High Koo's ------- h

cold distance between
the span of my fingers and
your lonely gazes

cold distance between
a heart might not see at all
but sense what is lost

i'd call your face close
the span of my fingers and
the fear that lingers

i remember how
we looked away and turned to
your lonely gazes

High Koo's ------ g

pour out a prayer
screaming silent in your arms
yes, your soft reply

pour out a prayer
and wait for what he answers
hope no matter what

trials of my patience
screaming silent in your arms
i can't wait anymore

why do they suffer?
is justice merely unseen?
yes, your soft reply

High Koo's ----- f

a trace of your care
will not sustain this poor child
you left while i cried

a trace of your care
leaves my heart waiting for you
i need your return

the feigned harmony
will not sustain this poor child
he craves a real hope

you won't stay i know
i can't stand to say goodbye
you left while i cried

High Koo's ---- e

vices do not halt
as selfish plots will thicken
and his schemes unfold

vices do not halt
affairs rise as the soul dies
he has sold his self

the mire tastes so good
as selfish plots will thicken
the day grows darker

nightfall hides his hate
the lies are told to gain lust
and his schemes unfold

High Koo's --- d

her smile is enough
to melt me when i'm frozen
awaken this heart

her smile is enough
soothing the deepest anguish
bringing this sweet joy

dawn, come to bring life
to melt me when i'm frozen
crush my last goodbye

stuck in this late eve
with no strength i am drowning
awaken this heart

High Koo's -- c

anchor it fast child
you never can let it slip
then will peril flee

anchor it fast child
before the times grow hard
don't lose hope again

the cycle turns on
you can never let it slip
await the day of strength

growing to full strength
the youth prevails to flourish
then will peril flee

High Koo's-a

soft you swindle me
grasping for the one to come
homesick i leave home

soft you swindle me
the flatters crush my sight
as pride ends this life

broke the iron gates
grasping for the one to come
this fire won't be stopped

the porch light was cold
speaking pages in silence
homesick i leave home

High Koo's - b

my tears have all dried
waiting for the night to come
you could not answer

my tears have all dried
and left the stain to smoulder
i hid them, each one

i bundle my hopes
waiting for the night to come
but dawn seems so far

i will always knock
pleading reason for your heart
you could not answer

high koo's -- prefatory address

I wrote these about 10 years ago, but I post them now because someone quizzed me about my poetry, asking me if I knew the author. I realized he had a copy of one of my epic poems that I will refrain from posting here (or elsewhere).

At any rate, these haikus were written at Koo's Cafe, though never performed there or anything approaching such levels of pretension. I had a lot of fun using repetition to provide structure and establish an overall theme in each one. Enjoy or don't, but I'll at least feel nostalgic.

Nominative No-Nos

One grammatical error that really bothers me is the abuse of the nominative.

Oh the accusative--that precious jewel neglected by so many youth in favor of that noxious nominative.


As young children, most of us were taught that we were wrong to say things like,



"Me and Joey want to play Nintendo, mom!"

or even worse

"Why can't me and him play Nintendo, mom?"

[Parenthetically, every time I remember how much time I spent playing Nintendo/Commodore/Apple games, I make a mental note to be more lenient.]


Clearly those sentences are grammatically grotesque, and so we were taught to say,

"Joey and I want to play Nintendo, mom!"

and

"Why can't he and I play Nintendo, mom?"


This was a great rule to make sure the nominative is used when it is supposed to be used, but of course that raises another question:

What is this elusive nominative; that word that I've been abusing in its own right, as a means to bother you who have forgotten or never learned it?

Put simply, it is the form of a pronoun that is the subject of a sentence. Put even more simply, when you have words like I/me and he/him, we see that both I and me and he and him refer to the same person.

In these two sentences, we see what is intuitive to most of us:

I hate him.
He hates me.

In the top sentence I am doing the hating, while in the bottom he is.

Thus, I and he indicate those that are the subject, indicating them to be nominative pronouns.


Perhaps it is the egocentrism of a child's mind that puts themselves as the subject of every sentence, but as a general rule, saying "he and I" is correct as long as you and this fictitious he are the subject. But if you are the object, our amiable amateur the accusative approaches the arsenal.


For the accusative case means just the opposite--it comprises the object of the sentence.

Returning to our small sentences, "him" and "me" refer to those who are being hated in the two sentences, so "him" and "me" make up the object of the sentence, which we call the accusative case.


