There is a Chinese story of a farmer who used an old horse to till his fields. One day, the horse escaped into the hills and when the farmer's neighbors sympathized with the old man over his bad luck, the farmer replied, "Bad luck? Good luck? Who knows?" A week later, the horse returned with a herd of horses from the hills and this time the neighbors congratulated the farmer on his good luck. His reply was, "Good luck? Bad luck? Who knows?"
Then, when the farmer's son was attempting to tame one of the wild horses, he fell off its back and broke his leg. Everyone thought this very bad luck. Not the farmer, whose only reaction was, "Bad luck? Good luck? Who knows?"
Some weeks later, the army marched into the village and conscripted every able-bodied youth they found there. When they saw the farmer's son with his broken leg, they let him off. Now was that good luck or bad luck?
Who knows?
-Anonymous
At some point, unless the spread of the virus is contained, everyone alive will have HIV. I suspect that our ability to treat it will allow us to live longer lives, and let us be able to produce children, who in turn have HIV. Given a long enough period of time those who cope with the effects of the virus will live longer and be more likely to produce children, who in turn will show resiliance to the virus. After enough time the virus may not noticably affect people anymore.
I wonder how many times in history that a virus has infected an entire population and it both the population and virus still survived. Would there be DNA or mitochondrial evidence left behind of our relationship with a virus?
This post is in response to the front page article the Expositor did confirming that Walgreens will be coming to Sparta. This is close to my heart for many reasons, and those of you who know me know why.
Mayor Tommy Pedigo, the same good ol' boy who takes care of my car insurance was quick to point out "I think it's just another source of proof... we have that Sparta is on the move, these corporate decisions (by companies) like Walgreens, (and) Rite Aid... is faith in our community that we are growing and there is a big future in small towns like Sparta."
Way to spin it Tommy! Walgreens and Rite-Aid both take advantage of all the people on Tenncare or Medicare Part D, which is around 65-70% of the county's population. That alone ensures profit from a store that has high traffic. But this is a good thing for the local Sparta economy, because those hard workers in Memphis, Knoxville, Nashville and Chattanooga will be turning their tax dollars into healthcare, which turns into jobs and cash for the little town economies across the state.
I'll certainly agree it's the greatest piece of real-estate in the entire town and I'm excited for what it can do for the Sparta economy and appearance. It will look good to get the old destitute buildings removed and put in a fresh building that will be maintained.
If only we can do something now about the old Sonic...
http://www.spartaexpositor.com/newsdetail.asp?ArticleID=1578
At first, I must admit I was disappointed that Dr. Stapor's promises that people would get quite animated, agitated, excited, and that we may see shouting matches, books being thrown against the ground and perhaps people will storm from the lecture hall, didn't come true; in retrospect I think it was better that they didn't storm.
Michael Shermer was the most diplomatic skeptic I have seen. His speech disarmed those who may have come to dispute creationism, or intelligent design - he wasn't waging an open war against them. In that lies the beauty of his presentation. It was reminiscent of many examples I read in Sagan's Demon Haunted World, but with a twist of Penn and Teller (friends of Shermers).
Throughout an hour and a half discourse on how we make up our minds and perceive the world with bias he convinced us how foolish we can be by such methods as humor, stage magic, and psychology. His methods were superior to what I expected, which would have only galvanized the camps as for or against him. What he did was a to gently coax the pseudo-scientists, creationists, and lay-folk, even even those among us who are already critical, to be more skeptical.
http://www.tntech.edu/publicaffairs/rel/2006/nov06/shermer.html
Thanks to those who helped me catch this stuff on photo. Wanda and Dave both did a great job! Sorry there are so many thumbnails, I tried to trim it down, but there was just too much fun stuff going on.
                                                                                                                                     
I think that most people who know me know exactly why this weekend was so exhausting. That said, it was probably the most fun I've had in a long time. For those who are out of the loop, Russell Lack and Deana Scott officially tied the knot November fourth.
I'll not keep you waiting much more for the pictures. I've stayed up tonight 'till almost 2am formatting pictures for presentation on the web. Next I'll have to thumbnail them, upload them, and write a page.
Check back over the next few days, I'm sure something will turn up.
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