A Day Of Mourning

Today is a day of mourning. I am so very sad for the people of Iran. The images in the graphic video of the young woman (named Neda?), who was shot and died, stay with me. I can't shake them. Another video of a shooting is up at Huffington Post now.

Then the revelation that 26 civilians were killed in Afghanistan by mistake, because US troops did not follow proper procedures, and the 25 dead, including 3 US soldiers, from a bomb in Iraq, following the 41 killed yesterday, and an estimated 1 billion hungry people in the world. Is there no end to sorrow and misery? No, there is not, but we must find a way to go on, "that we may not...be overcome by adversity."

Update on Neda from a blogger friend who wrote about her "sister":

Yesterday I wrote a note, with the subject line "tomorrow is a great day perhaps tomorrow I'll be killed." I'm here to let you know I'm alive but my sister was killed...


I'm here to tell you my sister died while in her father's hands
I'm here to tell you my sister had big dreams...
I'm here to tell you my sister who died was a decent person... and like me yearned for a day when her hair would be swept by the wind... and like me read "Forough" [Forough Farrokhzad]... and longed to live free and equal... and she longed to hold her head up and announce, "I'm Iranian"... and she longed to one day fall in love to a man with a shaggy hair... and she longed for a daughter to braid her hair and sing lullaby by her crib...

my sister died from not having life... my sister died as injustice has no end... my sister died since she loved life too much... and my sister died since she lovingly cared for people...

my loving sister, I wish you had closed your eyes when your time had come... the very end of your last glance burns my soul....

sister have a short sleep. your last dream be sweet.

Thanks to Anne Marie in the comments for calling my attention to the note.

Pray For The People Of Iran

The Huffington Post is live-blogging the protests in Iran which have turned violent. I watched a terrible and graphic video of a young woman who was shot, apparently today.

Pray for the people of Iran.

Lord, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.

"Memo To The President"

From Robert Reich at TPM:

Mr. President:

Momentum for universal health care is slowing dramatically on Capitol Hill. Moderates are worried, Republicans are digging in, and the medical-industrial complex is firing up its lobbying and propaganda machine.

But, as you know, the worst news came days ago when the Congressional Budget Office weighed in with awful projections about how much the leading healthcare plans would cost and how many Americans would still be left out in the cold. Yet these projections didn't include the savings that a public option would generate by negotiating lower drug prices, doctor fees, and hospital costs, and forcing private insurers to be more competitive. Projecting the future costs of universal health care without including the public option is like predicting the number of people who will get sunburns this summer if nobody is allowed to buy sun lotion. Of course the costs of universal health care will be huge if the most important way of controlling them is left out of the calculation.

Read the details at TPM.

Take the inclusion of the public option issue to the people, President Obama. Three out of four of the citizens want universal health care. You're in the bully pulpit now. Use the pulpit to make your case. Don't count on the Democrats in Congress to get this done without strong leadership from you with the citizens of the country standing behind you.

Folks, I'm afraid the public option is in the process of being squeezed out of the health care plan because of pressure from the drug companies, the health insurance companies, and the AMA, all of whom give big bucks to the members of Congress.

Here's something you can do. Sign the petition in support of including the public option in health care legislation.

Thanks to Paul the BB for the reminder.

Down Memory Lane

Atrios takes us for a walk down memory lane with the US Congress.

From CNN:

In a major victory for the White House, the Senate early Friday voted 77-23 to authorize President Bush to attack Iraq if Saddam Hussein refuses to give up weapons of mass destruction as required by U.N. resolutions.

Hours earlier, the House approved an identical resolution, 296-133.

The president praised the congressional action, declaring "America speaks with one voice."

What were the Democratic Congress critters thinking? Why did they join in such numbers in the madness of King George - 29 "ayes" out of 50 in the Senate? The House Democrats were a bit bolder, with only 82 "ayes" out of the 208 who voted.

"No Words Necessary" - Get ready to smile.

It doesn't matter how many people you send this to, just remember, if it made you smile, your friends will smile too! Spread some Happiness, we all need to share a smile.

And I send it to you, my dear readers, and wish you a Happy Friday!

Dedicated to my good friend Pablito, who goes all soft and squishy about babies.

Thanks to Susan S.



Voila! Well, it only right, if this is your favorite, Susan.

Why The Green?

From the AP:

Hundreds of thousands of protesters dressed in black and green flooded the streets of Tehran on Thursday in a somber, candlelit show of defiance and mourning for those killed in clashes after Iran's disputed presidential election. The massive march — the fourth this week — sent a powerful message that opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi has the popular backing to sustain his unprecedented challenge to Iran's ruling clerics.

