[Music] Classical

 

In general, I am a big fan of meaty music.  In the world of classical music, this holds true.  I am especially partial to piano-heavy pieces since most of my classical exposure was through songs that I or my friends played as youngsters. This is how I developed my appreciation for the nuance and technique.  (Shout out to Ms. Heckert!)

Rachmaninoff

I love Rachmaninoff because it always seems to be telling a story.  Lots of music just drifts, but everything he writes is deliberate and free of filler.  I first heard the Rach 3 on Shine, a movie about an Australian pianist.

Burgmuller
Master B has some bridging, unlike the R man, but he manages to keep you in the music, give you something to chew on, and never requires the complexity and layers of Rachmaninoff.

Gershwin 

G is very USA.  The music is free, playful, casual, and friendly.

(I don't think this actually counts as classical, since it is so modern, but this is my blog and I'll Gershwin if I want to.)

Chopin

C-pin has some good and some bad.  It varies quite a bit, but I like it as long as I stay away from the flowers and bunnies stuff.

Mozart/Hayden/Salieri

These guys are also hit-or-miss, but they certainly have some enjoyable stuff to me.  This may be due, though, to the fact that my mum always played Mozart to me to make me smarter. :)

[Series Review] The Lone Gunman

I know I'm coming a little late to the party, but I just watched the series The Loan Gunmen.

The Good:

• The central characters are true to their delightful X-Files selves throughout the 13 episodes.
• The 45 minutes are well-paced.
• The conspiracy theories are unexpected and fun.
• There are only 13 episodes, which are both necessary and sufficient for a Lone Gunmen story.
• A few X-Files cameos (Mulder, Skinner, and Morris Fletcher) make the end extra nice.

 The Bad:

• The axillary characters don't really come into their own until the end of the series.
• The writing is not particularly clever.

The conclusion:
 It was good background while organizing some old papers and filing.  I would probably not sit down and watch it like a West Wing or the X-Files, themselves, but this was definitely enjoyable.

[An Inch Deep] Floristry

When I was in high school, I took a half-day floristry workshop. Much of it was common sense, but truth be told, I'm often lacking that. :) There isn't a whole lot that I remember from it, but there were a few bits I was reminded of when I brought some extra angiosperms home from lab this week. They are so pretty! And also, free!

• Always pull all the leaves off that will be below the water line.
• When you get your flowers home, submerge the stems in water and cut the ends off at an oblique angle. This pulls more water up into the stem (too long without and you have less cohesion pulling the water up the plant). The angle preserves the structural integrity of the vessels.
  
• If the water gets cloudy, dump it all out and put in fresh.
• Decide if your arrangement should have a front and back, or should be designed to be viewed from all around.
  
• Start with your tallest flowers and arrange the shorter ones around them.
• Clip off any dead flowers or dead ends (where a flower probably dropped off) so that resources aren't wasted on that part of the plant.
• Any gaps in the arrangement are best filled by pulling the leaves from nearby stems to cover.

We also went over some bundling, tying, etc, but that is probably less useful.

[Ethics] Animal Research: A certainly slanted, but not invalid perspective.

Have you ever purchased food at the grocery store, then eaten it? Have you ever used shampoo? How about ibuprofin? Insulin? Anesthesia? Have you ever had a transplant? Are you glad you don't have small pox? Happy your child doesn't have polio? Looking forward to some replacement joints, cataract removal, or open heart surgery in the future? Do you like knowing what to do if your toddler drinks something toxic? Do you thank heavens for the flu vaccine every year? How about microsurgery for re-attaching limbs that have been severed?

Thank a whole lot of animals. Mostly these guys:

Thanks!

Animals have really had a vital role in every major medical advancement in the last century in both people and animals. Based on some informal polling that I've seen recently, I think that some may be without the whole picture, so I want to fill it in a bit.

About 95% of animals used for research are purpose-bred mice and rats

About 4% are fish, pigs, sheep, rabbits, frogs, etc

About 1% are dogs, cats, or primates

About 0.1% are primates.

So, truly, theirs is the face of scientific research.

I'll bet that in that list, your eyes stopped on dogs and cats briefly. Yes, these are valid research models at times. Once upon a time research labs used to pick up animals from shelters. This makes sense, since about half of dogs and about three-quarters of cats that end up in shelters are ultimately put down. This way, they could get cheap research animals and minimize waste of life at the same time. The problem, however, arose that people's pets would break free, be picked up, and shipped off. To prevent this, an animal that has been picked up must be held at the shelter for a few days in case it has owners that call after it, then it has to be held a few more days before being used for research, just to be extra safe. So don't worry- Fido, Rover, and Spot are safe, even if they escape. Truth be told, wild-caught animals aren't really great for research. Unless you test specifically, you never know what genetic abnormalities they might be carrying or what bugs. For this reason, the vast majority of all animals used are purpose-bred for research.

