yakkity-yak

ghagenson — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 22:52:18 +0000

There is a huge debate over whether Terry Shiavo was in a permanent vegetative state versus “somewhat conscious.” However, I can’t help but think:

Why would anyone want to live under either of those conditions?

Let’s say that Terry Shiavo could sense her mother’s presence. Would you want to live in such a way that you can see your mother come in the room, yet you are ~~unable~~ to kiss her or even say hello? Well– one would only want to live in such a way if there was hope for improvement. After various rehabilitation efforts and FIFTEEN years, it soon became evident that Terri was not going to improve. I was in utter shock when I looked at her CT scan and saw the massive amount of brain tissue that was destroyed. Keep her alive for another 15 years while her body deteriorates in hopes of a method to restore the brain tissue? No, it was time to put Theresa Shiavo’s body to rest.

In my opinion, I believe that Terri’s body was KEPT alive, but her brain was dead. I believe that Terri, from what she said to her husband, would not want to have a body that is surviving solely on a machine and a dead brain.

“Left: Scan of normal 25-year-old’s brain; Right: Schiavo’s 2002 CT scan at age 38 showing the massive loss of brain tissue. The bright dot is an electrode that was implanted as experimental treatment in 1990.” (wikipedia)

Rights So Long As..

ghagenson — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 21:45:56 +0000

The issue of whether or not HIV-infected children should be permitted in public schools is a major dilemma involving people’s rights. On one hand, everyone has a Constitutional guarantee to education. On the other hand, these rights are guaranteed so long as they are not harming anyone else.

The politics are complicated. However, the facts cannot be argued.

Between 33 and 46 million people are infected with HIV worldwide. In the
US, roughly 1.1 million people are infected with HIV and almost half a million have died from the virus.
The WHO estimates more than 25 million deaths since it was first discovered in 81.
In 2005 alone, AIDS stole between 2.4 and 3.3 million lives, 750,000 were children.

I believe that HIV-infected children should not be allowed to attend public schools. I do understand that people are guaranteed an education, but the fact that an HIV-infected kid could easily transmit the disease to another kid, ending that person’s life, takes the highest priority. The issue comes down to life versus education, although maybe a bit extreme. HIV is extremely detrimental to a person’s life, thus making the person infected with HIV, harmful. I believe that kids with life-threatening diseases, such as HIV, should be home-schooled. When proposed the question, “What if that was your kid?”, I would simply reply, “If my kid was infected with HIV, I would not put the lives of other children in ~~danger~~.”

With that said, I would like to point out that my argument mainly applies to elementary and middle school children. I believe that high-school and college students are mature enough to understand how HIV is transmitted, and thus avoid it. However, younger children are not. Furthermore, it stands to reason that those children with HIV may not have the best home environment, and probably not the best environment for home-schooling. That brings me to say that perhaps there should be separate schools for HIV-infected individuals, after all, the numbers are staggering. And although this may be segregation, it is necessary for the well-being of the people of the United States of America.

A Walk In The 19th Century

ghagenson — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 01:09:53 +0000

Which pic is Darwin, and which is Wallace?

Although often hidden by Darwin‘s imminent shadow, Alfred Wallace deserves no passing glance, for the theory of natural selection is no easy task. Alfred Russel Wallace was born in 1823, 14 years after the almighty Charles Darwin. This native of Britain was an explorer, naturalist, geographer, anthropologist, and biologist. His travels took him from the

Amazon River basin to the Malay Archipelago. Wallace was a prominent scientist of his era, contributing to the concept of warning coloration in animals, and even referred to as the “father of biogeography.” Well, I don’t know about you, but I’ve never heard of any of these contributions. Alfred Wallace is best known for the fact that he wrote a journal on natural selection that was oh-so similar to Darwin’s, which gave Darwin the push to stop being lazy and publish his writings. Indeed, Darwin’s journals were far more comprehensive and thus he deserved more credit. However, Darwin also had the benefit of reading Wallace’s journals before fine-tuning his own.

If by some bizarre happenstance I could travel back to the 19^th century, I would pay a trip to Alfred Wallace. After all, he seems like a pretty cool fellow. I might tell Wallace that he should perhaps be a bit more thorough in his journals. I would say, “Listen, Alfie, you did so much good for this world, because you were the driving force for Darwin’s final publications… but in the 21^st century, you don’t get too much credit. Maybe if you gathered some more evidence and met up with a monk named Gregor Mendel, you could gain some more prominence for your work.”

“The problem then was not only how and why do species change, but how and why do they change into new and well defined species, distinguished from each other in so many ways; why and how they become so exactly adapted to distinct modes of life; and why do all the intermediate grades die out (as geology shows they have died out) and leave only clearly defined and well marked species, genera, and higher groups of animals?”

If only he knew..