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... And Fear of the Unknown
By Michael Kinsley
 Imagine what it's like to open the newspaper (as I did Friday morning) and read that scientists in faraway South Korea have
made a huge breakthrough toward curing a disease that is slowly
wrecking your life. But closer to home, your own government is trying to
prevent that cure.
Other nations are racing for the leadership role in stem cell research that the United States has abandoned. And individual
states are defying the federal near-ban. So it seems unlikely that
U.S. government policy will actually prevent a cure for Parkinson's
and other diseases. And it's not too likely that a cure will come
in time for most current sufferers in any event. But it might, it
might. So if my government merely manages to slow the process down -- as it
already has done for years -- that is disheartening.
The South Korean scientists apparently have developed a
reliable method for cloning from an adult human being. The theory is
that stem cells extracted from a clone of yourself are likely to be
safer and more effective than cells from leftover embryos in fertility
clinics or from animal embryos or from adult bone marrow.
Leon Kass, chairman of the President's Council on Bioethics,
greeted this thrilling news with his usual fatuous call for a
"moratorium" on the research that produced it while we think through the
morality and all that. Kass seems to imagine bioethics researchers beavering away toward a moral breakthrough even as scientists beaver away at
a medical one. All he asks is for the scientists to take a break
and let the bioethicists catch up.
But no crash research program is going to produce some
dazzling bioethical principle we never thought of before. We know all
that we're going to know about the moral issues, and we just have
to decide.
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New Film ... 'Time After Time'
 There’s
a piercingly relevant quote attributed to Calgacus, a leader of
the Caledonian tribes of Scotland, in response to the Roman
Empire’s efforts to conquer Scotland, around 79 AD. "In them is
an arrogance which no submission or good behaviour can escape.
Pillagers of the world, they have exhausted the land by their
plunder and now they ransack the sea. A rich enemy excites their
cupidity, a poor one their lust for power. To robbery, butchery
and rapine they give the lying name of Government; they create a
desolation and call it peace."
We all come from a very long lineage of conquerors. Conquerors
“take" the world with the attitude of “them or us”. They believe
in the justice of progress, at all costs, to overtake cultures,
wipe them out, and replace them with their own vision of
evolution, from the past to the future, still thinking in terms
of linear time.
But we haven’t wiped out the reality of our ancient ancestors!
Our ancient heritage is still with us, especially in our arts –
thriving on a spiritual level, fulfilling the human desire to
reach out beyond our narrow confines. Strength is built through
resistance. The land we stand on resists destruction. It heals
itself, given half a chance, just like we do.
Today, we are on the threshold of understanding that meaningful
encounter need not be destructive. Conquest belongs to the
primitive past.
In Time after Time, songs, poetry and historic speeches give
voice to the boundless human spirit. The Irish will be reminded
of the colourful and magical legacy of their ancient ancestors.
Americans will rejoice in the spirit of their indigenous people,
and the tenacity of early settlers who sought peaceful refuge in
the wilderness. Australians will glimpse the world of wondrous,
mythic proportions in the art of the indigenous people, who
still demonstrate how to live in harmonious community, not "off
the land" but with the land.
Mairéid Sullivan
Melbourne, Australia
v
preview the film and read more
also visit
lyrebirdmedia.com
Earth Day ... Every Day ...
for Everybody
v
take the ecological footprint quiz
 Earth Day
Network promotes environmental citizenship and year round
progressive action worldwide. EDN strives to build
broad-based citizen support for sound, workable and
effective environmental and sustainable development policies
for all. EDN is a driving force steering environmental
awareness around the world. Through EDN, activists connect,
interact, and impact their communities, creating positive
change in local, national, and global policies. EDN's
international network reaches over 12,000 organizations in
174 countries, while the domestic program keeps over 3,000
groups and over 90,000 educators coordinating millions of
community development and environmental protection
activities throughout the year.
As a result, Earth Day is the only event celebrated
simultaneously around the globe by people of all
backgrounds, faiths and nationalities. More than a half
billion people participate in campaigns every year.
Turn the Tide ... 9
Personal Steps
1.
