An Invitation Finally Accepted

A while ago I invited "our" pal, doc Bialy, to contribute to Barnes-ville as an irregular columnist.  Until today he had declined what I considered an oft extended, gracious invitation, often politely but often as not in a grouchy (not Groucho) style that I have learned to accept, if not always enjoy.

But this morning, for reasons of which I have (as he might type) "noooo idea", the following email arrived, and being an Honest Hank, I am forced to publish it, although truthfully it is not exactly what I had in mind when I made my first, and perhaps, ultimately foolhardy offer months and months ago.

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Dear Hank,

I have decided to take you up on your offer of publishing whatever I might think to send you in the way of idle or not deliberations of what are widely known as the "pouring from the empty into the void concerning the general state of affairs" type, insofar as they can be related to the matter of attention graphically illustrated by the button in Groucho's lapel.

*

The difference between molecular virologists and politicians.

The former are overly enamored of "single-hit" explanations for even the most complex of phenomena. This is a fault of their teachers and teacher's teachers who were overly influenced by the apparent success of Beadle and Tatum's "one gene, one enzyme" hypothesis.

The latter, on the other hand, are passionate about "multi-hit" strategies and are noted for reducing the simplest of problems to unmanageable proportions at the drop of a coin in the campaign box.

It is another wonder of HIV/AIDS that it majestically and uniquely encompasses both of these divergences.

It may very well be that the meek will inherit the earth. But what will be left to inherit when the last bastard drops dead?

Comments

[noreen martin]

Right on Doc, hope you don't mind that I affectionally call you this! Welcome aboard as you will not find highfultin folks here, just truthful folks trying to make some sense of this Aids mess.

You are right in your comment, kinda like who will be left to pick up the pieces when everyone drops the bomb? One tin soldier.

[Frater Karlstein]

It is possible to generate emptiness from emptiness at the slightest provocation. This is the wanderlust of the globules of cognitive substance WHOSE cognitive substance is to wander in search of explanations. We are in the epoch of the explanations. We need contrasts to this state of affairs, on the one hand, and the most severe of scientific programs, on the other. Problem is, the severe scientific programs seem to have lost their own provocations, and wander about among the globules, in search of their own substance, their own explanations. It is not a happy state of affairs.

On the other hand, it is possible to bear witness to various contrasting historical epochs in which something other than unique explanations decidedly absorbed an intelligence that had not yet decided upon its own requirements, and rather referred each event that propounded a sense of things, as likely to remove to another, as another were likely to remove to itself. I speak of the vastly permeable elements of ancient myths, how the gods did turn into other gods, havoc-wreaking events and attitudes into other havoc-wreaking events and attitudes, and these changes distributed geographically. Check out the various things that were alleged to have happened on Lemnos, for instance. And among the turmoil and combinatorics, the state of affairs of the world in general seemed no more nor less refreshing then as now.

For the first time in my memory this afternoon, a third base umpire allowed a home plate umpire to reverse his decision regarding his call of a shot down the third baseline, foul to fair. An otherwise terminated rally ensued. Baseball is a linear aethlon. The manager of the team in the field for the second game in a row was ejected. Three players reached base on bunt-related plays. It is better to ride aerodyne bikes than prone bikes. Everyday another wolf call. Wolf man related rituals hide behind it all. Woof woof.

[Johnny B.]

I couldn't have said it better, Frater. Your points are all well taken.

Hank, this letter was not written by our good friend, Dr. Bialy. He is FAR too busy to read your blog. Much less to comment. Must be a Bialy impersonator.

"It is another wonder of HIV/AIDS that it majestically and uniquely encompasses both of these divergences."

Uniquely?

Are you SURE?

[HankBarnes]

Johnny B,

Nah, it's him. He confirmed it.

Hank

[George]

Johnny B,

Whether the peculiar "men" and "dey", complete with Gurdjieff reference that Frater Karlstein had a field day with and riffed his way to sublime heights of analog and denking on, was write by the maybe not so goodnik doc or not is a matter of conjecture as the medium of email allows for as many forgeries as does that of cyberspace of which it is but an included globule, though not like the molten globule intermediates that are said to be chaperoned during the infoldings of a polypeptide chain.

Nonetheless, I hope that it lays to rest any lingering doubts you might have harbored as to ur identity since clearly I am incapable of writing in a clear, expository style.

And I do think doc B.'s (let's call him that for the lack of a better designation) use of the word unique was probably deliberate and since I cannot think of anything else in science that possesses that "majestic" property, I also agree with him.

Do you have another candidate?

[McKiernan]

George,

Its only the bogus forgeries that need concern. Left ?

As Chip said:

The essential paradigm of cyberspace is creating partially situated identities out of actual or potential social reality in terms of canonical forms of human contact, thus renormalizing the phenomenology of narrative space and requiring the naturalization of the intersubjective cognitive strategy, and thereby resolving the dialectics of metaphorical thoughts, each problematic to the other, collectively redefining and reifying the paradigm of the parable of the model of the metaphor.

[George]

Right you are McK. And also too we must keep constant vigil for bootleg escape plans which seldom get you where you intended.

Who is Chip? He uses a lot of big words.

[Johnny B.]

McK and George - EXACTLY!

Hank - it was a facetious remark. I know it's him.

[Claus]

Fu Manchu says, 'simplicity is perfection'. Molecular virologists have found the simplest of answers to their own survival and propagation: viral sexual transmission = sexual transmission of the virologist. The virologist himself has become the supremely succesful parasite: independent of the sexual act leading to reproduction, independent of the host's survival, independent of humanity, the virologist is always incarnated, insinuated, intimated in the creative act itself.

When the last bastard drops dead, the virologist inherits the earth.