Ms. Viswanathan – you do words a great disservice

“For writers, the act of putting particular words in a particular order is our hard labor. Even when the result is mediocre and unoriginal, it is our own mediocrity.” - David Plotz

in-ter-nal-ize: to give a subjective character to; specif : to incorporate (as values and patterns of culture) within the self as conscious or unconscious guiding principles through learning and socialization – in-ter-nal-i-za-tion.

In other words - my own to be exact - taking in an object, and then producing from it, a subjective and/or emotional representation. To internalize something, is to either reflect deeply upon its implications or be existentially altered by its presence.

For instance, an airplane in the sky is an object. Objectively, it is an airplane; nothing more and nothing less. Although many fail to do so, journalists are supposed to represent only objects – “There is an airplane in the sky.” Nothing more – nothing less.

But subjectively, the airplane might represent humankind’s longing to rise above earthly misery or, perhaps it is mankind mocking the ancient gods, or maybe the airplane represents the sorrow we feel when saying goodbye to loved ones. Writers are supposed to show us subjects. More importantly, different writers can represent the same object very differently. That is the difference between objective and subjective writing – journalism and storytelling.

Enter, the unashamed, Harvard undergraduate, Kaavya Viswanathan. She presented her book as an original story, not as a news report. Ms. Viswanathan took in objects but then gave us back objects – the same objects - albeit a bit distorted from their original state. That’s not internalization, its plagiarism.

And you understand of course, we are not talking about repeating a lone, but relevant phrase or reusing a mutual expression that we also relate to emotionally - for that is a simple and active part of cultural transmittence. Plain and simple.

Some of you may think this a trivial matter but, there are some of us for whom literature is an important measure of intellectual horizons; of cultural expediency. In death, our written words speak for us because no one else will. And why are our words so important in life? Well, I think a phrase from a 1968 Bee Gee’s hit song is appropriate here:

“It's only words, and words are all I have to take your heart away.”

-Just a peasant

Photo from the Fountain Pen Network

The Star and the Satellite

“Any girl can be glamorous. All you have to do is stand still and look stupid.” – Hedy Lamarr

Unfortunately, we are sometimes subjected to the profound scientific ignorance of entertainers like Tom Cruise or Pamela Anderson. Of course, this should not distract us from their entertainment talents. Tom Cruise is still a fine actor and Pamela Anderson - well I’m still at a loss to figure what her real talent is - besides looking like a cartoon character. The point I want to make here is that not all entertainers are insipid or vacuous and I wanted to remind people about one such actress.

Hedy Lamarr was a beautiful actress of the 1930s and 1940s. She appeared in over twenty movies, but she was also the principal author on a 1942 patent for a radio-frequency device originally designed to enable torpedoes to evade counter-electronic jamming measures. Her idea of “frequency hopping” was not implemented in this capacity during WWII but in another way many years later. Three years after the expiration of her patent, the concept was designated “spread spectrum” and is now used in modern communications and wireless technologies including everything from cell phones to military defense satellites.

So you see, not all entertainers are intellectual clowns, as there are a few that take a more educated approach to applying scientific principles. And it is not lost on me, that as I write and post this letter, it is being done on a wireless system. Thank you, Ms. Lamarr.

-Just a peasant

Love and Trust

We had both come with ideas, about Love, that we had laid out on canvas and frame. Beautiful and exquisite landscapes painted from a collision of childhood heavens and pubertal omnipotence. But when the other person did not quite fit into our frame, we tried to make them fit into the frame. We discussed, we coerced; eventually we yelled. We pushed, we shoved; eventually we hit. A man once said: There can be no atrocities in war, because war itself is an atrocity.

Then, we were left with only reciprocal frustration and equivocal hatred. We were quantum particles with opposite paths and a probability of emotional annihilation. And for what? A single moment of reconciliation? The rare glance of recognition? Can any man really believe that, once he hits her, she will ever trust him again? Can any woman really believe that, once she is unfaithful, he will ever trust her again?

There is a certain way that real lovers hold each other; an embrace of unconscious familiarity that no one-night stand or afternoon rendezvous can compare to. And once you have lost that special trust, you will never win it back. So if you ever really loved her once, then just walk away, man. Just walk away.

-Just a peasant

Photo from the Octogon Theater's production of Broken Glass

I’m Not Afraid, Why Are You?

