Smear

 

Women's healthcare (and women's bodies) have long been demonized by an extremist sector of our society who continually struggle with their sexual identity, gender, and maturity level, which means that the rest of us have to be subjected to their continued insanity as it relates to those topics, and I want that very much to stop. Like, today. It came to a sharp point for me through the pet adoption process I did with a couple of high school drop-outs not of my social set; like, not even related to someone on the bottom rung of my family, ya dig? 

As such, they were so far off from reality and where they should be as human beings, that I found basic communication with them difficult, which means they're psychotic, especially when it's when combined with all the scientific evidence someone like me can drum up with a team of ethical experts like myself. What I'm saying to you in plain English is this: me and my mom always knew Angel and Dom were fucking nuts, but they were crazy enough to take care of a beloved family pet, and that's what we needed then. Anything else, like their false sense of friendship towards a woman like me, was entertained with my promise to Teddy in mind, like any real mother would do.

It's not that I particularly disliked them as people, it's just that they're the kind of people working behind the PetCo counter at the local strip mall who handed me my change, or the woman handing dental instruments to my dentist while I got a routine exam. Angel never attended college, nor did her ex-husband (although several prior ex-husbands could have been college educated...who knows?), and neither did any of their children, or children's children, because they way they kept their freaky "lifestyle" intact was brainwashing their young with their half-ass theories of life that cannot be supported in higher learning institutions (from the sheer volume of its madness), nor out in the world at large, or even in the wider social circles among their rather unhealthy inbred set of mountain folk, a place where child birth by uneducated teenage girls is considered an acceptable practice, which is about as far from me and my family as you can get.

It made for some strange bedfellows, like Angel's vehement support of gay lifestyles and gay marriage (really, anything "gay" at all), that she combined with her rather pedestrian view of women's healthcare that her wacko father taught her, that meant killing babies in secret satanic rituals the rest of us call "clinics" or "hospitals" or "the ob/gyn" or "doctor's offices", because her fucked-up dad told her that the tissue we generate—that may or may not grow to full-term in a woman's uterus—was, in actuality, fully gestated already at the beginning of the fertilization process, which means that women everywhere transport a tiny-size human shrunk down to impossible proportions that's pushed through her egg sack into the Fallopian tube, to attach to the uterus like an astronaut with an air-line floating in outer space looking to attach to the hull of a speeding spaceship. And I'm a sci-fi fan!

She used her rudimentary skills as a barely-educated dental admin (six-month certificate, tops) combined with her rigorous pet store training to tell me that they had "pictures" to support her point of view, which means they go to some quack who bought an old camera from a defunct doctor's office on Craigslist to sell made-up pictures to other crazy pregnant women who want a photo to put on their fridge of their "baby" to brag about to other nut-jobs, and they're also highly Photoshopped recreations that are not based on any particular scientific reality, other than keeping the insane somewhat gainfully employed. Out of this weird cocktail of half-baked ideas and rigorously-guarded ignorance came about Angel's special blend of the next generation of fucked-up bipolar bisexuals, like her porno-appearing daughter whom she touted to me and my mom (on the one visit we had with Ted at one of her exes houses) as a real beauty, and that was also not true, in addition to all of her bad medicine.

What it did produce was this: Angel's gay daughter—who self-describes her education on Facebook as "the school of hard knocks"—attached herself to a strip mall BJJ dojo because I'm a fighter, to rub up against other weirdos who have mental patient fetishes, then turn that legitimate martial arts scene into bad, amateur online porn by frequenting underground sex clubs with rubber mats and no lighting but lots of body oil, to get knocked up out-of-wedlock twice by a gay Brazilian instructor at her dojo who needed to establish residency here in the U.S. (and a kid would do that for him), in between her day job as, yep, another dental "assistant" from some certificate program for high school dropouts. 

But, "abortion" was "murder", and over that, her and her fucked-up daughter were vehement, vicious, and very vocal about, which must be a great hit at every Pride Day parade, you know, as a place where people are dependent on "straights" like me and my men to provide eggs and semen for them as couples, then carry their kids for them (for the guys), or adopt our kids when something goes awry in a pregnant teenager's life, and it will. That was wrong, but everything else they did was OK. How's that for a smear campaign? It's one heck of a crazy cocktail. People, you have to vote to be heard in this country. That's it. So, do that. Vote for for sanity. Vote for reason. Vote for education. Vote for healthcare, for all of our citizens, because you're worth it to me. That's what civil rights is all about, kids, even you assholes in the back of the room who will fail out at 14 or 15. Imagine how the president feels? That strongly. And that well-educated.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_induction
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_abortion
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misoprostol
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cervical_dilation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Childbirth
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obstetrics_and_gynaecology
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gynaecology
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obstetrics
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obstetrics_%26_Gynecology_(journal)

http://similac.com/pregnancy/3-weeks-pregnant

 

Miscarriage of Justice

Like the history of modern medicine and its marginalization of traditional home-based herbal remedies that used to be the expertise of women (http://mariedoucette.blogspot.com/2016/02/bad-medicine.html), women's healthcare has been similarly co-opted by disordered interests, rife with harmful hidden agendas. When was the last time a prominent urologist (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urology) was murdered for performing a vasectomy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasectomy) on a man, or his patient publicly vilified for receiving such a procedure? No? There you go! That's all the answer you ever needed.

