Will someone please be my valentine? I need someone to display their affection for me by buying me a big pink box full of sweets that will rot my teeth and add five centimetres of flab to my hips. Nothing says "I love you" like a giant red teddy bear you discovered during your perilous epic adventure full of peril at Wal-Mart and checked out through the express aisle on your perilled way home from work. I'll think of how special you are everytime I snuggle with this gorgeous ball of synthetic fibers that was mass manufactured just for me in exotic Taiwan. Or even better yet, pledge your undying and eternal faith to me by purchasing me a diamond! My eyes will light up like the sun when I open up that little velvety box and see a tiny stone gazing back up at me, gleaming brilliantly against the dull incandescent light and saying, "I complete you, Neal..." I would swoon, thank Jesus Christ, pray for our troops, and marry you before the sun bathed us in sinister darkness. Then we would run indoors hand and hand, turn on every light in the house, and immerse ourselves in the comfort and security our electrical appliances provide all night long. We would cook up enough SPAM to feed a hundred Sub-Saharan Africans and watch the country music channel for hours while we make up cutesy-wutesy phrases using Scrabble tiles and feed each other little candy hearts with charming notes on them that taste like blackboard chalk from the 19th century. Maybe we could even go to the theatre and see a romantic comedy that will challenge our bowels and leave us questioning the finer aspects of our bathroom habits. We may even go so far as to share a $10 bucket of popcorn and even sip from the same $5 medium soda. I could hardly imagine anything more romantic than sucking carbonated sugary syrup out of the same plastic straw as my valentine, or feeling my greasy fingers rummaging around with yours amongst the warm popcorn dripping with that tantalising artifical butter. ...Except, of course, a diamond. Then after the credits roll and we have left our seats we will make love very conservatively for the sole purpose of procreation and have five beautiful children and give each of them one million and three free smilies. We may even decide to leave the theatre first! I cannot possibly think of anything more romantic than Valentine's Day in a mass consumption society... can you?

I find it's very cathartic to mock that which goads my goat. It's like all-natural prune juice for a commercially constipated mind.

Ignorance in a can

...Complete with an easy-open lid.

I happened to catch a glimpse of a clip on "America's Funniest Home Videos" early last night, featuring a live lobster being deposited into a pot of boiling water. I nearly gagged. I could never bring myself to do such a thing to any animal, be it from the land or the sea. What a horrible image to even run through my mind. I wonder what goes through people's heads when they open a can of SPAM and fry it up... apparently, not much at all, because if they thought too much about how spam is made, they probably wouldn't be able to shove it in their mouths without retching. It's just the leftover parts of animal carcasses, is all: intestines, eyeballs, noses, feet ... all thoroughly ground up and stuffed into a tidy little can for human consumption. It appears safe, because you just can't visually recognise any prominent evidence of whatever miscellaneous organs and appendages went into your particular can. Usually. It also most likely tastes no better nor offers any greater nutritional value than canned cat food probably does, but how many people are going to try canned cat food? Just close your minds and eat it. There you go... SPAM tastes so good, it may as well have been God's divine creation that fell right out of his perfectly sanitised holy lap. Only what you choose to believe has to matter, right? As long as that is what you choose to believe. If enough people assure me crab grass tastes delicious I'll probably love it too. Of course, I would sooner eat a fistful of twigs than a cheeseburger.

Speaking of holy laps (or not), I never forgot about my photography journal. I posted in it a few times this morning, and intend on doing so much more often from this day forth.

I've been obsessed with "Things Can Only Get Better" by Howard Jones. I grew up with Howard's music, after all. The song can pull me out of a glum mood more effectively than most others. Perhaps it's all the nostalgia and fine memories associated with it. Certainly, the lyrics are uplifting. I really must dow- err, obtain his greatest hits album. Simply, I'm enamored of that new wave sound. Many may dismiss it as being retro-hip 80's cheese that should have died out with disco, but I beg to differ. It's great music. Depeche Mode, New Order, A Flock of Seagulls, Ice House, Peter Gabriel, Tears for Fears, The Human League, B-52's, Talking Heads, Falco, INXS, Numan, The Police... I could go on, but that would be awfully self-indulgent of me.

I go sleep now.