Walk ... Bike ... Carpool
2.
Eat Less Feedlot Beef
3.
Eat Eco-Friendly Seafood
4.
Free Yourself from Junk Mail
5.
Install Compact Fluorescents
6.
Stop Freezing in the Summer
7.
Stop Sweating in the Winter
8.
Eliminate Lawn Pesticides
9.
Reduce Home Water Usage
v
click here to learn how
also visit
newdream.org ...
earthday.net
Hippo-ray ...
The hippopotamus, nicknamed Owen and weighing
about 300 kilograms (650 pounds), was swept down Sabaki
River into the Indian Ocean, then forced back to shore when
tsunami waves struck the Kenyan coast on
 December
26, before wildlife rangers rescued him. "It
is incredible. A-less-than-a-year-old hippo has adopted a male
tortoise, about a century old, and the tortoise seems to be very
happy with being a 'mother'," ecologist Paula Kahumbu, who is in
charge of Lafarge Park, told AFP. "After it was swept and lost
its mother, the hippo was traumatised. It had to look for
something to be a surrogate mother. Fortunately, it landed on
the tortoise and established a strong bond. They swim, eat and
sleep together," the ecologist added. "The hippo follows the
tortoise exactly the way it follows its mother. If somebody
approaches the tortoise, the hippo becomes aggressive, as if
protecting its biological mother," Kahumbu added. "The hippo is
a young baby, he was left at a very tender age and by nature,
hippos are social animals that like to stay with their mothers
for four years," he explained.
For our Friends in the
Earthquake Areas
This information could save your life in an earthquake ...
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 "I
am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the
world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical
revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a
'thing-oriented' society to a 'person-oriented' society. When
machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are
considered more important than people, the giant triplets of
racism, materialism and militarism are incapable of being conquered." Martin Luther King, Jr.
 "Our
doubts are traitors,
And make us lose the good
we oft might win
By fearing to attempt."
William Shakespeare
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Flower Power
Human Affection Altered Evolution of Flowers
By Robert Roy Britt, LiveScience.com Senior Writer
Thu May 26,10:03 AM ET
 Flowers make people happy. And while that might seem obvious, there hasn't been much research to prove the point until now. A trio of new studies by Rutgers University scientists
supports the notion pretty strongly, and the experts go on to speculate that
flowers have flourished on this planet, with their beauty evolving in
recent millennia, partly because humans are so attached to them.
The first study involved 147 women. All those who got
flowers smiled. Make a note: all of them. That's the kind of statistical
significance scientists love. Among the women who got candles, 23 percent didn't
smile. And 10 percent of those who got fruit didn't smile.
Okay, that's just one study. Let's try another. In an elevator, 122 men and women were given either a
flower, a pen, or nothing. Those who got flowers smiled more, talked more,
and -- here it gets interesting -- stood closer together.
Finally, in another test, bouquets were delivered by
florists to 113 men and women in a retirement community. All 113 got flowers and a
notebook, but some got them earlier and received a second bouquet when
the others got theirs. By now you can guess the outcome. The more
flowers, the more smiles.
From there, it's a bit of a
leap to the idea that flowers are prolific because we love them. But the results got the scientists to thinking about how
the flower industry of today has evolved into growing things that serve no
other purpose than emotional satisfaction. Nature won't even pollinate many
of the domesticated flowers. Just among roses, there are so many types
conjured by humans that, clearly, flowers aren't what they used to be. But it's
likely our collective hand has played a role longer than you might think.
Rutgers geneticist Terry McGuire suggests that nature's
prettier flowers got to survive and thrive because people didn't destroy them
when they cleared land for agriculture. Instead, they cultivated them and
have been doing so for more than 5,000 years. "Our hypothesis is that flowers are exploiting an
emotional niche. They make us happy," McGuire says. "Because they are a source of
pleasure - a positive emotion inducer - we take care of them. In that sense
they're like dogs. They are the pets of the plant world."