So as children, our teachers were right to tell us to not say "me and Joe", as long as this counsel was specific to a situation where "I" was the subject. But if the sentence is about "me", of course we should have used "me"!

Unfortunately, we understood the fear of the accusative as some sort of immutable law, and we ended up neglecting poor Mr. Accusative.

How does this manifest itself? I'll put a quote from a friend's blog, that shows how we can turn our grammar minds off for fear of offending the overly simplistic teacher/parent that taught us to never neglect the nominative.

"earlier this week ****, who is four, was looking at a picture of he and i that was taken when he was a little over a year old."


Now I'm sure this particular friend would not make this error all of the time, and it was probably a mistake which slipped out due to busyness etc., but the point is that this mistake slips out quite frequently among many modern Americans. I would argue that this is due to a primordial fear of using "him" "me" when conjoined to another pronoun. Maybe it also comes from a fear of being branded an uncultured individual, clasping a Coors saying, "Me and him done loved that NASCAR race!", but that is another layer worthy of considerations at some other point in the space-time continuum.





At any rate, here's another way to challenge one's grammar, which I am sure is familiar to some:
If we take the errant sentence and isolate the two pronouns, the error becomes much easier to see.

Keeping the first pronoun we have:
"earlier this week ****, who is four, was looking at a picture of he that was taken when he was a little over a year old."

Keeping the second pronoun we have:
"earlier this week ****, who is four, was looking at a picture of i that was taken when he was a little over a year old."


None of us would ever use the nominative in place of the accusative when it's just one word on its own, and I would argue that this is because we were drilled so thoroughly on the specific matter of how to avoid the accusative.



So let us all shake our primordial fears and embrace "me and him" as we should.

That's what me and him said about I and he, at least.



I kid, I kid (though mostly to myself).

21st century festering wounds-IV

Samuel Vespucci walked out of my door to use the restroom. I was still puzzled over the apparent disconnect between what I had told him, that I was confident we'd be able to find a cure for his festering wound, and how he had responded to such a claim. What was wrong?

I for one would be happy to hear that there was a new way to possibly cure me. But then again I'd never had more than a broken nose, so what did I know of true illness?

I thought I had done the typical scientist thing of using too much jargon, but then again, I said things as simply as possible.

Suddenly I realized something else was amiss, when I heard another crashing sound in the halls. Samuel had fallen to the ground and was clutching at his wounded thigh.

With words that I dare not repeat for fear that some day an innocent tongue would see these words that I write and be as blemished as a "sailor" like myself felt, he belted out cries of anguish. It was horrible.

My hands fluttered and fumbled as I started dialing on my cellular phone for Dr. Kim. Fortunately, another professor in the department was an M.D./Ph.D., and she came to the rescue while we waited for an ambulance.

I was not permitted to board, so I got into my car and followed.
"So this is what ambulance chasers do."

As I arrived I parked in a visitor lot but had no patience to get my parking permit from the kiosk. I proceeded inside to try to find Sam, and maybe my friend Dr. Greg Kim.

Dr. Kim was there to meet me.

"Hey Greg-how is Sam?"

He looked at me with the sort of a smile that only a doctor could produce at a time like this. Sincerely processed to ensure maximal comfort, he said, "We're doing everything we can, and I hope that means he will stabilize. But I'm not ready to state that that is the prognosis. How are things on your end?"

"Um, about that, I just got the samples today. He dropped them off and then a few minutes later he fell to the ground. So, no, no progress yet."


"Well, Drew, you can go in and see Mr. Vespucci."

I entered the isolation room in the ER, and while conscious, Sam looked even feebler than before, almost childlike.

"Hey Andrew, looks like I got to your office too late. I thought you were like House MD--that guy and his cronies usually start by thinking they cured the patient and then realizing they were wrong. You didn't even get a chance to be wrong."

I tried not to frown, but realized I was cringing. "I know, Sam, I know. Just hang in there. It's not too late for us to make a breakthrough."

I tried to muster words that would frame a convincing argument, but as my countenance greyed with doubt, Sam interjected.

"I've signed it, Andrew. The DNR--do not resuscitate. If I go under one more time, I don't want to come back up. I've come too close to death too many times to have hope that this won't be just another palliative treatment. You know that word, right?"

It was familiar to me, but having focused on cellular biology I could not place its exact definition. As my mind searched, Vespucci began chanting a rote quote, apparently from the dictionary.

