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[The Gashly Crumb Tinies]
[Esperanto]
[...And my future changes once more...]
Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in the "good_leopard" journal:[<< Previous 20 entries]
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01:17 am
[Link] | I had a farm in Africa, at the foot of the Ngong Hills.
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03:21 pm
[Link] | Commentary
Nature Biotechnology 23, 1479 - 1480 (2005)
doi:10.1038/nbt1205-1479
Should we make a fuss? A case for social responsibility in science
Jon Beckwith1 & Franklin Huang2
1 Jon Beckwith is in the Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, Harvard Medical School, 200 Longwood Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA. jbeckwith@hms.harvard.edu
2 Franklin Huang is in the Division of Hematology/Oncology, Children's Hospital, Karp Family Research Laboratories, 1 Blackfan Circle, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA.
If society is to remain in step with new technology, the scientific community needs to be better educated about the social and ethical implications of its research.
Thomas Hunt Morgan, who was on the board of the US Eugenics Record Office in 1915, failed to publicly challenge the co-option of genetics to justify public eugenics programs. (AP Photo)
"If they [eugenicists] want to do this sort of thing, well and good...but I think it is just as well for some of us to set a better standard, and not appear as participators in the show. I have no desire to make any fuss." (Thomas Hunt Morgan, 1915)
"People keep asking me why I do not rebut The Bell Curve. The answer is because it is so stupid, it is not rebuttable." (David Botstein, 1997)
Two geneticists, nearly a century apart, react to critical moments in the interface between genetics and society. Thomas Hunt Morgan, arguably the leading geneticist of his day, responds to the claims and activities of the eugenics movement, which had a profound social influence in the United States1. More recently, David Botstein, one of the architects of human genome mapping, comments on the book, The Bell Curve, in which authors Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray provided genetically based arguments for changing social policies in areas, such as welfare and education, policies that parallel those of the eugenicists2. Both Morgan and Botstein are disdainful of these uses of genetics by others to argue for the intellectual and social inferiority of lower social classes and various ethnic groups. Yet, Morgan, in a private letter, and Botstein at a conference on the Human Genome Project disavow any need for them, as scientists, to respond to these arguments.
Why engage the public?
A majority of the early geneticists may have considered the claims of eugenicists as poor science and may have abhorred the sterilization, miscegenation and immigration restriction laws that were passed with support of eugenicists. And most geneticists today probably reject the genetic claims of Herrnstein and Murray and the social prescriptions they offer. But few spoke publicly about the flaws in the scientific reasoning and the unwarranted extension of questionable conclusions from genetics into the realm of social policy.
Should geneticists have played a role in these very public controversies? Do scientists have a responsibility to participate in public discussions about the implications of their science? We would argue that there are many cases where scientists should indeed 'make a fuss.' When social harm may result from the misuse and misrepresentation of science, who better to present the criticisms, describe the uncertainties or identify the falsehoods than scientists knowledgeable in the relevant field? Who better to point out, for example, that research and conclusions in the study of human behavior are often influenced by the social attitudes of researchers? Yet, although the scientists with an interest in influencing social policy often go public because of their strong belief in the conclusions of the research, scientists who see the flaws in the research are much less likely to confront the issues in a public setting. The impact on society is thus skewed.
Laissez-faire and denial
Why do scientists choose not to engage in those social debates that have important scientific components? When challenged to consider such activism, scientists often respond: "My role is just to do my science. It is up to the politicians to decide how it is used." This laissez-faire attitude is fostered by the education of scientists. In the life sciences, many of us were trained to think of ourselves as working in the 'ivory tower' mode—seekers of truth uncontaminated by the outside world. Few students of science receive as an integral part of their scientific education an analysis of the social impact of science and rarely is there a mention of social responsibility. We learn of none of the history of those periods when scientists became active in confronting the social consequences of their field.
