lynnlinn's world

<>I've excerpted a couple of articles off of the web and I am going to just briefly add comment.

FRENCH surgeons have performed the world's first partial face transplant - giving a new nose, chin and lips to a woman savaged by a dog.

Specialists from two French hospitals carried out the operation on a 38-year-old woman on Sunday in the northern city of Amiens by grafting on tissues, muscles, arteries and veins from a brain-dead woman.

'The patient is in an excellent state and the transplant looks normal,' the hospitals said in a brief statement after waiting a few days to announce the pioneering surgery.

'This was a 'quality of life' operation rather than a life-saving operation and has many implications for the recipient's and donor's families,' he said.

There was a short-term risk for the patient if blood vessels became blocked, a medium-term danger of her body rejecting the donor tissue and a long-term possibility that the drugs used in the operation could cause cancers.

'She could be back to square one, without a face, needing further reconstruction operations,' he said.
- Wire services.

Admittedly the article said that this woman would not resemble the brain dead woman, who supplied the organs, however, I just have to wonder if my grandchildren might see me walking around someday long after I've moved on to the light. The fact that this was a 'quality of life' operation is even more troubling and points to ethical issues that must be considered especially in light of the fact that more and more people are receiving plastic surgery for such a trivial thing as aging. Will we soon be able to order up a young face to satisfy our narcissistic instincts? Somewhere in the caves situated in the back of my mind I hear Echo repeating the sighs of narcissus just before he faded away. There is no satisfaction in vanity or having the last word because in reality, neither are permanent--everything changes.

Speaking of changes--there is also that little quirk of reality where things change and then appear to change back again, giving the illusion that nothing has changed at all. It is as if we are going around in a circle. I was reminded of the days of Rome just a few weeks ago when it was reported that a South African black male was fed to lions. Shortly after that, it was reported that American soldiers tried to feed some Iraqi men to the lions. Now the article below. Maggie McClary whose blog I receive daily theorizes that much of the violence we see, especially genocidal violence can be attributed to myths about space and order. She writes:

All kinds of acts can then be justified, first by the leaders but then eventually by the people who are increasingly fearful of the collapse of order. The alternative increasingly becomes the complete destruction of that invading force. Genocide becomes likely. Those who were invaded in some ways take on the role of the evil ones...

You can read her blog on genocide and myth at http://www.mythandculture.com/weblog/diary.html

This is an excerpt from the Guardian of London online http://www.guardian.co.uk/:

Cousins jailed for racist axe murder

· Taylor must serve 23 years
· Barton must serve 17 years
· Judge describes 'terrifying ambush'


Mark Oliver and agencies
Thursday December 1, 2005

Anthony Walker

Michael Barton (left) and Paul Taylor.
Photograph: Merseyside police/PA

Two cousins were today sentenced for life for the racist axe murder of black teenager Anthony Walker.

Paul Taylor, 20, who drove an ice axe into the 18-year-old student's head, must serve at least 23 years and eight months of his mandatory life sentence.

Taylor's 17-year-old cousin Michael Barton, brother of the Manchester City footballer Joey Barton, must serve a minimum of 17 years and eight months for the murder in Huyton, Merseyside, in July.

Sentencing the pair at Preston crown court, sitting in Liverpool, Mr Justice Leveson said they had carried out a "terrifying ambush" and a "racist attack of a type poisonous to any civilised society".

Barton, who initiated the confrontation and supplied the axe, was yesterday convicted of the murder. Taylor admitted murder on November 15, just before he was about to go on trial.

Today is World Aids Day. This devastating disease is threatening to wipe the continent of Africa. Although there is much controversy as to it's origin, I cannot help but think that the way the disease is devastating Africa and the head-in-the-sand-abstain-from-sex-policies of the US government, Africa's destruction is intentional. More on this later.
In the meantime let's all just stop for a moment and remember those whom we've lost to this devastating disease.