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| Monday, November 16th, 2009 | |
pharyngula
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4:20p |
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buttercupcomic
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11:23a |
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pharyngula
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12:57p |
Vote on the Bad Faith awards
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/scienceblogs/pharyngula/~3/ZZCBxW-eOIk/vote_on_the_bad_faith_awards.php http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/11/vote_on_the_bad_faith_awards.php The New Humanist hands out a yearly slap-in-the-face to the most deserving noisy believer of the year — last year's winner was Sarah Palin — and this year they have a full slate of worthy apologists for superstition. It's an internet poll, but who should win this one isn't at all obvious — they're all contemptible. Here are the results so far:
Adnan Oktar, aka Harun Yahya
94 (8%)
Anjem Choudary
72 (6%)
Anthony Bush
22 (1%)
British Chiropractic Association
197 (16%)
Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor
51 (4%)
Dermot Aherne
84 (7%)
Damian Thompson
66 (5%)
Pope Benedict XVI
388 (33%)
Terry Eagleton & Karen Armstrong
57 (4%)
Tony Blair
128 (11%)
I think it's sweet that the Pope is in the lead, since he is a traditional favorite and the Church has done such a good job of stepping in the malodorous mushy fecal slime of evil this year. I'm also fond of Cormac Murphy O'Connor for decreeing that atheists are "not fully human," a state to which I aspire but am constantly foiled by my merely human genetics and physiology. My clicky finger was also drawn to Oktar, who is not only a creationist of the foulest, dumbest sort, but may even be clinically insane. I finally voted for Eagleton/Armstrong, simply because I think their brand of gooey, meaningless drivel is far more common than Christian or Islamic fanaticism, and they represent it so well.
But don't use my choice as a guide! This is one of those polls where it wouldn't be bad if it ended up in a 10-way tie. Read the comments on this post... |
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pharyngula
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11:57a |
Argument from ignorance, ignorance the size of Alaska
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/scienceblogs/pharyngula/~3/H8D8-094Fn4/argument_from_ignorance_ignora.php http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/11/argument_from_ignorance_ignora.php She has so much of it to spread around, too. Sarah Palin's memoir reveals her unsurprising opinion about evolution.
Elsewhere in this volume, she talks about creationism, saying she "didn't believe in the theory that human beings — thinking, loving beings — originated from fish that sprouted legs and crawled out of the sea" or from "monkeys who eventually swung down from the trees." In everything that happens to her, from meeting Todd to her selection by Mr. McCain for the Republican ticket, she sees the hand of God: "My life is in His hands. I encourage readers to do what I did many years ago, invite Him in to take over."
Unfortunately, about half the American electorate will think what she wrote is just ducky. Those words won't dissuade very many voters at all, so don't make the mistake of thinking this revelation will somehow cripple her campaign to become president of the US. Read the comments on this post... |
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pharyngula
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11:47a |
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pharyngula
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11:33a |
As others see us
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/scienceblogs/pharyngula/~3/OVhF1E0G9uk/as_others_see_us.php http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/11/as_others_see_us.php I found this comment, left on the blog of the negligible Bryan Appleyard, to be immensely entertaining. It's the combination of hyperbole, unintentional irony, and oblivious incompetence, all spiced with a germ of truth, that makes it amusing.
Myers, like Dawkins when he's tired and especially the gruesome Dennett, survives entirely on scorn and venom. His response to any challenge is simply to increase the number and volume of schoolyard taunts. These guys are intellectual alchemists who have perfected the art of using invective to turn philistinism into apparent sagacity. The formula goes something like this:
Step 1--Begin by describing a philosophical challenge with a mixture of anger and fatigue, much as you would describe discovering a termite in your house after the extermintor had been through and presumably destroyed them all. The contempt must ooze front and center before you even address the argument so that anyone who might be inclined to take the challenge seriously is forwarned and suitably cowed. Don't skimp on the insulting adjectives.
