A few weeks ago I was scrolling through my newsfeed, which is depressingly congested with pointless, uninteresting, boring posts, and I stopped when I came across a picture of a blonde girl posing with her skateboard. The caption was what really caught my eye because it was a quote from the girl saying that she wanted to get a group of skateboarders together to deliver food to the needy some day. I saw that the photograph had come from a Facebook page titled, “Humans of New York”. So I decided to visit the page and see what it was all about.

If you haven’t heard of, or visited this page before, you definitely should! The page is run by a photographer who wanders around the city taking pictures of people that catch his eye. The blurb that explains what the page is about reads, “The photographic census of NYC. One street portrait at a time.” Visiting the page is kind of like being sucked up by a webpage vacuum. I can, and have, fallen into many “Humans of New York” holes where I scroll through all the interesting pictures and read about the individuals that also inhabit this city.

I love this page so much because it’s not at all like a normal census! Not only do you actually get to see the amount of variation that surrounds us, but you also get a feel of what the peoples’ personalities are like because often times the captions will be quotes of the photograph’s subjects, or observations from the photographer. This is one of the best ways to get a feel for who people really are because it’s just random captured moments of peoples lives’. It’s very raw and there’s no room for pretending to be somebody you’re not. It’s incredible how New Yorkers are such a large collection of characters.

https://www.facebook.com/humansofnewyork?fref=ts

HI all–

A reminder that tomorrow, Thursday, October 18, we will have our first LC activity–a screening of a Nova Program & dinner.

We’ll convene at 5PM in Room 404 (17 Lexington Building).

EJK

One of the most famous electronic dance music festivals in world, which takes place in Miami during Miami music week in March has just added another weekend. This is huge news to electronic music fans. Ultra, the record label who produces this music festival kept the second weekend a secret until they released the news on their website a view days ago. The additional weekend will take place on March 15,16 and 17 and the original weekend will span from March 22 to the 24th. This is exciting for music fans everywhere but has some electronic dance music lovers annoyed.

Adding another weekend has people annoyed because they feel as if adding another weekend will take away from the music festival which has traditionally been one weekend for the past 10 years. People are wondering if artists will be performing on both weekends or just one. Taking into account that Ultra tickets are released before the release of the artist lineup people are nervous in buying tickets for a weekend that might not have as good artist as the other one.

Ultra’s release of another weekend for their hit music festival is big news for the movement of electronic dance music as well as big news for its fans. Check out this to give you a better idea of Ultra Music Festival:

I am having a lot of trouble with trying to incorporate my interests and apply them to what we’re doing in class. Everything we did last week I felt was true and that somehow we need to make these blog posts much more interesting, but at this moment, I have no clue what to do. By my next post I hope that I can do a bit more, but as of right now I’m still trying to sort out how to do this. This wil be a challenge for me, but I accept this challenge and will accomplish it.

For now though, I’m gonna talk a bit about Henrietta Lacks so this post has at least a little bit of bioethical material. I found it really interesting that someone else had a similar situation of Henrietta, as discussed in chapter 25. John Moore was also taken advantage of when he had a form of cancer, but he was still alive and could fight it. What I found interesting was even after about 30 years, the same methods were still taking place by doctors, how they continue to take advantage of patients without their knowledge. Its a scary thought that not until recently has ethical procedures been followed, but not without drastic effects on the people before this method changed. The next chapter was even more powerful because it tells of the ill effects of these methods on the many people that were affected by it, mainly Henrietta’s family. Its a powerful chapter that really puts sympathy into the reader but also a mistrust in doctors. Its a scary thought if we cannot trust some of the most highly educated people in our society.

This blog was probably kinda boring, but I accept the challenge to try and make it better in the very near future.

When I first purchased the book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, I didn’t know what to expect. I assumed it would be just another boring book. But as I continue to read I’m drawn to her story. Her journey, her struggle’s, and her strength amazed me. Henrietta remained very strong from what I’ve read so far. It was also interesting reading about the difficulties she faced due to her race which made this whole process so much harder.