Just plain evil.

Animal-Human Hybrids Spark Controversy
Maryann Mott
National Geographic News
January 25, 2005

Scientists have begun blurring the line between human and animal by producing chimeras—a hybrid creature that's part human, part animal.

Chinese scientists at the Shanghai Second Medical University in 2003 successfully fused human cells with rabbit eggs. The embryos were reportedly the first human-animal chimeras successfully created. They were allowed to develop for several days in a laboratory dish before the scientists destroyed the embryos to harvest their stem cells.

In Minnesota last year researchers at the Mayo Clinic created pigs with human blood flowing through their bodies.

And at Stanford University in California an experiment might be done later this year to create mice with human brains.

Scientists feel that, the more humanlike the animal, the better research model it makes for testing drugs or possibly growing "spare parts," such as livers, to transplant into humans.

Watching how human cells mature and interact in a living creature may also lead to the discoveries of new medical treatments.

But creating human-animal chimeras—named after a monster in Greek mythology that had a lion's head, goat's body, and serpent's tail—has raised troubling questions: What new subhuman combination should be produced and for what purpose? At what point would it be considered human? And what rights, if any, should it have?

There are currently no U.S. federal laws that address these issues.

Ethical Guidelines

The National Academy of Sciences, which advises the U.S. government, has been studying the issue. In March it plans to present voluntary ethical guidelines for researchers.

A chimera is a mixture of two or more species in one body. Not all are considered troubling, though.

For example, faulty human heart valves are routinely replaced with ones taken from cows and pigs. The surgery—which makes the recipient a human-animal chimera—is widely accepted. And for years scientists have added human genes to bacteria and farm animals.

What's caused the uproar is the mixing of human stem cells with embryonic animals to create new species.

Biotechnology activist Jeremy Rifkin is opposed to crossing species boundaries, because he believes animals have the right to exist without being tampered with or crossed with another species.

He concedes that these studies would lead to some medical breakthroughs. Still, they should not be done.

"There are other ways to advance medicine and human health besides going out into the strange, brave new world of chimeric animals," Rifkin said, adding that sophisticated computer models can substitute for experimentation on live animals.

"One doesn't have to be religious or into animal rights to think this doesn't make sense," he continued. "It's the scientists who want to do this. They've now gone over the edge into the pathological domain."

David Magnus, director of the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics at Stanford University, believes the real worry is whether or not chimeras will be put to uses that are problematic, risky, or dangerous.

Human Born to Mice Parents?

For example, an experiment that would raise concerns, he said, is genetically engineering mice to produce human sperm and eggs, then doing in vitro fertilization to produce a child whose parents are a pair of mice.

"Most people would find that problematic," Magnus said, "but those uses are bizarre and not, to the best of my knowledge, anything that anybody is remotely contemplating. Most uses of chimeras are actually much more relevant to practical concerns."

Last year Canada passed the Assisted Human Reproduction Act, which bans chimeras. Specifically, it prohibits transferring a nonhuman cell into a human embryo and putting human cells into a nonhuman embryo.

Cynthia Cohen is a member of Canada's Stem Cell Oversight Committee, which oversees research protocols to ensure they are in accordance with the new guidelines.

She believes a ban should also be put into place in the U.S.

Creating chimeras, she said, by mixing human and animal gametes (sperms and eggs) or transferring reproductive cells, diminishes human dignity.

"It would deny that there is something distinctive and valuable about human beings that ought to be honored and protected," said Cohen, who is also the senior research fellow at Georgetown University's Kennedy Institute of Ethics in Washington, D.C.

But, she noted, the wording on such a ban needs to be developed carefully. It shouldn't outlaw ethical and legitimate experiments—such as transferring a limited number of adult human stem cells into animal embryos in order to learn how they proliferate and grow during the prenatal period.

Irv Weissman, director of Stanford University's Institute of Cancer/Stem Cell Biology and Medicine in California, is against a ban in the United States.

"Anybody who puts their own moral guidance in the way of this biomedical science, where they want to impose their will—not just be part of an argument—if that leads to a ban or moratorium. … they are stopping research that would save human lives," he said.

Mice With Human Brains

Weissman has already created mice with brains that are about one percent human.

