The Dark Ages of scientific ethics

In modern scientific research, a lot of time, efforts and money is used to satisfy ethical requirements. Much of it seems to me pure waste, especially concerning the humane treatment of animals. However, when we feel annoyed by the unreasonable obstacles and neverending paperwork, it helps to remember the dawn of modern science when ethical constraints were nonexistent and realize that today's situation is progress after all.

The best-known example of ethics violation is Edward Jenner's work with smallpox vaccination. I remember how at university, hearing that Jenner deliberately innoculated first his baby son and then another man's child with smallpox in order to prove that they were immune, and was later awarded a life pension, a friend commented that he should have been given life imprisonment instead. Now, for the purpose of this post, I have learned some ghastly details about Jenner's work on his baby. Quoting from Tom Kerns's article Jenner on Trial, part 2:

"In 1789, when Jenner was 40 years old and married only a little more than a year, there was in Gloucestershire an outbreak of swinepox, a disease very like cowpox except that it attacked pigs rather than cows. Jenner decided (just after he had been elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society) to try immunizing his ten month old son, Edward, Jr, and two of his neighbor's servants, by inoculating them with swinepox. He had learned well from his famous teacher, Dr John Hunter, that one will learn more by "trying the experiment" rather than by just speculating about it. So Jenner performed the experiment by making a small scratch on the servants' and the baby's arms with a lancet and then infecting the scratch "with matter from a pustule of the baby's nurse, who had caught the swinepox infection." Eight days later baby Edward took sick and developed sores, but then (as anticipated) later recovered. Some months after that his father attempted to deliberately infect him (and the nurse also) with smallpox itself, not just once, but five times, in order to test the efficacy of the immunization. No smallpox symptoms of any sort ever developed. The porcination - dare we call it - "took." The protection was effective. Then, two years later, Jenner again challenged his son with smallpox, this time, however, with unhappy results.

This time there was a reaction, and a severe one, but not [probably] from the smallpox. The inoculation material turned out to be contaminated - a constant danger that later threatened to undermine Jenner's work altogether. Young Edward contracted a fever and his arm swelled all the way to the armpit. But he quickly recovered, and a year later Jenner inoculated him with smallpox once again. And once more there was no reaction. Apparently, the Swine-pox protected against smallpox.

Unfortunately, however, in the years following these experiments, young Edward "became a sickly child and exhibited signs of mild mental retardation," though there is no direct evidence that these sequelae were related to the inoculation experiments. Young Edward unfortunately died at the age of 21 from tuberculosis. His father's grief was severe."

I think no comment is needed.

Jenner's Wikipedia page gives a little known detail about the later experiment on 8-yr-old James Phipps: Phipps was the son of Jenner's gardener. So we have all reasons to think that Jenner abused his position of employer to press his gardener into surrendering the boy for dangerous experimentation.

Another example of ethics violation (or plain nonexistence) is the story of "closing" the life cycle of pork tapeworm Taenia solium. The quote below is from Hunter's Tropical Medicine (ed. G. T. Strickland), 7th edition (1988), p. 843, chapter 101. Larval cestode infections (by P. B. McGreevy and G. S. Nelson):

"In 1850, Von Siebold suggested that "bladder worms," which were found frequently in animals and occasionally in humans, were the larval stages of adult tapeworms. He confirmed this in 1852 by feeding hydatid cysts to dogs and recovering adult Echinococcus. The most dramatic demonstration of this alteration of generations was provided by Friedrick Kuchenmeister in 1853 when he fed bladder worms from a pig to a convict who was "scheduled to be dispatched from this life to death by the Guillotine." At autopsy, the adult tapeworm Taenia solium was recovered from the intestine."

While the prisoner's fate was hardly much worsened by forcing him to eat tapeworm larvae, my gut feeling is that it is deeply wrong to do this.

Moreover, in the described form, the experiment doesn't prove much. It is quite possible that the poor man had been host of the adult tapeworm all along. To prove anything, you must feed bladder worms to a group of convicts and later to compare their autopsies to those of a control group. In fact, Kuchenmeister's Wikipedia page reports that he did the experiment on a group of convicts on death row, but again, no controls are mentioned.

How do you think, did Kuchenmeister try to obtain any sort of informed consent from his subject(s)?

Justice for Amir Jennings

Amir Jennings shortly before his disappearance, photo copied from wltx.com



Almost a year ago, I wrote about the disappearance of then 18-month-old Amir Jennings from South Carolina. His mother Zinah did not report him missing and when questioned, refused to reveal what had happened to him. To me, and not only to me, the entire case chillingly resembled the story of Casey Anthony, unreasonably acquitted for the murder of her 2-yr-old daughter Caylee. This was what I, and not only I, had feared: another mother wishing to get rid of her unwanted toddler had been encouraged by Anthony's "not guilty" verdict and emulated her, hoping to get away with her child's "disappearance".

This post is a tribute to Amir Jennings and therefore shows his picture. My first post did not include such an image. Even if my blog was popular among Americans, I knew the photo would be of little use for the search, because by the time Amir would be found, he would have lost all resemblance to it. He hasn't been discovered yet, and most likely will never be. Caylee's remains were miraculously spotted months after her disappearance, in a swamp - a bag of bones carrying marks of gnawing by wild animals. Just try to look at the world through the eyes of a detective and you will see vast and unaccessible spaces hiding bodies of victims and weapons of crime.

As months were passing, I periodically checked the Web for updates. And the autumn brought them. While everybody was sure that little Amir was no longer among us, prosecutors didn't dare to press murder charges in the absence of a body. So Zinah Jennings was charged with "unlawful conduct toward a child", an expression in US law apparently used for parents allowing or making their children disappear. On Sept. 7, the jury agreed on "guilty" after less than three hours of deliberation, and the judge gave Zinah the maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.

Let me praise the jurors who kept their duty and made the right decision. Of course, a decade behind bars is too little for a monstrous crime like this. Still, the sentence will serve a purpose. Zinah Jennings was pregnant when arrested and later gave birth to a girl. I don't know what will happen to this baby, but at least she will be spared her brother's fate. And at least, as long as Zinah is imprisoned, she won't be able to deliver and kill more babies. Most importantly, other potential child murderesses may be taught a lesson: precedents may be precedents, but Casey Anthony's acquittal does not necessarily mean open season on US children. If you follow her footsteps, you may get a different verdict at the end of the day.

Rest in peace, Amir. On behalf of all who cherish human life, and all who have suffered from evil: We miss you.

First homebirth victim in Bulgaria

Until recently, Bulgaria was spared from the problem of homebirth. Practically the only births outside hospitals were precipitous births due to inability to reach the hospital in time, and secret births by women of very low socio-economic status with the apparent intention to get rid of the newborn. We were a small, poor post-Communist country isolated from the West economically and culturally, so we had little exposure to trendy Western quackeries. We were living in blissful ignorance about "celebrities" like Ina May Gaskin and the Sears family, and theories like Attachment Parenting and Natural Childbirth. Alas, this honeymoon is over. Burgas, the same Black Sea resort where Israeli tourists were bombed in July, now became scene of the first Bulgarian homebirth death.

As is typical for "true" homebirths, the parents are educated, middle-class people. The mother is a 24-yr-old student at the Musical Academy, and the father an accountant. The mother was not sure whether her due date was Oct. 17 or Nov. 17 (!), but was sure that she wanted no blood transfusion and no vaccines. She wrote, signed and submitted requests about this.

The birth took place in the early hours of Nov. 11, most likely starting between 1 and 2 AM. Nobody tried to drive the mother to a hospital or to dial the emergency phone during the birth and for hours after the baby girl was born not breathing. Only in the morning did the mother in-law call the paramedics. When they arrived shortly after 8 AM, they found the newborn stiffened, indicating that she had been dead for at least 3 hours.

The mother and other family members denied that they had planned a homebirth and said that it "had just happened" so, they had waited of true labour pain, then had panicked. Their explanations do not sound coherent and convincing to anyone. The forensic experts are still working on the baby's body, but the inofficial information is that she died before or during labour and never took a breath. The prosecution is now considering whether to charge the mother with causing her infant's death.

