tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-85394415753863103312024-03-13T00:31:59.807-04:00"It's Shawn Vandor's Blog Wow!"A Personal Archive About the Arts, Entertainment, Family, Sports, Politics, Culture, Video Games and BioethicsShawn Vandorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16932787099944162452noreply@blogger.comBlogger57125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8539441575386310331.post-38111318777893993562010-02-02T18:39:00.001-05:002010-02-02T18:40:36.315-05:00Barbara Lynn playing music in the kitchen<object width="320" height="265"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/HjfIJ-vK9nk&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/HjfIJ-vK9nk&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="320" height="265"></embed></object>Shawn Vandorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16932787099944162452noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8539441575386310331.post-83567827420562966112010-01-28T17:31:00.007-05:002010-02-02T18:36:14.187-05:00The News<object width="480" height="295"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/YtGSXMuWMR4&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/YtGSXMuWMR4&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="295"></embed></object>Shawn Vandorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16932787099944162452noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8539441575386310331.post-46837746905730190312009-12-16T16:56:00.011-05:002009-12-17T19:54:47.766-05:00New Books...<img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 297px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/SylZiXSd-eI/AAAAAAAAAZ0/NrGwCyL9bSs/s400/fire.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5415958473791633890" /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/SylZuDbLuRI/AAAAAAAAAZ8/2E8tZAHjAvc/s1600-h/sweetness.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 297px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/SylZuDbLuRI/AAAAAAAAAZ8/2E8tZAHjAvc/s400/sweetness.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5415958674617907474" /></a><br /><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 297px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/SylZzH_QETI/AAAAAAAAAaE/5VBzdNBt4Vc/s400/joker.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5415958761742274866" /><br /><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>I'm pleased to announce that my new book <i>Fire At the End of the Rainbow</i>, a collection of short autobiographical stories, essays and fantasies is now available from amazon:</div><div><div><br /><div><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Fire-End-Rainbow-Shawn-Vandor/dp/0984331220/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1261000763&sr=1-1">http://www.amazon.com/Fire-End-Rainbow-Shawn-Vandor/dp/0984331220/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1261000763&sr=1-1</a></div><div><br /></div><div>and from Sand Paper Press:</div><div><br /></div><div><a href="http://www.sandpaperpress.net/">http://www.sandpaperpress.net/</a></div><div><br /></div><div>Also available: Poetry by Stuart Krimko <i>The Sweetness of Herbert</i> and Arlo Haskell <i>Joker</i>. The three of us will be reading in Key West, New York and Los Angeles at the beginning of the new year. Will keep you posted on dates. </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div></div>Shawn Vandorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16932787099944162452noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8539441575386310331.post-5671498501651902252009-12-02T12:36:00.005-05:002009-12-03T00:12:55.515-05:002007 Virginia Bill Prohibiting Donor Anonymity Fails 6-1<span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 18px; font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;font-size:12px;"><p style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border- font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;font-size:14px;color:initial;">An interesting Washington Post article about the only state bill to attempt to outlaw donor anonymity (the comments in caps are mine):</p><p style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border- font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;font-size:14px;color:initial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-size:12px;"></span></p><p style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; ">RICHMOND -- A Republican lawmaker is sponsoring General Assembly legislation that would make Virginia the first state to prohibit anonymous sperm donations.</p><p style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; ">Delegate Robert G. Marshall, a Christian conservative from Prince William County, is sponsoring the House bill.</p><p style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; ">Mr. Marshall also is the General Assembly's foremost author of legislation to curb abortion and regulate birth-control methods. He said he filed the bill to protect donor-conceived children and that he feels for those who don't know the identity of their father.</p><p style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; ">Mr. Marshall said he recently saw a child wearing a T-shirt with the words: "My dad's name is Donor," then thought, "That's pathetic."</p><p style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; ">Australia and a few European countries [U.K., NORWAY, SWEDEN AND AUSTRIA] have banned anonymous sperm donations. In each country, donations have dwindled and the cost of fertility services has increased.[THIS IS ARGUABLE. SEE MY POST: <a href="http://itsshawnvandorsblogwow.blogspot.com/2009/05/should-there-be-state-or-federal.html">http://itsshawnvandorsblogwow.blogspot.com/2009/05/should-there-be-state-or-federal.html </a>FOR LINKS TO ARTICLES DISPROVING THIS POINT IN THE U.K. AND SWEDISH MARKETS].</p><p style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; ">Opponents warn about the same result in Virginia.</p><p style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; ">Katrina Clark grew up knowing only that her father was tall, blond and a third-year college student somewhere in Northern Virginia when he donated sperm.</p><p style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; ">Miss Clark, now 18 and a Gallaudet University student, is trying to persuade lawmakers to support legislation banning anonymous sperm and egg donations, so others won't grow up with the same questions she had.</p><p style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; ">"I just felt like something had been stripped away from me," she said.</p><p style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; ">Mr. Marshall's bill also would require women donating eggs to sign a disclosure detailing all known risks involved, whether from ovulation-stimulation drugs or harvesting the egg. Virginia law already requires that patients be told about the success rates and donor health before being treated.</p></span><p></p><p style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; ">More than 15,000 successful egg donations in the United States in 2004 resulted in about 6,000 births, according to the latest data available. Sperm donations and births resulting from them are much more numerous and much more difficult to track. No trade groups, medical associations or government agencies track either the donations or the number of births attributed to donor sperm.</p><p style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; ">The industry wasn't fully commercialized until the 1970s, and laws regulating it focus on testing, storing and administering the donations. Only recently has the discussion turned to the ethical repercussions.</p><p style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; ">Miss Clark's mother, Janie Price, of Newport News, was 30 and single but didn't want to wait any longer for a child when in 1988 she opted for artificial insemination.</p><p style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; ">"I talked myself into believing that if I loved her enough, it would be OK," she said. "What I didn't consider is that one's genetic component is very much a part of her identity. Why else would we spend so much money as adults researching our genealogy?"</p><p style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; ">Miss Clark said she grew up not thinking she was any different from her friends. That changed when she was 15 and saw a show about a woman who died of a genetic heart disease that she had no idea she was at risk of developing because she had been adopted.</p><p style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; ">"That's when it really hit me for the first time that something was missing," she said.</p><p style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; ">Miss Clark said she started the search for her father because she wanted answers about her medical past, not because she wanted a father figure.</p><p style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; ">She was one of the few lucky ones, finding her father on an online message board weeks later. After a few weeks of telephone and e-mail conversations, a DNA test confirmed what they already knew: It was 99.9902 percent positive that he was her father.</p><p style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; ">Most sperm banks across the country now give donors the option of allowing their identities to be revealed to offspring once they turn 18.</p><p style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; ">William Jaeger, director of Fairfax Cyrobank, said that only 29 of the bank's 265 donors have agreed to have their identities revealed, which shows the chilling effect a mandatory-identity requirement would have on the industry.</p><p style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; ">"Legislation of this type would really create a hardship for families who need donor sperm to conceive a child," Mr. Jaeger said.</p><p style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; ">He also said sperm supplies have decreased so much in Britain since it passed such a law in April that some clinics have closed and others must import sperm.</p><p style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; ">The American Society for Reproductive Medicine also opposes the legislation, saying it would increase the cost for families to get help conceiving.</p><p style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; ">"It is [now] relatively inexpensive to conceive through insemination of donor sperm," said Dr. Robert Brzyski, chairman of the ethics committee for the group, in Birmingham, Ala. "If donors become scarce because the anonymity is removed, then the cost of that will increase."</p>Shawn Vandorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16932787099944162452noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8539441575386310331.post-11562248468925325222009-12-01T19:46:00.006-05:002009-12-03T20:21:23.920-05:00Sperm Banks Can Be Sued Under Product Liability Laws<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal">In April, 2009, a New York Federal judge ruled that sperm banks can be sued under product liability laws for failing to detect a sperm donor's genetic defect.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The case clears the way for a 13 year-old retarded girl from PA. to sue New York-based IDANT<a style="mso-footnote-id:ftn1" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=8539441575386310331&postID=1156224846892532522#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character:footnote">[1]</span></span></a> for using sperm with a mutation known as “Fragile X”<a style="mso-footnote-id:ftn2" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=8539441575386310331&postID=1156224846892532522#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character:footnote">[2]</span></span></a> which caused her to be born mentally retarded.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">So, if human sperm is officially a product, what does that make the child born via donor insemination?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>In the future, will parents be able to return their children to the cryo bank if the child fails to meet their specifications, like, if the child’s not blonde enough or not proficient enough with the violin? When is that going to start happening?</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">In the absence of any significant federal or state regulation of the Cryo banking industry the threat of product liability lawsuit is a very good thing. But, consider this: this isn’t exactly like a consumer being sold a faulty product, who is injured and then seeks a claim; this is the faulty product <i>itself</i><span style="font-style:normal"> suing the company that made it (in this case, a </span><i>her</i><span style="font-style:normal">).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I don’t think this has happened before. </span><i>Ever</i><span style="font-style:normal">. Imagine a single Toyota Prius suing Toyota for assembling its breaks incorrectly! <span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <div style="mso-element:footnote-list"><br /><hr align="left" size="1" width="33%"> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn1"> <p class="MsoNormal"><a style="mso-footnote-id:ftn1" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=8539441575386310331&postID=1156224846892532522#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character:footnote">[1]</span></span></a> <span style="font-size:10.0pt;">Owned by the DAXOR CORPORATION.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>You’ve really got to see their website: <a href="http://www.idant.com/">http://www.idant.com/</a><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>All it needs is some ‘80s David Cronenberg-esque analogue synthesizer and they're all set. No but seriously.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Who would buy human semen from a company called IDANT who proudly proclaims: owned by the DAXOR CORPORATION? Also, DAXOR agents are now hunting me.</span> </p> <p class="MsoFootnoteText"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> </div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn2"> <p class="MsoFootnoteText"><a style="mso-footnote-id:ftn2" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=8539441575386310331&postID=1156224846892532522#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character:footnote">[2]</span></span></a> <span style="font-size:10.0pt;">No, I’m not making this up.</span></p> </div> </div> <!--EndFragment-->Shawn Vandorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16932787099944162452noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8539441575386310331.post-43456358337259770852009-12-01T18:58:00.005-05:002009-12-02T12:07:27.983-05:00Food and Drug Administration Regulates Sale of Semen<span class="Apple-style-span" style=" color: rgb(72, 65, 56); font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:13px;"><p style="height: auto; border-top-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-bottom-style: none; border-left-style: none; border-width: initial; border-color: initial; background-image: none; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; -webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-color: initial; text-align: left; margin-top: 4px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 4px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; background-position: initial initial; ">In 2005, the FDA began regulating the sale of semen within the United States (though regulating might be too strong a word - they basically institutionalized practices that had already become the norm within the cryo banking community). Cryo banks that don't comply with FDA regulations don't risk being shut down but are not allowed to say they're <i>FDA approved</i>, which in the highly competitive sperm-banking business, might mean losing a leg-up to a competitor. </p><p style="height: auto; border-top-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-bottom-style: none; border-left-style: none; border-width: initial; border-color: initial; background-image: none; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; -webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-color: initial; text-align: left; margin-top: 4px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 4px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; background-position: initial initial; "><br /></p><p style="height: auto; border-top-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-bottom-style: none; border-left-style: none; border-width: initial; border-color: initial; background-image: none; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; -webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-color: initial; text-align: left; margin-top: 4px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 4px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; background-position: initial initial; ">This is relevant to all things donor insemination, of course, because as mild as the FDA's regulations might be, it's one of the few regulatory gestures made by the Federal government towards the medically assisted reproductive industry. For the most part, Federal and state governments have wanted to steer clear of any kind of regulation, intentionally leaving the details of the baby-making business in the (no doubt, benevolent) hands of the free market. </p><p style="height: auto; border-top-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-bottom-style: none; border-left-style: none; border-width: initial; border-color: initial; background-image: none; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; -webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-color: initial; text-align: left; margin-top: 4px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 4px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; background-position: initial initial; "><br /></p><p style="height: auto; border-top-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-bottom-style: none; border-left-style: none; border-width: initial; border-color: initial; background-image: none; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; -webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-color: initial; text-align: left; margin-top: 4px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 4px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; background-position: initial initial; ">Here's the FDA's statement: </p><p style="height: auto; border-top-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-bottom-style: none; border-left-style: none; border-width: initial; border-color: initial; background-image: none; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; -webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-color: initial; text-align: left; margin-top: 4px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 4px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; background-position: initial initial; "><br /></p><p style="height: auto; border-top-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-bottom-style: none; border-left-style: none; border-width: initial; border-color: initial; background-image: none; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; -webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-color: initial; text-align: left; margin-top: 4px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 4px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; background-position: initial initial; "> </p><p style="height: auto; border-top-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-bottom-style: none; border-left-style: none; border-width: initial; border-color: initial; background-image: none; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; -webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-color: initial; text-align: left; margin-top: 4px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 4px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; background-position: initial initial; ">Human cells or tissue intended for implantation, transplantation, infusion, or transfer into a human recipient is regulated as a human cell, tissue, and cellular and tissue-based product or HCT/P. The Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER) regulates HCT/Ps under 21 CFR Parts 1270 and 1271. Examples of such tissues are bone, skin, corneas, ligaments, tendons, dura mater, heart valves, hematopoietic stem/progenitor cells derived from peripheral and cord blood, oocytes and semen. CBER does not regulate the transplantation of vascularized human organ transplants such as kidney, liver, heart, lung or pancreas. The Health Resources Services Administration (HRSA) oversees the transplantation of vascularized human organs.