Noticing and Noting

They say news should be tailored to the consumer. To a certain extent, that has been going on for a while. People are reading about the Kardashians while I have to look up how to spell their name. Confession time: I'm not really sure how many sisters are in that family. From the supermarket tabloids I see at the checkout, I can guess there are at least two. For a while I thought perhaps they were mother/daughter, like Naomi and Wynonna Judd. Now I don't know why the Kardashians are famous. I'd be more impressed if they did/made/invented/wrote something. Perhaps if they teamed up with their brothers Sleepy, Sneezy, Happy, Grumpy, Doc and Dopey. Other than that...
A while back I touched base on people who were geniuses not being recognized as truly talented. The math whiz who worked at Subway, or the guy who bags groceries at my store and tutors calculus in his spare time.
Are they a taco short of a combo platter? Maybe.
Fame is not only fleeting, there are different definitions of success.
There was a bar here in town by the name of Taco land. Graffiti covered walls, a dark stage and the filthiest bathrooms. It was a dive in the truest sense of the word, but it was considered the pinnacle of the underground music scene. Playing Taco land was a benchmark for a struggling band. The owner, Ram Ayala, was killed years ago along with the doorman in a robbery. The place was boarded up, the music moved elsewhere. People I talk to recall the place with fondness. It was said that it wouldn't be Taco land without Ram, but time marches on. New owners have cleaned it up and made it more family friendly.
Last year I got an autograph from someone I consider famous. He's well know in the nerd set, but you wouldn't know his name or his artwork. Upon getting it, I showed it to all my nerdy friends and they all gave heartfelt congratulations. If I walked down the street and did the same thing to a complete stranger, the result would be different.
Two days ago, an artist that I considered very talented passed away. He barely made the obituaries in his hometown paper.
From what I read in the articles about David Trampier, he left a budding illustration career to become a cabbie in Carbondale, Illinois. Seriously, WTF??
Sources say he had creative differences with publishers. Checks made out to him for his work went uncashed. Tramp literally dropped off the face of the earth and was presumed dead. It was the geek version of an Abe Vigoda joke, people think he's dead until he makes another appearance in TV or movies.
Now some of you are going to look at the pictures in the link and think; 'so what?' A few people will say; 'Hey, he did that?' or, 'I never knew.'
Tramp's art was narrow in focus to the nerd set, but his work graced book covers the world over. Think of the nerd subset but internationally. It is possible he didn't know how far his reach was, or how many people his art touched. It is also possible that he felt shy and awkward about his success.
In thinking about this for the last day or two, I've reached a conclusion: Fame does not equal universal popularity. But what separates the merely successful to the moderately famous?
Persistence.
Steven King puts in 8 to 12 hour days writing. Some of his books are better than others, but he keeps cranking them out. I admire him for that.
Phil Foglio and Howard Taylor have drawn webcomics for years and are considered rock stars of the nerd set. Their track record can be measured in decades.
Karma may be instant, but success is slowly built up layer upon layer.

