Cullinane Journal 2004 July 16-31

From the journal of Steven H. Cullinane... 2004 July 16-31

Saturday, July 31, 2004 4:01 PM

It's Alive!

"People once worried about the boundary between the living and the nonliving. Today, the boundary seems meaningless...."

-- Attributed to Francis Crick
(now among the nonliving)

Opening of
the above novel:

"My name is David Tennant, M.D.
I'm professor of ethics at the
University of Virginia Medical School,
and if you're watching
this tape, I'm dead."

From a public-relations newsletter
of the University of Southern California's
Health Sciences Campus
dated April 20, 2001:

Discussing the Ethics
of Frankenstein

W. French Anderson, the physician and scientist who carried out the first human gene therapy clinical trial, will discuss the ethical issues involved in human genetic engineering and how science fiction has shaped the public's perception of this budding new technology, Thursday, May 3, at noon, in USC's Mayer Auditorium.

The lecture, titled "Frankenstein, GATTACA and Gene Therapy," is free and open to the public. Mayer Auditorium is located on USC's Health Sciences campus.

In his talk, Anderson will analyze the book Frankenstein and its filmic progeny and discuss how the Frankenstein story has captured the public's imagination. He will also examine the ethical and moral issues raised by the book and movies and address the charge that, like Dr. Frankenstein, today geneticists are attempting to play God.

Anderson will evaluate the 1997 movie GATTACA, a cautionary tale about injustice in a 21st century society run by genetically "superior" elites. Anderson, who was a scientific consultant for the movie and is now proposing to carry out the first in utero gene therapy trial, will discuss the impact of GATTACA on the public's understanding of genetic engineering.

See also the previous entry,
on Anderson's arrest Friday
on charges of child molestation.

For the origin of the title GATTACA,
see The Diamond Code.

Saturday, July 31, 2004 5:31 AM

Advanced French

L. A. Daily News,
Friday, July 30, 2004,
7:59 PM PST

An internationally lauded USC medical professor known as the "father of gene therapy" was being held Friday on $6 million bail after being charged with sexually molesting a young girl, authorities said.

Dr. William French Anderson, 67, director of the Gene Therapy Laboratory at the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine, was arrested at 8:40 a.m. Friday at his San Marino home. The school immediately placed him on administrative leave.

Anderson, known as "French," was charged with one count of continuous sexual abuse of a child and five counts of a lewd act upon a child.

This accusation may, of course, have roots in political or religious fanaticism, even though gene therapy is less controversial than other aspects of genetic engineering. For reasons why some feel strongly about this area of research, see the remarks of Francis Crick in a Thursday Log24 entry.

Saturday, July 31, 2004 3:00 AM

For the Feast of St. Ignatius Loyola:

In God's Name

"If Trinity is everything you say it is," she said, "then why in God's name would it be based in North Carolina?"

This I hadn't expected. "Aren't you the top Jungian analyst in the world?"

"Well... one of them."

"Why are you based in North Carolina?"

-- The Footprints of God

Nell

"Remembering speechlessly we seek the great forgotten language, the lost lane-end into heaven, a stone, a leaf, an unfound door. Where? When?"

-- Thomas Wolfe

Thursday, July 29, 2004 4:01 PM

The Fullness of Time

In memory of Francis Crick, co-discoverer of the structure of DNA, who died yesterday:

"Having solved one of the basic mysteries of life here on Earth, Dr. Crick seems happy to skewer any notions of a life beyond. For him, the most profound implication of an operational understanding of consciousness is that 'it will lead to the death of the soul.'

'The view of ourselves as "persons" is just as erroneous as the view that the Sun goes around the Earth,' he said. He predicted that 'this sort of language will disappear in a few hundred years.'

'In the fullness of time,' he continued, 'educated people will believe there is no soul independent of the body, and hence no life after death.'"

-- "After the Double Helix: Unraveling the Mysteries of the State of Being," by Margaret Wertheim in The New York Times of April 13, 2004

Thursday, July 29, 2004 4:09 AM

In loving memory of
Fred "Bubba" LaRue,
architect of Nixon's
"southern strategy" --

Part of a Log24 entry
for Saturday, July 24,
LaRue's apparent
date of death --

Southern
Strategy
Galore:

The Agony
and the Ecstasy

and

a mandorla,
symbol of the Episcopal
Diocese of South Carolina.

The New York Times quotes
LaRue's son as saying,
"His heart failed while he was
reading a book."
The title is unknown.

Wednesday, July 28, 2004 4:31 PM

Get Your Ticket

Miami Herald:

Posted on Wed., July 28, 2004

Ex-N.H. GOP Director
Pleads Guilty

by Holly Ramer, Associated Press

CONCORD, N.H. - The former director of the New Hampshire Republican Party pleaded guilty Wednesday to jamming Democratic phone banks on Election Day 2002.

Chuck McGee was accused of arranging to have hundreds of hang-up calls made to phone lines that were installed to help voters get rides to the polls. Among the contests decided that day was the close Senate race in which Republican Rep. John Sununu beat Democratic Gov. Jeanne Shaheen.

From a Log24 entry
on Election Day 2002--
Tuesday, November 5:

Well if you want to ride
you gotta ride it like you find it.
Get your ticket at the station
of the Rock Island Line.

The Rock Island Line's namesake depot
in Rock Island, Illinois For more Rock Island music, click on
the picture at the top of this entry.

