The Lucky Elephant--March, 2010

Since early high school I have been fascinated by nanotechnology. My first encounter with the subject was a friend of mine who told me about the concept of nanites, microscopic, autonomous machines capable of assembling anything from furniture to complex electronic devices out of constituent matter. I was not alone - this is the introduction the world was given in Drexler’s Engines of Creation back in 1986.

Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it. Proverbs 22:6

A couple, with nine children, beat one of them to death and left another in critical condition with kidney failure, while following the teachings on child discipline promulgated by Michael and Debi Pearl, which are very popular in the fundamentalist Christian community and in particular the Christian homeschooling movement. Here's the story at Salon, and check out the links in it, particularly by a friend of the family. In short, a 7-year-old girl named Lydia Schatz was beaten until her organs failed from chemicals released by broken-down tissue. She died, and her older sister Zariah is in critical condition.

TITLE:Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha
AUTHOR: Roddy Doyle
PUBLISHER: Penguin
LENGTH: Novel
GENRE: Nostalgic mainstream fiction
COST: $15.00

The life of a ten-year-old Irish boy named Paddy Clarke, as seen through his eyes…

To call this Booker Prize-winning novel aimless misses the point of the narrative. It might seem like that. Ten-year-old boys tend to be self-involved, with attention spans that wander before they’ve crossed the street, so choosing one as the eyes and ears of the story’s events might seem counterproductive. It’s not. It’s the whole point. What Doyle has done here is recreate the rhythms of what it’s like to be a child, especially one on the verge of adolescence. He captures that driving need for escape and fun and combines it effortlessly with the vestigial beliefs in innocent hope that are so typically child-like.

Science, they say, is the truly noble pursuit. Men and women from all national, racial and cultural backgrounds come together to work tirelessly, dedicating their intellects and their training to the improvement of the human condition and the advancement of our knowledge. Regardless of the nature of scientists as individuals, science as a whole can only march towards greater truth and the betterment of the entire world.

Well… not quite.

TITLE: The Sweethearts' Knitting Club
AUTHOR: Lori Wilde
PUBLISHER: Avon Books
LENGTH: Novel
GENRE: Contemporary romance
COST: $7.99

In the town of Twilight, Texas, people take their romances – and their knitting – very seriously. There’s the Sweetheart Tree, Twilight Bridge, the knitting club comprised of women who married their high school sweethearts…and in the middle of all of it, Flynn MacGregor, the girl next door who’s been dating the boy next door now sheriff for the past ten years. Flynn has turned down Beau’s marriage proposal three times already, always with an excuse that other people need her – her alcoholic father, her dying mother, her wild sister – but deep in her heart, she knows the real reason. The bad boy who stole her heart in high school, Jesse Calloway. The one who went to jail the day of graduation for possessing cocaine. The one who just got released after ten years, determined to come back to Twilight and claim what always belonged to him…

Ive been with my husband for almost 7 years but been married for 1 year and 3 months, and we have 2 babies together, ive put up with alot of **** from my husband, from cheating to lying and females calling his phone and him calling females. A whole lot of things, but lately things have been falling apart, because now he wants us to get a divorce because i dont and wont approve of him been friends with females because that something he dont know how to do, and hes also planning on going to france and jamaica with his business partner and i dont like the idea, and i just found his phone bill where he's still talking to this female in jamaica in which he claims they be talking about god, and then he wants me to trust him,i don't believe. When i get in from work he doesn't greet me and hours will past and he dont even say nothing to me.we don't hug, cuddle, kiss or even touch each other, its like we are strangers, he is on the computer the moment he wake up until the moment he goes to sleep.one min he'll act has if he wants to say and the other min he'll talk has if he is going to leave, right now i'm so lonely but dont want to commit adultery, but i don't know what to do because right now i want someones arms around me and i don't have any one. what would you do. And do you think my husband still love me?

will cheating help

Latter Days is the 2004 film written and directed by C Jay Cox. It's about a young man, Aaron Davis, who is assigned to Los Angeles on his LDS Mission. While there, he meets and falls for Christian, played by Wes Ramsey. Christian is very, very pretty. He's also quite shallow and has a bunch of anonymous and hot sex. He places a bet with his friends that he'll be able to "convert" one of the four missionaries who moved in next door, and he's immediately interested in Elder Davis.

Vintage Vittles is like a time machine. In your kitchen. It seeks to go back and try strange and likely disgusting things our ancestors (read: grandparents) ate, all in as historically accurate of a way as possible. Vintage Vittles is published on a bi-monthly basis.