all the glory that the Lord has made
and the complications when I see His face
in the morning in the window.

all the glory when He took our place
but He took my shoulders, and He shook my face

And He takes and He takes and He takes.








my Grandma died today.




i just needed to say that somewhere.




.

You made me smile today. You spoke with many voices. We travelled miles today. Shared expressions voiceless.

http://www.moneyweb.co.za/mw/view/mw/en/page94?oid=162506&sn=Detail

The above link would take you to a news article. The news article would tell you about how Merck and Co.'s experimental HIV vaccine, called V520, has failed in its trial run. You would click that link, and read about the decade it took to develop the vaccine, and how 45 of the "test subjects" are now infected with HIV as a result.

But you don't need to read the article, because I just explained it to you.

Maybe you will read it, I don't know. Will it make you think? I don't know that either.

If I posted an article about a gruesome bicycle accident, the next time you went for a ride, the thought would flit across your mind:
Should I wear a helmet?

But we don't. We don't put on the helmet. We are 20-something, and we drive too fast around turns, because we're in a rush. Life is moving 1,000 mph, and so are we, and we have no time to wait, and so we take risks. We are invincible.

Why is it HIV is so different from all of the other problems of the world? Its a bullet that could be stopped with a hand. It kills with an inevitable slowness, it is the Alpha and Omega, but it can be prevented with a layer of latex only 0.0018 mm thick.

A vaccine would have been a mixed blessing. Even though it would have prevented millions of deaths, entire countries would have waited years for its availability. The upper class in first world countries would get it within months. And the generation of orphans and infected babies in Brazil, South Africa, India, Costa Rica, China, Russia? Too late for them

I don't mean to sound defeatist. But what I read, what I have seen first hand -- it both gives me hope and heartache. I spend most of my days trying to fight overwhelming odds, to get through insurmountable barriers.

Its exhausting. I hope, every morning, that I'll open the front page and read about a cure. But the day doesn't come. So I work harder that day, and I try to invent my own cure.

A friend I met in Brazil took this photo at a gallery in Italy, I think. Anyway, long hiatus due to overextension of... well, life.

Amidst lots of talking about gender, sexuality, and chakras (my housemates), I remembered this:









It reads:

All thats wrong with sex

• death and babies
• very close
• like fighting but wetter
• all that energy and time
• all that money
• and what about performance
• what about the fact that bodies don't look like they're meant to
• also what about the fact that at some point sex has to involved another person
• like i've already said people can't be trusted
• although they are not animals its best not to encourage them

Is it tounge in cheek or is it one of those half-jokes/half-truths?

bears, guy who hates bears, something unrelated to bears.

This is absolutely NOT funny.

Being eaten by bears is not funny.

Also:

Stephen Colbert and Richard Branson (of Virgin Mega-Airlines-Music-Mobile-Spaceships fame) get into an on-air water fight. As in, fist-a-cuffs throw-down. Cannot wait to see that.

At some point this week I'll have something more to say other than regurgitating news stories which amuse me. But for now, really fantastic dancing that pretty much no one else will appreciate.

Lacey and Pasha Hip-Hop -- In the Morning by Junior Boys. ch'd. by Dave Scott

Lauren and Pasha Hip-Hop -- Fuego by Pitbull ch'd. by Shane Sparks

Hok and Jaimie Contemporary -- The Chairman's Waltz from Memiors of a Geisha ch'd. by Wade Robson

and last but not at all least (because it gives me chills ever single time.)

Last Season's Top Six -- Hide and Seek Imogen Heap ch'd. by Mia Michaels

(with and without screaming audience.)

PS - The dance videos are from So You Think You Can Dance, which although has ended for this season, is an unbelievably fantastic dance show. They have choreographers like Mia Michaels, Shane Sparks, Dan Karaty, Wade Robson and Tyse DeOrio... so it goes without saying that there are some bangin' dances. Mia Michaels was even nominated for an Emmy for a contemporary piece last year. Case in point: you missed the boat of you haven't seen it.

lately I'm a desperate believer- walkin' in a straight line.

"To live with her was to sit completely on the floor,
entirely on the grass, wholly on the hollow
of her crossed legs, utterly in the mud.

To live with her was to sing out all the notes
even if you didn't know most of the words,
to scribble down each idea thats sprang at you in the dark,

to recall the exact phrasing of every folded message
you found tucked under your pillow."

-Excerpt from "Matka" by Donna Kaz

You can only protect your liberties in this world by protecting the other man's freedom. You can only be free if I am free.

The Jena Six.

Even if you do nothing else today, read about this case.

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly."
Martin Luther King Jr.

I don't have much to say about this. It leaves me wordless.

Bad medicine.

"The logical complementarity of the human sexes has been so recognized in our culture that it has entered our vocabulary in the form of naming various pipe fittings either the male pipe fitting or the female pipe fitting depending upon which one interlocks within the other. When the complementarity of the sexes is breached, injuries and disease may occur as noted above. Therefore, based on the simplest known anatomy and physiology, when dealing with the complementarity of the human sexes, one can simply say, Res ipsa loquitur - the thing speaks for itself!"


-James W. Holsinger Jr., in a paper concerning the "detrimental health effects" of homosexuality.Currently the nominee for the Surgeon General of the United States of America.

James W. Holsinger Jr., albeit trained in some of the most pre-eminent schools for medicine, has been a staunch contributor to the anti-gay rhetoric spewed by the conservative medical community. As a current, standing member of the National Methodist judicial community, he has not only voted in support of a Methodist pastor who kept a gay member from attending his church, he also voted in 2004 to expel a lesbian clergy member from the Methodist community.
Most disturbingly, Holsinger founded the Hope Springs Community Church, which “ministers to people who no longer wish to be gay or lesbian.” Holsinger has publically stated that homosexuality is “an issue not of orientation but of lifestyle.” (the Lexington Herald-Leader via Think Progress.org)

Although I may disagree with certain fundamentalist aspects of many religions, I can't dictate what entire religions should or should not accept. However: Science and Religion, though in history once enjoyed a mutually prosperous communion, no longer work in a beneficial harmony. Instead, religion has been used to dictate what answers science is allowed to give.
By it's very nature, science has no final answers. It only has the best answer out of what is available. Science is a tool to examine our world, and further explore different and unique ideas.
Religion, by it's own nature, seeks to give absolute answers to questions about our lives and our universe. By the same token, it is rare that religions are fluid and changing with the times, updating and re-adressing central beliefs based on new evidences and discoveries. In fact, whereas science in a dynamic and self-correcting process, religion often seeks to be stable, permanent, and unchanging through the external pressures of a changing universe. Religion looks to the past for strength, science pulls towards the future.

So how can religion be used to dictate what "answers" are given in matters of science? Should Christianity, Judaism, Islam, etc., be an editting tool in how we read medicine?

I would maintain that this is always a bad idea. Our own personal bias's always phrase what we say and how we say it. Yet the more knowledge we have, the more truth we gain: so what can possibly be gained from an additional voice censoring what is heard?

That is not to say that morals and ethics have no place in science. Medicine should have no opinion. It is what it is. Doctor's, the appliers of medicine, are the driving force which should use humanity and honesty to guide treatment... but how far? To what end?

Reagrdless of what the answers are to that debate, I genuinely don't like Holsinger, and to speak to political incestuality:

"Holsinger has been a consistent contributor to the Republican Party, according to Newsmeat.com. The web site lists close to $17,000 in contributions to the national party and to various candidates, including President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, both fellow United Methodists, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY)." - Cynthia B. Astle, United Methodist Nexus