When I was in school, we studied the intricacies of debate and logic to dismantle false constructs as quickly as possible, given the normal mental capabilities of the particular human we would be in conversation with, or maybe not. Even at my teacher's college in upstate New York, "Special Needs" and "Special Education" were separate coursework from the regular curriculum, designed for average Liberal Arts students, that formed the basis of our freshman and sophomore years, before the student chose a Major (and/or Minor) to specialize in.

In short, we're taught to tell a normal person about the flaws in their perceptions as grounds for their re-education, even in extreme cases of the most cult-like indoctrination present in the minds of the people who've been brain-washed (perhaps in social isolation), manipulated for someone else's benefit besides their own. That's unfortunately where healthcare for women has ended in America: stuck in the worst minds we have as human beings, creating bizarre social distortions that feed public fears about the human body from a steady diet of ignorance and hype that's typical of mentally ill households. Who holds sway there? The biggest strongest douchebag, that's who.

Even worse for most average American families were the men who loved their women enough to take care of them, or speak up for their human rights. Every single intellectual argument I've ever had about women's healthcare that's still seen as "controversial" I have won (and I mean, EVERY SINGLE ONE), so this is not an open invitation to you, as my reading public, to become a right rotten cunt to me about something that I solved using ancient Aristotelian logic at S.U.N.Y. Oneonta, at 19-years old (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Term_logic). 

It was such a huge victory for me that the entire class came up to me to talk about it, because my boyfriend and I had planned to argue "pro" and "con" sides of any argument we had within class beforehand. Like I'd written before, we were so good at masking our romantic relationship that the entire class was fooled, though one cool homeboy from 'round the way in Brooklyn told my boy to tap my ass, " 'Cause she's feelin' you, man! You got her all worked up tho', bro!" After which time, at the end of our very last class for the summer, we told him the truth: that we were boyfriend-and-girlfriend all along. He. Freaked. Out. "I knew it! I knew it!", he shouted out to the rest of the class.

To reiterate old scholarship from my teenage years, let's go over some key points ONE MORE TIME (for yo' dumb ass, and not mine): Roe vs. Wade* will not be overturned by The Supreme Court, no matter how many partisan games are played. Okay? Time to grow up about "icky" female bodies, because they exist whether you like it or not. Women are not sexual slaves for public consumption, and I expect you to understand that as clearly as I have explained it here, again. If you do not, and you respond to reason with artificially-heightened rhetoric at any point in the future, I will immediately understand that you have mental problems, just like you've read in my prior works on this site. 

Sexuality is not a crime in these modern times, and as such, it is not actionable as a just cause on its own. You still have to prove malicious intent, which you will not, because women are not always aware of their inner workings (like a man isn't), because we do not come with specialized, high-end, digital-imaging equipment, nor do we have an instruction manual attached to our bodies (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obstetrics_and_gynaecology). We do, however, come to the table educated nowadays, because health and hygiene classes begin in grade school. If you have a fifth-graders knowledge twisted, once again, I will know (as will many others) that you are sick-minded.

Here are some simple numbers that even a high-school drop-out like you should be able to process: "Unlike men, who produce new sperm daily throughout most of their lifetime, women are born with all their eggs in one — okay, two baskets (ovaries). To be more precise, a woman is born with about one to two million immature eggs, or follicles, in her ovaries. - Jun 12, 2015" (Columbia University)

If you continue prejudices against nature, you must then also include (in this era of civil rights) legal actions against men who choose not to reproduce: "...the average male will produce roughly 525 billion sperm cells over a lifetime and shed at least one billion of them per month. A healthy adult male can release between 40 million and 1.2 billion sperm cells in a single ejaculation.- Jan 24, 2013"

That means, every time a man knowingly prevents a pregnancy, he must be held accountable in the same way a woman is, because even though our biologies are different, our human rights are not. It's worth nothing that men have not been legally accused of murder for birth control in this country, ever. Given your (new) understanding of the numbers involved in our human reproductive systems, it then stands to reason that women are not "murdering" fertilized eggs during its earliest reproductive process, just like "Plan B" and other types of early-induced miscarriages are designed to be: not harmful to a later-stage fetus or the woman, but to accurately simulate the earliest stages of human gestation, a time when most women naturally miscarry anyway (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miscarriage). 