Step 2--Deflect the issue from the profoundly philosophical to the mundane by suddenly talking lab gobbledegook about genes, mutations, etc. Use words like phenotype liberally and try to throw in a diagram. Extra points for insisting Darwin himself was well aware of what you are saying and would have agreed with you unreservedly;
Step 3--Insist that any argument that comes within a hundred miles of religion, no matter how ethereal or tentative, leads directly to biblical literalism, perferably as practiced in the American South. Show in one paragraph how it is the root of every atrocity in history, will lead to the end of scientific inquiry and justifies the bombing of innocent villagers by the U.S. Air Force.
Step 4--Bask in the glow of hundreds of one-sentence comments thanking you profusely for your courage and agreeing you have proven there is no need to read what your opponent said to know that the stupid twit isn't even worth reading.
Step 1 must be a good one, since it's the tactic the commenter is using. I wonder if he noticed?
Step 2 is my favorite. I like his admission that the "profoundly philosophical," to his mind, is untainted with mundane reality, and that when talking about explanations for our origins (which is usually what prompts my scornful interventions), genes and mutations are mere "gobbledygook". I know exactly where he is coming from, then — the land of the ignorant, where people are baffled and resentful of the intrusion of evidence. This must also be why he finds Dennett so gruesome.
Step 3, unfortunately, is way off base. I'm one of those guys who thinks even moderate, liberal theism is wacky in and of itself: I don't need to tie Karen Armstrong to Ken Ham to make her look absurd. I also think people would commit atrocities without religion prodding them on, too. I don't believe the South is particularly deserving of scorn; the Grand Old Man of Fundamentalism operated out of Minneapolis, Minnesota, for instance. I never endorse bombing any villages anywhere, sorry. His diatribe would have been improved if he'd left out this one point, which is so baseless it undermines the rest.
Step 4 has a tiny leavening of truth because there are lots of people who find common ground with me and are predisposed to agree with my interpretation of events, and so yes, this blog is a meeting place for mobs of atheists. So? Unfortunately for my ego, a few of the comments will be disagreements, while most are people wrangling with each other; the long threads get that way because I spark something that leads to discussion and argument. I don't get to accept even all the insults, because I'm mostly irrelevant to the conversation within a few hours of starting it!
But otherwise, I'm afraid people don't have the luxury of completely bypassing my target's words. I link back and quote liberally (gosh, there they are, the commenter's whole screed, right there in my post), and people are always tossing in fresh new absurdities from the source. A perfect example is right there in the post which made Bryan Appleyard indignant: I quoted him at length and rebutted him in detail, and poor Mr Appleyard is simply left mostly speechless, only able to screech that his feelings were hurt at being called a bad writer…and unable to address one whit of the substance of my criticisms. Read the comments on this post... |
urban_decay
[ rhodamine ]
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11:34a |
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pharyngula
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10:31a |
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pharyngula
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10:19a |
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pharyngula
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9:35a |
The UK needs more god-botherers advising the government
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/scienceblogs/pharyngula/~3/m-DBQFkL-S0/the_uk_needs_more_god-botherer.php http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/11/the_uk_needs_more_god-botherer.php That seems to be the idea behind forming a council of key policy advisors, whose qualifications seem to be the fervency of their obeisance to an invisible man in the sky.
The move has been criticised by secularists who warned that it represented a worrying development.
However, Mr Denham argued that Christians and Muslims can contribute significant insights on key issues, such as the economy, parenting and tackling climate change.
Oh, really? How? I suppose tithing and refusing to allow money to be lent at interest are a kind of economic strategy…just not a very productive one. And I don't quite see the point of consulting with a gang of grisly old virgins on parenting, or asking some bearded imam whose chief talent is the memorization of the Koran about what to do about carbon emissions. I wish Mr Denham had gone on with some specifics that he hopes superstition can address.
He does have a few general platitudes.
"Faith is a strong and powerful source of honesty, solidarity, generosity - the very values which are essential to politics, to our economy and our society."
