Grab the nearest book~

In blogland there are memes-- fun, but a little like a chain email. Fun is relative, and I hesitate to impose it on others who experience fun differently.

But this, from Josie, is easy, interesting, and-- for me, anyway-- fun!

Rules:  

1. Grab the nearest book of 123 pages or more.  
2. Open it to page 123.  
3. Find the first 5 sentences and write them down.  
4. Then invite 5 friends to do the same.

I just finished reading Susan Wicklund's The Common Secret for a review to be published in The Internet Review of Books March 15. I was tempted to pull from that. But I've moved on to The Best American Nonrequired Reading, an eclectic collection of essays and other bits that "defy classification" as the promo says. Good stuff, all, and I'm enjoying it.

Page 123 happens to be smack in the middle of a section where The Edge Foundation (www.edge.org) posed its 2006 question to scientists:

What is your dangerous idea?

Ray Kurzwell, inventor and technologist, expounds in "The Near-Term Inevitability of Radical Life Extension and Expansion:"

On the other hand, if we factor in the doubling of the power of these technologies each year, the prospect of radical life extension is only a couple of decades away.

In addition to reprogramming biology, we will be able to go substantially beyond biology with nanotechnology, in the form of computerized nanobots in the bloodstream. If the idea of programmable devices the size of blood cells performing therapeutic functions in the bloodstream sounds like far-off science fiction, I would point out that we are doing this already in animals. One scientist cured type I diabetes in rats with blood-cell sized devices containing seven nanometer pores that let insulin out in a controlled fashion and that block antibodies. If we factor in exponential advances in computation and communication (price-performance multiplying by a factor of a billion in twenty-five years, while at the same time shrinking in size by a factor of thousands), these scenarios are highly realistic.

Dangerous ideas. Interesting thoughts. All the essays are interesting and provocative.

I have tried to think of my own version of a dangerous idea since reading. Stay tuned. If I think of one, I'll post.

I'm passing the meme torch to:
Sarah

Tim

Carter

Pauline

Tere
~~~~~
Show me the books he loves and I shall know the man far better than through mortal friends. ~Dawn Adams

For Alice~ She's home!!!!!!!

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson Sometimes it's all about knowing that loved ones and friends stand behind you, knowing that support is there on the down days, the worry days, the days when you feel off-center, out of sync, bedraggled emotionally, and in pain, but knowing all the while that you're not alone. You're not alone... Alice is an online friend--she lives in Hawaii-- who belongs to the writer's workshop that I do. We've only "met" online, but those who have online friendships know that they can be just as strong as those in-person relationships. Alice was hit by a car while walking, and is in the rehab phase of things. She's working to regain mobility after a broken pelvis, a broken arm, and a broken nose. It's scary to realize how, in the blink of an eye, life can lurch and our plans for a time are displaced by survival and healing. We&#

This retirement thing~

This retirement thing . . . it seems like it should be so easy, so effortless, so thrilling, to stop the daily grind. It is thrilling; at least I think it will be come September when I'm not following the school buses to work. But it's not easy. I had a plan book on my desk for 35 years, one I filled in weekly, scheduling new lessons at 45-minute intervals, meetings, parent conferences, and field trips. I knew what needed to be done and when. I got up at the same time everyday (5:45 a.m.), ate lunch at the same time (12:06 p.m.) and watched the kids pack their bags for home everyday at 2:15 p.m. I'm not sorry to give up that regimentation. But three weeks into the summer, I find myself making lists of things I need to do, and there is so much to do that I can't imagine how I managed while I was working eight hours on top of it all. There are the household chores, gardening, exercise (aren't retirees supposed to get fitter?), freelance writing, book reviewing, readin

Lesson from a Weed~

If dandelions could talk, here’s what I think they might say: " Bloom where you’re planted, sink your roots deep. Smile in the sun, soak up the rain, and let the wind take you to new places." Dandelions are an early spring food for bees. They are often the first flower a young child picks for his mother and they provide a sweet moment for a mother to teach her child to make a wish and blow away the seeds. They speckle landscapes with lemon-colored glory. Common, and often disliked by those in favor of perfect lawns, we trample over them with hardly a thought. All this crossed my mind as I stood in this field of dandelions, most having gone to seed. I had an hour to myself at a retreat at a beautiful family farm on this day of unexpected sunshine and warmth. I was looking for a moment of stillness. I’d watched two swans, visited the alpacas, chatted with the chickens, tried to coax a kitty closer...

~Upstream and Down~

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