My first blog - Why Journalists are like Jedis

My very first blog, courtesy of a homework assignment. I never figured I'd ever have a teacher who knew what a blog is!

I'm a great Star Wars fan. I have always wanted to be a Jedi Knight. Jedi are the Guardians of Peace and Justice throughout the Galaxy. How cool is that? They are like Journalists, the Guardians of Truth throughout the Galaxy. I could be, like, a combination, and get the best of both worlds.

...And as any Jourdi Knight knows, "Truth" is really just one person's point of view. What I want to share is someone else's Truth... you guessed it... their blog!

PZ Myers, who claims to be a professor at the University of Minnesota, wrote this blog on President Bush's State of the Union address --specifically, the section asking Congress to outlaw human cloning and creating human-animal hybrids.

To quote: [Bush is] trusting that everyone will think he is banning monstrous crimes against nature, but what he's really doing is targeting the weak and the ill, blocking useful avenues of research that are specifically designed to help us understand human afflictions. His message isn't "We aren't going to let the mad scientists make monsters!", it's "We aren't going to let the doctors help those 'retards.'"

There is a link to this blog from Slashdot, which also has some lively and interesting comments on the issue... Everything from obligatory Bush animalism comments to more intellectual moral debates.

"Why is this issue a newsworthy one?" I can hear Professor Fox asking. Here's what I think. State of the Union address=timely. Technology being censored=important issue to my generation. A blog=good news delivery. Polls show that people my age (22) prefer their news delivered with a twist of opinion.

In general, I say humanity can't be trusted with human genes. But on the other hand, research could lead to farming human organs so that no one has to go on a waiting list any more. I'm all for that. GATICA doesn't sound like such a great future, but in a way it has a lot of appeal...

I'd love to see how J130 students feel about cloning and chimeras. What do you think?