Robbed of Peace and Vigor

"Scientists hope to harness them [stem-cells] so they can create replacement tissues to treat a variety of diseases — such as new insulin-producing cells for diabetics, cells that could help those with Parkinson's disease or maybe even Alzheimer's, or new nerve connections to restore movement after spinal injury." Read the full article at this link.

Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, both diseases which might have been closer to cures or amelioration if stem cell research had been properly funded, robbed my parents of peace and vigor in their retirement years. In my mother's case, she has lost even the sense of herself. I am duly resentful of the powers that robbed them and duly grateful that change is occurring so that others may not suffer what my parents will suffer to their graves.

The thirty years past retirement each that my father and mother offered of wisdom, experience and love, I trust, were a far greater gift to this world than a few, undifferentiated cells floating in amniotic fluid. As the great George Carlin said, "Not every ejaculation deserves a name." Shame on those who hindered cures for my parents, two hard-working, responsible, respectable, greatly loved and valuable human beings with much left to offer their family and the world.

Shell Imprint

It's my hunter's pleasure to bring me a rock from each of his forays, a token that I'm not forgotten. Last night, he presented me with these great fossils imprinted in what seem like hard chalk rocks gathered from Western Kansas, out around Dodge City I believe. Are there any scientists among my readers who can identify the shell? It looks to me like the same common, brown, river clams I find down in the Little Ark.

Australopithecus

A man bends
over the earth, a question.

He is drawn toward
a dust-colored stone

where the rain washes
into an African lake.

Cradled in his palm, the curve
is right, like an orbit

or light bending
around a sun, a skull fragment.

His palm matters
now, the whorls

and dried streams that grip
the land, this convex shard

of bone. His heart crushes
his ears like drums,

stone to stone. The horizon
is eye level in every direction,

an endless being
to walk toward.


by Chet Gresham

Essential Substances

I just finished reading Richard Rudgley's book, Essential Substances: A Cultural History of Intoxicants in Society. The book is a light read. Rudgley surveys time and place, describing the intoxicant use of different societies, including interesting details (fun facts) about the complexes of tools and rituals which accompany drugs. Although Essential Substances isn't as rigorous as his Lost Civilizations of the Stone Age, it demonstrates, as Lost Civilizations does, his ability to see through stone walls of bias, hypocrisy and stereotypes. Rudgley, in Essential Substances, extends his exposure of dogmatic, anthropological research by reminding us that drugs, while condemned in American society, are nearly ubiquitous in time and place, and we can't understand our ancestors and neighbors unless we understand their intoxicant use, which differs dramatically from the modern, American experience.

Mr. Rudgley, write me another. Send me an email, because I have a topic for you.