I see this totally senseless and preventable tragedy as inevitable result of Western charlatanism spreading to Bulgaria. During the last year or so, I have read - in English - the writings of Dr. Amy Tuteur exposing the toll of homebirth in Western countries, the deaths and disabilities resulting from the absurd decision of first-world women to deliver their babies in intentionally created third-world conditions. At the same time, I was reading - in Bulgarian - claims by newly baptized domestic advocates of "the natural" how much better it is for babies to be born at home or at a birth center under the care of a midwife and to skip the vaccines. The most influential human rights organization in the country - the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee, embraced the cause of homebirth and proclaimed that it is the mother's human right to choose where to give birth, and to do it at home if she wishes. The Committee is currently suing Bulgaria for not allowing doctors and midwives to preside over homebirths. Now, the organization is "reacting" to the tragedy in Burgas with deafening silence, and some commenters say it should accept part of the blame.

I hope that the little girl's death will not be in vain, that gullible parents-to-be will learn from the Burgas couple's fatal mistake and avoid it. Let's leave the pink clouds of woo and face the harsh reality: birth is inherently and highly dangerous and, as in every dangerous situation, stupid acts can turn too costly. It is not about "rights" and "choice", it is about life and death. Do you feel lucky? That young musician did, played Russian roulette with her baby's life, and lost. Now, she is alone, lying in a hospital bed without her baby and, of course, without the company of all those smooth-tongued people who brainwashed her that homebirth is OK.

Update: Commenters informed me that there had been other homebirth cases in Bulgaria about which I had not known. The first fatality seems to have been a dead postdate baby born at home by a 32-year-old vet in Sofia. The mother and her husband (also a vet) wanted to have a natural birth, to avoid medical interventions allegedly causing complications and, as the mother said before the birth, to do it like their patients!

Happy Eid!

Today is one of the two most important Muslim holidays - the Festival of Sacrifice, known internationally by its Arabic name Eid al-Adha, and in Bulgaria by its Turkish name Kurban Bayryam. So, happy Eid to all who celebrate!

Some time ago, Highlander wrote a post wishing that, as Muslims like her remember other people's holidays and greet them, other people would do the same. I think she is right. Indeed, I do not feel a need to write special posts congratulating Eid, because I do not do it for Christmas, either (I only send e-mails to relatives, friends and colleagues). I just happen to have an Eid-related post, and unfortunately it is not as pleasant as I hope the holiday will be.

After human populations first disseminated, diverged, and then remixed, there is no escape of diversity. And, to say the inconvenient truth, it is a burden. I am not saying that we must destroy diversity - it should be accepted in most cases, but accepted as the liability it is. Mistaking a liability for an asset is a recipe for disaster, and not just in economic life. This is why most people of all cultures equally resent multiculturalism. By insisting that diversity is a blessing, multiculturalists make an assertion that contradicts the everyday experience of everybody and so make fools of themselves.

My worst multiculti-related problem was three or four years ago, when I had practicals with a group of Turkish students on Friday from 11.30 to 13.00. I rarely had more than half of the group in the lab, because, as they said, they had to go to the mosque and pray. Because practicals are mandatory, it was quite difficult to me to finish the semester successfully. To be honest, I also felt uncomfortable trying to teach young people to whom, by their own admission, prayer was more important than study - I thought we all were just wasting our time. Incidentally, the next semester this group had its biology practical on Monday, but the attendance rate did not improve. Students are first-class swindlers, an older colleague of mine often says, meaning students like these. And I bet that the same people who (ab)use their religion as an excuse to indulge in laziness will be the first to accuse others in Islamophobia.

The Eids are days when you cannot realistically - and should not - expect attendance by Muslim students. However, while Bulgarian Muslims leave just for a day or two, the foreign students disappear for at least a week, and then we must think how to compensate. Anyway. So, when on Oct. 11 a group of Muslim students from different countries said they would not be here next week because of Eid, I said OK, we'll have a longer practical in two weeks, and they agreed. Because Eids are determined based on the lunar calendar, their dates change every year, and I had no idea about when the Eid would take place.

The popular Gloria Gaynor's song I will survive says that you stay alive as long as you know how to love. This can be extended far beyond erotic love: your soul is alive as long as you meet your fellow humans with trust and goodwill triumphing over experience. Unfortunately, interactions with people too often bring experiences that, as Bulgarians say, "ubivat vsichko detsko v nas" (kill our inner child - actually, our inner human). However, even when we are brought to the point of treating others with suspicion, we are still obliged to show the appearence of trust because good manners require it. So I resisted my first knee-jerk impulse to leave the lab, go to my room and make a quick Web search about the date of Eid.

I did this search five minutes later, when the practical was over. And I found that Eid al-Adha in 2012 would be on Oct. 26, that is, not in the week of Oct. 15-19 for which my students had asked a permission to be away, but in the next week when they had promised to come. In other words, they had just arranged a nice 2-week vacation in the midst of a semester, "by permission" of their teacher, at least as far as biology was concerned.

I tried to find them in the cafes around, but they had left the area. Next day, I went to their lecture, but only one student from the group was there, and she seemed not to understand me. Several hours later, I managed at last to find the group - at a cytology practical. I said I had checked the date of Eid and I was very angry. They apologized and said they had make a mistake about the date and they were about to call me to correct it. I openly said that I don't believe Muslims could mistake the date of Eid, but let's leave this alone, I am expecting them all the next week. And they came.

Maybe it had been a misunderstanding after all? I hope so; I generally like this group. And, as a teacher, I must blame myself for not checking the date beforehand. Let this be, as we say, an earring on my ear - i.e. a good lesson for me. As soon as I am supplied with a calendar for 2013, I intend to find out when the Eids are and to highlight their dates on the calendar with a thick, red, permanent marker, to avoid similar situations in the future.

Anti-blasphemy laws create monsters: case report from Pakistan

This post is to illustrate the inevitable consequences of anti-blasphemy laws and other violations of free speech allowing authorities and vigilantes to silence people by force. I learned about the Pakistani girl's story from the Mogilino blog, to which I am redirecting Bulgarian readers. In this disability advocacy blog, activists published an open letter urging Bulgarian government institutions to stand publicly in defence of a young disabled girl threatened by a harsh sentence for blasphemy in Pakistan. Below, I am copy-pasting media reports.

"Girl held in Pakistan, accused of burning Quran pages

By Katie Hunt and Nasir Habib, CNN

Mon August 20, 2012

An 11-year-old Christian girl has been arrested after being accused of blasphemy by burning pages of the Quran in Pakistan's capital, Islamabad.

According to a statement released by the president's office Sunday, the girl, identified as Ramsha, was accused by a local resident of burning pages of the Muslim holy text after she gathered paper as fuel for cooking.

Local media reports said the girl has Down syndrome. CNN was unable to confirm these reports, and a local police official said they are not true.

Qasim Niazi, the police officer in charge of the station near where the incident took place, said the girl does not have a mental disorder but is illiterate and has not attended school.
The accused girl had told him she had no idea there were pages of the Quran inside the documents she burned, he added.

Niazi said that 150 people had gathered on Friday where the neighborhood's Christian population lives and threatened to burn down their houses.

"The mob wanted to burn the girl to give her a lesson," he told CNN.

Other Christian families living in the area have fled fearing a backlash, he added..."

"Pakistan Christian girl accused of blasphemy released

BBC News, 8 September 2012

A Christian girl in Pakistan who was arrested on blasphemy charges has been released from prison in Rawalpindi, a minister has said.

On Friday a judge ordered her release and set bail at about $10,500 (£6,200).
The girl, thought to be 14 years old but with a younger mental age, was arrested last month after a mob accused her of burning pages of the Koran.
Last week an imam was remanded in custody, accused of planting burned pages of the Koran in the girl's bag.
The case against the girl, known as Rimsha, has sparked international alarm and has been condemned by human rights groups.
Blasphemy is not a bailable offence but her lawyers pleaded that she was a juvenile.
The girl's lawyer said she had been released after two guarantors posted a bond against assurances that she would reappear in court, the AFP news agency said.
Pakistan's minister for national harmony said the girl was transported by helicopter to a safe location where she was met by her family.
Her father had previously said he feared for his daughter's life and for the safety of his family.
Rimsha's parents were taken into protective custody at an undisclosed location following threats. Many other Christian families fled the neighbourhood after her arrest.
Rights activists have long urged Pakistan to reform its blasphemy laws, under which a person can be jailed for life for desecrating the Koran.
In March 2011 Shahbaz Bhatti, the minister for minority affairs, was killed after calling for the repeal of the blasphemy law.
His death came just two months after the murder of Punjab Governor Salman Taseer, who also spoke out about the issue.
Blasphemy is a highly sensitive issue in Pakistan, where 97% of the population are Muslim.

