| Trekverse Crossbreeding |
[Jul. 30th, 2009|08:50 am] |
A subject that has driven me a little nuts for a long time is the cross-species breeding in Star Trek.
it drives me a little nuts for a couple reasons.
The first reason is: cross-species reproduction isn't easy, automatic, or a matter of two people gettin' it on. In fact, it isn't even possible. Different species cannot make babies together without a lot of serious, detailed, and ongoing bioengineering intervention. (Diane Duane is, I think, the only Trek novel writer who actually went into some detail about this, talking about the bioengineering of Spock). It therefore follows that there can't be any unplanned, accidental, surprise pregnancies. Uhura cannot miss a period and go OMG! I'm preggers! What'll we do! (in fact, I can't see any circumstance in which Uhura gets pregnant at all, since she's on active duty a few hundred light years out in deep space on a ship devoted to exploration and military patrol - but that's another issue). In fact, since - so far as we know now - hybrids tend to be sterile, Uhura can't get pregnant at all by Spock, even if they want to, even if they plan to... unless, of course, the problem of "mulism" has also been resolved by the 22nd or 23rd Century.
The other reason is, people who can interbreed with other species at the seeming drop of a hat would not also, still, go around thinking in terms of alien or 'other,' anymore than we, here, today still think of other ethnicities or races as the alien 'other.' (I'm very well aware there are still bigots who do in fact think that way. But I refuse to let them define or frame this issue.) In other words, the ease and mundanity of cross-species offspring argues a concomitant ease and mundanity of cross-species contact, familiarity, and acceptance.
So in order for there to be half-Vulcans, half-Betazeds, half-Romulans, half-Klingons, and half-every-damn-species-in-the-galaxy, a few things have to be true:
1. Everyone's genome has been mapped - every species, and every individual. Genetic mapping has to be as routine as annual checkups - or at least as routinely available as, say, physical therapy.
2. All genomes can be mixed and matched - bioengineered, in other words - at reasonable cost.
3. OB/GYN for mixed-species pregnancies is also routine, reasonable, and readily available.
4. Ongoing medical care specializing in hybrids has also got to be, if not as routine and available as the OB/GYN, then pretty nearly so. Geriatrics, internal medicine, neurology... medical practitioners specializing in hybrid practice has got to be one hell of a growth industry in Starfleet.
4A. This includes the issue mentioned above: hybrid bioengineering has solved the mule problem, and hybrids are as fertile as they want to be.
5. Bigotry is, if not dead, then about as socially acceptable as parent-child incest - at least, in such cosmopolitan settings as Starfleet, the Federation, and most if not all of its member planets. Why? Because if Nos. 1-3 are true, then hybridization has to have been around for a really long time, has to be ubiquitous and has to have been that way for a while - otherwise, the capacity for just-about-anyone to have a cross-species baby would simply not exist.
I want to make it plain, if by any chance it isn't already so, that I LOVE hybrids; approve and applaud the whole idea, with so much fervor that one of my dream jobs would in fact be one of those hybrid-specialist medical practitioners mentioned in No. 4. I can think of few more interesting or rewarding tasks than seeing a hybrid's life processes happen, than tailoring a medical history and medical care unique to that individual. It would be fascinating; it would be awe-inspiring... and it would, glory be, finally put speciesism (and racism, sexism, and all the other bigoted "isms" behind us)
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| Not exactly a surprise, this |
[Oct. 15th, 2005|09:28 am] |
| You Should Get a PhD in Liberal Arts (like political science, literature, or philosophy) | 
You're a great thinker and a true philosopher.
You'd make a talented professor or writer. |
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| My e-Mail to Richard Cohen re Traitorgate |
[Oct. 13th, 2005|01:02 pm] |
Richard Cohen is a political opinion columnist with the Washington Post. Today's column was basically a slam at Patrick Fitzgerald, the attorney who's been investigating the leak of Valerie Plame's identity as a CIA operative.
