Sneeze Guard

I am allergic to everything in the animal kingdom except goats and rabbits. I encourage you to live with the mystery of that statement.

If for some crazy reason I ever want to add cats to my potential pet shortlist, now I can. For just under $4,000.

Allerca Inc., California, USA, says it has managed to breed the world's first hypoallergenic cats. People who are allergic to cats and buy one of these will not experience sneezing, red and itchy eyes or asthma - except in very acute cases.

The company says that as soon as the news got out people rushed to place orders and now there is a waiting list.

The company tested thousands of cats, looking for those tiny few that do not have glycoprotein Fel d1. Glycoprotein Fel d1 is what triggers allergic reactions in humans - it can be found in the fur, pelt, saliva, serum, urine, mucous, salivary glands, and hair roots of the cat. On finding a decent number of cats that did not carry glycoprotein Fel d1, the scientists selectively bred them.

The company wants to stress that their cats are not the result of genetic engineering, but selective breeding. Yeah, uh, that's just low-tech genetic engineering, dude.

Give Till It Hurts Politically

So what I did a few weeks ago was I went and got myself a job as a grantwriter. Now at work I get a daily update of headlines from the Chronicle of Philanthropy. (Something funny about the url "philanthropy.com")

There's a world of nonprofits that you never hear about, and I don't know why. It's just as interesting as for-profit business, and there are even more colorful characters.

Here's a news story that fell into my work mailbox today. It contains several fascinating observations in a compact space.

Federal Aid Reaches Few Black Churches, Report Says

Fewer than 3 percent of black churches have received federal funds under the Bush administration's effort to help religious charities, reports The Washington Post.

A survey by the Joint Center for Political Empowerment and Economic Studies concluded that because black churches have a limited ability to run social programs, very little of the estimated $2-billion in federal money available for philanthropic work each year ends up in their hands. One quarter of the 750 black churches surveyed have annual revenue of less than $250,000, the study found.

The survey also examined the political affiliation of religious organizations that received federal grants. Liberal churches tended to view President Bush's attempts to help churches with skepticism, but they were also more likely to apply for and receive money, the report said.

On the other hand, far fewer conservative churches, despite supporting President Bush politically, have sought federal aid.

The Bush administration might inadvertently have done some Democrat-style work while appealing to a Republican Christian constituency. I'm glad someone's doing it.

Cripes

Thanks to Sarah, I have been turned on to Geez magazine, an Adbusters for the curious and faithful and maybe the self-loathing.

The magazine is full of the Adbusters brand (oh, it’s a brand all right) of intellectual self-flagellation that starts with a genuine, admirable desire to know and improve thyself, and proceeds from inquiry to recrimination to eventual numbness.

It pulls like a tide, and then an undertow, page after page of earnest, “Doesn't modernity kind of suck? Are you doing enough? Didn’t you know you’re kind of not good enough?”

The answer is yes, I’m well aware that I’m not good enough. Now get off my fucking case.

But, it’s good bathroom reading, and I do enjoy the navel-gazing. I also like people attempting to answer the questions they bring up, and these Geez kids don't always seem on that bandwagon.

I can’t figure out if I like Geez yet. I think maybe I don't. But I have a subscription. And I like getting it in the mail.

If you’re getting mixed messages, it’s because I’m sending them.

Hot Enough For You?

I spent last weekend in Dallas. It was hot outside. I have known hot. I have sweltered. I grew up in Tennessee, went to college in Alabama, pulled a summer gig in Arizona where they tell you it's the heat, not the humidity, but they LIE because it is both, and you break into a back-drenching sweat when you wiggle your eyebrows violently outdoors.

One hundred degree temperatures and I -- we are not close, but we have history.

This heat in Dallas though was qualitatively different. I have been burned, pierced, and baked by heat, but I don't ever recall it weighing on me. This heat was a presence. It was heavy, trying to force you to the ground for the crime of breaking daylight curfew. This heat was angry. It personally disliked you and gave you the silent treatment so you couldn't even ask what you'd done that it thought was so wrong. It was as though all the greenhouse gases threw a party over Dallas and no one wanted to be the first chlorofluorocarbon to leave.

