What I'm Reading Now-The Hot Zone: A Terrifying True Story

The Hot Zone: A Terrifying True Story by Richard Preston--As a good/terrifying follow-up the The Stand, I decided to pick up a book about viruses, viruses that can spread rapidly and kill you horribly. Good times.

Hey, so does everyone remember, back in the late '80s, when the Ebola virus broke out in a monkey facility in Reston, Virginia, right near our nation's capitol, and there was some concern that it might get out and burn through the population with a kill rate of up to 90%? No? Yeah, me neither, and it's a good thing too. (Or maybe ya'll do remember, and I just didn't pay attention because I was too young to be sufficiently scared.) The fact that it went largely unnoticed by the public (or, at least, by me) is probably because it didn't get out of control and kill everyone in its path, but not for lack of opportunity. Basically, the people involved just got lucky. (Quick little note here: If you ever have a piece of monkey spleen that you think might be contaminated with some kind of horrible virus, and you want to send it to somebody in a lab, just be aware that they frown upon receiving samples that are A) "wrapped in aluminum foil, like pieces of leftover hot dog" and B) packed in ice which is beginning to drip and melt and run red with melty, potentially-virusy monkey blood.)

If you can handle all the gory details, and I mean gory--the details in here are not for the faint of heart--this is a really interesting read about viruses, the fascinatingly horrific effects they can have on people (and animals), and on biocontainment procedures.  I know that sounds really dry, but it's not. This is an account of what goes down when the higher-ups go, "Oh, sh*t." 'Cause you know it's bad when the higher-ups go, "Oh, sh*t." Also, there are cave elephants.** (Honestly, this is what finally made me reserve the book at my library.)

According to the book, The United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) "conducts research into ways to protect soldiers against biological weapons and natural infectious diseases. It specializes in drugs, vaccines, and biocontainment." The Ebola virus is one of the viruses that the folks at USAMRIID work with, and the people who work with it are generally considered a little crazy; the general consensus seems to be, "To mess around with Ebola is an easy way to die. Better to work with something safer, such as anthrax."

When anthrax is your "safer" bet, you know you're playing with something scary. Contaminated primate meat is often thought to be the originating source of Ebola infection in humans, but the virus's origins are still unknown. Where did the primates get it? Marburg virus is related to Ebola and similar in its effects. Today, fruit bats are thought to be a reservoir host for Marburg virus, but in 1994, when the book was written, this wasn't known. Reading about the unsuccessful efforts to track down these viruses' origins and seeing how they evolved over time before presumably disappearing back into the jungle, waiting to reemerge, is frightening even today.

These viruses spread and multiply quickly. As of the writing of this book, there were three known strains of Ebola; today there are five. Ebola Zaire tends to be highly lethal in humans; Ebola Reston seems to have no symptoms in humans, yet, according to the book, experts can't really discern any genetic difference. The idea that a virus can shift so dramatically and yet unnoticeably was played out against the backdrop of AIDS, which had been spreading rapidly and inexplicably and was only just beginning to be understood by science. The idea that the virus behind this deadly disease could mutate at any time and become something even worse is lurking in the background throughout the book. The implications are just as scary today*** with the recent SARS, bird flu, and swine flu outbreaks, not to mention the plain old regular flu, and the fact that things like hantavirus, the plague (this is why fleas are NOT OK, people!) and Ebola still rear their ugly heads from time to time.

I said earlier that the cave elephants are what finally made me read this book, and that's true, but it had been on my radar for a while because of the author, Richard Preston. Preston is also the author of The Wild Trees, which, if you've been a long-time reader, you will remember was the book that was responsible for all of our grand tree climbing adventures. Now, I'm not about to go sign up to become a Biohazard Level-4 worker after reading this book, but I did enjoy it. I was in turns horrified by facts (blood comes out of every orifice?), shocked by behaviors (Really? You thought it would be a good idea to smell the potentially lethal virus culture to see if your sample had been contaminated??), and just plain interested in what I was reading, all the while hoping that my book wasn't covered in Ebola spread by some carelessly wrapped monkey spleen.