Iran has a nuclear program – so what? We gave them their first 5-megawatt research reactor in 1967. And who else has, strangely, had a nuclear program? Let’s see – Taiwan, Libya, Egypt, Argentina, Brazil, South Africa, and even Switzerland. And there are others, of course.

So Iran will have a few nukes - big deal. So do India, Pakistan and China. Russia still has theirs including all the nukes returned to them by former Soviet states. The US has over 9,000 warheads. North Korea claims to have some, but no one listens to them. Saudi Arabia may have a clandestine nuclear agenda, but no one asks any questions about it.

Some people are scared that Iran would nuke the United States. Perhaps they would, but to what end? The purpose of gaining and securing power is to enjoy its fruits. These fruits quickly vaporize in a nuclear response.

Let me introduce you to the Trident submarine. A single submarine carries 24 ballistic Trident missiles. The Trident missle has a velocity of 29,000 km/hr and a range of 12,000 km. Each missile carries 8 warheads. Each warhead is usually the W88, which has a 475-kiloton yield. Each warhead has the destructive power 10 times greater than the blasts that destroyed Hiroshima or Nagasaki. A single Trident submarine can mark 192 targets. Accuracy is very high. Iran has only 16 known nuclear facility sites. A single submarine could saturate the entire countryside of Iran. The US currently fields 14 Ohio-class, "Trident" submarines. This information is publicly available and certainly known to any military organization undertaking a nuclear program.

Are there crazy people in Iran who would use a nuclear weapon? Sure, just as there are crazy people here in America that would nuke everyone they hated. In fact, we are the only country in history that has ever used a nuclear weapon in war. Ultimately, our nuclear "deterrent force" will do just that - deter Iran from an epic mistake.

So now that we have addressed this newest red herring, let’s get back to the real issue: the unnecessary and misbegotten war in Iraq. Let’s worry about the failure of one war before we go on to fail in another, shall we?

- Just a peasant

Photo of Trident submarine from the NATO website

A Note on Howl's Moving Castle

No spoilers here.

Howl’s Moving Castle was great. This Studio Ghibli movie is based on a book by Diana Wynne Jones and directed by Hayao Miyazaki. As usual, we get to immerse ourselves in a beautiful and interesting world with its own rules.

I watched it after a day in which an 11-hour, $500 experiment was ruined in the lab. I was so involved in the story that, when the movie ended, I realized I had not thought once about the day’s disaster. That’s what I love about his films – an escape of sorts. Personally, I preferred to watch the Japanese language version with English subtitles. I thought the Japanese voice acting was better.

You can see a trailer by clicking on the link above. Yeah, I know Disney distributes it but, in Life and the Arts, there are sometimes bitter pills to swallow. I keep hoping that the presence of such movies in the market place will pressure Disney to produce better films and by that, I mean find better stories and show us things we have never seen before. We’ll see.

Screenshot from early in the movie.

Dum Spiro, Spero

Do you know what it is to be trapped? Do you know what it is to have your arms tied behind you? Do you know what it is to see where every possible exit is, but also be helpless to get to any of them?

Do you know what it is to be forced to your knees by angry drug dealers? Do you know what it is to have none of the answers to their questions? Do you know what it is like to suddenly understand why they brought a sledgehammer and a rusty, metal pipe?

Do you know what it is to lose teeth? Do you know the taste of it? Do you know the white flashes in the brain? Do you know the ringing in the ears?

Do you know what it is to watch your blood spilling onto the concrete floor? Do you know what it is like to see the moonlight so beautifully reflected in that blood?

Do you know what it is to remain defiant anyway? Do you know what it is to lay on the floor, barely conscious, and tell these people – “Dum Spiro, Spero?”

Well - I do know.

“While I breathe, I hope.”

- Just a peasant

Inoue Azumi - again!

Today we’ll think about nice things and beautiful times.

Yes, I admit, am a huge fan of Azumi Inoue and I finally discovered her website too. So you can see from the CD cover picture above, not only does she have a beautiful voice, but she is also very beautiful herself. Talent and beauty – a rare combination. Because she sings in Japanese, I can only understand some of what she is saying. But to me, it is not the words that make the singer, it’s the texture and quality of their voice. I don’t understand what the Gipsy Kings are saying, but it doesn’t detract from the emotional impact of their songs.

Sure, I like to listen to Rob Zombie, Tool, or Stabbing Westward, but I couldn’t live all the time in those feelings. It would be emotionally monolithic. Even when I was a heavy metal bass guitarist, I listened to other styles of music.