Truthfully, any woman will tell you that she's had as many miscarriages as she's carried full-term successfully, if you bothered to ask to her. It's absolutely nothing to be ashamed of! In fact, there are typically no real bodily signs for most women who miscarry, whether intentionally performed by their doctor, or without us even knowing it, because material rejected or expelled by women is usually incorporated into our next menstrual period. In which case, we didn't even know it happened, which is what we still insist on calling all "abortions" today, like the mischaracterized horrors certain sick minds want it to be, when it is so clearly not that (http://mariedoucette.blogspot.com/2015/10/bride-of-chucky.html). We know you know that, by the way.

So, what will happen? Well, "welfare queens" will be rightly prosecuted for using their natural child-rearing capabilities as an excuse to make money from their children, just like selling a man's sperm without his consent would be actionable in a court of law. Then, the healthy women living happily among you, who voluntarily had minor medical procedures designed to keep their lives intact (and who care so much for all life on this earth that they willingly chose to become excellent women first before becoming mothers), will be given the credit they both deserve and earned for being socially responsible citizens. 

It also means your that bloodily-staged shows of the past will become the trite comic fodder it's always been for enlightened minds like mine. G-d wants us to be happy, healthy, productive, and (most importantly) part of His Loving Family. Planning parenthood wisely is about the most beautifully humane gift any woman can give her future family. You were wrong. You are wrong now. Adjust accordingly. That is all.

 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reproductive_rights 

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roe_v._Wade

Bride of Chucky

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seed_of_Chucky

My life changed with the economy, just as it has for millions of Americans and billions of people worldwide. I didn't like it, but I did accept it. Instead of keeping up with someone's rat race, I now run my own, every single day. This is the best job I've never had, precisely because it isn't just some paycheck that some random generic stranger spits out of a payroll system every week, regardless if I am working there or not. Corporations are not people, but you, my audience, most certainly are. Just like there is no course or school curriculum that can create a "Master Illuminator" in this century using the latest (or not) technology, so there is no college class in being me.

Part of that change is accepting what resources you have available to you, rather than expecting some pricey company to buy stuff for you. Luckily, I do not derive my ego off of man-made gadgets (that must be horrible), desperately lining up like a million other compulsive addicts at the "launch" of some new device. That sounds mad, and it certainly looks that way on t.v. I can wean myself off of pop culture anytime I want to. I went for years without a television set, which freaks out almost everyone I meet, except for the most backwoods hippie kid with wacky survivalist parents who are anti-The World. I simply couldn't afford a pricey t.v., nor did I need it, so I went without it.

Ditto with computers, cameras, Internet...etc. If I don't have the money to buy one of them, I find a way to have access to it, which is why I freely publish to you off of the community WiFi: that's "no overhead" for you business douches, and sometimes it means I traverse difficult public environments that I do not control, like the bank of cheap computers that are available at most public libraries. It sucks, but so did most of the junior designers in any given department on any day, at any publishing company across the U.S (or the world). It's not new, it's not great, but I'm here for you, glitches and all, which makes it the most transparently published site in the world. No ads, no agendas. Simple. Just me.

That pisses off a lot of people, a lot of people, especially the wacky conspiracy theorists/indigents who frequent public spaces for warmth, or to nod off their recent heroin high. It's brutal, but it is real. I've seen it. Government employees typically care more about maintaining their steady paycheck than policing the people who visit their library every single day, but such is the mostly selfish nature that typically marks lower minds than mine. I don't publish just to my peers, know what I mean? And so, on any given day, I can be typing to you while listening to music and hugging it out with my special friends from the ARC community (Hi, friends!), or concentrating through your obvious eating disorder and rank bad breath, as your overstuffed hoarder car sits outside, parked askew by the curb. It's not my choice or design, but here I am: your beacon of light in the nighttime of your disorder.

Given how much time I spend out in the world, I'm used to the wider ranges of the human experience at the bipolar extremes of your insanity, with the understanding that my beauty and brilliance draws "wack jobs" like moths to a flame. If they don't "catch" me out in public, they plan for it, like the deranged stalkers they really are. 
It's utterly revealing to me. So, on one fine day, a total nut-job from the local chapter or "Dipshits Anonymous" stopped by to heckle me here, while he sat at a public computer doing absolutely nothing but look at me out of the corner of his eye. I know when people seek to engage me, and if I'm done with my work, I use any extra time I have to lecture to you all, if I can, which is what I did on this particular afternoon.