I don't want to get into all the boring of the regulations at you, but basically you have to prove:

• that the research is worthwhile to the world (brings some significant benefit, not "I wonder what would happen if...") and productive
• that you really need this animal to do the research (it won't work in a petri dish)
• that you can't use a phylogenetically lower species (a mouse instead of a dog, a fish instead of a mouse, a fly instead of a fish, etc) (Replace)
• that you have designed the experiment to use the fewest animals possible for good science (Reduce)
• that you are doing everything you can to make their stay a great one minimize anything bad they may experience and provide them with the stimulation they need to not go nuts with boredom. Nuts. A technical term, you know. (Refine)

One piece of legislation (Animal Welfare Act) covers all animals except purpose-bred mice and rodents. These guys are covered by other legislation (Public Health Service and USDA) as long as government money is involved. Any university will be receiving at least a small amount of public funds and will set up entire Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees (IACUC- a board required to include at least scientists, a non-scientist, a vet, someone not affiliated with the organization, and someone from the community). The gap here is for purpose-bred mice and rats in private research that does not receive public funds. These are your company researchers. This concerns me, but not too much, as sick and unhappy rodents make for bad research. It is really in the researcher's best interest to take good care of their animals.

In a lab I looked at working in, monkeys were being used for some high-level neuro studies, and they were hiring someone to play (Yes, play!) with the monkeys, along with other tasks. They didn't want them getting lonely. When I was doing liver research and I had to sacrifice mice, the guy training me said that ending a life shouldn't be easy. He said that those creatures were to be respected for their gift. An additional comment on treatment of animals in research: Googling for images, I chose two that looked much like what I saw in my mouse colony. It wasn't horrific. It wasn't cuddling. It was mice in a cage. Please observe, though, when doing this that there are all kinds of primates behind rusty bars in popular photos. One of the Prof's that was talking about this dug around to find that a particular popular one was taken at a failing facility in a struggling Eastern European country. These are often not US photos.

So Who Cares?

Well, on one side of the spectrum are individuals who believe in "Human Dominion." These people don't really worry about the animals. They're only worth is as food, shelter, entertainment, work, etc to these people. Moving down the list you find Speciesists, who recognize that animals have a certain value beyond humans' resources, but consider a fish life to be worth the same as a gorilla's life. All animals are animals, period. A more central group (that I belong to) are those who support Animal Welfare. Personally, I consider all life to be our responsibily to protect, while also being for our use when necessary. As long as we use them judiciously and with the respect that another living creature deserves, I have no problem with using them for research, food, etc. More on how I came to that later.On the other end are the Animal Rights people, who beleive that the life of a mouse is equal to that of a human. They obviously believe that any right you or I have, the mouse should have. If a mouse can save your son's life by giving her's... well, too bad.

Back to all that good stuff we were using like shampoo and organ transplants. All of these (yes, even those shampoos that say "Not Tested in Animals) were tested on animals at some point or another. To be approved by the FDA, all substances have to be. The distinction is semantic. Some other company did the testing for all of those substances, so now that company can say they didn't. If someone handed you hand cream that was truly never tested on animals, how would you know it wouldn't burn your skin? So why would you purchase it?

And yet... Protests and even acts of domestic (I hate the word that goes here, so lets say "crankiness") crankiness occur, actually at an increasing rate.

The nerds, however, have their own posters and offer Animal Rights activists treatment rejection cards.

My Opinion
Where does my personal opinion come from (Animal Welfare, remember)?

My religious fanaticism:

Stewardship: In Genesis 1:28, God gave man dominion over his other creations.
In Proverbs 12:10 a righteous man is said to care for his animal.

Use: In Genesis 3:21 God gave Adam and Eve garments made of skins.
Respect: Psalm 50:10 says, "for every animal of the forest is mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills. I know every bird in the mountains, and the creatures of the field are mine."

My biomedical researcherness:
People should be taken care of. The best way we have is to develop technogogies that combat disease and disorders. We need animals to do that effectively. Anyone who has ever truey known someone who was suffering due to injury or illness would sacrifice as many mice as it took to bring them relief, and thank God every day for every single one of those precious mice.

* Information taken from presentations by Denise Capozzi, VMD and Sarah Woodley PhD. The images of the mice are from http://photos.news.wisc.edu/photos/11722/view and http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090211082354.htm

20110118 Update:
http://blogs.nature.com/spoonful/2012/01/a-housing-crisis-looms-for-us-research-involving-lab-animals.html

[Video Review] Tying the Knot

In Short: In today's society, this is an issue. No matter where your stance is on the issue, it is important to look at it from all angles and understand the facts. I recommend this video to all.

This video is well put together. The information is well presented and has good organization and a good pace. Like other issue-documentaries, it tries to tug on your heart strings to make a point, but garshdarnit, I agree with them and have a hard time looking at it through an objective lens. Since that is the case, I just put together some interesting facts and statements from the film. And, honestly, I recommend people watch this for themselves.

Some History on Marriage:

• It is constantly shifting to suit culture and economy.
• Marriage was secular until 1215, when the Catholic church declared it a sacrament.Engagement was when signed marriage contact, ceremony was when you exchanged property. Or began a business partnership.
• Often apprentices couldn't become masters until they had a wife to make food, clean the shop, keep the books, etc Feudal marriage is the traditional marriage. The wife needed to know how to work stables, or whatever so the family wouldn't starve.
• When men went off to factories, marriage was shaken free of its need. All thts left is love and sex. The new, radical, marriage was based on love.
  
