ERRONEOUS FANTASIES

Somehow, when I formerly considered cloning, I imagined two identicals, maybe enjoying each other’s company.  Wiser now, I realize one is mother to the other, and at least sometimes (if not always) the clone gets a “surrogate mother.” I didn’t know fifteen species have been cloned; many pets also, at the request of their owners.

Even wiser now, I read that Dolly had three mothers: one ewe for the DNA, another for the egg into which the DNA was injected, and a third to carry the resulting cloned embryo.

I knew many secretly fantasized about cloning humans, but there was an ethical, maybe legal barrier.  I just discovered the basis…or at least one concern is that with each cloning there are apparently many failures, and misfires with damaged results.  Dolly, the first cloned sheep, was named after Dolly Parton and produced in Scotland by Ian Wilmut, head of the original cloning team after 434 attempts (a success rate of 0.2 percent.)  She lived from  July 5, 1996  until she was euthanized on February 14, 2002, due to an incurable lung tumor.  She had also been treated for arthritis.

Dolly led to concerns about cloning a human being — a thought that reportedly horrified Wilmut, originally. This concern spurred policy makers everywhere to action. Indeed, the United Nations (UN) spent 3 years trying to negotiate an international ban on human cloning. Bogged down by differing views on the ethical acceptability of “therapeutic cloning,” in 2005 the UN General Assembly settled on an ambiguous non-binding Declaration that calls upon countries to prohibit all forms of human cloning that are “incompatible with human dignity.”

And I just learned from David Barash’s book The Whispering Within, that human clones, even [horrors] “successful” ones are not expected to naturally be “buddy buddy,” since as he wrote, “A gene that instructed its body to ‘be nice to your clone’ probably was not very strongly favored by natural selection during our evolutionary history.”  (And haven’t you heard people complain, “I’m getting to be just like my mother”?)

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I DIDN’T KNOW THAT:  Certain groups, and particularly minoritized racial and ethnic groups, were impacted much, much, much more dramatically by COVID, although everybody had a negative experience…      https://www.healthdata.org/news-events/podcasts

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• Roles for In-Laws: Trump tapped Massad Boulos, the father-in-law of his daughter Tiffany, as a senior adviser covering Arab and Middle Eastern affairs. He also picked Charles Kushner, his daughter Ivanka’s father-in-law, as ambassador to France.

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Sign on the Christian Fellowship Church:  CHURCH PARKING. trespassers will be baptised.

Sign on the South End Baptist Church:  WHOEVER IS PRAYING FOR SNOW, PLEASE STOP

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I wouldn’t want a god who made others lose so I could win.

(At least not all the time).

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As Suein Hwang, opinion columnist on the New York Times observes,  “Someone mistreats a dog and we’ll call 911. But if a company tortures millions of hogs as a business model, we dine on its products, invest in its shares and honor its executives.”

“The discrepancy is so stark,” Peter Singer, a moral philosopher, told me. “People are horrified by the very idea of eating dogs, but pigs are just as intelligent and make fine companions, too.”   As the article says, we draw a distinction between dogs and farm animals that is difficult to find a moral basis for.  opinion today.

Oh dear, I just read that some fish appear to have some level of consciousness!

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Reports on the troubled male-female relationship:

Though ballot measures to enshrine abortion rights passed in a handful of states in this election, the Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade remains on the books, making abortion inaccessible and pregnancy far riskier in large swaths of the country.  In the last year alone there has been an explosion of young women who say they are deleting dating apps, whose market value has plummeted; female celebrities (among others) who have taken vows of celibacy or identify as “self-partnered”; divorce memoirs by older millennial and Gen X women expressing profound disillusionment with heterosexual marriage; and trends like “boysober,” which preaches the virtues of “decentering men” to focus on self-improvement and platonic relationships.

Gay stamps   “This early glimpse into our 2025 stamp program demonstrates our commitment to providing a diverse range of subjects and designs for both philatelists and stamp enthusiasts,” said Lisa Bobb-Semple, Stamp Services director for USPS, where “diversity” will no doubt be under fire under the incoming administration.— WordPress 

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https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/24/opinion/trump-elon-musk-robert-kennedy.html

Surely the big ole grinning  president elect couldn’t wish his country harm!  It seems clearer each day that he has us heading for a big SHAKEUP, into a new government with a new blueprint.  Did 2025 stop just short of  its real agenda –crumbling structure due to the need for an entirely different blueprint,  probably during His lifetime. Hint: not very damn far away, in the long run. Trump won the vote  of those who admit they “don’t pay attention to the news at all” by 51 to 32.  Planned obsolescence isn’t a new concept–just not appropriate…or honest…or patriotic…just sneaky and dishonest and catastrophic on this scale.

Hint: Stuff the leadership with inexperienced leaders, then see what hits the fan,,,all part of the plan, his retributive destination not that far down the road.

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Remember the 2010 Supreme Court Decision About Corporations?  Just a reprint of the poem about one aspect of it by Patricia L. H. Black from my Life Issues page.

What’s Wrong with This Picture?

