Monday 24 April 2000

Pic of the day: If the sun goes down and there's nobody there to see it, does it still make a sunset?

Ack. I had looked forward to meeting a representative of Jehovahs Witnesses in town today, for a small meal and an extended discussion of the Flynn effect and other subjects on the borderline of science. But my digestion did not allow me to go. It started to act up late last night, seemingly a disturbance in the microbial flora of the large intestines.

You know, when I was a kid, I thought bacteria were all eevil and should die! But later I learned that most of them are harmless, and some are even useful. The microorganisms in the gut (mostly bacteria) are essential to a normal digestion. You can live without them, but you should not. They break down cellulose and various other complex products that have made it through the more rapid digestion of the stomach and the small intestines. In animals that eat grass and leaves, the energy from cellulose and other complex starches are essential to survival. They have either a special stomach for predigesting, like our friends the cows, or they have a really long gut for giving the food time to break down. A sedentary lifestyle tends to go well with this, as there is really no way to hurry the process.

We humans are a compromise, like in so many other areas of life. We have the ability to break down cellulose (with a little help from our microbial friends) but we can also survive without it. Funny thing how much of a compromise we people are: We are a bit like sea-living mammals, a bit like climbing ones, a bit like running ones ... we're like the natural center of the mammal world. To top it all, we mammals share a central part of our brain with reptiles and birds. So we should be well equipped to empathize with our less talkative friends of fur and feather and scale. But we generally don't. It can be hard enough for us to get along with each other. And especially with Jehovahs Witnesses, I've heard.

To be honest, I don't see why people hate the Witnesses so much. Apart from being insufferably self-righteous and disturbing people at the most inconvenient times of day, I mean. But hey, haven't most people had friends like that? Not to mention family.

There's always the possibility that they could be hated by all peoples for Jesus' name, as is written. But as far as I know, they got Jesus' name wrong. (As do we, but I honestly don't feel like making a sect out of spelling changes.) Actually, our friendly Witnesses probably even got their God's name wrong, even though that was supposedly why they started up their own outfit. They could not stand seeing the Bible being falsified, with all manner of poetic translations put in where the original text had the original Hebrew name. Of course, the original Hebrew only had consonants, and even those don't match up too well with ours. To this day, few if any can say for sure that they know the Name. Which may be just as well. That way they can supposedly not take it in vain, now can they? Not that I'd try.

Yes, it's 2nd Day Easter, a holy-day here in Norway, so I'm off from work. I had planned to stop by work too while I was in town, but as I said, I was not in town. That bites, because this time there is actually things I can do. And a few hours alone at work on a Monday would not be too bad. Now I shall have to work that much more on another day, when I'm already tired. If I am healthy enough to go to work at all, that is. I do feel better now. In fact, I feel a lot better, but then again it's hours later.

The extended holiday, from Wednesday noon onward, is drawing to a close. It would have been interesting to have some more days off, to see how long it would take before I actually started to feel lonely. But not at the price of being sick. I'd rather work than be sick. Now that's a pretty strong statement against sickness, from me.

But today has been, to reverse the old children's rhyme: No work and all play, makes Magnus a bright boy! :) Yeah, right...