Re: Privacy by Dovina	15-Dec-05/3:18 PM
I have to roast potatoes. I'll be back for this.
Re: Privacy by Dovina	16-Dec-05/1:10 PM
I'm getting from this that perverts ought to have more privacy, but there's no privacy for anybody. Poor perverts. If you don't think that's what this poem's saying, you might consider (1) punctuating normally and (2) making real sentences (rather than strings of nouns and adjectives) as ways of reducing ambiguity and keeping people from making my mistake. Personally, I think that's an ace thing to write poetry about, and I'm glad to see you taking on more complicated subjects.
Re: Lost Identity by TLRufener	16-Dec-05/3:19 PM
Surely this isn't about us? Oh, dear. You've got us all wrong. We didn't tell you to write like this.
Re: Privacy by Dovina	16-Dec-05/5:56 PM
YOUR GIFT: Scientists Find A DNA Change That Accounts For White Skin By Rick Weiss Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, December 16, 2005; Page A01 Scientists said yesterday that they have discovered a tiny genetic mutation that largely explains the first appearance of white skin in humans tens of thousands of years ago, a finding that helps solve one of biology's most enduring mysteries and illuminates one of humanity's greatest sources of strife. The work suggests that the skin-whitening mutation occurred by chance in a single individual after the first human exodus from Africa, when all people were brown-skinned. That person's offspring apparently thrived as humans moved northward into what is now Europe, helping to give rise to the lightest of the world's races. Leaders of the study, at Penn State University, warned against interpreting the finding as a discovery of "the race gene." Race is a vaguely defined biological, social and political concept, they noted, and skin color is only part of what race is -- and is not. In fact, several scientists said, the new work shows just how small a biological difference is reflected by skin color. The newly found mutation involves a change of just one letter of DNA code out of the 3.1 billion letters in the human genome -- the complete instructions for making a human being. "It's a major finding in a very sensitive area," said Stephen Oppenheimer, an expert in anthropological genetics at Oxford University, who was not involved in the work. "Almost all the differences used to differentiate populations from around the world really are skin deep." The work raises a raft of new questions -- not least of which is why white skin caught on so thoroughly in northern climes once it arose. Some scientists suggest that lighter skin offered a strong survival advantage for people who migrated out of Africa by boosting their levels of bone-strengthening vitamin D; others have posited that its novelty and showiness simply made it more attractive to those seeking mates. The work also reveals for the first time that Asians owe their relatively light skin to different mutations. That means that light skin arose independently at least twice in human evolution, in each case affecting populations with the facial and other traits that today are commonly regarded as the hallmarks of Caucasian and Asian races. Several sociologists and others said they feared that such revelations might wrongly overshadow the prevailing finding of genetics over the past 10 years: that the number of DNA differences between races is tiny compared with the range of genetic diversity found within any single racial group. Even study leader Keith Cheng said he was at first uncomfortable talking about the new work, fearing that the finding of such a clear genetic difference between people of African and European ancestries might reawaken discredited assertions of other purported inborn differences between races -- the most long-standing and inflammatory of those being intelligence. "I think human beings are extremely insecure and look to visual cues of sameness to feel better, and people will do bad things to people who look different," Cheng said. The discovery, described in today's issue of the journal Science, was an unexpected outgrowth of studies Cheng and his colleagues were conducting on inch-long zebra fish, which are popular research tools for geneticists and developmental biologists. Having identified a gene that, when mutated, interferes with its ability to make its characteristic black stripes, the team scanned human DNA databases to see if a similar gene resides in people. To their surprise, they found virtually identical pigment-building genes in humans, chickens, dogs, cows and many others species, an indication of its biological value. They got a bigger surprise when they looked in a new database comparing the genomes of four of the world's major racial groups. That showed that whites with northern and western European ancestry have a mutated version of the gene. Skin color is a reflection of the amount and distribution of the pigment melanin, which in humans protects against damaging ultraviolet rays but in other species is also used for camouflage or other purposes. The mutation that deprives zebra fish of their stripes blocks the creation of a protein whose job is to move charged atoms across cell membranes, an obscure process that is crucial to the accumulation of melanin inside cells. Humans of European descent, Cheng's team found, bear a slightly different mutation that hobbles the same protein with similar effect. The defect does not affect melanin deposition in other parts of the body, including the hair and eyes, whose tints are under the control of other genes. A few genes have previously been associated with human pigment disorders -- most notably those that, when mutated, lead to albinism, an extreme form of pigment loss. But the newly found glitch is the first found to play a role in the formation of "normal" white skin. The Penn State team calculates that the gene, known as slc24a5, is responsible for about one-third of the pigment loss that made black skin white. A few other as-yet-unidentified mutated genes apparently account for the rest. Although precise dating is impossible, several scientists speculated on the basis of its spread and variation that the mutation arose between 20,000 and 50,000 years ago. That would be consistent with research showing that a wave of ancestral humans migrated northward and eastward out of Africa about 50,000 years ago. Unlike most mutations, this one quickly overwhelmed its ancestral version, at least in Europe, suggesting it had a real benefit. Many scientists suspect that benefit has to do with vitamin D, made in the body with the help of sunlight and critical to proper bone development. Sun intensity is great enough in equatorial regions that the vitamin can still be made in dark-skinned people despite the ultraviolet shielding effects of melanin. In the north, where sunlight is less intense and cold weather demands that more clothing be worn, melanin's ultraviolet shielding became a liability, the thinking goes. Today that solar requirement is largely irrelevant because many foods are supplemented with vitamin D. Some scientists said they suspect that white skin's rapid rise to genetic dominance may also be the product of "sexual selection," a phenomenon of evolutionary biology in which almost any new and showy trait in a healthy individual can become highly prized by those seeking mates, perhaps because it provides evidence of genetic innovativeness. Cheng and co-worker Victor A. Canfield said their discovery could have practical spinoffs. A gene so crucial to the buildup of melanin in the skin might be a good target for new drugs against melanoma, for example, a cancer of melanin cells in which slc24a5 works overtime. But they and others agreed that, for better or worse, the finding's most immediate impact may be an escalating debate about the meaning of race. Recent revelations that all people are more than 99.9 percent genetically identical has proved that race has almost no biological validity. Yet geneticists' claims that race is a phony construct have not rung true to many nonscientists -- and understandably so, said Vivian Ota Wang of the National Human Genome Research Institute in Bethesda. "You may tell people that race isn't real and doesn't matter, but they can't catch a cab," Ota Wang said. "So unless we take that into account it makes us sound crazy."