"PALLIATIVE: ALLEVIATING PAIN AND SYMPTOMS WITHOUT ELIMINATING THE CAUSE." The words were so bitterly recited that I couldn't help but feel pity in a new way. What I thought pity before at times such as funerals was no longer pity to me. That emotion was merely a bit of smug sentimentality. This new depth of sorrow was something I had never experienced, and would forever more be pity to me.

He went on, "That's all this is, you hear me? And if that's all you can do, I don't need you people."

His face cringed into a look reminiscent of a fearful animal, as he broke into tears, and at that moment, I could not blame him.

All that I could do was hope to save him.

The original Sopranos?

I recently finished The Winter of Our Discontent, one of John Steinbeck's last novels.

For all of its alleged (but unproven) literary faults, in terms of rambling soliloquies and other venial scribal sins [which actually put a timeliness and reality to the narrative, but I'm digressing again], the way morality is treated puts a striking parallel between this work and my favorite 21st century program, The Sopranos.

Of course, this is not to say that these are both gangster stories--instead, I am speaking on a deeper level of the moral themes--how morality is perceived and practiced, and how we as the observers are left scratching our heads as to whether we want to root for a given character, or whether we hope they get it.

Even superficially, there is the character of Alfio Marullo, whose Italian background leads people to question whether he is "connected". Even deeper, Marullo's integrity is ambiguous. Is he noble man, or is he not?

There is the East Coast town-nestled on the Atlantic Ocean, I am reminded of the Sopranos again, because the portrayal of the area used to seem so foreign to me as a Californian. Now in my Maryland-soaked life, the pages and screens are more alive than ever.

Then we have the actual protagonist, Ethan Hawley-in some senses he is a nobody, but in other senses he is American royalty. The friction between these two realities leads to a universally American portrayal of what it means to succeed in this country.

And as the Sopranos ends, so too does this novel.


But, since one of my few readers is a Steinbeck fan who has yet to read this, I will say no more.

21st century festering wounds-tertius

I was sitting in a seminar watching a new researcher present their findings. Clumsily, sloppily, forgetting the background and assuming we all cared about every detail this person was working on, I did what I always dreamed of doing--I blurted out and screamed, "What is your problem?!?!? Do you think we really care about your meaningless experiments that will probably never even be published???"

He looked at me, lips quivering because he knew I would be evaluating his performance at his Ph.D. defense, and started to cry.

Suddenly I was standing on a beach with the head of the lab that competes directly with me, and she softly whispered, "It's ok--we'll get off this island some day. I'm sure our loved ones are doing everything they can to find us."

Twelve minutes after hitting the ground, I awoke to find my senior graduate student standing over me, repeating my name. My hopes of silencing the bothersome chatter of an annoying student, and my fears of being stranded with my scientific archenemy were all that--dreams, nightmares, aspirations, and worries. Where was I? Oh yes, back in the office, dealing with the wound that would not heal itself.

Poor Samuel Vespucci was speechless, but not as unnerved as I had been from hitting the ground. Regaining my equilibrium was difficult but manageable. To think, I hadn't even seen the wound whose smell had knocked me off of my feet! It was then that I realized that another aspect of my personality that had kept me from medical school; that is, that seeing real people in pain was far too much for me to tolerate. It's much better to speculate about death and disease on the molecular level, after all.

Nonetheless, I apologized for such the interruption, and took as deep of a breath as possible as to feel calm, without imbibing the strong stench of the wound.

"Mr. Vespucci. You must forgive my weakness. I see you are carrying a styrofoam box. Presumably this contains the biopsies of your cells and the bacteria that are growing around them?"

He nodded, hands still trembling, and set the box on my desk. I did not fall to the ground this time. No, the excitement of starting a project that would put my knowledge of the cell to use had me as giddy as a schoolboy, or so the saying goes. Personally, I was never giddy as a schoolboy, but that is another story.

"OK, Mr. Vespucci--we have everything we need to get this search started. Our goal here is to identify any cellular or genetic anomalies that may underlie....sorry sorry sorry, I do that all of the time with laypeople. This is what we are going to do, Sam. We can tell when a cell looks strange, and we can tell when a gene looks strange. If anything is the matter, we are the ones to find it. I know exactly what a happy healthy clot should look like, and all of the cells that work on building that clot. We don't know who is not doing their job, but when we get to it, we will. You hang in there, and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. Now, do you have any questions?"