**The cave elephants play a pretty minor role, so don't get too excited about this part.

***Edited to add: Yikes! See what I mean? I haven't even had this published for half-an-hour, when I saw this article about a snake virus that might be a cross between Ebola and something else.

Wanna see a big spider?

I love Hawaii, but, for crying out loud, someone has got to warn me when the cane spiders are going to make an appearance.

I know it's kind of hard to see in this picture, but look for the glowing eyes above the closet door.

Here it is moving across the ceiling, presumably because that will make it easier to jump on my head. 

I would have gotten some better pictures, but that would have required actually standing in the room, and I did not want to challenge the authority of the spider.  Any spider that is big enough that you can see its eyes glowing in a picture wins.  It can have the room.

Here's the thing about cane spiders:  They're too big to smash-I don't want to clean that up; they're freakin' fast, so it's hard to get close enough to smash them anyway; and they will jump at you, so even if you do get close enough to smash them, they will run at you and make you jump and scream like a little girl. Bug spray?  I've seen one of these take almost half a can before it finally lay down in a soaking ball on the floor only to jump up a few minutes later, shake it off and start moving again.  Granted, it was moving a little more slowly, but it was still moving.  Besides, I don't really want to kill them, I just don't want them hanging out anywhere where they can jump on my head.  So, when I see one, I move as far away from it as possible and then I just stare at it in horror for a while trying to think of some way to get rid of it and then I give up and start taking pictures or video of it.  Because what else is there to do besides document the situation and then use the pictures to freak other people out?  

I was at the North Shore, not the North Pole!

My Grandpa's birthday was on Monday, December 7th. He is 93, and, like a good granddaughter, I waited until almost 9:30 PM his time to try to call and tell him Happy Birthday. It's tricky calling the grandparents because you have to let the phone ring long enough so that they have time to get up from their recliners and get to it, but you don't want to let it ring so long that they'll get up out of bed to answer it. Also, 9:30? I wasn't sure if they'd be in bed or staying up for the news. I think they were in bed. So, yesterday, I finally got hold of Grandpa, but either my cell phone reception wasn't very good or Grandpa's hearing is finally starting to go or maybe a little of both. I was trying to explain that the reason I missed his birthday was because I spent the last two days on the North Shore and didn't have cell phone reception. Not the North Pole, not the North Slope, the beach on the north side of the island. We finally settled on the fact that I was calling from Hawaii. Close enough.

Anyway, the reason I was on the North Shore was because we had some monster waves rolling in, and rumor had it that The Quiksilver in Memory of Eddie Aikau was going to run. Eddie Aikau was a life guard and big-wave surfer who lost his life when the double-hull voyaging canoe that he was on capsized on its way from Hawaii to Tahiti in 1978. Eddie tried to paddle back to Hawaii for help but never made it. The Eddie is a big-wave surf competition at Waimea Bay that only goes if the waves are going to be sustained at 20 40 30 feet* or more for at least eight hours. Since the competition began 25 years ago, surfers brave enough to face these huge waves have waited for the word to paddle out in honor of their fallen brother, but the waves have only been big enough to hold the competition seven times prior.

This year, forecasters were saying we might see 60-foot waves, and that The Eddie might run on Monday, December 7th. Monday morning the big waves were rolling in, but overall conditions were deemed not-quite-right, so The Eddie was put on hold until Tuesday. Hubby and I went up north anyway because he had to fly out that night and would not be here for the competition if it went on Tuesday (which it did). While I'm pretty sure we didn't see any 60-foot waves, we did see some pretty big surf, and there were guys out surfing it. Here's one of the pictures that Hubby snapped.