Ah, I see. I had no idea how different the government of the UK was from the government of the US. Here, honesty and generosity aren't exactly common currency in government, or at least are in conflict. I suppose one could argue that Washington has been very generous to defense contractors, but they aren't very forthright about it. I suppose there are principles of solidarity at work, with our most religious party, the Republicans, being monolithic in their opposition to equality, social support, and science, and Democrats straining to achieve some kind of unity — maybe they'd benefit from religious rigidity, too. I suppose if the UK government did model their political system after the Muslims and Christians, they could end up with a nice, pretty political system like ours, with Republicans and Democrats.
Maybe Denham should look more closely at our system. For instance, maybe he could pop over for the Bold Fresh Tour, and see how a couple of paragons of the idea of using religious principles in government represent honesty, solidarity, and generosity. Read the comments on this post... |
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pharyngula
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8:28a |
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urban_decay
[ dmmuzalev ]
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11:15a |
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365tomorrowsrss
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4:01a |
Summary Judgment
http://www.365tomorrows.com/11/16/summary-judgment/ Author : Charles Spohrer
I totaled my motorcycle. Of course, I had no medical insurance.
I figured if I ever did have an accident, it would be final. I never expected just a couple of broken bones.
The ambulance dumped me off at County. The drivers wheeled me inside and left me on the gurney. A middle aged lady walked over and dropped a stack of papers on my chest. She pushed a pen into my injured hand. I winced as I reached over with my good hand to grab the pen. Without waiting, she began to leaf through the stack. “Sign here, and here” she said, as she flipped the pages quickly. I signed wherever she pointed. She gathered up the papers and left. Eventually the doctors set to work.
I was out of there before the start of the next shift.
By the time the road rash scabs fell off my face, the bills arrived. A year’s salary for a broken wrist and some scabs. Outrageous, I thought. So I let it slide.
Bills become past due bills.
Past due bills become final notice bills.
Final notice bills became phone calls from the collection agencies.
Daily.
For weeks.
Then the calls stopped.
A few days later, six in the morning, I woke to the sound of my front door crashing in. Several policemen in SWAT gear and guns drawn rushed into my room. They pulled me from my bed, threw me to the floor, and sat on me with my arm behind my back. A technician in a white lab coat over a bullet proof vest jabbed my bicep with a syringe and drew a small amount of blood.
After a few minutes, he said, “That’s him alright. He’s the one. DNA markers match at a 95% confidence level. You can bag him.”
One of the cops spoke. “We hereby serve Notice that you are in Default on your Obligations to County Hospital and invoke Reclamation pursuant to the Rights assigned by Contract as agreed by You at the time of Admission.” I could hear every capitalized word.
Those were the last words I ever heard.
It’s been a few days since I got my sight back. Quite remarkable if you think about it. I can see in four different directions now. It’s not that hard to process, especially since the decision logic isn’t that complicated.
The green light flashed on.
Summary judgment came quick. For not paying the hospital bills, I gave up all rights. Everything. I understand some politician’s son got my body, something about inoperable leukemia. He just happened to be next on the waiting list for a full body donor. It was all in the fine print.
Yellow light.
So what happened to me? Well, they found me some work. Look for me on the corner of State and Madison. Inside the traffic control box. The latest in intelligent traffic management. If you do come by, blink your headlights twice. I’ll hold the green a little longer for you.
Red light.