"Yes, um, where is the bathroom?"

With that he left, and for some reason, it was clear that he did not share my enthusiasm about the chance to find out what was wrong.

Using "while" to contrast things

Well, my grammar-minded amigos, I am glad to say that I'm back with some food for thought on the English language.

I've been quite busy trying to employ it in my trade, and have found myself quite lacking in what is needed to succeed.

One vignette worth sharing is the use of the word "while".

I was writing about different things that I discovered in my research, and when I wanted to compare two scenarios, I often would choose to write "while".

To give a mock example:

"While test tube A was blue, test tube B was green."

What I have learned is that this is verboten, as while denotes a chronological perspective.

Thus, one should abstain from "while" when making contrasts. "In contrast" works to replace it, but if the two scenarios are not so opposed to each other, "whereas" will also suffice.

So put the "while" down while you are writing contrasts!!!

21st century festering wounds-part the second

I live the typically atypical life of a scientist. Focused on a few molecules out of the staggering myriads that comprise life as we know it, I delight in connecting minutiae to diseases and the minions that deal them to the innocent and the guilty alike. Because of my delight in unraveling such mysteries, my path crossed Samuel Vespucci's one unusually cold summer day.

As I said before, Samuel was getting tired of the same unsettling procedure of having his leg wound literally scrubbed clean. He wasn't sure if he could take another treatment, but was not quite suicidal enough to let apathy take its course.

Because of this unending anguish and frustration with the status quo, it was then that he came to me.

I was working on my latest grant and faxing yet another form regarding my newest publication, when a human came to the door.

"Who could this be? Too old to be one of my students, too young {and definitely too poor} to be a rich codger with goodwill and a plan to donate our institution money." I thought this and similar thoughts to myself, and then noticed a strange gaping curve going into one of the man's legs.

With the graceless demeanor you would expect from someone in my profession, I continued mulling the possibilities over as he stared at me blankly.

Suddenly, it hit me. My latest attempt to connect my work on the bricks that make up a cell (called cytoskeletal proteins by nerds like me) to human diseases was staring me in the face! I remembered a strange e-mail I had received from a friend from college. Gregory Kim had gone on the road towards success, and saw the light that somehow flew past me by enrolling in medical school. Instead of slogging away for little pay, studying an organism that most people have never heard of--have YOU heard of Dictyostelium discoideum???----Greg was helping people directly, and being paid far more directly than I was as a junior faculty at an albeit prestigious institution.



And this was important to me on that cool summer day because I remembered Greg was part of the team that was baffled and befuddled by our friend Samuel Vespucci.

He had contacted me because I had been the guy to go to when a problem was strange. Call me a real-life House, M.D., without the limp, but when a zany answer was needed to solve an even zanier problem, I had a knack for finding the right answers. Perhaps that is why I opted to take the lower paycheck and stick with science.

"Andrew, you've got to drop everything you've got--we have a case unlike any other. Persistent infection with no signs of healing. Laceration was eaten away into a subinguinal..........."---Greg's frenzied voice called me one morning a few weeks ago, telling me all about Samuel's condition. He described the case in more detail, but it would sound like repetitive drivel to the non-clinician, so I will spare you the gory and droll details.
"Look Andrew, I'll e-mail you a reminder, but you've just GOT to see this Vespucci case for yourself."


All of these experiences of my youth, career choices, and current dedication to try to solve this mystery were playing and replaying in my head, as suddenly the world went back into focus and I remembered where I was---standing in my office on a cold summer day, starting at Samuel. As I began to introduce myself, the smell from Samuel's wound introduced itself to me.


It was then that I instantly vomited and lost consciousness.

21st century festering wounds

Samuel Vespucci walked into his doctor's office. Dreading yet another visit but knowing he would die if he missed his appointment, he tapped his feet anxiously in the waiting room.

Despite the fear, there was a methodical feeling to the occasion. He knew the drill by heart now. So rote, but so unbelievably searing, like each time in the past, he filled out the forms. Sure, this time they were 20 minutes late, but the same sights and smells pervaded the room.

And when I bring up smells, I should state here and state it clear: the air was putrid with decay. For you see, Samuel was suffering from a persistent bacterial infection. Only a scientist like myself could call out loudly and say, "Yep, that is E. Coli!", with a twisted trill of triumph in my voice.