He was a rather garden-variety wacko: a "Right to Life" idiot who dissembles under any type of intellectual scrutiny. Within minutes of our "talk" (which I'm loathe to use as a term suitable for him), he hated my attention. First, he pointed out that he was the deranged nephew of a famous New York politician to justify his rudeness towards me (arrogance as the first sign of weakness=check), backing up his hippy-style ranting by his woven rainbow bracelet (a symbol of successful pot smokers worldwide), to show me that he doesn't trust "The Man", hence his obvious outsider status within his very successful family, thus making him available for viewing during normal daylight business hours: the black sheep who can't work=got it.

He quickly directed me towards his conspiracy du jour: women and their bodies. He hates them. Oh, okay. Gay AND crazy. Check that one off, too. To show me how much disdain he has for the female body, he let me know that he knew all about biology (but wouldn't tell me where or how, which makes me suspect that he's a high school dropout), but that he rejects it. Oh. Delusional, too! Wow, this is just getting better and better for me. Whenever I calmly answered him with logical, non-ranting types of answers grounded in rigorous scholarship, he seemed like he was about to implode right next to me. 
He ballooned himself up, becoming confused, red-faced, and apoplectic in front of me in under ten minutes, which was a new personal best. I love stripping people of their false delusions.

Since it became obvious rather quickly that he had no firsthand knowledge of anatomy, probably because he can't perform sexually with a partner due to his own rotting brain and complete lapses with any decent healthcare, he backed himself into a corner very quickly. 
I was horrified and embarrassed for him. I hate the feeling that I am causing hurt to someone who's disabled, but he sought me out. 
He talked over me manically, become more panicky by the second. 
He blurted out over and over the same weird lingo that has no basis in reality; the speech of the demented, in a mantra that he seemed to think would soothe his fevered delusions: "Partial birth <pause> partial birth <slight pause, then it sped up to cover over me>partialbirthpartialbirthpartialbirthpartialbirthpartialbirth..." 

When he slowed down enough for me to inquire through his stuttering psychotic episode, I asked him why he thought there existed such a hallucinatory haunted house movie-version of women's healthcare, in an odd scenario I haven't never heard of, nor seen, or read about...ever. Why? He told me it was true. That was it. He had thought it up, and therefore it must be real. He thinks women go to some scary evil doctor to give birth to a baby while the doctor chops it head off slowly. Swear. At that point, I reached into my bag, pulling out a black "Illuminations" collectible sticker that I hand out in public, to give to him as a reminder in the future about how badly he fucked up with me, and then I put headphones back on to signal the end of our brief chat, but not before I slowly pulled out a set of rosary beads that I carried with me, showily draping them over the edge of my bag that sat by the computer station I worked at. End of discussion.

Because, dear readers, what that kook in the wild did not know about me (surprise!) is that my man Father Stephen at my home parish of St. Francis of Assisi in West Nyack had asked me on the phone years ago about whether not it was prudent for us to allow such extremist firebrands into our intellectual community for their weekly meetings, to which I replied "Of course"! Who better than him, someone who has devoted his entire life and vocational service to tending all of you, to chair what amounts to a bloodier version of "Alcoholics Anonymous" on any given day? If not me, try him. I dare you, because he's a master educator, too. Booyah! Oh, no, son...you did not see that one coming at you, did you? No! You didn't! Oh, yes. I did.


For those of you mature enough to look at images that depict what a woman's early miscarriage looks like in "human", please click on the following link: http://s1161.photobucket.com/user/sandraebey/media/019.jpg.html. That...that's it. All of your horribly misguided fears and insane paranoia is centered over some blood and tissue that most women naturally develop (and flush out of their bodies) each and every month. That's it! Thanks to Sandra for the images. You go, girl! Please feel free to explore this scientific topic that's existed for all of of humanity on your own: https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=what+an+early+miscarriage+looks+like.

Don't hate the seed, nor the carrier. It's just nature, yo. Chill! And take a class or two, will ya....geesh: http://www.butterflybirth.com/how-many-eggs-is-a-female-human-born-with/. Ignorance is hell!

Wild Things

My original "Friends of Animals" poster from the 70s.

A few years back, I went on a guided trip to Yellowstone called "Wolves, Bears, and Wild Things". Our intention as a group was to spot animals in the wild, but I didn't have quite the same touristy type of attitude. I don't see wildlife existing purely for my photographic pleasure, even though one of my greatest influences is nature. Surprisingly, I don't treat the world as if it exists to show itself for me only, and so I knew that our summer trip would not yield any wolf sightings because wolves do not hunt during the high heat of a summer's day, and only an idiot who knows nothing about animal behavior would expect that.