A main aspect of this book is the idea that her cells were taken without her consent. Henrietta wasn’t given credit for this discovery until much later on and well after she died. This is something that’s enforced today that the patients knowledge of what the doctors doing to their body, which is why consent forms are presented to each person. I think this was a huge step for medicine and the patients rights. This rather new documentation makes sure the patient is fully aware of whats happening to him/her.

I think

Looking at the woman in the picture what do you see? I see a well dressed, well poised, happy African American woman in a very nice dress suit. The way her hands are on her hips and her feet are parted give an air of confidence and self-assurance. Looking at her feet it seems as if she has a size smaller than she needs. And going up to her waist it seems as if she is a little plump as also shown in her face. However, her legs looks thin maybe resulting from always walking and working. But look at her face. At first glance the smile looks nothing more than a smile portraying happiness. Look at it again closer and not just at the smile but at her eyes too. Now I might just be overseeing things but to me the smile looks forced because of the way her eyes are sort of drooped. Maybe it was just awkward for her keeping the smile while the photo was taken. Maybe that is her natural smile. Maybe this is an illusion since she is looking down. But maybe there is something behind it. And when reading the story there truly is.

We started off the book with the quote from Elie Wiesel and to me it meant that every person is unique because each has a story. And it came as such a shock to discover the big one to Henrietta Lacks.

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words

I must say that reading the first few pages of this book, unlike other assigned books, had me drawn into the novel as a reader. There was just something about it that made reading the pages much easier and interesting. Or it could be just the exhilarating story of this women who i can relate to in some ways going through such a traumatizing experience, which actually is factual and occurred in real life that catches my attention.

The case about doctors retrieving her cells without her permission is something i qualify about. Yes it was wrong to take advantage of her illiteracy but she also became the reason such a medically advancing discovery came about. Yes she died, but her research of her cells did accomplish to save many other lives. Despite of what her result was, due to her cells still alive today, her name will forever be known and precedented to scientists all over therefore immortalizing her existence; which i see no harm in.

The House of the Scorpion is a novel written by Nancy Farmer that tells the story of Matteo Alacran, a young clone who was made for the sole purpose of giving his organs to the original 148 year old Matteo Alacran (known as El Patron), a powerful drug lord who wishes to live as long as possible. A little backstory before i talk about the issue at hand. Matteo (clone) lives in the country of Opium, a strip of land between the United States and Mexico in which  El Patron rules over. The people in the country are mostly immigrants who tried and failed to cross the border, and were implanted with a chip in their brain to make them work without having any free will of their own.

There are many Bioethical issues presented in the novel, the first one being clone rights and which begets the question, are clones people and should they have rights? When you read the book and see the way that the people treat him once they found out he was a clone, it sounds brutal and disgusting. one character in the Alacran House calls him a “filthy beast” and decides that he should be treated as so, locking him in a room with sawdust to use as litter, and such abusive treatment. The Alacran all move to different wings of the house because of the fear that he can contaminate them. This treatment seems harsh to us because we think that people shouldn’t be treated like animals.

I always saw Matt as a person, as a character, and that is what the author aimed to do. Whenever we see Matt, he has emotions and the curiosity of a child, as he is one for the first part of the book. he seems like a normal person and the only difference was that he had a barcode tattoo on his foor. Other than that, there was nothing different about it.

Now the other bioethical issue at hand is the Immigrant workers. These people are forced to work with no free will because of the computer chip in their brain. they are forced to work until they die, and they don’t do anything  unless they are told to. taking someones free will away is no different from killing them in my opinion.

If you are into the idea of clones and that section of bioethics  then this is the book for you! it deals with all those things and it really shows Matteo for what he is, a clone who has ambitions and wants and emotions, just like you or me.

Now the connection to the Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks lies in the idea of what can you use people for. Matteo was bred and used to be harvested for his organs to provide life for El Patron. Henrietta Lack’s cervical cancer cells where harvested to create advances for medical science. My question for you, LC13, is does it make a difference what you use the harvesting for? do the ends really justify the means?