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| Sunday, November 15th, 2009 |
automaticwriter
[ st_ranger ]
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6:28p |
"source material somnambulance, billyclub, iteration VII"
glowing poem called Quiet fables of looted carparks felt flat like the moon under the moon like one. I loved fables of dust for man who glowing, dizzying numbers was flat all along shoved heavy from numbers there--I loved beyond his falling buzz, heavy from numbers, there is in chaos honesty in a man too good at analysis... This popped up under the eyelid moon along the heavy numbers, honest chaos. I loved beyond fables of dust this man that was too good at analysis... propped up flat numbers,honest, beyond his chaos moon, glowing heavy from numbers, there is in chaos honesty in a man of looted carparks, dust for a man glowing beyond this man This popped numbers honestly, in chaos under the moon that loved the radio creature heavy from numbers an eyelid under the moon beyond this Quiet fable of numbers all along the moon that flattens all numbers in chaos that was glowing carparks heavy from a poem called Quiet there is an eyelid creature in the corner and the dizzying numbers glowing heavy from numbers there loved the invisible radio and the dizzying repetition is honesty in numbers under the moon glowing heavy from fables |
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pharyngula
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11:34a |
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pharyngula
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8:14a |
IGERT2009: Sunday morning session
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/scienceblogs/pharyngula/~3/6RVpXrlj2qM/igert2009_sunday_morning_sessi.php http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/11/igert2009_sunday_morning_sessi.php My little laptop is functional again, so at least I'll be able to blog these Sunday morning IGERT sessions in real-time. I still have to transcribe my notes from yesterday; I'll plan on getting that done on the plane this afternoon.
Kristi Montooth: Mitochondrial-nuclear epistasis for metabolic fitness in flies
How do physiological systems evolve to maintain metabolic fitness? This is a process that involves interactions between two genomes, the nuclear and mitochondrial. Energy metabolism is important and is the target of mutation, but the same players are found all across the tree of life, suggesting that there is also strong selective pressure to maintain a common system.
Montooth is looking at inducible gene expression: is there an energetic cost to switch genes off and on? She's using respirometers that can measure the metabolic rate of single flies or larva. Flies are subjected to heat shock, which switches on HSP70. Flies normally have 6 copies of HSP70; they have mutants with 12, and they show a much greater rise in metabolic rate in response to heat shock.
Mitochondria are the source of the energy for this response. Mitochondria also have a high mutation rate and show strong linkage (no sexual recombination to cover for errors that arise). She's arguing for selection for compensatory evolution in the nuclear genome, and the accumulation of intergenomic epistasis. To dissect the effects of coevolution of mitochondria and nuclear genomes, she transplanted mitochondria from different species into Drosophila melanogaster. These have between 18 and 100 amino acid substitutions from the Dmel sequence.
She plots mitochondrial genome in order of increasing divergence against measured fitness (she used a competition assay that she did not describe in detail). There is no correlation seen at all. Also, high fitness X/mtDNA genotypes in one sex can be low fitness genotypes in the other sex. Interactions between the X and mtDNA can maintain variation in both genomes. All of the fitness effects, with one exception, are subtle.
Some of the transgenomic effects have very strong effects on female fecundity, developmental rates, and locomotion. But adult metabolic rate shows no difference! The idea is that there are lots of homeostatic mechanisms that maintain metabolism very tightly, which then have secondary effects.
Johanna Schmitt: Adaptive evolution of Arabidopsis flowering pathways in different climates
Schmitt does ecological development, looking at the timing of plant development in different environments. How does phenology respond and adapt to climate variation? We expect evolution to adapt to variation in seasonal timing. The signaling pathways in Arabidopsis are well known; they respond to hormones, photoperiod, and ambient temperature by way of a fairly complicated set of pathways she showed us in a slide...sorry, no way I can reproduce it here!
Across its range, it shows a great deal of life history variation; one pattern in the Mediterranean, another in colder northern climes, and yet another in Northern Scandinavia, varying in how much time they spend in vegetative rosettes vs. bolting and flower production. Questions: are there are genetic variants associated with different life history patterns, can they identify the genes, and can they perturb them?
The experiments involved massive plantings in different sites in Europe with different climates, with different mutants. Is natural variation in candidate genes involved in variation in flowering time? They studied FRIGIDA, a gene that effects the vernalization pathway. When you lose FRIGIDA, you should see much more rapid flowering. Loss of function in this gene has evolved multiple times in northwestern Europe. The effect depends on the timing of planting and climate.
The effect of the mutant varies across geography, and they have a photothermal model of flowering time. The plants are tracking light and temperature, and the different mutants are counting up these inputs in slightly different ways. They can use this model to make predictions on the effects of FRIGIDA on flowering time with changes in germination timing, and then test these in the next year with plantings at different times and in their different geographical sites, and the model is working accurately.