But I did see many beautiful things, and I came away with the lasting (and true) impression that the entire area can blow up at any time, because the park itself is one hugely active volcanic site: http://mariedoucette.blogspot.com/2010/07/yellowstone-national-park.html. As such, it really isn't fit for humans to live there, but there are many animals that exist free from the confinement of zoo life and our exclusive use. Bison roam freely like the moose do, and bears stick mostly to hills except during the park's busiest times, when people leave their trash everywhere. Oh, it doesn't matter that there are signs and trash can covers throughout the park: one bad person can temporarily collapse an entire ecosystem. 

Luckily for me, I'm a former Scout and the best hiker in my clan. I always pack in only what I can carry out myself, and that's something you can take to the bank. You'd certainly want me in the back country with you on any given day, because I can visually memorize any trail, especially the ones around Bear Mountain I grew up hiking, like the times when Dad was supposed to be carrying the maps, but forgot to do so. Trust me when I saw that me and my bros are happy he has the "Midas Touch" with money, which is much more of a sure thing.

The New York area has recently seen a great resurgence in the return of its' native wildlife, a place that includes rural settings, suburban green-ways, and urban jungles alike. It was noted with much amusement this spring, to the delight of every newscaster looking for a family-friendly story during the dinner hour. Who doesn't like bear cubs? Not me! But in every story lies a serious message; as soon as our animals return is as quickly they can disappear, if we don't make them welcome. That means you, happy camper! Garbage cans must have secure lids so that raccoons and little bears don't get into them, because not only is our food very bad for them to eat, little ones cannot climb out, and they will die in there without our help: http://www.dec.ny.gov/press/89917.html.

http://www.lohud.com/story/news/local/2015/05/20/bear-sightings-new-york-westchester-rockaway-yonkers-mountainkeeper/27682767/

Same thing goes for feral animals that have escaped from human homes. Cats must be caught, taken to rescue services and fixed against breeding, because domesticated animals do not breed well without our intervention. This past weekend, I caught up with our local Animal Control officer (Hi, Rich!), a great guy who voluntarily works part time for the county when he isn't working for us at Con Ed. We have laws on the books about dogs that get loose but not cats, which has led to their rampant, unchecked inbreeding. It's the cause of many unsuccessful litters that bear dead kittens. I found one on the lawn last year, and it totally freaked me out. R.I.P. beautiful orange and white kitty :( I named the spot "Kitty Korner" in memory of the kitten, and I place my recycle bins there every week in his (or her) honor.

I remember seeing a small calico kitten with her dark grey mate roaming around the neighborhood last year, too. They weren't fully grown last year when they bred for the first time, and this spring they are still breeding badly. One morning last week, I walked out onto the porch to find my neighbor holding a small dark grey kitten with one eye sealed completely shut, or perhaps she was born blind. The Calico mom I saw last year crept out from the bushes, when the kitten was put on the grass for her to grab, but she does not birth healthy litters. Cats are tame because we made them that way, and so it is our responsibility to care for them. Now that I know this pair breeds under a certain big old yellow house in the Hudson Valley, I'm totally on it, and you should be, too. 

We must take care of our animals. It's up to you to keep this biosphere healthy and functioning, because this is G-d's inheritance to us, as the gift of life for all time. You are actively living in this "Garden of Eden". Treat the life here with love and care.  

For New York City residents:

http://www.nycferalcat.org/

http://www.neighborhoodcats.org/

http://www.nyc.gov/html/doh/html/environmental/animals-tnr.shtml

http://feralcatfocus.org/

http://www.nycacc.org/CommFeralCats.htm, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/16/nyregion/a-no-kill-approach-to-feral-cat-control.html?_r=0


For Rockland County residents:

http://www.alleycat.org/page.aspx?pid=712&gclid=COa37MLw5MUCFcITHwodDB8Ahg

http://www.everycatcounts.info/?gclid=COmM7dfw5MUCFdgPgQodnh8AjA 

http://www.hvhumane.org/pets-for-adoption/ 

http://www.hitor.org/ 

http://valleycottageanimalhospital.com/links-2/animal-shelters/ 

http://www.guardianangelcatrescue.com/feral_cats.php 

http://hudsonvalleynewsnetwork.com/2015/01/30/free-spayneuter-feral-cats-february-dcspca/ 

Eye of a Needle

Lately there's been a lot of headlines on t.v. news and entertainment media about ongoing struggles with the definitions of certain words that relate to human reproduction, which is odd to me, because we've sent men to the moon and back successfully, therefore demonstrating that as a society, we've mastered complex technological feats like astrophysics and space travel. 

Apparently the womb of a woman is still too difficult for some folks to understand? Please allow me to clear up any big, grave misconceptions you may have about words like "life" and "kill", because here's what an actual human embryo in the eye of a needle (that we cannot see with the naked eye) looks like: 

This is called "microscopic imaging". It's been around for awhile.

