Digable Planets

So, astronomers have discovered another planet in the solar system and gained more fuel for the movement to demote Pluto from planet to really, really, big asteroid. School kids of America can breathe easy – it seems that Uranus is still safe. Still, it’s kind of disheartening to know that some of the bedrock truths of childhood education – there are nine planets in the solar system, etc. – are already starting to unravel. It was bound to happen, but I was hoping it would be at least another hundred years or so before we started seeming like charter members of the Flat Earth Society.

But bacon tastes good ...

Not that anyone asked, but you know it was a long night of drinking when, at the office the next day, you reach into your backpack for a notebook only to discover a bag of pork rinds. And you can’t remember how they got there. On the bright side, pork rinds make for a welcome surprise and an excellent snack at 2 PM The Day After.

Of course, the above scenario also presents the dilemma of whether or not it’s appropriate to eat pork rinds at your desk. Potato chips are legit, I think, but somehow fried fat products seem to be pushing the envelope of propriety. I can’t deny that I felt a little bit sheepish when the CEO strolled past my desk, which was littered with rinds. Fortunately, I hadn’t opened that little packet of hot sauce that Snak King so thoughtfully includes in their El Sabroso “pork cracklins” (I did that later). Anyway, if you recall the watermelon scene in Invisible Man, then you have a pretty good idea how I felt.

* While we’re on the topic of food: I love sourdough, but it is legal to make sandwiches with other types of bread. I just wanted to clear up the confusion for Bay Area deli owners.

And to think I meant to write something serious today. I feel shallow, but it's nothing a protracted conversation with my friend Mr. Jameson won't cure. In any event, someone out there in the wilds of cyberspace thinks we're worthwhile here at Whiskey Rebellion. We just received our first link from the esteemed Clareified blog. Must go; I'm all weepy now.

Who Says You Can't Go Home Again?

A couple days ago, the NY Times ran this piece on how black Americans are increasingly using advances in DNA testing to trace family lineages all the way back to Africa where specific regions and tribes of origin – to an extent - can be identified. The technique is far from refined at this point, but apparently it beats the hell out of spending twelve years of your life in musty library stacks reviewing plantation records and ship manifests, or wandering through the wilds of Africa in search of people “who kinda look like you.” Now, for the price of a couple hundred dollars, and a slight loss of tissue between your cheek and gum, you can establish a connection to the motherland.

In typically earnest NY Times fashion, the article details the benefits and limitations of the procedure, as well as the fairly predictable feelings it inspires in its participants: pride and relief at filling in the missing piece of their heritage, anger and remorse over the treatment of their ancestors, and so on. Out of all this, the most interesting anecdote, to my way of thinking, is the following:

“One African-American, upon confirming a match with a white man whose ancestors had owned his, told him he owed reparations and could start by paying for the test, said Bennett Greenspan, chief executive of Family Tree DNA, which offers tests for $129 and up.”

I can only imagine what the reaction was when the man answered the phone and the guy at the other end told him he owed reparations. But the fact that he added, “you can start by paying for the test” is priceless. Man (reaching for checkbook) “Of course. Will that be 129 bucks in 1855 dollars or 129 bucks in 2005 dollars? Oh, and by any chance do you accept Confederate money?”

I say screw the $129 bucks for DNA testing. Tonight I’m going to scan the white pages for anyone with the last name “Flint” and ring the number:

Me: “Hello, is this the Flint residence”?

Them: (with reticence): “Um, yes, it is.”

Me: “Are you white?”

Them: “What!?”

Me: “Sir, are you white, by any chance?”

Them: “Yes, I’m white!”

Me: “You owe me reparations and you can start by paying for this phone call.”

With 140 years of interest, I should be living high on the hog. I wonder what 40 acres and a mule goes for in San Francisco these days.

Doctor Hannibal Goes to Hanover

An enterprising young business student at Dartmouth has introduced a health food offering for the cannibalistically inclined. Human flavored tofu – hufu - doesn’t sound especially appetizing, but it is fat free and just 100 calories per serving. So it’s got that going for it.

Tough to know if hufu lives up to its billing, though. Friend of the Blog (FOB) Kameron suggests the only way to tell if the stuff is legit is to feed it to carnivorous animals and see if they devour it like an 8-piece of Popeye’s chicken. Maybe, but human-flavored or not, it’s still tofu. And I’m not sure we want to train captive animals to appreciate the taste of human flesh any more than they already do.

The hidden gem of this story is the celebrity angle, which may be apocryphal, but since it’s in my interest to believe it’s true, I’ll present it as fact. Besides, if you can’t trust America’s oldest college newspaper - not to be confused with America' Oldest College Daily - whom can you trust? As they wrote about inventor Mark Nuckols:

“He also claims that the name "hufu" was actually coined by actress and model Milla Jovovich. Several years ago, a business associate was discussing Nuckols' idea, then called "hofu," with a friend on a Eurostar train going from London to Paris. Jovovich, intrigued, allegedly turned around to join in the conversation, commenting, "'Hofu' sounds like 'c*ck' -- you should call it 'hufu.'"

"As far as I can speculate, she meant 'ho food,'" Nuckols said. "She's a supermodel -- she doesn't have to make sense."

Apparently Jovovich’s publicist did not respond to requests for comment.