However, I could exist all the time in Azumi Inoue’s voice – plain and simple. You might disagree about her voice and that’s okay – we all have our own preferences. For instance, I absolutely hate country music.

* For those of you who might be wondering, apparently she goes by Azumi Inoue (for English) or Inoue Azumi (for Japanese). Either one seems to work.

About those leaks Sir

“For those, who confer a harmful favour upon someone whom they seemingly wish to help, are to be accounted not generous benefactors but dangerous sycophants . . .”

- Cicero 106-43 BC

Threats to establish Democracy in the Middle-East, a war for the Freedom of Iraqis, and leaks to disclose the Truth to the American public.

Well Sir, we’re just full of good intentions aren’t we?

New Particles and New Horizons

When I was in high school, we learned about the three constituents of the atom: the neutron, proton, and electron. But this is old information and now even smaller subatomic particles have been studied and categorized.

We were taught that the three states of matter are gas, liquid, and solid but there are actually five states of matter. First, there is plasma, which is a gas that is so hot, many atoms have electrons stripped off, which then creates a cloud of ions, free electrons, and neutral atoms. Plasma is seen in stars, like our Sun, and in lightning. The Bose-Einstein condensate is a bunch of atoms that condense together in an ultra-cold quantum gas.

At Brookhaven National Laboratories, there is a Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider that is used to accelerate and smash the nuclei of gold atoms together. When these nuclei collide they produce up to 10,000 subatomic particles, mostly quarks and gluons. You can see the result of one such collision and the many particle tracks in the picture at the top of this post. In fact, this work might even eventually demonstrate a sixth state of matter: quark-gluon plasma.

The best thing is that, with a simple click, you can share in these new horizons. Afterall, it is the universe you live in.

Sweetness

We cannot possibly be all the things that our lover wants us to be. We cannot match neuron for neuron, their meticulous heroes of fulfillment. We cannot easily exist beyond those depolarizing concepts of archetypal phantoms that continually conjure floating, electrical intuitions and dancing, dopamine substitutions.

These ghosts, arising from the molecular maelstrom of the mind, are never what we encounter; never the thousand details of reality. Yet it is out there, in the details, that beauty triumphs or fails. It is out there that we listen for the unique cadence that sets our lover apart from every other person.

What is that simple theme I have always sought in a lover - that singular voice in a world of dissonance? It is “sweetness” and nothing more. It is that basso continuo ability of a lover, at the end of my imperfect days, to remember that I am, after all, just human and that sometimes, just finishing the day still breathing - still alive - is quite an accomplishment.

- Just a peasant

Photo of fluorescent protein-expressing neurons from Duke University

Every Moment Counts - To Someone

"In such a world of conflict, a world of victims and executioners, it is the job of thinking people, not to be on the side of the executioners" - Albert Camus

Here is some advice to people in general. When you ask clemency or freedom for a prisoner that is scheduled to be executed, choose your words wisely, cautiously, and do not insult the executioner. The reality is that the gun is still loaded, the trigger finger poised, and a human life is at stake. Your personal anger is inconsequential to this critical moment.

Perhaps you will take a moment to consider the case of Fatemeh Haghighat-Pajouh and add your name to a petition for a Stay of Execution.

After all, what could really happen in a single moment?

Just a peasant

Fox in the Chicken Coop

So, how do you make intelligence work? We have to have effective collection. You have to have effective analysis, and you have effective sharing. – Michael Chertoff (Secretary of Homeland Security)

It would not be appropriate for someone like myself, who spent twelve years as a rock and roll musician, to excoriate another person for desiring to see naked people on the internet. We are, after all, just human and the human body is sensuous. But there is a huge problem when a person decides that the body of a child is sexually desirable. The problem is made worse when a person goes beyond just looking, to trying to meet and touch the child. For instance, it is a problem when old men use the internet to hook up with fourteen year old girls.

That a government official would be involved in such an incident is not surprising to me. Don’t trust them. What is however, amusing and absurd, is that a member of the same institution that presumes to protect us from “terrorist” attacks and other domestic bad guys, has so little ability to effectively analyze and distinguish between the thoughts of a young girl and the masquerade of an adult. We can only wonder – with such little ability apparent at Homeland Security, how do they actually intend to distinguish, much less thwart, the real “terrorists” and everyone else?

The Department of Homeland Security – we’re so lucky to have you protecting us.

