alexis in the city

JPL, I’m coming for you!

Most people probably don’t know this because I never really talk about it: I want to work at JPL someday and I have for a really, really long time. I think it’s due to my space brat upbringing and the knowledge that this is a place where, although I’m not aeronautically or scientifically or mathematically inclined, I could still contribute and - as an added bonus - let my uber space dorkiness run free.

So how come someone like me - who splatters her personal, intimate, mundane life all over the internet via a myriad of social channels - has never let this be known? I was afraid. Superstitious. Unsure.

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Opt-in Ignorance

Who are you going to believe - me or your own eyes?

~ Groucho Marx

Are you going to believe what you see or what I tell you?

~ Willie Nelson

I’ve been facing down this conundrum  recently. It’s not an ignorance due to mis-eduction or lack of information. No, to be ignorant because you have insufficient resources is forgivable. This is an ignorance that people seek out for themselves regardless of the realities around them. This is opt-in ignorance.

Here’s one example that I’m sure will ruffle more than a few feathers but which has been in the spotlight recently: the vaccination “debate” (which isn’t even a debate in the medical community …). Never mind the research done showing no links between vaccinations and certain illnesses. Never mind that the study responsible for the MMR/Autism scare has been discredited or that the doctor who conducted it may have his medical license removed. No. Because this information comes from the medical community - which, by some strange (irrational) double standard is to be completely distrusted - such research is met with an air of “your facts are no good here.”

Of course, in this instance opt-in ignorance stands to (physically) hurt more people than just the person making the decision, which is especially dangerous. It’s a strange situation where reality seems to be incompatible with a previously-established belief system, and I won’t even delve into how many of these systems are constructed.

I can think of multiple other examples of such ignorance that assail me on a regular basis, most of which on the surface don’t appear to hurt anyone but the person opting in. Dig a little deeper, though, and I think you’ll find that opt-in ignorance tends to be a culture. It latches on and often gets passed down from generation to generation, creating a different kind of danger; one where our minds, our rationale and our ability to reason are at stake. This may not be a physical death, but a death of intellect is quite a blow none-the-less.

Separation of Church and Self: why we need to keep personal political agendas out of our churches

Let me preface this by saying: I’m Christian. I emphasize this fact because what I’m about to espouse (like many of my beliefs) is not the predominant thinking within mainstream Christianity. So here’s the crux of my argument ~ I’ve stated it before but it bears repeating: America is not a Christian nation, therefore it is not the Church’s responsibility to foist its beliefs upon the nation’s citizenry, nor is it one church’s responsibility to foist its individual political convictions (should it have any) on its members. This is a commonly-held sentiment OUTSIDE of the religious community, yet for some reason too many people within it want to equate America with Israel: the chosen nation, a theocracy, a place where the laws of the Bible (or more correctly, someone’s INTERPRETATION of the laws of the Bible) should be the law of the land.

Of course, this is all common knowledge ~ one has to look no further than the nomenclature “the religious right” to see that we’ve accepted this religious infiltration into our politics and policy. (Check out “The Family” if you want a chilling look into just how inter-connected Evangelical leaders like Dr. Dobson and Pat Robertson are with the political underground.) I grew up in churches where it was no more strange to sign an anti-abortion petition in the foyer of the building than it was to sing choruses at the start of each service. And to many people within Christian circles, I would guess this idea is somewhat innocuous. But here’s the thing: IT’S NOT. By veritably preaching politics from the pulpit, the church is alienating anyone who might believe differently by essentially saying: “We are the authority on this subject, this is the correct thing to believe, and here is the correct way to vote.”

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a new kind of framing story

“actually, if you get a feel for this story we find ourselves in, i think you’ll come to realize that it has room for all the other stories too. it doesn’t exclude them, or mock them, or despise them. i believe it’s the story in which all other stories can find themselves too …

“even if [christians] concern ourselves only with the story [of christianity], we discover that there are many versions of it, may variations on it. … the versions and variations are filled with minor discrepancies in the details. but the broad outline, the general plot, the flow, the current the trajectory common to nearly all its varied versions is, in my mind, a masterpiece in the truest sense of the word.”

~”neo,” the story we find ourselves in

can you clone a beagle for ME? and make it well-behaved

scientists in south korea have cloned a beagle puppy - and not just one. the team started with 344 embryos in 20 dogs, and ended up with 11 pregnancies. of those, five puppies are alive now. and here’s the crazy part - they’re not just any cloned puppies. no, no. that’s already been done. they’re transgenic and being used as models for human disease. their DNA has been injected with sea anemone protein which - in a kind of eerie way - makes them glow under UV light. from the article, i didn’t completely understand what makes that important, other than they’ve been engineered with a type of genetic material that isn’t naturally in their make-up.

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