Believe, me, that's my usual response when I smell bacteria. However, when I met him some weeks after this hospital visit, there was something more pressing to first note and then subsequently cast as far out of my mind as conceivable, and that was because of the way the air was heavy with the aroma of death.

But, as usual, I am getting ahead of myself. For my role does not enter this story at this point in the space-time continuum.

He walked into the doctor's office, let the nurse measure his blood pressure and take other vitals. Same as it ever was, nothing was wrong, except for the huge pus-filled gash in his body. Of course, that meant that everything was wrong.

Prone to sepsis, Mr. Vespucci clung between the precipice of relative health and fevers full of sweat and delusional dreams that could only be dispelled by extreme doses of antibiotics.

He had had 4 near death experiences, and the fevers kept spiking dangerously close to temperatures that could damage his mind. But things had changed; the situation was even worse.

Uncomfortable in his gown, Mr. Vespucci's attending doctor finally entered the waiting room. Sweat dripping from his brow as he anticipated the inevitable, Samuel felt even more disturbed watching the young resident look back and forth from the charts.

"Um, yeah...Mr. Vespucci, I am Doctor Rothfuchs. It's a pleasure to finally meet you--I see from your file that you are suffering from persistent bacterial infections with significant subinguinal lymph node involvement. As you well know, clonotypic analysis of this particular strain has revealed a fascinating mutation in the large ribosomal subunit of your E. Coli, which renders this specific isolate impervious to any sort of antibiotic-based therapeutic. I hear we may name this subspecies E. Coli Vespucciensis, and it may lead to our hospital being mentioned on the news!"

But that was neither here nor there to one dying man. It was the procedure, and the procedure alone that carried any value to Sam Vespucci.

"Yes, yes, I have heard this all before. Please spare me the details," grumbled Sam. "Let's get on to the treatment."

"Ok, yes, fine, fine--I have never seen your wound before. Can you lift up your gown so that I can begin the procedure?"

The resident's voice wavered in pitch, tone, and rhythm, as Sam's arm reached to open the bottom part of his gown. Removing a makeshift bandage revealed that across the outside part of his right thigh was a seven inch gash in the shape of an oval. It was 2 inches deep, and resembled a stagnant pond covered in a film of moss. Only this film was no green goop---it was a macabre mixture of pus, bacteria, and blood.

Overwhelmed, Dr. Rothfuchs staggered back, and stifled the desire to cough as he looked away and sighed deeply. Of course, sighing deeply was the last thing he needed, as the smell of the wound wafted even more strongly with the wound exposed.


"Sorry, sorry. I had tried to prepare myself, but it was more than I had expected. I am really hopeful that this is the last round of this therapy."

Of course, Sam wasn't--and he had heard other residents say the thing enough times to know that to be dubious.

And with that, Dr. Rothfuchs proceeded to open a large pouchlike bag, which contained a jar of bluish fluid and a large contraption that resembled a q-tip, except for the fact that it was 2 feet long.

"I'm sorry to have to do this, but this is the only way we can kill this strain of bacteria."

While Sam Vespucci and Dr. Rothfuchs knew what was coming, a person who was unlucky enough to have stumbled upon this procedure would have been incredulous that such a treatment was considered humane in the 21st century.

Sam had laid himself down on the examining table, hands feverishly gripping the sides, as Dr. Rothfuchs washed the wound with the blue fluid (which was a combination of soaps and alcohols) and dug deep into the wound with the large swab. He grit his teeth as the procedure went on, and some 15 minutes later, the cleaning apparatus was filth laden, while Mr. Vespucci's leg resembled your garden variety red seen at the butcher's market. Dr. Rothfuchs lay a new set of gauze on the wound, taped it up, and shook Sam's hand. He was pale, had shed some tears, but was still breathing. After all, this was the 12th time he had had this procedure performed.



"I really wish there could be some way for this wound to resolve and heal so that we could stop this regimen, but for whatever reason it looks just as fresh as it did on the day of your accident. Of course, our research department is still looking into all possible mutations that could have arisen. As you may know, Mr. Vespucci, this is a difficult search, as hundreds of genes and many cell types are essential for the coordinated process of wound healing. From fibroblasts to fibrinogen......"----but Dr. Rothfuchs was cut short.

"Listen Doc, you have to understand---if this doesn't get better within a few months, I just, I mean, I don't know if I can take it much longer." Hobbling out of the room, Samuel Vespucci said goodbye to the familiar faces, but could not look his familiar pain in the face.

is there one foundation?

