Say Hello

Say hello to Lincoln Donald Hoffart, born on Wednesday May 23 at 4:19 p.m. by cesarean section, and weighing 8 lbs, 6 ozs at 20 1/2 inches long.





We think thus far that he has my eyes, toes, and skin tone, but Mama's cheeks and legs.

Genetic Engineering and Natural Selection

I have for a long time been concerned at the fact that as humans we have all but removed ourselves from the process of natural selection. It turns out that since chimpanzees and humans split from our common ancestor, chimpanzees have had more (in terms of quantity) beneficial mutations than have humans, providing proof that this is the case. Our technology has allowed this to be so, and as technology advances, it becomes more and more the case.

Last night, Laura was reading an article about allergies. They are increasing in prevalence at an alarming rate. There's even an Eskimo (I believe in this case it's an Inupiat) boy who is allergic to bearded seal and something-or-other whale, two staples of their diet. This trend certainly can't be attributed to anything in the environment--it must be that nature would weed out these traits in an unhappy way, by killing off those with the trait before they get a chance to reproduce.

But today this doesn't happen. Now, people die more from unhappy circumstance than from having undesirable traits. I don't believe that we should change this. It seems wrong to let people die when we have the technology to save them. I, for one, would be dead without our advanced medical technology, since I needed an appendectomy at a young age. If you think about it, there's a good chance you would be dead too, even from something as minor as a flu. Plus, I have imperfect vision, which would not be a good trait for a hunter.

I've begun to think of our removal from natural selection as a natural selection strategy in itself. I think about cockroaches and how they've been removed from the process for millions of years simply because there's no reason for them to evolve. But we are different from cockroaches because our technology has actually caused us to deteriorate our gene pool rather than to stagnate it. But what if technology ceases to work as a crutch?

I had previously thought of a partial solution to the problem. I advocate the illegalization of reproductive assistance technology. You know: in vitro fertilization and the like. This would serve the purpose of eliminating from the gene pool those who can't reproduce naturally. I was discussing this with a law school friend about a year ago, and she pointed out that it's not really any different from any of our medical life-saving techniques, at least if applied before reproduction takes place. And as far as that goes, she's right to an extent. It is only a partial solution to the problem. Even so, I still advocate this position for the moral purpose of encouraging adoption. But what is the solution?

Enter the science of genetics. People cringe at the idea of genetic manipulation and the term "designer babies." There's some kind of sense that it's wrong, that it's playing God. But there's nothing we can put our fingers on to say, "Here! This is the reason it's wrong!"

But what if we used this technology for the very limited purpose of eliminating unwanted traits from the gene pool? Instead of engineering the prettiest babies, we'll only be concerned about engineering the healthiest and the fittest babies. Allergies will be a thing of the past. Cancer will be rare. The field of optometry will be an unknown, and spectacles will be curiosities of an age past. Is there anything wrong with that? It's the same thing as what we're doing already by fixing all of our problems, only it's one step better because we're preventing them from happening in the first place.

Now, I'm not really sure how you do this without using the reproductive technology that we already have. Perhaps you can't, and in such a case I would consider changing my position on that. But if people accept this position on moral grounds, then we may see the solution to one of mankind's biggest upcoming problems, and by the end of my lifetime. Before that we of course need to solve our energy issues and global warming, and then after this we can send people off to colonize other planets (I was pretty excited about the discovery of that possibly-inhabitable planet a mere 23 light years away).

So, is this moral position correct?

Edgar to be in the News

Well, it sounds like my wife's hometown of Edgar, Nebraska, is going to be in the local news. In this small town of 500, there was a murder-suicide in the bar just last night--and the victim lived across the street from my in-laws. As I understand it, the motive was that the victim was messing around with the perpetrator's wife.

The Internet Sure Is Faster These Days

I finally got this e-mail that was sent on December 17, 1960 (which, incidentally, was my negative 45th anniversary). I guess back in those days the Internet was a lot slower, and when it has to cross the Pacific Ocean it took even longer. It also appears that the 'net is going to get even faster in the future--I've gotten a lot of e-mails today that won't even be sent until January 18, 2038. Isn't it amazing how much technology can improve in just 78 years!

Happy Twenty-Fifth Birthday . . .

. . . to me!