Most notably, after atomic bombs were dropped on Japan, nuclear physicists who participated in the Manhattan Project came to question what they had been doing. Highlighted by J. Robert Oppenheimer's plaint that "physicists have known sin," a resistance movement arose that influenced the broader community of physicists. These 'awakened' scientists started the socially concerned "Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists" and spoke out, lobbied and even went door-to-door seeking a ban on the testing of atomic weapons in the 1950s and 1960s.
Anthropologists, particularly in the latter half of the 20th century, were forced to consider the ethics of their field research because of its obvious impact on the groups they studied. Although it may be less obvious to geneticists and other biological scientists that the products of their field can have profound effects on society, the impact is no less important.
The 1960s saw another stirring of the scientific conscience. Initially provoked by the use of science for the development of war technologies in Vietnam, scientists in the United States, Europe and elsewhere (including one of the authors of this piece) began to examine the social role of their own fields3, 4. Geneticists publicly criticized the faulty arguments of psychologist Arthur Jensen about heredity, race and IQ. Others raised concerns about the potential dangers of genetic engineering. Some were active in opposing efforts to water down or eliminate the teaching of evolution in schools. For a relatively brief period, many in the biological community became active.
Thus, a sense of social responsibility in science has emerged from time to time in spite of the fact that scientists were not prepared by their training to think about these issues. Their activism was stimulated by crises, such as the use of atomic weapons or the political environment of the 1960s. These events, not the education of the scientist, were the 'educational moments' that generated social responsibility among scientists.
What to do?
Waiting for such crises will not do. More science is being conducted today than at any time in the history of the world and its consequences for society are expanding correspondingly. The research enterprise both reflects and influences social policy. It is more necessary than ever that scientists be part of the public conversation that fosters both an understanding of science and shapes the impact science will have on society.
Instead of responding to crises, scientists should be prepared by their courses and by their mentors for this component of being a scientist. We propose that education at the graduate level should include the study of the social implications of science and the historical instances where scientists have spoken out. Such courses should be supported by policies at the academic institutional level. Furthermore, the adoption of social/public service requirements of scientists during their graduate study, whether this involves working in developing countries or mentoring high school students in the community, may help broaden the perspectives of budding scientists.
If a goal of scientific training is to help scientists to be more critical thinkers, then preparing them to be engaged in looking critically at the social implications of their science can only aid in achieving that goal.
Top
REFERENCES
1. Allen, G. Genetics, Eugenics and Class Struggle. Genetics. 79, 29–45 (1975).
2. Botstein, D. in: Plain Talk about the Human Genome Project, (eds. Smith, E. and Sapp, W). 207–214 (Tuskegee University Press,Tuskegee, AL, 1997).
3. Beckwith, J. Making Genes, Making Waves: A Social Activist in Science (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 2002).
4. Weiner, C. in Gene Therapy and Ethics (ed. Nordgren, A.) 51–64 (Acta Universitatis Uppsaliensis, Uppsala, 1999).
(above found at http://www.nature.com/nbt/journal/v23/n12/full/nbt1205-1479.html)
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SEARCH TERMS: Alexis Carrel (possibly Nazi), Sir Francis Galton (cousin to Charles)
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06:11 pm
[Link] | I am the Zen master. I do laundry. I register for spring classes. I stare at the cieling.
The inside of my brain looks like this:
That's right -- nothing at all. I am out to sea, I am absolutely blank. Somebody hold up a mirror, somebody light a match; see what happens, see if I grimace or melt. At the edges, in the ridges of my skull, everything is pressing on my meninges, trying to get in. What do I do?
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02:23 pm
[Link] |
Ouchless still, but very sharp
It turns out walking on air is about as safe as it sounds. One of these days I'll find that out more literally.
I'm not sure what to do. I need to come up with a magic solution. I need to find some sort of way to show her that she's WARM, goddammit, she's made of skin and blood and bone.
But will that fix it? ...I need to accomplish two things:
1) show her her own needs, if in truth they're there, and make her know that they aren't weaknesses, and
2) stop her from having random moments like this.
I'm getting nowhere with my limited information. We need to talk.