In the past accusations of blasphemy have led to vigilante killings by mobs."

I don't think these reports need any comments, just wish to mention that the otherwise fine BBC report is marred by a misleading, politically correct and factually incorrect title. Had I read only the title, I would think that the girl has been released unconditionally and has no more troubles with the law.

Extra patriam non est vita

During the four decades of Communist rule, Bulgaria was a closed country. Visiting other countries, let alone emigrating to them, was not a right but a privilege granted to few. Whatever you may say about the achievements and simple joys of life in communist Bulgaria, the fact that residents were not allowed to leave meant that it was essentially one big prison. And when in 1989 frontiers were opened, the effect was similar to breaking open the gates of a prison. The wild, thoughtless rush to the dreamed Free World was only enhanced by the Communist victory at the heavily falsified 1990 elections and other subsequent disastrous events.

As in every country with emigration reaching the scale of evacuation, it started to be regarded as default and remaining in the homeland as exception. Entire generations of children grew up knowing that they are likely to emigrate in the future. It is difficult to describe this climate to those who haven't lived in it, the climate in which reporters are chasing 16-yr-olds with the question "What is keeping you in Bulgaria", and a textbook for 7th-graders asks, "Would you choose for yourself the emigrant's fate?". Young people wishing to remain are often pushed by parents and peers to "go West for a couple of years to try - you may begin to like it". And some actually emigrate despite suspicions that they would not be happy abroad, just to prove themselves; because those who remain are stereotyped as good-for-nothing people whose only virtue is the realistic assessment of their laziness and incompetence that would not allow them to succeed in the West.

The sequential (and apparently neverending) massive emigration waves have of course further weakened the country. Even if Bulgaria ultimately survives, the exodus of its most active and talented youths, the blossom of the nation, has devastating effects. Though most emigrants support their remaining families and many engage in actions for the country's benefit, this can never substitute for the contributions they would make if they had remained here. Worse, the spirit of homestayers is broken. When they are fired, injustly punished, robbed, denied medical help or otherwise hit by Bulgarian reality, their primary impulse is not to think how to solve the problem but to lament that "this is not a decent country and will never be", and to regret that they have not left it in time. Young people, even if still here, are not sure for how long this would last and have little interest to work for the future of Bulgaria. And because those who should be the most active citizens are either already absent or ready to pack, politicians and their corrupted circles can do whatever they want without being bothered by civil resistance.

I wish now to write about those who left, though I cannot use 1st person here. Beyond doubt, most of them have earned a living standard they would never enjoy in Bulgaria. Many have found prospects for their abilities and have made spectacular careers. But how many have found true happiness? People are rarely sincere about this, so I cannot be sure. But my observation is that, as with other cases of mass psychosis, people rushing to the default direction often neglect or silence their internal voices. In their new countries, they may suffer from home-sickness and may subject themselves to dangers they know nothing about. In the same way as in Bulgaria we navigate our way between crazy drivers, stray dogs and pickpocket gangs and still manage (in most cases) to stay out of harm's way, other countries have other dangers to which native inhabitants are used. Every human dwelling, no matter how advanced, is hazardous and requires a set of adaptation skills - I would even say, survival skills - which are acquired unconsciously and, for that reason, cannot be taught to newcomers.

Fifteen years ago, when people of my generation were still young and making choices, I wasn't too confident in my decision to stay. I didn't try to defend it, let alone persuade other people, just wished to be left alone. When a loved one tried to convince me to emigrate, I said, "I do not tell you to stay - why do you tell me to depart?". Now, people of my generation are middle-aged. Middle age is the time when you are no longer free to choose, because choices have remained behind. The true mark of middle age is not the slow bodily decline becoming apparent, but the disappearance of second chances. It is time to draw a line and summarize the outcome of the two strategies - emigrating and staying. Now I see that, against all odds, those who remained in the Bulgarian misery are generally better off. And I regret that, as my loved ones were carried away by the wave, I didn't try to persuade anybody, didn't help anybody to stay.

Burgas, the city that was attacked

 

On July 29, eleven days after the Burgas bus bombing, we briefly stopped in this city on our way to the smaller resort town of Primorsko.

 

I am uploading three photos so that you get some impression of Burgas. They show, respectively, a figure from the Burgas 2012 Sand Festival (an exposition in the city park), an old anchor now used as street decoration, and a restaurant.

 

I hope you get the impression of peace. What makes some people so eager to destroy peace, happiness and life? Today is the 11th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, and I still haven't a good answer to this question. I'll update this post at some later moment to tell more about Burgas. 



Mustafa Kyosov, the Bulgarian victim of Bulgas bus bombing

Photo from the village of Yurukovo, taken by blogger "The Guerrilla".

In my previous post, I listed the Israeli tourists killed in the July 18 Burgas bus bombing. This post is devoted to the only Bulgarian victim of this atrocity - the bus driver Mustafa Kyosov (36).
Mustafa was married, with an 11-year-old daughter who is in 5th grade. He was originally from the village of Yurukovo, in the mountrains of South-Western Bulgaria. Like the other people of this village, he belonged to our old-established Muslim minority. Some say he was an ethnic Turk but most sources about Yurukovo state that it is populated by Pomaks (Bulgarian Muslims).
As wrote "The Guerrilla" from whose blog I have copied the above photo, "not only is (Mustafa Kyosov) the only victim of this tragedy that has not been honoured, he is the faceless victim - we have not seen his image yet". This is quite true. While the Israelis were buried with honours, not one Bulgarian official attended Mustafa's funeral - only the Grand Mufti. And I haven't seen his photo published anywhere. We still do not know what he looked like.
Bulgarian news sites show pictures of distraught relations and friends, but I prefered one showing a typical view of Mustafa's home village. Some may find this reality beautiful and romantic while others would see in the same image appalling misery. The truth is that, while these villages are beautiful and comfortable for most of their residents (who have never become accustomed to modern accommodations), there are absolutely no jobs over there. Villagers are engaged in subsistence farming but it cannot really provide subsistence. For old people - maybe, but not for parents struggling to educate their children. Mustafa was the only breadwinner of the family, because his wife was unemployed. So he left his home and went to the other corner of the country, to the Black Sea coast, to find a job and support his family by honest work.
When a loved one dies in an accident or a crime, we can never forgive ourselves for not persuading him to be somewhere else at the fatal moment. Shortly before he was killed, Mustafa complained of home-sickness. In telephone conversations with his brother and uncle, he said he missed his family so much that sometimes wanted to tear apart his contract and return. Now they of course wish he did, and wish they had told him to follow his heart.
It is not yet known for sure who is behind the Burgas bombing but it seems safe to assume that it was Islamists' work. Did the masterminds feel any regrets that an innocent Muslim became "collateral damage"? I don't think so. When in 2006 Hezbollah shelling killed two Israeli Arab brothers aged 3 and 9, its leader called the children "martyrs for Palestine" and offered condolescences, case closed.
Mustafa Kyosov isn't the first Bulgarian driver killed by Islamist terrorists. On June 30, 2003, Krastyu Radkov (46) was shot on the West Bank by members of the Fatah Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in violation of the declared ceasefire. Krastyu was driving a truck full of bottled water for workers of some construction site. The Al-Aqsa Martyrs said they had mistaken him for a Jewish settler. "Sorry, we thought he was a Jew" - this is the closest to apology you can hear from Islamists.
In the summer of 2004, Ivaylo Kepov (32) and Georgi Lazov (30), while driving a load of used cars in Iraq, were captured by Al-Zarqawi's men and then murdered. One of them was beheaded on video. I remember an argument at that time illustrating the pitiful human tendency to blame the victim (of which I have written elsewhere). The other person argued that, while the double kidnapping and murder was very regrettable, it was also understandable because Iraqis were "fighting occupation". I said that whatever one might think about killing of soldiers, these victims were just drivers bringing cars for sale - and whatever the locals were thinking of the war and occupation, they should have welcomed the cars, because everybody wants to own a car. My opponent stayed silent for a moment, then put forward a brilliant argument: "But these cars were second-hand!"
However, Mustafa Kyosov's murder was different, because while his unfortunate colleagues had travelled to the battlefields, he was killed in his own peaceful country. He became the first victim of modern global terror on Bulgarian land. This modest, hard-working family man should have lived unknown - instead, he left this world and entered History. Our pompous officials could at least make an effort and honour his funeral ceremony.