Spaced Out Travels

I’m not exactly sure why, but I’ve come to realize that I find the space shuttle vaguely depressing. Perhaps its because it reminds me of the years when I would watch each take-off breathlessly, back when each launch seemed so improbable, yet full of possibility. Now that I’m old(er) and jaded, the only feeling I get is relief when one doesn’t blow up.

People are a hard group to satisfy; even sending something into orbit can seem old hat after a while. And you wonder why so many couples get divorced. That said, it is still a bit of a marvel that the behemoth gets off the ground, malfunctions and all. Like when Discovery took off this morning with its tailpipe dragging. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-1709928,00.html

Can you imagine? I mean, drivers go batshit when a piece of their bumper falls off. Wonder what it feels like to be trailing debris from the fuel tank as you hurtle into space. The closest I ever came is when I was winding through the mountains of Western Virginia on the way to a country wedding with my friends Kameron and Chinh.

Kam was behind the wheel as we approached one particularly sharp curve. As he accelerated into the turn he asked - rhetorically – “Do you think I can make it?” Uhh, no. Not that we had a chance to respond as he took out a sign and rolled the car over an embankment, down a hill and onto a golf course.

Apollo 13 material it isn’t, but the thought of dying on the way to your friends’ wedding tends to get the blood rushing. Anyway, when the car came to a stop, part of the front end was stripped bare, revealing the innards and a steady stream of fluid that was watering the green. We made the wedding, though. And the car was insured. Who insures the space shuttle?

Flowers for Atkins

Jury selection began today in the trial of Daryl Atkins, a man twice convicted of a 1996 homicide. Atkins’ life has been spared to date because of the conclusion that he is retarded and his execution would therefore be unconstitutional. That conclusion will be revisited during the course of the trial, and if reversed, will result in Atkins’ death.

The BBC has a quick primer here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4716225.stm

What really caught my attention was the following excerpt:

“Virginia requires an inmate to have had an IQ of 70 or less, combined with poor social skills by the age of 18. "

“Atkins, 27, was not tested as a youth but he scored 59 in 1998, and 76 more recently.”

The case, while interesting for its bearing on capital punishment in general and the 8^th Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment in particular, also raises two questions:

1. Are they running some kind of “Flowers for Algernon” experiment in the Commonwealth of Virginia penal system? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flowers_For_Algernon

2. If so, can they introduce the program to the public school system?

17 points of IQ gained in a handful of years is nothing to sneeze at. When Atkins gets out of jail in 2180, he should be able to head up some kind of D.C. think tank. Or at least attend grad school with the woman from Vegas. (see previous item, below)

I certainly don’t have the scientific credentials to weigh in confidently on the whole “IQ – Bogus or not Bogus?” pissing match, but stories like this don’t exactly do a lot for its credibility. They do, however ease the pain of that 68 I scored on my seventh grade IQ exam.

Thank God I took Berlitz

"Umm...well, I couldn't really understand what the announcement said because I'm American and I don't, you know, speak English, but I did pick out the word 'Emergency.'

-Las Vegas graduate student studying in London, in response to a reporter asking her what she thought when she had to evacuate the Underground after Thursday's bomb scare.

The little gem was brought to my attention - inadvertently - by a former confederate from long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away. Her work can be found here: http://clarified.blogspot.com/ Anyway,
the orignal poster of this quote was moved to ask: "Is it too late to administer IQ tests for passports?"

Sadly, yes. But it's also worth pointing out that the woman in question is not only a student, but a GRADUATE student, as well. I will assume she is not concentrating in Comparative Literature. In any event, perhaps the proper question is not whether IQ tests should accompany the issuance of a passport, but whether they should accompany admission to Master's/ PhD. programs. A small bit of consolation, from a strictly jingoistic standpoint, can be found in the fact that the woman is now studying abroad. That is, unless you consider the public relations angle.

One Man = 56

When I read the accounts of the British police killing the suspected terrorist in the tube this morning, it started me thinking about the differences in national character and how informative they are about the nature of the societies in question.

Specifically, I was reflecting on how ill-equipped the United States is to deal with tragedy on a large scale, because apart from the Civil War, the country has never really known it. So, when an admittedly tragic incident like 9/11 occurs, the reaction - and overreaction - occurs on an almost comic scale. Yet, in contrast, Americans can blithely dismiss or ignore altogether the minor tragedies that populate everyday life. A homicide or two a day in a particular city is barely worth mentioning.

Conversely, the British react to major conflict in a decidely more muted manner. To be sure, part of that is an affectation stemming from the desire to live up to the national reputation for stoicism and reserve, but part of it is genuine as well. That's why it's so interesting to observe the uproar over the shooting of a man in a subway station. In the UK, this incident seems to have generated nearly as much conflict and discussion, on an intellectual and policy level, as the bombing of 50-some odd Britains earlier this month. The opposite would be true in the US. Flags would still be flying at half-mast here on account of the bombing and the shooting of the suspect would be an afterthought - if that.

I've always believed that America is an "event" country, a place where major ocurrences obscure notice of the everyday to an extent not matched by other nations. Perhaps it's because the ethos and image of the country is rooted in advancement and achievement. Progress is viewed in measurable benchmarks - events - that demonstrate your acclimation to and success in the American experiment. As a result, on a social level it is only the headline worthy incidents that are seen as worthy of public concern and attention.

The inability to see how the everyday impacts the big picture seems to be a particularly American trait. Strivers often fail to notice how the accumulation of small things shapes the whole, until, at the end of the road, they look back with chagrin. There is something to be learned from the English obsession over a lone man.