Current Mood:  love
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07:34 pm
[Link] |
Love
She's at her dad's house for Thanksgiving. I called this afternoon but she was cooking in the kitchen with her father and I was sitting in the living room within hearing distance of Mira. We said friendly things and paused where the I love yous should have been. I held my breath hoping she wouldn't slip and say it.
I'm ready not to be eighteen any longer. I don't want to be a student, and I don't want to share a shitty apartment with two perverted slobs, and I don't want her to need their blood money. Gripe, grouse. But I can't help it. I just keep thinking about the woods... Maybe I will write some vastly popular work of fiction and become disgustingly wealthy enough for us to buy an island somewhere in the tropics.
Right -- time for me to get myself off my lazy dreaming ass and get to work.
Current Mood:  relaxed
Current Music: Nice, tumbly Nick Drake.
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12:18 pm
[Link] | Bad morning. My Pony's got something weighing her down, and she won't tell me what it is. She's at work now, and I'm procrastinating here until I get sick of it, or until I hike down to meet her for lunch.
Good things:
"I wake up, I love you. I get dressed, I love you. I go for a run, I take a shower and I love you. I make some breakfast. I love you. I breathe in and out all day. I love you more than anything."
"It's effortless."
"I love you unconditionally. No strings attached, no only ifs, no demands. I love you absolutely forever and without limit."
"Look! It's a newly wed interracial gay couple burning the American flag!"
F'toe
Chufa-Ray
Look, you guys! He's giving her cheese! That's so sweet!
Current Music: Tom Waits
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07:23 pm
[Link] |
Pool
Bored as fuck. Helen's staring at me like she's trying to say something. It's very irritating as she's not that type. I don't want to clean the bathroom because it's disgusting and full of spiders, and I REALLY don't want to clean it with her idling around watching me like this. Damn her.
Can anyone tell I'm revelling in my normalcy? Oh, how I am loving this...
*Contented sigh*
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01:34 pm
[Link] |
My beautiful life
I thought only animals could be this happy. Maybe that's what she's appealing to in me... I don't think so, though... Oh, I don't know. I don't care.
Current Mood:  BLISS
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10:10 am
[Link] |
For Helen and Sophie, after the fact (How does Dracula figure in?)
I was watching Sophie from the roof of Craig, the sunset of a warm evening, the calm hour before bat time. I felt somehow more peaceful about her and about everything than I ever had, and I wondered why until Dracula walked quietly forward to stand beside me without speaking. Ordinarily she would have tried to distract and cheer me with stories and small talk, but she seemed in tune with my mood and sat wordlessly at my right.
I watched Sophie below as she swang, threw and ran. I loved her sticklike arms, her bobbling run like a marionette. I even loved her stupid little shoes. Her hair was childish in pigtails and I lost track, as I so often had, of my role in her life -- was I mother or friend? For just a moment, I didn't know. This creature, this small girl, baby bird -- she would never know the value of what she had held in her own two hands and let slip away. She would never know what I had represented for her, nor the sacrifices I had made to extend her chance after chance after chance to let me help her. For a year and a half I had tried tirelessly, and then she had tired of me. I was going to have to walk away and be okay with that.
As I looked, I saw suddenly in her movements what she must have been like as a girl of twelve, eight, six -- even as a toddler. The face smoothed and the eyes calmed; the hands lost their restlessness and the skull its ravenous hunger. Her spine seemed less strained. I realized I was looking at a Sophie I could have saved -- a younger person whose needs were simpler and whose tendency toward trust was greater. I was too tired to cry, but tears slid down my face involuntarily. It ocurred to me that I was seeing Sophie for what would necessarily be the last time. I took a few moments to get used to that.
Walking back to the road, Dracula followed me at a short distance, and when I turned she was watching me thoughtfully. We went on for a while before she caught me up with a simple question, simply phrased: "Are you free yet?"
I smiled because I had been so tired. "Yeah," I said.
Current Mood: I hate this piece of shite
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10:21 pm
[Link] |
Huah. Plith...