Later this year he may conduct another experiment where the mice have 100 percent human brains. This would be done, he said, by injecting human neurons into the brains of embryonic mice.

Before being born, the mice would be killed and dissected to see if the architecture of a human brain had formed. If it did, he'd look for traces of human cognitive behavior.

Weissman said he's not a mad scientist trying to create a human in an animal body. He hopes the experiment leads to a better understanding of how the brain works, which would be useful in treating diseases like Alzheimer's or Parkinson's disease.

The test has not yet begun. Weissman is waiting to read the National Academy's report, due out in March.

William Cheshire, associate professor of neurology at the Mayo Clinic's Jacksonville, Florida, branch, feels that combining human and animal neurons is problematic.

"This is unexplored biologic territory," he said. "Whatever moral threshold of human neural development we might choose to set as the limit for such an experiment, there would be a considerable risk of exceeding that limit before it could be recognized."

Cheshire supports research that combines human and animal cells to study cellular function. As an undergraduate he participated in research that fused human and mouse cells.

But where he draws the ethical line is on research that would destroy a human embryo to obtain cells, or research that would create an organism that is partly human and partly animal.

"We must be cautious not to violate the integrity of humanity or of animal life over which we have a stewardship responsibility," said Cheshire, a member of Christian Medical and Dental Associations. "Research projects that create human-animal chimeras risk disturbing fragile ecosystems, endanger health, and affront species integrity."

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/01/0125_050125_chimeras.html

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If this was something out of a science fiction programme, it would be quite entertaining; perhaps somewhat fascinating. The horror of this, though, lies in the fact that it's real.

It would help to first look past the usual media exaggeration. A child ending up with a pair of mice as his parents would be a prime story for a supermarket tabloid, but is hardly likely to ever occur. As for the idea of a mouse being given a human brain... look out, Pinky & the Brain fanatics, your favourite cartoon characters could soon become a reality in some mad scientist's laboratory! Really, humans may just create the very entity that will ultimately trigger their extinction... and it won't be machines, it will be two mice bent on conquering the world by any means necessary!

To be perfectly serious, however, I am absolutely against vivisection in the first place, but this is even more warped. Dear Miss Cohen claims it's degrading to human dignity. Naturally, my sentiment lies more toward animal dignity. I can hardly imagine a greater insult to an animal's dignity than to forcibly inject human cells into them. And I thought it was bad enough humans have the power to impose their will onto any other species of animal on the planet. How about the capability of imposing their will into them? Truly frightening. I am happy for Canada and their decision to ban chimera creation. ...Yet another reason to appreciate the great north.

Of course, the typical excuse for pursuing such bizarre research methods is that they could potentially save human lives. It's a logical argument, but not one I agree with. To what sadistic lengths will humans go just to potentially prolong the lives of certain members of their own species? Ultimately, scientific advancement through vivisection is something I will always vehemently detest. Hell, I don't advocate humanity's progression at all. It can kiss my furry ass post-haste, especially since it involves the endless suffering of other species. Just plain evil.

This is lovely inspirational material for fictional stories, though. Imagine a scientist truly going mad (as if they aren't mad enough already), and secretly creating a large number of chimeras out of massive predatory animals. These powerful beasts, let's say two dozen of them, would possess the intellectual capacity and scientific knowledge of a comparatively physically weak human, combined with their acute senses and sharp instincts. Oh, imagine the sort of destruction and chaos these poor chimeras would cause... they'd first let every other innocent animal out of its cage and guide them out to the forest (assuming there's one left by the time this is conceivable), then roam down the streets, taking life and destroying property left and right. Oh, it would be quite a grim tale from a human standpoint, but in this case, I'd just have to side with the cursed chimeras ... or maybe they wouldn't be so much cursed as... empowered.

Yes, I am particularly fond of the fictional artistic representation of distinguishable human traits in animal vessels. I find such creatures majestic, beautiful, and erotic. This is not the way, however, I would want such beings to enter reality. Go slice a cantaloupe and keep your cells to yourself, god damn it.

Today was a bad day. Short fuse on I + inflammatory behaviour of others = pronounced explosion.