I have thought about this song over the last week, and am convinced that its opening line is characteristic of the antagonism to the apostles seen in Protestants, particularly those of independent mindsets.

Even my own Presbyterian hymnal completely misquoted the verse that should come to mind, which is Ephesians 2:20. It states that the church is "built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone."



I found these lyrics on the website cyberhymnal--at least there it has the consistency to quote a passage from 1 Corinthians 3, which says, "For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ." Of course, that context is contrasting Christ with "wood" or "hay" or "stubble".

The question is, when we think it's honoring God to say that only Jesus matters, are we denigrating the means through which He works? Methinks YES.


Of course, this song brings up other thoughts about the unity of the church, the basis of which has been also heavily on my mind as of late. Overall, I read the lyrics and see some good things, and some good intentions that have gone awry in this world, as the ages have gone on......
The Church’s one foundation
Is Jesus Christ her Lord,
She is His new creation
By water and the Word.
From heaven He came and sought her
To be His holy bride;
With His own blood He bought her
And for her life He died.

She is from every nation,
Yet one o’er all the earth;
Her charter of salvation,
One Lord, one faith, one birth;
One holy Name she blesses,
Partakes one holy food,
And to one hope she presses,
With every grace endued.

The Church shall never perish!
Her dear Lord to defend,
To guide, sustain, and cherish,
Is with her to the end:
Though there be those who hate her,
And false sons in her pale,
Against both foe or traitor
She ever shall prevail.

Though with a scornful wonder
Men see her sore oppressed,
By schisms rent asunder,
By heresies distressed:
Yet saints their watch are keeping,
Their cry goes up, “How long?”
And soon the night of weeping
Shall be the morn of song!

’Mid toil and tribulation,
And tumult of her war,
She waits the consummation
Of peace forevermore;
Till, with the vision glorious,
Her longing eyes are blest,
And the great Church victorious
Shall be the Church at rest.

Yet she on earth hath union
With God the Three in One,
And mystic sweet communion
With those whose rest is won,
With all her sons and daughters
Who, by the Master’s hand
Led through the deathly waters,
Repose in Eden land.

O happy ones and holy!
Lord, give us grace that we
Like them, the meek and lowly,
On high may dwell with Thee:
There, past the border mountains,
Where in sweet vales the Bride
With Thee by living fountains
Forever shall abide!

What suicide really is...

I must admit that there has never been anyone close to me who has actually committed suicide, but the concept has fascinated me. No, I am not talking about gory scenes in abandoned rooms so much as I am thinking of certain individuals who had so much going for them but they ended up squandering their gifts. This more protracted form of suicide is pervasive in our day and age, and is something from which one should always run. Of course, there are also the famous people who have committed suicide and the public is well aware of them, whose deaths generally sadden and frustrate the world.

Last night I came across such a jaw-dropping quote on this matter from G.K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy that I have to cite it in full. Read on, but please be ready for some serious analysis of this world:

....Grave moderns told us that we must not even say "poor fellow", of a man who had blown his brains out, since he was an enviable person, and had only blown them out because of their exceptional excellence. Mr. William Archer even suggested that in the golden age there would be penny-in-the-slot machines, by which a man could kill himself for a penny. In all this I found myself utterly hostile to many who called themselves liberal and humane. Not only is suicide a sin, it is the sin. It is the ultimate and absolute evil, the refusal to take and interest in existence; the refusal to take the oath of loyalty to life. The man who kills a man, kills a man. The man who kills himself, kills all men; as far as he is concerned he wipes out the world. His act is worse (symbolically considered) than any rape or dynamite outrage. For it destroys all buildings: it insults all women. The thief is satisfied with diamonds; but the suicide is not: that is his crime. He cannot by bribed, even by the blazing stones of the Celestial City. The thief compliments the things he steals, if not the owner of them. But the suicide insults everything on earth by not stealing it. He defiles every flower by refusing to live for its sake. There is not a tiny creature in the cosmos at whom is death is not a sneer. When a man hangs himself on a tree, the leaves might fall off in anger and the birds fly away in fury: for each has received a personal affront. Of course there may be pathetic emotional excuses for the act. There often are for rape, and there almost always are for dynamite. But if it comes to clear ideas and the intelligent meaning of things, then there is much more rational and philosophic truth in the burial at the crossroads and the stake driven through the body, than in Mr. Archer's suicidal automatic machines. There is a meaning in burying the suicide apart. The man's crime is different from other crimes-for it makes even crimes impossible.

