WA2K Radio is now on the air

Lots of educational stuff here today. I'll just sneak the Birthday Celebrities inbetween here.

Born on this 18 of February:

1859 Sholem Aleichem (Solomon Rabinowitz), author/humorist (Russia; died 1916)
1892 Wendell Willkie, lawyer, executive, and presidential candidate (Elwood, IN; died 1944)
1920 Jack Palance, actor (Lattimer, PA)
1922 Helen Gurley Brown, author/publisher (Green Forest, AR)
1925 George Kennedy, actor (New York, NY)
1931 Toni Morrison, novelist (Lorain, OH)
1932 Milos Forman, director (Caslav, Czechoslovakia)
1933 Yoko Ono, artist, musician, and widow of John Lennon (Tokyo, Japan)
1949 Cybill Shepherd, actress (Memphis, TN)
1950 John Hughes, producer/director (Lansing, MI)
1954 John Travolta, actor (Englewood, NJ)
1957 Vanna White, TV personality (North Myrtle Beach, SC)
1964 Matt Dillon, actor (New Rochelle, NY)
1968 Molly Ringwald, actress (Roseville, CA)


Happy Birthday Jack. This is how I remember you when we had such a pleasant elevator ride and chat afterwards in the hotel library.

"A British philosophy professor who has been a leading champion of atheism for more than a half-century has changed his mind. He now believes in God more or less based on scientific evidence, and says so on a video released Thursday.

At age 81, after decades of insisting belief is a mistake, Antony Flew has concluded that some sort of intelligence or first cause must have created the universe. A super-intelligence is the only good explanation for the origin of life and the complexity of nature, Flew said in a telephone interview from England"


"Knock-knock-knocking on heaven's door...."

Indeed McTag, that is probably the case here! A ''super-intelligence''? What's wrong with the Big Bang?

Ah, Raggedy, Jack Palance. Saw him do Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Palance is an actor who began his career as a villain, and moved into serious and humorous roles.

Thanks, McTag and Wales for the double info on Prof. Flew. Hee hee!

Now time for a more modern song, may I introduce the Scissor Sisters with Laura:

Laura can't you give me some time?
I've got to give myself one more chance
To be the man that I know I am.
To be the man that I know I am.
Won't you just tell Cincinatti?
I'm gonna need you're love.
Don't you give me you're love.
Don't you give me you're

Come on. Come on.
Where is you're love?
Don't you give me you're love.
Don't you give me you're
Come on. Come on.
Where is you're love?
Don't you give me you're love.
Don't you give me you're love!

Hmmm, Wales. Don't know the Scissor Sisters, but the name is alliterative, and I like that.

Since C.I. is not here to give us an update on medical news, I think many of us would be interested to know the following, listeners:

Scientists Map Important Gene Variation

Published: 2/17/05







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WASHINGTON (AP) - In a major step toward one day offering gene-based customized medicine, scientists on Thursday unveiled the first map of common human genetic variations - patterns of DNA differences that may help forecast people's disease risks and best treatments.

This map, created by California-based Perlegen Sciences Inc., is essentially the first chapter in the quest to identify tiny bits of genetic information, known as SNPs or "snips", believed key in creating gene-based medicine. A more detailed version is expected later this year.

"It is a dramatic advance," said Barbara Jasny, a senior editor at the journal Science, which published the research Thursday. The study also was presented at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Public health experts view it "with a lot of excitement," agreed Lawrence Lesko, who heads the Food and Drug Administration's division of gene-based medicine.

Even unrelated people share DNA that is 99.9 percent similar. Variations in that last remaining bit are what make us individual, determining traits from our hair color to our risk of different diseases.

Until now, most genetics breakthroughs have come when a mutation in a single gene causes illness. But the most common health problems, such as heart disease, diabetes or depression, are caused by complex interactions between numerous genes and environmental or behavioral risks. Teasing out the genetic culprits under such conditions has been almost impossible.

