Somewhere in next week’s issue of the Town Pages, and I'm not going to tell you where, is a story I wrote 10 years ago this month. It is the first story I ever wrote for this newspaper. Actually, it's the first story I wrote for any newspaper. I strongly recommend you not read it. It is not what the kids these days would call competent.
On the level of things that should never been issued for public consumption I'd rank it somewhere between those first-day performers everyone likes to laugh at on American Idol and Britney Spears at the MTV Video Music Awards. I like to think that in the decade since I've progressed at least to the level of contestants on one of those karaoke shows that has been airing over the summer.
I don't mention this story, which I wrote about a new contract for District 196 teachers and nurses on my first day at work in September of 1997, because I think it's somehow a milestone worth recognizing. I don't have a lot of fond memories of that story, beyond the fact it was the start of what has turned into a surprisingly long and mostly happy association with the city of Rosemount. Mostly what I remember is walking into our office for my first day of work having never so much as taken a journalism class and having the guy who owned the paper at the time keep threatening as the day went on to send me to a school board meeting. It’s not that I was diametrically opposed to attending a school board meeting — having never been to one I didn’t know better. But I felt a little sick that day and, you know, really didn’t have any idea what I was doing. The story I ultimately produced might be the most enthusiastic story ever written about what was essentially a straightforward approval of a new contract. I know District 196 has lots of excellent teachers. I’m just not sure I needed to mention that 34 times in the space of three paragraphs.
Like I said, the story's not very good. And while reading the small part of it reprinted this week would not take long, there are definitely better ways to use that time. Go for a walk. Watch some of the exciting new programs premiering now as part of network television's fall season. Read to your children. Just, you know, don't read them the story. Trust me, this is one of those rare instances where a parent reading to a child could actually hamper that child's academic progress.
Mostly, seeing that story pop up again reminds me I've been here for a long freaking time. It's a realization I have from time to time. I had it a few years ago when a group of seventh graders with whom I traveled to southern Minnesota my first year on the job graduated from high school. I had it again more recently when I realized those same students are now going into their senior year of college. I can only imagine how I'll feel when I start writing stories about their kids. Do you think it'd be weird if I started out by mentioning I once played kickball with their dad?
There are people working in this office now who were in middle school in September of 1997.
A lot has changed since I wrote that first story. Roads that dead-ended in corn fields in 1997 now wind through fully developed neighborhoods. Fields that used to be empty are now filled with houses. In some cases, developments have been planned three or four times for the same property.
The city of Rosemount has changed administrators since I've been here, and the Independent School District 196 has hired a new superintendent.
The District 196 School Board has been remarkably stable in the years since I started covering meetings. Five of those original seven members are still on the board. Things are different at city hall, though, where there has been a complete turnover among city council members. I'm starting to worry it's something I said.
In the grand scheme of things, of course, 10 years isn't all that long. In geological terms a decade is nothing. Lots of people have done their jobs longer than 10 years. I should know. I've written stories about them.
Maybe I'll even let you read them.
Friday, September 21, 2007
When B movies attack
Remember that movie The Island of Dr. Moreau. Probably not. I don't think it was very good. I don't mean the one that came out in the 70s. This one came out, like, 10 years ago. Based on an H.G. Wells story. It starred Marlon Brando, possibly in the first role he filmed after his death, and Val Kilmer. I think. I didn't see it, either. Like I said, I don't think it was very good.
Anyway, the movie's about this crazy scientist (Marlon Brando's possibly decomposing corpse) who lives on an island filled with bizarre human-animal hybrids of his own creation. Then things go wrong. No. Not that one. You're thinking of Annie Hall.
Anyway, that's all apparently happening now. According to the BBC, regulators in Britain have cleared the way for the use of human-animal hybrids for stem cell research. I don't think Marlon Brando is involved, but somehow that only makes things a little bit less creepy.