Bored and reading what all the lj friends are up to, and I've just realized something very sad. Everyone else is writing about things like homework, and their friends' silly antics, and food, and simple, easy, NORMAL things! I read about Rosie's goddamn homework, Ambuh's afternoon with Slauther, Amalia's birthday, and about five billion other enjoyable, uncomplicated, simple events and situations in the rest of their lives. I don't know when I've felt more jealous, or more tired. I sound like such a moody teenager, but God, I need not to be so constantly stuck between blowing my head off and being so fucking happy it makes every day feel like Halloween.
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10:09 pm
[Link] |
Marking my calendar for January 3rd
Edited to add: For godssake, Tripta, no, I did not write this! It's Sophie's, from her first book. Even she admits it's crap by now.
I put a spell on you, a spell against her
I watch you walking in the rain
I call you home and you don’t know you’ve heard,
But you turn as though you did
And one day you’ll come.
I put a spell on you and you’ll never be the same
I see you when you move, and you won’t get far
When you’re with her I make your skin prickle, fingers twitch with fever
Your feet feel hot.
I’ve bewitched you so I can hear your thoughts.
I’ve magicked you so she can’t have you
The moon becomes a mirror in which you seem to see my face
I sit up nights thinking my strong thoughts at you,
And you listen in your sleep
To the rain which is giving you my messages.
I put a spell on you so you call me when you don’t know why
So even at a distance, I can make you cry
Or laugh or scream or fall on your knees
And I do.
You’re tearing your hair out
You’re losing your mind when you aren’t with me.
You send me gifts in the mail of fruit and paper flowers
Letters full of kisses in the middle of the day,
Sealed paper packages of the longing I left in you.
I eat the roses one by one, and they taste
So good
I see you, I’m watching you –
I know you’re swollen like a rainy river
Or a torn muscle
You can’t see straight; you can’t love her without thinking of me
Every time you kiss her your mouth tics,
Feet want to walk west.
But you don’t know I sit up nights calling for you
You don’t know I put a spell on you when you left.
Current Mood:  anxious
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01:27 pm
[Link] |
Love
Compasses, geese, whatever. I am so fucking happy. How did everything just suddenly right itself? I feel like I should be analyzing it, but I can't right now -- I'm too happy.
I should be sad about the boy. I should be worrying about what the hell is going to happen with that, or if anything is. But I can't worry. I can't find room in my brain right now for a single negative thought.
While we were sleeping I watched us from across the room. Then I knelt next to her face and in unison my body and my mind said, "I love you..."
Current Mood: supernatural love and trust
Current Music: Drums and Tuba -- Magnum Opie
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02:33 pm
[Link] |
Death?
So I had this dream that I was smoking up with a gaggle of friends in Beau's brother's house, in the basement den. It was late, probably around two. I was a little vague and off in my own little world when Mei turns to me (we'd been talking about the cancer) and says, "I think you're going to follow her." I asked in what way... she said, "Your childhood dream is coming true, even if you can't see it yet. Do you want to die?" I didn't know what to say, because I couldn't remember having told her anything about that. She was silent for a little while and then she said, "Listen, don't worry about it. Whatever happens, I'm sure you'll be all right." I said I had never felt more alone than when she said that; how could she know anything about me? I looked back at her and for a second the act slipped and I saw through to the other side of what she meant, and I could see she saw me watching her. She got up and walked away. When I looked back to where she'd been I saw what I somehow hadn't noticed behind her: a human skeleton, one long arm around the seat of the couch where Mei had been sitting. Its posture was very familiar, and the ribs of its chest were patchily black and grey, like something out of a child's drawing... the bone was freshly dead. The cartilege was still shiny, as though it had been stripped of flesh. I'm amazed at the stupid, scary shit my brain comes up with while I sleep.
This just can't be the only answer. I need to do some more serious thinking.
Starting work at Stone Soup on Tuesday. I dropped in this morning and Nicky seems to be right: every person behind the counter was Jewish. I'm confused.
Current Mood:  ew.