And I'm going back this weekend.

T-rex plays the role of "me."

Today is a good day I think for linking to Dinosaur Comics.

Exquisite Corpse Flower

For years and years I would hear about things going on in New York City, and they would sound great and fascinating, just as you imagine a fairy hootenanny sounds like a great time in the fantasy world of Zordenlandia. But you don't know exactly what that is, and you'll never find out.

These days, I still feel giddy when I remember that I am -- tops -- a three-hour train ride from NYC, where strange and wonderful things happen with alarming regularity.

Here is the latest, which I hope to visit later this week: the blooming of the corpse flower at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden.

The titan arum (Amorphophallus titanum) is one of the world's most remarkable plants. Native to tropical forests in Sumatra, it produces a monstrous four- to nine-foot-tall flower head, which releases a monstrous stench of putrefaction at peak bloom (another name for the plant is the corpse flower!). The species rarely flowers in cultivation—the last time one bloomed in New York was 1939. However, Brooklyn Botanic Garden's ten-year-old specimen recently began to flower. It's in peak bloom right now!

It's so monstrous, they used the word twice!

Sadly, all my New York friends simultaneously moved to other states, so I don't have free places to stay overnight anymore. But clearly, the opportunity to smell a putrefied Audrey II is worth a day trip if I can swing it.

August Linkdump

More stuff I found lately.

Scientists study using ketamine to lift depression
Down at the club, this is known as a "recreational drug." Here's another one for you, science dudes: Bourbon might be an excellent sedative!

Billy Graham facing mortality
Newsweek rides the Christian bandwagon again.

Also, I think I found out why Newsweek is so Jesusy. The managing editor, John Meachum, is a flagrant Christian, if you can even believe, who wrote this here book.

Churches that give you what you want, not what you need
Nothing new, but certainly nothing wrong here. Plus, they have big headshots of C.S. Lewis and G.K. Chesterton in their banner, and I am just the target demographic to be suckered by that.

Why is Google paying MySpace to be their search provider?
I don't have a MySpace page, and I own no stake in Google. Following this seems like a nerdy version of caring what Brittney Spears and Kevin Federline do. But still, I do so desperately care.

My Election Year Rant

See, what happened is, Jan, with big innocent doe eyes, unwittingly asked me to deliver one of my favorite politics rants here.

I usually wait for presidential election years to pull this out, because that's when it's most likely to come up in casual conversation, and people will be most tolerant of my crackpot ideas, and I can deliver the 30-second soundbite version to my close friends. Sometimes repeatedly. To their delight.

But since Jan asked so nicely, it has become clear that impending mid-term elections are as good a time as any to inflict this upon you share.


You, the discerning reader, know that democracy is broken in the United States.

You also know why: The electorate does not care to make well-informed choices, candidates prefer obfuscation to clarity, and people with a lot of money hold great sway over the decision-makers, and thus, their decisions.

I would be more dismayed if I thought this was different from the early years of the American experiment. Instead, I am just regular-style dismayed.

However, democracy in a less-broken form means that anyone can run for an office, provided he or she meets some established criteria. (Like, you have to be 35 years old to be POTUS. That sort of thing.)

This will sound eerily similar to my economic theory: We make the government. (Unlike my economic theory, I think the government DOES make us back, however.) Any time a number of us decide to act differently, the government will act differently.

We intrinsically have the power to vote for the most qualified candidate, because anybody we want to vote for is running. Furthermore, it is a citizen's duty to lead if elected by the populace. If everybody think you're the shit, you'd better get up there and be The Shit.

If I lived in Dallas, and I thought Jan would be a great mayor of Dallas, I could vote for her as a write-in candidate (assuming she met local established criteria, of course). I don't even need to get the petition signatures to get her on the ballot. I could just write her name and walk out of the polling booth feeling unconflicted about my choice. Wouldn't that be awesome?