Enter SNPs, single-nucleotide polymorphisms. DNA is made up of precise orders of chemicals identified with the letters A, T, C or G. SNPs are the most common type of genetic variation, sort of a spelling error - one of those letters gets out of order.

Even that tiny a difference may have profound effects.

Consider Lesko's example: Only a fraction of smokers get lung cancer, and only about 10 percent of those patients respond to lung-cancer therapy - but no one knows why, or can predict who will be the unlucky.

SNPs may hold some of those answers. The SNP map, Lesko said, gives scientists a way to study such questions and design better drug treatment.

Perlegen scientists examined the DNA of 71 Americans of European, African or Chinese ancestry, and identified 1.58 million SNPs - most of them shared across the three populations.

They're a fraction of the estimated 10 million SNPs thought to exist. But they appear to be the most common ones, said lead researcher David R. Cox.

The map does not say which SNPs cause various physical or disease-related traits.

But Perlegen, of Mountain View, Calif., is making the map available for free to other scientists to study that. Cox suggested that they compare the DNA of 400 people with high blood pressure helped by standard medicines and 400 hard-to-treat patients. A handful of SNPs may account for that variability. Once doctors know that, a simple blood test might tell them which patient should be prescribed which drug.

The goal is "to be able to use genetic information in a practical way ... while I'm still alive," Cox said, alluding to the slow progress toward gene-based medicine.

The work "is clearly exciting," said geneticist David Altshuler of the Broad Institute of Harvard and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. But he cautioned that there's no guarantee SNPs will usher in such personalized medicine, because genes aren't the only things that determine drug response.

A second version of the map, due out later this year, will contain many more SNPs. It comes from the International HapMap Project, a collaboration of government and private scientists to map patterns of genetic variation found in 270 people from Nigeria, Japan and China and Americans of European ancestry.

Researchers' goal is to be inclusive, hunting genetic variation among multiple populations because geography and ethnicity can affect people's risks for certain diseases.

But finding different SNP variations in different populations is not a biological definition of race, Cox cautioned.

Even cautious Cox is politically correct.

I'm just average, common too
I'm just like him, the same as you
I'm everybody's brother and son
I ain't different from anyone
It ain't no use a-talking to me
It's just the same as talking to you.

You know, dys. I read that three times. Cracker barrel philosophy is the keenest and most applicable, I think.

cracker barrel, diane kinda likes eating at those ( I don't like them myself) anyway we were eating breakfast at one somewhere on the road to perdition, and I went over and looked at a quilt hanhing on the wall (for sale) and the tag on it said "made in china" so I turned to the waitperson and asked "would that be an heirloom?" Diane pretended she didn't know me.

It used to be that everything was made in Japan.

I love delft blue china, however;

Does anyone here know the stories that are painted on Blue Willow dishes?

Dys, You tell Diane that it takes one to know one. Or, if you want to be eloquent, simply say, "It is difficult to find faults in others that we don't already possess ourselves."

Back later, folks.

and now, listeners, some very interesting history, and well worth the hearing:




by Mary L. Stollard
Nearly every home in our country contains a specimen of some kind of the famous willow pattern ware.

For nearly two centuries, it has been one of the most popular of china designs, and many of us as children have gazed entranced at the quaint little figures of the familiar willow pattern jingle -

'Two birds flying high,
A Chinese vessel, sailing by.
A bridge with three men, sometimes four,
A willow tree, hanging o'er.
A Chinese temple, there it stands,
Built upon the river sands.
An apple tree, with apples on,
A crooked fence to end my song.'

variations on Willow Poems

Yet even today, many people have never heard the true story of the willow pattern.

It tells of Knoon-shee, a lovely Chinese maiden, whose affections were bestowed upon her father's secretary, Chang, but who was commanded by her parents to wed a wealthy rival suitor.

She refused to comply with their wishes, whereupon her enraged father locked her up in the little house just visible on the left of the temple. From here she contrived to send a message to her lover, 'Gather thy blossom, ere it be stolen.' Thus encouraged, Chang succeeded in entering the apple orchard and carrying off his beloved. So we see them hurrying over the bridge. Knoon-shee with a distaff, and Chang carrying her box of jewels, while the angry father follows hard after them armed with a whip - in some patterns also accompanied by the discarded lover.

