When you walk down the street
Through the new-fallen snow
Do you look at the footprints
You see as you go?
Do you wonder who walked there,
And how long ago?
And whose footprints you see
In the new-fallen snow? [Read more…]
Lionfish live in the ocean
Little Lauren gets a notion:
Might they live in rivers, too?
Would they thrive in brackish water?
Lauren, ichthyologist’s daughter,
Knows just what to do
Slowly starts desalination
Learns some brand-new information
Of which we’re now aware
New understanding’s always great
So, never underestimate
The sixth-grade science fair! [Read more…]
There’s a lesson here, somewhere,
If only we’d learn it
Yes, people love money,
But working to earn it?
Much better to win some
Why, no one would spurn it—
With no guarantee, though…
You might as well burn it.
A radio station in Calgary has been (and, currently, still is) conducting an experiment of sorts. They are asking the citizens of Calgary to vote:
Over the next couple of weeks there’s $15,000 that could be yours…But the money could also be BURNT. Set on fire. Completely destroyed.
Should the money go into someone’s BANK or should we BURN it! YOU DECIDE!This is entirely up to the people of Calgary to decide whether we give the money away or if we burn it…let’s make the right decision together. All you have to do is vote #BURN if you want to see it destroyed or #BANK & what you would do with the money.
If #BANK wins, then everyone who voted for that with all their info is in to win…but if #BURN wins, then we will live up to our promise and completely destroy the cash!
By all accounts, they did not expect people to vote to burn the money. After all, a small chance is better than no chance at all, isn’t it? Who would vote to deny themselves a chance, just to deny everybody else that chance?
54% of the voters, that’s who. So, true to their word, the DJs burned $5,000 (and posted the cremation on youtube). They’ve gotten a *lot* of flak for it, though they probably would have gotten shit for not following through, even if they had given the cash to a perfect charity.
And now, there is another $10,000 on the line. Voters, this time, know the station is not bluffing; will that change the vote? Or is the first result going to be replicated?
I could use that money. I know how I’d vote if I were in Calgary.
It’s all over the news–researchers at the University of Minnesota have “created a beating heart in the laboratory“. Basically, they used the protein fiber matrix from one heart, stripped of muscle cells, as a scaffold upon which to grow a new heart, using a solution of cells from another rat. Yeah. I know, all this talk about hearts is so romantic. So, in a bit of a reversal from my previous position, I return to the romantic view of the heart as the foundation of love, with a trio of little verses inspired by the heart in the jar. I can see it now… the picture above, on the front of the Hallmark card, with one of the following verses inside…
I’m new at this game,
And I don’t know your name,
But I love you, whoever you are;
My heart may be true
But it’s also brand new
I grew it myself, in a jar!
I can feel my heart grow,
So I love you, you know,
And not like a cousin or brother;
I will give you my heart–
Every bit, every part;
If you break it, I’ll grow me another.
My heart is yours; it’s in a jar
That sits upon your shelf;
It’s happy being where you are
And not all by itself.
You asked me for a souvenir
To keep while we’re apart;
I thought a bit, and it was clear—
It had to be my heart.
And now, although my heart may soar,
It is no longer mine;
A message that forevermore
I’ll be your valentine.
A rat cadaver’s donor heart
Is stripped of every cell
The protein fiber matrix left
Looks like a ghostly shell;
This matrix, in a sterile flask,
Is bathed in rat-heart goo
With both adult and baby cells,
And starts to grow anew.
In only days, the growing heart
May beat, or merely twitch,
Then work, at roughly two percent…
Like yours, you heartless bitch.
So, when I wrote about knitting, I got lots of visits from “ravelry.com”, which appears to be an online community of knitters and crocheters. This group easily doubled the number of visits I was getting (but they did not tend to leave comments!)
So the experiment–knitters like poems about knitting… do car people like poems about cars? (Of course, my ultimate goal would be to have this read on air by Click and Clack on Car Talk…) This is an old poem of mine (written in response to a comment, “the murmer of innumerable motors”…), really not much more than a collection of cliches put to verse.
The Old Car
My car does not murmur; she groans and complains
And she limps–just a bit–on the right.
She shouts out in protest at tasks she disdains
As one cylinder fails to ignite.
Whenever we turn, there’s a noise from the brakes
That’s a hollow and cancerous cough.
The faster the highway, the harder she shakes
Until bits of her start to fall off.
I remember the days when she purred like a cat
So responsive, so agile, so fast;
She would tear through a curve and then leap down the flat
And refuse–stubborn thing–to be passed.
I will always remember the car she once was—
That’s the reason I can’t let her go;
It’s the things that she did, not the things that she does;
I suppose it will always be so.
I, myself, I admit, may be showing some wear
And my warrantee’s long since expired;
There’s some rust in the joints and some grey in the hair
And what once revved me up makes me tired.
When I look, with my near-sighted eyes, at my car
It’s the beauty of old that I see;
If you look this direction—I see that you are—
Would you please do that favor for me?