Re: Privacy Compromised by Dovina	21-Dec-05/8:46 AM
cabbage.
Re: Tulips and Roses by Mona Lisa	22-Dec-05/8:53 AM
Try for some unity of imagery. It's not enough to simply make up a new metaphor or image for every single thing in your poem so you end up having four comparisons in four lines, and none of them related to the others. Okay, it is enough. But who wants to be doing "enough"?
Re: Slaves and their Serpents by cyan9	22-Dec-05/8:56 AM
already - one l. Yes, your mutilation does seem comic. Why write it that way? There's good stuff here, except that it's undercut by your silliness, and not in a useful way.
Re: Never Let Go Again by TLRufener	22-Dec-05/8:58 AM
Hey, you included a specific detail! Bravo! And I thought you were going to make it through the semester without learning anything.
Re: When god manifested by Crakyamuni	22-Dec-05/9:05 AM
Strong lines: "She likes the ocean, it's in her form" "carnivourous and kind" "so voracious it's death sometimes" "curves sing like the sun" "My wish is to depart in this light" "I want to be scorched by this" The rest needs to be like those, and not so, you know, overindulged narrator. Also, carnivorous and definitely are misspelled. And / is not a real punctuation. -8-
Re: It's Time by PoeticXTC	22-Dec-05/9:06 AM
Rhyming dictionary.
Re: Aisle by the bread counter by Caducus	22-Dec-05/9:18 AM
Don't randomly capitalize words.
Re: philosophy of a new age by crazyknight	22-Dec-05/9:27 AM
black is white. hoboes are wealthies. Steve is really Steven. clod is dolc. Hey, isn't it funny how you can say any two opposites are the same, and provided your guff level hasn't exceeded -=7=-, you'll sound clever and deep? You're full of crud. Stop it.
Re: philosophy of a new age by crazyknight	22-Dec-05/9:27 AM
PS-Your haiku is wrong.
Re: Mixed Quartet by Dovina	22-Dec-05/9:47 AM
(1) Geneticists don't say. They say race as a biological construct depends on a very small genetic difference. No geneticist would deny that there is a difference, ergo different races. Only your straw man would say that. Surely you can see the distinction. DOVINA: Some random comment of zodiac's on race. ZODIAC: You are kind of clueless, aren't you? (2) Geneticists say nothing about the cultural or other differences between races, which seem to be the basis for the rest of your poem. Unless you're going to argue that latinos are genetically "soulish". (3) Despite all that, you've still managed to be racist. The whites are the "analytical" ones? Please get over yourself. DOVINA: Some random denial. ZODIAC: Your metaphor has Asians "quick" and "precise", whites "sharp" and "analytical", latins "soulish" and "devoted" - and blacks "smooth" and "limber"??!? Tell me, were you ever planning on giving blacks mental or psychological features, like you gave the other races? Or just physical ones, brutes that they are? What mental features would you give them? (Suggestions: Docile! Brooding! Rhythmical!) Does it bother you that, at best, this poem is a dictionary of outdated racial stereotypes obviously written by someone with little experience of other races and a profound, unacknowledged sense of white superiority? DOVINA: You've failed to get it. I'm talking about instruments. ZODIAC: If you say that you're the biggest guffer ever and ought to crawl in a hole and die of shame. DOVINA: You've failed to get it. I'm talking about instruments. I'm clever. ZODIAC: ...
Re: P.S + Post Script by celticskatermatt1	23-Dec-05/7:43 AM
The next time an allusion forms in your mind, write it down. It'll make your poetry more interesting. "scricten"? Maybe you mean scriven?
Re: The Prince by elderking	23-Dec-05/7:44 AM
Don't believe him. He's really a frog.
Re: Train of Thought by Sisterwolf	24-Dec-05/9:44 AM
"in escape" in the last line could be better worded. And I agree with whoever said you should put some periods at the ends of your sentences. Possibly also break up this big block of text into couplets or tercets. (Yes, I know it's supposed to be endless as a train, but poemranker's fixed-width text makes long stretches like this look positively Everestlike.) Otherwise, this isn't bad. I wasn't blown away, but you kept me reading til the end.
Re: Apocalypse has come to end by Prince of Void	24-Dec-05/12:43 PM
I started reading this poem "Void has come to void" and replacing all nouns, verbs and adjectives with "void", and found that it was identical to all your other poems. If you have ever read a poem, I'm a cod.
regarding some deleted poem...	27-Dec-05/8:50 PM
Marcellus' image is that the cock crows at Christmastime to keep (bad) spirits away. That's basically your image, too, except Marcellus/Shakespeare had to work for it and you didn't. To keep it here, you're going to add something to Marcellus' information - make the image your own.
Re: For Love of Baseball by Dovina	27-Dec-05/8:51 PM
Nice sentiment, poor execution.