The Israeli victims of Burgas bus bombing

From left: Amir Menashe, Kochava Shriki, Itzik Kolengi, Elior Priess and Maor Harush. Photo taken from Haaretz, original source Reuters.

In the immediate aftermath of the July 18 Burgas bombing of a bus with Israeli tourists, I wrote that the victims were thought to be seven. This happened to be true: five Israelis, the Bulgarian bus driver and the perpetrator himself died in the carnage. Because it is not reasonable to count terrorist suicide murderers as victims of their own attacks, I should refuse the number to six. Yet they are still seven because the only female victim - Kochava Shriki (name pronounced "Koshava", age given 42 or 44 by different sources, from Rishon Lezion) was pregnant at last, after 4 years of fertility treatment.
Amir Menashe (28) was married, with a 10-month-old son. His friend Itzik Kolengi, or Kolangi (28) was married, with a 4-month-old daughter. Their wives were injured; happily, the babies were left at home. Amir and Itzik were from Petah Tikva, the same city where a decade ago  suicide bomber attacked an ice-cream parlour, apparently targeting young Jewish children and killing an 18-month-old girl and her grandmother.
Elior Priess, or Price (25) and Maor Harush (25) were friends from Akko (Acre).
They all were young, happy people who should have lived for many more years. They came to Bulgaria to enjoy the summer and the sea in peace. My country, while having many drawback, is known to be peaceful. I am sad that it betrayed its guests in such a tragic way.

Massacre of Israeli tourists on Bulgarian land

Today (July 18) the Bulgarian sea town of Burgas (Bourgas) became scene of outrageous bombing of Israeli civilians. After being brought to Burgas airport by a flight from Tel Aviv, a large group of Israeli tourists took seats in a bus which was to bring them to a nearby resort. As the bus was departing, a bomb exploded in its front part.
By now, 7 people are reported dead, but the real number may be higher. Dozens have been wonded, including a child and two pregnant women. A bystander said, "There were screams and I went out of my car to check what was happening. I saw the people getting out of the bus, they were screaming, some were coming out without legs, others without arms." Shocked policemen said, "We are literally collecting small pieces of flesh from the victims. There are body parts 300 meters away from the bus, so we cannot tell the number of victims for sure."
My condolescences to the victims' families and to those wounded and traumatized. I hope Israeli intelligence agencies will find out who is behind this massacre. Unfortunately, I don't think our security apparatus can do any good. While I understand that even the best intelligence can overlook the preparation of a terror act, I am angry, because our "services" are overstaffed and overfunded. They have generous subsidies even in the worst crisis, they receive more than the entire Bulgarian Academy of Sciences just to monitor telephone communications... and still they do not serve the public (to say the least) and do not provide the security which is their function.

Animal welfare and European bureaucracy impose malnutrition

Animal welfare is usually regarded as a noble concept and a milestone of human civilization. Those living in the insulated reality of the Western world may sincerely believe this. However, my experience as a Bulgarian, i.e. resident of one of the poorest countries in Europe, points otherwise. Animal welfare is a bizarre idea with disastrous consequences, especially for poor people. It is destroying decades of progress concerning human rights and well-being.

Now, as Europeans are preparing for Easter, some are angry at the scarcity and high prices of eggs as a result of the European Union's Welfare of Laying Hens Directive. Egg prices are particularly sky-rocketing in Bulgaria. As a result, "hens get happier while people get unhappier" (in the words of a Bulgarian egg producer quoted by EUBusiness).

To make it clear why, I shall refer to the post Happy Hens and Stupid Minister by well-known Bulgarian blogger Longanlon. The title of the post refers to the Bulgarian agriculture minister Miroslav Naydenov, and it bashes EU bureaucrats and their Bulgarian overzealous followers for elevating hen's happiness to top priority and making consumers and farmers unhappy by forcing on them high egg prices and expensive farming methods, respectively. The post is good, but it is part of the discussion that is a must-read, and I am going to translate it for you.

A commenter asks, "People spend much on junk food, why not pay more for high-quality eggs? If hens are bred in a better way, the nutritive value and the taste of eggs will be different... Why shouldn't eggs be more expensive and of higher quality?"

The blog host replies, "Because for some people priority is not "the high-quality food" but just "the food"... For the poor, eggs used to be the only cheap food of animal origin. I talked to the shop assistant at the corner shop where most customers are modest-income. She said that, after the price of eggs climbed, only I am buying them. She showed me the empty places in egg packages, she had sold only 6 eggs for a week."

(In Bulgaria, when prices go up, shopkeepers begin to sell single items of goods indended to be sold in packages, such as eggs, baby diapers, drug tablets etc. - hence the empty places in the package.)

So you see that the directive banning sale of eggs laid by "unhappy hens" causes harm far beyond interference with a beloved traditional spring festival. It will force many thousands of Bulgarians to restrict their egg consumption, which has been their main source of animal protein. Possibly the champions of animal happiness in the rich countries of "Old Europe" are blissfully unaware that tens of thousands of EU citizens still suffer from protein malnutrition. Someone must inform them of that fact. And if they know it and still think that the welfare of laying hens is more important than welfare (and health) of human beings... - then I fear the problem is very deep and it will not be easy to find a solution to it. At any rate, for the near future humans will continue to be deprived of food in the name of the tentative happiness of laying hens.

The story of my site

Photo: My brother's collection of computers in 2001, when he was studying computer science.




(Warning: long, and not cheerful, post; but still advise you to read it if you create or manage intellectual property and especially if you own a small site.)

When I first started my work as biology teacher, nearly 20 years ago, I was shocked by the poor quality of the textbook our students were forced to use and the absence of suitable teaching materials in Bulgarian. I decided to write a better textbook. Slowly, in the late afternoons and some evenings and weekends, I prepared a collection of biology texts.

At that time (the mid- and late 1990s), I had no idea how I would eventually publish my work. We were only beginning to use the Internet and had no opportunity to contribute to it. As for publishing on paper, it was reserved for people richer and more powerful than me. I was even inclined to recruit some more senior "co-author" one day to help publish the texts. It was another era, possibly escaping not only the experience but even the imagination of younger readers.

I gradually shared with some friends and colleagues the idea of the "textbook" and even some of its content. Among these friends was a young colleague working at another city. I'll call her by her nickname - Tanya. In late 1999, she had to prepare for an exam important for her career and complained that the official textbook was unusable. "Haven't you any more human source?" she asked. I said that some unpublished texts of mine might be what she needed. Then I downloaded my "textbook" on three floppy disks and sent them to Tanya by mail, together with the password needed to open the files.

A day before the exam, which was to take place in Sofia, Tanya called me by phone. She said she was glad that we would meet the next day. She thanked me for the files and said they had been very useful for her to prepare for the exam.

This was the last time I heard Tanya. We were awaiting her the next day but she never came. The car in which she was traveling had a fatal crash on the way to Sofia.

Tanya's death deeply saddened me. Because our last conversation was about my "textbook", I was unable to touch it for two or three months. Then, slowly, I resumed work.

At the beginning of 2003, two important things happened. First, I had a publication as a ghost author - not of parts of the "textbook" but of some other works written specifically for that purpose. And I discovered I had undergone a change of heart. My teaching texts had finally seen the light of day, but I was not at all satisfied. I no longer wanted just to publish my work to be read - at any rate and under anyone's name. At that time, I was pregnant with my first child and I thought that my texts were also my offspring and I didn't want them adopted by other people, no matter what those other people would give me in return or whether I would ever had another chance of publication.