There's a reason for all this mad science. Scientists plan to fuse human cells with animal eggs for the purpose of extracting stem cells, which can then, at least in theory, be used to create cures for everything from Alzheimer's to athlete's foot. The embryos created by these science experiments — which sound a lot like something that started with two scientists who'd spent one too many Friday nights together in the lab daring each other to create dogs with human ears or ducks with stylish pompadours — will be destroyed when the stem cells are extracted. Long before they have the chance to gestate into full-fledged freaks of nature.
Actually, this kind of hot human-cell-on-animal-cell action isn't exactly new. Just look at Vin Diesel.
According to a January 2005 National Geographic story Chinese scientists in 2003 fused human cells with rabbit eggs. Oddly enough, this bunny boy would have been born in the year of the ram.
At the time the article was written scientists at Stanford were considering creating mice with human brains, presumably to win some maze-related bet. And in 2004 scientists at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester created a pig with human blood running through its veins. I've never been so conflicted about eating bacon.
British researcher Lyle Armstrong was in favor of his government's decision, although he admitted some people might now live in fear of our eventual overthrow by an army of super-smart, super-agile man-squirrels.
"It's not our intention to create any bizarre cow-human hybrid," Armstrong told the BBC. "We want to use those cells to understand how to make human stem cells better."
Others, of course, are less excited. One protester complained such hybrids harm the dignity of man and animal like. Honestly, though, I've been on a cattle drive. You will never convince me a cow has dignity.
I have mixed feelings about the whole thing. I will always be a little bit more wary now about the chances there will be a freakish human-octopus waiting for me around the next corner, tentacles flailing and hungry for blood. On the other hand, it's hard not to get excited about when the plots from bad movies start to become reality.
I'm hoping Plan 9 from Outer Space is next.
Anyway, the movie's about this crazy scientist (Marlon Brando's possibly decomposing corpse) who lives on an island filled with bizarre human-animal hybrids of his own creation. Then things go wrong. No. Not that one. You're thinking of Annie Hall.
Anyway, that's all apparently happening now. According to the BBC, regulators in Britain have cleared the way for the use of human-animal hybrids for stem cell research. I don't think Marlon Brando is involved, but somehow that only makes things a little bit less creepy.
There's a reason for all this mad science. Scientists plan to fuse human cells with animal eggs for the purpose of extracting stem cells, which can then, at least in theory, be used to create cures for everything from Alzheimer's to athlete's foot. The embryos created by these science experiments — which sound a lot like something that started with two scientists who'd spent one too many Friday nights together in the lab daring each other to create dogs with human ears or ducks with stylish pompadours — will be destroyed when the stem cells are extracted. Long before they have the chance to gestate into full-fledged freaks of nature.
Actually, this kind of hot human-cell-on-animal-cell action isn't exactly new. Just look at Vin Diesel.
According to a January 2005 National Geographic story Chinese scientists in 2003 fused human cells with rabbit eggs. Oddly enough, this bunny boy would have been born in the year of the ram.
At the time the article was written scientists at Stanford were considering creating mice with human brains, presumably to win some maze-related bet. And in 2004 scientists at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester created a pig with human blood running through its veins. I've never been so conflicted about eating bacon.
British researcher Lyle Armstrong was in favor of his government's decision, although he admitted some people might now live in fear of our eventual overthrow by an army of super-smart, super-agile man-squirrels.
"It's not our intention to create any bizarre cow-human hybrid," Armstrong told the BBC. "We want to use those cells to understand how to make human stem cells better."
Others, of course, are less excited. One protester complained such hybrids harm the dignity of man and animal like. Honestly, though, I've been on a cattle drive. You will never convince me a cow has dignity.
I have mixed feelings about the whole thing. I will always be a little bit more wary now about the chances there will be a freakish human-octopus waiting for me around the next corner, tentacles flailing and hungry for blood. On the other hand, it's hard not to get excited about when the plots from bad movies start to become reality.
I'm hoping Plan 9 from Outer Space is next.
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