How a Kinase Kills

Dead bodies are strewn across hospitals, and why?

Some philosophers attribute this to God's wrath for our first parents' choice of eating forbidden fruit.



Others might call this the harsh reality of a universe without plan or purpose.


Other hybrids of these extremes exist.

But that is neither here nor there to this blog. What we want to know is the how of death, on a molecular level. This may sound like chest-pounding propaganda, but my first exposé will be about the set of molecules that interested me during my Ph.D. studies.

Browsing the most recent contents of Nature, Science, and Cell, I realized that a new discovery has been made in that field. Call it coincidental, but I am back in my old stomping grounds, reading about my former favorite molecule, Phosphoinositide 3-Kinase.

So what is PI3K, and why should you care?

Like all kinases, PI3K's job is to add a phosphate molecule to some other molecule. As the name implies, PI3K puts a phosphate on the number 3 position of phosphoinositides.

What is a phosphoinositide, and why should you care?

It's a lipid--think about grease; no, not that tawdry musical with John Travolta, or McDonald's. We're talking about cells here, and lipids are found predominantly in the membranes of cells.


Ok--so phosphate molecules are being placed on lipids that are on the membranes of cells. Why should you care?

Physically speaking, YOU don't care, but some molecules do. For, you see, phosphate molecules are highly charged, and you know what people say about true love. Just as the air can be charged with romance, a phosphate's charge can attract new "mates" to the membrane of a cell. What does that do, and why should you care?

This photo is out of date, but I drew it for a publication, and I can't resist including it here. In this circumstances, PI3K is composed of two subunits, labeled as p85 and p110. But you should get the picture---many molecules are drawn to the membrane for a molecular conversation. Overall, that conversation has a pretty uniform message--grow, reproduce, and SURVIVE!





In this case, T cells receive messages through their receptors for foreign molecules, and one chief carrier pigeon is our friend, Phosphoinositide 3-Kinase, which makes those little plus signs (that signify the phosphorylated lipids), which starts the conversation between many molecules whose names are immaterial to this discussion. But again, the message is important---cells are told to grow, divide, and survive.

Now, if we think about what is so bad about growing, reproducing and surviving, our thoughts may turn to apocalyptic fears of the world's sustainability, but again, we are talking about cells and organisms.

The real problem behind too much growth and reproduction on an organismal level is, of course, cancer.

That word, which may be more stigma than understanding to some of my readers, is simply uncontrolled growth of cells. As scientists began looking for mutations in genes that were common to cancer patients, it was a beautiful but tragic fact that molecules related to PI3K were often found to be the culprits at hand in many instances of cancer. This image shows a breast cancer cell-dividing rapidly, which in this particular cancer, has over a 50% chance of being mutated in the PI3K pathway.


In my next installment, I will try to explain what the new findings are, and why they are interesting.
Hopefully this introduction will be enough to chew on for now. But the method to the madness is hopefully clear now.

Until then, I remain as always, your obedient servant.

ave israel??

How can Revelation 12 not be about Mary? Help me out, here...

Read it for yourself:
The Woman and the Dragon

12:1 And a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. 2 She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pains and the agony of giving birth. 3 And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads seven diadems. 4 His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and cast them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she bore her child he might devour it. 5 She gave birth to a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, but her child was caught up to God and to his throne, 6 and the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, in which she is to be nourished for 1,260 days.
Satan Thrown Down to Earth

7 Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon. And the dragon and his angels fought back, 8 but he was defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. 9 And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. 10 And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers [1] has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. 11 And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death. 12 Therefore, rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows that his time is short!”

13 And when the dragon saw that he had been thrown down to the earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child. 14 But the woman was given the two wings of the great eagle so that she might fly from the serpent into the wilderness, to the place where she is to be nourished for a time, and times, and half a time. 15 The serpent poured water like a river out of his mouth after the woman, to sweep her away with a flood. 16 But the earth came to the help of the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed the river that the dragon had poured from his mouth. 17 Then the dragon became furious with the woman and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring, on those who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus. And he stood [2] on the sand of the sea.

Protestants generally vary between saying this is about either Israel, the Church, or both. But Roman Catholics see this as being Mary, the Mother of our Lord.

If I'm keeping track of score, this is one point for the Papists, in my book. But maybe you umpires would make another call from where you stand?