….
“We are called to speak for the weak, for the voiceless, for the victims of our nation and for those it calls “enemy,” for no document from human hands can make these humans any less our brothers.”
…
“Here is the true meaning and value of compassion and nonviolence, when it helps us to see the enemy’s point of view, to hear his questions, to know his assessment of ourselves. For from his view we may indeed see the basic weaknesses of our own condition, and if we are mature, we may learn and grow and profit from the wisdom of the brothers who are called the opposition.”
…
“A genuine revolution of values means in the final analysis that our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Every nation must now develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in their individual societies.
This call for a worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one’s tribe, race, class, and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing and unconditional love for all mankind. This oft misunderstood, this oft misinterpreted concept, so readily dismissed by the Nietzsches of the world as a weak and cowardly force, has now become an absolute necessity for the survival of man. When I speak of love I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response. I am not speaking of that force which is just emotional bosh. I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality. This Hindu-Muslim-Christian-Jewish-Buddhist belief about ultimate reality is beautifully summed up in the first epistle of Saint John: “Let us love one another, for love is God. And every one that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love.” “If we love one another, God dwelleth in us and his love is perfected in us.” Let us hope that this spirit will become the order of the day.”
Sites to Visit:
Catholic Campaign for Peace in the Holy Land
American Friends Service Committee letter to President Bush and soon to be President Obama
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: "Shrub", Bush, fill in the blanks, George W Bush, politics, Recent events, Zimbabwe
I read what Condoleezza Rice had to say about Robert Mugabe and her words reminded me of another country…see if you can fill in the blanks:
This is what I was thinking (the highlighted words are mine):
“It’s well past time for George W. Bush to leave. I think that’s now obvious. The fact is that there was a sham election in 2000. There then has been a sham process of war, corruption, and manufactured crises. And now, we are seeing not only the political and economic toll that is being taken on the people of the world.”
This is what she really said:
“It’s well past time for Robert Mugabe to leave. I think that’s now obvious,” Rice said during a visit to Copenhagen, Denmark. “The fact is that there was a sham election. There then has been a sham process of power-sharing talks. And now, we are seeing not only the political and economic toll that is being taken on the people of Zimbabwe, but the toll in the humanitarian dimension as this cholera epidemic has broken out.”
It works out pretty nicely doesn’t it?
You too can fill in the blanks! just leave a comment with your words inserted!
Give it a try:
“It’s well past time for 1._________ to leave. I think that’s now obvious,” Rice said during a visit to Copenhagen, Denmark. “The fact is that there was a sham election. There then has been a sham process of 2._________. And now, we are seeing not only the political and economic toll that is being taken on the people of 3.________, but the toll in the humanitarian dimension as this 4.___________.”
The situation in Zimbabwe is awful and it has been awful for years. Maybe the Bush administration has only now realized that Zimbabwe is a real country and not just a cool word.