They are also plugging in predicted future climate change from NOAA, and asking what we can expect to see 100 years from now; she showed maps of expected flowering times in 2100. They are also making predictions of the expected distributions of FRIGIDA alleles over time, and they hope to do the same for many other alleles in Arabidopsis.
Artyom Kopp: How the fly got its sexy legs - the origin and evolution of Drosophila sex combs
The sex comb is a male specific structure on the front legs which most Drosophila species lack -- it's a fairly recent innovation. How do you evolve a novel structure?
It's limited to the melanogaster and obscura species groups, with quite a bit of diversity in different species, varying from 2-50 teeth, location, and arrangement. How do you go from sexually monomorphic state of a generically hairy leg to one with a specific bristle arrangement in males? The sex comb in males is homologous to a subset of bristles also found in females; in males, that patch of epidermis rotates 90° and the bristles enlarge. He showed a very pretty developmental series of this epithelium undergoing cell shape changes that move the bristles to a new location. Other species show similar morphological remodeling, but sometimes with some significant differences: D. kikkawai doesn't do the rotation, but instead the bristle precursors arise in their final position. These modes do not cluster together phylogenetically, so these are examples of convergent evolution, generating similar structures with different mechanisms.
They are taking apart the genetics and regulatory inputs of sex comb development. Basically, it involves just about everything. It seems to arise by an interaction between Hox and sex determination genes. Spatial modulation of Sex combs reduced controls sex comb position. Scr in pupa; stages is only expressed in a limited domain in the leg, and ectopic expression of Scr produces multiple sex combs. Expression is also sexually dimorphic, with no upregulation of Scr in female legs. In D. ficusphila, which has enormous sex combs, Scr levels are elevated yet further to 7 times the levels found in D. willistoni.
The sex determination gene Double sex is also spatially patterned, and is refined and elevated to high levels in the area around the developing sex combs. Ectopic expression of Dsx induces ectopic sex combs.
How can a new developmental pathway evolve? In the ancestral condition, Scr is controlled by spatial cues to produce segmental patterns of bristles; in the sex-comb carrying species, Scr is coupled to Dsx. This explains the spatial pattern of gene expression, but it also needs to acquire new downstream targets to, for instance, regulate epidermal rotations.
Drosophila are old, and many of these species differences are millions of years old. They are now looking at more recently diverged species with differences in sex comb morphology, and are looking for correlations between Scr and species divergence.
And with that, I have to run for the airport shuttle. Good talks, and I unfortunately have to miss Rudy Raff's wrap-up of the meeting.
Read the comments on this post... |
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pharyngula
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7:37a |
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365tomorrowsrss
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6:09a |
A Moment in a Life
http://www.365tomorrows.com/11/15/a-moment-in-a-life/ Author : Saurja Sen
The scanners showed signs of the same life-form across the galaxy, so it was safe to assume that the species, whatever it was, had discovered space travel. Thus communication with it was allowed and my advance team was sent in to begin all interaction protocols.
We hailed them on all frequencies, but there was no response. Since we had received life-signs, we went down to the surface of the planet to establish physical contact. Their cities were spectacular. Huge buildings, intricate designs, complex channels for what must have been transport, everything that one saw on other species’ planets existed. But there seemed to be no activity of any kind. A big city on any planet has a certain amount of hectic activity on it – on Earth, air-cars moving around, people teeming in the central areas; on Alpha Centauri IX, sky-trains flying everywhere; even under the surface of Cragganmore XII, the huge ball-bearing transporters. But on this planet, nothing. No movement whatsoever, yet signs of life, and seeming life-forms everywhere.
Praha, our biologist, took us to what seemed the dominant life-form. It looked organic, with greyish skin, about 7 feet tall. It had limbs with three extensions at three different heights that seemed capable of gripping objects. There appeared to be the equivalent of eyes at the 6 foot mark, and it had tank-tracks at ground level. The only visible sign of life that we saw was a thin column of gas being expelled midway down its side that Praha said was its respiration. Even this we may have missed had the gas not been a different colour to the air around it.