Cohen's take is that Fitzgerald should only bring charges that relate to the initial subject of investigation; i.e., who "outed" Valerie Plame. If Ftizgerald can't bring indictments relating to that and only that, he should pack up and leave town.
And, in the process (Cohen opines), Fitzgerald should ignore trivial details like the perjury, obstruction of justice, and contempt of court committed by the people who were involved in outing Valerie Plame.
Cohen thinks that Fitzgerald should especially ignore journalists who commit the perjury, obstruction of justice, and contempt of court, because journalists have a Higher Calling; they Speak Truth to Power, which often puts them at odds with the powerful, and how can you have journalists stading up to the powerful if they think they can get hauled into court for it and forced to testify?
Yes, let me emphasize Cohen's sleight of hand here. He is defending Judy Miller's silence on the grounds that we need journalists to feel they can protect sources, otherwise they won't be able to reveal malfeasance by the powerful.
The problem with that reasoning, though, is that Miller's silence was meant to defend, cover up for, and benefit the Bush Administration - the very powerful (and very malfeasant) Administration reporters are supposed to be exposing, not defending!
I read Cohen's piece a few times, and got angrier each time. It's as if he took the Plamegate case and wanted to see how many wrongheaded, morally oblivious, politically craven things he could say about it in just a few column inches.
I felt the need to tell him he was being wrongheaded, morally oblivious, and politically craven. So I sent him an e-mail. Here it is (I begin with a quote from the column in question):
____________________________
"If anything good comes out of the Iraq war, it has to be a realization that bad things can happen to good people when the administration -- any administration -- is in sole control of knowledge and those who know the truth are afraid to speak up. "
I had to read your column three times to figure out what you're trying to say.
The first read comes off as a blithe dismissal of Plamegate as "politics as usual." Outing an intel asset, and her entire network, out of political revenge and intimidation? Attacking her veracity, and her husband's veracity, in order to gloss over a ginned up case for war? Ginning up the case for war in the first place, wasting a few thousand US soldiers' lives for a vanity mission justified by charges of dubious validity and veracity? "Oh, ho hum; happens all the time."
The second read comes off as a spoiled kid's sour grapes. You're not on the inside track of Fitzgerald's investigation; you have no idea what indictments (if any) he'll bring, or against whom; therefore, nothing very momentous must be going on.
Finally, on the third read, I get what's really bugging you. You are an acolyte at the altar of Holy Journalistic Privilege, and its function as the Only Principle Worth Upholding, because Only Journalism can Save Us from those "bad things" when an administration is in "sole control of knowledge."
Oh, please
You must have been inhabiting an alternative universe during the run-up to the Iraq war; an alternative universe where members of the journalistic profession actually were challenging the Bush Administration at every step - because that sure didn't happen in this universe. In this universe, journalists fell all over themselves to cheerlead the war, to dismiss its opponents as "unserious" (at best) or "objectively pro-terrorist" (at worst). I seem to recall that you supported the war in Iraq, and were pretty impatient with anyone who didn't see the same self-evident truths you did.
In fact, in this universe, journalists have pretty much been an amen chorus for everything the Bush Administration has said and done. Until his poll numbers started to drop, and it became safe to critize him.
This makes me so mad steam comes out of my ears.
You want journalism to occupy some privileged place of honor and safety, where reporters are never locked up to reveal their sources and their conversations?
Well, dammit, maybe reporters should earn that deference - by actually challenging official lies and misrepresentations, and not by selling their professional and personal honor in order to become apparatchiks to propaganda ministers.
You want the honors that come with courage? Try actually showing courage, eh? |
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| "Medical Tourism" and the Rise of the East |
[Sep. 4th, 2005|08:30 pm] |
I tuned into 60 Minutes tonight, mostly because I heard Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) would be interviewed and I hoped to see her tear the Bush (Mal)Administration about 50 new ones for its mind-bogglingly criminal response to Hurricane Katrina. I must've gotten the week wrong, because there was a segment about Katrina's aftermath, but no interview.