</p><p style="height: auto; border-top-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-bottom-style: none; border-left-style: none; border-width: initial; border-color: initial; background-image: none; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; -webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-color: initial; text-align: left; margin-top: 4px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 4px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; background-position: initial initial; "><br /></p><p style="height: auto; border-top-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-bottom-style: none; border-left-style: none; border-width: initial; border-color: initial; background-image: none; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; -webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-color: initial; text-align: left; margin-top: 4px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 4px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; background-position: initial initial; ">Parts 1270 and 1271 require tissue establishments to screen and test donors, to prepare and follow written procedures for the prevention of the spread of communicable disease, and to maintain records. FDA has published three final rules to broaden the scope of products subject to regulation and to include more comprehensive requirements to prevent the introduction, transmission and spread of communicable disease. One final rule requires firms to register and list their HCT/Ps with FDA. The second rule requires tissue establishments to evaluate donors, through screening and testing, to reduce the transmission of infectious diseases through tissue transplantation. The third final rule establishes current good tissue practices for HCT/Ps. FDA's revised regulations are contained in Part 1271 and apply to tissues recovered after May 25, 2005. The new requirements are intended to improve protection of the public health while minimizing regulatory burden.</p></span>Shawn Vandorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16932787099944162452noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8539441575386310331.post-4284097562569295262009-12-01T18:47:00.005-05:002009-12-02T12:09:24.582-05:00Fertile Markets<span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:Arial;font-size:13px;"><div>Here's a fun little precis I found online when I googled: <i>i</i><i>nternational human semen trade. </i>This guy really knocked himself out with all the double-entendres. Wouldn't you? Enjoy: </div><div><br /></div><!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:ArialMT;font-size:13.0pt;">Not all trade barriers concern steel, corn and coffee. Major human semen exporters like the Un<span style="text-decoration:none;text-underline:nonecolor:windowtext;">ited States</span> say they are having a hard time penetrating Mexico's sperm market. Human semen trade is an estimated US$100 million industry worldwide, but Mexico is abstaining from entering the market and using its own internal resources. Mexico has not banned the imports outright; however, strict federal standards and restrictions keep foreign semen out of the country. The Fertility Institutes, a semen supplier with offices in both the United States and Mexico, has been unable to swap semen across the border among its clinics. "Not because of a lack of need or desire, but because of the inability to meet all requirements of both countries, as well as FedEx and other international shippers," says Fertility Institutes' Jeffrey Steinberg. Meanwhile, strong demand in Canada for human semen on recent years--which sells for about the same price as cattle semen in the open market--eased border restrictions for sperm imports from the United States. Leading U.S. semen trader Xytex has shipped its U.S. genes to Canada and several countries in Europe since 1983, but the company says getting across its southern border poses a much bigger challenge. "It's virtually impossible," says Holly Fowler, spokesperson for Xytex. Foreign exporters trying to ship their specimen into Mexico apparently must overcome the country's main barrier to entry into the sperm market: national pride.</span></p> <!--EndFragment--> </span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, serif;font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-size:13px;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, serif;font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:13px;"><br /></span></span></div>Shawn Vandorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16932787099944162452noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8539441575386310331.post-62776569934469374692009-11-16T18:39:00.006-05:002009-11-22T19:12:44.724-05:00...<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/LYV6PAckr5w&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/LYV6PAckr5w&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>Shawn Vandorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16932787099944162452noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8539441575386310331.post-90581680866688461272009-10-21T03:10:00.006-04:002009-10-22T21:02:57.931-04:00Republican National Convention 2008You know, it's interesting: You can't find much RNC '08 on youtube which is really too bad. I mean, obviously, youtube is a left-leaning website and thus, for the most part, filled with left-leaning videos (most of which are retarded and beside the point...like cable television itself, yet even still more esoteric). Wouldn't it be great if youtube had more videos illustrating the opposition's point of view? Like, isn't that what good debate is all about? Trying to learn your opponent's arguments as well as your own?<br /><br />I don't mind admitting to you that (for this very reason) I watched nearly every minute of this past RNC '08 convention, held in Minneapolis, MN. It was stunning, for many reasons, the least of which was that, from above, the convention center looked like what you've always heard hell looks like: a giant dark pit, with fiery red floor, bunch of half-broken people mindlessly wandering around. I don't know who was in charge of designing the '08 RNC but whoever hired them really had no idea what they were doing. Whoever that person is should have a glass of water poured over their head every night for the rest of their life.<br /><br />Check out the enormous digital American flag. That's weird. That makes no sense. I tried to imagine who would think that's cool. I thought of myself when I was 12. And even then I might have thought that t was stupid. The live in-house progressive jazz band was amazing, so much so that they were hard to describe. They were <i>uncanny, </i>the way the guy in the bear suit, leaning over and sort-of fellating the butler in <span style="font-style:italic;">The Shining</span> was uncanny. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any footage on youtube. That was probably THE MOST sterile music I have ever heard - <i>and I like sterile music!</i> It's weird and totally amazing in a non-human/post-human kind of way. (Where's Pitchfork when you actually need them?)<div><br /></div><div>And, of course, the most amazing moment of the RNC 2008 was at the very beginning when an honor guard marches through the half-empty coliseum and the whole room stands in silence, their hands over their hearts, when a solemn voice comes on over the intercom (think mid-twentieth Eastern European internment camp) and commanded everyone to turn around and freeze for one full minute while a super-fancy camera overhead takes everyone's picture. Everyone turns around with their hat/hand over their heart and holds their pose for an entire minute while the camera takes their picture. Have you ever seen several thousand people in a coliseum freeze and hold completely still for a full sixty seconds? It's creepy. It's a lot like observing a ritual in the most old-school pagan kind of way. All political (and athletic) events are ritualistic (obviously), but most of the successful, modern events successfully (I think; and, really, this could be an entirely different post) somehow successfully mask their own Ritualness...the '08 RNC should go down in history as one of THE MOST POORLY disguised political rituals EVER. And that sucks. For all of us. If we're going to be a two-party system we have to act like it. We need both the D's and R's to really want it, and know how to want it. Do you get the feeling we have a third party slowly galloping our way? God, I hope they're smart.</div><div><div><br /></div><div>Well, anyway, I did find this clip from the RNC '08. Enjoy: <br /><br /><object width="320" height="265"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/rbaBfr4UASg&hl=en&fs=1&"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/rbaBfr4UASg&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="320" height="265"></embed></object></div><div><br /></div><div>Also: Doesn't this look more like a scene out of a new David Lynch film rather than a contemporary conservative political rally?</div><div><br /></div><div>Incidentally, I had lunch with a political columnist from the New York Observer a few months ago who was at the RNC, and was standing on the floor when Sarah Palin gave her introductory speech and he thought she killed. He said he was there with his editor and they both thought that it was all over for Obama. It's funny: I watched the RNC on a live internet stream and I thought it looked cheap and poorly orchestrated and I thought, almost immediately, that Obama was definitely going to take it. Televised orchestration's a big deal. You've got to have a candidate that looks good, who plays well on-screen. But, I know you know that. Well, the Republicans had an off year. They were due. </div></div>Shawn Vandorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16932787099944162452noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8539441575386310331.post-91176900554214376242009-10-13T02:01:00.012-04:002009-10-22T21:00:27.430-04:00Execution of Saddam Hussein-GRAPHIC CONTENTI think this is an important video. It's footage of Saddam Hussein's execution as seen from an illicit cell phone camera. WARNING: This footage is not for everyone.<div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" white-space: pre; font-family:Arial, sans-serif;font-size:10px;"><object width="320" height="265"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/AfJrZSRj-fE&hl=en&fs=1&"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/AfJrZSRj-fE&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="320" height="265"></embed></object></span> <div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>I've never seen a man taken to his death before. George Orwell's <i>The Hanging </i>has long been not only one of my favorite pieces of writing but was one of the first texts that made me want to write. I'll be honest with you: I gained respect for Saddam Hussein, as a man, after I saw this video. Politics aside, I thought he died with pride; he didn't let the room-full of masked executioners rattle him. When they chant "Moktada! Moktada! Moktada!" He sneers back, "Moktada? Please. That charlatan?" When they fill the room with chants, he prays out loud for himself, focused, complete. </div><div><br /></div><div>Now contrast the first <i>unofficial</i> footage with the official staged version: </div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" white-space: pre; font-family:Arial, sans-serif;font-size:10px;"><object width="320" height="265"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/4JUL-l6ov10&hl=en&fs=1&"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/4JUL-l6ov10&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="320" height="265"></embed></object></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" white-space: pre; font-family:Arial, sans-serif;font-size:10px;"></span>There's no live sound, just some douche-bag guy talking over it, reporting from his little edge of nowhere. He assures us that they won't actually show the execution - they'll just show you the part leading up to the execution...with an idiot talking over it. </div><div><br /></div><div>Why is it we're not allowed to see: Men's Genitalia, Sex, Birth and Death? Why? Someone tell me. I give up.</div><div> </div></div>Shawn Vandorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16932787099944162452noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8539441575386310331.post-33041388267703341572009-10-10T14:44:00.005-04:002009-10-10T14:57:27.946-04:00Jimmy ScottA friend of mine showed this to me. Enjoy.<br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/BC-pv3fFIGI&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/BC-pv3fFIGI&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>Shawn Vandorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16932787099944162452noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8539441575386310331.post-49861645575011708482009-10-10T02:24:00.028-04:002009-10-14T02:25:23.562-04:00Recent String of Events (in no particular order...)<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/StDQ6Pp7V5I/AAAAAAAAAZU/OR7xnIShyZw/s1600-h/images-13.jpeg"></a><div><br /></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/StA7uXDdxuI/AAAAAAAAAYs/VC1HHITBNiE/s1600-h/images-8.jpeg"></a><div><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 111px; height: 118px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/StA3pT5nK6I/AAAAAAAAAXs/vTrxVJdCE4A/s400/images-1.jpeg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5390869936818564002" /><br /></div><div>Someone decapitated long-dead, frozen, baseball great Ted Williams. And then used his head as a soccer ball. Ladies and gentleman: The future of cryogenic freezing! Where your frozen cadaver can be mutilated for sport!</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><div><br /></div><div><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 128px; height: 108px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/StA359nsIcI/AAAAAAAAAX0/KBmRUWl5EV0/s400/images-2.jpeg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5390870222895587778" /></div><div><br /></div><div>NASA fired a missile at the moon. And nothing happened. Yet. I don't think we're going to know much about this one for a while. Like maybe after you and I and all of our children are gone.</div><div><br /></div><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 113px; height: 127px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/StA4RlPI7rI/AAAAAAAAAX8/N48dkynCSmg/s400/images-3.jpeg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5390870628667027122" /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>I stubbed my foot on the couch and broke my toe. Not only did I break my toe, I tore the joint. And now I'm wearing a boot (and it's really not as bad as I thought it would be).</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/StA5xTyDuFI/AAAAAAAAAYE/NFgyXp1a8gs/s400/images-4.jpeg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5390872273249089618" style="float: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; cursor: pointer; width: 95px; height: 129px; " /></span><div>Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize this morning and I almost feel sorry for him. He's trapped in between the almost completely unrealistic positive and negative expectations that people have of him. I can't imagine this is easy for him (not that it's supposed to be). And now the Europeans just piled a Nobel on top of everything else. That just might have been one of the most unwanted Nobel Peace Prize's in history. (But...I think he might deserve it, after all.)