Your Tax Dollars At Work

One objective in transplant sciences is concerned with approximating and culturing the three-dimensional structure of organs in vitro (in the laboratory) so that the organs can be transplanted into people. The cells, of different organs, have an interesting ability in that they will attempt to physically organize themselves in a coherent manner reflecting their normal structure in the organ of their origin. However, the problem in the laboratory is that they need the proper growing conditions, molecular signals, and the ability to orient themselves spatially, in a three-dimensional manner.

You understand - it is usually not enough to simply add cells to an organ that is malfunctioning. For instance, injecting stem cells into the heart, after myocardial infarction, is very inefficient as the stem cells have great difficulty in establishing themselves in damaged or necrotic tissue. Only a few cells, of the hundreds of thousands, will remain viable and then it is doubtful whether they can re-establish healthy tissue.

Organs are made up of different cells types each cell type with its own functions. The different cells types not only have different functions but also like to congregate in their own areas. One strategy has been to provide cells a three-dimensional structure on which to grow. Many materials are being researched but collagen tends to be a favorite substrate.

New work in this area has produced an artificial bladder now being used in clinical experiments. Although science breakthroughs are typically the work of several researchers and many prior years of work, Dr. James J. Yoo and Dr. Anthony Atala seem to be primarily responsible for the bladder. You can read about their work in the New York Times or go to their scientific article in the Lancet medical journal.

Photo by Sam Ogden

No Joke - Be Kind To Your Liver

On a flight into Washington DC recently, two women sat behind my row discussing their lives. Eventually their conversation turned to an acquaintance of theirs who was in need of a liver transplant. One woman asked the other, “Do you need your liver?” To which the other lady replied, “Oh no, the liver isn’t really necessary.” The man sitting next to me and I exchanged surprised glances and shared a quiet laugh over this. My goodness.

The liver is the largest solid organ of the body and works to filter the blood, detoxify the blood, absorb and store vitamins and fats, produce bile, produce blood clotting factors, and supply the body with glucose and proteins. In the United States, the average cost of a liver transplant and associated services for the first year is about $320,000 dollars. Annual costs after the initial year of the treatment and transplant average close to $22,000 per year. This includes medicines to suppress rejection of the liver.

The coolest thing about the liver is its ability to reconstitute its mass after single or multiple resections (removing part of it). You can remove up to 80% of the liver and it will still function adequately. Although the human liver is a bit less adept than a dog’s liver, the liver will also regenerate itself in both donor and recipients. Within the first week, where most recovery occurs, the liver can usually double its post surgical mass. This fact is what allows parents to donate part of their own liver to their own child. It also provides “split liver” donation whereby a liver from cadaver (organ donor) is divided in two for two separate recipient patients.

To me, this regrowth is interesting because its cells are not particularly active in mitosis (cell division) yet under these conditions must enter a state of high cell proliferation to re-establish mass. It is also interesting because the structural organization of its vascular components must also be re-established to accommodate hepatocyte function.

Sadly, in the US, some 17,000 patients are awaiting a liver transplant and only about 5,500 transplants will be performed each year. 10% of these patients will die every year and the number of those on the waiting lists is increasing. That’s only one country. While there are several conditions that lead to the demise of the liver, about 64% of hepatic carcinomas in the Western nations have alcoholic cirrhosis as an underlying risk factor.

Your liver is extremely necessary and you will in fact die without it. Please be kind to it.

Doublethink for the New American Century

“Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.” – George Orwell

I myself try to ignore the politicians and their mewing herds, but over at One Pissed Off Veteran, who loves to scrap and rumble with them, I was clued in to quite the insult of common sense and reason.

"We support democracy, but that doesn't mean we have to support governments that get elected as a result of democracy,” - George W. Bush (Full article here)

Every year, my love for politicians grows like a flesh-eating, Streptococcus infection. How I worship the intellectual mince-meat of their brains. How I adore the cyanotic humanity of their hearts. And of my own leader, only cheers for uttering what will probably be the top quote of the entire 21st century even though we are only in the first decade. Never since the poor, defunct Australopithecus roamed the ancient lands of Africa, has a ruler demonstrated a similar capacity, wisdom and forbearance as he.

But sir, one question about your statement: when a government is brought to the front by its own people yet you do not prefer to have it, what then will happen? Oh yes, forgive me, I forgot - SMACK DOWN! As it always has been and always must be.

Sir, the foundation of your character is indeed timeless.

Photo from the Peace Witness website