I know it doesn't look like much here-it's hard to show perspective on things like the ocean-but if you look just to the right of the center, there is a guy on a surf board coming down the face of that wave. Here, let me see if I can help you:

When you figure that surf board's a good 10-12 feet or so and then do the math, it kind of gives you chicken skin, doesn't it? For some more pictures that do actually manage to capture some perspective and detail from this day-professional photographers and all-you can do a quick search** for "Eddie Aikau 2009 photos" and watch this highlight video (it's all impressive, but check out the stuff they are riding through starting at 2:37 and again at 3:28). You may notice the jet skis in some of the video, but this wasn't a tow-in competition; the jet skis were just there for rescue and to tow the surfers back in to shore at the end of a big ride. I also saw them towing photographers out, but as far as the surfing goes, if you wanted to surf it, you had to paddle out to it. Also, I would recommend watching the videos in full-screen mode. You lose a little clarity, but it's much more exciting that way!

Since Hubby was out of town on the big day, my cousin came with me to enjoy the big waves. Well, she would have come whether Hubby was here or not, but what I'm trying to say is that I didn't have to go hang out all by myself. That would have made the 50-minute wait in the bathroom line even more of a bummer. Here are a few of my pictures from the day of the competition.

If you were trying to call a business in Hawaii on Monday and couldn't get hold of anybody, this might be why. Anybody who wasn't already here, was stuck in traffic.

Here's what things looked like a little closer to the shore. I believe this is Kohl Christensen coming in after his awesome ride, which you can see in the highlights from in Heat 7. His ride starts at about 00:41.

By the way, you can watch the highlights of all the heats on YouTube.**  Each video is only about 2-4 minutes, and remember: Full screen!

This was the view from where we were sitting on the beach for the first few hours. The waves were pretty small by the time they reached us, and by "small" I mean "only" 8-10 feet.

This was our view of the surf action. Again, see the tiny little surfer coming down the wave? He's on the left, about 1/3 of the way in. I realize this isn't going to win any photo competitions, but it is a pretty accurate depiction of what we were experiencing on the beach. 

If you like big waves, you might also like:

Step Into Liquid (Watch a trailer)

Riding Giants (Watch trailers)

Billabong Odyssey This has possibly my favorite surfing clip of all time as its trailer. (Historically, this clip has been mislabeled as "Surfing a Tsunami". It's not a tsunami; it's a surf break called Peahi, aka "Jaws," over on Maui). As amazing as the surfing is here, I'd like to point out the cinematography. Watch it again (and again and again and again...) and think about getting that shot. Awesome.



*2/9/16--40-foot faces according to the Quiksilver blog, 30-foot according to the news, 20 if you're calling it Hawaiian-style...so big. Let's just go with BIG.

**2/9/16--Unfortunately, Quiksilver doesn't seem to be big on archiving. When I originally wrote this post, I had links to some great videos and photos on their website; and while the videos seem to have migrated over to YouTube, I can't seem to find the photos anymore, so search away.

What I'm Reading Now-Dracula (Mid-Read Update)

Softdrink and Heather are co-hosting the Dueling Monsters Read-a-long this month. This month being October, the monsters are, of course, Dracula and Frankenstein (although, to be fair, Frankenstein is not actually a monster). I read Frankenstein back in high school and was not all that impressed, but I have not yet read Dracula, so I figured this would be a good time to do it. I was afraid that it would be similarly disappointing, but I was wrong!

I thought the best (and easiest) way to give you a quick update on my reading so far would be to share with you some of the notes I have been taking while I've been reading. Just so these notes make a little more sense, the first part of the book consists of journal entries from Jonathan Harker, an English clerk who has been sent to Count Dracula's castle to help him with some legal matters regarding his recently-acquired estate. So, here are my thoughts on Harker's stint as Dracula's "guest."

p.22-Dracula's a reader!

By p. 29: Count has no reflection, does not seem to eat, has reacted peculiarly to blood, affected by crucifix, castle is regarded as prison.

p.36-Dracula warns of sleeping anywhere else in the castle-sincere concern or ulterior motive? p.38-Dracula lizard-crawls down the wall! Eee!

p.40-Idiot!

p.50-mother of stolen child eaten by wolves-Holy crap! Surprised by all the actual creepy stuff-expected this to be a book of innuendo and subtlety. Wrong!