The couple made good their escape in the 'Chinese ship sailing by' and landed on the island, which can be seen on the left of the picture, where they took refuge in the little wooden house. But the father and discarded suitor tracked them and set fire to the house while they were sleeping; and so the lovers perished.

Next morning, from the ashes rose their spirits, in the forms of two doves. And so we see them with out-stretched wings flying off to the realms of eternal happiness.

No one knows the origin of this story. It was told in China more than a thousand years ago and brought over to our country from Eastern lands by the Crusaders.

The willow pattern, as we know it today, was designed by one Thomas Minton about 1780, and brought from him by Thomas Turner, a famous potter and manager of Shropshire pottery.

At that time the craze for collecting souvenirs from the east was at its height and this dainty little design, so typical of Chinese people, instantly became popular. It was copied, with some variations, by other potters and, though at first sight all willow patterns look alike, the different makes can be distinguished by various small details, such as the number of apples, the figures on the bridge, and the design of the crooked fence.

All early potters, however, used the same shade of cobalt blue, and though we have since had many other shades of lighter and darker tones, even browns or blacks, the original cobalt blue has always remained first favourite.

Few other makes of china are more attractive than a really good specimens of willow pattern, with their exquisite markings and minute detail carefully and accurately copied.. On the other hand, nothing can be more depressing than mass produced imitations.

I vividly recall my Blue Willow doll dishes.

After reading your lovely story, Letty, I wish I had a willow pattern in my home.
And I must add, I am not into Gothic.

having lived alone virtually all of my adult life, my preference for dinnerware is a double sink near the fridge.

, straight out of the can, no fuss, no muss

Very nice, Letty.
A sink, dys? I remember seeing one of those. I think it's underneath all of the dishes next to the fridge.
The next time I go to a board of directors meeting of Pizza Hut I'm going to suggest that they, I mean we, print a nice design on the inside of the cover of the box so we can pretend to be eating off of fine china.

Raggedy, I merely thought that Panz's fortress like school might remind you of Wuthering Heights. I am the same way to a point, but there is something about old structures that haunts me in a spiritual way.

ah, dys, bet Diane has changed all that, no?

dj, bachelors are very pragmatic. My dad was the same way, and he was married until he died.

I realize, listeners, that having a sixth sense, synchronicity, call it what you like is spurned by many, but science is paying closer attention to it since the tsunami

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=97&ncid=97&e=8&u=/hsn/20050218/hl_hsn/sciencepointstoasixthsense

When I get the nerve, I will post the strange message that concerned my brother. Although is was orally told to me by my mother, I simply know that it was real.

Dear Letty: I knew what you meant. I just did not want it to be nationally broadcast that my hopeless romanticism leans toward Gothic.

Now to read what the scientists have to say, although I doubt they know anymore about the sixth sense, ESP, synchronicity/whatever phenomena than you or I do, but I certainly appreciate their continuing efforts to explain it. The whole truth is that if you've got it, there's not a darn thing anybody can do about it. (There, I've said it and I'm glad.)

I'm glad that you said it as well, Raggedy.

John of Virginia, perhaps men don't care about such things, and at this point in my life, I don't either, but there is something about the effort that artisans have put into their craft that we must appreciate. I still think about John Galworthy's "Quality". I don't think that anyone in today's world would go that far, but there are those whose lives are filled with a passion to create regardless of the consequences.

If only I could write poetry again. It was my biggest outlet.

Thank you, all, for coming here and contributing, and McTag is about as much a prima donna as a the dog that won best in show. <smile>

With love from Letty who grows quite mushy at the even tide.

what time's the bar open here? i'm getting kinda thirsty.

Good morning, WA2K listeners.

(er, Mikey, I think the party's over. )

Some very depressing news about our Cavfancier, folks. He had to return to the hospital. Please hold good thoughts for him, and if you're inclined to do so, say a payer.