I was recently informed by some "romance coach" on TV that you should "never cut your pasta." Shame on me, for my mother made spaghetti last night and I sliced every last strand up with the blunt edge of my flatware utensil to facilitate the oral consumption process. How unromantic of me for not twirling the pasta around my fork like a couth gentleman. Next time I'll just use my paws. The cushy compost pile out back is a delightful place to eat. ...Like a fancy steakhouse, even though you're not surrounded by dozens of people noisily chattering about the latest reality TV show and grinding up dead cow guts with their false dental work. No, the compost pile isn't that romantic. There isn't even a designated self-service tobacco poisoning section! That's right, folks! Better leave your carcinogen-crammed cancer cases in the paddywagon; there's no chimney for you on my stack.

Humans are ridiculous.

I feel bitter. Like a salt lick peed on by a mountain goat. I have this overwhelming urge to bite a stranger and carve my initials into their left temple with a hobby knife while strumming a Neuroticfish song on a banjo. Where's Dr. Phil when you need him? I never have these problems at 3:00 in the afternoon!

I'm sleeping through my mourning economics course tomorrow. Group work is becoming highly loathsome, considering it's contradictory to my entire approach on life. The multi-tiered classrooms make interaction between classmates on different rows nigh impossible, so why bother making people count themselves into groups like we're in second grade?

I can be such a cub sometimes.



But just wait until I receive my deluxe fluorescent highlighter set of mass destruction. I shall wield my mighty vibrant tip and grace the history books with my skillful stroke of renowned resplendency! Your fate is emphasised in a morbid shade of bright pink, so you'd better run faster than the ink! Vengeance will be mine, you monkeys.

...And everyone that's so unkind gets swallowed by the tide.

I have accomplished many goals and projects this past week. First of all, I landed a part-time job working for the university's agricultural division. I should be able to start by the end of next week, and it should carry me through the rest of the semester, providing I am not miraculously chosen for a higher paying part-time job. I also took the initiative of consulting an academic advisor to determine when exactly I can graduate. It turns out there is a distinct possibility I can be out of school with a degree by December of this year. I cannot say I mind that likelihood. Assuming I pass all my courses this semester (of course), I'll need eight more courses (23 credits). The best path, it appears, is to enroll in a couple 3-credit summer courses, then take 18 credits in the fall. Since each course in the brief summer sessions go for three hours a day, five days a week (for a total of 15 hours of class time per week, as opposed to the usual three during regular semesters), taking more than two courses at a time would be a killer. Even two courses is not far off from full time job status. Having that kind of schedule will feel quite a lot like high school, but the catch is, it goes for a mere four weeks-- May 16th to June 9th. Providing I can enroll in suitable courses for that particular session, that would leave the rest of the summer open. I would have plenty of time to, say, travel to the mainland for awhile, then return to wrap up those 18 credits. What happens after that remains to be seen. I haven't planned quite that far. Also, Hindery commented that I produce some of the best chapter summaries/critiques in the class, but my geographical rhetoric can get pretentiously glossy and circumlocutory at times. I was already half-conscious of that, but hearing that from him rang a few bells for me. In this region, direct language is most commonly preferred, and I have always had a penchant for being a little dodgy in my academic writing. I suppose it's time I force some self-improvement out of... myself.

Having my own notebook computer back from the repair centre feels luxurious, to say the least, and it's enough incentive to begin a new web-building project. I may start by updating my existing web site, and then creating another one with a more focused theme. It might help to restore some of my interest in and involvement with the world wide web and its participants.

I would like to comment on the evolution of my musical tastes within the past year, if only for my own future reference. It seems no more than a year has passed since I proclaimed that metal is the musical genre that suits me most. I was heavily into cheesy bands like Sonata Arctica and HammerFall for one reason or another, the foremost probably being that they seemed so gloriously "different." Before exploring metal more intensively, I was listening to average, mainstream rock music. That was before I ever realised that so much better music was to be found ... most of it originating outside of America's borders, and not readily available in your local Wal-Mart. The dark, phantasmagoric themes and hard, melodic sounds of the metal I got myself into appealed to me greatly. ...It touched me in much more dramatic ways than my mom's light jazz or my dad's 60's classic rock. Of all the bands I became fascinated with, Dream Theater was the whopper. Obsession would be a more precise term to describe my connection with their music. For many months, I hardly listened to much else. Very gradually, that obsession began to fade, and simultaneously, I was introduced to the splendor of electronic music last spring.