This is not going to be a commentary on Katrina per se. I've been commenting on other blogs all week, and I'm just about out of epithets.
But the Katrina story on 60 Minutes was juxtaposed with something that set my mind spinning about the larger context Katrina illustrates about US politics/culture in general.
The segment was called "Medical Tourism," and it was about people among this country's 44 million uninsured going to other countries for medical care.
I know what you're thinking. You're thinking of cosmetic surgery mills, or dimly lit third-world style hospitals that use medical equipment that was obsolete 10 years ago. Because that was my first reaction.
Well, I was wrong. Boy Howdy, was I wrong!
There's Bumrungrad Hospital in Thailand, the biggest "international hospital in the world," where the facility looks like a 5-star hotel, the non-MD personnel are all registered nurses, the MDs were trained at or practiced at the finest medical schools and centers in the world... and you can get a quintuple bypass for maybe one-third what it costs in the US.
And there's the Apollo Group in India: the largest hospital group in India, and the third largest in the world. It, too, is eagerly catering to international patients - as well as to India's quickly-growing middle class, which is demanding first-class care. "First class care" at the Apollo Group hospitals means private room, a private nurse, massage and yoga, convalescence at a nearby resort... and hip surgery for about one-tenth what it costs in the US. $5800, according to the American patient interviewed said, versus $28,000 to $32,000 in the US.
Now, I grant you, the Americans who are availing themselves of this opportunity are hardly the poorest and neediest of those 44 million Americans without health insurance. Figure the cost of airfare, hotel, miscellaneous expenses, and you're still looking at something that costs $10,000-$15,000 out-of-pocket. Way out of reach for America's working poor. Hell, it's out of my reach
(Good thing I have insurance through my employer. So far. Knock wood).
What does this have to do with Katrina?
Katrina is a snapshot of American senescence. Political and social senescence.
Politically, our elected officials no longer even pretend to care about the effects of their policies on the public interest, the general welfare, or even on national security. The idea that government exists to serve its people - all of them, not just the well-to-do and well-connected; that government has a duty of care to its people; that government is OF the people, FOR the people, and BY the people - is considered so quaint and outdated that any politician who comes out in favor of it is committing political suicide. Politics has become like the baccarat table at a high-end casino: You need to ante up $25,000 to play at all, and no one will take you seriously unless you can pony up ten times that much.
Socially, the American ideal of upward mobility is dead. The institutions that once enabled upward mobility no longer do. Your status is now determined by the circumstance of your birth. If you are born to a working class family, or a poor black family, chances are that you'll attend substandard schools, and you likely won't go to college. The unionized manufacturing jobs that once paid skilled laborers enough to get themselves and their families out of poverty - that enabled them to buy their own homes, get decent healthcare, and send their children to college - no longer exist. Federal grants for college scarcely exist. If you're born to wealth, on the other hand, all doors are open, any profession can be yours (even if you're completely unqualified for it), and the wealth you had no hand in creating can be passed on in its entirety to your descendants, who will also not need to create anything in order to live large, and who will also be able to pass the family fortune on to their descendants, in its entirety. By eliminating the estate tax, Congress has effectively created a permanent plutocracy. Not only is this an utter betrayal of what America was supposed to be about, it's cultural suicide: a country turning its back on 1/4 to 1/3 of its population has effectively lobotomized itself. We never know where the next geniuses, the next innovators, the next brilliant thinkers will come from. However, history does indicate they rarely come from the landed gentry, the gilded elite - because those people don't need to be brilliant, or innovative, or geniuses.
And now, you're probably wondering what any of that has to do with medical tourism in Asia.
Just this: As we are creating a country in the image of the European Old World - static, complacent, and classist - the really Old World, Asia, is picking up the banner we've let fall.