I think this gives you a good idea of how I am feeling about this so far and, perhaps, how you would feel about this as well. If you have never read Dracula or if you would like to revisit this literary classic, jump on over to Fizzy Thoughts and sign up for the read-a-thon. If you want to give Frankenstein a go (hey, don't take my word for it-I was in high school when I read it) visit Age 30+...A Lifetime of Books and sign up there. Happy reading!

Bonus! If you participate, you can display the super cute Dueling Monsters button on your blog...which I have been too lazy to put up until now. But isn't it cute??

What I'm Reading Now-Time Bandit: Two Brothers, the Bering Sea, and One of the World's Deadliest Jobs

Time Bandit: Two Brothers, the Bering Sea, and One of the World's Deadliest Jobs by Andy Hillstrand, Jonathan Hillstrand, and Malcolm MacPherson - This book made me laugh out loud, mostly at the antics of the Hillstrand brothers during their childhood, growing up in Homer, Alaska and on the Bering Sea, but also some of their adult perspectives on life.

Andy Hillstrand on his reputation as the guy who can fix things:

I can fix things. It is as simple as that. And I can outwit, most of the time, the humble crab or the predictable salmon. I fix stuff all the time; I get it running good again. I am doing that all the time. People need me. [...]I fix what I try to fix. Like if I have to fix my wife I say, "You look good, honey. Those pants look great on you."
"They make me look fat, don't they?"
"Oh, no, honey." See? I just fixed something.

There are 5 Hillstrand brothers, and I can't believe any of them made it past the age of about 10. One super-glued his eye shut, a couple of them have shot each other, one was in a tree so the others chopped it down, etc. I guess this sort of devil-may-care approach to life is what's needed if you are going to grow up to be a captain of a crab boat on the Bering Sea.

Discovery Channel's "Deadliest Catch" is a show about crab fishing. I don't like crab. I am scared of the ocean. Fishing's ok, but I definitely have no interest in living on a fishing boat for weeks at a time. I hate the cold, and, overall, I'm a fairly girly girl. By all rights, I should have no interest in this show, but I LOVE it. You know how some people love being scared to death on a roller coaster? That's sort of how I am about this show. It combines all of my worst nightmares-30-,40-,even 50-foot seas, freezing temperatures, 36-hour work days, fish guts, 800-pound swinging metal crab pots, and a boat full of unshaven men who smell like fish guts-and rolls them all into one fascinating look at life aboard a crab boat. Time Bandit is one of the boats featured on the show, and two of the authors, Andy and Jonathan Hillstrand share the responsibilities of captaining the ship.

The book alternates narration between Jonathan and Andy and an occasional 3rd-party anonymous narration, which is kind of strange. Jonathan has gone out fishing on a small fishing boat and has lost power and is drifting at sea. As he tells his story he also tells about life aboard the Time Bandit. Andy has been informed of Jonathan's potential missing-at-sea status and his narration also goes back and forth between his present-day activities on his ranch and his thoughts about their time on the Bering Sea.

If you've watched the show, you will be familiar with a lot of the stories from the crab boat, particularly the two rescue attempts in which the Time Bandit was involved, racing against time, trying to pluck men out of the icy water before they died of hypothermia or drowned.

Overall, this was a quick enjoyable read, but I felt like it was sort of a patchwork of stories-"Let me tell you about this one time...and then there was this other time...and another time," etc. In the end, it all flowed together alright, and I imagine that's a lot how it would be if you actually sat down and talked to either one of these guys, but it didn't make for a very seamless reading.

If you like the show, you'd probably like the book, but I think the show is more gripping. If you've never watched the show, you should watch the show. Although the Hillstrands do a good job of describing life at sea, it's just hard to do justice to a rogue wave washing over the deck of a ship in 50-foot seas. It's much more impressive on-screen. Here's a peek at some of the nonsense these guys put up with:

This next clip is a bit of a spoiler if you're planning on reading the book, but still worth watching in my opinion. It's not like it will ruin the book, but this is the story that they are building up to toward the end of the book, so the book probably loses a little bit of its punch if you have already seen this...sooo...your choice.

