Thursday, June 30, 2005

Heard a great story last night on NPR on med school students and the cadavers they worked on. I was surprised by a lot of things in this story, but most of all by how attached the students get to their subjects. Over the course of ten weeks, the students learn all of their body's secrets - and see first hand how they lived and died. One student talked about how hard his subject had fought cancer, and how that affected his view of death. Even more surprising is the memorial service that the school holds every year in honor of the people who donated their bodies, and the families that come back year after year to participate. Kind of heavy listening for the car ride home after a full day of work, but still intriguing.

I've been an organ donor since I got my first Driver's License, and it's something that I feel very strongly about. I have friends that won't consider it because of their religious views, and a husband convinced that his body won't be fit for any type of research by the time he's done with it. But there is more than one option. If your organs aren't fit to be used again, give your whole body to a medical school and let the students practice on your body. If you think that God needs your body to be all in one place so he can raise you up again - well, He's supposed to have done more impressive things than re-assmeble a couple of body parts. And what about people who have been burned up in fires, or.......ok, enough about religion.

Donate your Organs.

Or your whole body.

Just do something.

Wednesday, June 29, 2005

I'm in the middle of the third week on my new job. So far, so good. I haven't broken any laws, and they haven't pissed me off. Yet. Of course, considering I technically work for the government now, I'm sure it's only a matter of time. So as I'm [cough] working on a bibliography today, I (as usual) kept running into information that had nothing whatsoever to do with the subject at hand (Which might be good, because this bibliography is going to put the professor to sleep - nevermind the students). This, however, will not make it onto my list of facts about military leadership: In ancient Rome, it was considered a sign of leadership to be born with a crooked nose.