And if there's, oh, I don't know, say, a majority us who think the same way, whether or not Jan thinks she'd be a good mayor, it's her responsibility to try anyway, because it's what we all want. Because that's how democracy works, see.

Given this truth, the idea of a lesser of two evils becomes looo-dicrous. It's really our job to choose a LEAST of all available evils to vote for.

But even trying to figure out which one of two basically indistinguishable faces to vote for in an election can be taxing. How do you search every citizen for the best choice?

Well you don't. You've got better thnigs to be doing. But as an intermediate step, I recommend spending about 10 minutes googling third parties in your district/state/nation and looking around.

Especially for presidential elections, there are a dozen fairly serious political parties to consider. You won't have to consider many of them long -- the Prohibition Party does not have a popular enough platform for you to spend time on.

But what if you like non-intrusive government, but don't care for the Republicans' devotion to the drug war? Then you might look at the Libertarian Party.

What if you've recently reread the Constitution and noticed how far the current federal government has drifted? What if you like a Biblical foundation for law, but don't agree with the current administration's particular take? You might want to read up on the Constitution Party.

What if you like the idea of science playing a larger role in government? Consider the Natural Law Party.

I haven't even bothered mentioning the Green Party, The Reform Party, or the dark horse Socialist Workers Party.

This is real. There are millions of people in the United States working and thinking on how we can make the government, and those millions of people are not locked into "Democrat" or "Republican" mindsets.

Though they don't have the resources to make competitive stabs at the Presidential elections, they run pretty competitive state and local races. Which is good, because more local races are coming up in a few months. Currently, there is one independent senator: Sen Jeffords (I), VT. But there's no reason why we can't choose more of them in November.

Assuming that you're thinking about voting in the next available election, do just a little homework in Wikipedia or Google about third parties. You might find someone you actually WANT to vote for instead of the latest models of Brand X and Brand Y. And if enough people do that, we might find ourselves with leaders we WANT to follow.

The Real Ruling Party

A friend recently accused me of not being conservative.

Me? Not conservative? WTF? I'm in favor of small government and fiscal accountability and such.

He was unswayed. To prove his point, he asked me, "Which do you prefer, people taking responsibility for themselves or handouts to poor people?"

And I was all like, "Why can't I be in favor of both?" He assured me I couldn't be.


When I lived in Birmingham, Alabama and attended a Christian university, people called me a liberal. When I worked for a game company in Seattle, Washington, people called me conservative.

You know what I call it when extremes label you the opposition? The elusive "moderate" position. But moderation doesn't eschew either end of a spectrum. It consists of both. I mean, duh.

But this current executive branch is neither conservative nor liberal. It is authoritarian.

John W. Dean expounds in a useful article in the Boston Globe saying things I wish were said louder and sooner:

Today's Republican policies are antithetical to bedrock conservative fundamentals. There is nothing conservative about preemptive wars or disregarding international law by condoning torture. Abandoning fiscal responsibility is now standard operating procedure. Bible-thumping, finger-pointing, tongue-lashing attacks on homosexuals are not found in Russell Krik's classic conservative canons, nor in James Burham's guides to conservative governing. Conservatives in the tradition of former senator Barry Goldwater and President Ronald Reagan believed in "conserving" this planet, not relaxing environmental laws to make life easier for big business. And neither man would have considered employing Christian evangelical criteria in federal programs, ranging from restricting stem cell research to fighting AIDs through abstinence.

I'm not ready to go with him on Reagan's disbelief in relaxing environmental laws to make life easier for big business. His eco-sins are carefully listed in a commentary at grist.org.

But the rest of the article has some useful points for the plaintive American moderate.

America is depending on me, Mr. President. And by America, I mean the World.

This is the pilot episode of The Amazing Screw-On Head at the Sci-Fi channel Web site.

According to the flashing light on my monitor, it is Condition: Awesome.

The animation is a little rough, but if you're even partly nerdy, it's worth the 23 absurd minutes you'll spend watching. If you're not nerdy, then, you know, watch sports or something.