Even President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, named the landslide winner in the June 12 election, appeared to take the growing opposition more seriously and backtracked on his dismissal of the protesters as "dust" and sore losers.
....

Many in the huge crowd walked silently and lit black candles as night fell. Others wore green wristbands or ribbons and carried flowers as they filed into Imam Khomeini Square, a large plaza in the heart of the capital named for the founder of the Islamic Revolution, witnesses said.

From Azadeh Moaveni at The Daily Beast titled "Iranians to Obama: Hush":

But in conversations with friends and relatives in Tehran this week, I've heard the opposite of what I had expected: a resounding belief that this time the United States should keep out. One of my cousins, a woman in her mid-30s who has been attending the daily protests along with the rest of her family, viewed the situation pragmatically. “The U.S. shouldn't interfere, because a loud condemnation isn't going to affect Iranian domestic politics one way or the other. If the supreme leader decides to crackdown on the protests and Ahmadinejad stays in power, then negotiations with the United States might improve our lives.”

I heard these sentiments, remarkably thoughtful for such a passionate moment, echoed from many quarters. President Barack Obama's outreach to Iran, and his offer of a mutually respectful dialogue, has raised the possibility of better relations for the first time in years, and many Iranians worry that a false step might jeopardize that prospect altogether. A friend of mine who studies public relations in Tehran noted that other American allies in the Gulf, Arab dictatorships with no pretence of democracy, are thriving economically. “In the end, a dictatorship that doesn't face U.S. sanctions is better off than one that does,” she said. “Now that after 30 years it seems that we have a chance to negotiate with America, it would be a shame if we lost the chance.”

And will the Republicans now STFU with their calls for Obama to "do more" to show support of the protesters?

H/T to Juan Cole.

UPDATE: From AFP via TPM:

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called Friday for an end to street protests over last week's disputed presidential election, siding with declared winner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Making his first public appearance after daily protests over the official results, Khamenei ruled out any major fraud in the conduct of the poll and warned that the defeated candidates would be held to account over any renewed violence on the streets.
....

The opposition has been planning a new mass rally in Tehran on Saturday, to be addressed by the Ahmadinejad's principal challenger, moderate former premier Mir Hossein Mousavi.

There was no immediate word from the reformist clerical association which is organising the rally on whether they still planned to go ahead.

AAADD KNOW THE SYMPTOMS - PLEASE READ!

Thank goodness there's a name for this disorder. Somehow I feel better even though I have it!!

Recently, I was diagnosed with AAADD.

Age-Activated Attention Deficit Disorder.

This is how it manifests:

I decide to water my garden. As I turn on the hose in the driveway, I look over at my car and decide it needs washing.

As I start toward the garage, I notice mail on the porch table that I brought up from the mail box earlier.

I decide to go through the mail before I wash the car.

I lay my car keys on the table, put the junk mail in the garbage can under the table, and notice that the can is full.

So, I decide to put the bills back on the table and take out the garbage first.

But then I think, since I'm going to be near the mailbox when I take out the garbage anyway, I may as well pay the bills first.

I take my check book off the table, and see that there is only one check left. My extra checks are in my desk in the study, so I go inside the house to my desk where I find the can of Pepsi I'd been drinking.

I'm going to look for my checks, but first I need to push the Pepsi aside so that I don't accidentally knock it over.

The Pepsi is getting warm, and I decide to put it in the refrigerator to keep it cold.

As I head toward the kitchen with the Pepsi, a vase of flowers on the counter catches my eye--they need water.

I put the Pepsi on the counter and discover my reading glasses that I've been searching for all morning. I decide I better put them back on my desk, but first I'm going to water the flowers.

I set the glasses back down on the counter, fill a container with water and suddenly spot the TV remote. Someone left it on the kitchen table.

I realize that tonight when we go to watch TV, I'll be looking for the remote, but I won't remember that it's on the kitchen table, so I decide to put it back in the den where it belongs, but first I'll water the flowers.

I pour some water in the flowers, but quite a bit of it spills on the floor.

So, I set the remote back on the table, get some towels and wipe up the spill.

Then, I head down the hall trying to remember what I was planning to do.

At the end of the day:

the car isn't washed
the bills aren't paid
there is a warm can of Pepsi sitting on the counter
the flowers don't have enough water,
there is still only 1 check in my check book,
I can't find the remote,
I can't find my glasses,
and I don't remember what I did with the car keys.

Then, when I try to figure out why nothing got done today, I'm really baffled because I know I was busy all damn day, and I'm really tired.

I realize this is a serious problem, and I'll try to get some help for it, but first I'll check my e-mail....

Do me a favor. Forward this message to everyone you know, because I don't remember who I've sent it to.

