Juxtapositions (I just love that word)

Shelley, at Retrospectacle, once again has captured my attention. Plague week continues, of course, but another post will not be denied attention–how often do you get the chance to watch an egg-sized cyst, full of tapeworm larvae, being removed from a 16-year-old girl’s brain?

Yeah, I know, cool!

Cool…because the girl lives, and makes a full recovery. Because she lives in this century, rather than in a century when people saw the plague as God’s wrath, treatable by prayer, bleeding, herbs, mercury, or lucky charms.

You can complain about modern health care all you like. I take a bit of a wider view. It has saved my life on more than one occasion, has saved my son… There are old cemetaries in this area that are practically littered with infant and child graves, many where the child had not lived long enough to be named. Follow the link. Watch this huge cyst being removed from this girl’s brain. Be grateful to medicine, science, education… you live in a very good time to be alive.

A golf-ball sized hydatid cyst
Is not the sort of thing I’d list
As one I’d like to try.
Indeed, I’d rather think it marvy
Not to host so many larvae–
I’m not that kind of guy.

In juxtaposing these two posts
Where humans serve unwilling hosts
To tapeworms or bacilli,
And treatment may be surgery
Or bleeding, charms, or mercury,
You make my spine go chilly.

I won’t say much, but I concede
That in the past, I’ve had the need
To seek a doctor’s care;
I’m fine, of course, but even so,
I think: It’s not that long ago
My “treatment” would be prayer.

This girl here in your video
(My daughter’s age, I’ll have you know)
Is lucky as can be–
To live in this, the present day
Where science, not the church, holds sway
I hope that you’ll agree.

For her, and for my daughter’s sake
I’d like to take this chance to make
A science-based reply;
For researchers, for doctors, nurses,
Not for priests, or prayer, or curses
The stakes are much too high.

Oh, rats!

From the fleas of rats and mouses
To a plague a’ both your houses,
If we can’t blame sheep or horses, then we gotta blame the Jews
When we found a small bacillus,
Not a god, had tried to kill us
It’s the sort of information anyone can surely use!
If you wish Yersinia pestis
Not to kill you, our request is
That you clean the fleas from bedding, and the rats from in your larder
But if you’re afraid of science
And you’d rather put reliance
In the methods of the church, then their advice is: Just pray harder!

Shelley at Retrospectacle has begun a week-long series that I am very much looking forward to–that’s right, it’s Plague Week!!

I have always been fascinated by The Plague; no matter how I have tried, I don’t think I can wrap my head around what life must have been like during such horrible events. I hope that the avian flu does not give us the chance to find out.

Danger! Warning!

When bloggers write, with laptops, seated,
Bits of them get overheated—
Sitting in their rooms, retreated
To their hidden cloisters.
If I should hear “Well done! Well done!”
I hope they mean my writing’s fun
And not some cruel and heartless pun
About my mountain oysters.

The writers putting out these blogs,
Like robots built with well-oiled cogs,
Or samurai, or feral dogs,
Eviscerate their fools—
But now, it seems they face a danger,
Not from any foe or stranger,
Simply from a heat exchanger
Near their family jewels.

Though Yossi Vardi starts to warn
It’s not time, yet, to be forlorn
(Though if your kids are not yet born
You’re one unlucky putz.)
It is, however, time to plan,
And if you are a hopeful man,
To buy and use a cooling fan.
Oh, yes… and shave your nuts.

Thanks to Greg Laden.

It’s A Miracle!

Man survives after God pushes him off a skyscraper…

“If we can talk about medical miracles, this certainly qualifies,” said Herbert Pardes, president and chief executive officer of New York-Presbyterian Hospital, during a news conference.

Moreno, whose brother Edgar died in the Dec. 7 accident, broke at least 10 bones, including multiple ribs, his right arm, vertebrae and both legs after the 500-foot fall from an apartment building on East 66th Street following an apparent malfunction of the scaffolding. Edgar Moreno, 30, also of Linden, struck a fence and was killed instantly. Neither man was wearing a safety harness.

I always found it rather odd
When people think to credit God;
The doctors helped, at least a bit,
The rescue workers didn’t quit,
The strangers there, who saw him fall
And made the first responder call
So many people did so much
But still we see His Holy Touch–
You see, it seems the signs are there
That show this man has seen God’s care:
The shattered ankle, broken shin
The shards of bone that pierce through skin
The massive bleeding in his gut–
Yes, every fracture, every cut–
This is the way that God Above
Displays His omnipresent Love.
And just in case He’s still denied
Remember, this man’s brother died.
Such agony makes Man aware
Of just how precious is God’s care
And when Humanity forgets,
God has a way to hedge his bets:
He’ll find a patsy, just some guy,
Like this Moreno, way up high–
When disbelievers start to scoff
God simply pushes this guy off;
With bleeding, pain, and broken bone,
God shows us that we’re not alone,
With just a little Godly shove,
He gets a chance to prove His Love.

Of course, Orac got there first.

Of Trees, and Life, and Fun

Clicking in through a post at The Loom, I was led to a wonderfully inspirational site, the Interactive Tree Of Life! For some people, a site like this puts them immediately in mind of Darwin. Others, Linnaeus. Others, Gould. Others, others.

