Notebook entry, December 17, 1998

A Washington Post story by Rick Weiss reports on the sad news that a human embryo has been cloned from the genetic replica of a 30-year-old woman.  The reports goes on to say that the South Korean researcher destroyed the embryo after it grew to four cells.  They wanted to see if the procedure that worked for cloning animals could work for humans.  Well it did, and we are faced with the difficult task of attempting to stop this train before some serious mistakes are made.  We are not ready to make these life creating decisions yet.   We have too much poverty, overpopulation, and human rights violations to going around making new humans from scratch.  I will give a warning here and now. That if any cloning does take place, it will go to benefit those with the most resources and whom control the culture of a particular location to the detriment of those less fortunate.

Notebook entry, December 16, 1998

A Time magazine muse by Calvin Trillin in the Dec. 21. 98 issue by the title of "Should Bradley Stoop to Conquer?" muses on the fate of a possible too tall candidate for President of the United States.   I become a bit delusional and think that my posting to the Washington Week in Review bulletin board about the "big man" Jesse Ventura and my notebook entry of November 4, 1998 plus my weekly ad for Evolution's Voyage may have seeped into the Washington D.C. circle.  Yeah, right Bill, dream on.  Well, anyway, the muse does discuss the fact that ever since political campaigning was changed by the advent of television, the taller candidate has won. The muse was  making fun at the prospect that perhaps the American Voter does base his or her decisions on biological phenotype considerations when picking candidates.  But, by the mere fact of writing about the subject in an important cultural vehicle, it may, hopefully, expose the unconscious behavior.  Then, maybe perhaps the candidate whole character and brain will be the most important factor in a candidate, and not the body size, gender, nor skin color.

Same issue, P. 62.  Insert reports on the find by scientists at the University of the Witwatersrand of an almost  complete skeleton remains of one of our ancestors reported to be 3.5 million years old.  This is good news because scientists do not have to mix and match different specimens to guess what the our ancestor would have looked like.  My heart goes out to my creation scientists friends.  The evidence becomes more and more solid with every passing year.  The sorrow I feel, is that their young will no longer believe in the important points of their teachings, such as the sanctity of life, morals, and the defense of the family.  When their elders hold on the beliefs that are weakly supported, it makes these points more open to attack.    I can only hope that they will change.

Notebook entry, December 3, 1998

Jennifer Goehring has finished her second piece. Title is "Chivalry is not Dead." As a die hard feminist, she is changing her tune a bit and suggesting that, perhaps, its ok for the guy to carry that heavy box.  You may go directly to her muse at: Chivalry is not Dead.  Enjoy the Voyage.