• Now you can make your own living, you don't need a partner with a certain set of skills and can pick who you love.
  

You cannot tell people they cannot fall in love. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. used to say when people talked about interracial marriage and I quote, "Races do not fall in love and get married. Individuals fall in love and get married."

A question to opposition:
Why do you not want your fellow men and women, your fellow Americans to be happy? Why do you attack them? Why do you want to destroy the love they hold in their hearts? Why do you want to crush their hopes, their dreams, their longings, their aspirations? We are talking about human beings, people like you, people who want to get married, buy a house, and spend their lives with the one they love. They have done no wrong.

[Video Review] Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed

Right now I am taking an Ethics in Biological Research class, which is mostly about intellectual property, informed consent, and image manipulation.   We do, however, have a bioethics component where each of us are picking a topic and presenting on it.  I'll post later about my topic.  One of my classmates is presenting on her skepticism of evolution.  I love her to death, and everyone in the room will certainly disagree. (I can't help but think of Hawking's anecdote where "It's turtles all the way down.") To make it a little more fun, I thought I'd try to take her side.  To give me some ideas, I decided to watch Expelled, Ben Stein's intelligent design documentary.

Wow, was it bad.  I watch a lot of Entertainumentaries, and while this was very dramatic and visually appealing, Ben Stein seemed like a lay-person who was just repeating what you could hear on the street.  That is not educational.  He did things like misuse the scientific word "theory" for the common vernacular "theory," which in science is actually a hypothesis.  This stuff matters in his argument.

At some point he decides that the film isn't emotional enough and links part of a quote from Darwin to the Nazi's.  Okay, in a discussion with an intelligent adult, I will not continue if they bring up Nazi's or Communists.  One just cannot invoke those two every time their argument is lame. Well there is a lot of quiet time or dramatic music time as he tours where a lot of people were killed.  It angers me when someone is trying to provoke emotions to an issue by bringing up another issue.  Goodness.

So, the movie was bad.  Not just bad, but dangerous. It was almost like watching a Michael Moore movie *shudder*.   Next, I hit the web and found that the whole thing was bad on another level, most of which is covered here and here.

The most striking of them:

• Scientists were lied to about the subject of the film.
• Religious scientists were excluded, leaving evolution to look like an atheistic idea.
• He follows a guy who lost his job at the Smithosnian for publishing ID supporting material, but that guy was never a Smithsonian employee.  He did have a short-term contract gig with a Smithsonian-related group, and when it ended he was offered another position.

In short, this is a crappy film that has fake information in it.

[Quotation] On The Menu

"If you're not at the table, you're on the menu."

After some web searching, I can't find the original originator of this quote, but I've heard it most in reference to political situations, where someone was too pig-headed to negotiate.  When the cooler heads sat down to deal, Mr. Pighead was slaughtered because he wasn't there to make sure at least some of his interests were served.  I think it is easy to be frustrated, especially when you have less power than others at the table, but vital that you take a breath, sit down, and win as much ground as you can.  A little is better than none.
 

[Video Review] Obama's Deal

I recently watched this Frontline, and I rated it 4 out of 5 stars. 

It follows the health care bill from it's planning stages, through the hands it passed through, and on to what ended up passing.  It does a good job of providing insight into the political climate influencing and guiding the decisions as they were made.  Of course, it is in typical Frontline style, so it is very dry, but that's how I best like my political history. :)

[Quotation] Where The Puck Will Be

'It ain't where the puck is, it's where the puck will be."
-Wayne Gretzky

This is a re-phrase of some advice that his father used to give him.  I'm trying to keep in focus where I think the puck will be, but I think I need to learn more about trajectories first. :)

[Gardening] In Which I Decide to Grow My Own Herbs

So yesterday I was supposed to organize the kitchen, but that was boring, so I moved on to plan B.   I  needed some plates or cork to set under a few new plants that I had purchased, and new pots for 6 herb plants that I had picked up at Giant Eagle the day before and were now looking sad.  Off to Home Depot I went, as has become the custom this week.  (Monday and Tuesday were full of painting all the trim in the world.  I mean apartment.)

Giant Eagle Herbs

While walking through the veggie section, I noticed the nice aroma of the basil and mint.  I thought I would like this fragrance in my house, so I picked up 2 mint, 2 parsley, and 2 basil plants for about $2.50 each on a whim.  I general buy fresh leaves of these plants, slice them up, and freeze them for my future use, so I don't have to go with the dried stuff, but now I can have fresh all the time!

Parsley

Mint

 

 

 

Basil

Starting Seeds

While at Home Depot, I picked up some oregano, another type of mint, rosemary, sage, and thyme seeds.  I also got a Burpee starter kit since it has been a while since I've started seeds and this had everything needed plus instructions.

I added water to the expanding soil pellets, a little extra topsoil, and the seeds.

The starter cups sit in a plate with water.

A piece of plastic on top creates a make-shift greenhouse.