</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><img src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/StA6HpFN7oI/AAAAAAAAAYM/G8fz-axF8CU/s400/images-5.jpeg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5390872656923717250" style="float: right; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 87px; height: 127px; " /></div><div><br /></div><div>I read <i>The Grapes of Wrath </i>for the first time. I know you don't need me to tell you this but...it's a pretty good book. Not bad. Nope. Not at all. Not one tiny bit. The part about the machine-tractors replacing man on God's green field? That's not shit you ever forget. That's Biblical.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>There was (what I like to call) the Free-Speech Five-Step:</div><div><br /></div><div>1) Serena Williams lost her cool (and the match) in the semi-finals to (eventual champion)Kim Clijsters at the recent U.S. Open when she verbally abused a short, fat Asian line judge. No one talked about this as a racial "incident" but I think Serena thought it was (at least at first) and before she knew it she was over the edge.</div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" white-space: pre; font-family:Arial, sans-serif;font-size:10px;"><object width="320" height="265"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/DO_jlXjgxN8&hl=en&fs=1&"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/DO_jlXjgxN8&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="320" height="265"></embed></object></span></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><img src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/StA7bThxq7I/AAAAAAAAAYk/uXTqY-BXQSw/s400/images-7.jpeg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5390874094246931378" style="float: right; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 135px; height: 76px; " /></div><div>2) Kanye West steals the microphone from what's-her-face at the MTV music awards while she's accepting an award. Awesome. Even the fact that what he did is stupid isn't interesting. But that fact is. Subsequently, Barack Obama is heard, off-the-record, calling Kanye a "jackass" for what amounted to a really excellent, unintended, social mores moment from a sitting president who is (socially) far cooler than the rapper. Think about that. That kind of moment doesn't happen too often.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/StA7uXDdxuI/AAAAAAAAAYs/VC1HHITBNiE/s400/images-8.jpeg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5390874421611054818" style="float: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; cursor: pointer; width: 131px; height: 96px; " /></span><div>3) Joe Wilson's hateful shout of "You lie!" to the president was disgusting. That's one of the most blatently shameful things I've seen in this country in a long time. I believe it was an assassination attempt. I think it means, "Back the fuck up, BITCH!X!X! or next time I won't just be throwing words." Hateful stuff. Make no mistake. Also: look at the faces of the two men next to Wilson. Do you trust those guys? They want to see Obama go down in flames - <i>literally</i>. </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>4) Michael Jordan's Hall of Fame acceptance speech was stunning. Flat out. I thought it was awesome. Painful and gross and weird and embarrassing...but awesome. It was just so honest. How many living legends (that's what he is) just come right out and say what they've been thinking throughout the years in one extended public speech? I think there's something kind of remarkable about it. He was like: "This is what I did to you people. And now I'm telling you about it." I bet he loved it. Probably felt like a fifty point game to him. There are millions of Michael Jordans but only one Michael Jordan. Here's the first part of the speech:</div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" white-space: pre;font-size:-webkit-xxx-large;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" white-space: pre; font-family:Arial, sans-serif;font-size:10px;"><object width="320" height="265"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/hMMBWJJPjSE&hl=en&fs=1&"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/hMMBWJJPjSE&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="320" height="265"></embed></object></span></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>5) And Muammar al-Gaddafi's lengthy speech at the U.N. (By the way, has anyone's name ever been spelled so many different ways?) Behold, the King of Africa:</div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" white-space: pre; font-family:Arial, sans-serif;font-size:10px;"><object width="320" height="265"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/ZMtBdVH2DOU&hl=en&fs=1&"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ZMtBdVH2DOU&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="320" height="265"></embed></object></span></div><div><br /></div><div>You can tell it's going to be a long morning by the way he sifts through his papers in the opening. I have to say: I watched about 45 minutes of this thing, and I didn't mind it so much. I find the disposition of contemporary dictators entirely compelling. For instance, I thought Saddam Hussein came off as completely brave and border-line heroic the way he faced down his masked executioners - he had far more composure than, I think, most Liberal Democratic leaders would. Imagine what Gaddafi would be like if he was ever put on trial at the Hague! He'd make Milosevich's pathetic, irrational, child-like defense look like a Supreme Court hearing.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><img src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/StDMeEgLQ7I/AAAAAAAAAY0/JQYPq-oihr0/s400/images-9.jpeg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5391033570939323314" style="float: right; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 124px; height: 124px; " /></div><div><br /></div><div>Conan O' Brian fell down and hit his head.</div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#0000EE;"><br /></span></div><div>David Letterman executed a flawless public apology by calling "sex" sex and came out even stonger. </div><div><br /></div><div>I administered a stool test to myself and almost threw-up. (No photograph.)</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/StDMxAJGjjI/AAAAAAAAAY8/0rEfIxqy6zk/s400/images-10.jpeg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5391033896186318386" style="float: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; cursor: pointer; width: 137px; height: 103px; " /></span><div>I watched <i>The Wizard of Oz</i> twice. It's as good as <i>The Grapes of Wrath. </i>They're both primal contemporary American myths. It's genuinely creepy when the Witch writes <i>Surrender</i> in black swirling smoke lines in the sky. Also: So <i>this</i> is where David Lynch got so many of his ideas!</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><img src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/StDO_cRdBvI/AAAAAAAAAZE/fr7wJzBoUnY/s400/images-11.jpeg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5391036343278962418" style="float: right; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 88px; height: 127px; " /></div><div>Roman Polanski was re-arrested for child rape and various high-end Hollywood</div><div>celebrities immediately made complete asses of themselves. Justice may be imperfect, justice may be fickle - say whatever you want to say about it - but don't try to say this guy is somehow above the law because of his <i>artistic genius</i>. That's so gross it's obscene. (I think <i>Bitter Moon</i> was one of the best movies of the nineties and <i>Chinatown</i> is an official classic but I still think he should serve his time.) Also: if you still think he's being treated unfairly read the <a href="http://www.bostonherald.com/news/national/west/view.bg?articleid=1201437">Grand Jury Testimony</a> for the explicit details of how he drugged and raped a child. Best of luck defending him after that. (Also: I just realized, in '70s, Polanski, looks like Rob Blagojevich.) </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>And last but not least: All hail William T. Vollmann! Ladies and gentleman, we have a real artist in our presence. Remember when that Nobel Judge said a few years ago that an American writer would never win now because American writers are so self-centered, </div><img src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/StDQ6Pp7V5I/AAAAAAAAAZU/OR7xnIShyZw/s400/images-13.jpeg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5391038453015861138" style="float: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; cursor: pointer; width: 94px; height: 107px; " /><div>disinterested, etc? He's obviously not paying attention. I read <i>Riding Towards Everywhere</i> (a road adventure/national memoir), then <i>Poor People </i>(part repudiation of James Agee's <i>And Now Le<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; "><i>t Us Now Praise Famous Men, </i>part moral examination of the concepts of wealth and poverty (but I mean, really, aren't they inseparable?) I'm currently reading through IMPERIAL. It's a huge, mad, slow book but it's totally worth it. The end of part one when he imagines what IMPERIAL would be like if written by Flaubert or Steinbeck or an American border guard is absurdly hilarious. What other contemporary American writer even comes close to this guy's imagination/output/scholarly attention to detail? Give </span><span class="Apple-style-span">him</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; "> the Nobel!</span></i></div></div>Shawn Vandorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16932787099944162452noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8539441575386310331.post-49612349928775597712009-10-01T19:52:00.005-04:002009-10-16T16:26:52.754-04:00John Steinbeck's Nobel Acceptance Speech<div><br /></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/StAfKv622mI/AAAAAAAAAXk/lS9mq5aDuvc/s1600-h/images.jpeg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 115px; height: 150px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/StAfKv622mI/AAAAAAAAAXk/lS9mq5aDuvc/s400/images.jpeg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5390843023484967522" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/SsVDUItyxyI/AAAAAAAAAXc/q4bgHuMDiTg/s1600-h/images.jpeg"></a><br /><div> <a href="http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1962/steinbeck-speech.html">http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1962/steinbeck-speech.html</a></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><br /></span></div>Shawn Vandorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16932787099944162452noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8539441575386310331.post-10959825523367712552009-09-16T13:05:00.010-04:002009-09-24T13:29:05.968-04:00Donor Insemination Offspring Literature<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none">1) <i>Consumer/Mom Literature</i><span style="font-style:normal">:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Written mostly for and by women concerning the options available for DI as well as first-hand accounts from women who have experienced it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>This is, by far, the largest sub-genre and the easiest material to come by, readily available at your local Barnes and Noble.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>As you might imagine these books are almost 100% in favor of all RTs and their area of concern is not so much whether or not these practices are ethical but rather focus on what the best methods, techniques and approaches for getting pregnant, and how best to manage the future child in the absence of a father and how to break the news to the future child that they are donor offspring.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Much to this sub-genre's credit, the authors seem to be almost unanimously against keeping the DI procedure secret from the child.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>While many of these books do give ample historical context to DI (some even go so far as to discuss the eugenic implications of the procedure) these books are, for the most part, like any other consumer literature – they are buyer's guides that treat the mother-to-be like a consumer and the child-to-be like a product to be appropriately priced and researched before purchased.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Frankly, I found many of these books to be quite alienating.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But there are a few that I thought were fairly comprehensive in their perspective:<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><i> <o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><i>On Our Own</i><span style="font-style:normal">, Melissa Ludtke<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><i>Single Mothers By Choice</i><span style="font-style:normal">, Jane Mattes<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><i>Having Your Baby By Donor Insemination</i><span style="font-style:normal">, Elizabeth Noble<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none">2) <i>Medical/Bioethical Literature</i><span style="font-style:normal">: Mostly written by and for doctors and/or academics concerning the ethical decisions and ramifications of DI within the larger context of RTs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Besides the fact that these books are harder to come by, more expensive and more difficult to understand than the aforementioned Consumer-Mom literature<a style="mso-footnote-id:ftn1" href="#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character:footnote">[1]</span></span></a> these books are concerned with the way DI and other RTs contrast with what we as a culture have long considered to be </span><i>normal</i><span style="font-style:normal"> and how best to deal with the schism between the new normal and old normal.<a style="mso-footnote-id:ftn2" href="#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character:footnote">[2]</span></span></a><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>For instance, Brent Waters, in his book <i>Reproductive Technologies</i><span style="font-style:normal"> asks the million dollar question:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>If medicine is now displacing marriage as the principle institution ordering procreation – how do we begin to understand the ethical framework from which modern medicine arose?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>To answer this very difficult, very relevant question, Waters says:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:.5in"><i>…<span style="color:black">contemporary medicine is practiced against the backdrop of a Western philosophical crisis.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>With the collapse of Christendom and the Enlightenment’s failure to fill the void, Western societies lack consensus on a normative practice of medicine.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Thus an ‘anonymous perspective of reason’ is needed in which no religious or moral orthodoxy is imposed or privileged.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>A secular framework of moral deliberation encompassing a pluralistic world is required, necessitating a neutral mode of public moral discourse.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The role of the moral philosopher in general, and the bioethicist in particular, is not to judge the truth of conflicting claims but to develop credible options among a diverse population.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>They map the terrain of contending values, identifying procedures for resolving conflict…Although a secular bioethic must acknowledge a wide spectrum of moral convictions, freedom is the dominant value….<o:p></o:p></span></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="color:black"><i> <o:p></o:p></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="color:black"><i>Freedom</i></span><span style="color:black">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Never has the word flapped so lonely in the wind.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Freedom of choice. Freedom to be oneself.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Freedom from the other.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>But if everyone is <i>free</i></span><span style="color:black"> in their own realm of biotechnological decision-making what happens to community, neighborhood, belonging, togetherness?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Now that men and women no longer need each other for reproduction what does a man see when he looks at a woman?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>What does a woman see when she looks at a man?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>What do we think about when we think about ourselves? <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none">I got really into this subgenre.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I couldn’t stop.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>These books are academic, slow going and, really, kind of <i>far out</i><span style="font-style:normal">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I found that reading several of these books in a row is like huffing glue:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>brief high-highs interspersed with fat black patches of nothing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Let me just say:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>these books are interesting (theoretically) but I wouldn’t want to live in a world ruled by scientists or bioethicists.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Remember the technocratic dystopia described in Aldous Huxley’s </span><i>Brave New World</i><span style="font-style:normal">?