That an increasing number of middle class Americans are finding it necessary to seek serious medical care outside the country because they can't afford to get it here; and that the care they're finding is as good as what they'd get here, if they could afford to get it here - if not better... are dangerous symptoms of that senescence I've been yammering about.
But, more importantly, the fact that healthcare entrepreneurship is taking place in the same part of the world where the quickest-growing economies are. And the biggest, quickest growing populations. And America's biggest competitors for natural resources, labor, consumer goods... and geopolitical influence.
Asia, in short, is where the most dynamic social, economic and political change is happening. In places we never expected it to be: Thailand. Mainland China. India. Even Vietnam.
The growing middle classes in those countries will demand better education for their kids - like we used to. The growing middle classes in those countries will demand a better national infrastructure - like we used to. The better educated, housed, fed, and entrepreneurial children and grandchildren of those growing middle classes will be as ambitious, as adventurous, as inventive, and as committed to making their country the best in the word - like we used to.
Asia could well become "the next America."
While we? - become the latest in a long line of has-beens. |
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| (no subject) |
[Oct. 11th, 2004|10:37 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  amused | ] |
Wow. Don't I wish I looked like that. (see below) |
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| Goodbye Chris |
[Oct. 11th, 2004|05:23 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  sad | ] |
A line from Omar's recap of "Crusade" has stuck in my mind all day, so I thought I'd go get it:
"But [Margot Kidder] and Christopher Reeve starred in some movies that more than just about any others pretty much were *it* during my childhood. And that has to count for something, right?"
Yes. It does. Superman, to me, has always been Chris Reeve. He's the only Superman I ever saw I really liked.
I've been trying to say something about how Christopher Reeve: The Actor made an impression on me, from his terrifically engaging Superman to his startling turn as a scarily-convincing vicious manipulator in Deathtrap. I've been trying to avoid a trite oh-how-ironic turn on the accident that "put Superman in a wheelchair."
Chris Reeve was a damn fine actor. He took chances - with his image, with his craft - I wholely admired. Lots of actors try to "escape the cape," as he put it; try to avoid being typecast after a breakthrough role. Not very many manage the trick. Fewer manage it gracefully; that is, without bad-mouthing the role that made them famous. I liked how he balanced all that. I don't think he ever dissed Superman, even while acknowledging his ambivalence toward the role. I liked that intelligence, that grace.
I didn't fall in love with him, though, until after his accident. Until he had to find strength and purpose and reason to go on under circumstances that would have me begging my nearest and dearest to kill me. He didn't just find a way to make his life bearable; he found a way to make a life that was actively engaged, supremely important, and absolutely heroic. He didn't only tend his own garden, see to his own hurts: he turned himself into a one-man crusade. He *went* to people. He *demanded* answers. He encouraged and funded and chivvied and harassed researchers all over the *planet.* He wasn't afraid to infuriate and alienate people by insisting spinal chord injuries could be, should be, must be healed. No pity-me shit, dammit, get to work finding a cure.
That promotional spot he appeared in, the one where they used GCI to show him getting up and walking, enraged some. Notably the insufferable Charles Krauthammer, also wheelchair-bound, who scolded Chris for "giving people false hope." Krauthammer sounded like someone who's let his limitations define him; he's reconciled to being in that chair and resents hearing he doesn't have to be. There are a surprising number of disabled who feel the same way, who seem to have found validation in their disability and don't want to let go of it.
To me, the naysayers sound like the same kinds of people who for ages and ages told women and people of color and gays they should be satisfied with being second class citizens. To me, a longtime ardent proponent of science and medical research, the naysayers sound like that fellow back in the 1890's who wanted to close the US Patent Office because everything that could be invented already had been.
But I'm not disabled. To me, they all sound frightened and ignorant. But it's not personal. To me.