Second, something very weird happened with a textbook written by some senior teachers. After they had given their draft chapters to the textbook editor, he showed me one of the manuscripts written by a lady I'll designate only as L. By chance, this editor was among the people who not only knew about my work but had even briefly seen the files. Imagine my surprise when I recognized, in abbreviated form, the early versions of some of my teaching texts.

It wasn't rocket science to reconstruct what had happened. Tanya had apparently either printed my files or stored them in her office computer as copies not protected by password. After her death, L., who worked at the same facility, discovered these files and naturally attributed them to Tanya. And when L. was invited to contribute to the new textbook, she decided to make use of what she had found and so to take the credit without doing too much hard work.

I explained the situation to the editor. L. soon came to Sofia, perhaps called by him. He left us two in a room to "clarify the situation". It was a very unpleasant conversation, both for me and for L., who thought she had robbed "just" a dead author and was nastily surprised to confront a living author. Though at one point she confessed to have used as sources texts found among Tanya's things, she fiercely denied any wrongdoing. She insisted only researchers who had made important discoveries could claim copyright, but not other people explaining their discoveries in educational texts. (An interesting concept, wasn't it? And in such a case, why on Earth would her name appear on the cover of the damned textbook?)

Finally, the editor told L. to somewhat change the chapters so that they would no longer be quite identical to my texts. She did this - of course, the changes were all distortions diminishing the quality of the original. Meanwhile, I decided I had had enough and I would take measures to prevent the same from happening on a larger scale.

The Internet was expanding and becoming more accessible for mere mortals like me. I wanted to publish my "textbook" online and I asked my brother George for advice how to do it best. He had emigrated to the USA five years earlier. At first, he had started work at a car repair shop, then taught himself computer science and later "officially" studied it at the Suffolk County Community College. His teachers liked him so much that when the IT department needed another programmer, they invited him. He was very happy with his new job; his American dream was coming true.

George told me that every employee of his college had the right and opportunity to upload his "personal" pages with whatever content he wished, provided it did not violate any law or rule. He said, "Just send to me your texts and figures by e-mail and I'll prepare the pages in no time." And he did. He then kept fulfilling every petty wish of mine of the type "Please put one Enter after this figure and make the font of that paragraph one point smaller". He just refused to be mentioned as Webmaster.

This way, for some time my educational pages were hosted on the Suffolk Country Community College's Web site. The URL was a mile long, but at least it ended with the suitable edu extension. I guess the faculty members are unaware to this day of the help provided by their College to a university in a little-known European country.

In late 2005, however, there were troubles with the College site. As my brother said, some absent-minded (to say the least) employee had by mistake uploaded to the Web personal data of other people. As a result, all employees' pages were closed down with the promise to be reloaded later after case-by-case examination. George said that what we needed was my own site with my own domain name. I suggested to use the opportunity for free pages given by some providers, but he said he would not allow stupid banners to flash across the top of my pages. "Just choose a domain name, and I'll register it and do the rest," he insisted. I chose my name, mayamarkova.com, to be the domain name.

Things went smoothly and happily until 2010, when my brother died.

He had managed the site and paid for it all by himself and had not bothered me with the practical aspects of this work. After all, he had planned to continue doing it for me for a long time - why not, he was in good health and nobody expected anything to happen to him. Now, I remembered I had once received an e-mail from the host-registrar company. I looked at the print, just to find out which company it was (I didn't yet know that this could be easily done by the so-called Whois search.) It was Hostgool Hosting, Inc.

I e-mailed Hostgool, telling them to contact me for everything about the site. They asked me to login. When I explained what had happened and why I did not even know the username and password, they told me to send them a scan of my brother's credit card.

I was initially unwilling to disturb my sister in-law with such a request, but how could I allow my site created by my brother - our common deed - perish? So I asked her for help. She was very kind and sent me the scan the next day. I forwarded it to Hostgool and they gave me a username and a password.

However, I wanted to transfer the site to a Bulgarian provider. I contacted a guy at one such company and he said they would manage the transfer with Hostgool. Soon after that, however, he called me and said, "Please e-mail Hostgool yourself, because they don't answer my e-mails. To transfer the domain name, Hostgool must give us a code called EPP authorization key."

After days of bombarding Hostgool with messages using every contact route available, I finally received the following message:

"Hello Maya,
Regarding transfers, you must contact from the registration e-mail (the sam e-mail used in the first registration) and by the person who's register the domain so we can give the transfer steps reqired to do the transfers.
Have a nice day
Warm Regards,
Hostgool.com Support"

I reminded them that doing what they suggested was impossible, and asked whether this was really what they meant. The answer was:

"...You can not transfere a domain not registered by yourself and nobody can transfer a domain registerd by you there is no way makes somebody to transfer a domain registerd by another one
Thank you for understanding
Warm Regards,
Hostgool.com Support"

(Original spelling and grammar is preserved.)
I complained to my new Web guru about this and he said what I actually already knew from my Web searches - that registrars (i.e. companies that register domain names) are obliged to give the EPP authorization key if their customer wishes to transfer to another registrar, but they are unwilling to do it because they lose money when you leave them, and there is very little you can do to them in case they refuse. So he bought for me another, similar domain - mayamarkov.com, and uploaded my site there. I tried to look at the things in the most positive way possible and offered candy to some friends to celebrate my brand new domain. However, I am still very angry at Hostgool (may they go bankrupt) and still miss my first domain, the one my brother registered for me (it has been sold to some gamblers and now redirects to their page).

I wished to continue my work on teaching materials, but I have not been very creative at recent time. I have added to the site a page in memory of my brother in English and in Bulgarian, but little more. Of course I am very busy, but this is hardly the sole reason. It seems that the loss not only devastated me emotionally but also had a lasting impact on my productivity. I cannot even memorize the steps in creating or editing a Web page. Every time, I have to start from A and B all over again, painfully remembering why I am doing this in the first place. Though there is also a bittersweet feeling that I am coming closer to my brother by entering his world and making awkward steps in what used to be his realm.

What lessons could be drawn from my site's story? First (as my uncle pointed out back in 2003), avoid showing unpublished work to other people. If the manuscript is not yet ready for publication, keep it in a safe place; and if it is ready, publish it for everyone to see. An unpublished text shown to selected people is in a limbo of which an unscrupulous person can take advantage.

Second, if you are publishing online, think well how to manage it. If your work can be arranged as a blog, think of the big providers such as Google (Blogger) and Wordpress. They host blogs for free and have never (so far) betrayed me. Everybody knows the warning against the "free lunch" but, in my experience, the free lunch (unlike the cheap lunch) has been quite OK. See e.g. this site for kids' songs arranged as a Wordpress blog.

If, however, you prefer (or have to) set up your own site and buy a domain, be careful whom you choose as host and registrar. Do not opt for a company bragging mainly about the low prices it offers. Sometimes these low prices can cost you too much. You may be forced either to submit to your registrar's blackmail and stay chained to it forever, or leave your domain name behind as I did. If I were using my site for business, I would lose much money from the domain name change; and even owners of non-commercial sites suffer when they are disconnected from their readers. So try to find a respectable company. See what other people have said about its services; after I got into trouble with Hostgool, I found - too late! - that other customers had complained from it (e.g. here and here). Check whether the company gives a valid street address, phone number and names of contact people. Did you mention that the above cited e-mails were signed "Hostgool.com support team"? I think that, despite today's magic of doing business online, a company with an office in your city is to be preferred. If you feel discontent, you can at least appear there in person and make a nice offline scandal.

Last, we all who contribute to the Web must think about the future. What's the use of noble incentives like Project Gutenberg aiming to make our heritage available online, if nobody cares for works created today? Why are those who publish online, and those who read online, so careless? We entrust the fruits of our minds to small sites dependent on yearly payments, and as soon as the subscription expires (e.g. because of the author's death), the site is doomed to disappear. We need a new type of charities - digital heritage foundations, to take over and host pages of contemporary authors who cannot care for their work themselves anymore. In the meantime, it will be wise if every individual author makes some provisions about his own personal site.