Certainly, I had known about electronic music before. Techno acts like The Chemical Brothers and rave/house artists like Antiloop have entertained me for years. I simply wasn't aware of how much more the genre had to offer, and how stellar that material was. In my brother's collection of digital music files, I had found a trance composition entitled "Zone of Consciousness" by Ghost in the Machine, and I recall being mesmorised by it. In the same year, 1999, I discovered a few mp3s by an artist called "Infected Mushroom" -- also downloaded by my brother. The music was unlike anything I had heard before, and I instantly became enamored of it. Hence my later obtaining any of their material I could get my paws on.

Until spring of 2004, however, I was exposed to very little electronic music, aside from psytrance/goa groups like Infected Mushroom, and a few techno groups. Fortunately, I met someone who was positively passionate about electronica, and would become a very good friend. Upon receiving the first batch of CD's he burned for me, I was plunged into the incredible world of trance music. I must admit, since it was so dramatically different from metal, the sound took a little while to absorb. I knew right from the first time I heard "Afterglow" by Plastic Angel, though, that this was something special--that this music would undoubtedly become a passion of mine as well. I could not then predict, though, that it would outrank metal as being my absolute favourite genre of all.

It's something about that rhythmic, throbbing beat serving as the supporting foundation of beautiful, harmonious synth melodies. I can usually feel it as if it were my own pulse ... like the music is pumping through my bloodstream, not just through my speakers. Many trance songs feel much like a ride on the back of a giant mythical avian creature through eternal time and space, and the pulsating beat is the heavy flapping of the bird's wings as we ascend higher and higher. When the beat subsides and the multi-textured melodies continue to weave around one another like the vibrant threads of aural quiltwork, I feel as if we are simply floating, effortlessly suspended above the clouds as our hearts witness the beauty that drives our celestial kinetics. The climactic focal point of the song equates to our spiritual transcendence.

So, I believe it's safe to say electronic music is my new me; be it trance, techno, industrial, EBM, drum & bass, acid jazz, or what-have-you. I'm already familiar with countless artists in the genre, and I must have more. In a way, I am disheartened that the genre seems universally ignored by a mainstream audience in America--most Americans are all about their country, or their rap, or their whiny punk/emo, or their awesome metal singers who cough up course-grain sandpaper more often than sing, or their horrible pop stars that more or less define the mediocrity of America as a nation through their formulaic lyrics and dreadfully hackneyed musical contributions. The best music, I have found, is usually foreign.

I still enjoy many different genres of music. I heard an Uncle Kracker song the other day, and liked it. But electronic music is in my blood, now. It's a far cry from the usual guy on bass, another guy on lead guitar, another guy on backing guitar and vocals, another guy on keyboards, and another guy on drums. How refreshing.

The word of the day is conniption

I wish I could be someone else right now. Anything else. A termite choking on a splinter, perhaps.



Fog is beautiful.

I've been listening to "Agua Para Mis Abuelos" by Icarus throughout the day, and... I swear it, that drum & bass instrumental does something to me I cannot quite define. It's like a paintbrush that dips into the deepest well of my soul, saturating its fine bristles in a reserve of liquid euphoria less oft tapped with each year that meanders further from the magical mystery of childhood, and splatters it all over the trembling inner walls of my spirit. There are songs you consider great and hold very dear to yourself, and then there are songs that manifest themselves in your heart and soul, and essentially become a part of you. Even when you are not actually listening to said music, it still plays on. You don't hear the notes; you feel them instead, and the harmony plays on over your shoulder. Rarely does any song affect me so intensely, but there are a few others in my possession that do. It's hard not to be overcome with a sense of warmth and anticipation when considering how many more such songs I will discover in the future ... how many are already out there waiting to be discovered by me, and how many are yet to be composed. Perhaps a song that shall touch me in ways I cannot conceive is presently but an inkling of a preconception in the mind of an artist, who's vacillating over whether or not he should act upon it.

Perhaps I shall attempt to create electronic music of my own, someday. The inspiration is there, and so is the fascination.