Do what you want

An interesting thing came across my computer screen via the Huffington Post: A Duke University freshman admits to being a porn star. In reading the article it seems a fraternity brother found out her secret and preceded to tell all his Greek brothers. Well, duh...
Never mind how they found out. It's not my place to judge someone else's life. This girl was smart enough to get into Duke. I saw the number 60,000 per year being thrown about while researching this post. So this girl makes an adult movie and it pays for her education. Unusual, but not novel.
I've known quite a few girls who danced at clubs while attending college during the day. Anecdotal evidence suggests this is a strategy that can pay for itself.
The double standard society places on women is hypocritical at best. I could do a whole bit on the Madonna/Whore stereotype, but y'all would tune my words out because it points to an ugly side of life. We Americans watch a lot of porn. 12 billion dollars raked in the U.S. alone. World wide it's closer to 57 billion. 
I don't have to guess, but it went down like this: the frat boys were watching a porno movie, because that is what frat boys do a lot of besides drink cheap beer. One of them said; 'Hey, that looks like that chick from my class.'
Being curious, horny and immature, one of the frat boys asks the girl if she was ever in a porn movie. Being honest about the situation, she admits it, but asks him to keep it a secret.
Ha! Frat boys keeping a secret. Who are we fooling? He blabs it to his whole fraternity hours later. Why should we be surprised?
Think what you want, but she found a way to pay for her college. In her words, she'll be nearly debt free. Now I'm not advocating this. Generally if you want something bad enough, you'll find a way to make it happen.
I had a discussion with my teen daughters about this. My oldest read the article. Her response?
"It's not what I would do, but I understand why she did it."
She went on to say, "More power to her. If she got something out of it, good for her."
Ever the pragmatic one, my middle child observed, "She should've not said anything. She should of left herself an escape route."
Hmm... plausible deniability. Even if she isn't ashamed of what she did, (she isn't) there will still be repercussions. She might get kicked out of her dream school. The hate e-mail is already pouring in. The trolls have caught her scent and are sending the bile her way. Not unexpected, mind you. I think that's cowardly: Hiding behind a computer screen while sending out some disgusting diatribe. Ye without sin cast the first stone...

So you made a movie that has gone around the internet and you're asking for privacy? That girl has an irony deficiency. Her stage name is in the article. I'm not using any of her nom de plumes because it doesn't matter in the long run. Sweetie, your 15 minutes are up. Move along...

But what does that say about us?
The 'men' who watched it are as much to blame as anyone. I'm assuming there had to be a guy in the video. Shouldn't he be held under the same microscope as the girl? Therein lies the double standard. Guys who sleep around are considered players. Girls who sleep around are considered whores. Makes you wonder, doesn't it?

Deaf awareness month

With all the stuff going on around here, I'm not surprised that this tidbit almost got away from me. It seems March is deaf awareness month.
This has roots in the Deaf President Now movement that started in Gallaudet University back in 1988. Perhaps I should back track a bit.
Gallaudet University is the premiere school for the deaf in Washington DC. In 1988 the board of trustees selected a hearing president to lead Gallaudet. This didn't sit to well with the students and alumni of the school. One of the things being deaf teaches you is self reliance. Having a hearing president was akin to letting the hearing people decide what was best for you. As if deaf people couldn't make their own decisions. This morphed into a movement referred to in deaf culture as DPN, or deaf president now. By the time March 13,1988 rolled around, several members of the board of trustees had resigned or stepped down due to the immense pressure put on them by the students, faculty and alumni, as well as the media attention Gallaudet was receiving. A deaf president by the name of King I. Jordan was selected. The other demands from the students were eventually met, including 51% of the board of trustees must also be deaf.
In turn, this inspired an entire deaf civil rights movement which is still going on to this day.
From what I've read in many books including Train Go Sorry by Leah Hager Cohen, deaf people have led a difficult life. Even to the point of having their language and reproductive rights taken away.

I count my blessings.

If anyone says I'm a bad father just because I'm deaf, they better be out of my arm reach. For that matter, I'm not a big fan of the words 'disabled' or 'handicapped' either.
I am proud more than I can say that one of my daughters wants a career in deaf advocacy.
To this day, deaf people are relegated to the back of the social bus, but adversity like this brings out the best in deaf culture. More and more I'm seeing articles about deaf owned startups and deaf entrepreneurs. Deaf people are creators and I count myself among them. 

A lot tougher

This post might take a bit of time because I want to do this right. When I find a topic I want to talk about, I do a little research, read a few articles and give my take on them. Pictures and links are a plus. Here is my hour research rule: If I can't find it after an hour of using Google or any other search engine, then other people would have a tougher time or not at all.
I'd recently finished reading an article about climate change. It's happening. Here's the whole article.
One paragraph that was noteworthy was this one:

1.  Climate scientists agree: climate change is happening here and now. Based on well-established evidence, about 97% of climate scientists have concluded that human-caused climate change is happening. This agreement is documented not just by a single study, but by a converging stream of evidence over the past two decades from surveys of scientists, content analyses of peer-reviewed studies, and public statements issued by virtually every membership organization of experts in this field. Average global temperature has increased by about 1.4˚ F over the last 100 years. Sea level is rising, and some types of extreme events – such as heat waves and heavy precipitation events – are happening more frequently. Recent scientific findings indicate that climate change is likely responsible for the increase in the intensity of many of these events in recent years.

