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Genes & Corpses & Statues & Bridges … OHMY!

In the news today, I was reading about how a woman with Alzheimer’s genetically tested her test tube baby for the disease. They weeded out all of the embryo’s carrying the disease, and kept the one that was healthiest, leaving them with a child that would not inherit the disease.

Obviously I can see a problem with this right away. Most of us would love to do a test on our children before they are born to make sure they are free of defects and would love more to be able to choose to have a healthy child free of these diseases, retardation, or missing limbs. The problem obviously is that natural selection is pretty much thrown to the side and we take over the role of deciding how perfect we want our children to be. Not to mention that our planet can only sustain so much life and with everyone being a perfect human being without any disorders, where would be put everyone.

I can imagine a day when science gets to the point where you can actually choose the hair and eye color of your child before it’s born, where all children are born disease free and where we have a world filled with people that all look similar. Ugh. Of course, the world will also be so crowded that they’ll probably end up building man made islands in the ocean to house all of these folks.

I suppose we’ll have to see how this plays out. I can just imagine a drive through type of place where you choose the features of your children and have them implanted in your body and 9 months later you have a child. Ugh. Or better yet, you order your child and they are grown for nine months in an incubator type of thing and you just go and pick it up after the nine months are up.

From birth to death, I’m sure you have all heard about the Georgia guy that has been tossing corpses into big ditches and a nearby lake for about fifteen years, all because his cremation oven was broken. Ugh. Disgusting much.

Seems that the guy’s father actually started the practice of disposing of the bodies, and then handing the relatives an ern full of cement dust. Continuing the family businesss, he would take the death bodies and dispose of them around the property, rather than to get the oven fixed.

Cremation is actually an interesting method of disposing of dead bodies. Rather than storing them in underground vaults, as many tend to do, cremation allows a family to burn their family member up into a fine dust and then either keep them on the mantle or sprinkle them over the deceased person’s favorite area. I suppose another option would be if there are multiple siblings and they all want a piece of mom for their mantle … cremation is the way to go.

The process involves delivery of the deceased in a cardboard box to the Crematory, where the body is then placed in a container and then placed in an oven where the body is burned to a dust. Of course, not all of the bones and parts burn to a dust to finally the remains are put through a grinding/grounding machine to crush anything left and finally the remains are packaged in an ern for presentation to the family. Some people choose to store the ern in a Mausoleum, at a cemetary, while others prefer to scatter the remains over a garden, the ocean or a mountain range. Of course there are laws and stuff about this so dont go spreading mom over the neighborhood until you find out what kinds of health hazards it might pose.

Anyhow, now a bunch of families are looking for their loved ones that they thought were taken care of, but are now finding out that the bodies could be at the bottom of the lake, chained to cement blocks. Just disgusting.

Seems Cher is all pissed off a Attorney General John Ashcroft because he had curtains put up over some nude female statues at the Justice Department’s main hallway. He claims that they were distracting to television viewers when he would stand in front of them to make announcements. My thought is … why not just move to a different location.

He’s basically drawing more attention to them by placing huge floor to ceiling drapes over them … that by the way, cost $3000 a pair of taxpayer money. It’s just silly. It’s art. Go to any museum and you’ll find a ton of nude male and female statues lining the halls and we aren’t putting skirts or shorts on those, so why should the Justice Department be any different. Ugh. I’m with Cher all the way on this one.

Finally, I just wanted to share a cool photo of the new eastern span of our Bay Bridge. For those not from San Francisco, we have two bridges that cover the Bay. The Golden Gate Bridge, the more popular of the two, covers the section from San Francisco to Marin. Basically, you’d take this bridge if you were going to be traveling up the coast to the more northern area of California. It’s a much nicer, prettier drive than the latter. The Bay Bridge, on the other hand, leads you from San Francisco to Oakland. Smack in the middle of this bridge is an island, called Treasure Island. So in essence there are two sides to the bridge, the western span, leading from San Francisco to the island, and then the eastern span leading from the island to Oakland. What’s even more interesting is that the two spans dont look anything alike. The San Francisco side, looks very similar to the Golden Gate Bridge, while the Oakland side, looks very industrial and ugly. That’s the side that is going to be replaced with the new, more modern bridge shown below. I’m pretty excited at the thought of having a really nice modern bridge replace that old clunky one that sits there right now. The new one is also made to withstand earthquakes over 8.0, which the current bridge obviously can’t since parts of it collapsed during the 1989 quake.

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