Who wants to live forever?

8 year old Gabrielle Williams doesn't age. Her tiny body, just about the size of a baby's, might hold the secrets of immortality. Dr. Richard Walker working on decoding the genes for aging is reported in the Swedish paper Aftonbladet to have said that if he can find the gene that stops the aging in Gabby Williams' body, it will be possible to stop aging altogether.

But who wants to live forever? The newspaper's own gallup pole on the issue reveals that a majority would prefer not to live forever (50.9%) and that just over 40% would prefer to be able to live forever. Really? Forever is a mighty long time.

If you are going to live forever there is a whole bunch of problems that you must address that will be new. For instance, how will you tackle family dinners? Were do you draw the line. I assume that grandchildren will be welcome and great grandchildren can still be doable even today. But is a thanksgiving dinner with 8 grandchildren, 24 great-grandchildren and 70 great-great-grandchildren even feasible, and this is not counting cousins and what not, it's impossible!

Another problem is availability, are everybody getting their genes fixed at age 20 to stop aging or just a lucky few, and what then? Are we going to have an ageless elite relaxing in several hundred years old comfortable settings with no rush, were's the rush when you can live forever right? The rest wondering what's it like? That seems like a very strange future to say the least.

It is good to cure diseases, no one wants to get alzheimer's or dementia and a cure for these illnesses will mean so much for so many people and their loved ones. But history is a stern teacher, when there is something that can be abused - there is a risk it will end up being abused and usually the consequences are dire.

Move-in Day: The Annual Ritual Marking the Start of the School Year

Move-in day at college. What a scene. I remember mine well: my mom and dad with me at the University of Utah at good old Austin Hall (may she rest in peace). While my dad helped me bring in the stuff we had just hauled across the country from New Hampshire, my mom scrubbed the hell out of every nook and cranny in my dorm room.

This weekend students moved into campus housing at USC. As I have in past years I volunteered for a shift as a move-in helper. While I hope I was helpful to those students for whom I carried up a few boxes, I actually get something myself out of this experience. There is a sense of renewal in seeing the excitement of these new students move into the freshmen dorms (oh, I’m sorry, I mean the “first-year student residence halls”).  It reminds me of the excitement (and nervousness) I felt all those years ago.

This move-in ritual has likely been repeated since students started moving to college. In the novel, The Diary of a Freshman (published in 1900) the protagonist, Tommy Wood, moves into a boarding room (after his mother insists on them checking on five different options) in Cambridge because he didn’t get a room inside Harvard Yard. He frets over this because, "I had the idea that if you didn't live in one of the buildings owned by the college you wouldn't feel, somehow, as if you 'belonged.'"His first days are filled with getting oriented to college life and to his new town. As I watched students trying to assemble new pieces of furniture to add to their diminutive dorm rooms I thought of Tommy trying to help his neighbor, Duggie, assemble his new bed that had been delivered. "We tried of about half an hour to make the bed stand up. It looked simple enough..." but, well you can imagine the rest. 

Tommy's mother helps clean his room even and moves his bed away from the window so he won’t catch cold. As soon as she leaves to catch the train home, he moves the bed back so he can see the goings on of his new town.

I'm sure lots of new students were moving their beds back to where they wanted as soon as they saw mom and dad's tail lights pulling out of the parking lot.

Writing A New Chapter

The Book of Life is made up of a series of chapters. Today is Faculty Reporting Day at USC, which means it is the first day of the Fall Semester for faculty. You know, the day we return from our long, leisurely sojourn at our summer cabins on Golden Pond (where's that promised sarcasm font when I need it?).

So, today is the start of a new chapter, not just because it marks a new academic year, but because of the significance of this year. The past chapter was full of a lot of changes (my divorce was finalized, for example) and this next one holds its own set of opportunities and challenges, namely, as it is the year I apply for tenure. Of course, you can't start completely tabula rasa with each new chapter because the contents of the previous chapters provide context to the next one, but you can make choices about its contents and tone.

"Solsbury Hill" is a song Peter Gabriel wrote when he was making a transition from one chapter (lead singer of Genesis) to a new one (a solo career). It is a very meaningful song to me about the transitions we make in life. How perfect is it that this live version of the song folds "Ode to Joy," from my favorite symphony, into the ending? Pretty perfect, methinks, because that's what I hope this next chapter has a lot of: Joy.

"I'll show them what the smile on my face meant..." 

My wife, the only rightful heir of Mr. Elvis Presley

Many people, friends as well as strangers ask me how Lisa’s lawsuit is going? I have received quite a lot of inquiries to my blog. Now, naturally since it is not my lawsuit I don’t have all the facts, but there are some things that I can share. It is also something that I would like to share with my readers that have been a steady and returning crowd to my blog. I want to thank all the people that continue to give their unconditional love and support.

There are some true good friends out there and a whole bunch of true Elvis fans that can understand the truth. I am also grateful for my decision to bring this up on my blog so that I could be blessed with the knowledge that there are many decent and loving people out there. A true gift, and such a positive feedback that would be a comfort to anybody engaged in this important task that I have had the fortune to be a part of, and that I am grateful for every day I can partake in.