Good enough for me, I was planning on my next car being a hybrid or electric car anyway. I've written about this in the past, but there's more to it. I'm seeing more solar and wind farms on the landscape and because of that I'm cautiously optimistic. What's the downside here? having a cleaner environment? Fewer gas guzzlers? Really, what do we have to lose?

Despite all that, I think things are getting better. Why? Because of this. Hey, wow and fantastic! There is evidence the ozone hole is getting smaller. It's my personal belief that we're not that far gone and by being a little more conscientious about our role on the planet, we can undo the damage we've caused. That isn't reason to slack off. If anything, I think we should put more effort into recycling and alternate energies rather than coal and oil. I'm going to make a prediction: we are going to run out of fossil fuels in our lifetimes. 

Yup, that happened

That didn't take long. Fred Phelps Sr. has past away. There are several things being said about him, none of them kind. I hope he finds the answers to his problems.
Bodies wear out. Organs fail. Our physical forms are hardy and fragile at the same time. That said, I believe the consciousness, the spirit, doesn't die along with the shell of meat. It becomes something else.
For a short time, I was between two realities. In one world was in agony and there were obstacles in my way in communicating with the loved ones who were nearby.
The other world was tranquil, peaceful. It was comfortable and I could go anywhere, do whatever I wanted to do. For a while I was visiting other places and eras. Even though I was with other people, I wasn't with anyone I recognized as family. Eventually I choose to stay in the place where friends and family were, despite the pain and trouble communicating. Eventually, the things that hurt became less so. I found new ways to connect with my loved ones.
That is my wish for a man who caused anguish and suffering of others. To learn, embrace diversity in all it's forms, and most of all, to grow as a person.
Looking back through the years I can see times where I was different. Literally I'm not the same person I was ten or twenty years ago... and I'm all right with that.
Every now and then I'll bump into someone I knew from years ago. When talking to them, the same phrase comes up again and again: I'm not the person I was from long ago. That's something I view as a good thing. 
Think about your own life. Are you doing the same thing you were five or ten years ago? Twenty? It may be a job or hobby, or even washing the dishes. Do you perform the same action you did back then?
Change is who we are. See it in others and see it in yourself. You'll be a better person because of it, I promise.

random quotes

I rest my case

A higher understanding

When I read this article Sunday night, two thoughts occurred to me.
One: Karma is a bitch.
Two: I have no sympathy for this hateful man.
Fred Phelps took his bigotry, wrapped it in religious justification and fed his hate. His actions destroyed his family. Sons and daughters excommunicated from the 'church' he founded. 
Perhaps I was brought up differently. To me, love will always triumph over hate. Anger, even righteous anger, takes a lot of energy. Even more, it takes a bit of your soul.

There is a tale I heard a long time ago and since learning of Fred Phelps' ill health, I thought it appropriate.
Inside each of our hearts is two wolves. One is patient, honorable and loyal. The other is cunning, deceitful and treacherous. The two wolves are constantly fighting... battling for control.
So which wolf wins? The one you feed.

I've heard the rumors that a bunch of groups want to picket his funeral and disrupt things the way Westboro Baptist Church did for a lot of people. There's one or two things wrong with that.
For starters, Mr. Phelps will be dead. He won't care. You won't be paying him back for all the crap he's pulled. Instead, the anger and hurt will be perpetuated, and no one needs that.
Be big enough to rise above the petty prejudice and hate.
These Westburo Baptist people have already shown their ignorance and repulsive behavior. They are the laughing stock of the entire world. Perhaps Mr. Phelps realized that and had a change of heart. We don't know for sure, no one is talking. The only thing I do have is that Fred Phelps sr. was excommunicated from his own church. 
Ah, irony. The wolves eat their own.