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03:12 pm
[Link] |
Perioding
Trekking around this morning in the obnoxiously bright sunlight to the ends of the earth. Black peppercorns, licorice root, fennel, anise, lemongrass, fresh ginger, chamomile... and none of it worked. Finally I went all the way to the Apothecary for cramp bark, which I have never used before. It's the nastiest, bitterest stuff you'll ever taste, but I nibbled a bite and my cramps vanished. Cramp bark is my new best friend. I gave her a full cup (very, very strong -- she would hardly swallow it) and she's sleeping now. We'll see how things go.
I kind of want to talk later about the list I made yesterday, but I don't really know how to explain, or what to say. I feel like it's relevant, but anything I say won't seem so. I must think more about this.
I'm still so nervous.
Current Mood:  menstrual
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06:10 pm
[Link] |
Just in case: my mental picnic basket.
Things to focus on, temporarily in between times or if instinct wins out:
Fish. Don't buy my own aquarium, but visit other people's.
Read dictionary.
Move to the ocean.
Christianity -- in particular the shit left over from its pagan roots -- early Sofia, etc.
Myths of cultures born and unborn.
Photography (black and white only).
School? Libraries? (Good sources of further ideas.)
Try to show words through visual art.
Would a desert be depressing or soothing? Don't become trapped there.
Colours.
(Re)Learn to sail, scuba dive, walk on water. Ocean or lake.
Draw.
Medicine.
Remember, it doesn't all have to be aesthetics. The sciences are also amusing.
Physical theory.
Work as "room highlighter." Solid block colours, extraordinary frescas, skies, slopey attic room ceilings. (Carpet too? Hmmm...)
Fiction.
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Wow. This is really, really weird, but I've just noticed that what I've written above is not only a list of last resort distractions, but also a list of things I'll do anyway, on the side, if we hold together for the rest of our lives. Ultimately our relationship will most probably decide not my physical life or death, as I thought, but rather my state of either emotional sanity and love or absolute numbness. If it comes to it, I'd rather be dead, but I doubt I'll be able to do it.
Oh shite.
Current Mood: sanity and love
Current Music: Named By Strangers... meh.
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06:04 pm
[Link] |
Brown!
How to make a sepia print
Toning a print sepia (brown) gives it a warmer appearance, and can also be used to give an impression of age. Sepia toners usually produce silver sulphide which makes prints more stable. Here's How:
1. Always read the manufacturer's instructions with any photographic chemicals you buy. Most sepia toners work in the way described below, but others do not. Use gloves or tongs.
2. Start with a black and white print that has been given slightly more than normal exposure and has been fully washed. It can be wet or dry.
3. Immerse this in the first solution (bleach), which is usually yellow. For full toning agitate until the print has lost all black and is a pale brown colour.
4. Rinse the print in running water until all traces of yellow from the bleach have gone.
5. Immerse in the second solution (toner) and the print will rapidly darken. Agitate until there is no further change in colour - usually from 2-5 minutes.
6. Wash the print for 2-3 minutes for RC paper and 30-60 minutes for FB paper.
7. Give a final rinse - 1 minute - in a dilute solution of a photographic wetting agent.
8. Dry as normal for the paper type
Tips:
1. Some sepia toners give offensive smelling and toxic fumes, particularly if you make your own using formulae in books. If using these, work out of doors.
2. Some commercial toners come with an additive that can be used to produce different brown tones.
3. Partial toning is often more effective - you may need to dilute the bleach to control it. Full sepia toning is useful for prints that are to be hand coloured.
Current Mood: toxic... oh, well.
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03:46 pm
[Link] |
Wheeeeeeee
Met Erin today at Admissions. God, it's weird being around academics -- it feels like I've been away from it all for so long. Apparently I can defer my Fall '05 admission, and enroll instead in Spring '06. I can't stop holding my breath, waiting for something to go wrong, but nothing has. Yesterday I made about five thousand little notes on register paper. I think I'll put them in some sort of container and see where it goes.
Off to the finaid office...