I know it seems weird to some people that I can have such mature conversations about microbiology, which is also somewhat strange to me, because my mother is a retired Microbiologist and Roman Catholic, and as such, we have no gaping divides between the arts of religion, science, technology, and the well-known (and very well-documented) aspects of mammalian reproduction. 

Of course, we are also an exceptionally well-educated clan, and I do understand that. But fears can grow in the darkest of places, sometimes attaching itself to a woman's body in utero*, in a process called "gestation" that we cannot see happening, because it happens inside our bodies without us seeing it (or being able to mentally control it), because we lack inhuman superpowers like see-through X-ray vision and telekinesis. Well, at least for now. Maybe we'll evolve into that some day! Wouldn't that be cool?!

An embryo sitting on the tip of a needle.

Anyway, that may sound kind of disturbing for a mom to do, but think of it this way: natural bodily processes occur every single day right here on Planet Earth, in every single carbon-based life-form on the planet, be they male, female, asexual, or not. Be not afraid of it!

In fact, cell division also happens each and every day, whether we want it or not, and again, whether or not we can visibly see it happening, regardless of gender and/or sex. 

Here's a series of pictures of embryonic cell division, also captured photographically under the view of something called an Electron Microscope** (thanks to "Dr. Diane" for the science lessons;) Don't be alarmed if you don't understand the caption beneath the image below. We do, and we live to serve.

Mesenchymal stem cells facilitate the derivation of human embryonic stem cells from cryopreserved poor-quality embryos. For more on this technology and others (like ultra-sounds), please click here: http://rsfs.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/1/4/576.

23 And Jesus, looking around, said to His disciples, “How hard it will be for those who are wealthy to enter the kingdom of God!” 24 The disciples were amazed at His words. But Jesus answered again and said to them, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! 25 “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” 26 They were even more astonished and said to Him, “Then who can be saved?” 27 Looking at them, Jesus said, “With people it is impossible, but not with God; for all things are possible with God.”

*    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_utero
**  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron_microscope

For more on the concept of "viability" and its' linguistic roots, please see additional definitions by clicking here: https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=viable.
 

Woodchuck Lives!

I had a piece about botany scheduled for today, but in the miracle that is "life", I opened my door this morning to the little girl woodchuck* eating shoots on the front lawn. OH, YAY! As soon as I saw her, she smartly bolted to safety underneath the porch. It was great to see that she made it through the long cold winter. She has a rich, glossy, golden-brown pelt and a cute button tail on her round bottom.  
So healthy!

The woodchucks made it through winter! Oh, good. I love them :)

When I started getting ready to leave, making my bed and throwing out some trash, I opened the door for a second time to "Mr. Woodchuck". Yeah! He made it, too! He's bigger and browner, with a long, showily furry tail, and he's also a lot bolder, as is natural for most males of Mammalian species. I played a short game of hide-and-seek with him, as I went to the other room and back for my iPhone, deciding on whether or not to open the door, which had chased "Mrs. Woodchuck" away. I don't want to scare my home-base animals. I want them to feel safe with me, because they are.

Once outside, I was struck by how rodent-like its' side profile is, yet the full front face more closely resembles the chubby-cheek cuteness of a beaver. Awesome! Both Mommy and Daddy groundhogs stuffed their cheeks with the brand new sweet grass and wild onion shoots now growing in abundance throughout the Northeast. I spoke softly to the male that remained outdoors, opened out the door quietly while gently padding towards him on the porch, and I was rewarded for my good behavior with this killer shot:

Posing for the camera like a pro. Thanks, Mr. Woodchuck. I'm a big fan!

It's important to that we respect all life on this planet we share, 
which includes animal life. We've made it through the winter, folks! Let's celebrate the glory that is Spring 2015. There won't ever be another one like it, and that's the unique gift of each season we have to enjoy. To share our appreciation of the glory of G-d's gifts that expresses His love for us, try showing some support for His good, natural works through any number of the many available networks we have in place. 

I joined the one that you see as a link below when I was a kid in the 70s by saving my weekly allowances. I still have the poster they sent me of beautiful line drawings. My "Moo Moo" mom was not exactly happy with my choice for fund allocation, but I did it anyway and I've never regretted it. Best of luck to you during your animal adventures (and all your other adventures) today.

http://friendsofanimals.org/about_us/who_we_are

 

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groundhog

Acts of Creation

When I was in 7th grade biology lab at Felix V. Festa Junior High in West Nyack, New York (and, yes, I really DID walk 2.6 miles as a child uphill, every day for two years in the rain, sleet, or snow, like an unpaid postal worker carrying a load of heavy school books: https://www.google.com/maps/dir/3+Stegmeyer+Ln,+New+City,+NY+10956/Felix+Festa+Middle+School+Campus,+Parrott+Road,+West+Nyack,+NY/@41.1217371,-74.0001876,3203m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m13!4m12!1m5!1m1!1s0x89c2c29992dab085:0xbcdd2ab48bbf66e3!2m2!1d-74.0015367!2d41.1213911!1m5!1m1!1s0x89c2c288479eb5b9:0xfe59e4b7c9903e94!2m2!1d-73.982099!2d41.123044), my excellent science teacher instructed us to debate Creationism vs. Evolution.