Passages

Passing from one stage of life to another is part and parcel of us. Change: It's who and what we are, becoming part of a greater whole.
Did that make sense? The first few times reading that didn't feel right to me at first, but I'm comfortable with that... well, as comfortable as I can get.
I'm going through some life changes right now, so are the loved ones in my life. The one thing I've noted in the past, through my writing and observations, is that the manner in which we react to changes in our lives are nearly as important as the changes themselves. It's not the action, it's the reaction.
One of my rules in writing this blog is not to divulge personal names and say negative things toward others. Putting the bad stuff out there propagates the good/ evil stereotypes, and we don't need any more of that. There have been times when I've been a savior to some people and the most vile beast to others. Some times both in the same week. Does that make me a force for good? Does that mean I'm a dick? Perhaps it's a little of each.
My father in law is facing his declining health with a bit of humor and grace. The wife and I are upset that he's trying to face things by himself. The lesson I've learned a long time ago is that carrying such a burden shouldn't be done alone. We don't know all the facts yet, but my wife wants to be there for the man that means so much to her.
I am about to experience a career change, whether I want to or not. I've been putting it off for as long as possible in the hopes of easing the transition but, outside forces are conspiring against me.
My wife has started a new career with a bank and insurance giant. Some really good people who have a genuine calling to be teachers are slipping away. It is the loss of future generations that some outstanding human beings will never have the chance to inspire the greatest number of minds as a teacher. For our part, we've tried to change things from inside the system. Now my wife and I are going to do other things. We will, of course start with our children, teaching them how to be critical thinkers, not to rig a system already stacked against them. But to influence them to become better persons. What's so wonderful about this is that curiosity and learning in this manner is contagious. 
Love overcomes hatred. Reason trumps fear. You may be afraid of change, detest it, deny what is happening... but it comes about. 

Camping Hacks

With things so hectic around here, we sometimes have to get out of town for the weekend. I'm feeling the need to unplug for a day or two, but that doesn't mean I have to suffer for it!
Here are some neat tricks to make camping less of a chore than you think it is.
I'll add my two cents to that list.

• Pre-cook your meat. Food poisoning is not the best way to enjoy camping. That way you simply have to reheat stuff. Jerky: don't knock it until you've tried it.
• Plan your meals. Break them down into little baggies if you have to. That pancake suggestion in the link? Yeah, I was doing that a long time ago. Works the same way with biscuits and coffee, which is another tip they suggest.
• In addition to the porta-john suggestion, may I suggest a shovel be in the equipment list? If you are truly going out into the wilderness, dig a small hole at least two feet deep. In ground bacteria will take care of the rest after you've refilled the hole.
• Air mattresses are lifesavers. You'll sleep better (read: wife and kids won't complain as much.) than on the bare earth. Those soft pads are a neat idea as well.
• I've heard stories of people getting poisoned with tin-can bread, due to the inner lining of a can. If you are going to use this tip, try it at home first.
• A long time ago I picked up a book called Camping & Wilderness Survival, by Paul Tawrell. It's full of life saving tips and I consider it my camping bible. This book will always be with me on expeditions. Just a note: Think of it more as an encyclopedia that you refer to, even I haven't read the whole thing.
• That gluing sandpaper to a matchbox is a good idea, sports and outdoor stores do sell camping matches that will light even when wet. I went out to inspect my camping gear and check on the exact name of the camping book, when I remembered I also had a firemaking kit. A chunk of magnesium and flint. So you can start a fire with a knife if you need to. I also know how to start a fire with steel wool, but we don't need to go into that, stick to the easy stuff.
• Take a sturdy rope with you. There are a multitude of things you can use that for. I've made a tent, saved cars stuck in the mud, hang dried clothes, made a tarp... the list is endless, you get the idea.
• They suggest bio degradable tape for hiking. I'd like to add a whistle to that. People can scream their head off and no one will notice. A whistle can be heard miles away.
• Baby wet-naps. they're extremely useful. End of story.
• I don't have the campfire panani press. When I load up, there is charcoal, my trusty Coleman grill and assorted coolers and water jugs. You will need to boil water. You will need to make coffee. I have iron skillets because I'm old school that way.

