I just realized that I've been playing this new game (well, new to me) for weeks, and although it's totally taken over my life, I have yet to mention here.
World of Warcraft! *insert raucous trumpets and exhuberent fanfare here*
I have like a billion characters, all on different realms,, all in different classes, trying out new weapons and armour, different professions, different areas and quests, and... most of you don't know what I'm talking about do you? That's ok. Unless you're 14 years old, or a total geek (me), or the wife of a total geek (my wife), you have no reason to know about WoW (as it is conveniently acronymed). For you lucky souls: it is a computer game in which you get to create a character and complete a never-ending (sorta) series of quests that involve a little bit of violence, running around, and collecting things, while 8 million people around the world do the same right beside you. There's more to it than that but you can ask a kid, geek, or geek's wife all about it. I know you know at least one of them. LOL Or just check the site. Once you do you will not be able to resist...
Here's a short article about the ethics of a company that allows parents to choose both the egg and sperm donors for their child. The entry is entitled "Washington Post Examines Ethical Issues Of Company That Allows Parents To Select Embryo Characteristics". When I first read this I thought it would be an article about gene manipulation not deciding what donors you'll choose based on their favourite book!
I'm not making any judgment here one way or the other, but when they quote a law professor saying flatly that it "doesn't pose any new major ethical problems", I kinda cringed. First of all, since when does knowing the law make you an expert in ethics? You can certainly be involved in the conversation but this is like a nurse saying he can do surgery or a lawyer claiming she could do the work of a cop. Yes they are related but there are already people who specialize in ethics: they're called ethicists, philosophers who have studied specifically in the field of ethics. Don't take away their jobs -- they're already short of them as it is.
Secondly, how could you say that because people can now choose sperm to combine with their own egg or vice versa, choosing both is nothing new. It's not necessarily anything groundbreakingly different, but it seems different enough to be worth discussing. At the very least, it's heading down the road to where we're picking and choosing parts of genes to build our babies. I don't see anything inherently evil with choosing the characteristics of our offspring. As it says in the article, we sorta do that already, but we are not always the best judges even on the rather broad scale of choosing our mates. I don't know if I want everybody to be able to choose exactly what their children will be like. I don't know if our species would survive that... LOL
So apparently, Children Raised Near Busy Roads Have Poorer Lungs... Wow. Now I'm all for the scientific process and being careful about what your justification for your knowledge is, but still... kids breathing bad air have bad air breathing organs? I think that's a freebie.
Here's a pretty long article on how to keep mentally healthy by keep your synapses health and active... It may not be what you're used to so you may not want to read everything about what synapses do and how they play a role in learning... You could just scroll down to the bottom to where it suggests you should challenge your mind with new things. Hint, hint...
I'm applying to the Integrated Learning Librarian position in the Engineering and Science Library here at Queen's University. Wish me luck... And of course an article on Sweat-Free Job Interviewing caught my eye. Now I don't have hyperhidrosis, but there still are some interesting tips provided here.
(Now THAT'S a condition I'm glad I don't have...)
Fast Food Chains More Common In Deprived Areas, UK. Wow. Duh. They say in this article that it's not quite obvious why this is, but it seems to me that it is: That's who they are marketing to. KFC isn't expecting ladies in fur coats ordering a bucket of chicken. McDonald's isn't designing their drive-thrus with limos in mind. They sell cheap food to people who don't want to spend a lot. And cheap food (and cheap stores) equals unhealthy much too often unfortunately. There are exceptions. Sometimes you can get fresh fruit and vegetables pretty cheap if they are somewhat local. Water and salt can be found at a low cost... sometimes. And sometimes you really have to work hard to find the good stuff you can afford. Good luck!
So,
Minister Clement Announces Expansion of Hospital-Based Smoking Cessation Programs... This is of course a good thing. People need to stop smoking, they need help doing it, and what better time and place that when they are in the hospital? But why do these things always come as special cases? It should be pretty obvious by now that smoking ain't the healthiest thing for you, and yet it takes the Minister of Health to say, "Hey, maybe those health care people need some money to help people stop killing themselves..."
And I make the assumption that health care professionals (read doctors, nurses, rehab therapists, etc.) are the best ones to help stop this problem, but are they? My colleagues and I sit in our staff room and watch as a steady stream of these health-conscious professionals come outside to smoke. I'm not saying that they are not good at their jobs. Quite the contrary. It's actually the fact that they can live in both worlds without connecting the two that astounds me. Too many people seem unable to carry over the understanding they have gained in one part of their life to others. Too often do people blame others for things they do regularly, or want to restrict the freedoms of certain people in ways that they themselves would not tolerate.
People are weird.
