I'll take Robin's suggestion first on human cloning.

I'm not sure if he wants to know whether I am for or against human cloning or what I think the future of cloning is, so I'll touch on both subjects.

Dolly, the first living cloned sheep, had quite a few health problems, among them severe arthritis and a lung disease. She lived only six years and in ( Read more... )

Every few months writing magazines and web sites put out a list of no-nos for writers, what not to do when writing a book.

1.  Never start a book with the main character waking up. It's boring and banal. Then there's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich written by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, which is an excellent book where the story begins with the ( Read more... )

It was still dark outside when rioting birds woke me from a dreamless sleep. I'd had trouble getting to sleep last night because it was too warm. One moment I was tossing and turning and the next the cacophony of tweets and twitters pierced the dream bubble and I was suddenly awake. Less than an hour later I am awake, eyes watering and sneezing ( Read more... )

Yesterday, Mike in Israel sent me a notice about the total solar eclipse on Wednesday, July 22. It will be the longest eclipse this century, lasting 6 mins and 39 secs and it is one of three eclipses that have happened in consecutive years. In the article he sent me, Mark Blitz was quoted as saying, "...three solar eclipses that would occur on each ( Read more... )

Getting hooked on Lost was not my idea, but I caved out of curiosity. I'm glad I did. It's a great show with a lot of subtle threads woven into its fabric that is just now becoming clearer, but I was hooked the moment the show opened with a shot of Jack's eyes opening. I've hung on through thick and thin and remain utterly entranced, which doesn't ( Read more... )

My connection to the Internet went down at 3 p.m. yesterday. I went to bed early with Atlas Shrugged after spending a couple of hours on a Honeymoon in Tehran by Azadeh Moaveni. I recently read a review of Moaveni's previous investigative memoir, Lipstick Jihad, which seemed more about promoting herself than about real journalistic fervor and ( Read more... )

I've enjoyed what I've read of Michael Montaigne's essays, but the one I read last night was disturbing. He wrote about three kinds of relationships: friends, women and literature. The disturbing part came when I read that he believed women were out of their depth as intellectuals and should stick to what they do best -- provide ornamentation. He ( Read more... )

Careful, it's a two post day.

( This is my latest editorial for the ham club newsletter, Ø-Beat (zero beat for non-hams): )

I don't have a writer's block problem so much as a procrastination problem. I like to avoid unpleasant things, such as not having anything to say when I have a couple of pages to fill. Then I get going, writing off the top of my head (Gram always said that was the fertile part) and finally pull something together. No one is more surprised by what ( Read more... )