Casey Anthony already having followers

Undated photo of Zinah Jennings, copied from AP's report (original source: Richard County Jail).

Let me first copy an Associated Press report from today:

"SC police: Mother won't tell them where son is

by Meg Kinnard
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — It's unknown how long investigators would have gone without any information on a missing 18-month-old South Carolina boy if his mother hadn't crashed her car Christmas Eve.
Twenty-two-year-old Zinah Jennings and her son, Amir, were reported missing by the boy's grandmother, who hadn't seen either of them since Thanksgiving.
The mother didn't turn up until police responding to the single-vehicle accident learned she was listed as a missing person.
She's now in jail, charged with lying to authorities about where the boy is, prompting a search by local, state and federal authorities spanning the Carolinas, Georgia and beyond.
Columbia Police Chief Randy Scott says Jennings immediately began giving conflicting statements about where the boy was."

This disappearance of a toddler, unreported by the single mother, finally reported by the grandmother, after which the mother started endless lying, immediately brings to mind an earlier similar case - of 2-year-old Caylee Anthony. After Caylee's skeletal remains were found in a swamp, jurors let themselves be persuaded by defence that her mother Casey Anthony was not guilty of murder, manslaughter and child abuse.

At the Frontpage Magazine's symposium on Casey Anthony verdict last year, blogger Rob Taylor was furious: "The idea of “solid proof” is a myth. A child is dead and her mother avoided reporting her disappearance, then tried to frame someone else. Before juries were populated with armchair forensics experts this would have been an open and shut case... The disregard many people have for the victim, for Justice in the philosophical sense and for the truth is what troubles me here. The legal system worked – Anthony had a fair trial in front of a jury of her peers. That doesn’t mean Justice has been served. Caylee Anthony was thrown out like garbage, found with duct tape on her remains. We all know why people duct tape the mouths of children shut. We know why some drugged out party girl doesn’t report her child missing... The connection between who we give our sympathy to and cultural decline is clear. You can pretend that... there’s some reasonable explanation for not reporting your child missing or even that you truly believe that it’s necessary to let guilty people go free to ensure that innocent people aren’t imprisoned. What you cannot pretend is that there aren’t consequences to your pretense, one of which is the corpse of a Caylee Anthony."

Exactly. Commenting the case in my Sept. 6, 2011 post Unreasonable doubt, I wrote, "Seeing Casey Anthony acquitted and commentators praising the verdict as a victory for the US justice system, other people may be tempted to emulate her." I fear that this is what has happened in South Carolina, and while I wish very much for little Amir to be found alive after all, I have little hope that his grandmother will ever hug him again. We'll see what will follow and whether Zinah Jennings will be let, like Casey Anthony, to step over her child and continue her life as a free woman.

Anders Breivik found insane

Anders Breivik (photo copied from the Guardian).




On July 22, 2011 Anders Behring Breivik, the nice-looking young Norwegian pictured above, detonated a bomb in the center of Oslo, killing eight people. Then, while the capital was in horror and dismay, he sailed to the nearby island of Utoya, where Norwegian socialists organized a youth camp. Dressed as a policeman and heavily armed, he shot in cold blood at the defenceless, mainly young people, killing 69 people. The youngest victim was a girl named Sharidyn Svebakk-Boehn who had just turned 14. She had a blog where the last entry is dated July 20, 2011 - two days before her death.

Breivik was motivated by his Islamophobic and anti-multiculturalist views. For me, it meant that the perpetrator of a most horrific mass murder had views very similar to mine. I admit it created an eerie and uneasy feeling in me, and inevitably led to some soul-searching. I discussed my thoughts on Rose-Anne's post The Look of Crazy. It was not very suitable for this purpose because verbal abuse was guaranteed, but I simply wished to discuss it, and Rose-Anne was the only blogger known to me who wrote a meaningful post on the subject.

Two months later, the 10th anniversary of Sept. 11 attacks overshadowed this more recent massacre. And now - sad to say but true - the Norway victims seem all but forgotten. Most people seem to think that in the current situation, we'll have some Breiviks and we have to accept this, period. Just hope that you and your loved ones won't be around a Breivik when he detonates, because, as Rose-Anne correctly stated, usually there is no way to recognize such a psychopath before he has exposed his lethality.

What about his views? I think the observations of Breivik and his description of the current situation in Western Europe are quite true. What is wrong is his proposed solution, his choice of action. And we must admit that every time when we confront a danger associated with human beings, some of us may wish to solve the problem by exterminating these human beings. In the 1970s, some people fought communism by rounding up thousands of suspected communists to a stadium, torturing and killing many of them. In the 1940s, some sought to defeat Nazism and prevent its relapse by ethnically cleansing millions of Germans, sending mothers with babies out at Celsium -20 just because they happened to be German. And in the 17th century, other people tried to fight plague by locking victims inside their houses. All this is inhumane and utterly unacceptable, yet it does not mean that communism or nazism are acceptable, either, or that plague adds beautiful diversity to human population and so should be embraced despite its tendency to kill people here and there. I'd also point out to anyone else worried by the similarity of his views to Breivik's that we are actually comparing our sincere, unmoderated views to a highly moderated version of Breivik's views, because he took much care not to look as right-wing extremist in order not to attract attention by authorities.

From the moment when I heard that Breivik was captured alive, I was worried by the inadequacy of the punishment he could receive under Norwegian law. The maximum prison term in Norway is 21 years, and the treatment of prisoners is reportedly quite benign. The idea is that the criminal is not a source of evil but a poor person who needs help to reform and become a good member of society, rather than punishment. Like every system of morality and justice centered not on actual and potential victims but on the perpetrator, this shows its charlatanism to full degree when confronting a murderous psychopath like Breivik. During the discussion at Rose-Anne's blog, I wrote, "I may be barbarian... but I am glad that Bin Laden was shot dead, and I wish the same had happened to Breivik. We already have more of his oratory than any reasonable person would want. Now, he will have a due process in a country having humane prisons and no death penalty. He will smile from the bar in the faces of victims' parents, adding insult to injury. Yes, it is a principle that everyone is entitled to a fair trial... but he gave no fair trial - no trial of any kind - to the kids he murdered."

People, however, have found a way around this problem. In late November, Breivik was psychiatrically evaluated and declared insane. Factually, this is 100% wrong. Breivik is a very intelligent person who planned his actions with great deliberation and self-possession. He bought a farm for the sole purpose to be able to buy nitrate fertilizer needed for the bomb without arousing suspicions. (Other wannabe terrorists who hadn't the resources or far-sightedness to pose as farmers have been arrested soon after buying fertilizer, e.g. two young men of Arab Muslim origin detained in Berlin on Sept. 8, 2011.) However, from a not-so-formal point of view I think the psychiatrists did the right thing. No trial to be used as a tribune by Breivik, no smiling in the faces of victims' mothers, no release (I hope) after a decade or two. The very tissue of what we call our life depends on putting thick walls between ourselves and creatures like this murderer, although we can do it only after it is too late.

I am a National Enlightener

Yesterday, Nov. 1, was the Day of the National Enlighteners (Den na narodnite buditeli) in Bulgaria. National Enlighterners are, above all, the people who led the Bulgarian National Revival during the 19th century which culminated in the April Uprising of 1876 and the restoration of the Bulgarian independence after the Russian-Turkish war of 1877-78. However, Enlighteners in a broader sense are considered all who have contributed to the cultural advancement of the Bulgarian nation, including all conscientous teachers and scientists. For that reason, schools and universities have a day off on Nov. 1. I am proud to say that I qualify to be called a National Enlightener not only owing to my occupation but also by the merit of my own deeds.

Of course this pompous statement is tongue in cheek, but it is based on a real recent achievement. Not that I have written a good educational text popularizing science or that some research manuscript of mine has been accepted for publication by a peer-reviewed journal with impact factor (or be it even a journal without impact factor). Nope. Keep in mind, however, that all this intellectual activity associated with "enlightenment" is, as Marxians would call it, a superstructure. To be possible at all, it requires a base - a set of material preconditions. If a person isn't fed, dressed and comfortably positioned, he is totally unable to engage in any intellectual activity. Our students, thankfully, come to us fed and generally well dressed. However, when we come to the comfortable position, we have problems.