The lawsuit is now in its second year. The opposing party has tried just about every trick in the book to get of the hook, but guess what? They are in a very tight spot.

Turns out that the estate of Elvis Presley only has one defense, and that is that Lisa is too late!!! Yeah right! Like that’s gonna fly!

I have actually read court documents were they seriously claim that Lisa should have filed her lawsuit within four years of her kidnapping to Sweden!! That would mean that she would, as a victim of this heinous crime, have been required to file a lawsuit when she was 13 at the latest. I wonder if the young women that was kidnapped in Cleveland and locked in a house for ten years also only had 4 years to make their case? That would be absolutely ridiculous! If Memphis Court would come to the conclusion that Lisa only had four years(!?), they would probably end up being the laughing stock of the judicial community in the entire United States.

Well I knew Lisa when she was 13. She was an adorable girl with braids that had her head in karate, ballet and soccer. I seriously doubt she had any thought of RICO claims or racketeering activity or mafia laws or fraud or anything like that. When I was 13 my mind was troubled with problems like if Superman or Batman would win a fight between them, I’m serious this was serious stuff at that time.

Also the book “I Lisa Marie” is used and held against Lisa. That is the book that was stolen from Lisa as a blue print and that has been selling since 1999 on the black market, actually as a piracy product. Not many people know this. Luckily the illegal sale of the book, which Lisa has the copyright to has now been stopped due to the lawsuits going on in Memphis and as a consequence the violators of Lisa’s copyright will soon be brought to justice as well. This is great news. This is something that many people out there have no idea about and this illegal sale and more or less fantastic rumors about this book is something that haters have been able to utilize unopposed. Well I guess all bad things comes to an end…

Don’t believe what haters run their mouths about and even tabloids, there’s not much truth about Lisa out there. It’s not like she is running around on TV shows and doing interviews, and she’s had her share of offers I can tell you that, she is simply not interested.  Don’t you think Lisa would be out of court by now if she was not the rightful and only heir of Elvis Presley? Of course she would, it would be the simplest case in the world. The only reason she is not thrown out of court after almost two years is because she is the only rightful heir of Elvis Presley, and the only Lisa Marie Presley, and that makes this case the hardest one in history for the defendants because they have nothing of substance against Lisa, they can only try to wear her out (yeah, good luck with that, like that’s gonna happen). 

Slowly but unmistakably surely the wrongs are being set right, that’s what I call “self correcting block code.”

Also, this probably goes under the category peculiar facts; the Memphis judge stated that Lisa was very knowledgeable in the law. Well that’s gotta hurt for the defendant’s having libeled Lisa for not being a lawyer, I think “Ouch” is the appropriate word to describe the feeling here and needless to say I’m so proud of her. She is my wife and she is brilliant! I’m sure that these people - CKX and the estate at this point realize it would have been better for them if Lisa had pursued a singing career instead of law. 

When the universe goes "oops!"

Most people have probably not heard of “Doubly-even self-dual linear binary error-correcting block code” although most people are familiar intuitively knows what it proves - that there is a right and a wrong, that subjectivism is a sham.  

Invented in the 1940’s (considering the circumstances it might actually be more adequate to say “discovered”) by a computer constructor to avoid mistakes when transferring data. Today it is a tool in all current internet traffic, e-mails and what not. It is a valuable tool in order to make sure that the intended message in your e-mail to a friend is actually what’s reaching your friend and not some gibberish that got messed up on the way.  It makes perfect sense, since there is a specific purpose with the message when sending it. 

Then come a doctor in physics and expert in string theory (Dr. James Gates Jr.) and tells the world that the universe has the same thing. This is when people go, "what?” It turns out that the very fabric of the universe is self-correcting. Correcting from what? Well, errors of course. This is when it gets real sticky, especially for atheists. It seems incredibly thorny to try to explain the concepts of decisive right and wrong as a fundamental existential control procedure in a universe completely caused by random chance. 

There are obviously something that is right and something that is wrong, and apparently, the universe has an urge the make sure that “right” prevails accordingly to Dr Gates Jr,  that would be truth . Even though you can’t turn back time to make a wrong right, rest assure that the universe with the help of time will set it right. It's all very reassuring.

Another implied consequence is that if the universe can make the wrong turn, which needs to be corrected, there exists a final intended goal and purpose, otherwise there would be no need for an innate control system to keep the universe on the right track, it is self-evident. This could mean that history indeed has an ending point. At which time the aggregated sum of all that was has fulfilled the intended purpose, if not of course, the purpose is simply to keep the universe going and going, like an energizer rabbit... but then again, this is contradicted by the axiom that all that has a beginning also has an ending.

It is indeed so that truth and justice always prevails and that all that is hidden will become apparent. As it turns out, it is part of the fundamental conditions for existence and that, – you can take to the bank.  

In old times it was poetically expressed by “it is written in the stars.” Maybe the folk lore of old was more right than they ever knew.