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Well, you know where I’m going with this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none">Good stuff:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><i> <o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><i>Ethics of New Reproductive Technologies, </i><span style="font-style:normal">Jonathan Glover</span><i><o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><i>The Future of Human Reproduction,</i><span style="font-style:normal"> ed. John Harris and Soren Holm<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><i>The Artificial Family</i><span style="font-style:normal">, donors R. Snowden and G.D. Mitchell<a style="mso-footnote-id:ftn3" href="#_ftn3" name="_ftnref3" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character:footnote">[3]</span></span></a></span><i><o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><i>A Question of Life:</i><span style="font-style:normal"> </span><i>The Warnock Report</i><span style="font-style:normal">, Mary Warnock<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><i>Reproductive Technology: Towards a theology of Procreative Stewardship, Ethics of New Reproductive Technologies</i><span style="font-style:normal">, Brent Waters<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none">3) <i>Philosophical Literature</i><span style="font-style:normal">:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Most of the philosophical literature here does not refer to DI by name but rather to the nature of human reproduction in the age of science and, in particular, how this effects </span><i>being, conciousness, </i><span style="font-style:normal">one's existential perspective and whether or not such an existential perspective even still exists. This is yet an even smaller sub-genre than the previous two, depending on what philosophical texts you want to drag into the conversation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>One book from thus sub-genre stood out from all the rest: Jurgen Habermas's </span><i>The Future of Human Nature, </i><span style="font-style:normal">published in 2003, in which he examines the difference between the “grown” and the “made.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He asks, “…whether the instrumentalization of human nature [the made]<a style="mso-footnote-id:ftn4" href="#_ftn4" name="_ftnref4" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character:footnote">[4]</span></span></a> changes the ethical self-understanding of the species in such a way that we may no longer see ourselves as ethically free and morally equal beings guided by norms and reasons.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none">In other words, by “making” new human beings via technology we are essentially giving birth to a new existential or extra-existential or even non-existential perspective, a people for whom we "naturally" conceived humans can't possibly apply our "normative" ethical framework.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It would be like critiquing a film based on television standards.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none">By the way, whenever the subject comes up in conversation, I tell people I am a “product” of donor insemination.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Several of my friends have commented that this is a rather cold or unfeeling self-description but I do believe it’s apt.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none">Useful references:<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span><i>The Human Condition</i><span style="font-style:normal">, Hannah Artendt<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><i>Secrets</i><span style="font-style:normal">, Sissela Bok<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span><i>The Future of Human Nature</i><span style="font-style:normal">, Jurgen Habermas<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span><i>The Question Concerning Technology</i><span style="font-style:normal">, Martin Heidegger<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span><i>The Republic</i><span style="font-style:normal">, Plato<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none">4) <i>The Literature of Eugenics</i><span style="font-style:normal">: It turns out that Francis Galton and the history of Eugenics is the story within the story, as it were, concerning DI.<a style="mso-footnote-id:ftn5" href="#_ftn5" name="_ftnref5" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character:footnote">[5]</span></span></a> I believe this story gives adequate context to the questions and practical applications facing DI today.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Needless to say, I was surprised by what I found and I’m guessing you will be too. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none">Did you know, in the early 20th Century, the United States had a comprehensive sterilization program in 26 states in which the “ lower tenth” - those determined to be stupid, poor, ugly - were legally forced into sterilization in an effort to improve the race?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Did you know, in the early 20th Century, the U.S. and U.K. eugenics programs were far more advanced than their Nazi counterparts and were in fact the models upon which Nazi Germany based their eugenics program?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Did you know that American, British and Nazi German scientists worked hand-in-hand in cooperative eugenics programs, both here and in Germany, and were forced to separate only after the United States entered the war in 1941?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Did you know that it was only at the end of World War II, when word of the Nazi concentration camps (a direct result of their eugenics program) spread around the world, that all the western nations closed the doors on their own eugenics programs, afraid of being associated with the Holocaust?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And did you know that, at the end of World War II, the West's eugenics programs were not, in fact, "closed" but were merely transformed into what we now call genetics?<a style="mso-footnote-id:ftn6" href="#_ftn6" name="_ftnref6" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character:footnote">[6]</span></span></a><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none">Yeah, I didn’t either.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It might be the great untold story of the 20<sup>th</sup> century.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span><i>War Against the Weak</i><span style="font-style:normal">, Edwin Black<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span><i>Better For All the World</i><span style="font-style:normal">, Harry Bruinius<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span><i>The Unfit: A History of a Bad Idea</i><span style="font-style:normal">, Elof Axel Carlson<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span><i>Essays in Eugenics</i><span style="font-style:normal">, Francis Galton<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">5) <i>DI Offspring Literature</i><span style="font-style:normal">: Besides a handful of articles and blog posts<a style="mso-footnote-id:ftn7" href="#_ftn7" name="_ftnref7" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character:footnote">[7]</span></span></a>, would you believe there’s almost nothing whatsoever written from the perspective of a man or woman created by DI?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Nothing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I'm sure the secrecy and shame that has long surrounded the practice has something to do with it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I heard about a young woman, a product of DI, who, several years ago, supposedly wrote a memoir in the ‘90s condemning the practice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>She was taken on Larry King Live and hailed by Pat Robertson and other Religious Righters as evidence that donor insemination and all other RTs are unholy, unnatural, etc.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But, after much research, I was unable to find this young woman’s name, her book, or her supposed appearance on Larry King.</span></p> <div style="mso-element:footnote-list"><br /> <hr align="left" size="1" width="33%"> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn1"> <p class="MsoFootnoteText"><a style="mso-footnote-id:ftn1" href="#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character:footnote">[1]</span></span></a> <span style="font-size:10.0pt">Think of the difference between <i>Variety</i></span><span style="font-size:10.0pt"> and <i>People</i></span><span style="font-size:10.0pt"> magazine: one caters to the industry insider and one caters to the consumer.</span></p> </div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn2"> <p class="MsoFootnoteText"><a style="mso-footnote-id:ftn2" href="#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character:footnote">[2]</span></span></a> <span style="font-size:10.0pt;color:black">When they say <i>normal</i></span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;color:black"> they typically mean <i>Christian</i></span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;color:black">; many of these books inevitably (and understandably) talk about Man’s relationship to God and whether or not Man is supplanting God’s infinite wisdom and procreative decisions with Science.</span></p> </div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn3"> <p class="MsoFootnoteText"><a style="mso-footnote-id:ftn3" href="#_ftnref3" name="_ftn3" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character:footnote">[3]</span></span></a> <span style="font-size:10.0pt">Incidentally, the <i>only</i></span><span style="font-size:10.0pt"> book I came across written by a donor.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><span style="font-size:10.0pt"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></span></p> </div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn4"> <p class="MsoFootnoteText"><a style="mso-footnote-id:ftn4" href="#_ftnref4" name="_ftn4" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character:footnote">[4]</span></span></a> <span style="font-size:10.0pt">The brackets are mine.</span></p> </div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn5"> <p class="MsoFootnoteText"><a style="mso-footnote-id:ftn5" href="#_ftnref5" name="_ftn5" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character:footnote">[5]</span></span></a> <span style="font-size:10.0pt">For my dollar anyway.</span></p> </div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn6"> <p class="MsoFootnoteText"><a style="mso-footnote-id:ftn6" href="#_ftnref6" name="_ftn6" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character:footnote">[6]</span></span></a> <span style="font-size:10.0pt">All of this and much <i>much</i></span><span style="font-size:10.0pt"> more can be found at Edwin Black’s mind-boggling <i>War Against the Weak.</i></span> </p> </div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn7"> <p class="MsoFootnoteText"><a style="mso-footnote-id:ftn7" href="#_ftnref7" name="_ftn7" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character:footnote">[7]</span></span></a> <span style="font-size:10.0pt">The most comprehensive blog is PCVAI (People Conceived Via Artificial Insemination) at yahoo, but you have to be a donor offspring to gain access.</span> </p> </div> </div> <!--EndFragment--> <div><div style="mso-element:footnote-list"><div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn7"> </div> </div> <!--EndFragment--> </div>Shawn Vandorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16932787099944162452noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8539441575386310331.post-8951420034596532532009-09-14T13:40:00.025-04:002009-10-10T14:37:19.580-04:00The Walking Dead<div style="text-align: left;"><i>The Walking Dead</i> is a really great comic book that's about to be made into an ongoing serial on AMC.</div><div><br /></div><div><img src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/Sq6Fp2bzgUI/AAAAAAAAAUU/0VDbrl2hjKI/s400/images.jpeg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5381385558787588418" style="float: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; cursor: pointer; width: 150px; height: 113px; " /> <div>I haven't read comic books in years. When I was a kid I used to collect them religiously. There are currently boxes upon boxes of comic books stacked in my mother's garage, each comic book individually wrapped in plastic with cardboard backing. Most of the Marvel and DC comics from my childhood are essentially worthless. When my friends and I were collecting we thought that our comics would someday be worth as much as the comics from the '40s, '50s and '60s, which is to say, a lot. But, thanks to mass-mass production that will probably never be the case.</div><div><br /></div><div>Anyway, <i>The Walking Dead</i> is a lot of fun. Conceptually, it's great. The dialogue is often tedious and the characterizations are sometimes one-dimensional (classic traits of comic book writing) but after a while you really get into the post-apocalyptic suffering of the characters; the pace with which the characters come and go is...strangely refreshing. Most serials seem loathe to kill off characters here or there - but to see a story line in which even the most central characters are (or could be) killed off, I find somehow entirely cathartic.</div><div><br /></div><div>You've probably noticed that there's been a huge vampire resurgence going on for the past few years - Joss Whedon's <i>Buffy</i> and Alan Ball's <i>True Blood</i> are the most notable - but I'll take a good zombie movie/show/story any day of the week. The thing about zombie movies is that they're movies about <i>us</i>. I know I'm not the first to say this but zombie movies are the perfect contemporary social satire, you know, what with our mass consumer liberal democracy and all. The herd mentality. I think you know where I'm going with this. The horror of a good zombie movie is the horror of ourselves. It's a beautiful (and very funny) thing when done well.</div><div><br /></div><div>And so to celebrate zombies, an impromptu top 4 zombie movie list (in reverse!):</div><div><br /></div><div><img src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/Sq8DNNajcII/AAAAAAAAAWs/EivUE3ab-bY/s400/images.jpeg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5381523605205250178" style="float: right; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 95px; height: 142px; " /></div><div>4) <i>Dawn of the Dead</i> (original), George Romero: His best film.</div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/Sq8Dbw_lOjI/AAAAAAAAAW0/N7bPUIQdu0E/s400/images-1.jpeg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5381523855273966130" style="float: right; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 140px; height: 109px; " /></span></div><div>3) <i>Mean Girls</i>, Mark Waters: This is the best zombie-movie-that's-not-a-zombie-movie I've ever seen. Brilliant!</div><div><br /></div><div>2) <i>28 Days Later</i>, Danny Boyle: Overall, this might be the best zombie movie (even though technically I think you could make the case this is a virus film and not a zombie film at all but...)...it's certainly the best <i>movie</i> movie of</div>any of them...<div><br /></div><div>1) <i>Dawn of the Dead</i> (remake), Zack Snyder: The</div><img src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/Sq8Dj4jbnVI/AAAAAAAAAW8/LKrJnXVOv04/s400/images-2.jpeg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5381523994742332754" style="float: right; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 95px; height: 133px; " /><div> first five minutes of this film are outrageously scary and</div><img src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/Sq8D3whIEQI/AAAAAAAAAXE/BbTReB1sQVg/s400/images-3.jpeg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5381524336182563074" style="float: right; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 93px; height: 130px; " /><div> phenomenal...the most authentic representation of what the first few minutes of a zombie outbreak would really be like.</div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#0000EE;"><br /></span></div><div> </div></div>Shawn Vandorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16932787099944162452noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8539441575386310331.post-5324585185084221082009-09-08T12:37:00.008-04:002009-09-09T12:07:28.490-04:00The Archimedean Point<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#551A8B;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000000;">A definition lifted straight from Wikipedia:</span></span></div><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 92px; height: 124px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/SqaLIgOKi9I/AAAAAAAAAUE/u8ZAOBqkAiQ/s400/Archimedes.jpeg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5379139783145196498" /><div><div><div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 19px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"></span></span></span></div></div></div><div><div><div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 19px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">"A hypothetical vantage point from which an observer can objectively perceive the subject of inquiry, with a view of totality. The ideal of 'removing oneself' from the object of study so that one can see it in relation to all other things, but remain independent of them."</span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 19px;font-size:small;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 19px;font-size:small;">From the Greek mathematician, Archimedes.</span></span></div></div><br /></div><br /></div></div>Shawn Vandorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16932787099944162452noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8539441575386310331.post-88159349876526849772009-09-07T03:17:00.024-04:002009-09-24T13:26:05.580-04:00The Birth of American Donor Insemination: A Modern Techno-Myth<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"><!--StartFragment--> </p><p class="MsoNormal"><!--StartFragment--> </p><p class="MsoNormal">In 1884, a merchant and his Quaker wife, unable to become pregnant, visited the Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia where they met with Dr. William Pancoast. After a series of tests, Dr. Pancoast discovered the husband to be azoospermic, or sterile, while the wife was found to be perfectly fertile.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Uncertain of how to treat the couple, the doctor consulted with his class of six medical students, one of whom suggested that they use the semen from the “best looking” man among them to inseminate the woman.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Dr. Pancoast agreed and called the wife in once more for a final examination.