The microscopic observation in our teaching labs requires lab chairs with variable height. For many years, it has been impossible for our Department to buy such chairs. The Bulgarian law requires all equipment for government institutions to be bought by a complicated procedure, so our demands must be sent "above", to the Rector's office. The aim of this procedure is to prevent corruption, but the actual result is what you can expect if you let clerks disconnected from teaching and not too interested in its success to buy all items needed for teaching. The most urgently needed things somehow get cancelled from the list, the rest are supplied with great delay (up to a year) and usually in a form unsuitable for the purpose. In the case of lab chairs, some were indeed bought with variable height as required, but the maximum height was about 35 cm. We cannot even figure out how could such close-to-mother-Earth chairs be produced in the first place. Our only reasonable guess is that they have been meant for kindergartens.

So I have for years used some of my time at work to try and repair our available old lab chairs that become fewer and more valuable with each passing semester. Some of them still have their labels indicating that they were produced in the 1950s. I receive little acknowledgement for these efforts. Most colleagues mock me, and the students never think that someone may be doing hard work so that they have something to sit on. However, I know I am doing the right thing. My maternal grandfather, who was a carpenter, would be proud of me if he could know. Unfortunately, sooner or later every chair has its metal part broken, and at that point I give up, because I haven't the equipment and skills needed for welding.

This semester, we have another problem. Our building has been in renovation for more than a year already, with no end in sight. While this process is taking place, normal teaching and research is all but impossible, and if you at least save your things needed for work you are lucky. We have already lost reagents for many thousands euro because of incompetence of some electricians who disconnected the power supply to a freezer full of antibodies. Now, the workmen have come to the task of renovating the central heating. It is a rule in Bulgaria to renovate and repair the heating systems in the autumn-winter season when heating is actually needed. In our building, this was done last in the cold and hungry winter of 1996-97. At that time, apart from writing about cell cycle and protesting against government, I was busy to manage some heating at my workplace. Happily, the room where I spend most of my time had a glassware dryer suitable also as a heater. The same was true for one of our four teaching labs. But what about the other three?

I found two electric heaters which were dispensable at home and brought them to work. One of them was initially not working. I had recently re-read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Pirsig, which claims that everybody has the mental skills necessary to repair moderately complex technology such as motorcycles. I was young, trusting and stupid, so I thought that electric heaters are even simpler than motorcycles and tried to repair it myself. After the attempt, when I plugged the heater into the socket, there was a "puff" and some sparkles, then everything went dark. So I strongly advise readers not to follow Pirsig's theory with any electric device (or anything significantly more complex than a chair).

Close to my workplace, there was a garage turned into a shop. It was conveniently selling and repairing simple electric equipment. I brought there my blackened heater. The electrician said that a short circiut had destroyed all parts of the heater except for its corpus. He added, however, that due to the ongoing hyperinflation, it was still more advantageous to buy and install all these parts than to buy a new heater. So my poor old heater got a new life. Indeed, it had lost its legs long ago, but we are putting it on a metal test tube stand and it is OK.

This autumn, as weather turned cold, I placed the two heaters in two of the teaching labs. But what about the fourth lab? I don't remember how we managed it in 1996-97, but now I am in charge of the practical teaching and feeling responsible for it. My mother had mentioned that a heater had stopped working and she had bought an electric radiator. She immediately agreed to give me this heater for my workplace, as she had given me the two older ones.

Unfortunately, my friends at the garage-shop were no longer in business. The garage was not their but municipal property. The Mayor's office had raised the rent to some ridiculous level (about EUR 350 per month, they said). They could not afford it and moved out. Nobody rented the garage-shop after then. It is locked and slowly deteriorating, illustrating how government attempts to manage business invariably turn to slaughtering the egg-laying hen. I don't know whether the electricians have found a new place, but the fact is that our giant Medical University campus is deprived of their services. Who would repair my heater now?

To cut the long story short - finally, my husband did it. He is a man of technology, not some inspired Pirsig reader. So on Monday I gladly informed my colleages that we already have a heater in every teaching lab. I only asked them (and I keep praying) that nobody forgets to unplug the heater when leaving the room. Otherwise, a fire could easily ensue, we could share the fate of the Department of Pathophysiology, and to cap it all, I would be held responsible for bringing the heaters in the first place.

But let's not think of disasters likely to happen. At least, now we can let Grannie Winter come with all her merry white granddaughters (as a Bulgarian nursery rhyme says) without worrying that we have to teach at Celsium 5. And I have all right to call myself a National Enlightener, haven't I? Just try to say I haven't, to see your comment moderated :-).

How to love

Today's date is special to me, and this post marking it is very personal.
I am now thinking of two loved ones who recently returned from emigration.
Love is not just a feeling. It is a skill that is not always easy. It is expressed in acts that, like all our acts, may have results different from those wished.
When something goes wrong with someone we love, we start the "What if..." thinking. We see grave mistakes in what we have done or not done 15 or 20 years ago. I don't know if this sometimes teaches us to avoid future mistakes; but what is sure is that it is felt as devastating.
I usually respect other people's privacy and rarely try to impose my opinions on them and to tell them how to live. I wish to live my life and understand that others want and deserve the same. When a friend or a relative makes a step I would not make, I do not rush to label it a mistake, because different people want different things. However, when something bad happens , I feel guilty for having done nothing to prevent it.
A month or two ago, I heard of a composer in the city of Varna who set up his own music studio and so gained independence. Because my loved people were musicians, I immediately thought that they could possibly do the same and nobody would need to emigrate. This imagined picture of what might have been, and the feeling of guilt for not having given enough support (to be precise, any support) to make other solutions possible, almost made me cry.
It is especially difficult to decide how to behave if you are in the position of an aunt (uncle) or an in-law. Because people don't choose their aunts and in-laws and we all know how arrogantly some of them intrude into our lives, I prefer not to be intruding. So I do not call those whom I love - and then sit and think that maybe they wish I had called.
If they are reading this, I hope they know that I love them and I am thinking of them, despite not calling. If I can help them in any way, I wish they just tell me. Of course I hope they won't be in any need of help, but if this happens, I'll do what I can.

Ten years since Sept. 11, 2001

Three days ago, the world marked the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 attack.
It is good that the mastermind of this horrible massacre was killed and deprived of the opportunity to celebrate. It is bad that there are still plenty of other people eager to advance his cause. Because, unfortunately, the advocates of Grand Zero Mosque have not yielded to public pressure to build it somewhere else - anywhere else, - this post will be a blog action against Islamism. To honour also the beginning of academic year in Bulgarian schools tomorrow (Sept. 15), I have copied from the Faithfreedom site a text which should interest everybody having a touch with education. Let me warn Muslim readers that they are likely to be offended by the following text.

Sabrina's story

2005/03/10

Dear Dr. Sina,

Your site brought tears of joy to my eyes. It is so great to realize I am not alone!

I left Islam before your site came into existence. I kid you not; I left Islam when I was 7 years old or so! My apostasy was triggered by a very interesting incident.

Kids usually regard textbooks as something sacred and believe every word it says. If an author says that the French revolution is good (or bad), then most students will parrot it. They won’t use their own brains.

My teacher wanted us to use our brains and stop “worshipping” textbooks. She gave us an assignment to write our own book. When we finished, she said that we could now publish it. Some kids wrote that every parent has to buy an ice-cream every day, others wrote that schools and education as a whole must be banned. Nobody could prevent us from publishing our books. If we had released our masterpieces without mentioning our ages, some people would have certainly believed every single word in our books. If we had added the magic abbreviation “PhD” to our creations, many people would have started worshipping it.

Then it suddenly occurred to me that Mohammed, a man whom my parents named “a perfect man”, could have made up the Koran! Why should I believe him? I can create my own religion and claim that I’m the prophet of the only true God.

Since then I have never named myself “a Muslimah”. When I became a big girl, I studied Islam thoroughly and came to a conclusion that Islam is a load of crap. My parents left Islam too. We all now are safe and sound in Paris .