Not me.

Me, I see a site like this and immediately think of Ogden Nash. Naturally.

Nash wrote classic little verses inspired by various animals. Here, for instance, is a site that presents the Nash classics “The Octopus”, “The Panther”, “Centipede”, “The Firefly”, “Ant”, “The Cow”, “The Turtle”, and several others (although, if memory serves, “The Eel” as presented on this site is incomplete). They are wonderful little pieces, unmistakably and marvelously Ogden Nash.

One notes, however, that they are limited to animals. The Tree Of Life site reminds us of just how narrow a focus that really is. So, as I said, I look at that interactive site and wonder what Ogden Nash would have thought of it. I make no pretensions about coming even close to Nash, but I thought I’d take a stab at a few. Each of these is represented on the site by a number and a picture, with links to source articles for information.

My point is not that this is any sort of high art–rather, my point is that the stereotype of the expansive vision of the artist, and the narrow focus of the scientist… are stereotypes, not reality. The tree of life is awe-inspiring, all the more so because it is not a fiction, but well-documented reality.

Oh, yeah, the verses…

Escherichia coli 562; Shigella flexneri 623

Escherichia coli and Shigella flexneri
Are technically different—but really, not very.

Porphyromonas gingivalis 837

Porphyromonas gingivalis,
To tell the honest truth,
Attacks the oral cavity—
The gum, and bone, and tooth;
I did not heed my mother’s word—
She warned me (quote: “Forsooth!”)
But I chose not to brush or floss,
And now my thmile ith looth.

Pyrococcus furiosus 2261

Remember the movie “Some Like It Hot”
With Marilyn, Tony, and Jack?
This archaebacterium’s like that a lot
(But it doesn’t have Marilyn’s rack).
But in sea-water heated to 100 C
It can still make a go at mitosis—
With habits like this, this creature must be
Pyrococcus furiosus.

Oryza sativa 4530

Oryza sativa (the Latin for “rice”)
Is genetically simple, which really is nice;
The genome for corn is some five times as big
And for wheat, roughly forty times larger—you dig?
But rice is a staple for billions, you know,
And the template for much of the grain that we grow.
So we study Oryza, my favorite crop,
To find out the genes behind “snap, crackle, pop!”

Drosophila melanogaster 7227

Geneticists love this little guy—
In my kitchen, he’s a disaster;
We both agree, the dude is fly:
Drosophila melanogaster!

Gallus gallus 9031

Nine-oh-three-one, or Gallus gallus
Comes as quite a shock:
The picture shows (no, not a phallus)
One fantastic cock!

Rattus norvegicus 10116

Rattus norvegicus, Norway Rat,
Is cute as a bug, and that is that.

Cryptosporidium hominis 237895

O Cryptosporidium hominis!
It’s never good to see ya—
For countless anno dominis
You’ve brought us diarrhea!

Wigglesworthia brevipalpis 36870

Wigglesworthia brevipalpis (How I love that name!)
Isn’t as cute as kittens, but it has a claim to fame—
It lives symbiotically, in the gut of the blood-sucking tsetse fly
(You’d think D.I. would eat this up, but they don’t even want to try.)
The tsetse fly carries trypanosomes, which kill both man and cattle;
Without ol’ Wiggly, the flies are sterile, and that is half the battle.
The genome project could help in this, but just you keep in mind,
There is nothing we can do if it’s intelligently designed.

O NOES!! TEH SANCTITY!!!11!

As of midnight last night, New Hampshire’s laws have changed, allowing “civil unions” between same-sex couples. In related news, there appears to be an upcoming election, with candidates vying to stake out the high moral ground. At least one candidate has announced plans to use the civil union issue in campaign ads. No, I won’t say which one; I won’t waste the pixels. Suffice it to say, the whole state has been rocked to the core by the knowledge that the sanctity of our marriages has been fundamentally shaken overnight, by allowing people to marry one another simply because they are in long-term loving relationships. The nerve…

I had insufficient warning
When I stumbled out this morning
Past a half a dozen candidates, each stumping for my vote;
When I looked, the morning paper
Had a headline of some caper
Or the record-breaking snowfall—really, nothing there of note.

So I grabbed my trusty shovel
To plow out my “home sweet hovel”
When I noticed something different—something didn’t quite feel right.
There was snow, and politicians,
But some change in the conditions
Made me wonder if my marriage had the sanctity it might.

So I checked the sanctitometer
And struggled not to vomit—her
“Conventional morality in danger” light was on!
Now a grim new dawn was breaking
And I couldn’t stop my shaking
‘Cos the morally upstanding world I trusted now was gone!

I considered seeking shelter
As I watched the helter-skelter
Of the politicians canvassing the noble Granite State;
I heard one of them disparage
Civil Unions, or Gay Marriage
As the reason for the panic—then I thought, more clearly, “wait!”

All this rattling of sabers
Is about my friends and neighbors;
These are people whom I know, and who have lived here all along
If these folks are who they’re blaming
It’s just pre-election gaming
And between the politicians and my friends, I know who’s wrong.