2008 Reading Roundup?

Not exactly.

Everyone else has done their end-of-year roundups, and I've enjoyed visiting everyone's blogs and seeing what everyone enjoyed reading and, of course, adding to my TBR list, which is now up to 417 items!  Thanks, guys!  ;)

Instead of a "best of" list though, I wanted to highlight a couple of books that I have thought about more and more as the year has gone on and on and that I would highly recommend reading given the current economic situation.  One is The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl by Timothy Egan.  The other is The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan, which I reviewed  here and here.  As well as being interesting reads, I think these two books do a great job of illustrating how we screw things up when we try to manipulate them too much and how well things can work if we would just let them do what they are supposed to do.  

At first glance, the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl may seem like completely separate, sadly coincidental events, but their relation to one another is strong.  For years, YEARS I tell you, Native Americans took advantage of the animals and the plants that were naturally occurring in North America.  Americans of the non-Native variety, encouraged mightily by their government, decided that the best way to move forward and prosper would be to kill off all those pesky buffalo, dig up all that stupid grass that they eat and grow wheat and cows instead.  Great idea.  Hey, I know, after we've done that, let's go to the desert, pull out those pesky cacti, kill off all the rabbits and instead we'll raise fish and bananas!  Huh.  The bananas and the fish are all dried up, and the coyotes are eyeballing our children.  Why isn't this working??

To give the people credit, these were the true pioneers of our nation.  These were the people who were brave enough to leave their homes behind and venture out to places like Oklahoma, Nebraska, Kansas, Texas, New Mexico and other wide open places where they could stake out hundreds, even thousands, of acres for themselves and try to make a life for themselves and their families.  These people had a lot of faith and determination and, for that, I admire them.

At first, things looked good.  People were making lots of money selling wheat, farmers were riding around in their Prada saddles, wearing their Gucci cowboy boots; driving their BMW tractors, you know, the ones with the gold rims and the diamond-tipped plows; women were decorating their houses in the latest Martha-Stewart-approved styles; and the kids all had their own iPhones. (It's been a while since I read the book, but that was the general feel of things if I remember correctly.)  Then the Depression hit.  And then.  THEN the Dust Bowl hit.  Y'all.  I had NO IDEA.  I can't believe I had never heard more about this other than, "and then the Dust Bowl hit and farmers had a really hard time."  (No, I haven't read The Grapes of Wrath, why do you ask?)  Clouds like giant, rolling thunderheads of dirt would sweep over entire states.  People in New York were getting hit with dust from Kansas.  Cars were buried.  Seriously.  I had no idea.  People looked up and saw this coming at them:    

I don't know about you, but that would scare the crap out of me.  I found this picture of a "black blizzard" over Prowers, CO, around 1937 at this web site.  Please go check out their other pictures.  

So, anyway, farmers are sitting high on the hog, growing tons of wheat, so they decide, this is great!  I'm going to plow up another 1,000 acres next year and plant some more!  Well, eventually everyone's thinking the same thing and the market is flooded with wheat.  Oh, also, Wall Street fails.  Prices start to drop, so the next year, the farmers have to plow up 2,000 acres because now they're only getting $.03/ton instead of $.27/ton (my prices could be off, but come on, everything cost like $.03 in 1931.  Inflation's a bitch.)  Eventually, millions of acres have been plowed and planted, then the drought hits, crops die, the top soil dries up and blows away, now there is no good land and no water.  What's a farmer to do?  Try to plant more next year.  Except next year's even worse.  Eventually, millions of acres of land have been plowed under in an attempt to get even a few acres of crops to market.  The worse the storms, the worse the crops; the worse the crops, the more land has to be plowed, the more land that is plowed, the worse the dust storms.  America is in the throes of the Great Depression, nobody has any money to spend on groceries, and nobody can grow anything to feed themselves.  This is a bad situation.  This timeline from the 1930s seems eerily familiar-read a little bit about the events leading up to the Depression and see if they don't strike a little too close to home right now.  (Thanks to PBS for the timeline-they have a lot of other information that you can link to on their site regarding the Depression and the Dust Bowl).