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He anesthetized the woman with chloroform and, with a rubber syringe, injected his student’s semen into her while his six students observed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">It was only after the birth of her son nine months later - the first ever reported human DI pregnancy in the United States - that Dr. Pancoast confessed to the merchant what he and his students had done.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The husband, by most accounts, responded positively but asked that the doctor and his students keep the secret from his wife.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>They agreed, and she was never told.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Without realizing it Dr. Pancoast and his six anonymous medical students set a precedent that day in 1884 for the practice of DI that has continued until this day.<a style="mso-footnote-id:ftn1" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=8539441575386310331&postID=8815934987652684977#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character:footnote">[1]</span></span></a> But what right do semen donors have to anonymity?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>In this case, does the donor’s right to anonymity outweigh the mother’s right to know with whose semen she has been inseminated?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Does the donor’s right to anonymity also outweigh the unborn child’s right to know who his true father is?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I suspect the identity of the “true” biological father was kept secret for three reasons:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>1) It was initially kept secret from both the husband and wife to protect Dr. Pancoast and his students from recriminations in case the merchant and/or his wife found their decision to inseminate her to be dishonorable or criminal; 2) The husband wanted to protect his wife from the potential shame of knowing she’d been inseminated, unknowingly, while passed out, by an anonymous man and; 3) Not wishing to lose face in his wife’s eyes the husband did not want his wife to know that he was incapable of impregnating her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>In any case, the chief motivating factor in maintaining donor anonymity in this first ever use of human DI in the U.S. was - unambiguously – fear;<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>each actor in the scenario was afraid that what they had done might be perceived as <i>wrong</i><span style="font-style:normal"> and sought to protect themselves from wrongdoing by cloaking themselves in secrecy.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">It is an important story and one of the most frequently told in the literature of DI.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It’s almost become a kind of origination myth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Each author tells the story in a slightly different way, from a slightly different perspective, like the many apostles each representing Christ<a style="mso-footnote-id:ftn2" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=8539441575386310331&postID=8815934987652684977#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character:footnote">[2]</span></span></a> in their own subjective voice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>In the absence of any federal or state legislation since 1884, the decisions made by Dr. Pancoast and his six anonymous students have, remarkably, set the standards for a medical practice that has become increasingly common and even, in the past few decades, highly commodified.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">What was the husband’s special relationship with the doctor that he was let in on the secret and his wife was not?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And what about the six anonymous medical students?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Who are they in this modern techno-myth?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>They are like the Council of Anonymous Masturbators standing in the background, bearing witness to this unique form of medicalized rape. They know whose semen it is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It is the “best looking” man’s semen and they are hiding his identity to prevent him from having to take any responsibility for the creation of new life, thus setting the stage for the practice of contemporary DI.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The commemorative coin would show the bust of a featureless man and would read:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:.5in;text-indent:.5in;mso-outline-level:1"><span style="font-size:18.0pt;"><b><i>Celebrating 125 years of Donor Insemination!<o:p></o:p></i></b></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:.5in;text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%;mso-outline-level:1"><span style="font-size:18.0pt;"><b><i>Creating Life and Avoiding Responsibility!</i></b></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Had the Quaker woman been told, on her way to the doctor’s office, that she was going to be drugged and impregnated with an unknown man’s semen with a rubber tube would she have consented?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>What right did Dr. Pancoast have to experiment on his patient?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">As if to assuage its own guilt over grossly misusing that Quaker woman, the American Medical establishment convinced itself (and nearly everyone else) that donor insemination is a boon for women’s freedom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Thanks to Dr. William Pancoast and his six brilliant (and handsome) medical students (who shall remain dignified in their anonymity) women now enjoy a liberation and freedom of choice never before known in the history of the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>They are so free that they don’t even need men any more. </p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Dr. Pancoast, his six students and the Quaker woman’s husband kept their secret to themselves for the next 25 years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But, in 1909, the cat was, as they say, let out of the bag.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Addison Davis Hard, one of Dr. Pancoast’s medical students (often speculated to be the “best looking”<a style="mso-footnote-id:ftn3" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=8539441575386310331&postID=8815934987652684977#_ftn3" name="_ftnref3" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character:footnote">[3]</span></span></a>) visited the donor offspring, then a twenty-five year old businessman living in Philadelphia, and revealed to that young man the story of his true conception.<a style="mso-footnote-id:ftn4" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=8539441575386310331&postID=8815934987652684977#_ftn4" name="_ftnref4" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character:footnote">[4]</span></span></a><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Soon after, Hard published a letter in the American journal <i>Medical World</i><span style="font-style:normal">, in which he unveiled their collective secret to the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>An excerpt from Hard’s letter:<a style="mso-footnote-id:ftn5" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=8539441575386310331&postID=8815934987652684977#_ftn5" name="_ftnref5" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character:footnote">[5]</span></span></a> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:.5in"><i> <o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:.5in"><i>From a nature point of view, the idea of artificial impregnation offers valuable advantages.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The mating of human beings must, from the nature of things, be a matter of sentiment alone.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Persons of the worst possible promise of good and healthy offspring are being lawfully united in marriage every day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Marriage is a proposition which is not submitted to good judgment or even common sense, as a rule…Artificial impregnation by carefully selected seed, alone will solve the problem.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It may at first shock the sensibilities of the sentimental who consider that the source of the seed indicates the true father, but when the scientific fact becomes known that the origin of the spermatozoa which generates the ovum is of no more importance than the personality of the finger which pulls the trigger of a gun, then objections will lose their forcefulness and artificial impregnation become recognized as a race-uplifting procedure.<o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal">In the massive controversy that followed, the Jefferson Medical College, and all parties involved, took a considerable PR hit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Some claimed Addison Davis Hard was playing a joke.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Some defended him, claiming that this procedure would in fact help limit unwanted pregnancy while others argued against AI as grotesque and absurd.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>But, most importantly, “The eugenicists were quickly on the scene and in the process divided the medical profession by their claims that the improvement of the genetic stock of America was now possible.”<a style="mso-footnote-id:ftn6" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=8539441575386310331&postID=8815934987652684977#_ftn6" name="_ftnref6" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character:footnote">[6]</span></span></a></p> <div style="mso-element:footnote-list"><br /> <hr align="left" size="1" width="33%"> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn1"> <p class="MsoFootnoteText"><a style="mso-footnote-id:ftn1" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=8539441575386310331&postID=8815934987652684977#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character:footnote">[1]</span></span></a> <span style="font-size:10.0pt;">The main difference today, of course, is that women know they’re being inseminated when they go to the doctor - but donor anonymity is still the norm.</span></p> </div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn2"> <p class="MsoFootnoteText"><a style="mso-footnote-id:ftn2" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=8539441575386310331&postID=8815934987652684977#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character:footnote">[2]</span></span></a> <span style="font-size:10.0pt;">Of course, it’s worth mentioning that Jesus was the <i>product</i></span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;"> of The Immaculate Conception.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>If a woman never has intercourse with a man but becomes pregnant via DI would she still be considered a virgin?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> </div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn3"> <p class="MsoFootnoteText"><a style="mso-footnote-id:ftn3" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=8539441575386310331&postID=8815934987652684977#_ftnref3" name="_ftn3" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character:footnote">[3]</span></span></a> <span style="font-size:10.0pt;">Ladies and gentleman, America’s first semen donor!</span> </p> </div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn4"> <p class="MsoFootnoteText"><a style="mso-footnote-id:ftn4" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=8539441575386310331&postID=8815934987652684977#_ftnref4" name="_ftn4" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character:footnote">[4]</span></span></a> <span style="font-size:10.0pt;">If Hard was, in fact, the donor father it’s interesting to note in this origination myth that it was the anonymous father who sought out the donor child – not the other way around.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Clearly, no matter what anyone says, this is a two-way relationship.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>How many sperm donors are there who, having jerked off for money in college, found themselves, later in life, wondering - <i>really</i></span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;"> wondering - where their children are, <i>who</i></span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;"> their children are? </span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p> </div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn5"> <p class="MsoFootnoteText"><a style="mso-footnote-id:ftn5" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=8539441575386310331&postID=8815934987652684977#_ftnref5" name="_ftn5" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character:footnote">[5]</span></span></a> <span style="font-size:10.0pt;">Courtesy of Elizabeth Noble’s <i>Having Your Baby By Donor Insemination</i></span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;">.</span></p> </div> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn6"> <p class="MsoFootnoteText"><a style="mso-footnote-id:ftn6" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=8539441575386310331&postID=8815934987652684977#_ftnref6" name="_ftn6" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character:footnote">[6]</span></span></a> <span style="font-size:10.0pt;">From R. Snowden and G.D. Mitchell’s <i>The Artificial Family.</i></span></p> </div> </div> <!--EndFragment--> <p></p><div style="mso-element:footnote-list"><div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn6"> </div> </div> <!--EndFragment--> <p></p><div style="mso-element:footnote-list"><div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn6"> </div> </div> <!--EndFragment-->Shawn Vandorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16932787099944162452noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8539441575386310331.post-22980187081040456762009-09-05T00:33:00.012-04:002009-09-24T13:15:01.056-04:00A Brief History of Donor Insemination<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/Sruom0Q4TpI/AAAAAAAAAXU/FeG91o-27DM/s1600-h/images.jpeg"></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/SqKPRxuB2SI/AAAAAAAAAS8/G4--pyNsRDw/s1600-h/images.jpeg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 107px; height: 127px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/SqKPRxuB2SI/AAAAAAAAAS8/G4--pyNsRDw/s400/images.jpeg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5378018440600738082" /></a><b><i>1677</i></b><span style="font-weight:normal;font-style:normal"> - Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, a Dutch scientist from Delft, considered to be the father of microbiology, discovers sperm, along with his pupil Johan Hamm, with the use of a magnifying lens.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>They refer to the sperm as </span><i>animalcules</i><span style="font-style:normal">.</span><br /><img src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/SqKPf941knI/AAAAAAAAATE/sdKI97mf4kk/s400/images-1.jpeg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5378018684385464946" style="float: right; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 88px; height: 127px; " /><p class="MsoNormal"> <b><i>1779</i></b><span style="font-weight:normal;font-style:normal"> – Italian biologist and physiologist Lazzaro Spallanzani is the first to perform artificial insemination, using a dog.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> He kept the two animals in separate rooms to avoid natural mating and when the female dog showed signs of being in heat he collected semen from the male dog next door injecting the semen into the female dog’s womb.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>She became pregnant, and sixty-two days later, three healthy puppies were born. Spallanzani also observed the effects of cooling and freezing human sperm, now a common storage technique.</span></span></p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/SqKSLaeWijI/AAAAAAAAATM/HkQPu_7M1IY/s400/images-2.jpeg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5378021629816638002" style="float: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; cursor: pointer; width: 105px; height: 134px; " /></span><p class="MsoNormal"><b><i>1790</i></b><span style="font-weight:normal;font-style:normal"> - John Hunter, British physiologist and surgeon, is the first to record a pregnancy and delivery of a child conceived by artificial insemination with a husband’s semen.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b><i>1838</i></b><span style="font-weight:normal;font-style:normal"> - A Frenchman named Girault used a hollow tube to blow sperm into a vagina.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <b><i>1865</i></b><span style="font-weight:normal;font-style:normal"> - De Haut published a pamphlet on Artificial Insemination in France but discontinued his experimentation due to public disapproval.</span></p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/SqKTYb65MHI/AAAAAAAAATU/KSyTlYiGsao/s400/images-3.jpeg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5378022953054711922" style="float: right; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 116px; height: 122px; " /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); "><b><i>1866</i></b><span style="font-weight:normal;font-style:normal"> - American gynecologist J. Marion Sims reported fifty-five intrauterine injections performed on six women enjoying only a four per cent success rate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Sims, a controversial doctor, said to have performed unethical and sometimes brutal surgery on slave women, was later elected as President of the American Medical Association in 1875.</span></span></span> <p class="MsoNormal"> <b><i>1866</i></b><span style="font-weight:normal;font-style:normal"> - First reported successful artificial insemination (with husband’s semen) in the United States.