Monthly Archives: February 2003

George, Ted, Jeri and Drew

People Born on Feb 22:

Founding Father, George Washington in 1732
Poet, James Lowell in 1819
Poet Edna St. Vincent Millay in 1892
Sen. Edward M. Kennedy in 1932
Basketball star “Dr. J” Julius Erving in 1950
Actress Jeri Ryan in 1968
Actress Drew Barrymore in 1975

An image is coming to mind involving the last two…I think I have to go now…

Confessions of a Dangerous Mind

(Above) Drew Barrymore in Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. (a movie about Chuck Barris’ alleged double-life as a CIA agent)

The costume designer for the film, Renee April, said Drew’s skin “is like pure porcelain, it looks like she has a lightbulb inside her face.”

I’m not going to argue.

By the way, I am in the middle of writing my own autobiography about my double-life as a CIA agent. I expect Drew will co-star in my book.

Cloning and the aging process

This morning I found something I wrote back in May of 2000, and realized it wasn’t last year when Dolly’s arthritis was discovered, that the talk first began about her aging process. When she was born, she was born with the cell structure of a 6 year-old. Which kind of makes sense. She lived for 6 years, and the average lifespan of a sheep is 12 years. It’s nice when the math works out so nicely.

However, a few years after Dolly was cloned, there was a calf named Persephone cloned. Using a slightly different process. At the age of 1 year, Persephone still had the cell structure of a newborn. There was thought that Persephone might live longer than the average cow. That was 3 years ago.

The company that cloned Persephone is Advanced Cell Technology. I’ve been unable to find any information on her current state, but did find some pictures of some other cloned calves, along with their recent press releases.
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Dolly the sheep put to sleep

Dolly the world’s first cloned mammal has been put to sleep. At an age of six (when sheep are known to live 11 or 12 years), she was diagnosed with Progressive Lung Disease. (A disease common in older sheep who live inside, but 6 isn’t considered old.) Last year, it was reported Dolly had contracted arthritis, and there was much speculation that current methods of cloning cause premature aging. It appears there is now more evidence for this theory.

We stand passively mute

A speech from the Senate Floor by Sen. Robert Byrd. Feb 13, 2003

It raises the hypothetical question (hypothetical since it’s not about to happen)….if Byrd announced his candidacy for President, could I support him?

I think I agree with everything he says in this speech.
His words, I believe, are at the very least
worth listening to, and thinking about.
But can a man be forgiven for the mistakes of his youth?
Especially mistakes such as his?

Sen Byrd is the Democratic Party’s Strom Thurmond.
Like Thurmond, he has publicly renounced his former views…
but that doesn’t change what he did as a young man.

What does it mean when he is one of the few Senators
with the courage to stand up and say what is in this speech?

The world is turned upside down
when someone who once wore a hood over his head
is delivering statesman-like speeches on the Senate floor.

(This isn’t a metaphor. He was a member of the KKK.
And not too many years ago, in an interview,
he slipped and used the N_ word,
but in the same way Black comedians in the 70s and 80s used it
as a term that didn’t depend upon race,
but it was enough to remind everyone.
Apparently his constituents are able to overlook it,
and perhaps this speech shows why.)

Can musicians be replaced?

Actors may be starting to wonder if they can be replaced by computer generated characters in movies.

Should musicians start worrying now too? Apparently in Brazil a CD of 800 different species of birds singing is climbing the charts. And the rumor is, the birds aren’t getting paid a cent.

NY bans cell phones at public performances

No more cell phones ringing at the movies. No more dudes holding up their phones so friends can hear a concert. And no more rude interruptions for Broadway theatergoers.

Overriding Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s veto, the New York City Council voted 38-5 on Wednesday to ban the use of cell phones at public performances.

Talking on a cell phone, dialing, listening or even having one ring during a performance will constitute a violation punishable by a $50 fine.

Drew Barrymore Having Sex

I promise all readers a picture of Drew wearing very little if you are patient…

So far in the month of February 3 people have found my blog by going to a search engine and typing the words: Drew Barrymore having sex

Not a whole lot. But when you consider that nowhere on my site have I ever put those words together in a sentence (up until now), it’s impressive.

Sure. There is my weblog title. And the phrase “having sex” has been used before.

But does that truly explain why at google.com the search for the phrase: Drew Barrymore having sex lists my blog as the #1 choice.

(I mean, before today.)

I should be on the list, no question about it But aren’t there websites out there (you know the ones I’m talking about) that should be higher up in the list than me? Surely the sites that have pictures of Drew Barrymore Naked, or Drew Barrymore Nude should rank higher, right?

Please, no emails about Google’s PageRank system. I actually understand the situation completely. Google ranks its pages by how many other people link to the page, and how many people link to the pages that link to yours….and millions of people link to my blog in general

Wait a minute, that’s not actually true. You can search at Google to see all the sites it knows about that link somewhere.

I run a webring called the Jewish Blogger’s Webring, and the homepage links here. A short bio of myself at tribalsoulkitchen.com links here. (I’ve had some poetry published there, and I kind of am an editor of the zine.) And there are 36 comments I posted at 2 different blogs that link here. A total of 38 links. (36 is actually 2*18, and 18 is symbolic of ‘life” in Jewish mysticism, so this is kinda cool)

Well, one of those 2 blogs is perhaps one of the most popular blogs on the net. Is it really that easy? Do I really have Wil Wheaton to thank for this?

There might be an additional influence. I’m not sure Google differentiates much between pages in a site I think it might be counting links to Victor Hugo Central in ranking my blog. I’ve been developing this obsession-based research site for much longer than my blog, and it’s quite popular.

[By the way, this is a totally different kind of obsession than my obsession with Drew Barrymore I do not desire to do to Hugo what I desire to do to Drew. I am not a necrophiliac, nor GLBT. Some really good friends are the latter, though. It’s possible I have friends who are the former, and just haven’t mentioned it to me. (And if one is reading this now. DONT TELL ME!)] Victor Hugo is kinda related to Drew Barrymore in that he was addicted to sex when he was alive. At age seventy he is supposed to have had 40 different partners over a five month span averaging 1 sexual encounter a day. Not bad for age seventy. He is alleged to have said, “Imagination is intelligence with an erection.”

Almost 50 sites link to Victor Hugo CentralQuidditch.com’s page on Lemony Snicket allusions even links there…and while I have never read Lemony Snicket, I’ve heard they’re great books, almost as good as JK Rowling’s Harry Potter novels, and I can’t wait for Order of the Phoenix.

So what does this all mean? I think it means any page I put on my domain is going to shoot up to the top of Google’s lists whether I want it to or not. Something I should really test out. I could create a page that mentions a lot of different popular search phrases…let’s say:
Drew Barrymore having sex
Harry Potter
Lemony Snicket
Victor Hugo
Erections
Drew Barrymore nude
Drew Barrymore naked
Quidditch
Necrophilia
Jewish Mysticism
Wil Wheaton

and just see what happens.

But for all of those of you who have been patient, and read this far. All you kids out there dying to know whether or not I will post a picture of Drew Barrymore Having Sex. After all…that is the title of this piece, and I promised at the top at least one picture of Drew

Well…I didn’t lie…but it’s in the hidden half of this….
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Reconciling Mastodons with Moses

There is a quote in Les Miserables in a section entitled “The Year 1817” about a scientist who was busy reconciling Mastodons with Moses.

For centuries there have been people who have insisted that a scientific mind and a religious mind are incompatible.

There is a story on Beliefnet about the Shuttle Columbia. All seven astronauts, apparently, were religious to some degree or another. What’s more, they belonged to seven different faiths.