Life, Dreams and Reality -- Sohel's Blog

This is a powerful writing from Nat Hentoff in Village Voice that illuminates this painful issue more. Regards, Sohel Terri Schiavo: Judicial Murder Her crime was being disabled, voiceless, and at the disposal of our media by Nat Hentoff For all the world to see, a 41-year-old woman, who has committed no crime, will die of dehydration and starvation in the longest public execution in American history. She is not brain-dead or comatose, and breathes naturally on her own. Although brain-damaged, she is not in a persistent vegetative state, according to an increasing number of radiologists and neurologists. Among many other violations of her due process rights, Terri Schiavo has never been allowed by the primary judge in her case—Florida Circuit Judge George Greer, whose conclusions have been robotically upheld by all the courts above him—to have her own lawyer represent her. Greer has declared Terri Schiavo to be in a persistent vegetative state, but he has never gone to see her. His eye...

Here the story is slightly different. Up north in the high altitude, the sky is completely barren, not a single cloud is visible from one stretch to the other, and the sunlight, warm but not so discomfortingly blazing, is poring over the dead leaves and melting snow residues. Spring is here. With all the candor and manifested beauty spring has emerged after a winter of cold filled misery. Hurrah to the renewal of life! Hurrah to nature's poetic gist! "Death's great battle" -- writes James Carroll in his latest musing, and the death's great battle hankering down countless many, but like the spring's renewing of leaves and trees and the beginning of blossoming of little buds of flowers peeking through dead flowers and dried leaves and twigs of the past, decorating an aura of life, motioning in full circle around death, nature's final destination. A huge earthquake jolts the islands of Sumatra, killing hundreds, perhaps even thousands, sending uncontrollab...

In Battling Cancer, a Genome Project Is Proposed By ANDREW POLLACK pening a new front in the battle against cancer, federal officials are planning to compile a complete catalog of the genetic abnormalities that characterize it. The proposed Human Cancer Genome Project, as it is being called for now, would be greater in scale than the Human Genome Project, which mapped the human genetic blueprint. It would seek to determine the DNA sequence of thousands of tumor samples, looking for mutations that give rise to cancer or sustain it. Proponents say a databank of all such mutations, which would be freely available to researchers, would provide invaluable clues for developing new ways to diagnose, treat and prevent cancer. "Knowing the defects of the cancer cell points you to the Achilles' heel of tumors," said Dr. Eric S. Lander, director of the Broad Institute, a genetic research center in Cambridge, Mass., that is affiliated with Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of T...

While Terri Schiavo slowly starved and dehydrated to death, it is agonizing to observe that the loved ones, the parents and siblings of this unfortunate lady getting tormented seeing their beloved child and sister slipping into the embrace of death. What is so wrong with this picture? Why is it so necessary remaining inflexible in the matter of "law", where the parents and siblings offered their unconditional support of taking care of their loved one, but the law is so torturous that it cannot allow feeding a disable lady. All the woes to that law! Does the social conservative have invalid argument when they say that "if we make distinctions about the value of different lives, if we downgrade those who are physically alive but mentally incapacitated, if we say that some people can be more easily moved toward death than others, then the strong will prey upon the helpless, and the dignity of all our lives will be diminished"? This is a vital issue. If the liberals are...

Quite a stunning discovery it is, putting more elements on the theory of Darwinian fitness widely accepted in the scientific world. Regards, Sohel Startling Scientists, Plant Fixes Its Flawed Gene By NICHOLAS WADE n a startling discovery, geneticists at Purdue University say they have found plants that possess a corrected version of a defective gene inherited from both their parents, as if some handy backup copy with the right version had been made in the grandparents' generation or earlier. The finding implies that some organisms may contain a cryptic backup copy of their genome that bypasses the usual mechanisms of heredity. If confirmed, it would represent an unprecedented exception to the laws of inheritance discovered by Gregor Mendel in the 19th century. Equally surprising, the cryptic genome appears not to be made of DNA, the standard hereditary material. The discovery also raises interesting biological questions - including whether it gets in the w...

I certainly cannot recall if I had ever defended Patrick J. Buchanan's opinion on any political or social view. My glimpses toward his PBS commentaries or his being as a guest on CNN or other news media left me to have not so a favorable opinion on his political outlook. Let's face it, Mr. Buchannan is an arch conservative that is so radically contrary to my own lifelong yearning for liberal philosophy. However, after observing the recent stormy episodes regarding Terri Schiavo's case of life and death, reading a few so called liberal writers' commentaries in various newspapers and magazines, I have beginning to question some of these elite liberals' definition of liberalism. Granted that evangelical conservatives are playing politics invoking the name of Terri Schiavo to further their other political and social goals, but so are the liberals (so called). The pain and anguish felt by the family of Terri Schiavo, including her parents and her husband are genuin...

Religion in art? Boy! Those artists have guts, indeed! And in the middle of Russia where Mr. Putin is dismantling most recent progresses of Russia's march toward democracy. "Blasphemy" is the word that governments around the world utilize in suppressing individual or views of groups whose alternative perceptions on religions are not tolerated if these views become more noticeable to the general public. Blasphemy! Thus scream the Muslim extremists. Blasphemy! Thus shout the Christian bigots. And the Hindu fanatics cry out the same words in more derivative chanting, "Blasphemy!" This word has so much energy in it, for the creation of a puritanical world where "blasphemy" and freedom could be mangled into discarded heap, pushed aside in a solitary corner for good. Blasphemy! Regards, Sohel Religion in art? Nyet! By Cathy Young | March 21, 2005 CULTURE WARS over blasphemous art, such as Andres Serrano's urine-dipped crucifix or Chris Ofili...

Perhaps the situation is not up to China only. Other nations in the regions, far and close can play vital roles in putting a check on China's seemingly unstoppable streaks of controlling people's lives in downstream and upstream of its mighty river system. If the United Nations were really an effective organization, then it could have played the uniting force in solving the unmistakably volatile problem in this region, not only issues related to Mekong river, but also India's river linking system that can potentially devastate its downstream neighbor Bangladesh, and even India's own Southern States may suffer from its consequences and in most likelihood these seemingly benign issues of our days could one day become more contentious unless steps are taken before long. Regards, Sohel In Life on the Mekong, China's Dams Dominate Chien-min Chung for The New York Times Erosion has worsened along the Mekong, clouding the river, because the natural flow is often gi...