</span></p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/SqKT-Ar0usI/AAAAAAAAATk/Z3vawmgecoA/s400/images-4.jpeg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5378023598578776770" style="float: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; cursor: pointer; width: 96px; height: 116px; " /></span><p class="MsoNormal"> <b><i>1883</i></b><span style="font-weight:normal;font-style:normal"> – Francis Galton, first cousin of Charles Darwin, coins term </span><i>eugenics,</i><span style="font-style:normal"> meaning </span><i>good breeding</i><span style="font-style:normal">.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p> <img src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/SqKUq3Rc8ZI/AAAAAAAAATs/m7uiknygYuI/s400/images-5.jpeg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5378024369146360210" style="float: right; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 136px; height: 145px; " /><p class="MsoNormal"> <b><i>1884</i></b><span style="font-weight:normal;font-style:normal"> – <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">World’s first case of human donor insemination, performed by Dr. William Pancoast Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia. The procedure is kept secret until 1909.</span></span></span></p><!--StartFragment--><!--EndFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal"><b><i>1886</i></b><span style="font-weight:normal;font-style:normal"> – Paolo Mantegazza, a well known Italian neurologist, physiologist and anthropologist makes world’s first proposal for a sperm bank.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><!--StartFragment--> </p><p class="MsoNormal"><b><i>1909</i></b><span style="font-weight:normal;font-style:normal"> – Addison Davis Hard, one of Dr. William Pancoast’s students, publishes a letter in American Journal </span><i>Medical World</i><span style="font-style:normal">, disclosing the details of the 1884 DI procedure, setting off a debate among lawyers, philosophers, theologians and medical practitioners.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></span></p> <!--EndFragment--> <p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <b><i>1914</i></b><span style="font-weight:normal;font-style:normal"> - Giuseppe Amantea, an Italian physician and physiologist, devised first artificial vagina thought to have greatly advanced artificial insemination technology.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <b><i>1938</i></b><span style="font-weight:normal;font-style:normal"> – Twenty-four articles on human artificial insemination are written and published in the United States.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <b><i>1938</i></b><span style="font-weight:normal;font-style:normal"> - First cattle breeding organization in the United States to use artificial insemination begins operations in New Jersey.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <b><i>1941</i></b><span style="font-weight:normal;font-style:normal"> - It is estimated that 3700 human donor inseminations occur in the U.S.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <b><i>1945</i></b><span style="font-weight:normal;font-style:normal"> - A string of medical committees are established in the U.K. concerning the ethical and moral dimensions of human donor insemination.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The first report in the British Medical Journal condemned Donor Insemination calling it a “criminal offense.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/SqKWKNT-_JI/AAAAAAAAAT0/Z4fQHQTFcXQ/s400/images-6.jpeg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5378026007150132370" style="float: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; cursor: pointer; width: 128px; height: 137px; " /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b><i>1949 </i></b><span style="font-weight:normal;font-style:normal">– Pope Pius the XII rejects donor insemination on moral grounds.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b><i>1960</i></b><span style="font-weight:normal;font-style:normal"> - The Feversham Committee deems the practice of donor insemination </span><i>undesirable</i><span style="font-style:normal">.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <b><i>1970</i></b><span style="font-weight:normal;font-style:normal"> - The Peel Report comes out in favor of Donor Insemination.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <b><i>1985</i></b><span style="font-weight:normal;font-style:normal"> - The Warnock Report states: “The protection of the public, which we see as the primary objective of regulation, demands the existence of an authority independent of Government, heath authorities, or research institutions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The authority should be specifically charged with the responsibility to regulate and monitor practice in relation to those sensitive areas which raise fundamental ethical questions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>We therefore recommend the establishment of a new statutory licensing authority to regulate both research and those infertility services which we have recommended should be subject to control.”</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <b><i>1980’s</i></b><span style="font-weight:normal;font-style:normal"> - In the United States it is estimated that up to 100,000 children are the product of D.I. each year, 20,000 a year in California alone.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> <span style="font-family:";font-size:12.0pt;"></span><span><span><b><i>1987</i></b> - It is estimated one million DI children are living in United States.</span></span><span style="Times New Roman";mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-fareast-language:EN-USfont-family:";font-size:12.0pt;"></span></span></p><img src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/Sruom0Q4TpI/AAAAAAAAAXU/FeG91o-27DM/s400/images.jpeg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5385083164269498002" style="float: right; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 120px; height: 150px; " /><p class="MsoNormal"><b><i>1988</i></b><span style="font-weight:normal;font-style:normal"> – <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">A study done by the Congressional Office of Technology - commissioned by then Senator Al Gore - reveals a surprising lack of testing among semen donors for sexually transmitted diseases. </span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">According to the study, as reported by </span><i><u><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The New York Times</span></u></i></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">, “…more than half of the 1,558 physicians surveyed said they did not check prospective donors for the AIDS virus; nearly three-quarters did not test for syphilis, gonorrhea or hepatitis, and about half did not perform any tests for genetic defects.”</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Then what are they screening for?</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">“What many doctors do instead of testing is require prospective donors to answer questions about their life style, such as ‘Are you homosexual?’ and ‘Are you sexually promiscuous?’ These doctors say that since a majority of donors are university or medical students, who are presumably knowledgeable about health matters, their answers can be trusted.”</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Do you get the feeling that there’s a lot of winking and nudging going on in the DI world? It is the most comprehensive U.S. survey of procreative industry to date.</span></span></span></p> <div style="mso-element:footnote-list"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "></span> <div style="mso-element:footnote" id="ftn1"> <p class="MsoFootnoteText"><br /></p> </div> </div> <!--EndFragment--> <p></p>Shawn Vandorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16932787099944162452noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8539441575386310331.post-52622769617384032462009-08-03T11:12:00.006-04:002009-08-03T11:20:22.194-04:00Mr. Beller's NeighborhoodYou can read four of my short autobiographical stories at Thomas Beller's:<div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://www.mrbellersneighborhood.com/">http://www.mrbellersneighborhood.com/</a><br /></span></div><div><br /></div><div>Just type my name into Search and presto! If you haven't seen the site it's definitely worth checking out.</div><div><br /></div><div>The four stories <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">You're Supposed to Make Mistakes</span>, <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">One Snort</span>, <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Little Blue Bag</span> and <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">You Look Nice Tonight, That's All</span> are included in my forthcoming collection of short autobiographical stories <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Fire At the End of the Rainbow</span> to be released by Key West-based Sand Paper Press in December, 2009.</div><div><br /></div><div>More on that as the date approaches. </div>Shawn Vandorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16932787099944162452noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8539441575386310331.post-19074600367512345612009-07-28T10:31:00.025-04:002010-01-25T13:00:04.313-05:00Authors I Have MetLet me just say, I'm limiting the Authors I have Met List to those who have achieved a certain popular or critical success. I'm excluding friends and authors who - though successful, published, etc. - haven't quite pierced that Nth, magical level of public imagination. This is a subjective line, obviously, and apologies in advance to all the writers I'm about to exclude. (Also, I'm using the word "met" liberally. Some of these "meetings" are no more than brief encounters, chance seatings at a table, etc. but, you know, so what?)<br /><br />Okay, are you ready? (This is bound to be totally uncomfortable, maybe even regrettable...). Here goes. In alphabetical order:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/Sm9RFtAFZ7I/AAAAAAAAAPs/4Fpo21ARfwg/s1600-h/chinua+achebe.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 127px; height: 129px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/Sm9RFtAFZ7I/AAAAAAAAAPs/4Fpo21ARfwg/s400/chinua+achebe.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5363594839642695602" border="0" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">Chinua Achebe</span>: The one time I attended church at Bard I saw Chinua Achebe and his entire family in the congregation. They were fantastic: friendly, smiling, comfortable to be around. I liked him and his family instantly. Several months later, I was walking across campus early one morning. No one was out. I could see, in the distance, further down the trail, a man on a wheelchair. As we slowly approached one another, and as we got close enough so I could make out his face, I could see that the man in the wheelchair was none other than famed Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe. "Good morning," he said, smiling brightly at me. "Good morning," I replied. Let me just say this man has a remarkable smile, a truly benevolent smile - without a doubt the greatest and most endearing smile of any author I've ever met. Perhaps because of my positive (though brief) interactions with Achebe and his family, I decided in the summer of 2003 to read through Achebe's entire body of work. I made it through <span style="font-style: italic;">Things Fall Apart</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">A Man of the People</span>,<span style="font-style: italic;"> Home and Exile</span> (essays) and <span style="font-style: italic;">Hope and Impedements</span> (essays) before I met a woman and spent the rest of the summer not reading. Let me just say: for being an uber-canonized novel that practically every child on the planet is required to read, <span style="font-style: italic;">Things Fall Apart</span> is the real deal. It's fantastic. And I still think about some of the essays in <span style="font-style: italic;">Ho</span><span style="font-style: italic;">pe and</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> Impedements</span>.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Andre Aciman</span>: I'm not going to be able to do the Andre Aciman story justice here but Andre was my Proust professor at Bard and it was a wonderful experience. I still haven't read his memoir<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/Sm9R4eAkvrI/AAAAAAAAAP8/FJDH8QkIMhY/s1600-h/andre+aciman.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 98px; height: 118px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/Sm9R4eAkvrI/AAAAAAAAAP8/FJDH8QkIMhY/s400/andre+aciman.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5363595711791546034" border="0" /></a> <span style="font-style: italic;">Ou</span><span style="font-style: italic;">t of Egypt </span>but I have a signed copy that he addressed to my grandmother that said (and I'm paraphrasing): "To Velva, Whose grandson, Shawn, will soon be a successful author." There's a scene in <span style="font-style: italic;">In Search of Lost Time</span> where a published, known author of the day visits Marcel at his parent's home and signs a copy of one of his books to Proust's grandmother saying her grandson is going to be a great literary talent, etc., in an attempt to assuage her anxiety that Marcel was wasting his life away. I thought it was a sweet gesture by Andre and it meant a lot to my grandmother.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/Sm9SYSgAJ1I/AAAAAAAAAQE/L1yrYMk-fb8/s1600-h/John+Ashbery.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 133px; height: 133px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/Sm9SYSgAJ1I/AAAAAAAAAQE/L1yrYMk-fb8/s400/John+Ashbery.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5363596258457954130" border="0" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">John Ashbery</span>: I'd never met a Pulitzer Prize or National Book Award winner before. But what are awards, anyway? More importantly, I'd never met an author while I was - at that precise moment - reading through their entire body of work. The summer before taking Ashbery's poetry workshop I read all of his books. <span style="font-style: italic;">Wakefulness</span> had just come out and I was savoring every poem, reading each one three or four times. I loved them all. I was entranced. So, before John walked into our classroom that first morning, I was genuinely nervous. For what, I'm not so sure. When he appeared, ambling his way through the door - lumpy, crooked, feeble - I was struck by how <i>human</i> he seemed. I remember his big nose. I was struck with the physicality of the man which makes sense now, in hindsight...if you only know an author from their words, they becomes an ancillary character in the mind of the reader - a fantasy component of the work itself. When I finally got over the fact that John Ashbery was, actually, a real person I was able to enjoy his very sweet, humble, friendly countenance. <div><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Jean Baudrillard</span>: I didn't actually meet-meet Jean Baudrillard but I was seated next to him at a group dinne<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/Sm9S2Mtb6bI/AAAAAAAAAQM/ViS7pF4iS-U/s1600-h/jean+baudrillard.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 93px; height: 127px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/Sm9S2Mtb6bI/AAAAAAAAAQM/ViS7pF4iS-U/s400/jean+baudrillard.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5363596772299762098" border="0" /></a>r. He was a little man. This was only a few years before his death. It was in Switzerland at the European Graduate School (deserving of a post all its own). At the time, I was a big fan of his work. I'd been reading through many of his books: <span style="font-style: italic;">America</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Simulacrum</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">and Simulation</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">The Gulf War Did Not Take Place, </span>among others. He was the first and only post-structuralist French theorist I ever shared a conversation with and I have to say - I don't know if it's coincidence or what - but after I had dinner with him I never took French post-structuralist theory seriously again. Ever. Haven't read one word. The moral: Be careful which authors you meet. The meeting <span style="font-style: italic;">will</span> alter you and it's impossible to know how.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/Sm9WjTFRhdI/AAAAAAAAAQU/HfOH8uiXi-I/s1600-h/thomas+beller.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 82px; height: 120px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/Sm9WjTFRhdI/AAAAAAAAAQU/HfOH8uiXi-I/s400/thomas+beller.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5363600845639353810" border="0" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">Tho</span><span style="font-weight: bold;">mas Beller</span>: A tall man, like myself. You know, having attended many literary parties and get-togethers I've discovered that A) Writers, editors and literary people, in general, are shorter than your average cross section of society and B) are likely to resent taller, larger people because of it. This was originally very suprising to me. In my naivete, many years ago, I believed that people dedicated to the Literary Cause, etc., would naturally be, oh, I don't know, intelligent, sophisticated, enlightened...Anyway, meeting Thomas Beller, author, editor of Open City, was a breath of fresh air. It was the first time in my life a writer/editor apporached me at a party BECAUSE of my height, happy to meet me, curious to know I was, what I was working on. I originally discovered Beller via David Berman's <span style="font-style: italic;">Actual Air, </span>a (dare I say) seminal poetry collection that Open City published several years ago. I later read <span style="font-style: italic;">How To Be a Man</span> Beller's incredibly likable collection of autobiographical essays.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Judith Butler</span>: I can't tell you how much I enjoyed meeting Butler. I was taking a three da<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/Sm9ZeAhEGEI/AAAAAAAAAQc/wG61j7yJFRI/s1600-h/judith+butler.