I met some corporations and
because I had a hunch they had
all been adjudged “persons,”
I invited one to lunch.
Oh, that naughty corporation!
As far as I could see,
it had not been taught its manners—
I got no R, S, V nor P.
But since I was the hostess
I had duties to perform,
though this corporation person
was so outside the norm
that making up the place cards
put my thinking to the test—
could I just write General
and forget about the rest?
And since Incorporated is so very long,
tell me what you think—
would it be uncouth of me
if all I wrote was Inc.?
Then, again, there’s gender
to complicate my tale.
Is corporation female
or is corporation male?
Somehow it seems that neither
is appropriate or will fit.
But it goes against my training
to call a person “It.”
Well, I had invited it
so I assigned it to a seat.
Now I had a problem—
What do corporations eat?
Was it carnivorous or vegan?
Lactose intolerant?
Some persons can eat seafood
while other persons can’t.
There were peanuts to consider
and corn syrup issues, too.
If I fed this so-called person eggs
would it suddenly turn blue?
What a jolt at lunch time
when the corporation knocked!
When the door was opened
I was shocked, I tell you, shocked!
I’m used to thinking “person”
as my neighbor or my dad
but I was sorely disabused
of all such thoughts I might have had.
There were janitors, clerks and typists,
lawyers up to you know where,
receptionists and file clerks
and scientists to spare;
there were bricks-and-mortar buildings
from here to Timbuktu;
fleets of trucks and warehouses,
the list just grew and grew!
Shareholders by the gazillions,
ships, public and private planes,
mortgage-holding entities
and miles and miles of trains.
There were CEO’s and CFO’s
and all sorts of other O’s.
How this “person” would fit
my dining room
the Supreme Court only knows.
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…by Ruth H. Reilly

WE DON’T AGONIZE…

We’re going on a cruise-

Not the two-week kind,

Only women,

Not a man to find.

It’s on the Liberation Line.

Our vow:

No sex, no babies,

No wedding bells,

No romantic ideas

That lead to certain hell.

We’ll have a blast,

Drink too much,

Turn the music up and dance.

We’ll declare ourselves a state

And organize, a very feminine trait.

With a small fleet of 10 ships to start,

At 3,000 passengers each,

We’ll sway future elections

To go our way–no more genuflections!-

Until we have a Madam President.

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NEW DECISION

I’m backing off from trying to interpret some of the news on this blog.  It’s too much for an old lady to keep up with (and hoping to be one step ahead of).  But I don’t want to starve my site to death, so I’m going to empty some of my pages here until they’re all gone, and add some piddling stuff to keep my blood flowing.)

In the meantime, hugs and kisses to all my “liking” readers,  and you can be dismissed with no hard feelings.  I love you all.  The shift from FOLLOW to SUBSCRIBE did knock things off kilter a little bit, in addition to AI on the network, Co-pilot, rule changes in the middle of the year, etc.  I’d list you all but don’t want to overlook any former readers.  P.S. I know I’ve been very unreliable with keeping my decision/promises. We’ll see if I can do any better this time.  Smile.  PPSS:  In the process of publishing a photo of me, AI made  a “better” image of me, in a different hat… And I can’t work that funny square, either.

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SEX IS NOT LOVE

Is the man/woman thing getting worse?  It seems so.  The internet will have traced the battle between the sexes; I’ll just remind you of it, and re-state that if women want to be respected as co-humans, they might consider acting more like a co-human rather than a man-hungry lion.  I feel like posting a “No-No” beside every gussied up image/ad/AI facsimile on the internet, but don’t worry.  I don’t have the time.  Just thought that might be one step toward easing the current hostility between the sexes.

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AN OLD PAGE,  “Life Issues”:  (By a blogger other than Nan)

I’m Still Alive  from the Mental Chronicles – In 2013

“I just find it difficult to deal with and I tend to think maybe, maybe it is a trend going downward and maybe someday our world will become too heavy from the weight of its crimes and it will all fall down and collapse in on itself, and maybe that is the outcome humanity deserves.”

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Awash from every side, flooded, yes flooded, by the planned harm of it all, the discarded morality and caring, what can we do to remain safe, sane, alive, yet productive?  Choose one grievance ,  but…but…  Feeling guilt for my growing resentment against other humans….Confusion about fear of former imagined team members….If only there was a jigsaw puzzle with all the pieces of a future that fit together….But in the meantime the internet is playing with our minds–scheming, scheming…messing with our heads….my old head, anyway.  I may have to gaze elsewhere for awhile?  And as for AI, possibly on its way to mess with our evolution–with the Tech world’s assist–Blah!  I’d curse if I weren’t so old and proper! (Ha!)

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She was gobbled up by a trolling net while singing her last song:

HER LAST SONG

Oh a mother fish’s life

is filled with strife,

raising her young

to spot the hooks

dangled above by

the fisherman cooks

and MAGA crooks.

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Why did a large chunk of hispanic voters along the border in Texas switch their vote to Republican?  Seems like I pondered this question earlier, but I’m still wondering about it.  Do they not recall Trump’s  earlier words and actions?  I read a hispanic man  said it was because hispanic men didn’t want to have a woman as president.  (Who said from the frying pan into the fire?)  [a Greek saying about running from the smoke or the fire into the flame.]

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PROBABLY SENSIBLE:

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