It was to Chris. Intensely personal. He had a mission. Not just for himself, but for everyone in similar circumstances. He got *angry* and he stayed that way, and he *kept going.* I can imagine him snapping to the Krauthammers of the world, 'A snapped spine isn't stopping me; you think you will? Get out of my way."
That anger, that sheer will, that crystalline intellect is what made me love Christopher Reeve.
Christopher Reeve will always be Superman to me. |
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| Still Mourning; and Passing Along the Hug |
[Oct. 11th, 2004|02:50 pm] |
From bexless and aelora:
maveness just suggested to me that "There needs to be like a giant fandom hug right now."
Ya know what? She's right.
I'm starting it, y'all can spread it.
*HUG* |
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| Superman is Dead |
[Oct. 11th, 2004|12:07 pm] |
I'm still stunned; still inclined to burst into tears. And so, since I'm at work, I can't post about this now.
Only, I know this: There is a Hall of Heroes, and Chris is there. |
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| Sooo sleepy |
[Oct. 4th, 2004|11:28 am] |
I forgot having a houseguest means staying up chattering until Very Late. And then,idiot that I am, I insisted on staying up even later, to start on a (new) CLex story. One I might, all the slash gods willing, even finish.
So. Not to bed until after midnight, and didn't actually fall sleep until an hour later than that.
And I had to be in the conference room at 8:00 am to hear our European associate explain the latest changes in EPO patent examination law and procedure.
How many times did I almost do a faceplant on the conference table?
I lost count. |
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| I Have a House Guest, and Sunday Morning Talk Shows |
[Oct. 3rd, 2004|12:24 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  giddy | ] |
A longtime friend of mine, Kim, artist-sculptor extraordinaire, is staying with me for a couple of weeks. She's the best possible house-guest for a quasi-hermit like myself. This means, far above and beyond even the usual requirements for a good houseguest (easy-going, good conversationalist, likes cats, tidy) she also sleeps like the dead.
Since she's sleeping on the sofa, and I'll be up and around at O Dark:30 all week to go to work, that's a good thing. Since my cat, Ariel, is bewildered by the overnight presence of another human*, and expressed her bewilderment all night long with a truly operatic repertoire of cries, repeated mad scampers up and down the stairs, and demands to be let out and back in - that's a very good thing.
However, because I didn't know Kim can sleep through anything, I missed my Sunday Morning Talk-Shows, known in the liberal blogosphere as "The Mighty Wurlitzer," the "SCLM," and "the GOP's Pravda." This is a pity, because I'm still high off the Thursday night debate, where Kerry ripped Bush so many new ones he's been leaking shit-n-sawdust ever since. I wanted to tune in and hear the gloating from my side, and the attempts at spin by the Dark Side.
Oh, I love the smell of a fear-stink debate post mortem: it smells like victory.
I'm doing my bit to get Kerry-Edwards elected: giving money, phone canvassing, volunteering to help GOTV here and in other states.
This is an important election. Fearful Leader has us in a no-win quagmire in Iraq, and his solution to the mess is to invade Iran next. His cronies have looted the federal treasury and are now busily parceling out what remains of our wilderness areas for economic development. The deficit is going to blow up in our faces one way or another (did you know that China and Japan, between them, hold about 30% of the bonds financing the deficit?) and all George wants to do about it is make the tax cuts permanent. And don't even get me started on the Patriot Act, the House bill introduced at Bush Admin behest to legalize sending prisoners to other countries where they can be tortured, or the whole "Bush is God's Crusader" monstrousness.
So: did anyone out there watch the Sunday Morning Spin Shows? How'd they go?
*Yes, this does say sad things about my love life. |
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| Welcoming Myself to LJ World |
[Oct. 2nd, 2004|08:55 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | cheerful | ] |
What happens when a confirmed lurker finally gets her own lj?
She tries to figure out what to do with it.
I'm not much for rambling on about my thoughts, beliefs, and hobbies for a live studio audience. I'm much better at keeping a conversation going than starting one. So...here goes.