If our morals are declining
As the candidates keep whining
I propose a different theory to explain why this is so:
An invasive mass of liars
With their speeches, signs, and flyers,
Slinging mud and kissing babies in a dog-and-pony show.

Soon the voting will be over
And the state, from Keene to Dover,
And from Lancaster to Nashua, will heave a weary sigh;
With the moral issue buried
Now my neighbors can get married
And the Granite State will mean it when it says “Live Free or Die!”

(Tip o’ the cuttle to Dispatches from the Culture Wars)

Stealth Creationists

If you look really closely, as I have resolved,
At Boards of Education,
You’ll see hidden creationists; some have evolved
A protective coloration.

Some wear their belief upon their sleeves
And some choose not to wear it–
But sometimes you’ll see what one believes
By the phrases that they parrot:

“I think it’s fair to teach both sides”
“Evolution is ‘just a theory'”
“With freedom of speech, then who decides?”
“Just think of the children, dearie”

And just as we can identify birds
By the calls of hens and drakes
We can sometimes tell creationist turds
By the sound stupidity makes.

A tip o’ the cuttle to PZ, here.

No vaccine for arrogance…

Orac reports on the latest pinhead celebrity to jump onto the anti-vax bandwagon. Yup, it’s that walking, talking hairpiece, The Donald.

The anti-vax pinheads are a group I find particularly annoying. My aunt had polio. My grandparents’ generation saw the Salk vaccine for the wonder that it is, and saw polio for the danger it is. Have we forgotten so much so quickly?

When polio was something that
Your friends and family got,
Damn right you’d wait in line to get
That magic-seeming shot.

When infant graves were commonplace,
Each parent knew the cost;
A victim of our own success,
Perspective has been lost.

But now that science gives our lives
More health and fewer pains,
True geniuses like Salk give way
To Trumps with shit for brains.

I’d bet if Trump was suddenly
Confronted with, say, cancer,
He wouldn’t hesitate to look
To science for an answer.

But ignorance and affluence–
A potent combination–
Are threatening the future of
A younger generation.

With every anti-vaxxer voice,
Our children’s risk enlarges,
And science must–for all our sakes–
Defeat these Trumped-up charges.

An atheist Christmas

We’ll all open presents, and cook a big dinner,
And share in traditions we learned long ago
But Christmas is different for this humble sinner,
No “birth of the saviour”, just people we know.

It has nothing to do with a babe in a manger
Or kings being led by a star up above,
But rather in family, friend, and in stranger,
In kindnesses done for the people we love.

A spirit of hope, and a spirit of giving,
A promise of peace in a troubling day,
A chance to examine the way we are living–
The courage to say what we’ve wanted to say.

You don’t need to think there’s a god up above you
To want to be good to your fellows on Earth.
To give to your friends, and to tell them “I love you”
Has nothing to do with some son of god’s birth.

For love, and for giving, we say “tis the season”
For caring, for kindness, for sharing good cheer
But why limit ourselves? I mean, what is the reason?
Why can’t we be giving the rest of the year?

This Christmas, my wish for each sister and brother,
To you, and to everyone you may hold dear;
Remember, this Christmas, to love one another—
Not only this season, but all through the year!

The giraffe song (not the unicorn song)

Over on “Living the Scientific Life (Scientist, Interrupted)“, there is an unfair contest going on. Unfair, because (apparently) GrrlScientist likes graphics. “Please show us in a picture because as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words”, she says. Hmph. I have only 345 words for her:

A long time ago, if you check the graphs,
There were more kinds of animals, and that’s just giraffes!
They played around with brontosaurs, and even T. rex,
And don’t you forget that they had long necks.

There were six giraffe species, or maybe more
A much different story than we thought before
As many as eleven, so there’d better be space
Or wise old Noah is a big disgrace.

When God said to Noah “time to make me an ark”
The animals lined up for the chance to embark
The cats, and rats, and elephants, two by twos
Heard the astounding news:

There were six giraffe species, or maybe more
A much different story than we thought before
As many as eleven, so there’d better be space
Or wise old Noah is a big disgrace.

Old Noah was puzzled—he’d planned for just two—
But now there were many; so, what should he do?
He looked at his list, to check who stays and goes
And just what do you suppose?

There were six giraffe species, or maybe more
A much different story than he thought before
As many as eleven, so there’d better be space
Or wise old Noah is a big disgrace.

You remember the song; you remember it claims
That the unicorns were hiding, playing silly games
The truth is that God has incompetent staff,
And each one thought “a giraffe’s a giraffe”

But no, there were six giraffe species, or maybe more
A much different story than we thought before
As many as eleven, so there’d better be space
Or that pinhead Noah is a big disgrace.

The unicorns were there—You could hear their laughs—
But the trick is, they got there behind the giraffes!
Old Noah screwed up, and someone had to pay….
And that’s why you’ll never see a Unicorn, to this very day.

You’ll see six giraffe species, or maybe more
A much different story than we thought before
As many as eleven, so there had to be space
And old man Noah is a big disgrace.

(to the tune of “the unicorn song”, by the incredible Shel Silverstein. Like I had to tell you…)