thom space

Well I am back in Colorado today from that quaint little NYC and I really feel great about my vacation. One of the more interesting things I learned while I was there was just what it is that my cousin is getting her Ph.D in at NYU, it turns out to be in the field of Construal Theory which makes all sorts of claims about why we do the things we do. I need to learn more about it, and when I do I will summerize it, but until then live with the link.

I am in Brooklyn tonight, man I love Brooklyn. I went to a crazy awesome little resturant named Dumont with my dear friends Peter and David, and then chilled at the Royal Oak where my old firends Andy Louke and Joey Bouchard were DJing, it was insane to know every one in the entire place. I should move here, because as my firend petey tells me I would already be mob deep. There is a lot to be said for that. To be young and in the city, what a life it is. Tomorrow I am planning on cruiseing around the Met all day long, if only every day of my life could be so hard. I like it, I like it, I like it.

I just had a debate with my father about stem cells. His position is that Bush has done more for stem cell research than any president in history. My position is that what he has done is put restrictions that hinder progress, in a way we are both right.

Bush is the first President to offer any federal funding for stem cells, good for him, he did so in this speech. The reason, I think, he was the first is because it was only during his presidency that the issue came to a head, it is unfair to say that Clinton, or Bush Sr., or Reagan did not do their parts because quite frankly they did not really have the opportunity to do so, previously stem cell research did not include embryonic stem cells but rather Adult stem cells, it is only when it was discovered that embryonic stem cells hold the greatest potential that it was determined that the research would be greatly benefited by federal funding. So Bush compromised by allowing federal funding to be used for 60 embryonic stem cell lines that already existed. That sounds good until you stop to consider that in fact only 19 of those lines are available to researchers and of those that are available most contain bits of mouse feeder cells which greatly decrease there potential value for humans. What that means is that if you are a researcher who was not lucky enough to have one of those few strains before 2001 you are out of luck because you can’t get one now, and that means that instead of 100% of the people working on the problem that could be, instead there is only a small fraction them doing so, and usually in the case of science the more brain power involved the better the chance of achieving results. So why not lift the restriction and allow new stem cell lines, thousands of embryonic stem cells that would be perfectly good to use are thrown out every day by fertility clinics, I guess the problem is that the president and his supporters think it is more respectful of the potential life to throw it in the trash than it is to use it to potentially save lives.

Kerry would have lifted the restrictions on federal funding to include new lines, thus expanding the potential for positive advancement by creating more opportunities to succeed. And as to the argument that the reason you can’t use new stems cell lines being that they come from a mass of cells that could become a human at one point and therefore that it is the same as murder to destroy stem cells I find to be highly offensive.

That some conservative Christians, and our president, believe that it is the same moral situation to destroy a mass of cells as it is to kill a living breathing, thinking, conscious human being, I think, is absurd; no wonder they talk so much about devaluing life, they are already experts at it.

I am struck by the absolute tragedy of what this election has shown us, that the simple desire to be on the perceived right side of “moral” issues was enough for people to overlook transgressions that should have, under normal circumstances, been more than enough to inspire a regime change. The fact that not only was his regime not changed, but rather rewarded with a mandate, I find to be morally repugnant. I do not recall lieing and war making as being bedrock Christian values, but I guess that is just me being old fashioned, and the rest of the country being progessive.

So lets look at one of the side notes of this new election, the Tongass National forest Where there had been a road-less rule in affect to protect the remaining old growth forest, now the road-less rule has been over turned and with a republican led congress and a popularly supported right wing executive branch the Clear Cutting is set to begin. 50 new areas have been designated to be cut which will diminish the total remaining old growth stands by more than half. And the very people who were up in arms about this issue are the very same people who voted for this President. I can simply not believe that the American people think this is acceptable. It truly makes me ashamed, ASHAMED. I hope that it is possible for future generations to forgive us when they go to the Tongass Forest and do not find a single Old Growth tree standing, but why should they forgive us, when we had the chance to set things right but instead decided to REWARD the very wrong doing that is destroying our world.

Hope is not really dead.Barack Obama makes me smile. There will be a future once we come together with better policy and are lead by a leader who really does unite us. We need another JFK to launch us to the moon. Perhaps that is what Obama will do. I am certainly going to keep my eye on him.
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I must face REALITY and the reality is that my nation is a very, very, conservative place. People do not want Gays to have equal rights, people do not want Stem Cells to be used for life bettering advancement, people do not want a woman to have the right to choose, people do not want universal access to affordable health care, people do not want to respect the rest of the world by abiding by international charters. I must face up to the fact that my country is filled with extremely right wing people, who have enough blind faith to assure themselves that everything is going to be okay.

I guess I just need to be blind too.

It is November 3rd and I am awake and Kerry has conceded the Election to Bush. So this is a message to all women from Sweden, if you would like to marry a 6′3″, 200 pound, blue eyed, ski guide/whale watcher/philosopher; I am available for immediate relocation.

HOPE IS DEAD.

I am in a state of shock. I can not believe the fact that what has happened has happened. I had faith that my fellow Americas would see, what is to me, the obvious fact that President Bush has failed as a leader and in so doing has failed our country. The fact that 50% of the population either didn’t see his failure or did see it and just didn’t care makes me so sad that I am literally on the verge of tears. I AM ANGRY, I AM ANGRY, I AM ANGRY. when I wake up tomorrow I can only hope that there has been a huge change of events and that Kerry will have some how won the Election, but since I do not think that will be the case, all I have left to say is shame on you America for being so willfully blind to the reality of the world we live in by giving George W. Bush a mandate to be more brazen for the next four years. GOD HAVE MERCY ON US ALL.