Cut to The Omnivore's Dilemma, present day (roughly).  Pollan examines some of the agricultural standards that are in practice today and contrasts and compares them.  Of course, when it comes to feeding the masses, corn-fed beef on a giant feedlot seems like the best solution, but what happens if all of your corn crops are wiped out?  What happens if a particularly deadly virus sweeps through your cattle who are already relying on all kinds of supplements and antibiotics to keep them alive?  What if this year's batch of vaccinations is contaminated?  What happens if there's a fire at the plant that manufactures all of your synthetic fertilizers?  Enter the small organic farmer who raises chickens, rabbits, pigs, and cows who are allowed to roam free and graze on climate-appropriate grasses that their systems are naturally adept at digesting.  These grasses are rotated with other crops and replenished by the animals' manure as they wander amongst the fields-no synthetic fertilizers are needed.  On a one-to-one basis, there's no way the small farm can feed as many people as the big industrial farm, but the potential for loss is also less.  If all your corn is wiped out one year, hopefully you will still have wheat, beans, and onions to sell.  If all your chickens take ill, hopefully the cows will remain unaffected and another small farmer nearby will be able to give you a couple of his chickens.  If, heaven forbid, your farm should go out of business, hundreds of other people will not be out of their jobs.  

Between these two books, there are lessons to be learned, I'm sure of it.   

I know this sounds like a bunch of doom and gloom, but the intent of this post isn't to scare anybody or convince anyone that the sky is falling.  I think this is a good chance to take a good look at the past and try to prepare for what might be coming.  I think things are going to get worse before they get better.  I don't think we are anywhere near the end of this financial debacle that we seem to have gotten ourselves into, but I think this is a good opportunity for everyone to start thinking about the little things.  

There has been a lot of talk about reviving the vegetable garden a la the Victory Gardens of the 1940s-is it ok to have a vegetable garden in your yard?  (Thanks to Garden Rant for that link!)  Will the neighbors think you're a hillbilly?  Is it worth it financially?  Nutritionally?  Socially??  Can it make a difference on a national level if we are all growing our own tomatoes instead of having them shipped all over the country? Is Obama going to have a vegetable garden at the White House and will it be organic?  Will it be just big enough to feed his family or will it supply food banks and local schools?  In what direction will that one seemingly small decision lead our country?  Maybe no where, maybe to great places.  Who knows?  

If you have reviewed either of these books, or if you have any other thoughts about this post, please leave me a  comment!      

A little help, please.

Remember how I told you that some of the nicest people we've ever met have been Cold Stone franchisees?  Well, one of those people was hospitalized last week with a diagnosis of lymphoma. We don't have all the details yet; they think it's fairly late-stage, but treatable.  Chemo began yesterday and is expected to run for 6 months.  

Remember how, in that same post, I told you about my cousin who cried because she was so happy to see me happy?  Well, one of her friends was hospitalized with pneumonia yesterday.  Today they pulled 3 liters of fluid out of her lungs and told her husband that it might not be a bad idea to get her family in town.  When asked to clarify, the doctor said it might be a good idea to get her family in town because otherwise they might not get another chance to see her.  

Back in...May, June (?) my great-uncle was diagnosed with lymphoma.  The good news is that they caught it pretty early, he has made it through all of his chemotherapy, and, so far, things are looking good.  The bad news is that a few months earlier his son was also diagnosed with lymphoma, they did NOT catch it early, and things are not looking as good.  

So, I know you all are busy thinking about your own friends and family this holiday season, and I'm sure many of you have worries of your own, but if you could just take a minute and send up a prayer, put a message out to the universe, visualize full recoveries for Dean, Doan, Joe, and Terry, whatever works for you, I'd really appreciate it, and I know they would too.  

Thanks.    