I advise all Muslims to read articles in this site. You don’t need to worship Ali Sina or believe him. He could think out every accusation he has leveled at Mohammed. In my opinion, he is just a man who studies Islam critically. If Ali Sina didn’t exist, Islam would still be a load of crap. Friends, you have your own brains, so use them. How could a prophet marry a 9-year-old girl? How could a prophet have more than 20 wives and concubines but at the same time command his followers to have only 4 wives? Isn’t it strange that God permitted Mohammed to have more than 4 wives? Decide for yourself. Make your own investigation. AND USE YOUR BRAINS!

Today I believe in God. But, I’m afraid, Mohammed had nothing to do with God.

Dear Ali Sina, I am very happy that you exist! Yes, without you Islam would still be trash but it feels so go(od) with you.

Kind regards,

Sabrina

Unreasonable doubt

Undated photo of the late Caylee Anthony (copied from ABC News, originally provided by the Florida police).

"Caylee's law" is a draft considered by several US states that would make it a felony not to report to authorities the death or disappearence of a pre-teenage child within a short time. It is named after Caylee Marie Anthony (2005 - 2008) from Florida who disappeared shortly before her third birthday. Her skeleton, with duct tape on the facial skull, was found six months later in a swamp. Caylee's mother, Casey Anthony, did not report her daughter's disappearance, enjoyed endless parties, then lied to investigators that the child had been kidnapped by a nonexistent nanny. At her trial, the defense claimed that Caylee had drowned accidentally. The jurors acquitted Casey of murder, manslaughter and child abuse - of everything they could, so she was released only days after the trial. The purpose of Caylee's law is to prevent similar cases to be solved this way in the future.
Opponents to the proposed bill argue that laws voted emotionally in the aftermath of high-profile cases are known to have undesired consequences and that such a law, if enforced, will harm innocent people. Of course it will; most laws do it all the time. The real question to me is whether the pros outweigh the cons or, to put it more emotionally, whether America can afford not having such a law after Casey’s “not guilty” verdict.
I admit I fail to understand the meaning of reasonable doubt in Casey Anthony’s case. My head just whorls when I read the opinions of jurors and legal experts that the burden of proof was on prosecution and the prosecution did not produce enough evidence that Casey had killed her daughter. It seems that the jurors demanded the same amount of evidence as if the defendant had been a stranger to the victim. My opinion, however, is that there are some situations when the burden of proof is on you to prove that you are innocent, and this is when you have accepted certain responsibility beforehand. If you are appointed to guard some property or person and you fail to protect the guarded object, you will be expected to prove that you have done your best. And if you become a parent and accept your parental responsibility by bringing your child home, instead of giving her for adoption, you are to prove your innocence if something bad happens to her. Even if she suffers an accident, you still have to answer questions, because young children cannot protect themselves from accidents – this is the duty of their caregivers.
I think that any doubt in Casey Anthony’s guilt was unreasonable because I cannot imagine any reasonable hypothesis (except insanity) under which she could be not guilty. Let’s believe the defense that Caylee drowned accidentally and her panicked grandfather put duct tape on her face to make the accident look like murder (?!) and threw the body into the swamp. Well, wasn’t Casey obliged to protect her 2-year-old daughter from accidental drowning? Recently, a 1-year-old boy named Joseph drowned in the bath while his mother Shannon Johnson was facebooking. Although his death was undisputed accident, the mother was sentenced to 10 years. The judge told her, “(Joseph) was a human being that had a right to life. And you, as his mother, had a responsibility to make sure he got that chance. That was your responsibility.” I think this judge was right. I also think there are deep flaws in a system severely punishing a negligent mother who generally acts as a good citizen while allowing a negligent or (more likely) murderous mother to be rewarded with freedom for her lies.
Let me repeat – I agree with the opponents of Caylee’s law that it will be costly and will harm innocent parents. However, I fear that its absence may spell death for many young children, viewed by their parents as unwanted burden rather than joy. Seeing Casey Anthony acquitted and commentators praising the verdict as a victory for the US justice system, other people may be tempted to emulate her. Things are bad enough as they are. Opponents say Caylee’s murder is a single, isolated case. This not only makes me ask how many cases must happen before something is done – it is simply untrue. Unfortunately, when a child is murdered, parents are the first suspects, and in two-thirds of cases there is no need to look elsewhere.
If you disagree with me, I can only apologize for wasting your time. But if you agree with me and live in the USA, you can consider signing a petition for Caylee’s law. I cannot sign it myself because I am not an American. It is difficult even to explain why I still have so much interest in this country after my brother's family no longer lives there. Perhaps because I believe that in a world where nothing can undo the evils of the past, our only hope can be for a better future, and our deeds are the only way to make it come true.

Debating evolution and God

While preparing for a debate on evolution vs. creation scheduled for next week, I stumbled upon this post or, to be precise, upon a comment on it directing me to a Hugh Hewitt's interview with Richard Dawkins. Below is a quote from the interview - enjoy!

"RD: Okay, do you believe Jesus turned water into wine?

HH: Yes.

RD: You seriously do?

HH: Yes.

RD: You actually think that Jesus got water, and made all those molecules turn into wine?

HH: Yes.

RD: My God.

HH: Yes. My God, actually, not yours. But let me…

RD: I’ve realized the kind of person I’m dealing with now...

HH: It’s Hugh Hewitt with Richard Dawkins. Professor Dawkins’ brand new book is The Greatest Show On Earth: The Evidence For Evolution. It’s linked at Hughhewitt.com. Professor, I have one last question, it’s very important for me to ask this, because I just kept coming back to it. You argue in the book at one point that the retina is so poorly designed, that it argues against the idea of a designer, because it’s such a messed up job. Conversely, though, if the object of the designer was to create a world in which faith was possible, but also disbelief, in order to make faith a choice and not an obligation, wouldn’t then you have to say that the world was wondrously constructed to that end, to preserve free will and the choosing?

RD: You mean that God deliberately made mistakes so as to deceive us?

HH: Not mistakes, that God created a world in which faith was possible by an order of its complexity, to allow for the Richard Dawkins of the world to exist, and be completely, absolutely convinced that He did not, that that’s the only situation in which faith is real.

RD: So in order to make that the case, God said well, now let’s make the eye look like a botched up job so that…are you saying…

HH: I think you understand what I’m saying, and you’re saying no, you don’t believe that, that it would not in fact fit that, a giant…for example, have you read the Harry Potter novels?

RD: No.

HH: Do you read any fiction at all?

RD: Of course.

HH: What’s the most complicated bit of fiction you’ve read? Like War and Peace?

RD: Yeah, what’s your point? What point are you making?

HH: That complexity in design, and counterintuitive steps, et cetera, don’t disprove the idea of genius at work. Genius at work often works through complexity and through misdirection.

RD: I think that what you’re kind of saying is that God made the world look as though it had evolved in order to test our faith, when it didn’t evolve.

HH: No, not test our faith. I’m saying that the world has been made as it is to allow for faith, because if it was made too easy for the simple-minded, it would simply be routine, and everyone would believe, and then there would be no faith.

RD: That would be a pretty unpleasant sort of God. I think, I would say you’re welcome to believe in a kind of God who would do that, but it’s not the kind of God that would appeal to me.

HH: Well, it’s not about what appeals to us, it’s about what is. And you also write that a beneficent designer might, you’d idealistically think, minimize suffering. But not if the soul was infinite, and suffering was necessary for its wisdom."

Osama bin Laden killed

As we are approaching the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 massacre, we heard unexpected good news: Osama bin Laden was killed "in his luxury hideout" in Pakistan by US commandos.
As we Bulgarians say in such cases, God finally collected his bad debts (Gospod nai-setne si sabra veresiite).
Below, I am copying the entire May 1 post Yes We Can by British-Libyan writer Soad El-Rgaig:

"Today the world rejoices the death of an evil man and his twisted ideology, Osama Ben Laden. This man and his evil ideology brought so much suffering and pain to everyone. Today the sun will shine on a world free from one evil man.
Tomorrow, I hope the world will celebrate the demise of another evil man called Muammer Gaddafi who is killing innocent people because they said no to his evilness, his hate-mongering ideology, his forces of destruction.
Any chance those Special US Operators who carried out the honorable job in Pakistan will pass by Libya on their way to home :-)"