Egomania 101
My talents: writing (but not necessarily finishing what I write), dabbling in art (glass and ceramics), reading (books are my drug), talking about movies, talking enthusiastically but non-technically about science (math is my bete noir), talking passionately about history, and absolutely climbing up on a soapbox when talking politics. Oh, and I'm one damnfine intellectual property paralegal.
Not so talented at: exercising, not-smoking, suffering fools.
Not at all talented at: suffering ignorant, bigoted fools.
My Paradigm
I'm a member of the Last Free Generation: I came of age in the 70's, when you could do the Sex Drugs Rock'n'Roll thing without necessarily becoming addicted, deaf and/or dead. People still believed in progressivism back then, too: in the late 70's, we just assumed grass would be legal very soon, and nobody cared much what their sexual orientation was because we were too busy getting laid by whatever gender caught our fancy at that moment. Gay marriage wasn't an issue - not because we thought gays shouldn't get married: we didn't think anyone should get married. War was good for nothing, freedom was good for everyone, and you knew who the good guys were because they had long hair. (I still remember my shock the first time I met a long-haired Republican.)
Being a science fiction freak from the time I could read, I also assumed back then that humanity would reach the stars in my lifetime. Looking up at the stars, I'd feel homesick for worlds I knew were out there, that I hungered to see, and took it as a matter of faith I would see. I might be in my 60's or 70's by then - but humanity would also have conquered old age, disease and death by that far-away date. I'd still be spry enough to board a starship and see the Galaxy. I knew this, as surely as I knew I breathed.
Ah, well.
Things I've Done
Sang with a high school band. Moved a lot, from state to state. Toured Europe after college. Worked on a Presidential campaign. Found God, found out we were incompatible, lost God. Co-habited a couple times; that didn't take either.
Realized a lifelong dream when I bought a horse. But I co-owned him with a friend, who sort of took him over, so I signed my half share over to her. His name is Palladin, half-Fresian, half-Arab: a beautiful sweet fellow. She sold him about a year later. I miss him, but he's with a good family. Palladin broke my arm. Not deliberately. We were cantering in an arena, warming up to go out on trail, and we had a little miscommunication. I signaled him to turn; he thought I signaled him to stop. He stopped; I didn't. He was sweetly puzzled by Mom's falling off and lying in the mud by his feet. He kept nudging me with his nose: "Is this a new command? Should I be doing something now?"
Went on a UW Geology Department 10-day road trip to see paleolithic rock formations. One of the best summer vacations I've ever had. We dug fossils in Republic, Washington; hiked a killer trail in Canada's Yoho National Park to the Burgess Shale; hiked in Alberta's Provincial Dinosaur Park, where there were dinosaur bones everywhere you stepped and sat, looked and touched; went to the Dinosaur Museum in Drumheller, Alberta.
Went bear-watching in British Columbia. That was very cool, too. I'm a fool for bears, the bigger and badder the better. I like them because they're a "co-dominant" species, facing off against humans with neither fear nor favor. I'm not a lunatic, though: as much as I'd like to scratch that cute ol' grizz behind his ears, I know better than to contemplate doing it anywhere other than in my dreams.
I have this fantastic book called "Bear Aware," a guide to dealing with bears one might meet out in the wild. The tone is droll, and the message is, basically, "You're fucked." One of my favorite parts is where you're supposed to determine whether the Bear is a black or a brown, because playing dead works well for one but not so much for the other. Browns are bigger, and they have that hump over their shoulders, but they might not actually be very brown, and the black bear might not actually be very black, and when you have an unexpected encounter with either one, chances are you won't be whipping out your tape measure, or feeling around for humps, or at your best when it comes to color-coding. My advice?: Never go alone into bear country. Then, you won't need to outrun the bear; you just need to outrun the slowest member of your party :)
But enough about me. Who are you?
Let's talk. |
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