  

What I'm Reading Now-Unwind (also an unscheduled mini political rant)

Unwind by Neal Shusterman-I don't read much science fiction, but this story line intrigued me. For the life of me, I can 't remember where I first heard about it though. I thought for sure that a fellow blogger had reviewed it, but I can't seem to find a reference to it on any of the sites that I frequent, so perhaps Amazon.com thought I might enjoy it based on some of my other choices. I don't know. I would like to credit someone with my reading of this book, but I guess I will just have to take the credit myself for now!

Unwind is set in the semi-near future from what I could gather. At one point several of the main characters find themselves in an antique shop where there are items like iPods from their grandfathers' era and plasma screen TVs. Yeah, like those would still be working! I was thinking about this yesterday as I was shopping for a new digital camera. Ours finally went out after 6 years and approximately 8,000 pictures. That's not so bad, I guess, but wouldn't it be nice if ANYTHING were made to last anymore? There are still phonographs and Brownie cameras out there in use, items that have been handed down through the generations and cherished (or at least not abused) by their owners all these years. What is our generation going to have to hand down to future generations, our iPod playlists? But I digress.

After the Heartland War, which basically pitted the Pro-Lifers against the Pro-Choicers, a compromise was reached which, true to real life, seems to have been in nobody's best interest. The Bill of Life was passed and the gist of it is: Abortions are no longer legal. If you are pregnant, you must have the child and raise it until age 13. If, by the time the child reaches age 13, you still are not interested in raising him, you can have him unwound. Unwinding is sort of the biological equivalent of selling a car for parts except that the children just get taken, you don't have to sell them. Anyway, they are taken apart, piece by piece, and all of their parts must be given to others in need, so it's organ donation on a large scale. In this way, the child is not killed-all of him is still alive in some form or fashion (the Pro-lifers are happy) and the child's parents no longer have to raise an unwanted child (the Pro-choicers are happy). See? Everybody wins! Oh, um, except the kids. It kind of sucks to be them. They have lost both the right to life and the right to choose what happens to their bodies. Kids between 13 and 18 are subject to unwinding. Once you reach 18, you are considered an adult and can no longer be unwound.

Of course, the well-intended Bill of Life resulted in a lot of babies in dumpsters because there were still plenty of mothers out there who just did not have the desire or perhaps the means to raise a baby. In response to this "Storking" laws were put into place. If you had a baby that you didn't want, you could leave it on someone else's doorstep. Whoever finds the baby is legally responsible for it's upbringing. If you get caught in the act, however, you have to take the baby back. Most of the time this works out ok, but there is an ugly underbelly to this as well, which we find out about as the book goes on.

Most of the time, kids don't know that they are about to be unwound. The cops just show up at their door one day and no one ever hears from them again. This isn't always the case-there are special circumstances in which some kids know from the get go that they are destined to be unwound. The book follows 3 main characters who have found out through various means that they are going to be unwound and their subsequent attempts to avoid this fate. The reasons for their unwinding and their reasons for not wanting (or wanting) to be unwound are diverse, as are the stories of all the characters they meet on their journey.

Unwind falls into the Young Adult category, and the story kept my interest and was a pretty easy read, but it brought up some fairly heavy issues, issues which are certainly translatable and pertinent today like:

What constitutes being alive? If you have a soul and you are unwound, what happens to your soul? Does it get chopped up and doled out in various amounts to the recipients of your body parts, does it reside in a single body part, or is it stretched like a web around the globe when your body parts get distributed to others? If everyone has a soul, when do we get them-conception, birth, when somebody loves you? Does God give souls to unwinds? It also introduces some tough issues like murder, terrorism, and attempted rape.