I chose to debate the scientific principle that we know to be true. So, as we sat down on opposing sides, I knew I had it in the bag, but I was shocked to see kids who were considered rather good students choosing the other side, like the head cheerleader and the teacher's pet with the really good grades. What the....wait a minute....I know this kind of situation. It's called being a "Show Pony", and it's how ass-kissing students work the academic system instead of learning from it, for grades and appearances. Good! It means I can outthink the opposition.

And I did, but thinking wasn't really the challenge for me. My main obstacle was keeping myself cool in the the heat of battle. When the spoiled, self-obsessed cheerleader, formerly of the big metal braces, thick glasses, and quick Spring Break nose job (Hi, Lauren!) shouted back to my carbon-dating rebuttal that "Scientists can do anything!", I knew it was a setup. There are days when my microbiologist mom can barely drag herself out of bed (then and now), let alone remake the world on a totally cellular level to be whatever she wants it to be like a magician pulling a hat trick, but this kid didn't seem to understand that. She didn't seem to actually KNOW anything. She was just yelling words back at me without any evidence to support her wild claims about the world we live in. A willfully protected ignorance like hers had eluded me. What was I supposed to do now?!

I colored, shocked and adrift for a moment in her fiercely childish anger at being outsmarted by me so easily, as I looked to my science teacher for help in controlling her student's temper tantrum. She stood behind the row of chairs on the Creationist side and nodded slowly at me, then gave me a silent, "cool it down" gesture. That was it. I took a deep breath, in reply: "But, why? Why would someone do that?" She sputtered, stalled, then failed the debate entirely. "Well, www-welll....I don't know!" You don't know. And she knew it, too. It was a profound victory for me that I never forgot, or that class. Thank you, "Mrs. Science Teacher", from the bottom of my heart, because this Rockland County girl was at least 2-4 years younger than all of her classmates in junior high school, as it was for me throughout my early academic life. I was only 12 years old the first time I tackled that particular fear. You'd be wise to remember that about me, readers. It will serve you well.

“I would say that all our sciences are the material that has to be mythologized. A mythology gives spiritual import - what one might call rather the psychological, inward import, of the world of nature round about us, as understood today. There's no real conflict between science and religion ... What is in conflict is the science of 2000 BC ... and the science of the 20th century AD.”
― Joseph Campbell

Wild Calico Kitty

At the beginning of the summer, I saw two little kitties wandering around the basement of a white house, on a street I always walk down. One was black and white, and the other calico. I still see them occasionally during the daytime, but they're a lot better at hiding from prying human eyes, which makes them really hard to spot. 

Sometimes I wonder if they live in one of the big, old houses on the block, so they can be tended to by one of the kindly retirees who like to garden, maybe leaving them saucers of milk outside by the back door, but I also like the idea of them running around town as a kitty dynamic duo, killing small birds, chipmunks, and other small animals that burrow in among the wood piles.  Fare thee well, hunter.

Nature: Life and Death

Fallen bird's nest

Mushroom cap in grass

Mummified squirrel

Mushroom cap in pine needles

Baby bird fallen from nest

Mysterious Chow

My first meeting with "Mysterious Chow".

I've walked past the white house on the corner for months now, and until recently, I hadn't noticed the leash wrapped around a tree on the front lawn. At first I thought there might be an abandoned baby's toy on the lawn too, but upon closer inspection, it turned out to be a brightly-colored doggie chew toy. Huh. I wonder what kind of dog lives here? I hadn't seen one out, ever.

Wow! So pretty! But, so many questions....

And just like that, there it was, one beautifully sunny Spring afternoon when I was walking back from the library: a dog right there on the front lawn. And what a dog! It was a gloriously maned Chow Chow, its' gorgeous long fur lit from behind by the late day sun, streaming regally in the breeze, reminding me afterwards of a Chinese painting about a mythical dragon, or a fanciful lion, the splendid beast of a thousand fables. I was so surprised that I cried out a loud "Oh!" and "Heyyyy!", then proceeded to make kissy sounds and other rude noises at the it, while "Chow" rightly ignored me, only giving away its' peripheral attentions by shifting away from me when I tried to call out to it again, a little further up the hill. A perfect mien and bearing, too! "Chow" was aloof, attentive, aware, cautious, and supervisory. That's the sign of a solid, strong mind in a dog, just what you want as an owner. Hmmm....I wonder if "Chow" is a boy or a girl? What kind of owner does "Chow" have? So many questions....

