Mr. Smith goes to contemplate suicide like a dumb quitter

YO. This piece about "It's a Wonderful Life" by Wendell Jamieson appeared in the NYtimes yesterday.

Lots of people love this movie of course. But I’m convinced it’s for the wrong reasons. Because to me “It’s a Wonderful Life” is anything but a cheery holiday tale. Sitting in that dark public high school classroom, I shuddered as the projector whirred and George Bailey’s life unspooled.

Was this what adulthood promised?

“It’s a Wonderful Life” is a terrifying, asphyxiating story about growing up and relinquishing your dreams, of seeing your father driven to the grave before his time, of living among bitter, small-minded people. It is a story of being trapped, of compromising, of watching others move ahead and away, of becoming so filled with rage that you verbally abuse your children, their teacher and your oppressively perfect wife.

The beautiful tragedy of the human condition is that we remain hopeful.

Congratulations, Europe!

(Most information is from this nytimes.com article, but I've incorporated some knowledge from my high school biotechnology class.)

Following several weeks of preparation at the universities of Barcelona, Spain, Bristol, England and Padua and Milan in Italy physicians have completed the first successful transplant of a human windpipe, using the patient's own stem cells to reduce greatly the chance of rejection.

Preparation included extracting a three inch segment of trachea from an organ donor, "stripping" the trachea of cells from its previous host, removing stem cells from the recipient's bone marrow, growing an ample amount of these stem cells, and incorporating the stem cells into the trachea segment. This graft was used to replace the recipient's damaged windpipe.

This transplant is special for two reasons. There is minimal risk of rejection because the recipient's stem cells replaced the donor's. And, the stem cells were not embryonic stem cells. Many of those opposed to stem cell research object specifically to the use of embryos in the stem cell incubation process.

I am so impressed. Victory!