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 116px; height: 116px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/Sm9ZeAhEGEI/AAAAAAAAAQc/wG61j7yJFRI/s400/judith+butler.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5363604053291178050" border="0" /></a>y course with her at the abovementioned European Graduate School and I was genuinely impressed not just with her intellect but with her willingness and desire to connect with every person in the room. I just thought she had a really useful, multi-purpose intellect. She was funny, smart, down-to-earth one minute and almost entirely impossible to understand the next. I loved it! One night, she delivered a 45-minute lecture on Obituaries and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (there's no way I'll be able to recap it or do it justice here but, trust me, it was very interesting). At the end Butler was viciously and personally attacked by EGS's head, Wolfgang Schirmacher (deserving a post all his own), and Butler courageously defended herself, then grabbed her jacket and fled when she realized Schirmacher had gone off the deep end (I've never seen anything quite like it). All of us immediately left the building to accompany her as she walked down that long, dark Swiss mountain. We all went to a pub afterwards and drank beer after beer laughing about the incident. I've never seen the difference between the European and American philosophical traditions made so blatantly apparent. Much respect to Judith Butler.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/Sm9ce6EhdTI/AAAAAAAAAQk/rMrXzEL7CVk/s1600-h/david+james+duncan.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 77px; height: 123px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/Sm9ce6EhdTI/AAAAAAAAAQk/rMrXzEL7CVk/s400/david+james+duncan.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5363607367275607346" border="0" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">David James Duncan</span>: More than any other writer I've ever met or read (with the possible exception of - who else? - Ernest Hemingway) David James Duncan made me want to become a writer. He came to my high school during my junior year, read part of his, then, newly published novel <span style="font-style: italic;">The Brothers K</span>, then sat-in during my English class, basically explaining to us what his day-to-day life was like as a writer and stay-at-home dad. I just thought: that's it. That's the life I want. He seemed like a really laid-back, thoughtful, cool guy. And not a bad writer at all. I read <span style="font-style: italic;">The Brothers K</span> not long after I met him making it, not only the longest book I had ever read at the time(656 p.), but the first work of fiction that left me simultaneously empty AND full when I finished it, sobbing like a little baby.<br /><br /><span><span style="font-weight: bold;">Steve Eri</span></span><span><span style="font-weight: bold;">ckson</span>: My defining moment with Steve Erickson is when he described his ex</span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/SnB8bcYoj_I/AAAAAAAAAQs/04OgFNvZgFM/s1600-h/steve+erickson.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 100px; height: 143px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/SnB8bcYoj_I/AAAAAAAAAQs/04OgFNvZgFM/s400/steve+erickson.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5363923967116087282" border="0" /></a><span>perience as Rolling Stone political correspondent as this: “Jan Wenner wanted me to be Hu</span><span>nter S. </span><span>Thompson.” And then he shrugged, like, <i>What the fuck are yo</i></span><span><i>u gonna do?</i> This is not a man who seemed particularly interested in teaching a class-full of graduate students, most</span><span> of whom would probably not go on to become actual practicing writers. I can’t say that I </span><span>blame him. Also, I’ve never read anything he’s written – but his books do look good…<br /><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/SnimqZdb5-I/AAAAAAAAAR8/rNrUzKfwDbE/s1600-h/images.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 124px; height: 124px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/SnimqZdb5-I/AAAAAAAAAR8/rNrUzKfwDbE/s400/images.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5366222203331012578" border="0" /></a><span><span style="font-weight: bold;">Thomas Frank</span>: Author of <span style="font-style: italic;">What's the Matter With Kansas? </span>an intelligent examination of how the republican party had managed to convince middle-American, blue collar, traditionally democratic-leaning voters to vote republican and, essentially against their own best interests. My friend Margaret had an interview scheduled with him for a magazine and - knowing that I'm a daffy <span style="font-style: italic;">political junky</span> - invited me along for the ride. We saw him give a riveting reading at Skylight Books in Los Feliz, a reading that actually provoked thoughtful, earnest dialogue between, not just audience members and author, but <i>between</i> audience members (imagine that!) Afterwards, me, Margaret, Frank and an old friend of his got a drink down the street. This was in 2003 just before Bush's re-election. Frank was livid about the cable news talk-show's dismissal of he and his book and seemed genuinely distraught, not just by the overall political climate of the country, but by the mainstream press's unwillingness to listen to him. Six months later Bush defeated John Kerry (much to the liberal news media's suprise) and suddenly Thomas Frank was on all the cable shows and his book was being talked about as "prescient," etc. His literary fortune really took a positive turn thanks to Bush. </span><span><br /><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/SnB8zjNKwVI/AAAAAAAAAQ0/ZKHuUZzCzwQ/s1600-h/steve+katz.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 135px; height: 113px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/SnB8zjNKwVI/AAAAAAAAAQ0/ZKHuUZzCzwQ/s400/steve+katz.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5363924381263905106" border="0" /></a><span><span style="font-weight: bold;">Steve</span></span><span><span style="font-weight: bold;"> </span></span><span><span style="font-weight: bold;">Katz</span>: One of my favorites. I met Steve at the University of Colorado at Boulder as an undergraduate and we immediately took to one another. It was in a me</span><span>eting in his office when he told me I could/should become a writer. I was 19 and when he told me this it changed everything. I recently ran into Steve in Powell’s in Portland. I walked to the B section, looking to see if any of the new Thomas Bernhard re-issues had come out (they still ha</span><span>ven’t) and there was a man standing right there in my spot looking through <i>Bernhard</i>. We stood side-by-side for a moment, wrestling for space, and then I looked over and saw that it was Steve. My mom and I went out to dinner with he and two of his grandchildren a few nights later at a real Chinese restaurant way out in deep north Portland. For those of you who don’t know: this is the guy who wrote <span style="font-style: italic;">The Exagerations of Peter Pri</span></span><span><span style="font-style: italic;">nce</span>, on</span><span>e of the coolest, funniest “experimental” works of fiction I’ve ever read. Also, his smile rivals Achebe's.<br /></span><br /><span><span style="font-weight: bold;">Robert Kelly</span>: You know, I’m surprised by how many authors I’ve made it throu</span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/SnB9kfs8ZZI/AAAAAAAAAQ8/2fivThXDVog/s1600-h/robert+kelly.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 113px; height: 150px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/SnB9kfs8ZZI/AAAAAAAAAQ8/2fivThXDVog/s400/robert+kelly.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5363925222137030034" border="0" /></a><span>gh </span><span>without a single negative or critical comment. Did you know Robert Kelly was once as large as a h</span><span>ouse? Literally. Yeah, I guess everyone knows that. Uhm…did you know he’s written about five hundred books? Yeah, everybody knows that too. Hmm…did you know he’s quite the ladies man…with teenage college girls? Um, yeah…I guess that’s common knowledge. Also, he speaks with a British a</span><span>ccent even though he's from New York and hasn’t left the state once in the last 60 years. Hm. Alright, next!</span><span><br /><br /></span><span><br /></span><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 94px; height: 97px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/SnB-xRM6pWI/AAAAAAAAARM/JzScnzn2Hls/s400/sam+lipsyte.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5363926541094528354" border="0" /><span><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sam Lipsyte</span>: Thomas Beller introduced me to Sam Lipsyte at a party as Sam</span><div><div><div><span> was on his way </span><span>out. We didn’t really get a chance to talk or anything but he seemed pretty cool. His first book </span><span style="font-style: italic;">Venus Drive</span>, a collection of stories put out by Open City, is very funny. Loved it. I'll never forget <i>Black Sean</i>.</div><div><div><span><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/SnB_ZJEXh_I/AAAAAAAAARU/4XMYX_xB5A0/s1600-h/harry+mathews.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 104px; height: 145px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/SnB_ZJEXh_I/AAAAAAAAARU/4XMYX_xB5A0/s400/harry+mathews.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5363927226105956338" border="0" /></a><div><span><span style="font-weight: bold;">Harry Mathews</span>: The lone American member of the French Literary movement OULIPO. Several years ago, a couple good friends and I visited Harry and his wife at their beautiful home in Key West. We brought wine and cheese. As I was passing the cheese to Harry’s wife I dropped the cheese on the floor. I don’t know why this is important. Later that afternoon, my friend Arlo, who is pals with Harry, mentioned something about Willy Nelson and Harry Mathews (then about 75) said: “Who?” And Arlo said: “You know, the country western pop star, Willy Nelson – sang <i>On The Road Again</i>….” And Harry said: “Never heard of him.” To this day I can’t decide whether to be impressed or disturbed. Even if you are a wealthy, </span><span>Harvard-alumn, </span><span>globe-trotting literary experimentalist how do you <span style="font-style: italic;">not</span> know who Willy Nelson is? Am I missing something here?</span><b><br /></b><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/SnCARfuvyvI/AAAAAAAAARk/umm_vJc--Ak/s1600-h/mark+strand.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 92px; height: 119px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/SnCARfuvyvI/AAAAAAAAARk/umm_vJc--Ak/s400/mark+strand.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5363928194261961458" border="0" /></a><span><span style="font-weight: bold;">Mark Strand</span>: I was kind of excited to meet Mark Strand. He came to read at Calarts and at the gathering afterwards his girlfriend at the time (the phenomenal Maureen X) introduced us. He’s almost as tall as me and handsome in a Clint Eastwood-meets-J.M. Coetzee sort of way. And also, <span style="font-style: italic;">Dark Harbor</span> continues to be pretty great.<br /><br /></span><div><span><span style="font-weight: bold;">Ron Sukenick</span>: I ended up working as Ron’s assistant in he and his wife’s Battery Park </span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/SnCAjC7CxGI/AAAAAAAAARs/Ujmf6baHVgU/s1600-h/ron+sukenick.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 78px; height: 112px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/SnCAjC7CxGI/AAAAAAAAARs/Ujmf6baHVgU/s400/ron+sukenick.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5363928495766553698" border="0" /></a><span>apartment many years after I was his student at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He </span><span>once tried to sleep with my girlfriend when - under the pretense that he wanted to meet her to offer a reviewing job with his journal <i>The American Book Review</i>. Ron eventually died from an extremely cruel and rare degenerative muscle disease called IBM and he told my girlfriend during their “meeting” that he would soon lose the ability to have sex and that this was his last opportunity to make love with a young, beautiful woman, etc. She told me she respectfully declined but, you know, who knows? When I found out I was very angry and I never respected him again as much as I originally did. I really looked up to him. But, I continued to work for him anyway, part-time, for the next several years. In the end, none of it mattered. I was deeply moved by his courage and daily optimism in the face of death and that horrible, debilitating disease. On a side note, Ron’s office overlooked the World Trade Center. Two weeks after 9/11 I was granted entry into the area - which had been sealed off to everyone except military personnel and homeowners - and I got to see, through Ron’s window, that smoldering, nightmarish, black pit. You know, it’s funny. I never once thought to take a picture. But I didn’t need to. I’ll never forget that.<br /><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/SnCA9bfuy-I/AAAAAAAAAR0/BG1WXmqYbf8/s1600-h/kurt+vonnegut.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 90px; height: 131px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/SnCA9bfuy-I/AAAAAAAAAR0/BG1WXmqYbf8/s400/kurt+vonnegut.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5363928949039483874" border="0" /></a><span><span style="font-weight: bold;">Kurt Vonnegut</span>: I’m usually anti-book signings (and anti-autograph collecting, in general) but when I saw in the paper that Kurt Vonnegut was coming to the Tattered Cover in Denver I had to go. I couldn’t not go. I mean, <i>Kurt Vonnegut</i>. I bought a copy of <i>Cat’s Cradle</i>, waited in line and, when I got to the front, said: “Good morning, Mr. Vonnegut.” I figured it’d be the only time in my life when I could actually say that. And I was right. He looked at me and then through me. It didn’t really seem like he wanted to be there. That or he’d had enough of 19-year old boys fawning over him. I can imagine that probably gets old. Like, two decades ago.<br /><br />So, that’s it! A pretty improbable collection of authors, don’t you think? I mean, there’s no way this exact collection of writers has ever been brought together in one place before, right? Well, this was the easy part. Next up: A book connecting the work of all nineteen authors. I mean, I’m not going to write it. But you can.</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>Shawn Vandorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16932787099944162452noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8539441575386310331.post-66907440068759616862009-07-20T12:36:00.016-04:002009-09-03T15:01:06.498-04:00Why Barack Obama is a Boon for the Foreign Policy Legacy of George W. BushLet me double preface this thing before I get started: <div><br /></div><div>I am not and never have been one of those liberals who thinks the Republican Party is Evil and Bad and always has been and always will be, etc. Not at all. I'm just as likely to bash the democrats for playing dumb party-politics (as Gertrude Stein never said: a politician's a politician's a politician...). That being said, I was not a fan of George W. Bush. His "leadership" as president seemed to be dispiriting to most people, most of the time. Not a good approach for a president of a liberal democracy, regardless of party.<br /><br />It might be hard to believe but it's still possible for George W. Bush's presidential legacy to be considered, at least, a partial success and the rise of Barack Obama, I think, works neatly in his favor. Let me explain.<br /><br />As of this writing (July '09) it's still possible that an American-backed democratically-elected Iraqi government will stabilize at some point in the next several years, and the U.S. will stumble into a massive economic windfall from their oil resources, more than paying for our two recent wars (actually, if you think about the Afghan and Iraqi invasions as entrepreneurial ventures, investments, I think they start to make a lot more sense).<br /><br />So imagine if you will a U.S. friendly Afghanistan neighboring a U.S. friendly Iraq (a fairly big <span style="font-style: italic;">if</span>, I know, but hang in there...). Add to that the recent unexpected victory of the "March 14 Coalition," the American-backed Lebanese Parliament, versus their Hezbollah/Tehran-backed opponents, in addition to Barack Obama's (for the most part) largely influential Cairo University speech AND the widespread moderate upheaval in the recent Iranian elections...it's not inconcievable that within the next five to ten years the middle-east will look significantly different than it did, say, in the fall of 2001. Even if American influence in the region is minimal and only lasts a generation or less it's still, I guess, better than nothing - not to mention the oil and geo-political advantage it gives us for that period of time (an advantage that would otherwise go to Iran or Russia or China or all three...).<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/SoBGh2mI9JI/AAAAAAAAASU/7LUIsdSx8p0/s1600-h/Bush.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 100px; height: 130px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/SoBGh2mI9JI/AAAAAAAAASU/7LUIsdSx8p0/s400/Bush.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5368368303230743698" border="0" /></a>George W. Bush's legacy has a much better chance of someday having (however briefly) a positive historical revival with Obama now in the White House than <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/SoBGqfCP8DI/AAAAAAAAASc/4qXS9qgCKk8/s1600-h/Obama.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 109px; height: 129px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/SoBGqfCP8DI/AAAAAAAAASc/4qXS9qgCKk8/s400/Obama.