The first postmodern ironist. ‘We live in a passionless age, wrote the philosopher

Soren Kierkegaard. That is why he speaks to us

today, believes Julian Evans …There are good reasons why we…might listen

to him now, at a moment when relations between

leaders and led, corporations and consumers, press

and people have rarely looked so shaky.

Listen to this: “A revolutionary age is an age of

action; ours is the age of advertisement and

publicity. Nothing ever happens, but there is

immediate publicity everywhere. In the present age,

a rebellion is, of all things, the most unthinkable.

Such an expression of strength would seem ridiculous

to the calculating intelligence of our times.”

Or this: “In order that everything should be reduced

to the same level, it is first of all necessary to

procure a phantom, its spirit, a monstrous

abstraction, an all-embracing something which is

nothing, a mirage – and that phantom is the public.”

Both passages were written in 1847.’ New Statesman

In Rural China, a Steep Price of Poverty: Dying of AIDS. “Small

towns … scattered (throughout) central China are

experiencing an unreported, unrecognized AIDS epidemic. A

few covert studies suggest some of the towns have some of

the highest localized rates of H.I.V. infection in the world;

some say 20 percent.

The problem is that for many years large numbers of poor

farmers have illegally sold their blood to people known as

blood heads, whose unsterile collection methods have left

many infected with the virus that causes AIDS. The blood

donors get the virus not only because blood heads reuse

contaminated needles but also because donated blood is

often pooled and, after the desired elements are removed,

the remainder divided and returned to donors.” Hospitals don’t take these patients; their families turn them out; doctors trying to treat them are sometimes run out of town. While China acknowledges drug-related AIDS infections in its major cities, it denies the existence of this more pervasive and insidious epidemic and forbids media coverage of the issue. No government assistance for treatment or prevention efforts is forthcoming. Premarital blood testing still does not include HIV titers. Most patients found to be HIV-positive when tested during hospitalization are never told of the results. [Are the autocrats practicing genocide against the rural Chinese peasantry?] New York Times

New look at Martian meteorite breathes new life into ‘panspermia’ theory.

A new study in the journal Science of the infamous “Martian meteorite” raises

the possibility that life on Earth may have been “seeded” here from outer

space. Some scientists believe the meteorite, known as ALH-84001, contains

microfossils of Martian life. Now, researchers from the California Institute of

Technology are suggesting that any bacterial spores fossilized in the rock could

have theoretically survived the trip from Mars to Earth. This is because

magnetic characteristics of the rock indicate the meteorite’s inner temperature

never rose above 40 degrees Centigrade – even as it plunged through the

Earth’s atmosphere. Proponents of the panspermia theory say this supports the

idea that living organisms could have been spread throughout the universe on

vessels such as meteors.

Will it finally get some respect? “Scientists are close to deciphering the makeup of the Y

chromosome, that essential core of maleness that’s saddled

with a bad reputation, a weird past and an uncertain future.

It’s true, guys: Millions of years from now, your descendants

might not have a Y chromosome at all.” The Y chromosome is unique for how few genes it has and how specialized their function is: mostly all related to becoming male.

Would-Be U.S. Space Tourist Hopes Mir Has Time Left. Let’s say you knew that the Mir had outlived its projected lifetime three-fold already and that the Russians were debating scrapping it even despite the loss of face and the loss of $20-million-a-throw revenues from rich American cosmonaut-wannabe’s like yourself. Would you be hoping those that wanted it to stay in orbit and let you hitch a ride up to it won the debate?

Trick-or-treaters say “Hold the salt!”

Babies With Colic: “I need a little extra

help here folks, and I need it early on in infancy because I can’t quite pull it all together on

my own…”