Wednesday, July 28, 2004 1:00 PM

The Freshmen, Part II

From the Daily Princetonian,
Feb. 3, 2004:

Caption: Cate Edwards' Princeton friends support her and her father.

"... when Sen. John Edwards, father of Cate Edwards '04, decided to run for president, the troop of 17 students sacrificed tans and theses to pile into a fleet of minivans headed to New Hampshire....

These volunteers... were on a first name basis with the man who had helped them move into freshman dorm rooms and had discussed Senate votes with them over Chinese food."

Log24 May 22, 2004:

From Chuck Polisher's
I Ching Lexicon:

"It's claimed that
if you take a mirror
and look backwards
into a well,
you'll see your future
down in the water."

-- Cold Mountain,
Vintage paperback, 1998,
page 48

"Goin' to Carolina in my mind..."
-- James Taylor

Wednesday, July 28, 2004 2:56 AM

End of an Era?

"To put it simply, in those days we had
leadership, respect, discipline."

-- Carmine De Sapio

Click on screenshot for details.

Tuesday, July 27, 2004 4:07 AM

4:07

Note added on 7/28 at 5:01 AM:

See also Joyce's definition of "epiphany."

Monday, July 26, 2004 11:07 PM

Happy Birthday

to Kate Beckinsale
(star of Cold Comfort Farm)

and Kevin Spacey
(star of The Usual Suspects).

From a novel,
The Footprints of God,
published August 12, 2003 --

A tour guide describes
stations of the cross in Jerusalem:

"Ibrahim pointed down the cobbled street to a half circle of bricks set in the street. 'There is where Jesus began to carry the cross. Down the street is the Chapel of Flagellation, where the Roman soldiers whipped Jesus, set on him a crown of thorns, and said, "Hail, King of the Jews!" Then Pilate led him to the crowd and cried, "Ecce homo! Behold the man!"'

Ibrahim delivered this information with the excitement of a man reading bingo numbers in a nursing home."

In keeping with this spirit of religious fervor and with the spirit of Carl Jung, expositor of the religious significance of the mandala,

Behold --

The Mandala of Abraham

For the religious significance of this mandala, see an entry of May 25, 2003:

Matrix of the Death God.

Monday, July 26, 2004 7:20 PM

Happy Birthday,
Carl Jung

Jung in Von Franz's
Psyche and Matter, p. 85:
"What the formula can only hint at is the higher plane that is reached through the process of transformation.... The change consists in an unfolding of totality into four parts four times, which means nothing less than its becoming conscious."
Jung's Model
of the Self:
Four Quartets:
"... history is a pattern
Of timeless moments."

Cold Mountain, the film:

Inman: You are all that keeps me from sliding into some dark place.
Ada: But how did I keep you? We barely knew each other. A few moments.
Inman: A thousand moments. They're like a bag of tiny diamonds glittering in a black heart.

Sunday, July 25, 2004 11:11 PM

His Way

Suggested by George Steiner's phrase in the previous entry, "as in inverse canons"--

A revision of Theme and Variations to include a midi of Bach's variations on the Goldberg ground

The following from the screenplay of Cold Mountain--

EXT. BLACK COVE FARM. DAY.

A beautiful day,
the farm peaceful.
Inman walks up the path
to the farmhouse....
He knocks on the door.
Monroe answers.

            MONROE
     Mr. Inman.

            INMAN
     Reverend.

            MONROE
     What can I do for you?

Inman hovers, awkward.
Ada appears, awkward.

            INMAN
     I have some sheet music.
     Belonged to my father.
     No use to me.

Ada comes forward,
takes the package.

****** LATER *******

INT. PARLOUR.
BLACK COVE FARM. DAY.

At the piano, Ada unwraps
the package of music.
Inside the first book of music,
there's a picture of Inman.
Some of the music has left its
imprint on the picture, the notes
like a melody over Inman's face.

Ada picks them out on the piano.

Bach, BWV 1087 (midi)

(Fourteen Canons on the First Eight Notes of the Goldberg Ground)
        Bach in the original --
"Bach in the Original" --

Sunday, July 25, 2004 8:30 AM

Keeping Time

Richard Neuhaus on George Steiner's
Grammars of Creation:

"... the facts of the world are not and will never be 'the end of the matter.' Music joins grammar in pointing to the possibility, the reality, of more. He thinks Schopenhauer was on to something when he said music will continue after the world ends.

'The capacity of music to operate simultaneously along horizontal and vertical axes, to proceed simultaneously in opposite directions (as in inverse canons), may well constitute the nearest that men and women can come to absolute freedom. Music does "keep time" for itself and for us.'"

"Goin' to Carolina in my mind...."

Saturday, July 24, 2004 3:09 AM

Is Nothing Sacred
(3/09), continued...

"With a holy host of others
     standing 'round me
Still I'm on the dark side
     of the moon
And it seems like it goes on
     like this forever
You must forgive me
If I'm up and gone to
     Carolina in my mind."

-- James Taylor

"The town of Mount Pleasant
is known for its excellent
public schools, some of the best
in the Charleston School District
and in the State."

-- The Agent-Owned Realty Co.

Assignments from
a Mount Pleasant high school
summer honors course....

READ the first two chapters
of The Source
by James Michener.
(1-111)....
WATCH one of the
following movies:
The Agony and the Ecstasy,
A Man for All Seasons,
Ben Hur,
Spartacus, or
The Lion in Winter.