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5368368451525013554" border="0" /></a>with McCain/Palin. Obama wields power in the most sophisticated (and powerful) of ways. He smiles a lot. He's wildly intelligent. Everyone wants to be his friend. So, on the one hand, we have this liberal, almost universally admired man in office who seems to represent all the most positive ideals the United States is said to offer while we continue to: occupy two foreign countries (including a Baghdad Embassy larger than the Vatican), strafe and bomb a third country (Pakistan) with CIA-operated drones, intimately influence the politics of the entire region. From the point of view of the United States, isn't that the best of both worlds? We get soft <span style="font-style: italic;">and</span> hard power at the same time.<br /><br />The President of the United States is not the ruler or owner of the country the way Kings used to be rulers of their countires. The President of the United States is (more or less) a temporary representative of the needs and wants of the United States at any given time. The president is a face, a personality which expresses those needs, both to its own subjects and to the rest of the world. But the State...the State remains the same. American power is still American power regardless of which party happens to be holding office. Doesn't it, on some level, benefit the State - in the big picture, over a long period of time - to be mixing up its representatives, to be alternating its personalities? When Obama won the election, didn't you think, on some level: We're the good guys again? Didn't it make it a tiny bit more palpable in your mind that we continue to occupy two countries, exert our influence throughout the Mid-East, etc? Admit it, I know you did. And I guarantee you untold millions of people around the world thought the same thing.<br /><br />From a long-term historical perspective (or in other words, in the overall life-span of the country called America) does it really matter if one president was deeply unpopular and the one that came after him was beloved? I'm not so sure it matters. But I think it definitely matters what actions the nation takes at home and abroad, on offense and defense. I'm willing to take George W. Bush and his administration at their word when they said they didn't care if their actions were popular or not. I'm willing to believe Bush when he said History would be his judge. I think, compared to the popular political imagination, this seems like a cynical approach to government but will it prove harmful in a deep and lasting way? It very well might not.<br /><br />In which case we can look forward to a <span style="font-style: italic;">Time</span> or <span style="font-style: italic;">New Yorker</span> article (if either magazine still exists in print form) in approximately 8-12 years titled: <span style="font-style: italic;">Is it Time to Rethink George W. Bush's Legacy? </span><span style="font-style: italic;"> </span> <span style="font-style: italic;"> </span></div>Shawn Vandorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16932787099944162452noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8539441575386310331.post-91406877838896247002009-07-18T23:31:00.007-04:002009-08-11T10:52:22.746-04:00Goodbye, Michael Jackson...Hello, Miko Brando!!!<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/SmKlSLfSvcI/AAAAAAAAAPM/oBCKPpoUUSs/s1600-h/images-1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 94px; height: 135px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/SmKlSLfSvcI/AAAAAAAAAPM/oBCKPpoUUSs/s400/images-1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5360028238264581570" border="0" /></a><br />Though we've recently lost pop-sensation Michael Jackson, we have gained a new celebrity: Miko Brando. Every time I turned on the TV last week Miko Brando was on Larry King Live wearing a different colored Hawaiian shirt. I'm sort of as stunned by Miko Brando's existence as I was by Michael Jackson's death. Actually, that's not true. When my friend M called to tell me Michael Jackson died I thought, "Oh, yeah, well, that kind of makes sense." Not that I wanted Michael to die o<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/SmKlup9TKJI/AAAAAAAAAPU/OpFRDSMyHN0/s1600-h/images-3.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 130px; height: 105px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/SmKlup9TKJI/AAAAAAAAAPU/OpFRDSMyHN0/s400/images-3.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5360028727479838866" border="0" /></a>r was pleased to hear of his death but it just kind of made sense from an objective/biographical stand-point (I mean, this is a guy whose public persona had gotten so out-of-control and unpredictable that he, really, could have done <span style="font-style: italic;">anything</span> and it would have finally seemed somewhat normal in the overall narrative of "Michael Jackson").<br /><br />But, nothing could have prepared me for the emergence of Miko Brando. My first thought was: "What? This guy looks like a Pacific Islander who just returned to port from a twenty year bender at sea (and who was maybe raised by a coconut)." But, that being said, he seems like a really sweet guy. Listening to him talk about his intimate, decades-long relationship with Michael, I started thinking about the world of celebrity children who are members of the world's uber-elite thanks to their parent's immense wealth, c<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/SmKl2enXhgI/AAAAAAAAAPc/cPjAiyw7FK0/s1600-h/images.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 90px; height: 133px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/SmKl2enXhgI/AAAAAAAAAPc/cPjAiyw7FK0/s400/images.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5360028861874013698" border="0" /></a>onnections etc. I mean, what has Miko Brando's life been like? I could be totally wrong but I imagined him losing his virginity at age 9 (to neighbor/family-friend Liza Minelli), drug-addiction at age 10, a garage-full of multi-colored Lamborghinis at age 11, man-slaughter charges (acquitted) involving aforementioned Lamborghinis, thanksgiving dinners with Liberace, hot air balloon day-trips with Eddie Muprhy, etc. He's so rich he can go on live feeds of CNN unshaven/wearing super-expensive beach-comber/drop-out/drug addict clothing and then, not only did no one question his character, etc., but he <span style="font-style: italic;">was </span>the main character witness guy!!! This obviously speaks to Michael Jackson's day-to-day life and just how kooky it got. Actually, I can't think of one person who took to the airwaves to speak a word about the passing of Michael Jackson who wasn't just entirely unreal and/or entirely improbable. I mean, when Charlie Rose called Quincy Jones at his home in Brussels (!?!) he sounded as if he were on his 80,000th martini/xanax/marijuana cocktail, thank you very much.<br /><br />Digression: If we start counting several weeks prior to Michael Jackson there have been a string of celebrity deaths unseen in my 33 years, completely obliterating the long-held urban myth that celebrities die in 3's. Let's make a list: David Carradine, Ed Macmahon, Farrah Fawcett, Michael Jackson, Pina Bausch, pitchman Billy Mayes (just two days after his appearance on Conan), Steve McNair, boxer Arturo Gatti (not a household name, I know), and just yesterday<br />Walter Cronkite. I have a theory: This is the new norm. We've reached a particular population density which includes a rapidly growing celebrity-to-non-celebrity ratio in which it will now become normal for a "famous" person to die every day. And soon, several celebrities will be dying each hour and then, not long after that, there will be dozens of celebrity deaths per minute making it perfectly reasonable to start up a 24-hour Celebrity Obituary Cable channel complete with up-to-the-minute scrolling celebrity deaths at the bottom of the screen, a channel (and accompanying website) dedicated entirely to <span style="font-style: italic;">looking back </span>on all those wondrous highlights that made that person's life special (actually, this seems like a perfectly reasonable cable channel). UPDATE: As if to prove my point, these celebrities have passed away since I first wrote this post: Robert McNamara, Frank McCourt, Merce Cunningham, Budd Schulberg, John Hughes, Eunice Kennedy Shriver.<br /><br />In any case, I have a feeling we'll be seeing a lot more of Miko Brando in the near future. At the very least, he should release a line of Miko Brando Hawaiian shirts (I'm good for like a half-a-dozen). But perhaps the most significant shift that occured because of Michael Jackson's death and the rise of Miko Brando is that not one person has mentioned father Marlon - and may never again. Someday, kids will be saying: "Have you seen <span style="font-style: italic;">Apocolypse Now</span>? I heard Miko Brando's dad was in that."Shawn Vandorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16932787099944162452noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8539441575386310331.post-39806900855668906452009-06-05T10:52:00.005-04:002009-08-03T11:10:54.168-04:00Man Killing MinotaurLook, I don't want to toot my own horn or anything but <span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">***HONK***HONK***</span> since this is my blog and all I just want to alert you to a pretty cool story I wrote several years ago <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Man Killing Minotaur</span> that was published by our friends over at the excellent <a href="http://failbetter.com/06/VandorManKillingMinotaur.php">failbetter.com</a> and subsequently nominated for a Pushcart Prize (which I'm convinced I lost out to Andre Aciman and/or Colm Toibin - but what can you do?).<br /><br />Enjoy!Shawn Vandorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16932787099944162452noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8539441575386310331.post-1447986392525684632009-06-01T17:11:00.014-04:002009-06-02T13:47:57.845-04:00Confessions of a Car BuyerI bought a new car about eight months ago. My last car, a Chevy Trailblazer, had passed the 100k mile marker and was breaking down about once a month, requiring me to call a tow-truck, requiring me to have work done on it (about $500-$1000 a month). It was time.<br /><br />To make a long story short: Buying a new car is often a horrible experience for everyone. But buying a new car is especially horrible if you're six-foot-eight. You see, as it turns out, most new cars are not designed with six-foot-eight human beings in mind. Why? I have no idea. Is it a cost-cutting issue? Is it a lack of awareness? Are there not enough tall people designing automobiles?<br /><br />Allow me to take you on the abridged journey of my recent car-buying experience, in the approximate order in which I sat in and/or test drove them:<br /><br />1. Toyota <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/SiRFlcdfrJI/AAAAAAAAANM/YaJT2gKbBcE/s1600-h/images-1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 143px; height: 97px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/SiRFlcdfrJI/AAAAAAAAANM/YaJT2gKbBcE/s400/images-1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5342471567565630610" border="0" /></a>Yaris, 2-door: Tiny little thing. I really like these cars. They remind me of the French Renault Twingo, one of my all-time favorites. I actually sort of fit in this car. As it turns out, the size of an automobile has NOTHING to do with how much leg room it has in the driver's seat. It's hard for some people to wrap their heads around this (especially car salesmen, oddly). The problem with this car is you would die if someone hit you with their shopping cart. Safety first! No go with the Yaris.<br /><br />2. Toyota Priu<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/SiRGgXwC8dI/AAAAAAAAANU/xXBuK5IyRww/s1600-h/images-2.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 137px; height: 75px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/SiRGgXwC8dI/AAAAAAAAANU/xXBuK5IyRww/s400/images-2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5342472579913544146" border="0" /></a>s: 9-months ago this seemed like the no-brainer new car to buy. I put my name on a waiting list at the local dealer and waited. When it finally arrived I went to drive it and found that the gear shift thingy juts out exactly where my knee cap goes. Not comfortable. In fact, I found myself sitting in a really tense, awkward position in the hopes of not pushing my knee completely into this sharp piece of plastic. If I bought the car, I imagined myself, after several years, of having a deformed body, my gait having been entirely reordered due to this one ill-placed control stick. Thanks, Toyota, you fucking prick.<br /><br />3. Honda Fit: Cool car. Also, kind of like a sarcophogous. I fit in the Fit but I felt genuinely claustrophobic. Not a good feeling driving off the lot.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/SiRHq5ij7JI/AAAAAAAAANc/GjRbz3pMPMU/s1600-h/images-3.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 130px; height: 82px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/SiRHq5ij7JI/AAAAAAAAANc/GjRbz3pMPMU/s400/images-3.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5342473860294110354" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />4. Toyota Camry: Back to Toyota. I fit comfortably in the Camry with lots of room to spare. But the Cam<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/SiRIO8yUMaI/AAAAAAAAANk/TUES869AqkM/s1600-h/images-4.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 128px; height: 85px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/SiRIO8yUMaI/AAAAAAAAANk/TUES869AqkM/s400/images-4.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5342474479640785314" border="0" /></a>ry's for old people and even old people know it. Still, a totally reasonable car. Nothing wrong with it. Except it's stupid and ugly and I don't live in Florida. Let me put it this way: If I had kidney problems, was a war vet, retired, and living in Florida with my third wife this would be my car. I don't know why but it's true.<br /><br />5. Subar<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/SiVlaUH2v6I/AAAAAAAAAOE/M4_g4IpcMdU/s1600-h/images.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 127px; height: 88px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/SiVlaUH2v6I/AAAAAAAAAOE/M4_g4IpcMdU/s400/images.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5342788035697622946" border="0" /></a>u Outback: Too small.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />6. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/SiRJczVd39I/AAAAAAAAANs/LctfSz315yI/s1600-h/images-5.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 130px; height: 87px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/SiRJczVd39I/AAAAAAAAANs/LctfSz315yI/s400/images-5.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5342475817133662162" border="0" /></a>Subaru Forester: I bought this car. Then I turned around and sold it. For exactly what I payed for it. It's a long story. Let me just say: this is an awesome car. When I drove it to the beach with my girlfriend and mom the week after I bought it I could barely walk when I got out. My legs just fit in such a way that I lost all circulation to my feet when I drove this car. I know this sounds stupid but how do you think I felt?<br /><br />7. Au<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/SiRK6ta9dfI/AAAAAAAAAN0/dHG5ssNC3IM/s1600-h/images-6.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 145px; height: 83px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/SiRK6ta9dfI/AAAAAAAAAN0/dHG5ssNC3IM/s400/images-6.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5342477430453794290" border="0" /></a>di A3: Super cool car. I test drove this car about 70 times. I think the Audi people genuinely started to worry when they saw me coming. But finally it was a bit too small. Just a bit too tight. But close.<br /><br /><br /><br />And then I sat in and drove about a dozen other cars: Ford Fusion (big enough, but ugly), used Mercedes, used BMWs, used Audis, second trip to the Honda Fit (still too tight), second trip to the Prius (still with the gear shift in my knee), Volkswagon Jetta Sportwagon (could have bought it...big, nice...), Mazda (all models way too small), the sporty 2-door Volvo...and about a dozen other cars. I can't remember them all anymore and frankly I don't want to. So, what did I buy?<br /><br />Nth. Audi A4: <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/SiRNEAKSdwI/AAAAAAAAAN8/CPtcEw8v9W0/s1600-h/images-8.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 135px; height: 90px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_NeuzHqAoeoY/SiRNEAKSdwI/AAAAAAAAAN8/CPtcEw8v9W0/s400/images-8.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5342479789126219522" border="0" /></a> Fits great. The Germans know how to make cars for tall people. Why? They're the fucking Teutons, that's why. It's the best car I've ever driven. It's way more than I wanted to spend but.... I'm not complaining. But what the fuck, car makers? What, like it's so fucking hard to design a simple, moderately priced car that a tall fucking man can fit in? I'm sorry, it can't possibly be that hard.<br /><br />By the way, if you didn't already know: Ergonomics is Social Control. Tell a friend.Shawn Vandorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16932787099944162452noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8539441575386310331.post-31083900068639566332009-06-01T16:56:00.004-04:002009-06-01T18:21:59.597-04:00I Am a Video GamerThe thing about video games is that they'll ruin your life.<br /><br />When are we going to stop beating around the bush and just admit, as a culture, that video games are the superior media experience to films and literature? There's really no comparison any more. It should have been a dead give away when, a year or two ago, the video game industry's annual gross surpassed Hollywood's and (unless Hollywood really innovates) I don't see them overtaking video games as the primary media/entertainment outlet in the United States ever again.<br /><br />We should throw Hollywood a retirement party. At this party, Hollywood will receive a plaque that says: "Thanks For Your Decades of Escapist Fantasy! What Would We Have Done Without You (Besides Read More And Become More Involved In Our Daily Lives)? Best of Luck In Retirement! By The Way, Do You Have That Ten Thousand Dollars You Owe Us? Sorry To Keep Asking!"<br /><br />To be continued...Shawn Vandorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16932787099944162452noreply@blogger.com0