Here's one way it might have worked: Many species of flowers that are now cultivated used to
sprout only when the ground was disturbed, McGuire explains. "As humans moved into agricultural settings these flowers
would have been weeds," he told LiveScience. "These flowers might have
been tolerated because of their beauty. The seeds would have been
preserved -- perhaps initially because they were mixed with crop seeds -- and
replanted. Humans would have become the seed dispersers. Over time, the best
of these flowers might have been selected and the seeds more carefully
preserved."
The idea is detailed in the journal Evolutionary Psychology.
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An Interview with
Nobel Peace Prize Winner Wangari Maathai
By Amanda Griscom Little
Amazing
woman as always. We could all do well to learn from her leadership ...
 '...populations
that we normally think are helpless, are dependent, are not able
to do things for themselves. They organized themselves and
started to address the issues in their own communities to
improve their quality of life. At its peak, we've had over 6,000
groups of women planting trees. In the process they educate
themselves and address
government issues.'
Wangari Maathai
Here I Sit
 In Radeli Koe, Fort Good Hope,
every afternoon of Summer 1954,
Old Kochale sat on top of the high bank
and watched Dehcho River for hours.
He was old because I was young.
He was probably the age I am now.
What was going on in his mind?
Was he reliving his past
or dreaming his few years still ahead?
One day I was bold enough,
or inconsiderate enough:
"Grandpa, what do you think about?
Do you pray or what?"
The old Dene lifted his eyes off the great river,
or off whatever world he was contemplating.
He turned his head slightly towards me
and whispered in his language:
"Hejon Wida," that is, "Here I sit."
As I walked away, the White man I was imagined
unspoken words:
"I have lived in many places through many years.
I have now blended all my good days and bad ones.
I have united my good friends and the others.
I have bundled together gifts in and gifts out,
the family I received from and the family I gave to.
I entwine sunrise and sunset with my own light.
I embrace morning breeze, noon storms, evening
stillness.
I have become the person I was called to be.
I have traveled all my rivers and crossed all my lakes.
Once more I will land at the right place at the
right time."
Then I knew:
"I want to become an old man!"
And Kochale was still simply sitting.
the title poem from Rene Fumoleau's
book of poetry,Here I
Sit.
Nothing
is Impossible ...
 "I think that if we want to be true to ourselves, finding
answers to the most important questions of life is a process.
The time it takes to make genuine discoveries and find true
beliefs varies with every individual.
When
reporters continued to ask me about the importance of religion
in my life I began to answer by saying that I'm not sure if
there is a God, but I try to behave as if He is watching.
Gradually I have come to believe that spirituality is found in
the way we live our daily lives. It means spending time thinking
about others. It's not hard to imagine that there is a higher
power. We don't have to know what form it takes or or exactly
where it exists; just to honor it and to try to live by it is
enough. Because we are human we will often fail, but at least we
know that we do not deserve to be punished. That knowledge makes
us safe and willing to try again."
excerpt from 'Nothing is Impossible'
by Christopher Reeve (ballantinebooks.com)
The Jacaranda
"When in season, the jacaranda is a gorgeous purple-flowered
tree. Such is the inspiring nature of its display that jacaranda
festivals occur in many country towns around Australia as people
celebrate its colourful indication of seasonal change.
 But the
jacaranda is not a native Australian tree. Like much of the
population of this country, its roots are elsewhere. It thrives
and contributes colour and worldliness and variety, and has
become 'part of the scenery' in the populated areas of our
astonishing brown land. Inevitably the jacaranda shares its
spaces with the unique indigenous environment of Australia. Rows
of simple wooden houses scattered along dusty streets are shaded
by the grand but understated green-and-grey stands of local
eucalypts as well as the purple splashes of the immigrant
jacaranda. We need to welcome strangers, particularly those in
difficulties. We need to embrace change, understand ourselves
and the original Australians, respect the environment and be
prepared to bend with it, and let go the apron strings of the
British monarchy. Only then will Australia move on and grow up.
And only then can we anticipate any sort of golden age for us
all."
excerpt from 'Beds are Burning - Midnight Oil: the Journey'
by Mark Dodshon (penguin.com.au)
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