Plan your trip. Know where you're going. Be aware of your surroundings. It's a good idea to check on the weather before you head out... just saying.

Spring Break, grilling season has begun

The minions are home for Spring Break. I know most of the country is still in the icy grips of winter snow, but we're on the upswing in the trampoline weather here in Texas. I'm sitting outside basking in a decent 75 degree warm spell showing my oldest the finer points of grilling. Using the poke method to test how done the meat is. I had to point out Rare is different than Raw. Oh Salmonella, you're calling my name...
Not today wiseguy.
Don't worry, tomorrow we're going to dip to the 60's and 40's for the next few days. In the meantime, I'm going to keep a lookout for the first bluebonnets of spring. A friend told me they spotted one out near Bastrop, but that report is unconfirmed.
Seeing as the middle of the month is fast approaching, all I can say is: I need more time, dammit!
I need to finish this Minecraft dungeon. I need to download some movie previews. I need to get more than 5 hours of sleep a night.
If you're wondering why I'm sounding a little tense is our gaming con  is in two weeks. Things got tough, but we're trying to make the best of a strenuous situation. I keep telling myself that this is not my fault. Cancelled venues, guest schedule conflicts. All in a days work. For now I'm chalking this up to a learning experience.
After the con and before spring gets away from me, I'm going to try and rebuild the porch. This has been sitting in the back of my brain for a while now. What I should do is write all this down and come up with a material list. I know what I want to do, I simply need to make it happen. Small steps...

Uplifting advice from Bill Waterson via Zen Pencils

Gavin Aung Than has a blog called Zen Pencils. This was originally posted back in August of 2013, but it just caught up with me at the beginning of March.  In his blog, Than takes quotes from famous people and puts them in illustrations.
Nifty idea, huh?
Than went one step further by drawing it in Bill Waterson's style of Calvin and Hobbes. Imitation is indeed the sincerest form of flattery. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Give Zen Pencils a looksee and say hi. Remember, support your local artist.

Odds and ends

This explains so much

Putting this up early before my Sunday night nerd fix. They're showing the original Cosmos series and my daughters are watching it. One more check on the parental well done list. 
Earlier in the week, I saw an article that made me think. With all the stuff going on at my household, nearly a full week went by before I could address the issue.
The article in question is from the Huffington Post and it deals with female anatomy. Specifically it deals with the clitoris, so if you're uncomfortable reading about anatomy, now is your chance to opt out.
We're all here? Okay, here goes: Sophia Wallace, a New York artist is trying to raise the awareness of the population by talking about the most misunderstood organ in the female anatomy.
Back in 1998 Helen O'Connall, a urologist in Australia, published a paper in the Journal of Urology. In it, she describes the clitoris is capable of lengths up to 9 centimeters. Visual aid time:

The area in yellow is the clitoris

The part that we adults are somewhat familiar with is the tip of the iceberg... literally.

One of the facts I walked away with was how few doctors perform plastic surgery to repair the damage done by genital mutilation.

Certain cultures practice female circumcision. To me, calling it that is an understatement and it disgusts me.

Having never owned or possessed a set of female genitalia, I can only imagine the horror. If a tribal chief or shaman told me I had to cut the head on my penis off because God said so, I'd pack my bags and high tail it out of there. Because I have daughters, I would do my utmost to protect them from harm if the authorities wanted to do that to them.

Perhaps it's the perspective from being on the outside, but I think the human body is wonderful the way it is. There's no need to cut extra skin off, or make it impossible to do something that's supposed to be natural, such as peeing or giving birth... or yes, having sex.

Sophia Wallace says it better than I would. There is no need to be afraid of the clitoris and certainly no need to damage it simply to appease the male ego. This is one of those conversations we need to have with both our sons and daughters.

