Six feet long. Transparent head. Bulbous nose. Yep, that’s a Muppet alright, I’d know it anywhere. Found in the wild:
Jellynose fish can grow to more than six feet (two meters) long and, like many deep-sea fish, they have gelatinous bodies consisting of very little muscle.
via National Geographic: Bizarre Gelatinous Fish Found in Brazil.
This earth is a marvel-filled place, isn’t it?
Here at Inedible Ink we like our baseball bats wielded by good guys, but the Strength to Carry On file will just have to expand to accommodate this little role reversal.
A man apparently tried to rob an acquaintance by beating him with a baseball bat and was seriously hurt when the victim fought back with a sword, authorities said.
via Bat-wielding would-be robber beaten with a sword. AZCentral
The L.A. Times story is by a pediatrician about a mother who died after refusing to endanger her baby with treatment for her own brain tumor.
To our astonishment — and joy — the comatose woman “hung in” until the 28th week. At that point, an ultrasound showed the fetus was probably over the 2-pound mark, and her doctors scheduled the caesarean. Gasping for air, the child was born at a size and weight that would give her a fighting chance of life.
via Mother-to-be sacrifices her chance of surviving cancer for her baby - Los Angeles Times.
If you didn’t click through to read the whole thing the extremely abridged version is this: Pregnant woman has an agressive brain tumor which needs treatment. That treatment would probably injure or kill the unborn. Woman refuses treatment for the baby’s sake. Amazed doctors argue. Woman lapses into coma. Father is steadfast until baby has a good chance of survival. Two pound baby delivered by C-section. Woman gets treatment, dies after regaining consciousness and seeing the healthy baby.
The Secondhand Smoke Blog had this:
The headline described the young woman as a “mother to be.” That is flat-out wrong: She was already a mother, which was why she decided that her baby’s life was most important.
This is a beautiful story of a Mother’s love. So beautiful that it’s a shame that I’m so annoyed about it. The author of the L.A.Times piece is a pediatrician. Here are a few choice bits of hers:
Even I, who had chosen to study pediatrics because I loved children, reluctantly acknowledged that the woman’s care was the medical priority. Wouldn’t I — wouldn’t everyone? — opt for life-saving intervention for myself? Wouldn’t we all yield to the natural instinct to survive?
You “love” children, huh? You’re the pediatrician, the baby is your patient. Doing no harm to that baby is your job. That baby’s health is your job. I’m glad the mother had her wits about her because that baby didn’t have another advocate in the room, and that was your job. When you love, you sacrifice, and in this case you can’t even manage to imagine sacrificing. Are you so certain that killing an unborn baby is such a natural instinct?
The baby responded by clasping her mother’s outstretched finger, bringing tears to her parents’ eyes — and ours. The new parents didn’t need to know that the grasp was an involuntary reflex; to the young mother, it was a sign that her baby had felt her love.
Here’s a clue for you, Doc. This mother didn’t have any confusion about Love being a warm fuzzy feeling that you get when a tiny baby curls its fingers around yours. If you think she traded her life for a few seconds of warm fuzzy you’re sadly confused.
I gave a silent thanks for her miraculous survival where it was due — to her mother.
She was standing right there. Why would you keep your thanks silent? Unless…
This kind of stark choice where one person sacrifices her life for the other is, thankfully, a rare occasion. We don’t see women making this total sacrifice of their lives for their children often. This mother’s single choice serves as an exaggerated black and white illustration of every mother’s stream of everyday choices:
sleep or baby’s crying?
clean outfit or baby’s breakfast?
status car or minivan?
Aerobics body or mothering body?
Latest fashions or wash and wear?
These aren’t all-or-none decisions and none of them are final, but my point here is that the sacrifices made for the good of the baby are totally normal. They happen all the time, they are natural, and we don’t think that they’re so amazing.
In fact, I don’t find the mother’s final choice of self sacrifice all that surprising, she reminds me of Saints Gianna and Mary.
Click for the petition
This memorial plan contains numerous islamic elements which are more appropriate memorials to the perpetrators, than to the victims of the 9/11 hijacking.
Do not let this continue.
Click the link and sign the petition.
Call your congressman.
Get angry.
Do something.
We might need a new “Strength to carry on” category around here. Please add this item, along with the associated mug shots, and a sticker reading “WARNING: Home Invasion is dangerous” to your files.
When two men broke into her home to rob her, she fought back.
“The woman fought them off,” said Capt. David Honeycutt of the Claiborne County Sheriff’s Department, of the 58-year-old Bray. “She threw a bowl of homemade chili and got after them with a broom.”
From Claiborne woman fights off home invaders : Local News : Knoxville News Sentinel. via Instapundit
Complete with mug shots.
Here’s another item for the “Strength to Carry on” file. Stamp this one with “Home invasion SHOULD be dangerous.”
College Student Shoots, Kills Home Invader
What Would Tony Soprano Do?
I turned into Tony Soprano last year. I got so disgusted with a couple of my friends that I whacked them. Not literally, of course; they’re not sleeping with the fishes or anything. But in terms of being a daily part of my life, they’re gone.
Whacked.
via Big Hollywood » Blog Archive » Whack Your Friends, Tony Would.
Whack ‘em. It has a certain Lenten appeal, doesn’t it? This author is writing about whacking friendships to make room in his life for new friends, but maybe you need to whack something else, or make room for something else.
Just in time for the annual SI swimsuit issue:
Brain scans revealed that when men are shown pictures of scantily clad women, the region of the brain associated with tool use lights up.
via National Geographic: Bikinis Make Men See Women as Objects, Scans Confirm.
The story goes on to relate that the “I wonder what that person is thinking?” areas of the men’s brains don’t light up at all during this same test. Any woman who has ever said “My eyes are up here.” already knows this.
I’m a little hesitant that a brain scan is being used as a proxy for a human sentiment and even intentions.
I’m also a little troubled that a picture of a bikini clad woman is being used to show that men see women in bikinis as objects when the picture (of a woman in a bikini) really is an object. There was a control group of pictures more fully clothed women as well, these got different results.
Mostly, I’m bothered that this empirical evidence in support of the ages-old wisdom of modesty in public dress is being construed as a dig against men. Men look at scantily clad women differently, they just do.
Perhaps this evidence will encourage some modesty on the part of women, if not, you’ll have to ask yourself why that might be.
Mathew 5:27 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’28 But I say to you, everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 29 If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one of your members than to have your whole body thrown into Gehenna.
Add this one to your Strength to Carry On file: Man thwarts burglars by stealing the getaway van.
Against the 911 dispatcher’s advice, Rosario announced he was going to take it. What jury in the world was going to convict him, he thought?
He drove up a steep hill away from the house, figuring whoever was ransacking his home wouldn’t be able to keep up on foot. He stopped a few blocks away in front of a friend’s house and waited for police.