"I see you. And?" So it went. I'd get a glance, then the brush off.

The next time I saw "Chow", I was determined to make friends so I could get a closer look, maybe find out his or her name by reaching for the cluster of dog tags around its' neck, a gesture that's typically too intimate with a relatively unknown animal. How to proceed? It's a chancy proposition to walk onto a stranger's lawn and just introduce yourself to a dog. Luckily for me, this a daffy, doggy sort of town, (http://mariedoucette.blogspot.com/2013/09/dogs-dog-statues.html), so, with a bit of hesitation, I moved in closer; first, by standing by the opening in the fence to the front yard. When the dog seemed OK with that, I walked around the yard a little, talking to it in a soothing, cooing way. Finally, I sat down on the front steps. "Chow" surprised me again by immediately getting up to sniff at me, tail wagging slowly back and forth. Excellent! Friendly, but hesitant and curious. That's real progress with an animal.

Mysterious Chow with "concerned" face and waggly brows. So cute!

"Chow" impressed me further, after inspecting my clothes, bag, and shoes, by backtracking to my first steps around the yard and a bush, to the steps I now sat on, matching my fresh scent on the trail I had just made, to the bottom of my sneaker. Smart! I liked "Chow" even more; that's a very advanced skill for a dog to show. I encouraged it to do so, as it made one last sniff of my sneaker to complete the loop. Very clever, "Chow". For my bravery, I was rewarded with my next clue: I spied a Tennessee Department of Health dog tag around its' neck, the kind that's required for pet vaccinations. Aha! "Chow" was from far away. That could explain its' recent appearance on the front lawn, and the white pickup truck in the driveway, but, was "Chow" a boy or girl? I couldn't tell. That's the thing with furriness. What's "Chow's" name?! I couldn't make kissy sounds and yell out "Chow!" every time we met. I'd have to go deeper, but I decided that was enough for the day. "Chow" had this adorably concerned expression, wrinkling its' brows and turning to look at the door and windows to the owner's apartment, as if to question whether or not to proceed. Circumspect, also a most excellent personality trait.

And also very shy!

The next time we met, I had a brief encounter with the dog, because "Chow" was tracking a fat, old, black and white Welsh Corgi walking (or waddling?) with his/her owner in the park across the street, busily marking its' territory around the yard, as far as the leash would go. That gave me my next clue in the case; "Chow" was probably a boy, but I still didn't know for sure. He (or she?) then did something really interesting. He stood right in front of me, with me standing on the sidewalk below, he above my head on the lawn and, as he barked out loudly to the dog, he peed right in front of me. Wow, "Chow"! He was saying in a very clear way, "Don't mess with her! She's my friend!", then he went into a full-on showy display mode, prancing around proudly in circles, barking and kicking up huge clods of dirt and grass, to spread his Royal Chow scent around. Thanks, "Chow"! What a pal.

Branching out to attend to guard dog duties.

The very next time I walked past the white house, "Chow" was lying down, a bit outside of my view on the sidewalk, beside the stone steps, with a German Shepherd puppy standing over him, barking playfully in his face. Okay, now there's two dogs; an aloof and proud Chow, and the other a possible future attack dog. That's a bit much, even for a hardcore "dog person" like me, which was probably the exact message the transplanted owner intended, what with years and years of New York City based crime dramas implanted into every newcomer's head. And when a young women came out by herself, I knew that was it. She didn't look like she was from these here parts, poor thing. Must be frightening to be an out-of-towner in New York, even in a place as relatively safe and beautiful as Rockland County's bucolic Hudson Valley region. This ain't the South, fo' sho'. She pulled the Shepherd puppy indoors by its' collar, as I stood by the opening in the fence on the side of the yard, deciding what to do. I loved "Chow", who was playing an adorable game of hide-and-seek with me behind the stone steps, but I didn't feel comfortable taking liberties with another persons' pet, especially with someone who had clearly not given me an invitation to do so.

"Are you catching this?!"

So, I did what any "nosy" New Yorker would do: when "Chow's" owner came out again to interact with him, I peppered her with a series of rapid-fire, but friendly, questions. Who knew when I would get the chance again? Their appearances were so sporadic and uneven, it could be months before an opportunity presented itself to me again. She was a bit tense, preferring to bite off short one word replies before finally graduating to a complete sentence, under the easy persistence of my obviously good-natured ways, thus bringing an end to my little mystery: "His name is Grizzly." Yeah! Perfect! Well, of course it is! And that's exactly what he is: a shy, sweet, fluffy, big, beautiful Grizzly Bear Dog. Happy hunting, dog lovers! Be safe.

Still, he will always be "Mysterious Chow" to me.