We need to teach our sons to respect women and our daughters need to be aware of their own body. This type of conversation might be awkward coming from me, the Dad, that's why I'm trying to encourage my wife to bring this to our daughters attention. Like the elephant in the room, we as a family should discuss it. I think that will go a ways toward our children's mental well being.

Planetary Society

Confession time: I'm starting my blog post earlier than I usually do. (rather than the last minute.) I came across a blog site called the Planetary society. In it are featured several blogs from noteworthy astrophysicists. The blog that caught my attention came from Emily Lakdawalla. (Tons of pretty pictures!) In her latest post Emily covers a  lot of ground. There's so many things going on out there! 
First up: this time next year the New Horizons spacecraft is going to get to Pluto and Charon. They are going to turn those fuzzy dots into actual pictures of the most distant bodies in the solar system. Quick trivia question. How many planets do we have? Some of you are going to say; 'Uh... nine, but now there's eight.' You are partially right. Only until recently have scientists come up with a definition for a planet. It has to be mostly round, over 10,000 kilometers in diameter and has to have had cleaned out the smaller asteroids in it's path. Some of the moons in our system are planet sized themselves, here they are with actual planets beside them for size comparison.
 
I want to draw your attention to one of those lovely disks. Titan, which is a moon of Saturn, looks a little fuzzy. That's because it is the only moon that has an atmosphere! 'But what about the worlds that are under 10,000 kilometers?'
Well, here they are.


Notice Pluto and Charon are half circles and not actual pictures? That's one of the things that will change next year. That still leaves a lot out. By strict definition these bodies are moons and dwarf planets, but some of these moons are bigger than actual planets. I could put the numbers up, but people have a hard time imagining 1000 kilometers, let alone 10,000 K. But we're not done yet!

This diagram shows most of the planets, moons and dwarf planets in the same size scale range. There are many more. We'd run out of room on this picture. Notice that there are a lot of white semi-circles? That's because we haven't directly seen them. Hell, we haven't even named them yet! Even with our best space based telescopes, they are too far away to make out anything concrete. We can deduce a lot by looking at stuff outside the visual spectrum, but that's nothing compared to what we'd find out by actually going there.
Way back when Voyager II visited Jupiter, a young scientist decided to take a picture of Io, one of Jupiter's moons, in infra-red. Her screen lit up with the discovery of the decade. Voyager had inadvertently captured a volcano going off. A lot of books had to be re-written at that point. That simple stroke of timing and luck turned everything we thought we knew upside down. 
Emily's blog is a neat read and I encourage everyone who is perusing my blog to check out what's going on over at the Planetary Society.
Now while the society gets stoked about the universe and invites people to explore for the sake of science, there will still be a bunch of people who will de-fund our scientific adventures. For me, we should explore for the sake of learning about the universe. Detractors who view this as a waste of time and money come from many backgrounds and all walks of life. It would be easy to dump them all into the category of idiots, but I want to offer a less altruistic suggestion. Don't think of them as planets and asteroids, think of them as resources.
Helium-3 is rare on Earth, but evidence collected so far suggests it is abundant on the moon and among the upper layers of the gas giants. What's so special about Helium-3? How about it being a non-radioactive source material sought after for use in nuclear fusion research? It could very well solve our energy problems. If we had more of it, we might be able to turn off our gas, oil and coal plants. A company that establishes a lunar base could mine the resources and profit handsomely in terms of material and power... but why stop there? Ceres and Vesta are right around the corner and waiting to make somebody rich.
And who knows what we will find along the way? I say we find out. 

