Categories: Tech Talk | 4 Comments »

Figuring out the world at Age 9 – Part 692

By Brian | December 23, 2009

My older son, Avery, asked me two interesting questions about Christmas the other day. I’ll remind you that we’re Jewish and don’t celebrate Christmas religiously, although he does have a lot of Christian friends.

Q1) Daddy, what does Santa Claus bringing presents to kids have to do with the birth of Jesus?

My answer: Nothing at all, Avery. Nothing at all. They are two completely separate parts of the Christmas holiday. And oh, by the way – excellent question.

Q2) Daddy, do YOU think Santa Claus is real?

My answer: first, I made him read this world-famous New York Sun editorial from 1897. In it, editor Francis Pharcellus Church writes:

Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus.

[…]

You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see.

[…]

Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, VIRGINIA, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding. No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

The language is a little esoteric for a 9-year old, but it led to an interesting discussion. I asked him if he thought feelings like love and happiness were real. He said yes, of course, so I asked him how he knew, given that he’d never seen either of them. He essentially said, “I just know.” And so, I explained, that billions of people all over the world give presents to their friends and families at Christmas time, and have done so for hundreds, if not thousands of years. And the feeling that makes all of those people do this is Santa Claus.

Interestingly, he asked me if parents bought their kids gifts at Christmas time during The Great Depression. I pointed him to the history of the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree, which he has seen lit several times. The first tree in Rockefeller Center was erected in 1931, during the heart of the Great Depression. It was decorated with cranberries, paper garland and tin cans – all items that could be found readily at hand without spending much money. Avery concluded that Santa Claus made the workers put up the tree, so people would feel good during the holidays, even during the Depression.

I realize this is not the high-pressure question that it would be for a Christian family, but I feel pretty good about the conversation, and I think that Avery (and his younger brother, Brandon, who was listening to the whole thing) understand it pretty well now.

Categories: Family Matters | 14 Comments »

Carrie Fisher, Episode Two – Attack of the Country Singing Clones

By Brian | December 22, 2009

It seems that country singing superstar Carrie Underwood is engaged to marry the NHL’s Ottowa Senators’ Mike Fisher. Which, in the extremely unlikely event that she chose to change her world-famous name, would make her Carrie Fisher.

Attention 40-something year-old men: you may now commence picturing Carrie Underwood in a metal bikini. That is all…

Categories: Sports Talk, Words about Music | 5 Comments »

Closing the barn door after the tomatoes have run away…

By Brian | December 18, 2009

Those who follow Sarah Palin (either with amusement or disdain) may have heard that at a recent book signing in Minneapolis, a man threw two tomatoes at her from a second floor balcony.

So when she showed up at a Costco in Salt Lake City, the store manager took steps to prevent another drive-by fruiting:

While going through the check-out lane, again with no wait, [Helen Rappaport] told the clerk she forgot to get some grape tomatoes, which she loves, so she would be right back. That’s when the bells went off. The clerk told her they had no tomatoes that day. No tomatoes? At Costco?

As she was leaving, she noticed a man with a store manager’s name tag and asked him why they had no tomatoes. He informed her the store did have tomatoes, but they were taken off the shelves for a few hours. It turns out that Palin had been pelted with a tomato at an earlier stop on her book tour and the management at the Costco was determined it wouldn’t happen here. The manager told an employee to go into the storage area and get Rappaport some tomatoes, which he gave her for free.

The Costco store manager believes, apparently, that someone out there had decided to throw things at Sarah Palin when she visited the local Costco, went to Costco empty-handed, proceeded immediately to the tomato aisle, saw there were no tomatoes available, and then decided to give up and go home, rather than, you know, throwing something else at her.

Score one for the ingenuity and quick action of the Salt Lake Costco manager…

Categories: Political Rantings, Random Acts of Blogging | 2 Comments »

A “Fundamental Moment” in Cancer Research

By Brian | December 17, 2009

BBC:

Scientists have unlocked the entire genetic code of two of the most common cancers – skin and lung – a move they say could revolutionise cancer care. Not only will the cancer maps pave the way for blood tests to spot tumours far earlier, they will also yield new drug targets, says the Wellcome Trust team.

Scientists around the globe are now working to catalogue all the genes that go wrong in many types of human cancer. The UK is looking at breast cancer, Japan at liver and India at mouth. China is studying stomach cancer, and the US is looking at cancers of the brain, ovary and pancreas.

Basically, this redefines cancer from a disease to a series of genetic mutations, each of which can be studied, prevented, treated, or cured. Skin cancer (melanoma) is a combination of 30,000 “errors” in the DNA of the cancerous cells which are not present in the healthy cells. Lung cancer is a series of 23,000 errors. So now, we not only know that sun exposure causes skin cancer and smoking causes lung cancer, but we know why and how they cause it.

I found this particularly eye-opening:

The experts estimate a typical smoker acquires one new mutation for every 15 cigarettes they smoke. Although many of these mutations will be harmless, some will trigger cancer.

Wellcome Trust researcher Dr Peter Campbell, who conducted this research, published in the journal Nature, said: “It’s like playing Russian roulette. Most of the time the mutations will land in innocent parts of the genome, but some will hit the right targets for cancer.”

By quitting smoking, people could reduce their cancer risk back down to “normal” with time, he said. The suspicion is lung cells containing mutations are eventually replaced with new ones free of genetic errors.

So, if you’re incredibly unlucky (meaning every genetic mutation you cause by smoking contributes to lung cancer), then you’ll have cancerous cells in your lungs after 1,534 cigarettes. Or, at a pack per day, in about 77 days. If only one mutation in ten hits the cancer jackpot, then you’ve got 767 days, or just over two years. After that, you’re counting on your body to produce healthy, “error-free” cells at an equal or faster rate than the cancer cells die. Too many cancer cells, and they’ll survive long enough to multiply faster than the healthy cells, at which point, you’ve got yourself a tumor.

Then again, now that we know which genetic defects are at fault, we could invent the medication that prevents the defect (or corrects it, or kills cells that contain it, etc.), effectively providing the “cigarette antidote.” Think of it – a pill that comes in every pack of cigarettes. When you finish the pack, swallow this. Problem solved.

The same applies, of course, to cancers that are contracted through less voluntary means. Targeted treatment against specific defects will redefine our definitions of treatment, side effects, and research priorities. Dr. Michael Stratton, of the Wellcome Trust team, calls it a “fundamental moment in cancer research:”

Categories: The Future is Now | 6 Comments »