This is one of those books that you read and think, boy that's crazy stuff! I'm glad this is just fiction! If I had read this book any other time, I think that would have been my reaction as well, but I've got to tell you, I don't see this as being that far out there right now. The thing that puts this out of the realm of possibility for me right now is the technology, not the moral climate of our country. I'm not much on politics, but the fact that Sarah Palin is thisclose to being in the White House scares the crap out of me. The fact that women are willing to vote for her just because she is a woman scares the crap out of me. That's like people with moustaches voting for Hitler because he has a moustache. Hey, I've got a moustache, he's got a moustache, he must have the same values I do! Gaaaaah! Come on people! Don't vote for Obama because he's black. Don't vote for Palin because she's a woman. Don't vote for McCain or Biden because they are old white dudes. Find out at least a teeny little bit about your candidates and make somewhat of an informed decision. You don't have to be able to recite their entire voting record, but pick SOMETHING, anything upon which you can take a stand and say this is why I support or don't support this candidate.

(Okay, unscheduled mini political rant over.)

If you've been reading regularly, A)thank you! and B) you know that I have become mildly obsessed with finding coincidences between what I'm reading and what's going on in my real life, and this book is no exception! So, in that vein, I am claiming the Heartland War/crazy political climate coincidence and the Banned Books Week coincidence which I explain thusly: I didn't actively "celebrate" Banned Books Week by going out of my way to read any banned books, but I may have participated without really meaning to. I will be shocked and amazed if this doesn't make it onto next year's list of banned or challenged books. There are plenty of issues for people who don't have anything better to do to freak out about in this book. On that note, I hope lots and lots of people read this book, and I hope that parents and children are actually able to have some meaningful conversations as a result of it.

Bird does moonwalk, hippo licks croc, octopus eats shark

HAHA! That sounds like some wacky new animal version of Rock Paper Scissor. But it's not. It's just stuff that I think is cool in some way.

This bird cracks me up. I first saw this on "Nature" on PBS. Unfortunately, I can't seem to actually find any info on the show itself, but fortunately, YouTube has just what I was looking for! I don't know why, but I just find this ultimately entertaining. My favorite part is about 1 minute in when he does this little bouncy thing that you can't help but try to emulate yourself, which just leads to you sitting at your desk looking like a giant dork who thinks he looks super cool. Then, you imagine somebody walking by and catching you doing this (or, God forbid, somebody actually does walk by and catch you doing this), and you see yourself through their eyes, and you crack up because you realize you are sitting at your desk be-bopping around like a giant dork. Either way, it's great entertainment.



I was going to insert video of a hippo licking a crocodile here, but YouTube has disabled this feature for this video. So, if you want to watch it, you'll have to go here instead. I'm sure there's some sophisticated way around this, but I am not that sophisticated, so you're just going to have to go visit the site in person. I just think this is funny because A) Baby hippos sort remind me of my Basset hound, and my Basset hound is super cute and B) How indignant it must be to be a crocodile, top of the food chain, master predator, scariest beast on...hey, hey, stop that. Stop chewing on my tail. Stop that! Hey! No, no licking my eyes! I hate that! How humiliating.

My husband likes to dive, and he has a buddy who is a shark fanatic. Whenever they are in the water, they want to go find the sharks. This, of course, scares the bejeezus out of me. While most shark sightings in Hawaii are of the innocuous reef shark kind, tiger sharks have been known to take people out out here. So, I've decided that if they are going to continue to go out looking for sharks, they need to start taking an octopus with them for security.



Of course, they'll need to find like a 1,000-lb octopus, but still.

Hitler on my desk

I hate filing. Filing is like evil, only in paper form. If tonight all the paperwork in the world were to magically transform into people, and those people were representative of the feelings inspired by said paperwork, I would walk into my office tomorrow and find Hitler sitting on my desk. And on my credenza. He'd be on my kitchen counter and my dining room table, probably on top of my dresser and my dryer too. (What do you do with all those business cards and receipts that your husband collects in his pockets on a daily basis? You'd think the man is saving for some kind of paper shortage. I guess it's better than toads and dead bugs. Then again, I could just throw those out with impunity and not have to worry that I may have just thrown out the contact information for the guy who will be key for snagging the next multi-million-dollar contract (for the company, not for my husband personally, just so y'all don't get the wrong idea).

Anyway, I'd wake up tomorrow to a house full of Hitlers. Alrighty...well, sleep tight everyone! No nightmare-inducing ideas here, no sireee.