Don't laugh -- if this isn't you yet, your day is coming!!

It's great having a blog, because I don't need to forward the joke to one single person.

Can anyone tell me why Doug sends me all the jokes about old people?

The CCLU Strikes Again! Burn The Book!

From the Guardian:

In a scene which appears to have been lifted straight out of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, a group of Christians in Wisconsin has launched a legal claim demanding the right to publicly burn a copy of a book for teenagers which they deem to be "explicitly vulgar, racial [sic], and anti-Christian".

The offending book is Francesca Lia Block's Baby Be-Bop, a young adult novel in which a boy, struggling with his homosexuality, is beaten up by a homophobic gang. The complaint, which according to the American Library Association also demands $120,000 (£72,000) in compensatory damages for being exposed to the book in a display at West Bend Community Memorial Library, was lodged by four men from the Christian Civil Liberties Union.

Their suit says that "the plaintiffs, all of whom are elderly, claim their mental and emotional well-being was damaged by this book at the library," and that it contains derogatory language that could "put one's life in possible jeopardy, adults and children alike."

Hmmm. Such tender sensibilities. And one wonders how the lives of the elders who want the right to burn the book could be put in jeopardy by said book. I'm not getting this.

"[A] bit of theatre", indeed!

Thanks to Paul (A.) for the link.

I Had To Do It

I changed my blog background color to green in solidarity with the protesters in Iran after watching the tee vee tonight. If the Iranian people have the courage to demonstrate in the streets and the Iranian players on the World Cup soccer team have the courage to wear their green arm bands on TV, possibly at great risk to themselves, then I can make my blog green at no risk at all to myself to stand with them.




UPDATE: If you'd like to know more about the demonstration today and the general situation in Iran, read Juan Cole's post at Informed Comment.

Do You Have Fruity Fruit Flies?

From the Telegraph.

The pairing of same sex couples had previously been observed in more than 1,000 species including penguins, dolphins and primates.

However, in the latest study the authors claim the phenomenon is not only widespread but part of a necessary biological adaptation for the survival of the species.

They found that on the Hawaiian island of Oahu, almost a third of the Laysan albatross population is raised by pairs of two females because of the shortage of males. Through these 'lesbian' unions, Laysan albatross are flourishing. Their existence had been dwindling before the adaptation was noticed.

Other species form same-sex bonds for other reasons, they found. Dolphins have been known engage in same-sex interactions to facilitate group bonding while male-male pairings in locusts killed off the weaker males.
....

Dr Bailey said: "It's clear same-sex sexual behaviour extends far beyond the well-known examples that dominate both the scientific and popular literature – for example, bonobos, dolphins, penguins and fruit flies.

"Same-sex behaviours – courtship, mounting or parenting – are traits that may have been shaped by natural selection, a basic mechanism of evolution that occurs over successive generations," he said.

"But our review of studies also suggests that these same-sex behaviours might act as selective forces in and of themselves."

Had I known about the fruity fruit flies yesterday during my visit to the Audubon Insectarium, I'd have inquired as to whether they had specimens.

Of course, this information will mean nothing to those folks who do not believe in natural selection.

Yeah, yeah, I know, The Telegraph is not the most trustworthy source, but if you doubt, read more from Wired Science in their article titled, "Is Homosexuality an Evolutionary Step Towards the Superorganism?"

Only by conceiving of evolution as acting upon entire populations rather than individual organisms can we understand eusociality — the mysterious, seemingly "altruistic" behaviors exhibited by insects who forego reproduction in order to care for a colony’s young.

So says Edward O. Wilson, the legendary sociobiologist, environmentalist and entomologist, in an article published in the January issue of Bioscience. Wilson doesn’t extrapolate from bugs to people, but his conclusions raise fascinating questions about the evolutionary aspects of non-reproducing humans.
....

So with all necessary caveats against reductionism and misappropriation, we can ask: should human societies conceive of themselves in terms of group-level selection? Have we already developed aspects of eusociality? And — just to make matters really interesting — could non-reproducing humans, such as (most) gays and lesbians, as well as heterosexuals who choose not to have kids, actually be a manifestation of this emergent eusociality?

Citing eusociality in defense of any lifestyle choice, even theoretically, could backfire: it implies a subservience of individual well-being to the greater good. But at least it suggests that certain unorthodox lifestyles might not be so "unnatural" after all.

Image from Wiki.

Update from the comments by IT:

However, I must tell you that the photo you have chosen of Acidia cognata is not what we commonly think of as a "fruit fly" in genetics research. Rather, the workhorse is Drosophila melanogaster, and most "fruit flies" you see around the house are, if not melanogaster, some sort of related Drosophila species.

And here is Drosophila also from Wiki.