Our efforts to communicate with it continued failing. We tried sound, light, touch and smell. No reaction to any kind of noise or light, regardless of frequency. A complete indifference to our gentle prodding and to Craggan vapour bullets. Our experiments were repeated on all the nearby life-forms and they all resulted in a complete absence of responses. It was as if the species was deliberately ignoring our presence.
We placed a few of them under surveillance and worked shifts conducting other experiments. The physical watches on the life-forms were refreshed every six hours, and not a single observer reported any signs of any activity.
Just before we were due to return, Praha and I went back to the life-form we had initially encountered for a final contact instance. Praha noticed it first – the life-form was no longer in the same spot as on our first meeting. It had moved. Not by much, but enough that we noticed. The observers assigned to the life-form all swore that it had not moved on their watches.
Again, it was Praha who worked it out. It had moved, but so slowly that none of the observers had noticed, yet over the time we had spent on the planet, it was obvious. The same went for everything else – life-forms, transportation devices – they had all done something. Everything that had occurred had happened so slowly that we didn’t see it happen and thought nothing had happened at all.
That’s the moment when we realized that it wouldn’t be possible for us to communicate normally with them. Our relationships to a timescale were too different. As one species to another, we could, over a long time, but we wouldn’t be able to individually. Praha and I would be dead before they would ever be able to send either of us a message. We wouldn’t live to be acknowledged by the species we had discovered.
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| Saturday, November 14th, 2009 | |
pharyngula
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6:05p |
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pharyngula
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5:47p |
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pharyngula
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5:25p |
Dang #@$%& computer
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/scienceblogs/pharyngula/~3/HjfpOUnBZv8/dang_computer.php http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/11/dang_computer.php I was going to blog along with the talks today, but my note-taking computer, a little netpc, decided to turn up dead on arrival when I sat down to start listening — I had to take notes on paper. It felt medieval. There were a bunch of good talks and I'll transcribe them later when I get a chance.
For now, I just have a brief moment before I head off to the next event, so I'll leave you with a couple of Immensely Difficult Questions for Evolution that were just sent to me.
Q1. If humans evolved from monkeys, why are there not any other intelligent
beings that have evolved from other animals? Should we not see more
"intelligent beings" evolving from other species?
Q2. After centuries, we have yet to reproduce any artificial system that
simulates the functioning of the brain. Is it possible for such an complex
organ to have evolved from simpler organisms? how could this have been
possible?
Q1 is just a trivial variant of the "if we evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys" nonsense. We haven't evolved more intelligent species because a) intelligence seems to be an unlikely destination for an evolving species, b) there is no particular reason any particular species ought to evolve intelligence rather than, say, a better immune system or adapt to a new diet or acquire more efficient camouflage, and c) any intelligent monkey-men will be either enslaved or slaughtered by the species currently occupying the intelligent-tool-user niche, i.e., us.
Q2 is also just a variant of the "it's too complex to have evolved" argument. The human brain exists. We have evidence of predecessors with smaller brains. We can see that the brain forms by natural processes. We can see advantages to individuals in our lineage that are smarter. We can readily infer from the available evidence in anatomy, comparative biology, paleontology, molecular biology, and neuroscience that the simplest explanation, the one that requires the least invocation of mysterious, unidentified forces, is that the brain evolved. Anyone who wants to argue otherwise should provide concrete examples of other processes that could have played a role…and no, scientifically-inclined intelligent monkey-men who evolved 2 million years ago and used advanced biotechnological engineering to inflate the brains of their primitive tailless relatives is not a concrete example, unless you have real evidence of such creatures' existence.
Oh, and vaporous cosmic deities doing likewise don't count either, for the same reason. Read the comments on this post... |
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theninhotline
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10:25p |
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pharyngula
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7:48a |
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365tomorrowsrss
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5:00a |
A Catherine Rose by any other name
http://www.365tomorrows.com/11/14/a-catherine-rose-by-any-other-name/ Author : Q. B. Fox
“Each freighter, since the very first one we built, is given a unique name,” the technician explained.