Current Mood:  giddy
Current Music: Nirvana again
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12:34 am
[Link] |
Dylan Thomas is the MAN
Dear all from Emma: It's been awfully fun fucking with everyone's heads, but I think I'm done. Starting now, this journal is mine again -- I will use it only to write what's actually happening in my head. This means that this journal will become, beginning with this entry, vastly more strange than it has been, and also extremely boring and irrelevant to anyone who is not me. I highly recommend that all such persons defriend me so that you will not have to read my drivellings on your friends pages.
And now for something completely different, and nice:
FERN HILL
Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs
About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,
The night above the dingle starry
Time let me hail and climb
Golden in the heydays of his eyes,
And honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns
And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves
Trail with daisies and barley
Down the rivers of the windfall light.
And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns
About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home,
In the sun that is young once only,
Time let me play and be
Golden in the mercy of his means,
And green and golden I was huntsman and herdsman, the calves
Sang to my horn, the foxes on the hills barked clear and cold,
And the sabbath rang slowly
In the pebbles of the holy streams.
All the sun long it was running, it was lovely, the hay
Fields high as the house, the tunes from the chimneys, it was air
And playing, lovely and watery
And fire green as grass.
And nightly under the simple stars
As I rode to sleep the owls were bearing the farm away,
All the moon long I heard, blessed among stables, the nightjars
Flying with the ricks, and the horses
Flashing into the dark.
And then to awake, and the farm, like a wanderer white
With the dew, come back, the cock on his shoulder: it was all
Shining, it was Adam and maiden,
The sky gathered again
And the sun grew round that very day.
So it must have been after the birth of the simple light
In the first, spinning place, the spellbound horses walking warm
Out of the whinnying green stable
On to the fields of praise.
And honored among foxes and pheasants by the gay house
Under the new made clouds and happy as the heart was long,
In the sun born over and over,
I ran my heedless ways,
My wishes raced through the house high hay
And nothing I cared, at my sky blue trades, that time allows
In all his tuneful turning so few and such morning songs
Before the children green and golden
Follow him out of grace,
Nothing I cared, in the lamb white days, that time would take me
Up to the swallow thronged loft by the shadow of my hand,
In the moon that is always rising,
Nor that riding to sleep
I should hear him fly with the high fields
And wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land.
Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,
Time held me green and dying
Though I sang in my chains like the sea.
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02:08 am
[Link] |
How I've been
Roast corn with butter. Chin, grease, sticky, delicious; between my teeth, tasty and childish. My hands completely covered, between each finger, persistent when I try to wash it off. Wet cement... Huh. I wonder what this one was?
I wish sometimes that we could have a more immediate connection; that I could feel things just as she does, and that she could get it automatically. Our minds are the same, but we still have to find our way each in the other's. I'm so spoiled! I suppose because of Beau
Well. And there I am again.
Sometimes I think, if only we could just stop lying to each other all the time. I'll swear before God and everyone, 99% of it is habit. Habit, and those times when I use the lie to tell the truth about things too delicate to come at directly. I can't tell whether she does that, too. She says she trusts me. I'm trying to cut close enough to the heart of what the hell I'm talking about to know whether I trust her like that, in the way that I mean. Off the top of my head I can think of nothing I wouldn't tell her. I think if we read each other's journals we'd feel like we were each reading our own. I wonder what she'd say to that.
My mother has tried to persuade me not to go to Philly. But there is a difference between sanity and happiness, and I can be sane on my own but not happy, and if I know that that's all there is and all there ever will be, that sanity, then I will lose my mind. I don't know when I've been more rightly happy, or more at war.
Right now I'm curled here on my bed, watching her sleep after all the swearing and exclamations. Crickets are cricketting outside, horses are flashing into the dark. It's summer in every sense of it, right down to the corn.
BTW, all of you friends and fellow journallers: does anyone read this journal regularly? Comment to let me know if you do. I'm curious.
Current Mood: mellow
Current Music: none needed
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06:37 pm
[Link] |
Wow
If anyone's reading this... Y'all are boring as shit.
Now aren't you depressed that you spent a full five seconds reading this?
Come to think of it, I wonder how long it's taking me to type it? Sigh.
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