And now for something completely different

Regular readers know that strange things happen in my household, for certain values of strange. Weird, wonderful, exotic, odd. Insert you favorite adjective here.
So a friend of ours gave us some venison. In the past I've made chili with caribou, Grilled venison steaks and even had a vegetable stew with chunks of deer meat in it.  Tonight I'm making a pot roast with backstrap. I'll let you know how it turns out.
Only 5 more days until Cosmos returns and I'm so stoked. That's a new trailer in the link, by the way.
Usually, I don't watch Fox. Like I tell people: vote with your wallet. Fox is to news what Wrestlemania is to the Olympics. Increasingly, I'm getting my news from BBC and the Huffington Post. Kinda sad, isn't it? Walter Cronkite, we miss you.

For people just tuning in, I want to go over a few of my guidelines:

• I tend not to call people out and rail on them. This is not the forum for that. Public figures who make fools of themselves are fair game. So Joe from accounting gets a pass, Rush Limbaugh is a windbag who I've no problem deflating his ego.
• Every person has parts of their life that sucks. The trick is not to focus on that part no more than necessary. I don't like juggling the bills, but if I take care of business, then I can spend time with friends and family. In other words, don't dwell on the bad stuff, 'cause you don't want to miss the good things.
• Learn something every day. The things that come across my computer screen, you may or may not have heard of.
• Look for the fun. People may call it the silver lining, but the gist is there. Have a hobby. Explore the creative. Read for pleasure, but most importantly, LOOK.

Those are some of the things I go by. So chuck the ego and don't take yourself so seriously, not all the time anyway.
When I make a joke, I try and not do it at someone else's expense. People like to laugh, they don't like being laughed at.

A quick browse through some of my older posts, you can get the impression I live a charmed life. Of course, I don't. My life has it's ups and downs the same as everyone else's. Treating people the way you want to be treated should be a law. For the most part I've noticed it's not about getting ahead, or falling behind, it's about breaking even. Don't look at your neighbors stuff and say, 'why can't I have that?'
That whole thinking is wrong. The only time you should be looking at your neighbor's stuff is to see if they have enough to get by... to break even.
Life (or the world) owes you nothing. Get that through your head and things will get easier.

And finally, if you have a Kindle or Nook, any kind of an e-reader, please check out my book, Travelers Road on Amazon for only 3.00 USD. It's getting awfully lonely there by itself. While I'm busily writing the sequel I am also trying to get TR on with Lulu.com for the indie publisher route.
Thanks for reading.

Fixed the post

Harvard molecular biologist George Church, hosted a symposium at Harvard Medical school called 'bringing back the passenger pigeon.' Church gave a demonstration of his new genome editing technology. Biologists and avian experts were enthusiastic about the idea. But why stop there?
 “We realized that we could do it not only for the passenger pigeon, but for other species." says Ryan Phelan, who went on to become executive director of a new project they've named Revive and Restore.
Sounds like a sci-fi movie, doesn't it? Nope. Here's the technical stuff
Okay, let's see what we have here. Scientists who've preserved collected DNA from endangered and extinct animals.
Zoologists who want to start a park in Siberia featuring woolly mammoths, and a whole bunch of geneticists who think it would be a 'really cool idea' to bring back some ice age animals.
Uh, guys? Remember how well that worked out for Jurassic Park? only that was a movie, and you're trying to do it for real?
This goes under my category of should we do it. Really, just because we figured out how to do something, do we really need to go through with it just because, 'it would be really cool.'
On the one hand, consider the passenger pigeon that was hunted into extinction in 1914. Bringing that species back might not be so bad because the ecological niche hasn't changed in 100 years. That niche has been filled by other species. The mammoth and saber toothed cat however haven't been around in a 4,000 years. Their climate and ecology are gone. 
How would you feel if they could bring back the Dodo bird or a northern white rhino?
What could we possibly learn from that? The longer an animal has been extinct, the less likely it is to fit into the modern world ecosystem. Since our world is constantly changing, the only sensible thing is to take care of the animals we have. If, despite our best efforts, the species goes extinct, such as the panda, then I'll be very sorry to see it go. It bothers me that certain species are hunted to extinction, such as the Asiatic tigers. But now being able to kill off a species and bring them back, does present a quandary. Why are we doing this? As stated above, just because it's cool, isn't an answer.
We've got to come up with a better answer than that.