My First Book!

I'm pleased to announce the availability of my first-ever book! It's eighty pages long, with over ninety of my best and most popular photos in it, and right now it costs $24.99 in softcover or $38.49 in hardcover. And I'm pretty pleased with the quality too. If you've been wanting to buy one of my photos and just didn't know which one to get, this is for you. Or, maybe you just want something new on your coffee table or in your office's waiting room. Anyway, at least give it a look--on the Blurb web site you can see the first 15 pages in a reduced resolution PDF file, and you could also find out how to make your own book if you want.

What are you waiting for? Check it out!

Here are some pictures of my softcover copy of the book (I've got some hardcovers coming in the mail real soon):

This just in . . .

I passed the bar!

American Idol

I think we can all safely never again use the word "douchebag," and we can forever more use the word "sanjaya." Laura said of his performance last night that he looked like "a 13 year old in front of his stupid-ass webcam." I just hope he's an organ donor, because that would be the most good he could ever do for anyone. He picked a great song and did it completely wrong. The sad thing is that the judges actually seemed to like it (except for Simon).
Another one worth mentioning is Gina Glocksen. She also picked a great song--"Paint It Black"--and completely ruined it. I can't help but think that the whole "rocker chick" thing is a facade, because it's just not believable. She looked and sounded like a drunk chick at a karaoke bar last night, and after hearing Sanjaya and then Gina both destroying perfectly good songs, I remarked casually that I was "going to go drown myself in the toilet."

Why doesn't everyone just vote for Melinda Doolittle? She is incredibly talented. While for the past two weeks she has picked terrible songs, she has always completely nailed them down and made them quite listenable. If everyone voted for the best only, she would win next week because nobody else would get any votes.
Of course, that kind of thing won't happen, since I don't vote and there are probably a million other people that are thinking the same thing that also aren't voting.
I should probably also mention Blake Lewis. I get the feeling that regardless of the results, he is going to be the most successful of the contestants this year in terms of record sales and career longevity. Laura said she would actually buy his album if he came out with one (and I'm sure he will). He's certainly quite talented at rearranging existing songs, so I suppose he could probably write pretty well too.

Mosel-Brummels Wedding

My good friend Crystal Mosel (now Crystal Brummels) got married this last weekend (to a good guy named Peter Brummels), and I had the enjoyable job of taking candid shots throughout much of the hubbub, using my parents' Canon Powershot S3 IS. I posted a few others over at my photoblog here and here, but just for fun here are a bunch more:


Here's the groom, Peter Brummels, giving a speech at the rehearsal.


And here is the lovely bride surveying the chaos of getting the reception hall ready.


The bride, a teacher, posing with her bridesmaids (my 7-months pregnant wife Laura is on the far left, and the others are all college friends of ours--Tina Bentley, a teacher who drove all the way from Idaho, is next to Laura, Sarah Scherer, also a teacher and my wife's former roommate, is on the far right, and Molly George, a med-tech, is in the center--apologies if I misspelled anyone's name).


The bride and her mother.


I showed this to everyone else in the room first and got a laugh, and when I showed it to Molly she insisted on immediate deletion of the offending image. I'm posting it here for the world to see now, just for fun.

:)


Sarah getting her hair sprayed and ready for action!


The soloist, Liz Gaunt (also an alumnus of Concordia University in Seward) and her son (Isaiah or Isaac, I can't remember for sure) reacting to the conversation.


Crystal and her dog Augustus, better known as Gus.


There were many, many such bottles at the reception dinner. They provided well for us all!


The best man, Peter's brother, giving his obligatory speech.


And finally, the happy couple! Thanks much to them for letting us be a part of it all (I was also an usher). Three cheers!

Korn: MTV Unpluged

You might think that a Korn unplugged album sounds like a bad idea. And I did too, before I heard "Freak on a Leash," featuring Amy Lee (of Evanescence), on the radio yesterday. Then, I knew for certain that it was a bad idea. It hits stores on March 6, but if you value your money, you'll avoid this one like the plague. Look, I'm a big fan of Korn, but their music just doesn't translate well into acoustic. Not only that, but Amy Lee's voice doesn't blend well with Jonathan Davis's voice. It's just overall a bad idea, and it sounds like it was poorly executed as well.