“Can I choose a name, if it’s not already taken?” I asked.
“I’m afraid not, sir,” the tech was barely apologetic. “A name will be assigned to you.”
“Oh, I’d like to have named her after my wife.” Alice’s warm smile and freckled nose appeared in my mind’s eye.
“Most people do, sir; a spouse or sometimes a child. But the journeys are long. And families, well, sir, they don’t always stay together. And you can see how that would become awkward. I’m sorry, sir, but there it is; I can show you the statistics, if you’d like.”
He started to turn his screen towards me, as he was required to by the Full Disclosure in Work Act, but I waved him away. Alice and I knew we’d make it work.
I was encouraged to think of the Catherine Rose as an animal, as a pet. Some men preferred to think of the freighters as their mistress; if those statistics were accurate then some of their wives did too. Some of the women thought of the freighters as children. But we were all expected to treat the ships as if they were alive; talk to them, care for them, spoil them.
It had always been a tradition to give names to vessels. And their crews have always treated them as living things, superstitiously believing it made the craft work harder to stay reliable, to keep them alive.
But the science is the other way about: giving them names makes us empathise with them. We sit in a vast emptiness of black, listening to the hum of the engines, alert for any sound of distress or discomfort. We fill our days with the repeated routine of caring for our babies.
And it keeps us sane, never quite alone in that horizonless, apparently unending, nothing.
They may have stopped me naming my freighter after my wife, but they couldn’t stop me naming my daughter after the Catherine Rose. So while I was away, my first born said her first word, took her first steps and had her first tantrums. But I was always connected to her, through the ship that shared her name, by an invisible bond that linked them.
I was only on a short run when the accident happened. Just an accident, they told me, nothing you could have done, if you were there. The sun shone brightly on the day of the memorial service.
It was year before they’d let me do another long haul trip, a year of short runs and psychological evaluation. I had adjusted remarkably well, they said. There was no sign of long term mental trauma, they concluded. I had grieved for a suitable time and I had moved on.
“Space,” Dr. Addison had warned me, “deep space, can play tricks on your mind. You’ve adjusted well, but if you have any worries, any worries at all, contact me, straight away.”
Of course, I had grieved for my wife, but I have to be strong. I still have to care for our child. She whimpers in the night, and I get up, adjust her injectors, balance her output, sooth her back to sleep.
She’s crying now, her display flashing an urgent red, tugging me towards our planned destination. It’s alright, sweetheart, I tell her, disabling the alarm. Let’s go this way. It’s quiet and peaceful; no one to bother us, kiddo. Just me and you and as much space as we need.
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365tomorrowsrss
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4:17a |
Get GUD, GUD is Good
http://www.365tomorrows.com/11/14/get-gud-gud-is-good/ GUD Magazine
Current Issue
ISSUE 4 :: SPRING 2009
GUD (pronounced “good”) is Greatest Uncommon Denominator, an award-winning print/pdf magazine with two hundred pages of literary and genre fiction, poetry, art, and articles. GUD IS TIMELESS. GUD is modern in business, method, and execution, but timeless in message. GUD is published twice a year, for your reading pleasure.
Issue 4 begins with the end of the world and moves on from there. From the unromantically magical take on Ragnarøk in the lead story “Unbound” to the curious history of squid in “A Man of Kiri Maru”, this issue is steeped in mythos, making use of the old familiar tales and some new ones, mixing cosmologies from around the world–and from other worlds as well.
But the focus, be it of prose, poetry, or art, is always on the human–on the clashes between imagination and reality, on choices and redemption, on what the Other can tell us about ourselves. And like any GUD magazine, this one’s eclectic; browse around between the covers and you’re sure to come upon some things you’ll like, whether you’re a genre junkie or a generalist. We hope you’ll find some beauty, something uncommon, and that, for just a moment, the angle of the light will seem a little bit different.
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